Page 8 of The Speed of Lightning
The boys released one another and sealed their truce with a solemn handsál.?4 “Much better,” Freya affirmed. “Now, can someone name the last four?”
The MacLean boy nodded, triumphant. “Sea.”
Freya giggled and pointed to Arne, the little red-haired boy who lived beside her father’s longhouse. “Arne, perhaps you can name another member of the Shield. There are three left.”
Arne ducked behind a table, then popped his head out. “Shadow—the great trickster.”
“Charger!” shouted a freckled lad, slapping his thighs to mimic hoofbeats. “He’s the newest member. Irish, like my granny.”
Quivering hands shot higher, waving frantically.
“One left,” Freya mused, tapping a finger against her chin as though she were lost in thought. “Who knows it?” She stopped before a shy girl. “Do you?”
The girl blushed and nodded. Freya waited, but the whisper was so faint it barely carried.
Arne groaned. “Speak up, ninny-niaw!”
Rolling her eyes, Freya dropped to her knees, her cloak pooling around them both. “Kindness, children. Remember—or the Storyteller will go away.”
Arne clamped his mouth shut, pantomiming a pin through his lips.
“That’s better. Now, would you like to whisper it in my ear?”
The girl nodded, enfolding her hands like tiny paws around Freya’s ear. “The Lion,” she breathed.
Freya smiled. “Ah, well done! My young MacLean friend has named the courageous Lion.”
The room erupted in applause, but one insistent hand at the back kept waving. Anticipation bubbled in Freya’s chest. “One hand remains. What say you?”
A gingery girl flapped her arms like wings. “The Bird. We’ve forgotten the Bird.”
Cheers filled the longhouse, the children sensing the tales were drawing toward their stirring conclusion.
“He’s the best one,” Arne gasped. “He can turn and do tricks, fly through the air—and the way he scaled Staffa with the Lion. Och!”
“That’s right,” Freya intoned, moving to each candle, cupping a tallow rush light in her hand before blowing it out. “We first heard of the Bird in the Tale of the Imprisoned Lion, when the brave Bird healed the Lion and sailed across the Hebrides in search of the Beithir.”
She circled the longhouse, reached a taper, and snuffed it. “Then came the Night of the Flaming Arrow, when Lightning dared to ignite the Wolf’s trebuchet and fled into the darkness faster than?—”
“Lightning!” a boy cried, bouncing so hard he nearly toppled.
For an instant, Calum’s face flickered in her mind, smooth and smiling, as she moved to the next candle.
“Dinnae forget about Shadow’s Trick,” Arne called.
She snapped her fingers beside her head. “Och, how could I forget the shifting Shadow?” She grinned, blowing out another taper. When the children settled again, she went on. “And last week, we heard the Tale of the Bird That Flew, when the magnificent creature swooped into Staffa and pillaged the Boar and the Wolf, stealing their war gold.”
A small boy held a whittled bìrlinn, sailing it on unseen waves. “And Sea carried the Shield to safety!”
Freya passed to the last candle. “This evening I bring you the final tale of the Bird. You will remember the glorious Eagle has been stalking the Boar and the Wolf as the evildoers wreak havoc on the MacKinnon clan. Can anyone guess what will happen?”
Hands shot up, and she pointed to the child nearest her. The lass peered up, brows knitting. “What happened to your cheek, Storyteller? You have a terrible bruise.”
At once the room shifted. Expectancy drained, every gaze fixed on the tender mark upon Freya’s face. A few parentsexchanged disapproving shakes of the head, and Fraser began to rise. “Odin’s nightgown! Is that why you’ve kept your hood up?”
Quickly, Freya snuffed the final flame, plunging the room into darkness but for the central fire. “I walked into a branch on my way here. Swung back and clipped my cheek. Think nothing of it…”
She skipped lightly between the children, twirling her cloak, weaving motion into her words as if nothing had happened. “For now the tale is on its way—the conclusion, the final battle…” Rocking on her feet, she dipped left and right, coaxing the story into being.
