Legend of the Mist (15 page)

His hair, braided at the sides and drawn into a queue whic
h he wore off his neck, exposed the flesh between his shoulder blades. Norah was surprised to see that no scar existed there, where she felt so certain one should be. Her fingertips tingled with the long ago memory of touching that flesh, of clutching that soft hair in the entanglement of a passionate kiss. It sent a thrill through her, and she belatedly realized the memory had drawn a smile across her lips.

She cleared her throat,
her eyes darting around the circle to ensure that none had noticed.

No sooner had
Torsten taken up his sword than Einarr barked, “Make an effort this time.” Then he lunged without warning. But Torsten had not let down his guard. He leapt back, out of reach of his brother’s blade, and then circled him, coming at Einarr from behind.

The battle continued in this manner for a time, each strike anticipated, each blow dodged or deflected.
The differences in their styles were obvious: Einarr’s reliance on brute strength was unquestionable. He leveraged it with every move he made whether he needed to or not.

Torsten,
conversely, had a grace and a lightness of foot which his brother could never have, considering his sheer mass. Where Einarr thrust, Torsten leapt. Where Einarr struck, Torsten glided. He used his power only when necessary, and when he did, he was as fierce as any Viking on Fara.

Though terrified, Norah could not look away
, for watching two masters take each other on was fascinating. Had they not been putting everything they had into each strike, one might assume they had coordinated their movements beforehand.

But they had not, and it soon became evident that
even these master warriors were still human, and were beginning to tire.

It was Einarr who cal
led an end to the demonstration. “Do you see?” he panted to the men watching him. “Not quite as powerful as a true Viking, but still deadly. Even more, perhaps, for his small size brings an element of surprise to the enemy that does not know his skill.”

Torsten lowered his sword,
he, too, rapidly breathing. “You flatter me,” he mocked.

A gruff voice speaking in Norse interrupted their banter.
“Einarr, you have company.”

Norah looked to see who had spoken
. It was the same man who tried to pick a fight with Garrett those few mornings ago. He inclined his large, artfully shaved head, nodding to a figure standing behind him a distance.

It was
Garrett. He stood observing the demonstration with his arms folded across his chest and a smirk on his lips. Norah felt her heart sink to her stomach: his Campbell sword was sheathed at his back and a battered shield slung over his forearm.

Oh heavens above,
he was here to pick a fight of his own.

“So, the young
heimska
has come with his tail between his legs,” Einarr taunted. “Interested in seeing how real warriors fight are you?”

Garrett
tilted his head to one side, studying Einarr through a cool expression. He shrugged his shoulders, broadened from the years spent training and fighting on the Scottish mainland. “I have seen how
men
fight in my time wi’ my uncle’s clan, the Campbells. I’m here now to see how dishonourable
dogs
fight.”

Cries
of anger rose up from the Norsemen in two distinct waves: the first from those who had enough Gaelic to understand what the young
heimska
said, and the second from those who needed it translated.

“Careful, boy, you cannot take them all on,” Einarr warned. “Insult them enough and I will not be able to stop them from silencing you.”

“Doesna that prove my point? If ye were honourable men, I wouldna need to be concerned wi’ fighting all of ye at once.”

His accusation
hit its mark. Einarr’s eyes narrowed, the blue which peered out seeming to glow with a cold, hard light.

Norah shivered involuntarily; she had been on the receiving end of that
merciless stare once. Inwardly she chanted,
walk away, Garret, walk away
. But he stood resolute, his challenge held firm.

“Fair enough,” Einarr said at length. “
As an honourable man, I invite you to step inside this ring and prove your worth. But know this: you will not receive my mercy should you lose, ja?”

His voice was ominous in its low pitch, and any man would be a fool to accept his invitation.

“Ye bloody
amadan
,” Norah hissed as Garrett stepped into the ring without batting an eyelash.

Glancing between her angry, frightened face and her brother’s
defiant one, Torsten moved away from the centre of the circle. Grabbing his tunic from the ground where he’d tossed it and pulling it back over his head, he took a seat on the boulder beside Norah. Her creamy skin, he noticed immediately, had gone stark white and her back was as straight as a pine.

“Do not worry,
fifla
, I shall stop this madness if your brother is in danger of losing.”

She
turned her emerald eyes to him, setting him afire with her pleading glance. Torsten swallowed thickly as she reached for his hand, taking it in both of hers. The heat of her touch was like a torrent running through his body. Even if he wished to—which, Freya help him he did
not
—he could not have pulled his hand away.

His
paralyzed senses were reprieved when she turned her eyes back to the ring, where Garrett had unsheathed the sword from his back and now held it skilfully at the ready. He and Einarr circled one another like two cats, each assessing the other’s weaknesses.

“Are you going to begin?” Einarr
prodded.

“What makes ye think I havena already?” Garrett
clipped in return.

An amused smile tugged at Einarr’s lips. “Clever
sveinn
.”

Norah gasped.
“There is no call for him to be so insulting.”

“Insult?”
questioned Torsten. Then he laughed as he realized the error of her interpretation. “No, no.
Sveinn
is Norse for
boy
.”

“Oh,”
she chuckled with chagrin, and peered up at him from under her lashes. The simple, intimate look was almost his undoing. His heart began to pound so loudly he worried the entire circle of men would hear.

The first clash of steel upon steel
crashed over them, and they both looked to see that Einarr had made the first strike.

Which Garrett easily deflected.

“Well done,” Einarr commended. “But what if I come at you like this?”

With blinding speed,
he whirled around, swinging his sword down and then up in a wide arc—a trapping move. Any unsuspecting opponent would have stepped forward to slice at Einarr’s exposed back only to have his own gut sliced open before he got the chance.

Alarm
bounded through Torsten. Einarr was serious: he would kill the young man without hesitating.

But Garrett was no unsuspecting opponent. Einarr’s trap failed to entice him. Instead, he stepped back, away from Einarr, which l
eft him a clear path to meet the upward blow and halt it with his blade.

“
An impressive move, Viking. More for show than for impact, though, is it no’? I should think something like this is more effective.”

Garrett made a lunge of his own,
catching Einarr off guard for a fraction of a second. Surprise was evident in the Viking’s hardened face.

It was not enough, though. He
regrouped, his sword ricocheting off of Garrett’s, repelling his strike.

That Garrett had found a moment o
f weakness made Einarr angry. There was no more talk, no further taunting or teasing. He swung at Garrett with force, lunging and thrusting in earnest, putting the full power of his bodily mass behind each strike. But Garrett proved himself a match. Each of Einarr’s strikes met either air or Garret’s blade, his every move anticipated. And each evasive move of Garrett’s was met with another crushing strike from Einarr.

“Now you are learning the way of the Viking,” Einarr growled between blows.

“Now
ye
are learning the way of the Celt,” Garrett spat back.

As the battle progressed, Norah’s terror took on a tinge of curiosity.
Observing them, she leaned towards Torsten. “Perhaps I dinna understand battle tactics well enough, but it looks to me like there’s no difference between the Viking and the Celt ways.”

“You’re right, there’s not,” Torsten said mildly.
“Their fierce words are nothing more than a pissing match—excuse my crudeness,
fifla
.”

It was not long before Einarr grew frustrated
by his lack of victory. His strikes became more daring, more careless. Garrett, on the other hand, remained calculating, waiting for his opponent to make a misstep.

His patience was rewarded. Einarr lunged, and Garrett side-stepped him, releasing a swing that knocked Einarr’s sword from his hand. Letting out a wild cry, Einarr rolled to the ground.

But as Garrett moved to make his final strike, Einarr wrapped his hand around a large rock at the outskirts of the ring and flung it at his opponent with stunning accuracy. The rock hit Garrett in the temple, opening up a large gash in the flesh.

Both Norah and Torsten were on their feet, each of them ready to throw themselves between the two men. Garrett staggered backwards, wiping away the blood which trickled into his eye and down his cheek.

“Ye bloody cheat!” he hollered, his face crimson with rage.

All traces of his calculating obliterated, he
leapt for the larger, stronger Viking, landing a fist in the side of Einarr’s head.

Within seconds, both men were on the ground,
locked in a violent embrace. Their arms swung wildly; their fists pummelled each other with sheer hate. Despite Einarr’s advantage of size, Garrett held his ground surprisingly well. Raucous cheers erupted from both sides of the ring as the two men fought bitterly by hand, their abandoned weapons completely forgotten to the animal urge to inflict raw pain.

“Torsten, stop them, please,” Norah begged, gripping his hand tighter.

Even in the midst of such madness her touch had a hold on him. It was with effort that he pulled his fingers from her grasp.

“Enough, both of you,”
he shouted, rushing to pull the two brawling men apart. But as he bent to wrench Einarr off Garrett, a solid Norse elbow was flung high, crushing the bridge of Torsten’s nose with a sickening crunch. His eyes welled, and blinding pain wrapped his skull. He swore long and eloquently in Norse, falling to the trampled dirt ground which soaked up the blood pouring from his nose.

The sigh
t of him hurt threw Norah into an unprecedented fury. Her fear smothered by the ferocity of her anger, she plunged into the fray, tugging at Einarr’s arm, at Garrett’s leg, at the collar of Torsten’s tunic to pull him out from under the two men wrestling furiously on top of him.

“That’s enoug
h, the both of ye,” she cried.

Now that a maid was
in the ring, a number of men from each side jumped in to break the fight apart. One of the Gallachs pulled Norah to safety, though she squirmed against his grip. Recovering, Torsten stood, blood still flowing from his nose, over his lip and down his tunic.

“Get yer bloody hands off me,” Garrett
spat at the large Viking who held him by the elbows, dragging him backwards.

“Ja
, get your
bloody
hands off him. I’ve not finished with him yet,” Einarr hollered, himself straining against the three Fara men which held him back with considerable effort.

“Dinna provoke him, Sir Einarr,”
Norah snapped.

“
You mind your tongue,
bikkja
, or I’ll mind it for you,” he barked.

The vile insult snapped the line which held Torsten’s temper in check.
“You goat buggering drinker of sheep’s piss,” he hurled in Norse, and landed a solid fist in Einarr’s mouth, splitting his lip open and evoking another wave of cheers.

Marching to the dead centre of the ring, Norah lifted her chin. Taking a deep breath, she bellowed at the top of her lungs,
“Ye stop now, the lot of ye!”

The entire ring stilled, for the voice which carried on the wind echoed with
inherent authority. The Norse, the Gallachs, even Garrett and Einarr quieted. They glanced uneasily at one another, none of them quite sure what it was about the command that made them stop, yet none of them daring to question it.

Torsten, however, knew exactly from where the authority had been called. Or rather, from
when
it had been called. It was an ancient authority, he could see it in the depths of her changeful eyes. Even as he gazed upon her now, entranced not by mere beauty but by a radiance that transcended time, the green of her eyes shifted, melting from emerald to aquamarine and back.