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Though she was now married and pregnant with her warrior wife’s child, Zelda still thought of Calain every day. Sometimes she thought she could still feel Calain’s heartbeat, but how was that possible if Calain were dead? Perhaps it was the madness of grief. The images Revna had shown her had seemed so real, too real to be a lie, and Revna was a kind old woman who looked after her always. She did not believe the old woman capable of such deceit.
But Zelda still missed Calain regardless. Sometimes she fell to sitting and staring for long hours, dreaming of those nights when Calain had held her so close and made love to her. She missed Calain’s laugh and the way her green eyes had fired with lust anytime they caught a hint of Zelda’s cleavage, the shape of her backside through her gown as she was bending. . . She missed the way Calain had always smelled like grass, leather, steel, and wine. She missed the way Calain used to hold her so tightly as they were sleeping. She missed Calain’s sloppy, sleepy kisses in her hair.
And she missed the others, too. Selene’s gentle hand on her back as they slept . . . The way Cassandra’s pale eyes had looked upon her the night she rode before Calain in the saddle, so serious and yet burning with lust . . . She even missed Gweneth’s teasing and felt silly for becoming so angry. But she had to admit, at least here, with the Black Bear Clan, she was not treated like a delicate little flower who could not defend herself. No one here scrambled to protect her. She was expected to protect herself!
Once they were wed, Yrsa had set about teaching Zelda to shoot a bow and to fight with a blade, things she would have learned as a child had she grown up with the Black Bear Clan. Zelda was clumsy and hopeless with a blade, especially since she had no muscles and the blade was too heavy, but she was pleased to discover she was very good with a bow! Unable to use her magick because of the giant crystals throughout the village, she was glad to have some way to defend herself and went about with a quiver of arrows always upon her back and a bow in her hand.
One day, Zelda looked at her reflection in the washbasin and didn’t recognize herself. She had fully transitioned into a barbarian, swathed in fur garments, covered in mud, her golden curls wild and uncombed and slowly becoming matted. She had spent so much time with the hearth wives, braiding hair and chatting happily, that her hair was now loaded down with beads and feathers and flower petals. She looked truly wild. And the wilder she looked, the more Yrsa seemed to want her.
One night after supper, Zelda bent to toss another log on the fire and screamed softly in surprise when Yrsa pushed her fur dress up over her backside and proceeded to lick and taste her sex until she was gushing and her thighs trembling. Yrsa buried her face in Zelda’s sex and grunted, eating away at her like a ravenous hog, until Zelda could not hold back her screams of helpless ecstasy.
And Yrsa wanted it all the time. Her lust was insatiable. In the morning. In the afternoon. In the middle of the night. She never hesitated. Whatever Zelda was doing, Yrsa simply barged up to her, threw her over her shoulder, and stomped off with her, as the hearth wives and the warriors laughed and cheered.
Zelda blushed whenever Yrsa publicly grabbed her and carried her away, but she liked it. She liked how big and strong and aggressive Yrsa was, grabbing her by the waist and the hips and flipping her easily around in bed, kissing and licking and tasting and groping with an abandon that often left Zelda panting and blushing, breasts heaving as she lay in the tousled mess of her hair and the tattered remains of her clothes.
And Yrsa’s muscly hands were so hard and strong, Zelda could always feel the woman’s touch long after she had gone. The press of her fingers on Zelda’s breasts was ever-lingering from her groping.
Hunting wasn’t all Yrsa did during the day. Because she was queen of the Black Bear Clan, she often held court in the great hut at the center of the village. There, her throne sat on a dais, covered in black bear fur and guarded by two dour-faced warrior women. And she would sit there all day, settling disputes and complaints, granting requests, listening to grievances.
Once she had married Yrsa, Zelda took to joining her wife in the throne room. There was only one throne, and so, she often wound up sitting on Yrsa’s knee or kneeling at her boot as Yrsa absently stroked her hair. The supplicants were always speaking in the quick, grunting language of the Black Bear Clan, but Zelda had learned a few words over the weeks and soon found herself interrupting to make suggestions. She begged for mercy for a pair of Black Wolf women who had been captured and who Yrsa had planned to execute; she helped settle a dispute between two wives who wanted a divorce; and she helped an old woman get retribution who had been robbed by one of the younger women. Before long, the people of the village looked to Zelda for guidance as much as they looked to Yrsa. It had been three weeks now.
By the end of the third week, Zelda’s pregnancy was showing. She couldn’t believe it! She lifted up her shirt and showed Yrsa, who seemed very proud of the fact.
Yrsa placed a large hand on Zelda’s round belly, fingers spread, and said with pride and joy, “My daughter kicks inside you! Feel how strong her tiny fists? The claws of a bear! She is the reason you have become so Wilde, wife of my heart!”
Yrsa was sitting on the bed as she spoke, rubbing Zelda’s belly. Zelda was standing over her at the side of the bed. She smiled down at Yrsa as the warrior woman leaned closed and kissed her big belly.
“But how is it possible?” Zelda asked helplessly. “We were only married less than two weeks ago!”
“The pregnancy magick,” said Yrsa. “Faster than normal pregnancies. Zelda will be bear me many strong daughters, and my brood will swarm this forest, and we take it at last from those black dogs.”
Zelda knew Yrsa was speaking of the Black Wolf Clan. She did not pretend to understand why Yrsa and her clan hated them so, though she wished all the Wilde Women would at least compromise and try to be friendly. What was the point fighting each other? The violence seemed so senseless.
Yrsa would not allow Zelda to sit on the floor while large with child, and so, the next day as she sat on her throne, Yrsa had Zelda perch on her knee. She absently stroked Zelda’s long golden hair as one of the warrior women came in and announced that they had a visitor.
Many warriors and hearth wives stood and knelt along the walls in the great room and began to murmurer and whisper amongst themselves. As the murmuring rose, Revna, who was standing with calm dignity at the foot of the dais, went still and glanced quickly up at Zelda. Zelda went still as well, staring down into the old woman’s frightened eyes. What have you done, old woman? she thought. Revna lifted her chin and looked away.
“A visitor?” said Yrsa roughly when the messenger had finished speaking. “We do not allow visitors! Why have you not bring her in chains?” She was speaking (broken) common tongue for Zelda’s benefit.
The messenger shook her head and said helplessly in the tongue of the Black Bear Clan, “We could not tame this one to chain her! She should have been a Wilde Woman! She nearly killed us all when we approached! Many have already fallen to her blade—!”
Yrsa was outraged. “What?! You could not overpower a single woman?” she bellowed in her tongue.
“She is not like other women! She is stronger than us, faster! She has called a truce,” said the messenger desperately. “We give her your woman, and she doesn’t . . . slay us all.” She lowered her voice and added, “I believe she could, bear queen. Save face and let this one go.” She glanced at Zelda.
Yrsa’s lips tightened and she placed a resolute arm around Zelda that felt like an iron wall when it enclosed her. “Never! Send this trespasser in, and I will slay her, here, in my throne room, and drink wine from her skull!”
Yrsa spoke in her own tongue again, but Zelda had understood most of what had been said and gasped in horror. “You can’t fight this stranger for me!” Zelda begged, placing a small hand on Yrsa’s big arm, but her pleas went ignored. Yrsa simply stroked Zelda’s hair and did not answer her. Her dark green eyes were fixed with determination on the distant curtain of the hut.
A moment later, and the stranger entered the throne room to a fresh round of murmuring and whispering. Revna tightened at the sight of her.
Zelda felt her heart stop: it was Calain! Calain approached the throne at a hard march, covered in the blood of her foes, jingling in her silver Falcon armor, fury and determination etched upon her face, her red hair wild as she carried her helm under her arm. In her hand was Zelda’s stave, which she threw down at the foot of the throne. Her eyes blazed an accusation when she glanced at Zelda, who felt her heart skip in anguish and shame. What must she look like to Calain, sitting there pregnant on the knee of another woman? But suddenly, Zelda didn’t care. Calain was alive! Before Yrsa could stop her, she pushed herself up from her lap and ran as fast as she could to Calain, who caught her in her arms as she crushed against her.
“Calain! Oh, Calain! They told me you were dead!” Zelda sobbed, showering Calain’s startled face in frantic kisses. “But you’re alive! Oh, Calain!”
Zelda’s heart leapt happily when Calain let out a hearty chuckle and hugged her tight. “My lady!” she whispered into Zelda’s hair. She pulled back and looked down at Zelda with soft eyes. “But what have they done to you? You’re pregnant!” Her angry eyes went past Zelda to Yrsa. “And with the child of this . . . creature.”
Yrsa’s dark green eyes narrowed in a glare.
Zelda guiltily turned and looked up at Yrsa, who looked both furious and hurt by Zelda’s open display of affection for Calain. The bear queen sat on her throne, very still, the hilt of her great two-handed sword held fast in one hand as she stabbed it with a meaty fist into the wooden dais.
“Yrsa didn’t do anything to me,” Zelda confessed. “I wanted to marry her.” She placed a hand on her big belly and said, “I chose this.”
Yrsa seemed pleased by that. She smiled into Zelda’s eyes, and heart fluttering, Zelda smiled back. Then Yrsa looked at Calain in triumph.
“Did you hear her, bird knight?” called Yrsa from her throne, her deep voice booming around the silent room as everyone tensely watched. “Zelda wanted me. Zelda chose me. Zelda mine.”
“No,” Zelda said, startling Yrsa, who looked down at her sadly. Tears starting to her eyes, Zelda went on with a deep breath, “I only ch-chose you because – because Revna lied to me! She told me my love was dead!” She took Calain’s arm and stepped close to her. “And in despair, I wed you, Yrsa.”
More murmuring and soft cries of disapproval from the crowd in the throne room.
Zelda glared at Revna. “You lying old witch!”
Revna was holding her wooden staff with the crystal and feathers on the end. She was a tiny woman but stood very straight and proud, draped in black bear furs, with raven feathers in her mass of gray hair. She regarded Zelda coolly, turning her head so that her bear fang earrings swung as she said in common tongue, “I only did what I thought best. Yrsa is like a daughter to me. She loved you desperately. I wanted her to be happy, so I told you whatever you needed to hear so you would stay here, and I was right: I have never seen her so happy, so fierce and so strong, as she has been since you have taken to her bed. Your love gave her strength! And you were very happy as well, do not deny it!”
Calain didn’t like that. Zelda felt her tense furiously.
“Enough,” said Yrsa, waving a hand to silence the old woman. She looked down at Zelda and her eyes were still hurt, though she was trying very hard to look cold and indifferent, Zelda could tell. “Will you stay with Yrsa or no?”
Feeling wretched, Zelda squeezed her hold on Calain’s arm and said, “I wish to leave with Calain. She is Bound to me, and I love her.”
More murmuring and the crowd in the throne room shook their heads darkly at Zelda in anger and disgust. Many of them seemed to feel betrayed that she had chosen Calain, but Yrsa did not look angry at all. Instead, she said with a deep breath and a wave of her hand, “Then so be it. Zelda leave with . . . (her lip curled) Calain, the bird knight.”
Zelda’s heart leapt happily and she looked up at Calain, who was still staring bitterly at Yrsa, as if she wished nothing more than to slice her head off. But after glancing around the room, Calain looked down at Zelda and said softly, “Are you certain you would come with me, my lady?”
Zelda looked up at Calain in amazement. “What do you mean?”
Calain glanced around the throne room sadly, at the happy mothers carrying infants, at the wild and strong warrior women who watched them. “You look happy and well here,” she admitted grudgingly. “I came here knowing the bear queen had you and ready to slay her to defend your honor! But now that I look upon her, now that I see she cares for your happiness . . . Zelda, maybe you were safer and happier staying here. The bear queen is strong and can protect you. She can . . .” Calain glanced down at Zelda’s big belly, “give you children . . . She can give you a life that I cannot.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Zelda cried, wide-eyed.
Calain touched Zelda’s face. “With me, you would always be running, always in danger, always hungry and tired and aching from the saddle. That is no life for you. You deserve to have a home. You deserve to be happy. I want that for you!”
Zelda’s heart melted to see the earnest in Calain’s eyes. Then she looked at Yrsa, who was watching her in sympathy, and loved her as well. She stood there, torn between the two of them, and wondering what she had done to be loved so tenderly and so greatly by these strong, warrior women.
Zelda looked up at Calain and touched her face. “Calain,” she said, shaking her head, “tis you I love.”
Calain’s eyes softened again, and she took Zelda’s hand and kissed it.
“Then leave here,” boomed Yrsa, trying not to look hurt. She stared past them instead. “Leave immediately and never return.”
Zelda miserably dropped her eyes. She had not wanted to end things with Yrsa so coldly.
The messenger, the warrior woman who had announced Calain’s coming, stepped near the throne, frowning as she said in the language of the Black Bear Clan, “My queen, you cannot allow your woman to simply leave from here. And with your child? Outrageous!”
Yrsa looked down at the messenger. “What is the meaning of this, Hilgard?” she boomed.
The messenger, the apparent Hilgard, shook her dirty-blonde head, the wild hair cascading with beads and bones. “Your woman has dishonored you by running to a stranger’s arms and kissing her before all your subjects! You would look weak if you let her simply walk from here!”
More murmuring from the crowds and several women nodded sternly in agreement.
Zelda felt the fear swelling inside her. The messenger was right, of course: if Yrsa allowed Zelda to leave without a fight, she would forfeit her place as queen, she would lose the respect of her people. But if Yrsa fought, she might lose to Calain . . . She might die.
Zelda stepped forward. “Yrsa,” she said sadly and peered up at the throne, “I . . . I never meant to cause you trouble.”
Yrsa looked down at her with soft eyes echoing sadness. “Yrsa know,” she said quietly. “It not Zelda fault. Zelda didn’t make Yrsa love her.” She lifted her face and looked past Zelda, cold and stern once more. “Yrsa challenges the bird night in a fight to death. The winner shall have Zelda. Does the bird knight accept?”
“Calain, no!” Zelda begged desperately.
“And what else shall I do? Leave here without you?” said Calain in amazement. “Tis madness that you ever married her!” She looked up at Yrsa and said loudly enough that her voice rang around the room, “I accept your challenge, bear queen! May the best warrior win!”