Scars (Time of Myths: Shapeshifter Sagas Book 2) Read online

  Scars

  Time of Myths: Shapeshifter Sagas

  Natasha S Brown

  Future Impressions

  Copyright © 2017 Natasha Brown

  Edited by Amanda Sumner and Scott Andrews

  Proof read by Lynn Mullan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

  www.natashasbrown.com

  For those who ignore other people’s whispers.

  Make your own hamingja (luck) and chase your dreams.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 1 of Tides

  Next in the Time of Myths

  Also by the Author

  Research Notes

  About the Author

  Foreword

  Dear reader,

  I’ll tell you something about me. I really love anthropology. So when I decided to write a series of love stories told throughout history, I got very excited. I started researching medieval Scandinavians and as I learned more about their way of life and belief systems, characters started speaking to me. I discovered that in a parallel universe where shapeshifters exist and myths live and breathe, strange things can happen.

  You may know that I formerly wrote for younger audiences, but I was inspired to write my stories for adults, so that’s why this series is intended for mature readers due to romantic content.

  I thank you for joining me in my fantasy world. I hope you enjoy,

  Natasha Brown

  Chapter 1

  Salty air whistled up the grassy valley from the west. With it came soft calls from nesting birds. Ásta drank in the ocean breeze as it whipped her long golden locks against her cheeks in a fury. The four gleaming lines of scar tissue marking her youthful skin from her nose to her ear were numb to sensation, unlike her left cheek which tingled and stung after being exposed to her lashing hair.

  She didn’t allow herself more than a moment of enjoyment before pushing ahead, following the property barrier across the grassy countryside. Young shoots of green hay grew on the opposite side of the wall and throughout the majority of Ásta’s land. Enough food had to be stored for the livestock if they were to be expected to make it through the hard winter. Snæland, the land of snow, didn’t get its name from being a place of never-ending summer.

  When the far side of the hay field was finally in sight, Ásta’s eyes swept past it to the barley crop. Rows of shoulder-height green stalks lined the earth. Some had reached their full size, and their spiked heads were emerging. Everything appeared to be growing on schedule with no sign of disease or drought.

  Ásta continued to follow the wall past the barley and caught sight of Rolf and Bjorn. Her farmhands were walking the property border holding long wooden tools. As she drew closer to them, she noticed their strained expressions.

  Rolf ’s silvery brows furrowed and his mustache lifted as he hollered, “More wall knocked down.”

  Ásta’s eyes swept over her property and its barrier. Stones lined its base, although the remaining height was built from turf. She looked ahead and saw the damage. Sections longer than her father’s rowboat were thrown over as if a giant had forged through it. She hurried to his side and asked, “Just like the other sections?”

  Rolf’s broad shoulders and round cheeks reminded her of her father, but that’s where the comparison ended. Rolf often made jokes and told stories that never seemed to end, which drove Bjorn to the hills to work alone.

  “Looks to be.” Rolf folded his arms and stared at the long stretch of caved-in earthen wall. The winter had been hard on the man-made boundary. Some sections had eroded away. That was to be expected. But the newfound damage wasn’t. This wasn’t the first time this had occurred since her father and brother had fallen from the cliffs and died last summer.

  Bjorn joined them. He was tall, lean and embarrassingly short on facial hair, which was why he kept his face shaved. He looked to be half of Rolf’s forty years, like Ásta, but he was nearer to thirty. Bjorn frowned and said, “The largest four-legged beast about is the fox. I would not want to meet the fox that did this.”

  Ásta looked closer at the damage. Chills traced down her spine when she saw the marks clawed into the dirt. She grimaced. “It is not from Fenrir either, no matter what anyone says. He has not come to claim me. I will be wife to no beast.”

  Her body shook as she glared at the wall, knowing exactly what the others likely thought of it. She’d heard the whispers behind her back over the last four years since she was sixteen and her puckered wounds were still healing. She wanted to be as confident as her father had been about her not being the focus of the frightful king of wolves. The son of the god Loki would have far more important things to do than to bother with a maiden, he’d assured her. The only problem was, she could still feel the heat from the beast’s breath on her face and its claws slashing at her flesh. Her pulse quickened, and fear made her veins run cold.

  “Could be ice bears,” Rolf suggested. He rubbed his silvery beard and said, “My cousin from the north told me stories ’bout that. He saw some come ashore on an ice drift from the west. Said they are larger than even the greatest man.”

  All Ásta could do was nod, hoping he was right. She didn’t want them to see her panic. She was the head of household, and she needed to show strength. No one was stronger, she reminded herself. She would have to be tough if she didn’t want the memories of her mother, father and brother dishonored. Her grandparents had sailed to this faraway place for glory and had claimed this land. No one from the southern quarter made a better mead than she, using a recipe that had been passed down by the women in her family. Most could not afford the bees or honey, but the farm had always seemed to supply them with the silver they needed, until now.

  “It must be repaired,” she said, standing tall.

  Bjorn frowned and leaned on the wooden handle of his turf shovel. “We will do our best, Ásta, but we are only two men. With your father and brother gone to the halls of Valhalla, we do not have as many hands to rebuild the walls. We will need more than the three months before the fall harvest to repair this damage. After, the snows will not be far off.”

  He didn’t need to tell her. She already knew that wall repair often took more time than expected and was backbreaking work. Walls required many strong men to maintain them. Once the sheep were herded back to the farm at the end of summer, they would need to be contained on the property so they wouldn’t wander off to die. If she couldn’t follow the law and take care of her land, she would lose it to someone who could, and that wasn’t an option.

  Ásta took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The Althing is in only a week’s time. I will go and seek more men for hire there. I must sell the mead stores so I can afford more farmhands.”

  Rolf scoffed. “But what of your beehives? Is there enough for you to make your mead at harvest so that you may have the wealth to repay your debt to Bárthur? I know it must be done, b
ut you will have little silver left so that you might get more honey or hives. Think of your father. Would he have borrowed from a man like that?”

  His pride would have likely never allowed him to accept silver from a man like Bárthur. But he’d never been in a position to need it. There’d always been enough strong hands on the property to manage everything, until he’d passed away. “I am thinking of my ancestors. Is he your master still, or is it me? He is gone, leaving me to tend his place, and that is what I will do. If we are to survive, we must have more men to help about the farm.”

  Ásta rolled up the sleeves of her dress and stared at the toppled wall. If she had a husband to share the responsibility of such a demanding land, things would be only slightly easier, which was just as well, for she had already grown used to the idea that no man would have her. She was marked by the creature that according to legend would one day destroy the king of the gods, Odin. Bad luck had seemed to follow her as far back as she could remember.

  She turned around and started toward home. The sound of the men fell away the farther she went. All she could think about was making enough silver to hire more hands around the farm. The walls were her most immediate problem, but the issue was even larger than some toppled turf.

  She picked up the pace, hurrying back. The farm came into view. Various buildings, covered and built with sod, looked like growths on the grassy landscape. Ásta ran along the turf wall to the gated entrance of the farm.

  Across from her was a long building with a peaked grassy roof. She entered through its wood-framed doorway. The small room was barely lit, but it only took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the low light. She walked between two large wooden beams and into the main hall of the longhouse.

  A narrow stream of light from the hole in the ceiling touched the black charcoal in the hearth at the center of the room. A woman sat on the workbench with wool combs in her hands. A pile of carefully rolled wool tufts sat beside her. When she looked up, Ásta announced, “More walls are down, Elfa. I must count the barrels of mead—they are to be sold at the Althing.”

  Elfa’s head was tied with a simple kerchief. Long golden braids rested over each shoulder. Tight curls broke free at her temple, and her beige apron skirt was dirty, as it often was. She continued to work, although she frowned in response to the news. “So that you might pay your debt to that frightening man?”

  “Neinn, for more freemen to hire. The walls must get repaired. I cannot let this stop me from taking care of the farm.”

  “But will you have enough to keep him away at harvest? I do not like when he visits,” Elfa whispered.

  Ásta walked past her farmhand’s wife to the entrance of the food storage. “Já. I will have enough honey by the end of the summer to make enough mead to repay the debt and have extra left over.”

  Her answer was swallowed up by the cool, dark room. Basins held cultured milk and skyr, a watery cheese, which filled her nose with a sour scent. Beef that had been cooked and preserved with whey hung from the rafters. Small barrels held ale for daily drinking, and in the far corner were the casks of mead that Ásta had made last fall with help from her large colony of bees.

  She counted the barrels. If she could sell them all, she would make enough silver to hire a few more men. As long as her bees produced honey over the summer, she would make more mead by the harvest so that she could repay her debt and the cost of the hives, as well as have enough left over to hold onto for next season. If her luck turned around, that is.

  Ásta walked through the longhouse, lost in thought. She hunched down to pass through the threshold and closed the door behind her. She ran past the animal shed, drying hut and water basin before slowing down. One of the milking cows called out as it was startled by her fast movement. Along the outer wall of the farm, wildflowers grew in the field beyond, tiny spots of color on the horizon. There, beside the stacked turf, nestled in some brush and protected from the wind, were a series of domed baskets. The skeps held her most prized possessions, the queen bees and their hives. The soft hum from the bees met her ears and she smiled at the sound of it. They were alive and happy buzzing around their homes for now.

  She walked across the yard to the smithy shed. Beside the cold stone hearth, she found the practice sword and picked it up. It was heavy in her hand, but its edges and tip were dull. If swung hard enough, it would leave a mark and a bruise. She squeezed the grip tight and clenched her jaw. Leaning up against the outside of the small building was a large woolen sack filled with dried grass. Ásta unfastened her cloak and let it fall to the ground.

  She held the tip of the sword in front of her and quickly skirted aside, whipping the blade sideways into the sack. She withdrew and thought of the enemy. Her pulse quickened as she pictured it. Pointed ears with a toothy grin, an enormous creature unlike anything she’d ever seen. Sagas from their homeland to the east spoke of such animals: wolves. But the creature that haunted her land was far larger than legend. Nearly as tall as her shoulders, with eyes so human they made her shiver.

  She swung again, feeling the muscles in her arm tighten from the effort. The thought of it lunging at her, viciously growling, was hard to shake off. If anyone knew she’d seen it since last harvest, walking the cliffs, its eyes fixed upon her, the stories would never fall silent. All would be certain that Fenrir, the king of the wolves, had come to claim her and would suspect that the god Odin had turned his back on their family. She would be labeled unlucky.

  She couldn’t let anyone know about the claw marks on her boundary walls. Too many tragedies had befallen her already. The animal attack had left her disfigured, her kin had crossed the Rainbow Bridge to enter Valhalla, leaving her alone and now her farm was crumbling around her. If she had any hope of turning things around, she would have to fight the Norns of Fate, the giantesses who controlled the destiny of man. Fight like her father had taught her.

  She could remember him putting that very practice sword in her hand after the claw marks on her face had sealed with scabs. He’d asked if she wanted to be claimed by any beast, to which her answer was no. Then you must be more ferocious than your enemy, he’d said.

  Ásta thrust the sword into the sack once more and roared. Her scream was carried off in the wind. She panted and leaned over with her hands to her knees, unable to shake her feeling of unease. Even though she had a plan, she worried it would unravel like everything always did. Forever unlucky.

  Wind bent the grass to the ground. The flat stone Torin had used to tunnel with was covered with dirt. He brushed out the hole he’d just dug and studied its dimensions. Its two-fists-wide cavity slanted into the earth at an angle and resurfaced only an arm’s length away. The edge of his uncle’s fishing net was propped on two sticks on either side of the burrow’s entrance. Careful not to knock over his trap, he set his tool down and pushed himself off the ground.

  His honey-yellow hair danced around his head as the breeze adjusted course. He turned his eyes to the sky, searching for signs of the fledgling gyrfalcon he’d followed into this valley. It had been a long day’s travel already, and he needed to return home. It wouldn’t be wise to return after his uncle had started his journey for the Althing, the yearly social gathering where Snælanders settled disputes and conducted business like marriages, trades and alliances. He needed to hurry up or go back empty-handed.

  Torin unbuckled his leather belt and dropped it into the grass. A spot of white barely noticeable to the naked eye could be seen amongst the ebony rock on a distant bluff. He kept his attention on that point as he slowly pulled off his cream-colored tunic, untied his leather shoes and dropped them beside his belt. His muscled arms tugged down on the waist of his pants, and soon he was as he’d been brought into the world—naked but for his silver arm ring and the pendant of Thor’s hammer that hung around his neck.

  He combed his hands through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. Goosebumps rose on his skin. Every pore tingled with sensation as he felt himself change. The familiar tug on
his arm hairs continued until they grew light, and he could no longer feel his fingers. His legs bent, lowering him down, and his rounded chest touched the ground.

  Eyes open, he snapped his beak, chasing away the strange sensation that lingered where his nose and mouth used to be. He glanced down at his white-feathered legs and at the arm ring and necklace that had fallen into the grass. Clicking noises rattled from his throat. Torin braced himself against a gust of wind, then scurried forward with his plan in mind.

  It had taken him years to adjust to such a different body, one so unlike his own, and it wasn’t very hard to stumble around on purpose. He pulled out one wing, letting the tips of his mottled gray feathers drag against the blades of grass. He knew this posture, coupled with his stumbling walk, would tempt any predator with an empty belly. That’s what he was counting on.

  His eyes remained on the porous rocky bluff and his target. Two years ago he’d nearly paid the ultimate price for not respecting the gyrfalcon’s ability to hunt. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  The activity of limping around the opening of the trap was repetitive, but no more than digging out the tunnel had been. His stomach was beginning to complain. It didn’t faze Torin, as he was used to it—putting in a hard day’s work and eating a late meal was normal. Plus, he needed a new eyas, a new fledgling falcon for training. Especially if he was going to sell all of his experienced hunting birds at the Althing.

  He never let himself grow weary from scurrying around. He continued holding his attention on the white speck on the distant bluff. When it finally took to the skies, Torin hurried to the mouth of the tunnel. His avian eyesight allowed him to see everywhere but his blind spot—behind him. He positioned himself and waited for the gyrfalcon to circle.