A Heart of Fire Read Free

he would be
seeing his brother's shores on this broken fjord aplenty. Hadarr would pay
dearly for taking his place here as Jarl and as husband to Surguilde.
    He would pay until he had nothing left.
    Come the day they were safely back in his hall, Aldar
would question his new thralls, to find when his brother would be returning to
a devastated village and home. To an empty storehouse and bones scattered about
his barren yard.
    Aldar laughed heartily at this as he looked into the
midnight sun hanging like a ball of fire on the horizon, thinking of how his
fortune had turned. His stare lighted on the thrall as she willingly stepped
into the cart, the infant pressed close to her breast.
    When will my brother return home to find an empty cradle? he wondered.
    His brother may be Jarl, but he now had all the spoils of a long lasting victory!

Chapter One
     
    Norway, twenty
years later
    815 A.D.
     
    A loud vibrating ping shot through the room as a broadsword pierced
into the wooden wall with a hard thunk .
    Finna jerked awake, lifting herself from the
straw-stuffed mattress with swift alertness. The fur bedcovers fell from her
body as she took in the room, her labored breaths filling the small area. She
poised her dagger to strike any intruder as the whirling motion of her
night-vision still spun her where she sat.
    There was no one there, and Finna gulped in cool air
to regain her breath. Her heart raced wildly, drumming against her chest. She
placed the backs of her fingers to her moist forehead and blinked at the dark
interior of her room.
    Nothing moved.
    It was only a dream.
    She rolled her head back on her shoulders and breathed
a sigh of relief at finding no sword implanted into the wall high above her.
    It was as though the impact of the sword had really
been loud enough to wake her though. Finna sat her dagger away on the table
beside her bed and groaned aloud as she reached up to smooth a hand over her
damp hair, her hand grazing the sweat beaded at her temple. She closed her eyes
and swiped away the perspiration on her brow with the sleeve of her nightdress
and then slung the bedcovers away as she began to pull herself off the
mattress.
    As her toes touched the floor, Finna winced at the
cold and pulled her feet back, curling her toes at the chill. It sent a shiver
all the way up her spine to tingle at her scalp. Even with furs surrounding her
bed, the cold seeped into her dwelling, and still deeper, into her bones. She
shivered and started again, stretching as she stood and then started for the
pile of wood she had brought in the night before.
    Winter approached on a swift wing this year, though
the grasses remained green and only on the highest peaks did frost linger. The
seer told of a fimbulvetr, or mighty
winter, to come. A winter that would lead to Ragnarök. While she did not doubt
the harshness of a Nordic winter, speaking of Ragnarök was another thing
entirely. Finna doubted very much this winter would bring the end of the world
or much else other than the norm.
    Finna hurried to the stack and bent to gather wood
beside the door. She cradled enough to warm her dwelling for the short time she
planned to be here, and then started back across to the stone pit built up in
the center of the single room. As she dropped the logs in, a wave of ash went
up from the muted embers, and Finna dropped into the chair there to puff at the
dying coals before they faded entirely.
    She poked dry leaves and branches into the lingering
heat, kindling a spark, and after a moment, a small flame caught. She bent her
head close to blow once more to quicken the flame and then pulled back to hold
her hands over the flickering glow as the fire grew and spread to the dry
limbs, quickly becoming a gentle blaze that sent dancing shadows across the
room.
    Finna shivered again and rubbed at her arms, her stare
finding the spot above her bed where the sword had stuck in her dream.
    The same old vision reoccurred every time a raid came
near. It