by S. T. Bende
The fantasy didn’t last long before Katrin’s bemused voice broke my focus.
“Something funny?” she asked.
“Huh? No. Just thinking of all the fun we could have with these blades.”
“That’s not exactly the word that comes to mind,” she said dryly.
“Hey, now. You passed Basic Swordsmanship.”
“Ja. But I’m barely surviving Swords II. Why’d you have to move to the advanced level so fast?”
“Because.” I grimaced. “Erik kicks my butt daily in practice. Sometimes twice daily.”
“Oh. I guess that’s fair, then.”
“How are the rest of your classes going?” I asked.
“Fine. Thankfully I’m in an academic-heavy rotation, so there’s minimal shame for my parents.”
“Katrin, they adore you.” I bit back a smile. Katrin’s parents were both warriors, and though she joked about their disappointment in her lack of athleticism, I knew they were proud of her many intellectual accomplishments. If Viking Academy had a valedictorian, she’d definitely be in the running.
“I know. That’s why they only have minimal shame!”
I laughed. “Hey, speaking of academic-heavy stuff, any chance you’d be willing to help me with an extracurricular project?”
“As long as it’s not sword fighting with Erik, sure. What’s going on?”
“I’m working on a report—like the ones we put together here, but with a more detailed action plan. I’m trying to show that exposing our lifestyle to the world is fiscally, socially, and military—militarily?—advantageous. And I want to draw up an action plan for implementation of our policies. What do you think?”
Katrin leaned forward. “I think it’s a great idea. I’ve wondered for years why we keep an enlightened society to ourselves while the rest of the world lives in darkness.”
“Great. So you’ll help me?” I beamed at my friend.
“I’m also thinking,” Katrin continued, “that you’ll never get the Halvarssons onboard, and the minute you bring it up to Erik you’re going to have a major fight.”
“We already had the fight.” I raised one finger. “And he’s onboard with the proposal. He says we have a lot of details to work out before he’s willing to commit, but that he’ll read my report with an open mind—and talk to his parents if he agrees with my reasoning.”
“Erik said that?” Katrin’s jaw dropped. “Jeez, you two must be really serious.”
“Or,” I countered, “it’s a really good idea and progress can’t be ignored forever.”
“I like the way you think.” Katrin nodded. “I’m in. I’ll help however you need me to.”
“Thanks.” I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “I’m going to work on it tonight after dinner. Stop by if you’re free?”
“Sure. I’m interested to see what you’ve written so far.”
“It’s not much,” I warned. “But I’ll grab lefse and you can read what I’ve got.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Katrin smiled at me before returning to her manifest. “Nutmeg again, huh? Must be catching on.”
“Speaking of catching on . . .” No. That was a terrible segue. Try again, Saga. “Uh, how’s Vidia?”
“She’s fine.” Katrin looked up. “I haven’t told her I like her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Why not?”
“We talked for a long time at the winter ball.” Katrin frowned. “She’s been through a lot.”
“Clan Bjorn was a nightmare,” I said quietly. “And she was there a lot longer than me.”
“But even before that. The tribe she came from wasn’t much better—and her parents basically sold her to Bjorn to ensure their own protection. Ingrid was the only person who ever looked out for her before you came along.”
My heart tugged. Vidia had never talked to me about her past. It said a lot that she’d opened up to Katrin.
“She needs a friend more than anything right now.” Katrin returned to her manifest. “I want to be that for her.”
I reached across the table to place my hand atop hers. “You have a good soul, Katrin. The world needs more people like you.”
“I could say the same about you.” She smiled. “Now, get back to work. Figure out how to use that . . . complicated arrow-weapon thing.”
Huh?
Katrin tapped her writing feather to a page I hadn’t examined. I picked it up, studying a drawing of a T- shaped bow. It was rudimentary, and its notes said it was made of wood, not metal, but it looked to be some kind of a crossbow. They had crossbows in Viking times?
I tried to remember the history lessons that had been a part of my archery training back home. I was pretty sure versions of crossbows had been around Asia and Greece since the B.C. days, but I wasn’t sure exactly when they were invented—or how they’d made their way to Scandinavia.
Duh, Saga. Viking ships brought them to Scandinavia. And disseminators spread them throughout the northern territories.
Right.
“What is it?” Katrin leaned forward to study the page.
“It’s a crossbow.” I stared at the drawing. “See how it forms the shape of a cross? Well, kind of?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Katrin nodded. “What does it do?’
Exactly how much had the explorers gathered that it did?
I read from the page. “It fires arrows at a higher speed, increasing accuracy during inclement weather and force of impact during battle.”
“Gods. I hope Bjorn doesn’t have those. Or any of the tribes who are siding with them.” Katrin shuddered.
She had a point.
“How long ago did this shipment come in?” I asked.
“Last week. Why?” Her eyes widened. “Are you thinking we should stall our report?”
“Kind of,” I admitted. “I’m thinking we take this schematic and create a prototype. If we can get it functional, it could provide a major advantage if Bjorn attacks.”
“When they attack,” Katrin corrected. “Even if they never locate the island, they’ll find ways to draw us out. And you’re right—when they do, we’ll need every tool we have.”
I carefully folded the paper. After glancing around the room to make sure nobody was looking, I slipped it into the pocket of my apron dress and tapped my fingers on the table. “Let’s tell Professor Spry that we have this, but ask her to keep it between us. We can log the rest of the manifest so nobody suspects anything, and take this page to Erik. He’s good with his hands—maybe he can build one of these for us. Or twenty.”
Katrin’s eyes twinkled. “He’s good with his hands, huh?”
“Stop!” I flung my writing feather at her.
“You said it. Not me.” She tossed my feather back.
“You’re terrible.”
“I’ve heard worse.” She winked and went back to sorting through spices. I got through a few more weapon entries before class was over, and I left feeling optimistic. If Katrin and I were right, this could change everything—from a tactical standpoint, at least. And from a political one . . . well, we’d make some headway on our Valkyris report tonight. We had to convince Erik—and then his parents—that sharing Valkyris with the world was in everyone’s best interest.
Our entire future depended on it.
Chapter 19
ON SATURDAY, ERIK TOOK me on a ski date. The sky was a breathtaking blue—for once—and the weather had risen to a balmy not freezing, so we strapped our skis onto our boots and headed into the forest. As soon as we hit the shadows, the temperature dropped another ten degrees. But at least the wind was mercifully still. And the company wasn’t half bad, either.
Even if he was unusually tense.
“Okay, spill, Halvarsson. What’s going on?” I glanced at Erik as we glided through a fresh layer of powder. His torso was rigid, as if he were clenching his shoulder blades together. “Erik?”
“Huh? Sorry, what did you say?”
I staked my pole in a s
nowbank and pushed forward. “What’s wrong today? The uptightness coming off you is nuts right now.”
“The uptightness?” Erik’s mouth quirked.
“You know what I mean.” I pushed off the other pole. “Even for you, this is intense.”
“Ja, well . . .”
I waited, but apparently that was his entire statement. Ja, well.
Men.
“Erik Halvarsson, tell me what’s up right this minute or so help me, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” I bent down, scooping up a chunk of snow as I skied. “I will chuck snowballs at you until you start talking.”
“Do you really want to start a snowball fight with me?” Erik bent at the waist and retrieved his own handful of snow. He wasted no time patting it into a tight ball and cocking his arm.
“If it gets you to talk to me, then yes.” I lobbed my snowball. It struck his chest, splattering in an explosion of white against the black of his cloak. A wicked gleam glinted in his eye, and with a somewhat sinister chuckle, he threw his own snowball at me.
I dropped my poles and turned so it pinned me on the back, hitting with just enough force that I jumped. “Ow!”
“That wasn’t hard,” Erik pointed out.
“No, but I wasn’t expecting you to actually hit me!” I scooped up another ball and chucked it.
“Did you think I’d throw a match?” Another snowball struck my back. Then another.
“I thought . . .” I lobbed two in quick succession, “. . . that you’d miss on purpose, on account of I’m your girlfriend!”
“Well, you thought wrong.” Erik’s next shot hit my arm. “But I am going easy on you, if that makes you feel better.”
“This is easy?” I ducked as another snowball flew at my chest.
“If you were Axel, you’d be flat on the ground by now,” he said. “With ice-welts on your face.”
Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea.
“Come on!” I threw one more snowball, then paused with my hands on my hips. “I just want to know why you’re so stressed today. Everything okay with your parents? Raynor? Is your bromance with Axel on the rocks?”
“Bromance?” Erik stopped molding his next weapon and blinked at me.
No way was I going to explain that one. “Just talk to me already.”
Erik palmed his poles and resumed skiing. “Another report came in from the east. Bjorn’s recruited two new tribes to their cause. The numbers from their known allies alone already more than triple ours. And we don’t even know what’s happening to the North.”
“Oh, God.” I hurriedly picked up my poles and skied after him. “What are we doing about it?”
“There’s not much we can do. Our warriors are readying for battle, both here and on Valkyris East. Our smiths have upped production of weapons, and the älva handlers have doubled down on protecting the island. We’re safe here, but at some point the fight will reach the mainland. Or . . .”
“Or?” I asked.
“Or they’ll commit acts so heinous, they’ll force us to act. They know we’re not likely to let innocent people suffer.”
My breath caught. “What do you mean?”
Erik rounded a thick-trunked tree, glancing up at its icicle-laden branches. “In extreme circumstances, Valkyris has been known to step forward to defend weaker tribes.”
“How extreme have the circumstances been?”
“You’ve seen how Bjorn operates—I’ll let you imagine.”
Yikes.
“But they’re horrible to their slaves, and worse to their enemies . . . and you let that slide.”
“You said it yourself; ours is a rough world. Things have to get pretty bad for us to invoke our might. But when we do . . .” Erik let loose a low whistle. “We don’t tend to leave survivors.”
My mind drifted to the story Ingrid and Vidia had told me when we’d been captives together—the one about the brutish clan of Valkyris, who’d descended on a village and obliterated it in the night. By the time they’d left, not a single resident was left alive.
Skit. Was it going to come to that?
“You think Bjorn is going to start terrorizing tribes? More than they already do, I mean?”
“I do,” Erik confirmed. “They want a fight, and I wouldn’t put it past them to do whatever it takes to get one.”
I pushed forward so we were side by side. “Then we have to act fast. Katrin’s helping me with my report now. Once it’s finished, we’ll go over it with you, and then we can present it to your parents for approval. And I think we’ve found a new weapon that might give us an advantage—or at least make us less vulnerable. Katrin and I have been working on a new manifest, and we discovered a prototype for something called a crossbow.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a weapon—a long-range, high-impact bow and arrow. I have the schematic back in my room—I meant to show it to you when I found it on Thursday, but Katrin and I got so involved in the report it slipped through the cracks. Sorry.”
“Understandable. Tell me about it now. How big is the weapon?”
“It’s smaller than our current bows—or at least, this particular design is. I’m sure it can be scaled up or down. And it looks like it has a fairly straightforward design. How are you at building slide mechanisms? Or building anything, really?”
Erik shot me the side-eye. “Are you questioning my carpentry?”
“Yes,” I said honestly.
Erik drew his shoulders back. “I’ll have you know that not only am I an excellent woodworker, but I’m a reasonably competent smith. Are these crossbows made of metal or wood?”
“Both,” I said. “Though I think this one is wooden.”
Erik nodded. “I’m free all day. What do you think? Should we cut this run short and—”
A booming crack filled the air, as something shifted overhead.
“Saga! Go right!”
I flung myself into the snow, covering my head and waiting for an impact that never came. Instead, the ground reverberated and a shower of powder exploded, covering me in a cool, white dust. I lifted my head to discover a tree limb laying no more than ten feet from where I’d been skiing.
“Holy skit!” I scrambled to my feet, looking up to see if another assault was imminent. But instead of a breaking bough, or even one weighted down with icicles, my gaze settled on a massive red dragon hovering just above the tree line. Its leathery wings flapped slowly, so it dipped precariously close to the branches. It must have landed on one, nearly causing my impalement. Who would be stupid enough to fly so close to the—
“Raynor!” Erik thundered. “Get your dragon away from the trees!”
“We need to talk.” Raynor poked his head around the dragon’s thick neck. “Immediately.”
“It’s not safe to land here,” Erik shouted. “You nearly killed Saga.”
“Pity.”
The growl that ripped from Erik’s throat was equal parts go to hell and I will cut you.
“There has been a development,” Raynor called down. “Where can we talk?”
Erik skied closer and slid an arm around me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I shuddered. Another development?
“Time is of the essence,” Raynor hissed.
Erik growled again. “There’s a clearing past the temple. Meet us there.”
“Hurry,” Raynor barked. Then he pulled his dragon back and flew away.
My stomach churned as I watched him go. “What do you think it is this time?”
“I don’t know, but if it’s big enough to warrant his return then it’s not good. Raynor hates coming home almost as much as we hate having him.”
“Erik.” I frowned. I wished he wasn’t holding on to so much anger—especially toward his brother.
“Come, Saga. Let’s get this over with.”
His arm slipped from my shoulder, and he skied into the trees. With a sigh, I dug into the snow and pushed off. Whatever their issues, Erik and Raynor
were united in stopping Bjorn, at least. Unless . . .
I forced the thought from my head. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Raynor had a secondary agenda where Valkyris was concerned. For reasons I couldn’t put my finger on, I just didn’t trust him.
And judging from the tension that had returned to Erik’s shoulders, he felt exactly the same.
Raynor and his dragon were waiting when we reached the clearing. The reptile’s long claws tapped tersely against the snow, while its rider stood with crossed arms and furrowed brows.
“What took you so long?” Raynor spat.
“We had to navigate the rest of the branches you felled.” Erik glared at his brother. “Ridden a dragon, lately?”
“Staved off an uprising, lately?” Raynor retorted. “What are you doing here? Your enemies are staging a war, and you’re having a ski day?”
When he put it like that, it did seem kind of frivolous.
“What news was so important you nearly decapitated Saga to bring it?” Erik asked.
“What more news do you need? Your enemies are staging a war. You, Mother, and Father may have buried your heads in the snow, but I’ve been to their camps. I’ve seen the armies they’ve amassed. You’re going to lose.”
“You think we aren’t aware of the risks?” Erik pushed back. “We’re preparing on our end. But you wouldn’t know that, since you’re never here.”
“And why is that? You and Father practically banished me from the island.”
“You bring nothing but misery when you’re here. If you managed to curb your unpleasantness, we wouldn’t be forced to assign you remote jobs.”
Ouch.
Raynor snorted. “That’s all I have to do to be welcomed into the family fold? Curb my unpleasantness?”
Erik shifted his poles to one hand and crossed his arms, mirroring his brother. “You asked to be a scout. If you’d had any interest in helping from the ground, you could have said so.”
“Please,” Raynor spat. “After Liana died, Mother grew obsessed with preparing you to be the heir. There was no room for the second spare.”
My throat tightened. For a split second, I felt sorry for him.