Page 32

No choice but to go to my people’s aid.

Where King Magnus had said we needed the seer to confirm it, I knew as I pushed my muscles to the limit and flew up the mountain, they were mine. Not only because of Tove’s talisman, but because I felt the rightness of it deep inside me like a forgotten dream. Forgotten memories of a lost people.

Roaring with the spirit of the berserker polar bear, I burst into the village clearing to find mayhem. Norse and Scottish, men and women alike, battled, and I thought nothing of jumping into the fray. Tove fought alongside me moments later, crossing blades with any Scot that dared defy her, roaring with the same Helvig berserker as I, fierce as she swung her blade.

Battling beside each other as well as we ever had, we sometimes crossed blades with our foe and other times went hand-to-hand. There could be no doubt that these were well-trained warriors with skills that spoke of Norse training. Metal clanged and blood spilled. Still, we ducked, spun, and took down our opponents one by one.

Seeing red, my inner berserker took an even firmer hold of me, and I grew more ruthless, battling more Scots than we’d expected. Ferociously and without pause, I fought alongside not just the king but those already here of fighting age. Even some much older. Yet, strangely, nothing made me fight harder than when I saw an elderly man tossed aside when he tried to protect a frail old woman, desperate to defend her.

As it had at the Dahl fortress, a heavy wind whipped up, and I roared alongside what sounded like a polar bear, whipping a dagger straight into the thigh of the warrior ready to cut the elderly woman down. The knowledge rose to my mind that she was the seer.

After that, everything seemed to slow, even as I raced in that direction, knowing Tove protected me every step of the way. I sensed more than saw several Scots fall dead when Tove cut them down before they could impede my progress because my eyes were locked with the seer’s. Somehow, for a flicker of a moment, the fighting around me appeared made of the past and the present.

Even more so, though the scents and sounds of warfare stayed the same, the battle itself seemed Norse against Norse in another time and place. I didn’t have time to consider this as I stood behind the Scot who had fallen to his knees from my knife wound. Continuing to gaze into the seer’s familiar, pale gray eyes, I sliced my blade across the man’s neck, letting him fall to his side without looking at him. A blink later, everything returned to normal. Or as normal as it could be for when I sent him to his death, every remaining Scot fell too, whether slain or not, and a deafening crack of thunder boomed overhead, followed by a flash of lightning despite that the incoming storm still churned far in the distance.

Again, I paid but brief mind to it all. Instead, I could do nothing but stare into the seer’s sharp eyes.

My eyes.

Though she should be cowering, she stood as tall as her slight height allowed, her thin silver hair whipping about beneath her gray fur hood. Closing the distance between us with a slight limp and stepping over the slain Scot, she gazed up at me with pride, then spoke loudly enough for all to hear.

“Welcome, King Knud Thorgard, ‘The Beast’.” She blinked back tears. “Welcome, Grandson, for I have long missed you.”

The world around me became strange once more. I still gazed into her eyes, yet as if her words had invoked it, snow swirled around us. Then I stood in a different time and place, only now I was but a boy. The deep lines that etched the old woman’s face were gone, and her long silver hair was as dark as mine.

She crouched before me, amongst the fire and mayhem unleashed around us in battle, her gaze fearful. “Go, my grandson. Run and find your Wyrd that the Norns have determined for you, just as you always claimed you would.” She rested her forehead against mine for but a moment. “Go face the bear, become the beast, and seek your Wyrd.” She met my eyes one last time and traced a lightning bolt at my temple, murmuring a prayer to Thor. “Then protect the woman you are meant for with all the Thorgard in you until we meet again. With every last bit of your inner Viking and an ancestral bloodline that goes back to the beginning of our time on Midgard.”

A blink later, thunder cracked, and she was once again an old woman. All had returned to normal. Yet with that flash, better still with that single memory, it all came rushing back, and it took a great deal of strength to remain on my feet under the weight of all I had forgotten.

Fighting.

Death.

Losing so many.

My mother. My father. My tribe. My People.

“Grandmother?” I whispered hoarsely, wondering how I had failed to recognize her. Forgotten about her. I clenched my jaw against an onslaught of emotions. “’Tis truly you, ja?”

“’Tis, my boy.” A tear trickled from the corner of her eye. “And I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you.”

“And I you,” I said softly, gently wiping away her tear, my hand dwarfing her small, wizened old face. “Now that I remember…so much…too much.”

“But not us.” Her fierce gaze softened on me as it often had when I was a boy. She gestured behind me. “Nor your people. Those of us who had no choice but to flee. We kept your memory alive in the children who were your age, and then their children. Like us, they remain your loyal subjects to this day.”

That’s when I realized every villager who’d been fighting alongside me, as well as numerous others, older and younger, had fallen to a knee and lowered their heads to me. While I’d felt confusion and disbelief when I was told about this last night, something about it felt completely right now. As if approving of my thoughts, Tove’s talisman warmed once more.

When I glanced her way, it was to find her, Freya, Helga, and the Helvig and Dahl warriors who had made this treacherous journey with us, on bended knee as well, with their heads lowered, honoring me as a king. Only King Magnus and his men remained standing, but even the king’s men gave me the honor of lowering their heads.

Only King Magnus kept his head held high and met my eyes as his equal.

While honored, I wouldn’t have my long-lost people, nor my fellow Helvigs, considered anything but my equals and said as much, my voice carrying over the incoming storm.

“You are my kin, not my subjects,” I made clear, looking as many in the eye as I could, eager to get to know them. Biting back emotion, I kept my voice even. “You are my people, therefore my equals, and I am honored—” I paused, gathering myself—“truly honored to meet you. So rise, so that I might speak with you all. Get to know you.”

“As we are honored to meet you, my king,” a man called out, rising. A young warrior who had just fought alongside me.

“Ja,” another said, rising as well. A woman just as fierce as her male counterparts when she fought. Meeting my eyes, she stood tall and nodded. “’Tis a great honor, King Knud Thorgard.”