Page 106 of Lord of Fire and Ice

Katla felt Brandr’s conflicting waves of joy and wariness tumbling in her chest.

“But he’s wounded.” Brandr’s words were clipped. “How bad is it?”

Katla didn’t wonder how he knew that. Evidently inn matki munr was a deeper bond than she’d ever imagined. It was as if they shared one soul. Everything she knew or experienced or felt, he did too.

Ulf coughed violently, and when he pulled his hand away from his mouth, Katla saw it was black with blood.

“His wound is bad enough.” Even if she could transport him to her longhouse and use the herbs she’d gathered for doctoring her people, she doubted she could save him.

“Keep him alive for me.”

“I’ll try. Keep yourself alive for me.”

He chuckled softly. The sound tickled her mind. “I’ll try too.”

Neither of them would be able to deliver on their promises, and they both knew it. Despair roiled in her gut.

“Brandr, I’m sorry I shut you out of my mind. Forgive me.”

“That’s all right, princess. I may decide to do the same before long.”

“No.” She scrunched her eyes tight. “I want to be with you. Whatever happens.”

“And whatever happens, I am always with you, Katla. I want you to remember that. Good-bye, love.”

When the link between them was severed, Katla gasped. Even when she held him at bay, she’d always been able to sense his presence, pressing against the mental barrier she’d erected. Now there was nothing.

She buried her face in her hands and wept.

***

Morning dawned with a sky made for weeping. The clouds were the yellowish purple of a week-old bruise. A few ships had joined Brandr’s in the night, but not nearly as many or as heavily loaded with warriors as he’d hoped.

As soon as it was light, he ordered Harald to signal them with flags to stay well behind him. Mist rising from the water made it difficult to spot the other vessels. Brandr caught only glimpses of empty masts or the occasional long-necked prows jutting above the carpet of fog. Rowers grunted in concert with each long stroke.

“May as well see if this thing will work,” Brandr said and positioned himself before the mast, standing on two metal casks brimming with the volatile elements of Greek fire. He hefted the long metal tube where the two compounds would join and aimed it far off the port bow. “Open the valves.”

The twins turned the wheel-shaped fittings, and the tube warmed under Brandr’s touch as the two mixtures were joined. But instead of shooting out the open end of the tube in a snaking blaze of unquenchable flame, sludge oozed from the tip, sparking and fizzling till it slipped under the waves with a disappointing sizzle.

“That’s not how I remember Greek fire working in the South,” Harald said.

“We have all the ingredients,” Brandr growled in frustration.

“Must not be the right amounts of each,” Orlin observed somberly.

Brandr sank down on his haunches. Orlin was right. It was a touchy concoction at the best of times, and he’d been rushed. The mixture was out of balance somehow, and there hadn’t been time to work with it till it was right.

In the distance, the faint squares of a long row of sails began to take shape in the morning haze. Bloodaxe was coming with the wind at his back.

“What do you want to do?” Harald asked.

Brandr hung his head for a moment and thought. “Signal the others to bleed off and wait near land. Use only enough oar to hold our position.” Brandr walked as far forward as he could and stared at his approaching foe. “We’ll let him come to us. If I tell you to abandon ship, grab an oar to keep you afloat, and go. No argument.”

“And then?”

“Then we’ll see what a fire mage can actually do.”

***