Lord of Rage

His father nodded. “I will tell you what my father told me, and I suspect his father and the fathers before him. What you must do now, you do alone. Leave your aleskin here, and take no food. Nothing but your weapon. Be brave, but above all, be honorable.”

“How will you know when it is done?” he asked.

“I will know. Now go.”

Osborne turned on his heel, and trekked silently though the brush as his father had first taught him so many years ago. One of his many lessons. Last night they’d slept on the outskirts of the sacred bear lands. Now was the time he must cross over.

With a deep breath he stepped onto the sacred land, reveling in the unexpected thrust of power that pounded into his body. The surge swelled in his chest, then grew, infusing his limbs, his fingers. With new energy, he gripped his spear and began to run. Running faster than he’d ever run before, he followed that tug of power, trusting his instincts.

Time lost meaning as he ran. He never grew tired, even as the sun continued to rise in the sky. His vision narrowed, and the heavy tang of musk scented the air. Bear musk.

The time was now.

Every muscle, every sense, tightened. Instinct again told him to turn his head, and then he saw it.

The bear was a giant. Towering more than two feet above Osborn, its fierce claws curved, its dark brown fur pulled tight over taut muscles. Osborn met the fearsome creature’s eyes. Again something powerful slammed into him, and his muscles locked. His body froze.

The bear growled at him, a thunderous sound that made the earth beneath his feet rumble. Osborn felt his eyes widen, but he still could not move.

The time was now.

Osborn forced his fingers to shift, his arm to relax. Then, with a flowing arc he’d practiced alongside his father hundreds of times, he sent his spear soaring. The sound of its sharpened tip whizzed through the air. The animal roared when Osborn’s weapon sank into his chest. Blood darkened its coat.

With a guttural cry, Osborn sprinted to where the bear had stumbled to the ground, pawing at the wood lodged inside its body. The animal went wild as Osborn neared, striking toward him with those killer claws. A wave of fear shuddered down his spine. The rusty, salty scent of blood hit his nostrils. The breathy, angered groaning of the bear made Osborn shake his head, trying to clear the sound. The bear rolled to its feet, once more towering above him, and close. So close.

He steeled his resolve. He was to be a warrior. A brave one. Osborn reached for the spear. One weapon was all a boy was allowed to take. The bear swiped at him, his claws ripping through the cloth of his shirt, tearing the skin of his bicep. With a mighty blow, the animal sent Osborn to the ground, the air knocked out of his lungs by the force.

Forget the pain. Forget the blood. Forget the fear.

Once again, Osborn’s focus narrowed. He reached for the spear again, this time dragging it from the bear’s body. But not without a price. The mighty animal clawed at him again, leaving a trail of torn flesh crossing from his shoulder down to his hip. The pain was agony, and his vision blurred, but he steadied his hand and aimed at the animal’s throat.

The animal fell to the ground again, but Osborn knew it would not be getting back to its feet. He met those dark brown eyes of the bear. A wave of anguished compassion settled into Osborn. This was why the warriors never told of their experiences.

The bear took a labored breath, blood trickling from its nose. Osborn squeezed his eyes tight, fighting the nausea that threatened. His glance drifted to the pain-glazed eyes of the bear. He was dishonoring this great animal’s spirit by letting it suffer. The bear’s soul clamored for its release. Its next journey.

The time was now.

Osborn grabbed the spear once more, then plunged it directly in the bear’s heart, ending its life. A rush of energy slammed into him, almost knocking him backward. He fought it, but it was ripping and tearing through his soul. The ber energy fused with his own nature, turning him into the warrior the rest of the realm referred to as berserkers.

He felt his muscle begin to quiver, feeling weak from his loss of blood. But the wounds would heal. He’d be stronger than ever before. Osborn gulped in air and stumbled his way back to the place where he’d parted from his father.

Intense relief passed across his father’s face, and his brown eyes warmed when he saw Osborn approach. Osborn immediately straightened despite the pain. He was a warrior; he’d greet his father that way. But his father hugged him, grabbed him and held him tight to his chest. For a few moments he basked in his father’s pride and love before his father broke away and began packing away their camp supplies.

“It was harder than I thought. I didn’t think I’d feel this way,” Osborn blurted out for no reason he could guess. He regretted his rash words instantly. That was a boy’s sentiments. Not a man’s. Not a warrior’s.

But his father only nodded. “It’s not supposed to be easy. Taking of a life, any life, should never be something done without need and compassion.” He stood, slinging his pack over his shoulder. “Guide me to the bear. We must prepare it.”

They trekked silently together, crossing into the sacred land to where the bear had taken its final breaths. His father taught him to honor the bear in the ancient ways, then they set to work.

“Now you possess the heart of the bear. As a warrior of Ursa, you will carry the bear’s spirit with you. Your ber spirit will always be there, waiting silent within you, ready for your call. The strength of the bear comes to you when you wear your Bärenhaut,” his father told him, lifting up the bear pelt. “Do not don your pelt without thought and careful consideration. You will be able to kill, Osborn, and kill easily. But only with honor.”

“I will, Father,” he vowed with a humble sense of pride. “What do we do now?”

“We take the meat back so our people can eat. The claws we use for our weapons. We don’t waste what the bear has given us. We revere its sacrifice.” His father ran a finger down the bear’s fur. “But the pelt, that belongs to you. You wear it only when you go into battle and must call upon the spirit of the bear.”

As he’d observed with his father, and the dozen of Ursa warriors who guarded their homeland. Now he was joining their elite ranks.

They came at night. But then vampires were strongest at night. Attacking when all would be asleep. While the warriors and their sons were on Bärenjagd. A coward’s choice.

The cries of women filled the night air. The blaze of burned homes and barns and grain silos lit up the sky. Father and son took in the scene below. Osborn’s mother was down there. His sister.

His father shucked his clothing, grabbing for his Bärenhaut and sword, which were never far out of reach. Osborn’s own bear pelt wasn’t ready, not yet dried by the sun, but still he reached for the fur, drawing it about his bare shoulders. Blood and sinew still clung to the pelt, and seeped into Osborn through the wounds on his arm and down his body. A powerful rage took him over. He felt nothing else. No sadness over the bear, no worry or concern for his brothers or sister and mother, no anguish over the loss of the food stores that would keep his people alive through the harsh winter. Osborn felt nothing but the killing rage.

With a war cry, he charged down the hill, to his village, his people. To do battle. Not heeding the warning of his father. A vampire turned at his call, blood dripping from his chin, a chilling smile on his cruel lips.

The anger, the force of his rage, overpowered him. He charged the vamp, grabbing for his throat, tearing at his flesh, ripping at the creature’s body with his bare hands. He didn’t need a stake, only his fist, slamming through skin, bone, to the heart below. The vamp collapsed at his feet.

Osborn turned, ready to kill another. And he did. Again and again. But the Ursa warriors were outnumbered. Armed with clubs, the vampires waited to ambush the father-and-son pairs slowly returning, easy and unaware targets. The creatures knew what they were doing, fighting his people with neither blade nor fire.

The bodies of his neighbors lay among the blood drinkers he’d killed. In the distance, he still saw his father in the fight, easily taking on two vamps, his berserkergang a trusted ally. But then he saw his father fall. Vamps were ready to suck the last of his life force. His spirit.

“No,” he cried, his rage growing, building. He grabbed a sword from one of the fallen vamps as he ran. The blade might not do damage to his flesh, but it would soon find a home in a vampire’s bitter, dark heart.

The blood drinker at his father’s throat lost his head without knowing the threat approaching. The second vampire was able to put up a fight, fueling Osborn’s anger. He laughed into the dawn as the vampire fell at his feet. He turned ready for more, to kill more. His rage only soothed by the death of his enemy. But he was surrounded.

Vampires moved at incredible speeds to join those slowly encircling him. Even with his berserkergang upon him, the spirit of the bear filling him, he knew he could not defeat this many vampires. The vampires had made sure there was no one to help him.

He’d just make sure he took as many as he could with them when he died. He raised his sword, preparing to do battle.

Just as quickly as the vampires had moved to surround him, they stopped. Light began to filter through the leaves of the trees. One by one the vampires left, faster than his eyes could track.

“Come back and fight,” he called to them.

The sound of the wind rustling over the grass was his only answer.

“Fight, cowards.”

But his rage was fading, only anguish left in its place. His pelt began to slip off his shoulders.

Those vampires still left dying on the ground began to sizzle. Smoke rose to the sky from their bodies, and soon they were nothing but ash. The smell was horrific, and he turned away, sinking to the ground by his father’s prone body.

He lifted his father’s hand. It was cold, lifeless. Tears pricked at his eyes, but he blinked them back, in honor of the spirit of the man who’d died to save his people.

The vamp Osborn had relieved of his head left nothing behind but his tunic. Under the cover of the night, he hadn’t realized the attackers had been similarly dressed. His own people did not dress alike when they engaged in battle. But one kingdom of the realm did. The magical vampires of Elden. He recognized the navy and purple colors of Elden’s royal military guard.

It made no sense. Nothing made sense. There’d been peace between his people and Elden for generations. The king only had to ask, and the Ursan warriors would fight at his side.

Only one thing made sense in Osborn’s mind—every last resident of Elden would die by his hand.

The day was filled with hard, gruesome work. He carefully gathered the bodies of his people, trying to remember them as they were—his neighbors, his school buddies, not these lifeless bodies covered in blood and desecrated by bloodthirsty vampires. He found his mother cradling the small, lifeless body of his sister, protecting her even in death. His sister’s favorite bear doll in its frilly pink dress lay nearby. Trampled.

By the time the sun was overhead, his grisly task was nearly complete. Tradition dictated the funeral pyre should be set at dusk, burning into the night. But he suspected his family would forgive him for not making himself an easy target for vampires waiting to rip out his throat. Except there were two members of his family unaccounted for. His two younger brothers, Bernt and Torben.

For the first time since his berserkergang left him, and he was free to see the carnage left in Elden’s wake, did Osborn feel a small twinge of hope. His younger brothers played marathon games of hide-and-seek, but this time their skill at not being found might have saved their lives. And their older brother knew their favorite place. Picking up his steel and pelt, Osborn took off at a sprint.

The earthen smells of the cave was a welcome relief from the smoky ash and blood and death where he’d been working. He whistled into the cave. He heard no returning sound, but he sensed they were in there. Wanted them to be. Needed it. Osborn had never understood his younger siblings’ fascination for this place. He hated the enclosed, dark hole that was the cave, but after chores, his brothers would spend hours in the shelter of the rock. He hoped it held true this time. Osborn took a step inside. “Bernt, are you here? Torben? Come out, brothers,” he urged quietly.

He heard the quick intake of breath, and a relief like no other made his throat tighten.

“It’s Osborn. Take my hand,” he suggested as he forced his fingers deeper into the cave with dread and hope.

He was rewarded by small fingers encircling his hand. Two sets of hands. Thank the gods.

He gently drew them outside the cave, their dirty faces blinking in the harsh sunlight so welcome.

“Mom told us to hide,” Bernt said, guilt already hardening his young face.

“We wanted to fight,” Torben defended. “But she made us promise.”

He gave a quick squeeze to each of their shoulders. The way his father would. “You did the right thing. Now you will live to fight another day.” As he had lived. As he would fight.

After gathering what stores they could find and carry, his brothers helped Osborn light the pyre, saying a prayer for the spirits of their people.

The three of them traveled far away from Ursa, crossing through the various kingdoms of their world. Osborn spent his days hustling for food, trying to keep his brothers safe and work on their training. But he soon learned the only marketable skills a warrior of Ursa possessed was for that of killing. Hired out as a mercenary. An assassin.

The boy who’d once mourned the death of a fearless animal now enjoyed the killing. The smell of death. The pleas of his prey.

Osborn thrived under the threat of his imminent death. Not even the pleasure found between a woman’s legs could quell the blood fury. Only when he faced the steel of another’s blade did his senses awake. Only when the sting of pain lashed through him did he feel … anything.

Only when he witnessed his life’s blood pumping from his body with each beat of his heart did he hear the echoing pulse of his ancestors'. Now gone. All dead. Except him. He always survived.

But the royals of the various kingdoms of their realm grew worried and fearful of this man they’d once hired. A man who took jobs without question was not a man to be trusted.

Now he was the hunted.

And once again, eight years since fleeing his homeland, Osborn gathered his younger brothers and fled, this time deep into the woody plains of the sacred bear, a place where no one but an Ursa warrior would dare to tread. And those warriors were all gone.

Chapter 2

Breena stumbled through the tall grass and bramble. Large thorns tore at the delicate skin of her bare legs, but she no longer cried out in pain. If she were at home in Elden, she could blunt the pain with her magic, force it through some door in her mind and slam it shut. But that power eluded her in this unfamiliar place. Here, wherever she was, she had to endure it. Push through the throbbing of her tired muscles and the sting from the cuts and abrasions running up and down her arms and legs.

The voluminous folds of her once-ornate skirt, her protection from the harsh wilderness, was now gone, ripped and torn away as she’d traveled. Blood ran down her legs from the scratches, joining the dried layer already caked to her calves. Her knees were skinned, and still she drove herself to put one foot in front of another. She pushed forward as she’d been doing since she’d been ripped from her own realm and thrown … somewhere.

She stepped on a rock, its sharp edge digging into the tender arch of her foot; the dainty slippers she’d been wearing when she’d woken up were long gone. She stumbled again, this time falling to the ground, and, as she landed, she lost the last of her strength. Breena would cry if she had even a tiny sliver of energy. She hadn’t eaten in days, the only water she’d had was when she’d sipped off plant leaves. No one looking at her now would ever think she’d once been a princess. One who could do magic.

She pulled her hands together, closed her eyes and concentrated, willing her magic to appear. Produce a trickle of water or a berry to eat. But it did not. Just like it hadn’t appeared since she’d arrived with only two thoughts she couldn’t chase from her mind. Two seemingly opposing goals.

To survive. To kill.

Breena rubbed at her brows, trying to soothe the sharp ache knotting behind her eyes. Those goals seemed to come from someplace outside of her. Survival from someone warm, caring … Her mother? She hugged her arms around herself—yes, her mother would want her to live.

To avenge. To kill. That thought was masculine. Powerful. Authoritative. Her father.

And yet, she’d not do either. She’d neither live nor live to kill. Unless killing herself by pushing forward counted.

She doubted it was what her father had in mind. Her fingers went to the timepiece that had somehow survived whatever kind of hellish force brought her to this wild place. An unknown vengeance burned deep inside her, and she understood, perhaps since waking up dazed and alone in this strange land, that her parents had done something to her. Why here? Were they de—Pain ripped behind her eyes, making her gasp. Her parents … The throbbing always came when her thoughts lingered too long on them. She didn’t even know if they were alive or dead. But each time her attention drifted their way, Breena could see a little more. Until the pain took over.

Breena would die either way, so she might as well keep going.

Bracing for the pain, she pulled herself up off the ground and stood. She took an unsteady step, followed by another.

A bird flew overhead. She’d heard a story once about a lost boy following a bird and it leading him to a beautiful meadow filled with fruit and a pond of cool, delicious water. Of course, the boy got lost there, and never returned home. Breena was sure there was some lesson buried in the story, warning curious children about wandering off, but right now, she could only focus on the drinking and eating part.

Shading her eyes, she decided following the bird was the best plan she had so far. She spotted another skull attached to a tree. This was the third she’d seen just like that.

A bear skull.

She had to be in Ursa. The clan with the affinity to the great bear. Fought like them, she’d heard her father comment, clearly impressed. The Ursan kingdom had been allied to her own since her great-grandfather’s time. He’d negotiated the conditions himself. If she could just find them, find their village, perhaps they could help her get back to Elden. No, the Ursans were all gone. If only those warriors could help her with both goals, live and kill. The thoughts she’d woken up with two days ago.

Was it two? Felt like more. Like her home in Elden was a lifetime ago. Time was so hazy. It didn’t make sense. Like so many things since she’d woken up. Breena remembered something happening to her home, fear for her brothers. When she closed her eyes tight, images of her mother and father appeared. Performing last magic.

But why did they send her here?

Pain ripped across her chest, and Breena shook her head. She didn’t want those images in her mind. But something had happened to her. Traces of magic surrounded her. Someone else’s magic. Certainly not hers.

Instead, she tried to replace the images of her parents with that of her warrior. As she slept beneath the protective cover of trees, Breena attempted to walk into his dream. His mind. But just like her missing magic, her warrior was lost to her now, too. She found no door.

So she followed the bird, a hawk, as it made a lazy loop in the sky above her head.

“Please be thirsty,” she whispered. And hungry.

The bird made a squealing sound and dove. Breena forced energy into her feet. Her legs. Not her misplaced magic, but old-fashioned willpower. She sprinted as she chased the bird. Jumping over a fallen log, avoiding a thorny bush.

She came into a small clearing, only to spy the bird claiming a perch rather than hunting for sustenance. Disappointment cut into her side like a stitch, and she rested her hands on her thighs, dragging in large gulps of air. No meadow, no pond … just a perch. She glanced up to glare at the hawk, and then realized it was perched upon the gable of a cottage. A well-kept cottage.

The clearing around the wood cabin was neat and free of weeds and stones. A small plowed area—a garden, perhaps—lay to one side. That meant there had to be water and food inside.

With a squeal she raced to the door, fearing it would be locked. But she’d break through the window if she had to. She knocked on the door, but no one came to invite her inside. Polite niceties of etiquette over, she turned the handle, and thankfully the knob twisted easily and she pushed the door open.

Wholesome grain and cinnamon scented the air. There, on the stove, stood a large pot of oatmeal. Everything in her body seized. Food. Food. Reaching for the ladle she began to eat from the large utensil. Irritated with the awkwardness of it all, she tossed the spoon on the counter and dug in with her hands, feeding herself like an animal. Her mother would be appalled.

But then it was her mother who’d wanted her to survive. To live.

Her very empty stomach protested as the food hit, and she forced herself to slow down. Breena didn’t want to make herself sick. A pitcher stood on the table. She didn’t care what was inside; even if it were blackberry juice, she was going to drink it. She put the spout to her lips, and allowed the sweet taste of lemonade to fill her mouth and slide down her throat.

Despite her efforts to slow down, nausea struck her and she began to shudder. She took a blind step to the left, falling down hard on a chair at an awkward angle. With a sharp crack, the legs gave way and the chair broke, taking her to the floor.

Breena began to laugh. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and fell down her cheeks. She’d found herself a cottage, and she was still stumbling to the ground. No one would believe her to be a princess with oatmeal drying on her hands and lemonade dripping down her chin.

The wave of nausea passed only to be replaced by a bone-deep weariness. Breena had already eaten this family’s meal and broken their furniture, but she didn’t think she could attempt another thing except lay her head down and close her eyes. She spotted an open door leading to another room of the cottage. Her spirits lifted; perhaps a bed awaited. With one last surge of strength, she crawled across the wooden floor, delighted to see not one but three beds. None were as grand or ornate as the sleigh bed she had in her tower room in Elden. No heavy draperies hung from hooks above the headboard, nor was the bed covered by mounds and mounds of fluffy pillows in bright colors, but they were flat, clean and looked comfortable. Of course, anything would be comfortable after sleeping on the hard, cold ground for days … weeks? Her perception was off; she couldn’t grasp what was real.

What she needed was a good night’s sleep. She should leave some kind of a note for the inhabitants, but her eyes were already drooping. The combination of fear, hunger, weakness and displacement finally zapped what was left of her waning strength. She fell across the largest of the beds, too tired to even slip beneath the covers.

Too weary to even attempt dreamtime with the warrior.

It was a good thing they weren’t hunting for food because his brothers’ loud voices would have scared away any game. Osborn glanced over at Bernt. In a year, he’d be looking him in the eye. Torben wasn’t that far behind.