C. Brittain - Voima

“We call. We call. We call on them,” went voices up and down the hollow.

“We call the lords of death,” cried the woman, “to take our brothers, to strike down those who struck them down, and to drink and eat what is offered!”

Karin stood immobile, not sure if she could have moved even if the woman had released her arm. Her heart was bitterly cold within her as she waited for what must surely happen next.

And then there came a soft blurping noise, something very familiar although she could not at once identify it, a sound like- It was the sound a stewpot made when on a low boil. The steaming, sulfurous pond at the bottom of the hollow was beginning to bubble.

She strained wildly to see and thought she could glimpse through the starless darkness the pond rising, a wave breaking up out of it, slithering up onto the surface of the stone as though alive- Someone yelled and jumped, brushed by boiling water, but the rest shushed him instantly.

The wave fell back into the pond, but the splash itself gave a dull boom, a sound that could have been a voice, a voice saying, “We come.”

“No man escapes you,” called the tall woman, her voice ringing and echoing off the encircling mountains. “No woman evades you. Dark death below, we make offering to honor you!”

This must be it at last, thought Karin, closing her eyes, the moment when they slit her throat.

But instead she heard again the blurping of the boiling pond, then a lapping of waves. Images flashed across the inside of her eyelids as though she was seeing into someone else’s dream: bones, dried blood, skulls with nothing left but the hair. Against her will she opened her eyes to see a little stream of water, running uphill against nature, moving slowly toward the dead men. And then the mist became thicker, and even the stream was hidden. For several minutes there was no sound but a constant lapping of waves. A final belch, then, and the pond went still, though its rising steam continued to thicken the mists of night.

No one moved or spoke. The scent of fear was strong in the hollow, and the only sound was the wind and the faintest creaks as the warriors shifted then again went motionless. Then someone, Karin thought Eirik, broke away from the rest and opened the door back into the castle. Light from a torch within laid a path of brightness across the stony hollow to the pool. The bodies were gone, leaving only a single arm band lying at the edge.

Though everyone pushed each other in desperate haste at the narrow doorway, still no one spoke. The green-eyed woman held Karin back until all the others had passed through. When the door slammed behind them at last, several of the warriors let out their breaths loudly, and the woman released Karin’s arm.

As they all stumbled back toward the firelit hall, she found the outlaw king beside her. “So, how did you like your first meeting with the lords of death?” he said mockingly, though none of the rest of his men had yet spoken. “I realize now that something I may have said could have made you think you were about to be killed yourself! I must apologize, Princess, if our rough ways caused you any distress.”

She whirled in the narrow passage, furious and nearly in tears, and slapped him hard across the face. “How dare you!” she cried. “How dare you terrify me like that and then come to me with these false apologies, when it was all deliberate!”

He grabbed her by the wrist and twisted her arm until she cried out. “Mountain cat, my men called you,” he said between his teeth. “Good term. But maybe I can make it up to you!” He jerked her to him and kissed her hard, though she tried to turn her head aside. “Wouldn’t you rather have a king for your lover than some young warrior?”

She drove a knee toward his midsection, but he twisted out of the way. “I can see this one will take a little taming!” he said with a laugh, twisting her arm again.

She took a deep, sobbing breath and went limp. Queen Arane was right. It was no use trying to use strength against a strong man-especially when it only excited him.

Her sudden slump surprised him. “Please, I need to go to the women’s loft,” she said through entirely unfeigned tears. “I am with child, and I fear this has- I need the women to help me now.”

He let go of her at once and squinted at her suspiciously, then took her arm again, much more gently this time. “Come on, then.” The green-eyed woman was waiting at the end of the passage. She gave the king a very bitter look as he handed Karin to her, mumbling something about women’s troubles. She then marched Karin off before her, down more narrow stone passages, deep into the castle.

The room into which they emerged was a little warmer than most of the castle, for a brisk fire burned in the center. High up in the wall tiny windows opened onto black night. Here were the castle’s other women, though they drew back as she entered.

At least I am safe from Eirik for tonight, Karin thought, falling exhaustedly into the straw the green-eyed woman ungraciously offered her. The woman had asked her nothing about her supposed troubles-and she was too tired to wonder if she really might be with child. If she continued to try to resist Eirik, at best she would have her arm broken, but if she tried to pretend affection for him this woman with the green eyes would kill her without compunction.

A castle that had frequent contact with the lords of death, she thought as sleep claimed her, would not care very much about the death of one young woman.

She awoke before dawn, to find the fire burned down to coals and the windows high above her slightly lighter squares in a gray wall, through which a chilling wind blew. Fate had not meant then for her to die this night. As she leaned on her elbows, rubbing her forehead with her knuckles, she heard the straw rustle at the far side of the room and saw Eirik’s tall woman sitting up to glare at her. Around them, the rest of the castle’s women were sound asleep.

The woman rose and motioned to her. Not knowing what this meant but not daring to disobey, Karin rose too and followed her out into the passage outside the room.

Here it was even colder. She shivered, hugging herself with her arms and trying to avoid the desperate, closed-in feeling she had-usually-been able to overcome in the faeys’ tunnels.

There was just enough light for Karin to see the woman combing straw out of her stringy hair with her fingers. “What do you want of us? Why did you really come here to Eirik’s castle?” she demanded in a fierce whisper.

“I already told you,” Karin said resignedly. She too kept her voice low. “My lover and I were fleeing the king he used to serve. We did not even know all of you were here.” When the woman kept silent, as though to suggest that she did not believe her, Karin added a little more firmly, “Are you afraid then that I came here to steal Eirik from you, an outlaw and a murderer who feels he has a right to every woman he sees? Did you think a princess would be interested in that?”

The woman took a sharp breath. “Maybe not,” she said after a brief pause, “but a princess and her lover would not choose the northern end of the Fifty Kingdoms if all they were seeking was safety. They would take a ship and go south, down to where the summers are warm and the booty is rich and unprotected, and no dragons lurk in the mountains.”

“That’s right, Wigla,” said Karin, thinking rapidly. “It is Wigla, isn’t it? Isn’t that what he called you? Your sight is keen to know we have further reason to be here. But I too have keen sight. And I know that last year you and one of Eirik’s men planned to leave here and go south, to start over again far from this death-filled realm.”

Karin could hear the woman’s breath hiss between her teeth, but she did not stop. “When Eirik told you he had abruptly left to go raiding, you persuaded yourself at first that he was seeking booty to make himself worthy of you, but you should always have known better. Your lover’s brothers found his body-hidden, his spirit never celebrated in song and none of the sacrifices made for him, either to death or to voima.”