The Riki who’d sunk his blade into my arm was staring down at me. The blue of his eyes glinted like fire-steel striking in the dark. The hair fell down around his face, unraveled from its knot, and his broad frame towered over me as his hands tightened on my armor vest to hold me in place.
“Stop following us.” His voice rose above the sound of rain falling.
I felt for the knife in my belt. “Where is he?”
He shoved me before he let me go and turned, stalking off into the trees.
I ran after him.
He turned suddenly, lifting the handle of his axe to catch me in the shoulder. “Go back. Now,” he growled.
“Where’s Iri?” I shouted.
He shoved me again, sending me back into another tree. The bark grated against my vest as I slid down the trunk and landed on the ground.
I got back to my feet, following him. “Where is he?” I tried to even the shaking in my voice.
When he turned again, he snatched my injured arm up and dug his thumb into the fresh wound he’d made the day before. I screamed, falling to my knees as the stitches popped through the skin. Bursts of light ruptured before my eyes and my stomach turned on itself, making me feel like I was on the water.
He stood over me, his face hidden in the shadows. “You’re going to get us killed. Stay away from Iri.”
I opened my mouth to speak and he clamped his hand down harder until my eyes lost focus. I was going to faint. His voice echoed in my head as the Aska retreat whistle sounded far away.
“Fiske.” Iri’s voice came from somewhere behind us—a voice I knew in my bones.
He stood behind us, holding an axe in each hand. “Let’s go.” He nodded toward the tree line, avoiding my eyes.
“Wait!” I stumbled to my feet, but he was already walking away. “Iri!”
“Go back, Eelyn. Before someone sees you.” The strain in his words was buried deep beneath the hardness that knit his face together.
His face.
My jaw dropped as I marveled at it. He was fair like me and our mother, but he looked like my father. There, in the eyes and the line of his wide shoulders. He wasn’t a boy anymore, but it was him. It was my brother.
“You’re real,” I rasped, trying to catch my breath. I slid my axe into its sheath on my back, staring.
“Iri.” A warning sounded in the Riki’s voice.
“Go.” Iri turned again, giving me his back. “Forget you saw me.”
I leaned into the tree, pinching my eyes closed against the pain in my arm. Against the ache in my chest. Because Iri was alive. And if he was alive, it meant something terrible. Something far worse than losing him.
“Iri?” Another voice sounded in the forest and my feet slid out from under me in the mud.
Iri stopped mid-stride, turning slowly and searching around us.
Ahead, a large man stepped forward, into the slice of moonlight cutting through the trees. “Fiske?”
The three of them looked at each other for a moment and the air turned cold around me, my senses heightening. I pulled my knife free again and looked toward the river. I wasn’t stronger, but even injured I was probably faster than all three of them.
I could make it.
Iri’s jaw clenched, something working in his mind before he looked back to Fiske. He gave a slight nod before his eyes dropped and my breath caught.
Fiske was already reaching for me.
I pitched myself from the tree, propelling my weight forward, but he caught me, wrenching me back toward him. His fingers wound around my throat, his thumb pressing to the pulse at my neck. I kicked, trying to slide free, but his grip tightened until I couldn’t pull the air into my lungs. I clawed at his hands as the black pushed in at the edges of my vision. Behind him, Iri’s tight eyes were pinned on the ground.
Fiske’s gaze locked on mine, his hands like iron. My heartbeat slowed, my body growing heavier with every missed breath. I blinked, my eyes turning up to where the stars glimmered through the treetops. The pounding of my heart thrummed in my ears. One beat. Two.
Then dark.
FIVE
I woke to the sound of wooden wheels cracking over stones in the dirt and light passing like shadows over my closed eyelids. I tried to place the smell.
Winter. Pine and woodsmoke. My eyes opened to a stretch of empty blue sky overhead. The footfall of horses. The shifting of a cart.
I threw myself forward, sitting up, and struggled to get my feet beneath me before I fell back down. My hands were bound at the wrists, the wound on my arm bleeding fresh through my sleeve. A few Riki glanced up from where they rode on their horses around me, and my eyes widened, trying to focus.
We were in the eastern valley. Headed toward the mountain. Thora’s mountain.
The Riki marched in a massive group stretching out before and behind me.
My heart rammed against my chest, my breath frantic, sending puffs of fog out before me in the cold air. I crouched back down, studying the edge of forest to my right.
He came into view as I fixed my hands on the side of the cart, ready to make a desperate leap for the ground, and I froze. Iri was riding a silver horse behind me, his eyes boring into me, strained. He gave the slightest shake of his head and glanced up ahead of me. I turned to see a line of archers riding side by side, bows slung over their backs with full quivers of speckled feather arrows at their knees.
I measured the distance between myself and the trees; I’d have five or six arrows in my back by the time I made it to cover. If one of them didn’t run me down with their horse first.
I tried to think. The wound on my arm was still seeping and the swelling on the side of my face was pounding. I licked my lips and tasted dried blood. In the cart in front of me, two men lay on their backs, one missing a leg and the other with his face wrapped in bloody bandages. I sat back down, pulling my knees into my chest.
Iri was still watching me. The dark leather of his armor vest made his hair look like an icy waterfall of bloodstained braids. The scruff on his face sat below sharp cheekbones and round, blue eyes.
Eyes I’d known all my life.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my forehead, thinking about the last time I’d seen him. Five years ago. Fighting beside me in the snow-covered glade with an axe in each hand. Snowflakes in his hair. Blood on his hands. He was tangled in the fight with a young Riki before they fell over the edge of a deep crevice carved into the earth. I could still hear the sound of my own scream as I watched him disappear. I’d crawled on my hands and knees to the edge, where the ground almost gave beneath me. He was lying on his back, his insides spilling out from a gaping wound. His eyes were already empty, staring up into the sky. And beside him, the Riki boy was half-buried in the snow.
I looked up, and Iri’s eyes fixed on mine for another wordless breath, as if he was remembering the same moment. And then he kicked his horse, cutting left into the group, and disappeared.
Ahead, the mountain rose up over the valley. Dark slate rock melting into green forest beneath strokes of snow-crested peaks. Away from the fjord. Away from home.
I didn’t know where the Riki lived, but we had to be on our way to one of their villages. And there’d be no way back to the valley until after the thaw. If I could get free, I could make it back to the fjord.
The cart jolted, coming to a stop as I came onto my feet. The Riki were moving into the trees, where a river snaked into the dense forest. They were stopping to water the horses. I could pick out the back of Iri’s head, weaving in and out of the others.
A Riki woman’s angry eyes met mine as she passed, headed for the water. They hadn’t killed me yet and I’d been fighting the Riki long enough to know why. There weren’t many uses for an Aska prisoner. They would either make me a dýr or sell me to another clan who would. Either way, it would cost me Sólbjǫrg.
A hand slapped me hard in the back of the head and the man driving the cart grunted, spitting at me before going back to his hors
e. “Sit down or I’ll tie your feet and drag you.”
I obeyed, watching over the side of the cart. Iri stood with his horse in the shade of the forest. He wore two crossing axe sheaths on his back, missing the scabbard the others wore. Just like he did when we were children. His gaze was fixed down the tree line, on Fiske, before they drifted in my direction again. They landed on me for only a moment before he turned his attention to his horse, checking the riggings and running his hands over its spotted hide. In the cart in front of us, the man missing his leg was groaning.
The cart rocked as the driver climbed back up onto his horse and he called out as one of the archers came out of the forest. He walked across the clearing toward us with a water skin in his hand, his horse sauntering behind him. His long red hair matched his beard, braided into three haphazard strands.
He waved a hand at the driver as he came to his side, handing him the water. I clutched onto the railing with numb fingers, watching them talk as the horse walked alongside the cart. My heart kicked up, my eyes darting from the horse back to the archer. His quiver of arrows was still fixed to the saddle.
I sat up just enough to look back over the rail. Most of the Riki were off their horses.
I gathered up a handful of hay from beneath me and slipped my hand through the slats, holding it out to the horse. When he spotted it, he rocked his head and took a step toward me.
The men were still talking as I reached for the reins, closing my eyes and murmuring a prayer under my breath. I looked at Iri one last time and, and as if he felt my gaze, his eyes shot back to me. They went wide as I threw myself up and over the rail, landing on the saddle. I slid, my weight falling to one side, and caught myself as the animal reared up.
“Aska!” the driver roared.
I kicked the horse with the heel of my boot and stood in the stirrups, leaning forward to keep my body as low as possible, while chaos exploded around the clearing. From the right, Riki were already running in the distance, weapons drawn as they disappeared into the trees to head me off. It was the only way I could go. If I didn’t get into the trees, the archers would have me.
I shouted, urging the horse faster.
Ahead, Iri’s horse was running with no rider, spooked by the commotion. Iri stood with his hands dropped by his side, eyes bewildered. Behind him, Fiske jumped up onto his horse and took off in the same direction I was headed.
The shriek of an arrow flew past me, striking a tree, and the splinters flew into the air as I passed. I tried to get lower. The Riki were like stones rolling across the overgrowth, coming at me with the same faces I saw on the battlefield the day before. Feet pounding into the ground. Weapons swinging.
I cleared the tree line, swallowed up by the cool of the forest, and looked back.
Fiske was already in my line of sight as I glanced back to the river. He rode in fast, lifting his bow from where it was tucked against his horse, and I cursed. He slowed, falling back as he yanked an arrow free from his saddle, and pulled back on the string. The shot was clear.
The wet pop in my left shoulder sounded in my ears and the forest went quiet around me as I looked down to see the head of an arrow pushing through the leather of my armor vest. The horse kicked up, tilting, and I fell back, landing on the ground so hard it knocked the air from my lungs.
I rolled onto my right side, trying to pull my feet under me, but I still couldn’t breathe. The trees above me swayed, bending over each other in my vision as my stomach roiled. The shouting stopped and I pressed my face into the damp dirt, panting and coughing.
Fiske’s boots hit the ground in front of my face as he dismounted and the sound of more footsteps filled my head.
He reached down, snatching up a handful of my hair, and pulled me to my feet. From the corner of my eye, I could see the others taking hold of the horse’s reins. I moaned, the arrow wedged through my shoulder joint radiating a hot pain down into my arm, neck, and back. I tried to swallow it down as he pulled me, my braids tangled in his fist, back toward the clearing.
Where Iri was waiting.
SIX
I pulled at the ropes tying my hands and feet to the cart with blistering fingers, trying to hold myself still on my right side as it rocked and swayed over the uneven ground. The arrow was still threaded between my bones, the pain so deep now that I could feel it spreading through my entire body.
Iri rode behind, watching me, and I gave up trying to read the look on his face so I could focus every ounce of strength I had left on keeping still. When darkness fell and the cart began to slow, I watched fires light through half-opened eyes and was asleep before the camp quieted.
Morning came a wheezing breath later. I swallowed against a raw throat and listened to the Riki come awake, putting out fires and readying their horses. I bit down so hard I thought my teeth might break when we started moving again, hooking my arms and legs into the rails of the cart to brace myself.
The white-hot heat in my shoulder ached all the way into my ears, making my head feel like it was going to crack open. I didn’t look for Iri again. The only thing cutting deeper than the agony of the arrow was the knowledge that he was a traitor. That he was alive. All this time.
Hours passed in between waking and sleeping until I wasn’t sure if I was dead or alive. The cart slowed again and the crunch of hooves on frozen ground replaced the sound of sliding rock. I curled up tighter as we started to go uphill and tried not to scream as my weight was pulled toward my feet.
We didn’t stop until the air turned cold in the setting sun and the scent of snow met the smell of fire. Then there was cheering. The muffled sound of crying. Warriors coming home for the winter to wives and husbands and children. I knew that sound. I could see the fjord in my mind. The view of it from up on the ridge. Blues and greens jetting up out of the water and disappearing into the foggy sky. The black rock beach with whitewashed driftwood piled on the shore. My clansmen were probably already there, warming themselves before the fires in their wood-planked homes. Burrowed into their beds with full stomachs.
My father. Mýra.
It stung almost as much as the arrow punctured through my flesh.
The Riki left me lying there until voices pushed in at the edges of my blurred thoughts and the cart shook again. I cringed.
“Where am I going to put her?” A rasping voice came from the darkness beside me.
Another body climbed up and I winced against the pain it sent running through my back. “I’ll do it.”
The ropes around me were cut and hands pulled at my legs, sliding me to the end of the cart. As I was lifted up, the arrow caught on something and I groaned. My insides churned in a violent sea and my eyes flew open to see Iri’s face above me. I blinked, trying to bring him into focus before my eyes rolled back into my head.
When I pulled them open again, I was on the ground. Inside. The color of fire lit the dark room around me. A barn. Or maybe a storehouse.
A calloused hand pressed to my face. “She’s burning up.”
“Probably infection.” Another voice. “Get her on the table.”
The hands took me up again and the room spun around me.
Cold night air pinched at my skin as they worked at my armor vest and I kicked, reaching for my knife, but the sheath was empty.
“Stop.” Iri’s face came back into view.
I grabbed onto him, my fingers digging into the leather of his armor. “Get it out,” I whimpered as hot tears gathered at the corners of my eyes.
“We will.” He disappeared from view again.
Another shadow stepped in front of me and hands gently pressed around the arrowhead. “We should wait for Runa.”
“She’s with the wounded from Aurvanger. Just get it out of her.” My brother’s deep voice was too loud in my head. His hand grasped my arm and I wrenched it back, cursing. I needed him to take out the arrow, but the thought of him trying to comfort me made me sick.
The figure in front of me shifted and the firelight cau
ght his face. Fiske.
I jerked back. “Get away from me!”
His hand came down over my mouth and I took his throat in between my fingers, compressing his windpipe. He knocked my hand away.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, writhing on the table.
“He’s going to take it out, Eelyn. Quiet.” Iri was behind me, tearing fabric into strips.
“He put it there!” I pinned my eyes on Fiske, the fury coursing through my body and my heart pounding like it was going to burst through my ribs.
Fiske looked down at me with no expression on his face.
“If he hadn’t shot you in the shoulder, another arrow would have caught you in the heart and you would be lying dead in the forest right now. You should be thanking him.”
I looked back at Iri, glaring. “Thanking him? I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for him.” I could hardly put the words together through the clench of my teeth.
“I told you to stop following us.” Fiske wiped his brow with the back of his arm. His hands were wet with my blood. “I can take the arrow out now or you can wait for Runa. It might be a while.”
“Take it out.” Iri’s voice was tired, his eyes pulled with worry. It was a look I remembered well—one that had been painted on his face many times.
Again!
I could hear his voice echoing in my mind. The sun was setting over the fjord and it was almost too dark to see. Our father watched from the window of our home, silhouetted in firelight.
Again, Eelyn!
Iri was only a year and a half older than me, but I was always much smaller. I couldn’t hold the shield well enough to fight with it. So he had taught me to fight without one, wielding my axe in my left hand and my sword in my right. He was bruised and bleeding, training me before our first fighting season.
Again!
That same look hung in his eyes now. He was wondering if I was strong enough.
Fiske stepped toward me and I watched him warily. I knew I didn’t have a choice. I’d been sick and wounded before, but never in my life had I felt pain like this.
Sky in the Deep Page 3