An avalanche of rocks fell. She gave thanks that some of Nauma’s forces were dumb enough to try and come up the opposite side of the hill.
She truly wished all of them would.
The fighting raged on all day. Nauma’s army had no end of fresh fighters.
Gefjun and several of the wounded worked as nurses. Dyrfinna found her directing her nurses while trying to fix the worst cases. Her friend’s face had aged with weariness, but she pressed on.
Dyrfinna stopped a moment to put her hands on Gefjun’s shoulders and give her a little extra strength while she sang healing magic over a good friend of theirs who was losing too much blood. Dyrfinna had little to give, but Gefjun didn’t have much either. And their friend still died.
Any other time they would have wept together. Here in the crush of war, Gefjun just swore loudly. Then she shook her head, gently closed the dead woman’s eyes with a bloody hand, and went to work on the next patient. There was no time to grieve. No energy for grieving. Everything they had was for survival.
The sun finally, mercifully, set. Night came on. The sky darkened until the enemy, unable to see, pulled back from the wall, and so did Dyrfinna’s forces. Soldiers lit cook fires and cooked what food they had. Some just ate cold fish from their backpacks and fell asleep on the ground right where they sat.
Dyrfinna met the old captain, who limped toward her.
“We held them off,” Hakr said. “Well done, commander.”
“We’ve lost thirteen fighters,” she said quietly. “Thirteen out of about a hundred Vikings. And thirty fighters are too badly wounded to fight tomorrow.”
“A loss of almost half of our force,” he said.
“Has anybody seen a sign of our fleet?” she asked.
Nobody had seen anything. Not that she could spare a soul for a look out. At the same time, she realized that if the queen’s fleet had come sailing around a corner and saw the wild battle raging on the hill, they would have joined the fray.
Dyrfinna was too weary to manage any anger at them for not showing up.
They were on their own.
She found Gefjun sleeping in Ostryg’s arms, and he too slept. Several of the wounded men tended the wounded, dragging more wounded over, washing them with water from the little spring.
“My leg hurts like hell,” said a woman smoking a pipe. Her left leg looked as if it were shredded. That leg would have to come off somehow, otherwise the infection would kill her. But they had no surgeon. Just men and women with axes. And very few Vikings survived amputations, especially out in the field with limited medical help.
What were they going to do?
Gefjun jerked awake. “Oh, these dreams,” she whispered. Ostryg stirred but stayed asleep.
Dyrfinna lay down next to Gefjun and wrapped herself in her sea cloak, which she still hadn’t taken off. Soaked in blood and still wet, it slapped her leg, but she was too tired to remove it.
She lay a hand on Gefjun’s arm. “Try and rest.”
Gefjun pulled her arm away and turned over, her eyes narrowed. “Are you going to help me by singing?”
Dyrfinna was taken aback.
“I know you can sing,” she snapped. “Just because … just because that happened with Leikny doesn’t mean you can’t.”
Dyrfinna grew cold all over. “Don’t make me do it. I can’t.”
“Liar.” Gefjun pushed herself on her shoulder. Her eyes filled with tears. “There’s no way I can save them all alone. You have the power. You can help me. If you need your fighters to stay alive, you’d help me!”
Dyrfinna looked at her lifelong friend for a moment, fighting against a web of confusing emotions that she didn’t dare name. Slowly, unable to even understand what she was saying, she opened her mouth. “If I did, I’d kill them.”
Gefjun just glared at her, tears streaming down her face.
“Don’t make me do this,” Dyrfinna pleaded. “I don’t know … I don’t know what would come out of me if I sang. I am not. I am not going to … do that again. Ever.”
Gefjun gave a little shake of her head. But her sharpness was gone. She patted Dyrfinna’s arm in a patronizing way, and lay down her head, and was instantly asleep.
Dyrfinna was such a tangle of emotions that she doubted she’d ever fall asleep.
But as soon as she shut her eyes, she was out.
No sooner had Dyrfinna shut her eyes but she opened them.
And Skuld stood over her.
A dark-blue cloak billowed around Skuld in the breeze, her white armor glowing. Her sword’s blade, held aloft, shone in the eternal moonlight. Her back faced Dyrfinna.
Skuld was one of the Nords, the fates who cut and wove the threads of life. But sometimes Skuld could unweave fate. Sometimes Skuld could cut threads that were not supposed to be cut. Sometimes Skuld went against what her sister fates had ordained.
And Skuld was one of the Valkyries who chose which warriors died.
Dyrfinna was too exhausted to speak to her as she deserved.
Groggy, she said, “Could you not choose so many of my people in the fighting? Choose more of Nauma’s fighters. She has plenty, but we have so few, and we need to stay alive.”
Skuld turned now, and gazed at her. Those black, uncanny eyes that saw the birth of the world scrutinized her deeply.
Dyrfinna stopped and bowed her head.
I understand why you’re here, she nearly said, but Dyrfinna caught herself before she could say it out loud. You had to be extremely careful when you talked to the gods. You never knew which intentions they’d pick up on, which ones they’d choose to follow.
Those infinite eyes burned holes into Dyrfinna.
“Spare my people,” she pleaded, head still bowed. “Nauma’s army calls itself … I won’t go into that.” Because saying that they were the child-killers might make the name take on a worse reality. “I have a little sister, and I love her much. I can’t let those people, any of those people, come to Skala.”
Then Dyrfinna met those immortal eyes, though a terrifying fear gripped her when her mortal eyes met them.
She croaked, through a dry throat, “Please. Help me to stop them—keep them from hurting others. Ever.”
Skuld didn’t speak.
Dyrfinna suddenly fell. She grabbed at thin air to stop her fall—
And she jerked awake on the ground, surrounded by her snoring men and women of the fight, the sobs of the injured, and a thin scream from the piles of the dying stacked up along the wall.
“We Can Decide This Now.”
To some extent, Dyrfinna had told Gefjun the truth about her singing. But on the other hand, she had been humming to herself. Something quiet. Something that nobody needed to know about.
Not a lot of people could do song magic—song magic, done correctly, was a rare ability. Highborn people were highly trained in it. But it was more of a gift of nature. Many people had learned rudimentary songs to help them in various tasks, but these songs were only as good as their sense of pitch or rhythm. Sometimes, very rarely, there were singers who could both sing well and call up powerful magic through their music. Those singers could set the world on fire. Those people often got killed, stabbed in the back, and met a bad end.
Dyrfinna hummed a lot during the battle. Very quietly, so nobody could hear, because a lot of fighters would run up to her singing song magic with varying degrees of success. Somebody could attack her while singing, and Dyrfinna would shake her head and throw out a note that made such a terrible discord that his song just stopped and he couldn’t recover. Then Dyrfinna hummed a little thing that only she could hear and finished him off.
She had to fight back against that magic somehow.
Dyrfinna had found that humming, though less powerful than singing outright, was more steadying than singing aloud. If they didn’t know what she was singing, or even if they didn’t know she was singing at all, then they couldn’t throw her off with a discordant note.
It was sneaky, but
effective. That’s why Dyrfinna used it.
Dawn came too early, too soon. Dyrfinna had dragged herself awake before first light and was seeing to the lines. She walked from place to place, making sure her fighters were getting set up and that every point of attack for Nauma’s army was defended. She had no more fighters in reserve. Many of the men and women who sat on the front lines had makeshift bandages made from Gefjun’s clothes wrapped tightly around their hands and arms. Only the gravely wounded remained on the back lines.
Gefjun, who was also already awake, was seeing to the wounded. One of the men, his head and arm wrapped in bandages, cooked a fast breakfast over a fire for the rest of the fighters. He gave her a fish and a little bit of pan bread. A hot breakfast. “Thank you,” Dyrfinna said, devouring it. She’d barely eaten since yesterday morning.
A shout came up from Nauma’s army. Dyrfinna went to the front of the lines to see what had happened. Nauma stood out of the range of the archers with her henchman and a group of her soldiers.
“We can decide this now, once and for all,” she called when Dyrfinna appeared. “Come down and fight me in single combat. We can settle this battle right now!”
“Single combat?” Dyrfinna said, sword in hand. “Where were you yesterday? I would have fought you yesterday if you’d been in the battle in the first place.”
Dyrfinna knew she looked exhausted and bloody. Nauma was fresh and looked just fine with only a little spatter of blood across her kirtle, very pretty-like.
Nauma’s forces cheered. Dyrfinna wanted to shake her head, but abstained and looked back at her friends—at Skeggi, Hakr, Gefjun, and Ostryg, standing next to her behind the rock fortifications.
“I should do it,” Dyrfinna said at once.
“If you lose, we all die,” Ostryg said.
Dyrfinna glanced back to her opponent. Nauma watched her hungrily, leering.
She immediately turned away, shaking her head, exhaustion seeping into every bone. “If I don’t fight, we’re dead anyway. I have to do this.” She wiped the sweat from her brow. “I have to. Give me some strength, guys. Maybe not so much you, Gefjun. You need your strength for your patients.”
Gefjun huffed loudly and put her hand on Dyrfinna’s at once. “Hands in,” she told Ostryg and Skeggi, though Skeggi already had his on Dyrfinna’s arm.
The old captain, Hakr, came over and placed his hand on her shoulder—carefully, as her arm wound seeped red through its bandage. “Take what strength you need from me, too.”
“And me.” Ragnarok joined the group and lay his hand on her other arm. Gefjun gave him a grateful smile.
“Sing quietly.” Dyrfinna unwound a bandage on her hand and tightened it. “I don’t want them throwing any stray notes in on you.”
“Quietly,” she added as they put their hands together. “Make it look like we are conferring.”
But the fighters in Nauma’s army, seeming to understand what was happening, started singing. All of them singing different songs, or notes, and Dyrfinna felt the magical intent working on them.
Their songs, those with power, pulled the air askew. Dyrfinna kept having to catch her breath as the song magic pulled the air from her mouth.
Gefjun met Dyrfinna’s eyes. “Please. You sing, too. Help me.”
Dyrfinna took a deep breath and exhaled. “I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t,” Gefjun snapped.
“I won’t,” Dyrfinna said, so Gefjun could hold to that angry energy. “Just … sing to me. Look in my eyes, and sing to me.”
Gefjun narrowed her eyes at Dyrfinna, like a cat. But then she softened. “I wish .… ”
“No,” Dyrfinna said. “Not now. Just sing me strength.” Her last word was cut off as another errant note from Nauma’s army snatched the breath out of her mouth.
Ostryg hummed a note. Skeggi and Hakr joined in, making a musical bulwark against the army behind them. Ragnarok, who did not sing, gently squeezed her arm.
Gefjun quietly sang, meeting Dyrfinna’s eyes the whole time. The razzing and jeering from the Viking army grew louder, and little bits of notes came in to trip up Gefjun’s music.
But under the hubbub, where nobody could hear, Dyrfinna was humming with Gefjun’s music, building it stronger. The whole time they gazed in each other’s eyes, supporting each other.
Gefjun made it to the end of her song.
Under her breath, Dyrfinna hummed a note that nobody else could hear, one that vibrated softly in her throat, pulling a little more power from everybody.
“Thank you,” Dyrfinna said.
“Whoo,” said Ostryg, shaking his head. “I didn’t think Gefjun’s song was that strong.”
Gefjun opened her mouth to reply … and promptly collapsed.
“Honey!” Ostryg cried, stooping at her side.
Dyrfinna whirled on Nauma’s army. “You cretins!” she shouted. “You made her song go wrong!”
They jeered and laughed.
Dyrfinna turned back to Gefjun as she blinked, confused, and tried to sit up.
“What … what do you mean, the song went wrong?” she asked. “I did everything right.”
Dyrfinna knelt at her side and brushed her hair away from her forehead. “They don’t need to know that. They need to think I’m weak. I love you. Thank you.”
They kissed, and she hugged Skeggi and Hakr. Ostryg was too busy seeing to his Gefjun.
“Wait for me,” Gefjun said, trying to get up. Dyrfinna waited until Ostryg helped her to her feet. She leaned on him. Together, they stepped to the wall.
“I’ll fight you,” Dyrfinna called down to Nauma, and from that distance, she and Nauma hammered out the terms.
Once they’d settled on terms, Nauma called her army back and had them sit down. Dyrfinna’s army sat up on the rocks above to watch the fun.
Dyrfinna, who was just about to go out, turned back to her army. “You know, while everybody else is sitting down watching the fight .… ” Dyrfinna looked to the left and the right, and then turned to her resident thieves. “If any of you want to take it upon yourselves to sneak out and get supplies by raiding Nauma’s ships, I’d be okay with that. Just don’t get caught.”
Their lead thief bowed her head. “Anything you say.”
Then she broke into a wide grin and nodded to her friends. They went to the other end of the enclosure and prepared to sneak out once the battle was underway.
“Archers,” she said quietly. “Take your positions. If Nauma’s army goes back on their word, I need you to take out as many of the leaders as you can.”
“Understood,” said the head archer, and they stole away to their positions.
Dyrfinna cleaned her sword and drank some water. Even with the gift of energy from her friends, her head swam and her body ached all over.
Then she swung her shield up on her back and came down the hill. Hakr, Skeggi, and Ragnarok followed.
Nauma’s warriors sat on the ground as they were bade, leaving a large ring around the place where Nauma stood, leaning on her sword and leering all the while.
Neither of them spoke. Hakr checked her battle armor and secured it, and Dyrfinna retied the cloth around her palms to protect her blistered hands.
The field of battle was small, but level and covered with grass, which at least would be good for fighting.
Dyrfinna poured a libation to Thor and Odin and Freyja. Nauma did too.
Dyrfinna rolled her neck and shoulders, and stretched her weary arms and legs. They call themselves the Child-Killers, she thought. It was entirely possible that these so-called child killers would go back on their word and attack her while she was separated from her army. She thought of her archers and prayed their aim would be true.
And of course, if Nauma’s army did go back upon their word, Dyrfinna was ready to run as many fighters through as she could.
Dyrfinna drew her sword and nodded to Hakr.
Hakr looked at Nauma, who sneered and pulled her sword. She swung it in a slow circ
le, then tightened her hand on her shield.
Dyrfinna had her shield at the ready and her sword in guard position, tensed like a spring. She had no time or energy for fancy tricks. All she wanted, all she could think of, was doing everything possible to stop these so-called child-killers in their tracks. They were not going to get anywhere near Skala. They were not going to get anywhere near Aesa.
Hakr cried, “Begin!” and stepped back.
Dyrfinna waited, tense, for Nauma to make the first move. The moment stretched longer and longer while she breathed slowly.
With an impatient lift of her head, Nauma stepped to the left, boldly looking Dyrfinna over as if she were a piece of wood and Nauma needed to decide the best place to start hewing. Dyrfinna turned, always keeping her feet under her at the ready.
Nauma stepped in and swung the sword high, leaving her side wide open. Dyrfinna’s sword sprang out and struck Nauma on her exposed arm, following the strike with a quick step forward to slam her shield against Nauma’s, throwing her back a step.
Nauma shrieked, slicing at Dyrfinna with her sword, but Dyrfinna parried. Dyrfinna struck her again with her shield and swung her sword, moving swiftly as she bullied Nauma back. Shields thudded, the metal bosses in the center ringing. The swords grated, metal against metal.
Nauma’s shield had a sharp boss on it, which she tried to shove though Dyrfinna’s defenses. Dyrfinna ground her teeth. Every time Nauma tried that little maneuver, Dyrfinna stabbed her sword past her shield. The chain metal turned aside each of Dyrfinna’s hits, but Nauma would pull back, sullen and furious.
The swords swung hard, clashing.
Then Nauma got a hit in on Dyrfinna’s wounded shoulder. It burned and screamed with pain as she yanked back with a gasp, but the chain mail blocked the blade.
At once Nauma’s forces exploded with cheers, and Nauma laughed with glee.
“Did that hurt?” she sneered. “Poor baby, are you going to cry to mama?”
Dyrfinna’s eyes narrowed. “My sister can taunt better than you.”
“Oh?” Nauma said. “How old is your sister? Where does she live?”
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