Thora came out, shutting the big oaken door behind her. She wore a leather shirt with chain mail over the top of it, and a short kirtle over brown leather pants, and comfortable boots. A sword hung from her side. The hilt wasn’t fancy, but this was what she called her workhorse sword—a plain sword, but it was sharp, well-balanced, and just about unbreakable.
Skeggi beckoned, and Thora followed him across the length of the second floor and down the stairs. Once Skeggi got to the bottom, he looked around, but there was only Ostyg, Gefjun, and the girl. Smoke landed on the floor next to the girl, looking her over.
“There she is!” Gefjun cried, pointing up at Thora.
“Shh. Keep it down,” Skeggi said. “We are still in danger.”
13
Secret Passageway
“What happened to you?” Thora asked Gefjun.
“Arrow through the leg,” she said.
“Skeggi fainted dead away when they removed it,” Ostryg laughed.
“I don’t blame him,” Thora said, kneeling next to Gefjun. “Can I try a healing spell I learned recently?”
“Please do,” Gefjun said sleepily. “This thing is a killer.”
Thora knelt at Gefjun’s side, looking at the bloody bandage. “First, we will need a fresh bandage.”
“I know where they’re at,” Skeggi said. He ran to a little room off the kitchen where the herbs hung to dry and a stock of bandages were kept. He grabbed a roll and came back. Thora was already singing over the wound, her hands on Gefjun’s leg, and Ostryg had her hand on her shoulder, lending her some of his strength to help with the song-spell. The girl stood nearby, watching curiously. Skeggi joined her.
“I haven’t seen this kind of song-music before,” she said.
“No kidding?” he said.
“We have something like this back in my home country but it’s more chanting, not melody. These things she’s singing though—they are strange. They don’t sound like regular songs.”
Skeggi was intrigued. “We’ve always done it this way, but the nice thing is, we have so many other cultures coming into our ports that we’ve been able to learn a little from each,” he said. “So the music … evolves, I guess. We learn a technique from, say, North Africa, and we develop it, and we hear something from Eire that fits in with it and improves it, and when the people from North Africa hear it again, they say, ‘Hey, that works better.’ So Skala is something of a place where our music grows and thrives from all these new voices coming in. And magic grows from that, too.”
“My people don’t have a lot of contact from the outer world. All that sounds kind of scary, you know? Because what if you lose all the old stuff that’s also good?”
Skeggi thought about it. “I don’t think we lose it,” he said. “It’s just added to. Made new. And beauty adds to beauty.” So many new songs and poems, he thought, and they’re all endless, an endless supply of song, styles music, poetry, magic.
A little flash of light from Gefjun. “Whoops, that just slipped out,” Thora said as Gefjun sat up.
“Don’t waste your energy on making pretty lights, Miss Queenie,” Gefjun said, unwrapping the bandages.
Thora wiped the sweat from her forehead and face with her sleeve. “I was expecting a thank you, not a critique, you ungrateful grump. How’s it look?”
“It feels a lot better. Just in case you didn’t notice that I finally sat up.” The last of the bandage slipped off Gefjun’s leg.
The wound was still open and red, but the bleeding had stopped. “I did most of the healing work on the inside,” Thora explained.
“Oh, yes,” Gefjun said with admiration, pressing gently on the wound here and there. “This is really good. Teach me that when we get back home, okay? This is amazing.”
“This particular healing work takes a lot of energy,” Thora said, sitting down on the floor. “My legs feel wobbly as a day-old calf’s.”
“Give me the bandages,” Gefjun said to Skeggi, who tossed them over. She wrapped up her leg in an eyeblink, and Ostryg pulled her to her feet. “Whoo! I can walk. It hurts, but not as bad as it did.”
“Who’s the new girl?” Thora asked. “I meant to ask earlier.”
“I don’t have a name,” the girl said. “I was taken prisoner by someone who I will not name, but his name burns me to my soul right now.”
“This is the girl I was telling you about,” Skeggi told Thora.
Thora got up. “I’m Thora of Skala,” she said. “Did you have a name before this all happened?”
“It was stripped from me,” the girl said bitterly. “And he set a spell on me that won’t let any other name stick.”
Thora frowned. “That monster. I know of something that might help. May I try it on you? I think it will pry his spell loose.”
“I’m willing,” she said quietly.
Suddenly there came a huge crash at the outside door. Everybody in the room became as still and silent as alert deer.
“Come,” Thora said in a low voice as she hurried to an adjoining room.
“Where’s Dyrfinna?” Skeggi whispered. “Is she in the basement?”
Thora whispered, “That will work very well. Quickly.” She ran to the basement trapdoor which Dyrfinna had left standing open. “Get in.”
Skeggi and Ostryg waited for Gefjun and the girl to jump in, and then followed. Thora climbed down the ladder, closing the trapdoor silently over her head just as a great CRASH came from outside. She slid a bolt home overhead to fasten the trapdoor from the inside. The bolt had been oiled—it didn’t make a sound.
The group was plunged into darkness.
“I don’t have a taper,” Thora whispered. Skeggi heard her scrambling down the ladder. She landed on the ground just as heavy footsteps thudded overhead. “Everybody, put your hand on the right hand wall and feel your way forward.”
They turned a corner in the darkness, and a spark of light glimmered far ahead. “Oh, thank goodness,” Gefjun whispered. “Finna!”
The torch made a slight movement. Dyrfinna’s voice said, “What happened?”
“We’re escaping,” Thora whispered.
Dyrfinna ran up with her torch and handed it to Thora. “Lead the way,” she whispered.
The torch revealed a tunnel paved with stones, going on and on. They were running, with Thora leading the way.
A BOOM from behind them.
“That must have been the door,” Skeggi whispered.
Thora was carefully searching the wall as she ran. “Here,” she said quietly. “Go through here.” The wall looked solid, but Thora led with the torch, squeezing sideways through a small space between the rocks. The wall behind was paved with rocks, lending to the illusion in the darkness that this was just a dip in the wall. But Thora and the torch squeezed sideways, then parallel to them behind the wall, and vanished. She whispered, “Come on.”
Skeggi watched Dyrfinna and Gefjun squeeze through the space. The girl had no trouble, since she was just a wisp from living through the bad conditions she’d escaped from. Ostryg, on the other hand, had to suck in his belly, and Skeggi did too. There was a moment when Ostryg nearly got stuck, but Skeggi gave him a push and he was through.
The tiny gap opened into a wider tunnel, this one lined with timbers. “There are rocks behind these timbers,” Thora whispered, standing next to another oak door. “If they want to chop their way around the door, they’re in for a nasty surprise. We also have a layer of iron at the back of this door. Should frustrate them for a while.” She opened the door, just as yelling came from the hall behind them, and a booming at the door they’d passed through a few minutes ago. “Come on.”
They followed Thora, and she shut and bolted the door with a large piece of lumber. Now a dirt tunnel stretched before them. Skeggi took a few steps into the darkness and ran into a spiderweb. “Pfft,” he said, waving his arms.
“Let me lead,” she said, coming to the front with the torch. “This goes a long way toward Skala, though not all t
he way.” Thora breathed deeply. “I don’t like tunnels, though,” she said, holding up the torch. But she pushed forward into the darkness.
The banging and axe strokes on the first door still continued far behind them, but the less he thought about them the better.
Far behind them, the first door splintered. Then silence. Then hewing at the second door, as well as derisive yells and obscene words directed at them. Skeggi was sweating when they crash into that second door. Thora mutters, “That’s going to cost a pretty penny to fix.”
They ran for a while. Gefjun had to climb up on Ostryg’s back again. It seemed to Skeggi that all they did was run and run. All he wanted to do was to sit down and eat a little lunch, drink a little water, maybe a sip of ale, and then take a long, delightful nap.
A splintering crash and a huge yell pushed up though the air to them. Skeggi’s knees went week. Dyrfinna swore under her breath. The girl stumbled and nearly fell, but Skeggi caught her. She was surprisingly light. He tamped down the urge to sweep her up and run like crazy. “Come on,” he said. “Keep moving.”
They ran, fleeing after Thora.
“We’ll get you back to Skala,” Skeggi whispered as he ran with the girl.
She shook her head. “I still need your dagger.” Her voice grew thin as a spider’s web strand.
Skeggi felt completely at a loss. All he wanted to do was make sure, through some supernatural means, that she—or anybody else for that matter—would not have to endure that horror.
And his brothers. Their parents had died only a few years ago, and the pain was still sharp from that loss. His brothers were still at the queen’s keep, though he was sure that Agi was wanting to attack the invaders, though he was only six years old, and Ragnarr probably had his hands full keeping all the boys in line. Skeggi couldn’t die now. He just couldn’t.
“There’s a light up ahead,” Thora said, and threw away the torch, letting it sputter out behind them so their pursuers couldn’t see the light of their torch. No matter, because the tunnel only ran in one direction in the dark. But here was the end, and here was a little set of stone steps that led up to a hole in the side of a hill, carefully concealed by boulders and a small, aggressively bushy tree, which Skeggi realized had been carefully pruned to grow this way and conceal the exit.
“Push this,” Thora said, placing her shaking hands on a boulder outside the hole.
“That’s too big. It’s not going to move,” Ostryg said, but got behind her. Everybody came over. One push from all of them stirred it. There was a cut in the ground below the boulder, leading into the hole, and the boulder had been placed here to be easily rolled. The swordfriends heaved and pushed – and suddenly the boulder rolled, easy as could be, right into the hole in the ground, mostly plugging the entrance they’d just climbed through. There were gaps around its edges, but certainly nothing big enough for a Dane warrior to worm through. This would slow their pursuers down for a little while longer.
Yelling from inside the hole, and cursing. Somebody shouted something in Danish, and their pursuers all grunted at the same time. The boulder stirred, moved up slightly out of the hole, then fell back as their pursuers groaned. They would have to somehow push the boulder straight up, and then keep pushing it straight up into the air until they could shove it sideways.
Good luck with that, thought Skeggi.
The clink of a spade came from inside the hole.
Thora ran, and the others fled after her. “Digging will be slow for them,” she panted, “because there are too many rocks in the dirt. Go this way,” she added to them. “Into the creek, into the water.” For here, surrounded by willows, was a small creek. They all followed her into the water where their tracks could be hidden, and started to follow her upstream. “There’s a side creek that you can follow up ahead that leads to Skala,” she whispered.
And here was the side creek. They followed this a little way. Then she led them, feet dripping, back out along a stony place in the sun where their watery tracks would quickly evaporate. If only it were sunny, though, Skeggi thought as they followed it. There wasn’t much to be done on that score – they had to keep moving.
If their pursuers had gotten out of the hole, they were moving quietly. Skeggi kept looking over his shoulder, searching the forest behind him for any signs of movement. But then they got to a clearing. A strange noise met his ears as they were running through the forest, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
But when he reached that clearing, his heart dropped.
A thin line of smoke was rising from Skala beyond the hills. From the direction of the city came a many, deep-voiced roar, constant as the ocean. But that sound was not the ocean.
“Dear Freyja,” Dyrfinna muttered. “I’d like to know who is winning that battle.”
And then that whisper of smoke turned into a rolling gout of smoke, boiling up black and thick from Skala.
14
“I’m Not His Prize”
From far away, the sound of fighting came up to them from the town, the shouts of fury, the clash of metal, harsh screams, full throated roars of berserkers entering the fray, their howls inhuman.
Just then a sound came from up ahead. Much closer at hand.
But to Skeggi’s relief, it turned out to be a small force of Skalans.
“Finally!” Skeggi said, though his throat was parched. “We’re saved.”
They went to meet them, too exhausted to run.
Leading the Skalans was a battle-hardened veteran with a venerable black beard all done up in tidy braids. He wore a set of leather armor with blackened rings sewn all over it, and a rough helmet with a dragon crudely carved across its front. Over his shoulders he wore a wolf’s skin. “Why! Dyrfinna and her battle-wards!” he said. “And Owlman!”
Skeggi’s owl yawned at the warrior.
“Well met,” the old fighter said to the owl. “And who else is with you?”
That was when he saw Thora.
“Uncover yourselves, my fighters,” he said, taking off his helmet and kneeling before the queen’s daughter. “We’ve got royalty.”
“At ease. No bowing here,” Thora whispered. “The enemy are pursuing us.”
Every soldier got right back up.
“Why are you wandering the woods during an invasion?” the old fighter asked Thora. “Were you reading one of those books, that you didn’t notice all these Danes pouring in? Don’t I keep telling you that books are the devil’s work?”
“I got the book from a monk,” Thora said stiffly.
“Aye, that proves my point.”
“We’re bringing her back to Skala.” Dyrfinna glanced over her shoulder like a deer scenting danger on the wind.
“Good. Some folks are very concerned about you.” The old fighter peered into the forest where Dyrfinna was looking. “Being pursued?”
“We think by Iron Skull himself,” Thora said. “We have one of his war-prizes.”
The old fighter’s eyes got wide when he saw the girl. “By Thor!” he said. “I wondered why the fighting in town was so lackluster. The Danes have managed to burn some houses, but we’re all driving them back handily. That must be because you scamps managed to run afoul of that black dog and take his prize.”
“I’m not ‘his prize,’” the girl snarled.
The old fighter rattled on. “I must say, you’re doing Skala a great service—”
“Sir, we are being pursued,” Dyrfinna snapped, clearly finished with the old fighter’s chatter. “We are going this way,” she said, pointing toward Skala. “You and your fighters need to follow us and defend our rear!”
And Dyrfinna grabbed Thora with one hand and motioned everyone forward with her sword hand.
“Why, yes ma’am, yes ma’am. What was I thinking?” The old fighter looked into the forest behind them, adjusting his helm. “Follow that girl and defend these young rascals.”
“Run,” Thora said, and they plodded forward, exhausted, almost without hope.
Just then from behind came the shouts and yells of Danes, their peculiar battle cries like the screams of angry animals.
“We got here just in time!” shouted the old fighter to his warriors. “Every one of you must stop this force. Don’t let a single Dane escape our thirsty swords!”
The Danes came running now, a force nearly equal to the old fighter’s.
“Go!” the old fighter shouted back to Dyrfinna. “Get your friends back home. We’ll hold these dogs off for you.”
The Skalan warriors let loose a loud shout as they planted themselves between the running sword-friends and the oncoming Danes. Skeggi ran with his friends, clustering close as they fled through the trees. There came a loud crash from behind when the Danes smashed into the Skalan defenders. Several Danes tried to go around the group, but the Skalan fighters stopped them in their tracks. Steel clashed against steel.
Skeggi put the girl directly in front of him as they ran so she wouldn’t be hit by a stray arrow or spear, and he slung his shield over his back. Ostryg and Gefjun were running together, but she was limping badly. At last, Ostryg simply scooped her up in his arms, tottered, then kept running, his face going red with exertion.
Skeggi chanced a look over his shoulder. The Danes had been stopped in their tracks by the Skalan fighters. The old warrior led the attack, and Skeggi glimpsed his dragon-crested helmet above the heads of the crowd, and saw his axe crash down upon a Dane’s skull.
The noise of battle grew fainter behind them. The friends slowed to a walk, then a crawl. Finally they stopped under the trees, gasping for breath.
And suddenly a fog gathered in the treetops. A very strange fog, because it was thicker than any fog that Skeggi had ever seen.
“What’s happening?” said the girl. “What is that fog?”
“It’s mage-fog,” Thora gasped.
“How do you know?” Ostryg asked.
The fog rolled down through the trees over the sword-friends. They all vanished in the cold, white mist, though they were only a few feet apart. The chill fog clung tight to Skeggi, and even his feet seemed about to vanish. The air was so thick with tiny fog-drops that he felt like a fish breathing water.
A Whisper of Smoke Page 8