Raging Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

sacrifice gained him this much vitality, how much more would be given to him then? He chortled and went to gather what he needed before striding to the center of his soldiers.
    Hugh ordered everyone to gather and watch as he proceeded to first sanctify the stone chosen with his own blood before placing the screaming woman there. With the eyes of hundreds on him, he carried out the ceremony slowly, savoring every scream of terror and pain and every drop of blood spilt. He relished every moment of her agony when his seed exploded into her as he became the fire that burned her to ash beneath him. Not even the incessant rain that fell could quench his flames.
    Though the rain and storms continued for three more days and into a fourth, not a question was raised about his plans. And there was never even a moment’s hesitation in following his every order.
    Power displayed was power proved. Though the delay in sailing did not make him happy, Hugh de Gifford was very pleased with the results of his display of power.

Chapter 3
    T hree days after his grandfather was buried, Soren knew he could not ignore the parchment any longer. There had been little time to examine it before, so Soren had put it out of his thoughts and had seen to the tasks needed to ready his lands for spring planting. Those who worked the fields with and for him were in preparations, and soon the fields would be plowed and sown and ready, God willing, to be fertile in the short growing season here.
    Now, though, curiosity lured him to look. His heart wanted to know what was so important to the old man that he took pains to put it in writing on an expensive piece of parchment. Einar had served the old earl in his younger years and had learned to read and write in both the Scots common language and the more formal Norse used by the earl and king. Latin was required for anyone involved with the court or the Church. Einar had insisted that his son and grandson be educated in those skills as well.
    Soren sought out some privacy in a copse of trees near his barn and opened the packet. Unfolding it, he found two larger pieces of parchment and a smaller one. None of them were actually letters, but rather he found one had a map, one had some symbols and the last, the smallest one, had some words scrawled across it. Foreign words he could not understand. Mayhap the language of the Gaels?
    Studying the map, he could identify several places noted on it. His grandfather’s favorite place—the broch—sat in the center of the map, surrounded by other markings. Several of the ancient stone circles and standing stones and tombs were there, as well as some of the cities on the island, like Orphir and Birsay. There were some places outlined in square or round shapes—the land that sat between the lakes of Stenness and Harray, the tidal island off Birsay and a beach on the north-central coast of the island. Kirkwall, now the main city and location of the earl’s palace and the cathedral of St. Magnus, was strangely omitted.
    Putting the map aside, Soren studied the other large parchment, which was covered in symbols. One, the war hammer, was familiar to him as Thor’s hammer. Many sailors and farmers carried or wore that symbol, for Thor was known to be friendly to those who worked the lands or sailed the seas. Others were easy to identify like the shape of flames, or the shape of a horse, or the sun or the tree or the moon or a flash of lightning.
    Lines connected some of the symbols but he knew not why. The fire and the hammer. The lightning and the water. The tree and the sun. The moon and the horse. Soren ran his finger over them and shivered at what he felt there. This was not just a parchment; this was a talisman, filled with some power he could feel but could not explain.
    The symbols were arranged in a circle, too, outlined in shapes that resembled the stones near Stenness and Brodgar’s Ring. And in the center of that sketch, a black circle,