Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter XLVIII - Heida

"Well, I am going to kill it one day." He had said that before. "No man has slain it yet, but I will."

Heida could think of no suitable reply, but she gave his shoulder an assuring little squeeze before continuing to comb his hair.

"You won't leave us will you, Heida?" His gaze was both intent and expectant.

"Not for anything," she vowed, planting a kiss over his furrowed brow.

Little Freki, wholly oblivious to the solemn mood, toppled from the bed yet again, his contagious mirth a palliative to dole. Finding a sense of peace in watching the younger boy, she smiled, thinking that Freki was so much like Roth, before he'd lost that innocence, and Finn like Renic had been. One wild and the other introspective. Yet someday they would be as deadly as their father, and she was instantly sorry for them.

"You are getting so big, Freki," she remarked, amused by his antics despite the poignancy she felt, "I fear you will soon break that bed." Heida chuckled as he, with a running jump, threw himself back onto the mattress, giggling maniacally.

It was a sturdy frame, and the fact that she had declared he was in danger of destroying such a solid structure only delighted Freki the more. Even Finn was unable to maintain his dolor in the face of his brother's harmless glee. Good, she thought, catching sight of Finn's lightened expression, let him be a child a little longer.

When Roth walked in moments later his youngest leapt instantly into his open arms and his father, feigning a roar of surprise, fell to the floor with the mighty force of his small son's tackle.

When he sat up, finally, to watch Finn sitting quietly, and patiently, under Heida's ivory comb, Roth's smile became comical. "Are you not old enough to brush your own hair, boy?" he teased Finn, stretching his hand out to ruffle his son's hair.

Finn became therewith appalled and turned around to glower suspiciously at Heida. "I told you!" He stood directly, and moved away lest her comb descend again. He was becoming far too self-sufficient lately. She sighed.

Crooking her finger at Freki, she informed him it was his turn to sit between her legs, but the lad shot off his father's back and quickly ran from the room squealing mischievously.

"Follow your brother and make sure he doesn't climb into the pig pen again," Roth instructed Finn, shaking his shaggy, black mane as he stood from the floor.

When Finn left to do his father's bidding, Roth settled himself on the bed, lying back against the pillows to watch her, one leg bent and one arm thrown behind his head. "There you see," said he, "my hands are more than full with the progeny I have. What need have I for more."

She snorted at that and wondered if the inscrutable look he wore betokened his sincerity or his secret disappointment. If she had to hazard a guess she would have said the latter. Any man would be downhearted by a fruitless wife. They would never know what a child — half of her and half of him — would look like, and be like. That knowledge alone was all that kept her from being deliriously happy.

"When do you leave to raid?" she asked, changing the subject.

"I do not believe we will fare across the sea this year," he replied. "I do not trust that Thorgny will not leap at my back as soon as I have turned it southward. He wants putting down, that man," he growled, "and once he shows his belly, like the craven he is, I shall gut him where he lies."

At the sound of childish laughter coming from without, Heida stuck her head outside to peer into the hall and saw that Aila was chasing a muddy-looking Freki about. "Well, before you gut your father-in-law, you may want to scrub the pig ordure off your son first."