The Hills of Home (The Song of the Ash Tree Book 2) (9 page)

The battle was done. No one spoke. Finnoul wiped her sword on her pant leg and sheathed it, then drew a knife and severed a small lock of orange-streaked hair from her own head and tied it to a strand of Lorcan’s hair. Then she went to Aerath, placed her hands on his shoulders, and let her forehead rest on his. They exchanged no words but Raef could see much passed between them in that moment. When they stirred, Finnoul knelt beside Thannor’s still form. Annun did the same and closed his friend’s eyes, then he rose and stepped in front of Raef. The alf’s eyes searched Raef’s face as his hands detached a second sword, still nestled in its scabbard, free from the stains of battle, from his waist. It was the blade Raef had found in Finnoul’s mountain hall. Annun held it out for Raef to claim.

“It does not belong with me,” Raef said, his voice quiet. “It belongs here.”

“But it found you,” Annun said, his forehead creased with a frown.

Raef placed his hand on the hilt but did not let his fingers curl around it. He missed the feel of his old sword, of the smooth, plain shaft of an axe wrapped with strips of leather. “It was never mine. Keep it.”

Only then did Finnoul stand and look to Raef. Her face showed weariness and Raef knew the deaths of Lorcan and Thannor had cost her much. When she stood, her gaze shifted to the plateau in the distance.

“The First will never walk again,” Raef said, pressing his palm to his upper arm to stem the bleeding caused by Lorcan’s sword. The smoke-colored kin landed beside him and Finnoul did not have to ask for an explanation. “Let us finish this.”

Finnoul nodded at a warrior behind Raef, who had just finished tending to another alf’s wounds. Without a word, the warrior rushed forward and, with deft fingers, spread a thin salve across the bloody, broken skin, then cinched a clean bandage tight around Raef’s arm. Beneath the bandage, the salve grew hot for a moment, then turned icy cold and soothing.

Only when he had finished did Finnoul speak. “Us, friend. Not you. This is our war. It is time you went home.” She took a deep breath and seemed to gather her strength. “The Guardians will be mine. But your part is done. Go, before it is too late.” It was not death in battle that she spoke of.

A part of Raef wanted to stay, to see it through to the end, but the pull of Vannheim was too great. He looked to Aerath and then nodded at Finnoul and extended his hand. Finnoul clasped his forearm. There was much they might have said, and Raef knew in his heart he would never see Finnoul again, but the moment passed in silence.

The kin was as eager to fly as Raef and they took to the sky. Finnoul and her warriors followed, their sights set on the plateau to the south. Raef watched them grow small in the distance and then headed east to where the lonely mountain waited.

NINE

T
he mountain was
shrouded in clouds but the smoke-colored kin did not hesitate when Raef urged her to descend into the mist. She made a smooth landing in the bowl but seemed uncertain when Raef dismounted, sunset eyes darting, wings spread as though she might take to the air at any moment. Raef did not know what he was looking for, but he began a thorough search of the bowl, the kin watching with unblinking eyes.

The clouds had lost their orange glow and darkness was creeping over the mountain by the time Raef completed his search, but he had found nothing, not even a crack in the rock that a man might slip through. At last the veil parted, revealing a starry sky above, and Raef retraced his steps though he had no more light to search by. Only when he had been over every inch of the bowl three times did he let doubt slip into his thoughts. Finnoul would not have led him astray, but that did not mean the gate between worlds still existed. There might be no leaving Alfheim. And yet, he had come to Alfheim, surely that meant there was a way out. Raef thought back to the attack that had brought him there and wondered again who might have sent him on a ship and if they had intended this course.

Raef began to pace, his steps aimless, his mind filled with thoughts that he could not piece together. His journey might be the work of a god, but which one and why he could not fathom. The world tree was home to other powers besides those that resided in Asgard, mysterious ones Raef had little knowledge of. Raef took a deep breath and tried to chase these thoughts from his head. Speculating about why he had been plucked from the world of men would get him nowhere.

The kin waited, curled now on the ground, wings tucked close, but her eyes never leaving Raef. Raef went to her and stroked the side of her neck. She butted against him until his hand rested on her nose. She closed her eyes and Raef wondered what would become of her when he left. He did not like to think of her enduring grief over the loss of a second rider, a rider she had chosen. Under his touch, the kin relaxed further and Raef felt her drift into light sleep.

Raef stood vigil as the stars turned in the sky and under his watch the darkness bloomed with color, spreading from the north and reaching over the lip of the mountain. Finnoul had called it the aurora, though the sky filled with bursts of red and orange this time. The colors played out over the bowl and Raef began his search again, looking for something, anything that might send him home.

Halfway across the bowl, Raef stumbled upon it, his foot striking against a barrier he could not see. Reaching out with his hands, Raef touched something solid. It was cool and smooth, like glass, but it pulsed beneath his fingertips, beating faintly as though the heart of it was far away. Using his fingers, Raef found the edges of the barrier, his arms stretching as they might to accommodate a large tree trunk. It was thin, the edges rough beneath Raef’s fingers and it extended upwards out of his reach. But Raef discovered, reaching up, his fingers tracing the edges, that it also curved away from him as it rose to the stars.

Taking a step back, Raef circled, trying to catch a glimpse of what it was he had encountered. One step, two steps. There. A glittering curve, a glimmer of substance caught between the moonlight and the light of the aurora. Another step and it was revealed, a strange arcing thing that reflected starlight, moonlight, and the light of the sun that had sunk below. Between all that, somehow, was color. Every color that might be imagined. The colors pulsed and changed in time with the beat Raef had felt. And Raef understood. It was a bridge.

The bridge curved into the sky but seemed to trail off at the height of a tall tree. What lay beyond that point, Raef could not tell. The initial slope was steep but Raef used his hands to help him up until it leveled enough to stand straight. The bridge thrummed and vibrated beneath him, glowing brighter where his feet made contact. The kin, awake now, came close. She seemed nervous and a single stroke of her wings brought her to Raef’s height. She hovered there, her eyes dark in the night, and when Raef took another step, she flew in front of him as though to block his path.

Raef reached out and placed his hand on her head. “I must.” He stepped forward and she rose higher, letting him pass. On Raef went, climbing higher and higher until he was but steps away from where the bridge seemed to disappear, from where the lights went out. The smoke-colored kin stayed close and he smiled. “You will catch me if I fall, I know.”

Another step took him to the edge and the air in front of him flashed with light and then seemed to split, severing itself before Raef’s eyes until a shimmering, sparking ring lay before him. Inside the ring, all was as it should be. Sky, stars, darkness. And yet it seemed faint, as though Raef looked at it from a great distance. Beside him the kin shrank back and Raef, though he could see the sadness in her eyes, knew she would not or could not follow.

Turning his back on the end of the bridge, Raef looked deep in the kin’s eyes. “Remember me as I will you.” Keeping his eyes on hers, he stepped backward over the edge and she was gone.

He did not fall. He hurtled through the night sky, everything a blur of starlight and brilliant color, the breath sucked from him, and his body pummeled about like a leaf in a violent wind. For a moment, no more than a heartbeat, there was respite, and Raef knew he was somewhere in the vast sky, far, far above, caught in the middle of streaking stars. And then he was gone again, plunging through space, his body beginning to crackle with strange energy, and he felt himself a bolt of lightning descending toward earth.

The sensation ceased as suddenly as it began and then he did fall. The distance was short, too short to right himself, and Raef landed hard flat on his back. For a moment, he knew only the thudding of his heart and the desperate catching in his lungs as he tried to take in air. The pain came later, only when Raef was able to take a deep breath, and shivered across his back and out into his limbs. As it faded, lingering only at the point of impact, Raef flexed his feet and wiggled his fingers, relieved to find that everything functioned as it should, and then got to his feet.

The air was cool but not cold, the ground rough, rocky, and free of snow beneath him, and there were no silhouettes of trees against the sky, but all else was veiled by the darkness. He would have to wait for the dawn to see what corner of the world he had landed in. The night passed with fits of pacing and quiet moments. Sleep was out of reach. When at last the dawn broke over the horizon, pale light washed over Raef and revealed a grey, harsh place, so bleak and broken that for a moment Raef thought he was once again in the barren land of Alfheim. But this was beyond even that place. The landscape was dry and rocky, with no sight of vegetation. Mountains, bald and foreboding, rose in the distance and, between them and Raef, the land was pocked with spires of rock jutting to the sky. Here and there, plumes of vapor puffed ashy clouds into the air, masking the feeble early light.

Raef had not traveled to every corner of Midgard, had not seen all the world of men had to offer, but he knew in his heart that this was not Midgard, that the bridge had not taken him home.

In vain he searched the sky for some sign of a way back. The hazy, thick air revealed nothing, not a glittering bridge, not a circle of light he might crawl through. Raef wanted to shout, to scream his anger and frustration, but he steadied his mind and looked to the sun. Fingering the Thor hammer that still clung to his neck, he asked the thunder god for strength and, leaving the small rise that had been his perch in the night, began to walk toward the rising sun.

Raef’s path was not an easy one, taking him over blade-sharp ridges, under crumbling arches, and across deep rifts. The plumes of vapor spewed foul-smelling air that felt rough in Raef’s lungs when he passed too close. His eyes grew irritated and his throat became caked with dust. He longed for water but the land was drier than a horse’s bones left too long in the sun.

The sun was high, though weak behind the fume-filled air, when Raef saw the hall on the horizon. At first it seemed no more than a great, hulking rock among many, but as he approached, Raef saw it was hewn from a towering cliff, and there, nearly hidden in its own shadow, was a door. It was cracked open just far enough that a man might enter.

The door was five times the height of a man and carved with scenes of battle that gave Raef pause for all showed men dying in agony at the hands of unseen foes. To enter this hall might invite death, but to turn away from the only sign of life might bring the same. He could not just wander on toward the horizon. Raef touched the hammer one last time and then slipped between the slabs of granite.

The hall was cold, a deep, bone-chilling cold that pressed in from all sides and up from the stone floor, seeping into Raef’s skin to take up permanent residence. Cold and dark. The rock walls were solid, without even the narrowest of windows to let in light. As Raef’s eyes adjusted, he began to see the shapes of pillars holding the granite sky and a smooth, polished floor that spread far into the darkest recesses of the hall. And yet there in the distance, the floor was interrupted by a violent gash that cut deep into the ground. Raef approached with caution and felt dread turn his heart to ice when he peered over the edge. The pit was full of bones.

“I smell you.”

The voice was deep and grinding and it echoed off the walls. Raef spun, trying to pinpoint the source but saw only shadows. “Not a bird or beast. You do not have the smell of feathers or fur. Bones to crunch and flesh to bleed, yes, but not feathers to stick in my teeth or fur to choke me.” Raef, hoping he had only been smelled, not spotted, sprinted to the closest pillar and took shelter behind it. “A man, then.” The voice laughed, a harsh, splintering sound. “Long has it been since I tasted the flesh of man.” Raef eyed the door and was about to bolt for it when the floor trembled beneath him and a mountainous shape came into view, blocking his escape.

The giant, for Raef could not deny that this was what it was, cracked his massive knuckles. “Come out, come out. Let me see what I have caught.” Raef stayed close to his pillar and held his tongue. “No?” He turned and pulled the stone doors shut. “I can wait. Can you?”

Raef knew he did not have the strength to open the doors on his own. He would need the giant to do so willingly. He could be patient, too. The giant, secure in the strength of his doors, seemed to lose interest and walked the length of the hall. Raef kept still but soon heard the sounds of fire preparation and a warm red and orange glow brought life to the dark stone. Cold to the bone, Raef longed for the warmth of a fire, but he dared not move.

In time, the hall grew quiet but even then Raef waited until he heard the sounds of snoring. Raef’s legs, cold and cramped from sitting so long in one position, protested his sudden movement, but Raef managed to move in silence from pillar to pillar until the sleeping giant was in sight.

The fire had burned low but the embers were still bright. In its light, Raef could at last clearly see the giant, his massive head, long, scraggly hair, and monstrous features. He sprawled beside the fire, his length at least four times that of a tall man. His shoulders were boulders, his legs trees, his feet the size of farmhouse doors. But there was no time to stare. The remains of food and drink were on the floor, but Raef could not know how long the giant would sleep.

A tower of unburnt wood stood nearby and Raef selected a slender log the length of his arm that was tapered at one end. Stoking the coals just enough to revive them, he buried the pointed half of the log in the red-hot depths and waited. The giant turned in his sleep, groaning and flopping over onto his side. Raef, parched and in desperate need of water, picked through the giant’s leftovers, but every cup was drained and dry. Risking further movement but realizing that the giant must have stores somewhere in the hall, Raef roamed further afield until at last he found a cache of barrels and a dipper strung up beside them. Sniffing the contents, Raef decided they were safe and took a long drink, wielding the immense dipper with some difficulty. Water spilled down his chin as Raef took gulp after gulp.

When he returned to the fire, he judged the log ready. Shrunken but not yet ready to break apart, the wood glowed red and Raef hefted the log to shoulder height. Approaching the giant with caution, Raef readied his grip and positioned the log over the giant’s face. Steeling himself with a deep breath, Raef mustered his voice.

“Here I am,” Raef shouted. As he had hoped, the giant’s eyes fluttered open and Raef plunged the burning wood into one eye.

The roar was deafening and the giant’s flailing arms nearly knocked Raef over as he fled to the safety of the pillars. Screaming, the giant came to his feet and tried to remove the hot coals, but the wood began to crumble and his colossal hands caused more damage as he smeared the coals across his face and into his other eye. Blinded, he reached out and stumbled forward, his hands searching for the culprit, but finding only empty air.