In an instant, Ran became water. Then she let her form go and seeped into the ground under her feet. A minute later, she rose out of the surface of the loch and took her human shape once more. When she reached his side, Ander nodded at him. As he considered what to do, he noticed that the priest kept poking Ran as though testing her to see if she was real.
Soren let go of his body and changed into a cloud. Whirling around them, he floated up above them. He spread out in a thin layer and then gathered again, changing to wind in a moment. Ander let out a laugh, appreciating the sight before him. As he soared around them, Soren saw something he could not have seen from the ground.
Behind a small hill and outcropping of rocks, four people stood—two men and two women. He dropped to the ground behind them and took his human shape before they turned around. His hands tingled as the lightning built within them.
“Who are you?” he called out.
His voice sounded like thunder as he spoke. Ander and Ran rushed to his side. The priest reached out to stop him from casting a bolt at them. But one man, the larger man who was clearly a warrior, changed into something else as he sensed the threat of Soren’s power. Something even larger. Something blue. If Soren’s voice was like thunder, this creature’s was an explosion and war cry in one. He prepared to charge Soren but was stopped when one of the women—one who glowed in the hot metal orange of fire—stepped in front of him and placed her hand on his arm, calling him by name.
“William, he is a friend, not a threat,” she said. The creature growled loudly and seemed to grumble as he stepped back, allowing the woman forward.
“I am Brienne of Yester,” she said. “We mean you no harm, Stormblood.” She glanced over at the creature and he changed back into the warrior. A blue haze outlined the muscular body of a trained fighter. A knight mayhap? “This is my husband, William de Brus,” she said. “Lately of Scotland.”
“Why were you hiding here?” Soren asked, lowering his hands and letting the lightning go back into his blood.
“That was my idea, Soren. I wanted them to see you and meet you. And this is Aislinn and Marcus, their priests,” Ander explained.
A woman priest? Soren’s shock must have shown, for the young woman stepped closer and said something only to him. “The Old Ones did not worry over women serving them like this new one seems to,” she said.
Soren looked at the much older man and nodded in greeting. Ander introduced Ran and Soren by their names and heard the priests whisper Waterblood and Stormblood in wonderment and awe.
“Will you return with us to our encampment so that we might speak?” Brienne asked them.
Soren remembered part of the story Ander told him about the bloodlines and their powers. He looked at each one, knowing that William must be the warblood and Aislinn and Marcus already acknowledged their priesthood. Staring at Brienne, he tried to figure out if she could be fire, the one linked to the war hammer on the drawing. The color around her remained aglow in the shades of fire.
And if she was, was she related somehow to the fireblood they’d met? The one holding Svein prisoner and doing unspeakable things to others? As though she’d read his thoughts, she held out her arm and tugged her sleeve out of the way.
Two flames, entwined, burning. “Fireblood,” Soren said.
“We have met the other one,” Ran said, stepping closer to look at the mark. “Hugh de Gifford.”
At the name, the Warblood came out once more, growling and pulling Brienne behind him. “De Gifford,” the blue berserker growled. Though Ran startled at the sight and sound, she did not move away.
“You have?” Aislinn, Marcus and Brienne asked in one voice.
“He has my father. And his ships,” Ran admitted. Ander stepped in and put up his hand.
“We should not discuss such matters on the open road. Soren, Ran, come back to the camp with us and we can discuss all manner of subjects.”
“With us?” Soren asked.
“I was led to them by dreams, Soren,” Ander admitted in a quiet voice. “I can explain.”
Although he was leery of going with these strangers, Ander’s vouching for them convinced him. Ran nodded her agreement and they waited for them to retrieve their horses.
In little time, they crossed over the last hill before reaching the shore and Soren blinked several times before believing the number of men, fighting men, and others on that beach.
Suddenly, it was not the two or three of them fighting this great evil and her minions. It was a large number of trained fighting men, priests and others involved. Soren smiled at Ran then, relieved that she might not be placed in the danger that Ingeborg warned him about.
“They might even know more than Einar,” he whispered to her, as they walked through the area, greeting people as they passed.
“At least they can tell us more,” she replied, more at ease now than she had been all day.
They joined a small group made up of, as it turned out, the leaders of this army against evil. In addition to the fireblood and warblood, there were the priests and a few other fighters—human warriors—considered as the leaders. Everyone in the camp followed their orders, but Ran was fascinated by their attitude toward the young woman priest.
It was clear to see that they favored her. As Aislinn passed, everyone greeted her. They asked her questions. They all tried to find a way to speak to her. She was held in esteem, that much was apparent to Ran as they walked through the camp.
Questions filled her mind as they gathered to speak. Even as introductions were being made, Ran tried to concentrate on them, rather than the man who remained close at her side now.
