Page 22 of A Darkness So Sweet (The Kingdom Below #1)
Chapter Twenty-Two
RAGNAR
He snuck out of their home early in the morning. She didn’t need to come with him this time, because he didn’t plan to heal anyone today. Maia was very unused to using her magic, and he knew that would take some time to replenish what they’d used together. As much as she’d given last night, she would realize how much that had impacted her as soon as she got out of bed later today.
Everything in Ragnar ached. His shoulders, his back, his thighs. Every part of his body felt as though he’d been training like he had when he was a young man. Unfortunately, he was not as young as he used to be. He’d spent hours upon hours every day with his brother and friends, allowing Gunnar to hit him over and over until the pain didn’t matter anymore.
It made his heart hurt to think she would be suffering the same kind of pain that he felt now. But he hoped she would make use of the warm water in their bathtub, and he had too much to do today.
As expected, Gunnar was waiting outside of his home. His brother was strapped from head to toe in warrior garb. Weapons glinted at his sides, leather strappings held them tight to his legs and torso, while an armored plate against his back would serve as a shield should anyone try to attack him from behind.
“Took you long enough to wake,” Gunnar grumbled. “We’ve all been ready for hours now.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“Probably, but everyone is waiting.”
“You could have left without me,” Ragnar sighed, trying to dig his fingers into a knot at the base of his neck. He’d curved his body around her the entire night, but that had left his arm and shoulder in an odd position he now regretted.
Although he wasn’t sure he could ever regret sleeping beside Maia. It had been weeks since he’d slept in his own bed, wanting to give her space, yet last night he couldn’t help himself. He’d forgotten how nice it was to have someone by his side and in his bed. She was so warm. In the aftermath of the quakes, the mountain felt cold. Snuggled up to her, he’d been as warm as he could ever hope to be. Under those blankets, he had felt a significant amount of comfort as well. Just holding her body, feeling her heartbeat, knowing how easily she had melted into him as though she trusted him with her life?
Ragnar wouldn’t stop thinking about that moment for a long time. He’d thought, perhaps, that she would be enjoyable as a bed partner. That was why he’d caught her in the bathroom, tasted her on his tongue, so that he might at least know that she would be willing and enjoyable when it came to that. And she would be.
But last night had been something different. He hadn’t wanted to just bed her, rut into her until they’d both seen stars and forgotten about all the things that they’d seen that day. She’d offered him a comfort that no one else ever had.
Gunnar leaned in close and took a deep breath. “You smell like her.”
An unreasonable need to punch his brother in the chest and take that scent back filled him. Which was stupid. A scent wasn’t something he could get returned just by his brother exhaling it but... Maybe it would make him feel better.
Sighing, he instead shook his head and started down the streets toward where he knew the rest of the war band waited for them. “Enough, Gunnar.”
“No, you smell like her far more than you did in the past few weeks. Just living with her has, of course, left a bit of a lingering scent, but you smell like her.”
“Gunnar, what did I just say?”
His brother hustled to keep up with him, a laugh bursting forth as they passed a stall being filled with hastily made meat pies. The city was already piecing itself back together enough for Gunnar to get a breakfast pie and continue ribbing him as they hurried down the streets.
“Really? What happened last night? You went back later than she, which I’d thought would mean you wouldn’t even find her awake. But clearly she was. Did you finally show her the piercings you’ve gotten for her? I was there to hold your hand, man. I know how terrible those were for you to?—”
Ragnar spun on his brother and slapped him in the throat. A quiet gurgle filled the street they were in, followed by a few surprised snorts as Gunnar struggled to get air into his lungs. But Ragnar was done listening to this teasing.
“Stop talking about my wife,” he hissed.
But by the time they’d reached the other trolls in their war band, his brother was already laughing again. Shaking his head, Gunnar walked over to the other warriors who would be joining them and without a single pause in breath, his brother started talking about how good Ragnar smelled.
“You should go sniff him!” Gunnar said, his voice pitched low like he was trying to whisper but obviously projecting his voice so that Ragnar would hear him. “Seriously. I never knew humans could smell so sweet, like honey and fresh baked bread. It’s a good scent on him.”
Ragnar headed out ahead of the others. He couldn’t stay with those warriors without trying to push Gunnar over the edge of the cliff. And it was far too early in the morning for that kind of behavior. His brother needed someone to teach him a lesson, but realistically, that person could not be Ragnar. Not yet.
The war band moved through another path in the forest that led to their home, and then out of the mountain into the sun beyond. He squinted his eyes, the bright light always difficult to adjust to when he first left Trollveggen. He looked around, trying to figure out why the mountain had been so angry. But it didn’t take long for all them to see the problem.
Deep grooves slashed through the earth. He’d seen markings like this in the human villages before. They were the wheels of carts, but carrying something so heavy that it had left deep imprints that were easy to follow. Together, he and the trolls spread out to follow them.
How many times had he hunted the humans? How many times had he learned that, if they were in a group, humans would attack a troll without hesitation? Troll hide was tough. It was hard to put a knife or sword through their skin, so the humans had learned other ways to hurt. Fire, flaming acid, ballistae that threw stones at them. Anything they could do to kill the trolls, they would. Fortunately, the trolls were harder to track down than humans were.
Silently, the war band moved across their mountain, following the tracks of the cart until Ragnar broke off from the others. He ran faster. Ragnar was able to go ahead of the rest since, as the band’s healer, he didn’t carry any weapons.
But then he came to the edge of a ridge and stared down at deep, black furrows that spread through an area which had once been forested. Like a fire had been lit and left to run wild, it wasn’t hard to see what had made their mountain afraid. Stones had been thrown by ballistae against the side of the mountain. There were deep cracks in the rocky face where a rock slide had been triggered. So many stones that the entire tunnel into Trollveggen had collapsed. And worse, he could see the humans had coated the entrance with a thick black ooze they’d then lit on fire.
It wasn’t an entrance regularly traversed by his people. Smaller than most, usually only women and children walked here to pick flowers or grow crops that simply couldn’t grow underground. It did not lead back to the heart of their kingdom, but it was an entrance, nonetheless.
More signs of humans dotted the landscape. Small rings of fire where the humans had left the flames still burning. The refuse they had thrown in their retreat.
Ragnar started down into the crater left behind. Not a single shrub remained after that fire. There was no birdsong dancing through the air as he walked over stones that were easy to twist an ankle over. Even the wind didn’t seem to want to disturb the ashes on the ground. And as he approached the entrance, he stopped where he was and felt his heart shatter.
Because even here, even this far away, he could see the lovely yellow hand reaching through the rocks. The hand was now limp, no life left in the troll who had desperately begged for help as the entrance had collapsed on top of them.
There was no one here he could save. No one who needed his magic even though it weakly rose in his chest as if it could try to bring this troll back from the dead. Like he could sing their soul back into their body, even though he didn’t know who they were or how he would manage to do so.
Healing was an art form. He convinced the body to knit itself back together, to feel well again. He loved being able to soothe old aches or mend a cut in the skin that would have left an ugly scar. But a moment like this was when he was reminded of just how terrible it was to have been given such a gift.
To know he could have saved them if he had been here in time.
Footsteps approached. Countless trolls of the war band joined them, and together, they all sank onto their knees to honor the fallen troll.
Gunnar was at his side, and he reached to put an arm around Ragnar’s shoulder. “They fought well.”
The troll to his right murmured, “They fought hard.”
No one wanted to say the last bit, though. No one wanted to be the one to admit that this was over and there was nothing they could have done.
So Ragnar took a deep, rattling breath that coated his tongue in smoke and tasted like defeat. “Their spirit joins the warrior’s hall. Someday, we will join them, and on that day, we will feast.”
Growls erupted around him. Rage made the air electric between them all. He wanted to roar at the world that would allow a troll to die like this. He knew this kind of death. It hadn’t been quick. This troll had reached out a hand for help and no one had offered to help them. Not a single one of those monsters who lived at the base of their mountain had done anything when they’d set this trap. They didn’t even kill the troll, so they wouldn’t suffer.
Turning his head to look at the tracks, he stood. The other trolls joined him, all of their eyes on the deep furrows that would lead them right to the humans who had done this.
His brother placed a hand on his shoulder. A steadying voice to listen to as Gunnar murmured, “Ragnar. Your wife is human. Perhaps it should be us that go. You wait here, and we can make sure any injured return to you. If it was a small number of humans with a ballista, they will be easy to track.”
“No. I want my revenge for this.”
“She may not forgive you for it.”
Ragnar knew that. He did. He knew that his troll wife was more sensitive than he was. But she had been by his side during the aftermath of what her own people had done. Surely she would understand that he had to hunt after that.
She had held his hand while he’d knit together flesh and bone. She’d heard the moans and the screams of the dying. Maia had been there while people had begged him to save them and he had known that he wouldn’t be able to. If she denied him this, then she was no troll wife after all.
Baring his teeth in a snarl, he glared at his brother. “Give me a knife, Gunnar.”
“Ragnar, I just don’t think?—”
“Your knife.”
Without another word, his brother reached for the knife that he had strapped to his chest and handed it over. It was a long handled blade, wicked and curved. The glint in the sunlight reminded him of his very first hunt with his father. They had just been boys then. Young and unknowing of what they were going to get into. Ragnar had been the first to kill a deer, and when his father had handed him a knife just like this and told him to gut the beautiful creature, he’d cried.
At first, Ragnar had been ashamed of his reaction. No real hunter would have tears dripping down his cheeks while he gutted the animal that would feed his family for weeks on end.
But his father’s words would remain with him for the rest of his life. “You honor the beast you killed by shedding tears for their loss. Tears show you know you have taken a life, and that is good. We do not kill without reason or meaning, my son.”
And now he knew his reason. He knew his meaning.
Gunnar sighed and reached for the back of his neck. They pressed their foreheads together, two brothers who knew, without question, that they were going to risk their lives yet again. “Kill quickly,” Gunnar said.
“Go for the gut,” Ragnar corrected him. “I want them to die slowly.”
Perhaps it was the animal in him. Perhaps he was just proving that his line wasn’t so far removed from the fur and the scales. But in this moment, he did not care. He wanted his retribution, and he wanted it now.
His brother nodded. They would fight together. Ragnar would remain slightly behind the others, but no troll would argue his right to fight with them. No troll would deny his desire for blood and for the screams of a human to ring in his ears.
Together, they moved as one. He felt his blood heat with the desire of the hunt, even if it meant that his new troll wife might hate him for it later.