by Julia Ember
Steinair vomited on the deck, and a wave rinsed it toward me. My stomach heaved, but I kept my mouth clamped shut. I couldn’t look weak in front of the crew. Not now, when my position was still so precarious. It was a good thing I had forgone the stale bread we’d passed around for breakfast.
Ersel shifted her grip, and a gust blew the skiff out from under her, scattering weapons. I dodged as a dagger flew past my shoulder into the sea. Trygve battled his way across the deck, opened the hatch to the hold and kicked swords, axes, and maces into the belly of the ship. As he slammed the hatch closed, he slipped on the deck and collided with Torstein. Both of them rolled toward the starboard edge and the crashing waves below.
Two men grabbed Torstein’s arms. My boatswain tumbled toward the ship’s rail. My heart stopped. I lurched to my feet. I was too far away. Would they let him drown? I knew they resented Trygve’s position. Without him, my control over the ship would be even more tenuous. But two aquamarine tentacles wrapped around his waist, pulling him to safety. I closed my eyes with relief, even as a new fear assailed me. My two friends and I had to look out for each other. The crew would not save us.
It had been nearly three days since I’d reversed our course. The storm was the latest in a string of disasters that had begun when Smyain discovered that one of our ale-barrels had been polluted with seawater. We were running low on food, and our supply of fresh water was down to the dregs. If even one man died, the crew would blame me. It would be ironic if we survived the infamous Trap only to perish here.
The ocean took on an electric, cyan glow as another bolt of lightning pierced the waves. Ersel glanced at the sky, then crawled toward me. She peered over the ship’s rail and pointed down at the water. It was lit as if a thousand jellyfish clustered just beneath the swelling waves. Overhead, the sky had turned yellow.
“We need to row away from here,” Ersel hissed, her voice raw with fear. The apathy she’d worn earlier had slipped. Her gaze darted wildly from the waves to me.
I hesitated. I’d never sailed through the eye of a storm before, but the color of the water didn’t seem natural to me. And if Ersel, who had lived her whole life at sea, was afraid, then I didn’t want to know what might be lurking beneath the waves. Still, if we tried to row, we might snap an oar. Worse, one of the men could be pitched overboard.
“I can’t ask them to row in a storm like this.” I dug my hook into the ship’s rail to anchor myself as a neon wave crashed over the stern. The crew scrambled back, out of reach. The water glowed like green fire on the deck. I imagined it eating through the wood of the bow, burning us all alive. “If we don’t hang on, we’ll be swept into the sea. The wind could shatter the mast. We have to save the oars.”
Ersel gripped my arm. Even under the blue scales that covered most of her fingers, her knuckles were white. “I can breathe under these waves. I have nothing to fear from the ocean, but the color… I have only seen a color like that in the North Sea once, and it was right before I met Loki.”
My chest constricted with fear. Could the Trickster influence the water? Ersel had left her home to escape them, but Loki still believed she had passed a kind of test. They had wanted her to serve them. They had promised to come after her. “The Trickster doesn’t have dominion over the weather,” I scoffed, trying to sound confident.
“Don’t under estimate them.” Ersel lifted one of her tentacles into the air. The mouths on its slimy underside gaped at me. “I did. Look what it got me. I was almost trapped like this forever. Loki may have followed us from my home.”
“Should we pray to them?” I asked hesitantly. “To stop the storm?”
Ersel’s eyes flashed with anger. “Pray to them? Don’t ever invoke them.”
The sail stretched in the wind and then tore. Ersel was right. Out on the high seas, with only some wood and nails separating us from death, was not the place to try my luck with the God of Lies.
Another wave broke over the deck, sweeping Bjarak into the water. By the time Torstein and I scrambled to the rail to look for him, the cyan waves had engulfed him. I imagined drowning beneath the liquid fire: crawling to reach the air, kicking my legs through a thick mucus, as jellyfish closed in around me, poisoned stingers ready. If I died here, what would happen to Yarra?
“Get to your benches!” I screamed over the wind. “Pick up your oars. We have to sail beyond this storm.”
The crew stared, faces ashen beneath their sodden wool hoods.
“Look at the color of the water!” I spread my arms wide. The ocean glowed so brightly now that the mast cast a shadow across the deck. “If you want to live, we have to get out of here.”
To my surprise, Torstein was the first to his bench. He grabbed the nearest oar and began rowing with all his strength. His jaw was set, but his eyes had a glassy, disbelieving expression. He knew this was no natural storm. “To oars, lads!” he shouted.
I seized another oar and sat beside him. With only one hand, my ability to row was limited, but that didn’t seem to matter to the crew. Seeing me take a position, the rest of them scrambled to fill the benches. I braced the oar under my armpit. We began to row in tandem, Torstein’s shoulder brushing mine. The water churned like thick butter.
Smyain began to chant in time with the oars, and the rest of the crew joined him in song. I lost myself in the movement and the music, the fear and the pain. The ship slowly crested the cyan waves, propelled toward the glimmer of blue sky ahead.
Ersel crawled past us. She slipped behind the stern and into the sea. I whirled around. The trance of the song was broken. What was she thinking? Didn’t she worry that the waves would swallow her? Was she abandoning us? The warship lurched forward. Abandoning my oar, I raced to the stern. Ersel’s small hands were braced against the hull and her mermaid’s tale kicked us forward.
The men stopped rowing. The ship shuddered, and a wave broke over the bow, bathing the deck in light. Forseti’s Arm weighed far too much for one mermaid to shift, blessed with gods’ strength or not.
“Keep going!” I called over the wind, but none of the men moved. I tried to scramble to my bench, but the wind kept blowing me against the rail.
“Row!” Torstein bellowed.
The men threw all their strength against the oars. A wave taller than a house slammed into the deck. The mast cracked at the base; the weight of the sail dragged it into the sea. The men shouted, and a few of them abandoned their oars to throw themselves to their knees on deck. The ship moaned, and boards sprang loose across the deck.
Torstein’s reedy voice began the song again. A chorus of hoarse, frightened whispers answered. Our broken ship struggled on, and ahead blue sky battled the dark clouds. I clenched my fist so tight my nails drew blood. Torstein was saving our lives, and yet a jealous, insidious voice inside me insisted that maybe I should push him into the sea right now. I should finish what I had started. If he was gone, the crew would have no choice but to follow me.
Hugging the starboard rail, I moved toward him. I grabbed the remnant of the tattered sail and used it to pull myself along the deck. But as I reached the benches, a ray of sunlight broke through the black clouds and bathed my face in warmth. I extended my hand and let the sunlight pool in my palm. A cheer broke out: a cheer, I knew, that was not for me.
Seven
Gormánuður
The Slaughter Month
October
We landed in a fjord, surrounded by gray mountains and dense, frost-covered pines. The beach was a narrow, rocky strip, but the cliffs broke the ocean waves. The waters of the fjord were as smooth as blue silk. Kingfishers swooped alongside the ship’s bow and a pair of fur seals flipped and chattered in our wake. Still, by the time the ship ran aground, my arms were close to giving out. I had taken my place on the rowing bench again, since the storm had wrecked our sail and we’d lost a crewman to the ocean. My lower back ached from the cramped position I�
��d had to hold to keep the oar tucked under my arm to compensate for my missing hand.
I disembarked first, stumbling from the ship on shaky sea legs. Inhaling the crisp, wintergreen air, I wandered up the beach. I didn’t want anyone looking over my shoulder as I studied my marks and planned a new course.
Wherever we had landed, we would have to make do. The ship would not sail again. I had hoped to coast proudly into my kin’s harbor—to greet them as a worthy potential ally, not a weak girl leading a crew of resentful, half-starved sailors. Forseti’s Arm might never have been a large ship, but she had possessed a certain dignity; a stark, practical sort of beauty. She had been mine. Now, with her broken mast and broken slats, she cast a much less imposing shadow.
The maps showed that we had landed just a few miles up the coast from where I had intended. We would have to cross the mountains, and make our way through forest, but Skjordal was not far away. I breathed a sigh of relief. We were ill-provisioned for a long journey. The last of our fresh water had been polluted with sea water during the storm, and the men had salvaged only enough dried meat for half-rations at breakfast.
Ersel trotted over to me, wobbling on the rocks. She no longer staggered when she walked on her human legs, but she was still learning to run. She wore a spare tunic from the hold—a monstrous, yellow-white thing that hung askew on her shoulders. We didn’t have any spare trousers to fit her, and her alabaster thighs were bare. Trygve had given her his second pair of boots. The fastenings were undone, and she nearly tripped over the long toes.
“Where are we?” She asked, breathless. After a life lived under the waves with her weight supported by water, she tired easily on land. We would have to move slowly, even if it might mean spending a night in the forest. The men would complain, but her bravery during the storm might have saved us. Risking the unnatural waves, she had jumped over the ship’s rail and pushed us forward.
I knelt beside her and pulled off the seaweed that clung to her boots. It was tempting to kiss the faint contour of muscle above her knee, softened by inviting, smooth skin, but with the men watching, I’d never hear the end of it.
“We’re close.” I rose and pointed to the mountains behind the beach. “A few miles. But the ship is beyond saving. We’re going to have to cross those.”
She took my arm and studied the course. My breath quickened at her touch and the compass above my heart tingled. When she was in human form, it was sometimes as if my skin had its own mind, and every inch of it became hyper-aware of her proximity. A smile twitched at her lips when she felt me shiver. She traced the lines of the coast and the dotted trail that led inland through the trees.
From the map, it was still impossible to tell if Skjordal was a small town or a great city. My grandmother had never reestablished contact with her family there, and it had been half a century since she had set sail as a girl. The town could be prosperous, with ten dozen well-fed warriors willing to seek their fortunes under the command of a godsmarked styrimaðr. Or it could be a ruin. Either way, without a ship, there was nowhere else I could lead us.
Trygve led the rest of the men toward us. He tossed a threadbare dress to Ersel. She touched the fabric, and her nose wrinkled with distaste, but she donned it over her tunic anyway. It hung all the way to her feet and had a hood to hide her turquoise hair. That was better. For all the sight of her bare legs was appealing, I remembered how my crew had looked at her the first time they had seen her—before they had learned the power of her tentacles and learned to be afraid. Their staring, hungry eyes had roved over her skin. Ersel was not mine, but I didn’t like the idea of strange folk staring at her either.
“We’ll have to proceed on foot,” I said to the men.
A few of them turned to each other and grumbled.
I pointed to the crumbling ship. “If you think you can make that seaworthy, be my guests. I would have thought you’d be glad to be on land for a spell.”
The tide was rising in the fjord. Even from the beach, all of us could see the leaks springing from the ship’s deck. The men silently shook their heads.
Nodding, I started to march up the beach. We could easily walk the distance to Skjordal, but what would we do when we got there? We had no ship, no horses, no reputations, and no money to pay recruits upfront.
I straightened my shoulders and walked faster. I couldn’t afford to show hesitation to the crew. I’d lost our ship. I couldn’t give them any more reason to doubt me, not when they so obviously preferred Torstein. They would follow me or stay here on the beach with nothing.
I heard sighs behind me, but they followed. I pressed my lips together to hold back a smile. With the crew in tow, I climbed up the dune that framed the beach. I had lost my fitness at sea, and, by the time we reached the top of the mountain, my face was red and sweat trickled into my eyes. On the other side of the slope clung dense pines. But beyond the tree line, a cluster of houses and grazing fields glowed gold on the horizon. Smoke rose from the chimneys, and, if I squinted, I could make out sheep dotting the pastures. It didn’t look like much, but it was inhabited.
I took Ersel’s arm as we descended. The ridge was even steeper this side of the beach and covered in loose stones. I was suddenly glad we’d lost the food and water to the storm. I was hungry, but carrying provisions across terrain like this wouldn’t have been easy.
The sunlight faded to a dim shimmer as the pine forest grew so dense we could barely pass between the trees. We dodged between low branches and tangled roots. The ground a blanket of pine needles. The air smelled of evergreen and damp earth.
Ersel stopped to touch one of the trees. Her eyes widened in wonder as she ran her fingers over the gnarled bark. It was an ancient foxtail with a trunk the width of three men. Lacey frost clung to its bark and ice made fragile icicles at the end of each needle. Ersel plucked one of the crystals and cupped it in her palm, transfixed as it melted in her hand.
When she noticed me watching her, she shrugged. “Plants in the sea don’t grow anything like this. It reminds me how far I am from home.”
I plucked one of the crystals and popped it into my mouth. The fresh water soothed my dry tongue. The water was faintly sweet, infused with sap from the pine. Ersel laughed and took another icicle from the tree. She placed it on the edge of her tongue cautiously, then a grin stretched her cheeks.
For a few blissful minutes, I forgot about the men, the ship, and the invasion. We ran around the tree, gathering the sweet crystals and sucking on them until our foreheads ached and our teeth tingled.
Behind us, Smyain cleared his throat. He was a quiet man, who mostly kept to himself and was one of the few who didn’t seem to hang on Torstein’s every word. Ersel turned to him, and he pressed a frost-covered pinecone into her hand. She turned it over and then held it to her nose. She inhaled deeply, as if committing the crisp scent to memory.
“All of these trees start out like this,” Smyain said. He peered down at her shyly. “If you plant this in the ground, in a hundred years you’ll have a tree like this one. You should take it with you. You can start a forest anywhere.”
Ersel tucked the pinecone into the pocket of her dress. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Smyain didn’t meet my eye. He blushed and scuffed his foot on the wet ground.
I scowled. We’d been foolish to let our guard down. What had I been thinking? Running about, gathering sweets like a child? I couldn’t afford to let any of them see me like that. Taking Ersel by the arm, I steered her straight ahead. I walked quickly to put distance between us and the crew.
She didn’t pull her arm away, but I felt her stiffen. The wonder in her expression slipped, replaced by annoyance as she struggled to keep pace.
“I didn’t come all this way to be pushed around again,” she hissed under her breath. “I can look after myself. You’re acting like Havamal.”
Shame heated my face, and I droppe
d her arm. Havamal was a merman from Ersel’s glacier home. Growing up, they’d been best friends and had dreamed of running away together. Then, abandoning their dreams, he had joined their king’s retinue. He had thought Ersel would outgrow her wanderlust, as he had, and settle down to be his mate.
Then, he’d caught us together. The encounter was forever burned into my memory. After I’d been shipwrecked, Ersel had helped me rebuild the skiff I’d used to escape. I’d rowed out into the open ocean, with her floating beside me, to test the skiff’s seaworthiness.
On impulse, I’d asked for a kiss—a magical, transcendent kiss—and when we’d broken apart, still flushed and breathless, Havamal had appeared. He had given Ersel the choice: Come with him and be his mate or watch him drown me. She had gone with him and saved my life. I knew that Havamal had later regretted his actions, but after the day my town had burned, the memory was the worst of my life. I would never see him as a friend.
“I’m sorry,” I said earnestly, and glanced over my shoulder to make sure the men were too far away to hear. “You can do what you like. I just don’t trust the crew. Whenever they do something nice, I can’t help thinking they are lulling us into security. They mean to trap us.”
Ersel sighed. She pulled the pinecone from her pocket and held it up to my face. “Luring us into a trap with a tree seed?”
I looked down. No one on this crew had truly been my enemy, but in their faces, in the blood-red tunics some of them still wore, I saw the shadows of my captors. It wasn’t fair to any of them, but I didn’t know how to change how I felt. Sometimes, the light would catch them at a certain angle, or they would say something in their Bjornstad accents, or shout, or laugh, and I was right back in my home town, watching the flames spread through the streets. I was on the beach with Lief and Yarra, and we were sparring for the last time.