The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  His hair fell over his brow, and he flinched, thinking a spider skittered across his face. He was unaccustomed to the caress of unkempt hair. He ran cold hands over the short, curling strands, seeking to dislodge his unsettled thoughts and displace anything that had nested while he slept. Weary, he rose to his feet, his limbs stiff and his hands cold. He leaned into the tree, waiting for his body to warm and his senses to waken. His arm stung, and he held it out to the moonlight, studying the welts seared into his skin a few inches above his wrist.

  In one rune, two lines met and knotted, only to separate and continue on, forming a cross. The other rune was a cluster of angry lines and interwoven symbols, partially surrounded by a snake consuming its own tail. The Highest Keeper had marked him, finding him in his sleep and carving the rune into his skin.

  There is no daughter without the son.

  The moon shifted, a horse whinnied, and the soft tread of moving feet murmured through the trees. Bayr froze. As he waited, eyes trained toward the approaching sound, one man morphed into another and another, a battalion of shadows traipsing through the Temple Wood. One passed so close to the tree Bayr was pressed against, a gusty exhale would have stirred the man’s tangled hair. The bones in his ears and dangling from his clothes clicked softly, obscuring Bayr’s thundering heartbeat. Northmen. Dozens of them, moving toward the mount under the cover of darkness. Walking among them were a handful of warriors from Berne, some of whom Bayr recognized, their braids tight and long, setting them apart from the raiders of the Northlands.

  Bayr waited until the last man disappeared and the forest exhaled, the night sounds resuming as the danger departed. Then he fell into step behind them.

  30

  The Northmen stopped just behind the edge of the Temple Wood at the east side of the King’s Village, where the cluster of cottages ended and the forest began. Dawn broke as they rested and took turns keeping watch. Bayr could not get close enough to determine exact numbers, but it had to be over a hundred. A hundred warriors armed with axe and shield, guided to the mount by Bernian warriors. Gudrun and his men, already within the walls, would make fifty more.

  The mount was overflowing with the old and the young from every clan. Most were not warriors. Most would not know how to wield a sword. One hundred and fifty hardened Northmen would be enough to hew them all down. But the clan chieftains and many of their warriors—at least as many as the Northmen—would still be within the temple walls. To attack the mount when Saylok’s warriors were all assembled made little sense on the surface. Yet an army of Northmen stood just beyond the tree line, studying the mount from the Temple Wood.

  As the bells marked the noon hour, the villagers left their homes and climbed the hill for the final day of the tournament. The gates were wide open and welcoming. Banners fluttered from the wall, and even across the distance, Bayr heard the peal of the trumpets indicating the commencement of the melee. A feast would follow, and the villagers wouldn’t return until after dark. Everyone all in one place, drunk on wine and merriment, lulled by the engagement of their princess, convinced that war had been avoided.

  The rune on his arm began to throb.

  Bayr crept along the edges of their encampment. The Northmen were waiting for something. They didn’t climb the hill or send sentries or scouts up the mount. No fires were burned, no laughter heard, no chatter exchanged. They waited, speaking in low-pitched tones when they spoke at all, and they watched, sharpening their weapons and sleeping in shifts. They awaited King Gudrun, he had little doubt, but whether they were simply protection or they planned an assault, he couldn’t be sure. He needed to warn the mount and alert his men.

  He’d left them all behind.

  He’d left Alba behind.

  He’d stumbled from the mount in a horrified stupor, disemboweled and dismembered, a dead man walking.

  He could cut back through the forest and climb the mount from the south side, but that would force him to abandon his watch. He feared the Northmen would storm the front while he was scaling the back. There were too many to defeat by himself—Bayr was strong, not indestructible—but if they swarmed the gates with him still behind them, he could make a wide swath from the rear, shaving their numbers and slowing their attack.

  The afternoon deepened, and the bells began to ring once more, sonorous and slow and completely unexpected. Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. They didn’t mark the hour or sound an alarm. The melee was long over, and the final feast well underway. Yet the bells continued to reverberate. Bayr frowned at the clangor, reminded of the terrible tolling the day Queen Alannah died.

  And then he knew.

  The bells were being rung not for a funeral but for a wedding.

  As if they’d been waiting for their cue, the Northmen began to enter the village in small groups, moving past animal enclosures and slipping inside empty huts. If anyone remained inside, Bayr had no doubt they were quickly dispensed with. The army in the Temple Wood grew more and more sparse as the Northmen moved into place, until Bayr was the only one who remained.

  Then the trumpets began to sound, playing the taps of a royal procession, and Bayr began to run.

  The flowers from the feast tables had been gathered and tossed on the cobbles in the courtyard, and the clanspeople raised their voices and their colors in false jubilation as Alba walked at Gudrun’s side down the temple steps. The wine flowed again, and Alba was prepared for her departure. Her blush gown was removed and her traveling dress donned. Her long hair was woven into a plait to keep it from tangling in the wind and collecting dust during her journey to Berne, where the longboats of the Northmen waited to take them across the water.

  Shadows had gathered alongside the waving well-wishers, though sunset was still a ways off. Few had abandoned their libations since the melee had ended hours before, and the merriment would continue until the people collapsed in drunken piles. It was always thus when the tournament ended. The Hearth of Kings, representing the presence of the Daughters of Freya, sent smoke rings into the sky, though Alba prayed they had made their escape. The king’s men surrounded the temple once more, and the doors were closed to the visitors of the mount. No one seemed to notice. No one seemed to care.

  A handful of aging mistresses and doddering manservants would go with her, a retinue to attend her in her new life. Many of them were crying as though they’d been sentenced to death. King Banruud stood on the palace steps, bidding his guests goodbye, a weary guard on either side. The courtyard was in a state of drunken dishabille, and the Northmen seemed eager to be on their way.

  The chieftains of the northern clans—Berne, Adyar, and Leok—would ride with Alba until they reached the port, ensuring the agreement was kept. Each chief had a cluster of his own clansmen mounted and ready, but many of the warriors had taken part in the melee and nursed black eyes and sore bodies. None of them appeared especially fit to travel, and many swayed in their saddles.

  Aidan rode on Alba’s right, Lothgar on her left, and Benjie led the way, his shoulders draped in the skin of the bear but his back slumped as though he were already half asleep. King Gudrun rode near the front, a group of his warriors leading the way with another bringing up the rear. Their numbers seemed diminished, and Alba wondered dispassionately if some of them had gone on ahead to make camp. It was only hours until dark, and they would not travel far.

  Alba did not look back as they passed through the gates, the horns trumpeting in final farewell. She would lose her courage if she turned her head, and she kept her gaze fixed forward, blind, deaf, and dumb.

  She ignored Aidan when he came to an abrupt stop beside her.

  “Halt!” he bellowed, his voice ringing with tension, but the party continued down the road without him, and a Northman grunted and urged him along. The trumpeters ceased their heraldry, their duties done, and the horses quickened their pace, the downhill pull urging them forward. A handful of clanspeople spilled out the gates behind them, and the portcullis stayed open for the ebb and flow.
>
  They were halfway down the temple mount when fire bloomed on the thatched roof of a cottage below. Another flame mushroomed in the hut beside it. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Three more cottages were engulfed in fire.

  Figures swarmed from the mouth of the village, rushing up the road toward them as though they fled the fire behind them.

  “Those aren’t villagers,” Aidan shouted, drawing on his reins.

  “Close the gates!” Lothgar roared, but Gudrun’s men were already falling upon the confused clansmen, slashing and swinging. Benjie fell beneath an axe without ever coming fully awake. The dark swell rose up the hill, an army of Northmen who had been tucked inside the empty village.

  “Scatter!” Alba screamed, and with all the power she possessed, she bade the horses buck and bolt, shedding their riders as though they too had caught fire. Gudrun’s men were temporarily distracted with their rearing mounts, and Alba slid from her saddle as her horse shrieked and shot down the hill toward the approaching horde.

  Her skirts clutched in her hands, she began running toward the gates, her arms pumping, screaming out in warning. No archers lined the palace walls, no watchmen called out the attack. The horns that had bugled in farewell had been quickly set aside for another round of drinks.

  “To the gates!” Gudrun boomed, ordering his men back up the hill. He had managed to stay astride his horse, and she could feel him behind her, pushing the beast up the incline. She could not outrun them.

  Halt, halt, halt, she begged the horse, willing him to resist the climb. Gudrun cursed, and the horse shrieked in protest. She looked back, gauging the distance between them, and saw Gudrun slap the horse’s rump and dig his heels into its side, urging it on. The road behind her was strewn with bodies and splattered with blood. She thought she saw Aidan among the clansmen still standing, still fighting, but many of Gudrun’s men had already begun to surge up the road behind her, abandoning the fight on the hill for the battle beyond the gates.

  And then she saw him, several paces ahead of a swarm of Northmen, climbing the hill at a full run, an axe in each hand, his sword still strapped to his back.

  “Bayr!” she screamed, both overjoyed and dismayed.

  “Alba! Run!” he bellowed, and she obeyed, scrambling up the road that had never seemed so steep or so long, running for the walls that had never seemed so insufficient.

  She heard the hoofbeats and the harsh breath of Gudrun’s mount before he reached her, and she swerved and ducked, his hand glancing off the top of her head as she evaded him.

  Then she was through the gates, tumbling into the courtyard that had been filled with carousing villagers and drunk clansmen for much of the day. The celebration had ended. The disembowelment of a string of the king’s guard, slumped in a tidy row, had served to wake up the masses to the death that was upon them. The Northmen at the rear of the processional, and most likely a hidden contingent left on the mount, had already begun slaughtering every person in the square, regardless of age, gender, or size. Alba tripped over the legs of a woman sheltering a small boy in her arms. Both were dead.

  Everywhere Alba looked were the slain and suffering. A toppled barrel of wine had been skewered by an axe, the sweet liquid gurgling out and spilling over the cobbles, mixing mayhem and merriment in a sea of red.

  She wrenched the axe from the barrel, arming herself, and began searching for something to do, someone to help, or somewhere to hide. A handful of clansmen were racing toward the square, wielding swords and shields, and Alba recognized Bayr’s grandfather and the warriors from Dolphys at the front. Then the horde from the village began spilling through the gates, and Alba began to run toward the temple, the only place she’d ever felt safe.

  It was clear that others had sought sanctuary as well, but Gudrun’s soldiers had followed behind, mowing them down as they fled toward the edifice. Some of the king’s guard, posted outside the temple after the wedding, had begun to engage the attackers, but it was the sight of the keepers that drew Alba up short.

  They ringed the temple, their backs to the stones, swords in hand, their purple hoods pulled back to reveal shorn heads and solemn eyes.

  “Oh no,” Alba mourned. “No, no, no.” The keepers were not warriors. Many were old men whose rudimentary training in weapons would be no deterrent for battle-hardened Northmen. Her horror slowed her steps and stole her attention, and without warning, she was swept up by her hair and tossed over Gudrun’s saddle.

  Ghost had followed her daughter once before, trailing after her, not knowing where the journey would lead or how it would end. Seventeen years before, she’d walked from Berne to the temple mount, and she would walk back again.

  If Dagmar discerned her thoughts, he didn’t say. As soon as the ceremony ended, the king’s men guarded the doors once more, herding in the people from the temple and barring the keepers from finding an audience with the chieftains. Just as they’d planned, Dagmar and the keepers hurried the refugees and the daughters into the sanctum tunnel that led to the east side of the mount. They’d waited until the ceremony was over, until the bells chimed and the temple doors were closed. The chaos on the mount would provide a diversion, and the long night ahead would give them time to put some distance between themselves and the king’s guard, should he discover their absence. There were tears but no arguments. Ivo’s death had illustrated the dire nature of their circumstance. The temple was no longer a sanctuary.

  Ghost stepped into the tunnel last and steeled herself to leave without looking back, the way Alba had done when she left the sanctum on the arm of the North King. Ghost had watched from behind the wall, marveling at her daughter’s iron control and vowing to face her future with the same courage. But now, just as she was leaving, Dagmar stepped into the darkness behind her, and Ghost could not walk away. She turned into his arms with a strangled sob. He kissed her lids and the tip of her nose, the hollows of her cheeks and the point of her chin before he settled his mouth on hers, his hands cradling her face as though she was infinitely precious to him. She clung to him for a moment, her lips lifted to his, her hands wrapped in his newly donned black robes. The keepers had hastily confirmed him Highest Keeper. No one else was willing to shoulder the mantle. He would be charged with protecting the runes and guarding the temple, even from a people and a king who no longer valued either.

  When Dagmar ended the kiss and stepped away, she touched his face in farewell and felt the tears that coursed his cheeks. They did not say goodbye, and they did not lie to each other about a reunion. He clutched her hand a moment more, and then he was gone, ducking back into the channel of light from the sanctum and letting her go.

  She walked through the darkness, the last in a long, single-file line of women who’d found a home in the temple only to be displaced once more. Of the three dozen females, only five were the daughters of the clans. The rest were refugees of foreign lands and war-torn clans. Some were old, some were young, and all were afraid. Each carried a small pouch—a little food, a change of clothes—to see them to Dolphys. Only Dalys had been to Dolphys before, but Juliah led the way.

  When Ghost walked out of the darkness, squinting against the late-afternoon light, the others were waiting for her. She stepped forward and clutched Elayne and Juliah’s hands, knowing her next words would not be welcome.

  “I’m not going with you,” she said, her voice firm, her heart pleading.

  Bashti hissed and Juliah gaped, but Liis nodded slowly and Elayne squeezed her hand as though she’d expected as much.

  “But . . . you cannot stay here,” Dalys cried. “You are in more danger than all of us.”

  “No. I can’t stay here,” she agreed.

  “You are going with Alba,” Elayne murmured, and Ghost nodded, emphatic.

  “She is my daughter, and she is alone,” Ghost said, looking at each woman in turn.

  “We have each other,” Liis said, fierce. “Alba has no one, and today she sacrificed herself for us. We can do this for her.”

&nbs
p; “I want to fight,” Juliah insisted suddenly, her impatience whipping around her. “I am staying here.”

  “No, Juliah. You are not,” Ghost shot back. “You will fight for them!” She pointed at the women waiting on the hillside. “You will fight for each other. And you will live.” Ghost balled her hands against the desire to pull them all close, to keep them with her. “Now go.”

  Juliah nodded, fighting back tears as the others broke down around her.

  “Don’t cry,” Ghost begged, her voice shaking. “Please. We must all be strong. If the gods will it, we will see each other again.”

  She embraced them fiercely, kissing their cheeks and professing her love before she directed them toward the Temple Wood, willing them to hurry.

  When they made it to the forest and disappeared into the trees, she set off, cutting across the hillside toward the northern entrance to the mount, the drab brown of her old shepherd’s cloak covering her hair and shielding her face. She would wait for the bridal party at the base of the hill where the road that cut through the village became the way to Berne. She needn’t rush, but she didn’t want to be too far behind. The Northmen were on horseback and she was on foot. She didn’t want to reach Berne after the longboats had sailed. She had her gold, and if she had to, she would purchase a horse in a village along the way.

  The trumpets wailed, the sound sitting on the breeze, and Ghost quickened her pace. Minutes later, another sound rose in the wind, a sound Ghost could not immediately identify. It was a collective bellow bristling with shrieks and cries, like the sound of gulls caught in a gale or a frenzied crowd at a tournament. She couldn’t see the front of the mount or the northernmost edge of the village, but the sound curled the hair on her nape and curdled the contents of her stomach.

  She stopped to listen, eyes turned up to the temple walls, but nothing looked amiss. The sound swelled. Mayhaps it was only a game, another competition among the clans at the close of the king’s tournament.