Page 100 of Blood of Wolves

She ran to him, and the arms that caught her were stronger than she remembered, his whole frame steadier as he squeezed her tight and kissed the top of her head. She couldn’t hold back her tears any longer, but it was all right, because Ollie was here, and he’d never needed her to be strong, or brave, or anything but his family.

~*~

Rune waited for a time up on the ridge, hunkered down amidst the bushes with his men, waiting to see if a new target would present itself. But the battlefield was a crystal sculpture of ice: men frozen as they’d stood, as they’d run, as they’d prepared to attack. Eerily silent save the whistle of the wind through the shards and shapes of an entire Selesee army rendered motionless.

The drakes circled the field for a time, and then headed for the palace.

“Come on,” Rune said, smacking the arm of the man beside him. “Let’s go back.”

The men stationed at the postern gate greeted them with wide eyes, pointing over their shoulders into the palace. “Your – your grace,” one stuttered. “There’s – in the hall – there’s–”

“I know,” Rune assured, and moved past them.

The hall was an utter ruin: the front wall smashed in, the doors reduced to splinters, the floor littered with rubble, tables broken and cracked.

But his gaze skipped over all the distraction, packaging his reaction to it away for later, because he looked right to the three cold-drakes crowded into what had once been the entryway, and the humans standing below them. He spotted Bjorn, and his mother – thank the gods – and Leif, this new version of Leif he didn’t yet understand. And two figures embracing, both with red hair.

Oliver! It had been Oliver riding the drake!

And, pulling back from him, dashing tears from her cheeks, his Tessa.

Urgency boiled up inside him; all day he’d pushed down his panic, fought against terror, and now it all came rushing back, and then was knocked flat by a tide of painful relief. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t get to her fast enough. He started across the floor, stepping over stones, slowed when a shattered timber tripped him. Not fast enough, not fast enough…

“Tessa!”

She whirled to him immediately, and she was coated in dust, and her cheek was scratched; blood stained one of her sleeves, and she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

She let out a quiet cry, picked up her skirts, and ran to him.

She tripped, trying to jump over a pile of tumbled stone, but Rune was there, and he caught her, and hauled her up into his arms, so her booted feet dangled off the floor.

“Rune,” she gasped wetly against his neck, tears hot where they rolled down his throat. “Oh, gods, I thought, I didn’t know–”

He choked back his own tears and cupped the back of her head, tried to soothe her even though he shook all over. “I know, I know.”

The last light of day flared orange and brilliant through the gaping hole in the wall.

One of the drakes tipped its head to the sky, and roared in triumph.

20

Erik insisted they ride straight through the night. They had to move at a slow walk, to keep from overtaxing the animals, and to keep from winding up in a ditch, but some progress was better than no progress, he reasoned. Every time he glanced back over his shoulder, moonlight glinted off the long, snaking line of their cavalcade, limping and sad as it was. The Great Northern Phalanx…reduced to this. Marching toward a battle in which half of them couldn’t swing a sword, much less lift one.

Wolves howled, off in the distance, and each time, Erik’s gut tightened, and his hand shifted toward his sword. Was it Ragnar come back to challenge them again? Worse, Leif gone feral, lost to the forest? Or regular wolves, hunting game and keeping well out of sight of humans?

Magnus and Lars rode ahead, bearing torches, lighting new ones when they sputtered out, until there weren’t anymore, and they rode by the faint sliver of the steadily-sinking moon overhead.

Birger rode beside him, but kept silent, letting Erik stew in all his worries until, once, Erik looked up at the pinprick stars and sighed, big and deep, his breath pluming white above him like dragon’s breath.Dragon’s breath. A simple thought that left him muttering a curse.

“I remember the last war,” Birger mused, softly. Almost as if to himself. “I remember you being mad as a wet badger to be left behind.” His chuckle was a soft, hollow scrape. “You begged him to let you ride out with them.”

Erik’s throat was tight, suddenly, with the memory. “He said, ‘I must leave one heir behind, to guard the home fires, and ensure the legacy of our bloodline.’” It had felt like a slap in the face.I’m the spare, he’d railed.You should take me, not Arne.

“Aye,” Birger agreed, and then sighed. “I was there, too, in the throne room, when you put on your father’s mantle and became king.”

After Father and Arne had fallen, and then succumbed to their injuries. When the burden he’d never thought to bear had been thrust upon him.

“Nothing ever goes the way we want it to, or hope it will,” Birger said, tone becoming gentle. “No matter the safeguards we put in place.”

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