The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  Then, from inside the walls, people began to scream.

  It took Ghost several minutes to reach the north side of the mount and cross the sloped meadow to the road that rose from the village to the gates. Something terrible was happening—she could hear it, feel it—and her legs shook with exertion as she closed the final distance. She was not prepared for the sight before her, and she cried out in horror.

  The wide entrance was littered with bodies. The Chieftain of Berne, his cloak made from the fur of a bear, was missing the top half of his head. An old woman who’d been Alba’s maid in waiting for a dozen years lay staring at the purple sky, her eyes fixed and her chest gaping. Ghost scrambled from one body to the next, her hand clutched to her mouth, searching for Alba. There were Northmen among the dead, their matted hair and bone-studded clothing setting them apart from the clansmen crumpled around them, but Alba was not among them. Nor was the North King.

  Someone had attempted to lower the portcullis, but there were bodies in the way, and it rested on the backs of two temple guards who’d been hewn down, one on top of the other. From inside the walls, screams and cries for mercy were interspersed with the clashing of shields and the grunts of men.

  She had to go inside.

  She took the blade still strapped to the Chieftain of Berne and walked to the gates, her stomach roiling. Stooping, she rolled beneath the dangling portcullis and rose to her feet in a brand-new hell.

  The huge courtyard between the temple and the palace was a slaughterhouse, the slain so thick she had to bound between them, hopping from cobble to cobble as though she crossed an endless stream. In the center of the courtyard, stretching from the palace steps to the first arch of the temple, the battle raged, Northmen and clansmen locked in life and death, the tight braids of the clansmen the only distinguishing feature.

  One man stood alone and entirely encircled, though he seemed to be holding his own against the warriors surrounding him. He was awash in blood and gore and armed with an axe in each hand. His hair was short and unadorned—no braid or bones—and for a moment, Ghost did not recognize him. Then he bellowed, bringing his axes together and felling three Northmen simultaneously, and Ghost realized it was Bayr. Her heart seized, and she bit back a cry of hope and horror.

  A smattering of his clansmen fought nearby—Dred, Dakin, and Dystel—their braids swinging, their shields bearing the mark of the wolf. All were sorely outnumbered. Aidan of Adyar fought with the same madness that seemed to beset them all, back to back with a son of Lothgar, hacking and skewering, trying to withstand the assault of too many Northmen. Clusters of clansmen dotted the grounds, treading on their own dead as they battled to beat back the Northmen. A few archers were perched on the ramparts, seeking to even the numbers and turn the tide, but Saylok had suffered an overwhelming assault, and no one had anticipated it. No one but the keepers.

  Ghost ran toward the temple, tripping over the dead and making note of the living, promising them she would return. She had to find Alba first. She wanted to scream her name but feared doing so would present a deadly distraction to the warrior who loved her.

  She saw Keeper Amos fall, his skills no match for a powerful Northman. Bjorn was brought down beside him moments later. The exterior of the temple was lined with bodies in purple robes.

  “Dagmar,” Ghost moaned, eyes skittering frantically from one keeper to the next, searching for him, even as she resisted what she was seeing. And then she spotted Alba, bound to a temple pillar like a witch at the stake. Her hair was falling around her shoulders and her gown was torn from neck to navel, but she was standing, fighting against her bonds.

  The North King had taken his axe to the temple door behind her, shredding the carved sections and obliterating the rune that had been painted in blood upon its surface. Ghost watched as the door split in two, the unhinged side falling outward with a mighty crash. Gudrun stepped inside, leaving Alba and the battle to carry on without him. A dozen of his men flooded the temple behind him, their minds on plunder, their victory assured.

  Ghost fell only to rise again, stumbling toward the pillars where Alba was tied, terrified the North King would return before she could cut her free. She dropped her blade once and scooped it up with shaking hands, her palms slick and her heart pounding. And then she was at her daughter’s side, sawing through the ropes as the ground began to rumble beneath her feet.

  “Dagmar’s going to bring down the temple,” Alba panted, pointing toward the final two pillars where Dagmar stood, his hands braced between them, eyes clinging to Ghost, black robes billowing.

  “Dagmar!” Ghost screamed.

  “Run!” he roared. “Go!” His forearms were slick with blood, his legs planted between the pillars as though he needed them to stand. Almost immediately the walls of the temple began to tremble and shake, a monster within the mount, fighting to break free. The warriors in the courtyard stumbled back, the quaking beneath their feet causing some of them to fall and others to cease fighting, frightened more of the quaking earth than the swords in their enemies’ hands.

  Gudrun bellowed, cursing the gods, his voice echoing out through the entrance door, and Alba and Ghost ran, keeping each other upright as the temple continued to rumble and roil. Northmen began fleeing the mount, racing for the gates as the cobbles beneath them bucked and writhed, tossing the dead into the air and the living to their knees.

  Ghost looked back, willing Dagmar to follow. The pillars where he braced his hands were shivering like stone snakes, brought alive by the blood runes painted on the rock surface. A groaning arose, inhuman and earsplitting, and the roof of the temple crashed down, abandoning the walls that had once supported it, a cloud of dust and debris mushrooming into the sky and coating the mount in white powder.

  And then the world went still.

  31

  Bayr didn’t know how many men he’d killed or how many friends he’d lost. He didn’t know if Alba was safe or where she’d gone. He only knew he had to keep fighting, for if he fell, Saylok too would fall. Hundreds had been hewn down beneath the blades of the Northmen—villagers, clansmen, warriors, keepers—and they kept coming, mowing down the innocent and the unsuspecting with almost no resistance.

  When the earth began to shake, he thought he’d taken a blow or sustained a wound that he couldn’t yet feel, and still he fought, determined to battle until he could no longer stand. From the corner of his eye he saw Dred fall and Dakin stumble, and he roared in loss and outrage, tossing one man and burying his axe in the skull of another before he realized he was not wounded and his men were not lost. The Northmen reeled back, arms wheeling and legs buckling as though they walked the decks on a turbulent sea. Bayr staggered behind them, afraid they would gather and regroup, pursuing them with the single-minded focus of the last man standing.

  He thought he heard Alba scream, but it was drowned out by a deafening groan, and he turned back to the temple just in time to watch it crumble, its dome disappearing behind a wall of white, the earth grinding in terrible torment.

  And then the mount fell silent.

  He could not see the living, if any living remained. Only the dead at his feet. The cloud of dust and powdered debris coated his skin, clinging to the blood on his clothes and the gore in his hair. The silence was almost worse than the screams.

  Then Alba called his name.

  “Bayr?”

  Her voice came from his left, and he made his way toward the sound, tripping over splayed limbs and stepping on the slain.

  “Bayr?” she called again, and he realized he’d failed to answer.

  “Alba,” he said, and the word rasped between his lips, so soft she shouldn’t have heard. But she did. Through the whirling white, she appeared, Ghost beside her, and he staggered the final steps, sweeping her up against him, arms locked around her. Ghost immediately turned away, melding back into the fog as though she’d never been there.

  “Chief?” Dred called. The air was beginning to clear, shapes and shadows s
hifting in the haze.

  “I’m here,” Bayr bellowed. “Dakin?”

  “Aye, Dolphys. But Dystel is down.”

  “I’m down. Not dead,” Dystel cried, strain making his voice sharp.

  “Adyar?” Bayr called.

  “I’m here,” Aidan grunted. “Logan of Leok and Chief Josef too. Lothgar was slain on the hill.”

  “Dagmar,” Bayr shouted. “Dagmar!” he called again, knowing it was futile but unable to help himself.

  “Bayr,” Ghost called, her voice thready in the murky light. “Bayr, help me.”

  Bayr ran toward her voice, Alba at his side, and found Ghost crouched in the rubble, attempting to shove the stones aside, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “He’s here. I know he’s here. I saw him fall when the pillars collapsed,” she wept.

  The temple pillars had split and toppled over each other, their jagged pieces creating a web of teetering stone. To move one could cause the others to come crashing down.

  “Dagmar!” Bayr called, desperate.

  “He is here!” Ghost insisted, pushing futilely at the massive pillar that rested atop the pile. Bayr pulled her down, wincing as she thrashed and resisted. His arms tightened around her, and he whispered assurance in her ear.

  “I w-will find him,” he promised. “I will f-find him. Now take Alba and m-move back.”

  “I thought I heard him, Bayr. I thought I heard him call out. He’s there,” she pled.

  Voices began calling out from the cobbles and the corners, people emerging from their hiding places, gathering together and searching among the dead for those that yet lived. Bayr planted his feet and braced his legs, and with a plea to Odin and an appeal to Thor, he shoved the uppermost section from the top of the pile, freeing the columns below it. One by one, pushing the pillars this way and that, he cleared an opening in the intersecting beams.

  He saw Dagmar’s hand first, the scarred palm and the curled fingers tinged in blood. He reached down and grasped it, inching Dagmar toward him until he could get his arms beneath his shoulders and pull him free.

  Dagmar was limp in his embrace, but his eyes fluttered, and Bayr felt a whisper of breath against his cheek as he lifted him in his arms and turned toward the silent onlookers.

  “He is alive,” Bayr said, but his voice cracked. Dagmar was alive, but his body was badly broken.

  Ghost rushed forward and took Dagmar’s dangling hand. Bayr searched, frantic, for a place to lay him down. Everywhere he looked, the earth was upturned, the soil dark against the worn cobbles, the blood of the dead seeping between the cracks.

  “Lay him here, Chief,” Dred demanded, hastily clearing a small patch of ground, moving the rocks and tamping the soil, his anguish streaming from his eyes and settling in the grooves that lined his trembling lips. Bayr knelt and laid Dagmar down. Dred shrugged off his tunic and folded it, inside out, to put beneath his son’s head. His chest was as scarred as Dagmar’s palms, the paths they’d each taken written on their skin.

  “There is no pain. No pain at all,” Dagmar murmured, his whisper faint. His eyes were open and his gaze aware, and Ghost knelt near his head, smoothing his brow, her tears dripping from her chin and spotting the dusty folds of her robe. For a moment, Dagmar gazed up at her, memorizing her face, but then his eyes sought Bayr.

  “Help me draw the rune, Bayr.”

  Bayr shook his head, not understanding. He did not know the runes to promote healing.

  “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t move my arms. You’re going to have to help me,” Dagmar continued, pleading weakly. “I tried to reverse it before, to draw a rune to change her curse, but I was never willing to die for it. And a blood rune demands lifeblood. Ivo tried, but he did not finish. And he did not understand. Not entirely. Ivo’s blood would not break the curse. That is why he needed you.”

  Ghost moaned, anticipating what was to come, and Bayr stared down at the rune on his arm.

  “But I share Desdemona’s blood,” Dagmar whispered. “And in the end, we can only sacrifice ourselves. To sacrifice others is no sacrifice at all.”

  “I will do it,” Bayr said.

  “Please . . . Bayr. You cannot save my life, so use my life to right a wrong.”

  Bayr lifted his gaze to his grandfather, to the shattered faces of his battle-weary clansmen. And finally, he looked at Alba and Ghost. It was the women—the girl children—who had suffered the most under Saylok’s scourge.

  “Lift the curse, Bayr,” Dagmar said softly.

  “Tell m-me what to do,” Bayr choked.

  Dagmar closed his eyes, as if the Norns were unraveling the final strands of the thread that kept him conscious.

  “Open my wrist. We need lifeblood for the rune,” he instructed.

  Bayr shuddered, but he gritted his teeth and wrapped the blade in Dagmar’s hand, curling his own around it to keep it in place.

  “I feel no pain,” Dagmar reminded him as he opened his eyes, compassion in his gaze, but Bayr still wept as he drew the sharp blade down his uncle’s arm. Dagmar’s heartbeat was weak, and his blood, its hue deep and dark, pulsed sluggishly before sinking into the ground. He had very little life left to give.

  Bayr cut his own palms, adding his blood to the soil before wrapping them around Dagmar’s once more. Then he began to carve his mother’s rune, the rune Ivo had scored on his arm, the root of it all, the end of it all.

  “The sign of the girl child,” Dagmar murmured. “The wrath of a woman, the pride of men. It is all there in her rune, but we will add something new.”

  Bayr raised tormented eyes, the blade faltering.

  “Trace the lines,” Dagmar urged, “but where there is a serpent, we will draw the sun. Where there is hurt, we will draw hope. Man, woman, child, distinct but interdependent, and around them, life.”

  There was no room for all the dead and no solace for the living. They all worked through the night, lighting torches and searching through the rubble, but they found no survivors in the ruins. The keepers were dead. Dagmar was dead.

  They laid his body on the palace steps with so many others, sorting them in clans and families, trying to clear the courtyard and help the wounded. They piled the bodies of the Northmen on carts and moved them to the meadow beyond the walls where they could be burned. The villagers who survived the assault took their dead down the mount, returning to their homes if they were able. The people of the clans would be returning home too, leaving with their colored flags and their tattered lives. Their lost kin would remain on the temple mount, buried beside the keepers and the clanless. New graves already dotted the hillside.

  Ghost moved in a sort of stupor, Alba beside her, ministering where she could, drawing runes of healing and saying words that soothed, numbing herself to the horror and blinding herself to the pain. It was the only way to go on. The sun rose and the surviving chieftains gathered for counsel around the Hearth of Kings. The torch was cold and the daughters were gone, and Ghost could only thank the gods that Dagmar had insisted they leave. Aidan of Adyar and Josef of Joran were present. Logan, the son of Lothgar of Leok, took his father’s place among the chieftains, and a warrior from Berne stepped forward to speak for his clan until another leader could be chosen. Berne had a great deal to atone for; the traitorous warriors had paid with their lives, but so had many others.

  No one had seen the king or the chieftain from Ebba since before the attack began. Someone claimed they had taken refuge in the temple with members of the guard when the battle broke out. If that was the case, Banruud had perished with the Northmen. It was a fitting end; the destruction of the mount was his fault. A young archer named Elijah, reportedly a nephew of the late Erskin, was brought forward to represent the Clan of the Boar. He’d been the first to scale the ramparts with his bow and had saved countless lives before the battle ended.

  While the clansmen gathered, Ghost and Alba slipped out the east entrance and walked to the stream that trickled down the hillside and fed the river that r
an through the Temple Wood, needing a few moments to wash and collect themselves. Alba had changed her gown—her trunks had been strewn across the hillside when the caravan was attacked and she’d retrieved most of their contents—and presented a dress for Ghost to wear, though it was several inches too long. It was clean and she was covered, and that was all that mattered. They scrubbed their faces and rewound their hair, searching for strength in the water and the soap. After a long silence, Alba spoke, her voice hoarse with unshed tears.

  “Why did Dagmar bring down the temple?” she asked.

  “To kill Gudrun,” Ghost answered, and her hate for the North King surged in her chest. She welcomed the emotion. It was far easier than grief.

  Alba was quiet, her brow furrowed as she tucked the wisps of her golden hair behind her ears. Ghost could see she was unconvinced, and Alba’s dark eyes welled with grief even as she shook her head, resistant.

  “He should have locked himself inside. He should have locked all the keepers inside the sanctum and sealed the doors with runes,” Alba said. “He would still be alive. They all would.”

  Ghost could not let Dagmar bear such blame, and she reached out and took Alba’s hand, lacing their cold fingers together.

  “A keeper’s job is to protect the temple and the runes from falling into the wrong hands,” Ghost said, fighting her own agony.

  “The hands of the Northmen?” Alba asked, her condemnation dissolving into sorrow.

  “Or the hands of a wicked king,” Ghost whispered. “The temple was full of things not meant to be found.” Dagmar’s tale of his childhood, of a far-off cave in Dolphys and an impressionable girl named Desdemona, flickered through her thoughts.

  “Look,” Alba whispered, rising, her eyes fixed over Ghost’s head. “Ghost, look!”

  Ghost turned, fearing the worst, and began to smile instead. A cluster of purple-robed women had emerged from the Temple Wood, a throng behind them.

  “They came back,” Alba cried, and she began running down the hill to greet them. Ghost was slower to follow, but no less exuberant. The Daughters of Freya had returned, and though the temple was destroyed and the future unknown, she could not feel anything but relief.