Winter Solstice Winter - Book I in the Viking Blood Saga

The first thing Ailia noticed when she woke up was the eerie, hollow sound of the wind. Then, the pain set in. Her whole body felt as if it had been trampled on by a herd of distraught reindeer. She opened her eyes slowly and tried to make sense of her surroundings. Her cold fingers met the cold ground as she pushed herself up to a sitting position, and she immediately knew something was wrong. Every movement hurt, and when she reached to touch her face, she winced as her fingers gently touched the sores and bruises.

  An opening a few feet away revealed that she was in some sort of a cave. The hood of her overcoat was down, so she pulled it up over her numb ears with her stiff, freezing fingers. Next to her was a piece of material that looked like a handkerchief and a small empty glass flask. She picked them up and put them both in her pocket.

  As she rose to her feet, she peered to the outside and saw the Northern Star shining brightly in the sky. She tried to recall how she ended up here, but the last thing she remembered was hiking to Odinseat, then—nothing.

  She limped over to the ice cave’s exit in hopes of learning where she was, but the night, and the way one of her eyes was nearly swollen shut made it difficult. An unsettling feeling in her stomach told her that she was far, far away from home.

  The full moon’s sheen glazed the snow-covered mountains and valleys with its subdued light, subtly lighting up the black vastness of the heavens. Endless and hazardous but beautiful glacier mounds and gorges were all Ailia could see. Where am I? Each gust of wickedly cold wind felt like death calling and it illuminated one dangerous reality; she was wet.

  Both Ailia’s ivory under tunic and rust red top tunic were wet and filthy at the skirt hem. Her sleeves came down tight to the wrists and were also wet and dirty at the edges. The butterfly stitches around her skirt hem and sleeves looked tattered—barely noticeable. What happened? This dress was new and clean only moments ago. Or was it days ago she lost consciousness? She looked down at her dark leather boots and noticed that they looked unusually worn from what she could remember and she didn’t even recognize the navy woolen hooded cloak she was wearing.

  She pulled the handkerchief out of her pocket and saw that it carried a black raven embroidering. Don’t the Vik people carry the raven emblem? It sent a chill down her already cold spine. She hated the Vik people for the fear they had instilled in the people of her hometown, but she put the cloth back in her pocket, hoping it would lead to clues about how she had ended up here so dirty, so battered and so alone. She studied the empty flask for a moment, too, but smelling it, she noticed no scent, revealing nothing of its previous contents.

  Biting cold wind tossed her messy hair in every direction as she exited the icy dome. She defensively grabbed the fur hood of her overcoat and pulled it tight onto her face to prevent the bitter blasts from entering. In the dim light, she could see the silhouette of the countryside and realized she was in an ice cave possibly located on or close to the Blue Glaciers.

  “How did I end up here?” she said out loud as if someone were listening. Her sore lips burned in the freezing air. She recognized the towering Trollstein Mountains in the distant north, which were not far from her home, but very far from where she now found herself.

  There’s no time to waste. She took a few steps, but having nearly no traction beneath the soles of her boots, she slid on the glassy ice, falling onto her back with a thump.

  “Why?” she said, looking up at the millions of stars above. Her stomach made a grumbling sound and she grabbed her belly. It felt considerably thinner than before, her ribs protruding. Finding food out here would be as likely as finding a fish in the sky. If she were extremely lucky, she would run into someone or find a cabin nearby with some hospitable folks.

  She stood up and looked for a path to follow as she alternately walked and crawled across the slick, transparent glacier. How long will I last before exhaustion sets in? She angrily hurled the thought out of her mind. Any doubt out here, Ailia, will cost you your life.

  Continuing over the ice, she heard the distant howling of wolves, wolves that were probably ravenous and hunting for their next meal. Her eyes scanning the surroundings, she quickly spotted the seven dark animals on the white mountain, their eyes glowing orange in the light of the moon. She hoped they hadn’t seen her or picked up her scent, but it appeared by the direction they were heading that they had not only seen her, but were also pursuing her. Ailia’s heart skipped a beat, and when it started again, it went into triple-time.

  She scanned the area for shelter, but the bare glaciers had no trees, no rocks, nor any other places that she could see to easily hide or escape. Instinctively, she ran in the opposite direction as her mind raced to find a solution. Her legs kept slipping and she fell over and over again as her body slammed onto the unforgiving surface. No! This is not how I’m going to die! She couldn’t hold her voice back from letting out a loud, high-pitched scream. She screamed again and again. Her eyes welled up with tears, causing her vision to blur.

  It was already difficult to see in the dark, but reason had left and emotion had taken over. She continued to run as fast as she could, hurrying away from the vicious predators. Now, she could hear their paws hammering the ice behind her. Oh no, this is it! she thought.

  Then, she glimpsed a thick, dried, wooden stick on the ground in front of her and picked it up. She hastily turned around and started swinging the stick as quickly and violently as she could in the wolves’ direction, all the while screaming at the top of her lungs, trying to intimidate the wolves.

  The wolves slowed their pace as they methodically closed in on her, growling, snarling, licking their fangs and wagging their tails enthusiastically in excitement over their fresh prey. One wolf was nearly twice the size of the others and it appeared it was heading the attack on Ailia.

  A smaller wolf got hold of her stick and locked it in with its sharp fangs. Ailia and the wolf were tugging at the stick in opposite directions, fighting for their own victory and a common reward—life. As she pulled the stick with all her might, she succeeded in tearing it from the wolf’s jaw. With the stick loose, she fell to the ground, but she quickly recovered and jumped back onto her feet. Swinging at the wolf, she hit it hard on the side of the head, causing it to fall to the ground with a whimper.

  Then, the leader came in at Ailia with full force. It was much stronger than the first wolf and deftly pulled the stick out of Ailia’s hands, flinging it to the side as it continued its fixated pursuit without losing a beat. The beast leapt toward Ailia and sunk its fangs into her foot.

  She screamed. The pain was sharp and intense as the anima’s incisors dug all the way into the marrow of her bones. She kicked the large creature in the snout with her other leg and pulled her injured one out of the boot. Thick, red blood dripped onto the white snow.

  The terror coursing through her veins had started to wear Ailia out and she felt like she didn’t have the willpower to fight back any more. Another wolf came at her arm, but it wasn’t able to bite through her thick wool cloak. It bit again and again, until the fabric started giving into its piercing teeth. The animal’s jaws were brutally strong and Ailia could feel the other wolves coming at her, tugging her, pulling her hair, her arms and her legs, wanting to get to her flesh. Just as she thought there was no hope and she was ready to give up, she heard one of the wolves whimper and fall to the ground. The other wolves looked up and another wolf was hit with an arrow, falling lifeless where it stood.

  The leader of the pack looked at Ailia and was hit by an arrow on its upper back. The wolf whimpered and decided to abandon the hunt, pulling with it the rest of the pack.

  Ailia couldn’t believe that the wolves were gone. She knew someone was there heading in her direction, wanting to help her, someone who had saved her life. “Help,” she was able to cry out. “Please, my leg—” she pleaded to her unexpected rescuer.

  A young man ran to her side and crouched down beside her. “Everything is going to be fine,” he said, dropping his bow onto the sn
ow beside her as he quickly scanned her body. He gasped. “Lucia?” he said.

  Lucia? Ailia felt her strength leaving her body and then everything turned black.

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