by Julia Ember
We would have to charge together. Separate, we had no chance of survival. Even together, my small band of men might not be enough. I considered falling on my knees and begging Loki for intervention.
Smyain tiptoed closer to me, then pulled his bow over his shoulder. He nocked an arrow and aimed it at the nearest warrior’s heart. Carefully, I repositioned his elbow so that the arrow would strike the other guard. Whatever the eight-legged horse might do, the man who had killed my brother was going to die at my hand. An arrow to the chest was a mercy he did not deserve.
The arrow flew and struck deep. The one-eyed guard shouted as his companion slumped and fell from his chair. The arm dropped from the Sleipnir’s mouth, and it pivoted toward us. Steinair stepped out into the keep and raised his sword. His legs were shaking.
“Reckless boy,” Torstein cursed. He lunged for the back of Steinair’s tunic, but it was too late.
The Sleipnir’s eyes narrowed; it crouched like a great cat. Then in a flash of cyan smoke, it struck. The creature’s jaws closed around Steinair’s skinny neck, snapping his head from his body. It rolled toward us, eyes still wide. The Sleipnir hauled his body—its new prize—to the feeding trough and deposited the corpse inside. I covered my mouth. Steinair had been little more than a child himself, not even sixteen. I should have left him on the ship with Trygve, whatever his skill with a sword.
“Come out and play, cowards,” the guard called. He banged his sword against the table. His voice was so hauntingly familiar. It had been half a year, but I remembered his hot breath against my cheek and the way he had held me against his chest, blade at my throat.
The men at my back glanced at the hall behind us. The Sleipnir moved like nothing I’d ever seen. No wonder Haakon’s men had dared to leave only two warriors behind. The remaining guard rose from the table, holding his sword outstretched. He snapped his fingers, and the Sleipnir grudgingly turned its head. Its eyes fixed on us. I sensed that it could see where we crouched, even through the walls. If we tried to run, none of us would make it out alive. We needed more men—another army maybe—to defeat it.
Or one god.
My crew had proved themselves. They had risked their lives defending me from the fenrir. If I wanted to be worthy of their loyalty, I had to be willing to sacrifice too.
“I’ll do it,” I hissed, not knowing if Loki could even hear me. “I’ll make a deal with you.”
The silence that followed made my stomach curdle. The Trickster was content to wait for another navigator after all. We weren’t going to get out. We were all going to die here. My men had finally started to respect me, and I’d led them straight into a trap.
“All the pieces?” The voice was soft, rustling past my ear like leaves on an autumn wind.
“All of them. Just call your beast away.” I nearly trembled with relief.
“If you try to break our bargain, I will send the Sleipnir to hunt down and devour anyone you have ever spoken to. Your crew. Your cousin. The old man who weaves. Even into the ocean to devour your pretty mermaid.” A glimmer of light appeared at the corner of my vision, hovering like a specter.
“I won’t back out.”
“I believe you,” said Loki. “But it never hurts to have guaran-tees.”
The god’s form solidified. They appeared as a burly, muscled warrior with a long, braided, blond beard. They clutched a cyan shield in their hands and wore antlers so tall they nearly scraped the low ceiling of the fortress. My men jumped back, their eyes wild. A few fell to their knees.
The Trickster brushed past them. They walked confidentially into the center of the keep. A genuine, affectionate smile lit their face at the sight of the creature. The Sleipnir cocked its head. Haakon’s guard sneered. “One warrior?” he called down the hall. “You send one warrior to face our beast?”
Loki laughed. The voice that emerged from their lips now belonged to a child, not the formidable warrior standing in the keep. “Our beast,” they giggled.
The color slowly drained from the warrior’s face. He stepped back, using the table to shield himself. Loki tapped their cyan shield and held out their hand. The surface of the shield rippled like the water of a pond. Nostrils flared, the Sleipnir prowled over to them. Then it dropped its blood-stained muzzle into the Trickster’s outstretched palm. Loki reached up to pat its neck, and the creature vanished.
Loki turned to me and smiled. Their shield bore a new decoration. A great white horse with eight monstrous legs galloped across the face.
The warrior fell to his knees. “You… we had a deal. The hersir made a bargain.”
“Yes,” said Loki. They jerked their head toward the corridor, toward me. “And she offered me another one. I have never once gone back on a promise. Your hersir bargained for a creature to guard these children against invaders. I supplied such a creature, but we did not agree how long you could keep him.”
Beckoning to my men, I stepped out into the light.
“I will be back,” the Trickster said to me. “To claim what you owe.”
Loki evaporated, along with his new shield, into a cloud of a cyan smoke. A vicious smile stretched my lips. I bared my teeth. I might have sold my life to Loki, engaged myself to a service that might take years, but the only thing on my mind now was the enemy who had killed my brother. I was going to savor my revenge.
Sword falling from his hands, the warrior stumbled back against the fortress’ wall. “Mercy,” he whimpered. “Take me prisoner. I’ll serve your jarl.”
“You will serve no one.” I yanked my helmet from my head. My white-blonde hair fell to my shoulders. He looked into my face, then let out a cry of recognition.
He fell to his knees at my feet. I kicked him into the wall. He threw his arms up to cover his face.
“Hold him,” I yelled to Torstein. My warrior looked sidelong at me, his eyes questioning. The enemy was unarmed now, and I could have ended it in a second. A single blow to the skull with my axe would have been enough. But I didn’t want to. This was the man who had come into my home, who had killed my brother in cold blood. I was going to take my time. Maybe this would finally be enough to quench my burning thirst for revenge. Maybe after I did this, I would finally find peace.
Torstein seized the man’s arms and yanked them to the side. I stepped over him, planting a foot on either side of his writhing body. Then I angled my axe and slit open his belly.
“Ragna…” Torstein whispered, his teeth gritted. He’d never used my given name. Even when he had hated me, it had always been “girl” or “you.” For the barest second, it was enough to make me pause. “This isn’t honorable.”
I had once believed Torstein to be a murderer, capable of slaying women and children in cold blood. I had been so wrong about him. He still maintained a code, a sense of honor, that I’d already lost.
“This man.” I pointed my axe at the warrior’s chest while he screamed, and blood poured from the wound in his abdomen. “Came into my house in the dead of night and murdered my seven-year-old brother in his bed. He and his companions killed my parents. He does not get off easily.”
Torstein took a deep breath. He turned his head to the side. “Get on with it then.”
“No!” the man shrieked.
My first cut had been shallow, only deep enough to break through the skin. The warrior moaned as I crouched down and whispered, “My brother was seven. Seven. He was gentle. Think about that.”
I slipped my hook into the opening in his stomach. Muscle and blood squelched around my arm. The man writhed, as his legs desperately scraped the floor for purchase. I pulled my hook out; his bowel dangled from it like an oversized worm. Ignoring the smell and the blood that seeped through my fingers, I unwound it like a rope, then slung it around the man’s neck. I pulled it tight, cutting off his cries. His face went purple. I kept up the pressure until he stopped twitching.
&nbs
p; Torstein just stared at me; his whole body was rigid.
Smyain stepped forward, pushing his way through the line of men. He sighed and kicked the warrior’s corpse aside. My lungs felt like ice. I started to shiver. A strange emptiness filled me as I looked at the smear of blood on the floor, then at the dead man’s purple face.
There was justice in what I’d done, so why did I feel like this? It had to be battle fever. It was the only explanation.
He was gentle. My own words echoed in my mind. Whatever the man’s crimes against him, Lief never would have condoned what I had just done.
Smyain ripped off a piece of his tunic. He wiped the blood off my face, both of my arms and hook. “There,” he said, his voice a little strained. “Good as new.”
“He will haunt you,” Torstein murmured. “You’re not a monster. The manner of his death will haunt you.”
“He already haunted me.” I knelt beside the trapdoor. “Maybe now, he’ll finally be quiet.”
Five
Mörsugur
The Bone Month
December
Smyain brought one of the torches hanging on the keep walls. He shone the light down as I felt along the surface of the trapdoor for a handle or a lock. My fingers slid into a narrow keyhole.
“Search them,” I said, pointing to the two corpses with my axe. “One of them will have a key.”
The crew turned the bodies over and began rummaging through their clothing. I knelt beside the door again and pressed my lips to the keyhole. “Yarra? Are you in there? Can you hear me?”
I could hear something moving in the space below. But no voices answered me. What would I say to Yarra when I saw her again? She probably thought I was dead, or that I’d abandoned her long ago.
Smyain rushed to my side. He triumphantly brandished a little bronze key, sticky with congealed blood. “It was on the first one,” he said.
I took the key and fit it into the lock. I didn’t know what to expect. If the children had been confined and alone under the keep for more than six months, they would be scared and malnourished. What we would do if they were too sick to travel? While Honor met the soldiers in the meadows, we were supposed to get the children to the safety of the mountains before the battle moved into the town.
I yanked open the hatch. The smell of excrement hit me immediately. I covered my mouth and nose with my tunic. How could anyone keep children in a place like this? A set of wooden stairs led down from the trapdoor. There was no light coming from the space. I grabbed the torch from Smyain and descended the stairs.
A group of small, dirty figures huddled in the corner farthest from the steps. I walked toward them, holding the torch to light the way. My men started to climb down behind me. One of the children whimpered.
“Stop,” I said. “Stay up there. None of them will know you.”
At the sound of my voice, one of the figures broke away from the group. He was a boy of six or seven. I recognized his freckles and ginger hair, though I couldn’t recall his name. He had been one of Lief’s more regular playmates. I’d seen him countless times with my brother, skipping stones, singing, carrying buckets for Uncle Bjorn’s forge. The clothes he wore were torn and filthy. His face had lost its roundness. His eyes looked impossibly large in his gaunt face. I crouched, and he approached me.
“Ragna?” he asked. One of his tiny hands reached out to touch my cheek. I felt suddenly ashamed that I didn’t know his name or who his parents had been. I hadn’t paid enough attention to Lief when he was alive, or I would have known more about his friends.
The rest of the group unfurled like petals. There were only a handful of them—all younger than ten, all dirt and skin and bones. I had expected more children. How many houses had the raiders burned before they reached my family that night?
Where was Yarra? I scanned the torchlight over them, praying. But in my heart, I already knew that if Yarra had been there, she would have thrown herself at me.
I licked my dry lips. “Where is my cousin?”
Lief’s playmate shook his head. “She’s never been down here.”
“Are there any others still alive?” I hesitated and my voice nearly broke. “Did you see… bodies?”
The boy studied his feet. “They made us watch when they burned the bodies. Yarra wasn’t there either. And when they rounded up all the horses, Mjolnir was gone too.”
Mjolnir would not have gone anywhere without Yarra. He was entirely dedicated to one little girl. Yarra would have died before she left that horse behind. I had spent the last few months justifying every action with concern for my cousin. Was it possible that she had never needed me to rescue her at all? Yarra had always been the toughest of us. But she was still only a child. Even if she had managed to escape amidst the chaos that night, how long could she survive on her own, in winter?
“Ragna?” Torstein called from above. His face appeared through the hatch. “We need to get them out of here. If the unlikely happens, and Honor loses, we need to be far away.”
“We’re coming,” I shouted.
Once we hid these children in the mountains, I would go in search of my cousin. Whatever had happened to her, she was beyond the reach of Haakon’s men.
* * *
The fort was surrounded. When I opened the front gate, chaos had broken out in the town. Jarl Honor’s warriors pushed the enemy through the streets toward the harbor. The sounds of clashing iron and men’s cries were everywhere. Bodies littered the streets; blood and mud churned together forming pools. Most of Haakon’s men had stopped fighting and were running toward the three drekkar ships stationed at the town docks. I couldn’t make out Aslaug or Honor in the fray.
Torstein grabbed the nearest child and hoisted her onto his back. The others followed his lead, each lifting a child. Our way to the farmhouse was blocked by two warriors circling one another with swords in hand. One of them still wore Haakon’s colors. I sized up the distance between us, then threw my axe. It embedded in the back of the enemy’s skull. He dropped to his knees, dazed, and Honor’s thegn lopped his head from his shoulders.
“Get away from the water!” someone screamed.
I turned to the beach. The enemy warriors were wading into the ocean, scrambling for their ships. But as they ran through the waves, something pulled them under. A turquoise-scaled hand reached out from the water to grab an enemy’s ankle. He fell into onto the rocks and was dragged into the ocean. A cloud of blood bloomed in the sea, followed by a flash of lilac. Something like hope made my chest flutter.
“Take them to safety,” I said to Torstein. “I will meet you at the boats when this is over.”
“That wasn’t the plan,” he argued. “We’re supposed to get back. You’re supposed to come with us. The jarl has this won. I’m not leaving you here.”
“We did our part. The Sleipnir is gone.” I pointed to the ocean and smiled, as another enemy vanished beneath the red waves. “She came back.”
He shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted toward the water. A red-finned merman with black skin breached the water and tackled an enemy. Torstein sighed. “Trygve is going to panic if we come back without you.”
“I’ll be fine.” I clapped him on the back. “And if I’m not, you get what you always wanted.”
“I haven’t wanted that in a while,” Torstein grumbled. He hoisted the girl he was carrying higher onto his back. “We’ll see you soon.”
I nodded, then turned to the beach. The remaining enemy soldiers were clustered at the docks, caught between Honor’s arrows and the merfolk waiting to drown them. Only a handful remained. I watched the water for Ersel.
Jarl Honor pushed past her front line of soldiers. Her armor was covered in blood-splatter and mud. She wrenched off her helmet and thrust it into Aslaug’s waiting hands. Her black hair had been braided into an efficient knot at the back of her head. She ha
d a small cut beneath her eye, but otherwise looked unharmed.
I closed my eyes with relief. They were both alive and would return to Djalsfor to forge whatever future they chose together. The húskarl walked a step behind the jarl. They angled their shield so that it covered Honor’s torso rather than their own. Together they approached the enemy.
“Kneel,” Honor commanded the remaining fighters.
In the ocean, the merclan treaded water and listened. Ersel floated beside Havamal and a green-scaled mermaid wearing a diadem of sea pearls and white shells. The water around the merclan was murky with blood. Corpses floated on the shallow waves.
When Ersel saw me, she smiled and waved her webbed fingers. Hesitantly, I smiled too. She’d come back for me, yet a niggling voice in my head insisted things wouldn’t be the same as before she had left. My hand drifted to the pouch at my belt; her stolen sea pearls were tucked inside. I needed to apologize to her.
“Will you give us your word to spare us? We demand your promise,” shouted one of the enemies. He was slim and drenched with sweat. He held a bow and pointed an arrow at Honor. Aslaug stepped between them.
“I don’t like your tone,” the jarl snapped. “I will not spare you, but if the others yield now, their lives will be spared.”
The other enemy warriors were on their knees in an instant. The archer looked around wildly, then ran at the jarl. Aslaug stepped in front of her. In a single, fast stroke, they severed the archer’s head. I’d never considered decapitation a romantic gesture, but Honor’s cheeks flushed. She smiled shyly at her húskarl.
A cheer went up from Honor’s tired soldiers.
I approached them, wiping sweat from my face.