Chapter Thirty-Two Elvine #2
“Oh.” Letting out a faint huff, Varnyr reached for a bowl, ladling porridge into it from an iron pot close to the fire.
“It will warm your insides,” he insisted when she grimaced at the proffered bowl.
The itch to her skin was now accompanied by a discomforting roil in her belly that appeared to have extinguished her prior hunger.
Still, she forced herself to spoon down a few mouthfuls, sighing in relief when both the itch and gut ache began to recede.
“What is this place?” she asked, nodding to the oddly constructed roof which she now realised also partly comprised the walls of their shelter.
One side had been sealed with hides and upended sleds but the remainder appeared to be formed of some kind of leather.
It was patchy in places, allowing glimpses of the blizzard still raging outside.
“Whale carcass,” Varnyr said. “We appear to have reached a stretch of coastline that thaws in summer. It must have been a mighty beast.” He slapped a large hand to what Elvine now recognised as a huge rib bone. “I’m grateful to him for dying in such a lucky place.”
Elvine cast her eye over their companions, finding them all asleep. “No point posting a guard,” Varnyr explained. “The storm is a better ward than any warrior.”
“And yet you remained awake,” Elvine observed.
“Your brother did too, until he couldn’t.”
Realising the spear was no longer in her grasp, Elvine experienced an instant of panic until she found it lying alongside the furs she had been laid on. Where is she? Elvine asked, putting a hand to the haft.
Barely a half-a-day’s march away, the spirit replied. I believe she has found a cave. Her fear is almost matched by the desolation of her solitude.
Solitude? She is alone now?
In her heart, if not her being. She knows she nears her end, but still clings to the faint hope her goal will be her salvation. The spirit paused, Elvine sensing a shift in her focus. The storm wanes. Soon you will march beneath a cloudless sky, child.
“Clear skies come the morn,” she told Varnyr, releasing the spear. “We’ll catch Lore tomorrow.”
“I envy you the clarity offered by the gods’ favour,” he said. “Would that I had enjoyed such in my youth. I might have been spared the path of the Vortigurn’s Fist.”
“When our task is done, you can follow your own path.”
“My task will never be done as long as you draw breath, Spear Maiden.” He spoke with simple honesty, lacking the ardour of a fanatic. Still, the words unnerved her.
“I am not Lore,” she said. “I have no slaves. Nor do I expect or want your blind obedience for the rest of your days. There must be places you wish to see? People you long for? Is there no wife or beloved soul waiting for you in Nihlvar?”
“Warriors of the Fist were forbidden marriage.” The tightness to his voice and lowering of his gaze made it plain to her that he concealed something.
“But there was someone,” she said, annoyed at her own sudden pang of jealousy. “Wasn’t there?”
Varnyr’s hands twitched in a rare display of uncertainty and he continued to avoid her gaze. “There was. No longer.” His tone was that of a man compelled to answer a question he would have preferred to avoid. Still, Elvine found she couldn’t let it go.
“Who was she?” she pressed. “Another warrior in the Fist?”
“No.” Varnyr slumped onto his bedroll with a resigned sigh. If he had not been compelled to speak by the Spear Maiden, she knew he would have said nothing. “Her name was Ruhna. One of the Vortigurn’s Kelven, recently risen to the rank of Ventra.”
“I don’t know these words.”
“Kelven are those who hold the gods’ favour, like you. As children they are brought into the Vortigurn’s care. Some, only a very few, are chosen to join the ranks of his Ventra, those charged with enforcing his word throughout the realm, and punishing those who fail to heed it.”
“Then I would guess she must have been fierce, this Ruhna.”
A dim smile passed across Varnyr’s lips.
“Fierce? Yes. She was that. We met during the Red Sands revolt, when there was much call for fierceness, and more.” The smile faded quickly, his face clouding with remembrance.
“Our union was a dark thing, Spear Maiden. Born of a dark time. But sometimes passion burns brightest when it’s kindled in darkness.
Pain was her delight. She had learned to love it in the Vortigurn’s clutches.
She told me once, that to survive a world of pain, you must embrace it, hold it closer than any lover.
Only when she had done that, could she become free, if any servant of the Vortigurn could ever be called such.
For me, she put the pain aside, but only briefly.
She could truly never escape its lure. She would have killed me in time, of that I’m certain.
Not out of envy or spite, as is often the way when passion fades into sour reflection, but love.
For she would have wished to spare me the pain that was her life. ”
“What became of her?”
“I know not. No Ventra were sent with Vahlak’s fleet, so I imagine she still serves the Vortigurn. I pity those he sends her to find.”
“Once I have found Lore, it is my intention to join with my queen who, I believe, currently sails her fleet against your former realm. It may be that you will have to face this Ruhna again, as enemies. Can you do that?”
Varnyr’s eyes met hers, steady and unblinking. “At your command, I will do anything. You know that, Spear Maiden.”
“I don’t want to command you. I want you at my side because it is your wish to be there, as commanded by your heart, not mine. But, if you insist on following my orders, here’s another one: stop addressing me as Spear Maiden. My name is Elvine.”
He said nothing, but continued to meet her gaze and Elvine found herself wishing they were alone in this frozen carcass. The moment lingered until Colvyn, letting out a sound that was half snore and half snort, turned on his side, inadvertently slapping a hand to her arm.
“You should rest,” she told Varnyr, gently returning her brother’s hand to his covering of furs. “I’ll have no trouble keeping watch. I feel I’ve slept enough for several nights.”
“As you wish… Elvine,” he said, settling down onto his blankets.
She watched him until his eyes closed, then for some time after.
She could have filled the time with more inner recitation, another delve into the Altvar Rendi or a mental rummage through the delights of the Aphorismus.
But she didn’t. Instead, she sat and watched Varnyr sleep until the glimmer of sunlight through the ragged whale hide told her dawn had broken on a clear day.