“Now you heal him?” I hissed at the woman. “After all this time?”
“Can we discuss this later?” she asked calmly. “When there aren’t a dozen men trying to kill us?”
I grunted but led the way. As we left the shelter of the boat, I sent Snorri’s spear sailing toward the broad bowman on the Greenlanders’ ship. This was a weapon of wood, not unlike the ones I’d wielded my whole life. My aim was true. The blade sank into Bjarni’s shoulder.
Magnor roared his displeasure, but with one arm, he couldn’t climb over the ship’s rail and wield his sword at the same time. Olfun hurled his own spear at Brandr, but it skidded harmlessly across the ice.
Freydis continued to shout at her men. Her husband took up Bjarni’s bow, but his arrows all flew either too wide or too short. The other freemen on Freydis’s boat were sailors and shepherds, not fighters. Despite her increasingly furious demands, they dared not come after us. Not after seeing what I’d done to Ingharr.
“Now we run,” I urged my companions.
“Good,” said Muirenn. “Freydis said she’d punish me if you attacked another Norseman. I think at this point she’d probably string me up as bear bait and laugh all the while.”
Brandr took her by the elbow. No berserker, only a man concerned for an old friend. “Well, then, you’re going to have to move faster.”
“Don’t worry about me, my boy,” Muirenn chuckled, shambling along beneath her awkward pack.
“Here, give it to me,” I said, grabbing her burden. I didn’t trust Muirenn, whether possessed by a god or no, to move quickly.
Kiasik swiped Olfun’s spear from the ground and sprinted ahead, his recklessness restored. I dashed after him, gasping under the surprising weight of Muirenn’s pack and silently begging Sanna to hold the ice firm beneath our feet.
White Paw ran before me with Floppy Eared and Sweet One on our flanks. We headed for the coast, not slowing even when we reached solid ground. Back past the longhouse we sprinted, then north along the edge of a deep fjord that pierced the land like an accusatory finger, jutting toward the whale mountain. There, on the fjord’s edge, with the frozen sea on one side and the steep mountains on the other, we finally rested.
Kiasik crouched on the snowy ground, breathing heavily. He leaned his weight on the stolen Norse spear but looked ready to keep going at any moment. Brandr collapsed beside him without a word. The sweat on his bare chest glittered with frost; his skin quickly paled from pink to blue.
Muirenn took her pack from me and hauled out Brandr’s parka and his sword.
“By Thor’s beard, you’re a clever old woman.” He hefted his weapon in one hand. The swirls in the metal danced like the wavering lights of the aqsarniit.
Brandr drew the parka over his shivering body. Sweet One curled beside him, laying her large head in his lap and staring up with adoring brown eyes. Brandr buried his hands in her fur and rested his head upon hers. “However you got here, girl,” he murmured to her, “I’m glad you did.”
Floppy Eared showed no signs of fatigue; he dashed from Kiasik to me to Muirenn to Brandr, sniffing each of us in turn, nearly bowling over Inuk, god, and Viking alike with his enthusiasm. White Paw ignored her brother’s antics and laid her huge gray head against my hand. Only then did I notice the small sealskin bag in her jaws.
“Where did you…?” I clutched the familiar amulet pouch to my breast. “Thank you, my friend.” I couldn’t imagine how, in the heat of the battle, she’d ripped the amulet from Freydis’s gown, but I suppose a wolf who could transform into a whale was capable of all manner of magic. I placed my cheek upon her snout in a gesture I knew she’d understand. She merely licked my nose, wagged her tail once, and then stood with ears swiveling, scanning for danger.
I unknotted the cord from my neck and slipped off the rune-carved stone. I looked at the mark that had branded me a thrall—the strange branching symbol Freydis claimed as her own—then flung the stone away. In its place I secured my amulet pouch, slipping its familiar weight beneath the neck of my dress.
Kiasik rose to his feet. With a violent gesture, he tore his own torque loose and threw it to the ground. Then, without preamble, he began to walk north.
I grabbed his arm. “Where’re you going?”
“Home.”
“You can’t.”
“What do you mean? Where are you going?” he asked, dumbfounded.
I swallowed. The plan hadn’t sounded outrageous until I said it out loud.
“Back to the boats.”
“What?”
“It’s not enough to escape from them and move our family farther west,” I explained. “We must make sure the Norse leave tonight, before they can come after us—and that they never return.”
“And how will they leave with the sea frozen around them?” he demanded.
“We’ll break the ice. I have my magic back. The spirits once again guide my steps.”
“You’ve gone mad, Little Brother. I’m finally healed and we’re finally free. You would throw all that away?”
“Don’t you understand? Freydis told me she wants all our land. We could never run far enough to escape them forever. The Norse killed Muirenn’s family. They killed Issuk’s. They will kill ours just the same.”
I turned to Brandr and switched to Norse, trying to explain. “Freydis dreamed that you led an army against her—an army of skraelings, like Kiasik and me. I want to bring that nightmare to life. Only then will she believe that her gods don’t want her here.” Translating for Kiasik, I added: “We all have a role to play.”
“Not me. I’m no angakkuq, or have you forgotten?” retorted my brother, his voice sharp with old jealousy.
“I don’t need an angakkuq. I need my friend, healed and whole, ready to stand beside me. Great hunters protecting our family. Together. Just like you always said we would.”
I thought my words would sway him. Instead, he set his lips in a stubborn line. “Our family is close. We should run as far as we can, as fast as we can.”
My own expression hardened in echo of his. “You don’t think of the future! You never have.” Ignoring his wounded expression, I whirled to Brandr and Muirenn. “What about you? Will you follow me in this?”
“I’m an old woman,” Muirenn said with a crooked smile. “But I never wish to be a thrall again. I’ll go along with your crazy plan, child.”
Brandr took my hand in his own. “I’ll follow where you lead,” he said quietly. “You need only ask.”
I looked down at our entwined fingers. All I wanted was to have him by my side. For a moment, uncertainty shivered through me. Could I really lead this man back into danger after saving his life? And Kiasik, too? I turned my eyes to the whale mountain, to my family’s home. Unable to resist, I imagined Brandr safe beside me, his face warm in the glow of a good seal oil lamp. It wouldn’t be hard to take my family far from here—there were other hunting grounds, other valleys and mountains and rivers. Let the Norse have what land they would.
Perhaps Kiasik was right.
Then I felt the weight of my pouch around my neck. I pulled my hand from Brandr’s grasp and felt the contours of my amulets through the worn sealskin. A quartz blade to remind me that one people can replace another. A black bear claw to remind me of the animal spirits who had watched over me from the moment of my birth. I looked to the wolfdogs, who sat patiently guarding me as they always had. A gift from Singarti.
White Paw’s yellow eyes caught mine and held. The spirits of my world have not abandoned me, I knew. I cannot abandon them.
“The Moon Man once told me that I would be the destroyer of my world,” I said slowly. “I never believed him before. But he was right. You heard Freydis—because of me, she wants to stay here. She wants to destroy my people. If we don’t act now, Brandr, your people will enslave mine. They will steal and rape as they always have. Maybe not for many moons, for many winters, maybe even many generations. But eventually, your people and mine will collide.” I lo
oked from Brandr to Kiasik, repeating my words in our tongue. “Let us end it now. Let us fight tonight so we might meet tomorrow a free people.”
Brandr nodded. He would fight by my side now as he had every day since we faced a brown bear on the summer tundra. He raised his familiar sword in salute. Already false dawn had given way once again to false sunset, and the last red beams ran along his blade like bloodied water.
Kiasik was not so easily swayed. “You’re blind,” he grunted. “Even if the strangers leave and never come back, we won’t be free of them.” His nostrils flared. “I see how you look at that man.” He jerked his chin toward Brandr, who looked up, startled. “He’ll still be here.”
“Brandr’s different,” I insisted coldly. “He’d rather stay with us than with his own people.”
Kiasik’s brows lowered. “He’s your husband now, is that it? Aii! All your talk of being a man, a hunter, and yet the first strange giant who shows you any attention, you throw yourself at him! Issuk wasn’t good enough for you, but you would lie with this man? He means more to you than I do?”
I struck him, hard.
A livid red mark blossomed on his cheek. He gaped at me. I clenched my fist, regretting the blow. This was not how Ataata had raised me. Had I become like Issuk, like Ingharr, that I would strike a man who was no threat to me? A man whose face already bore the scars of so much injury? I knew that Kiasik spoke more from thoughtless jealousy than from anything else, but for once I couldn’t find the will to excuse him. After all I’d done, he still didn’t believe in me. His long war between love and envy was finally over. And envy had won.
“I have loved you as my sister’s son,” I said, my voice shaking. “As my elder brother, as my cousin, as my friend. I have traveled across land and sea for you. I have rescued you from your enemies.” I knew I should leave it there. This was not the time or place for such a battle, yet my composure had fled. I spat the words at him. “Brandr would never abandon me as you did. You left me to Issuk. You pitied me—but you didn’t have the courage to fight for me. And you still don’t.”
Kiasik looked more stunned than when I’d struck him. He opened his mouth to respond; I silenced him with a curt gesture. “Go!”
“Please, Little Brother—”
He would have said more, I knew. Would have kept begging me to flee to safety. But I could not hear it. I cut him off.
“You aren’t listening,” I growled. “I do not need you to save me anymore. I do not want you to save me. I want you to trust me. And if you cannot do that—then I want you gone.”
He took a step back from me, his proud shoulders drooping.
“Go back to Puja and Ququk!” I thrust an arm to the north, pointing the way. “Back to Tapsi and Saartok! But do not forget to warn them that an enemy is close. They will need to start running. And they can never stop.”
I turned away to hide my angry tears. The wolfdogs stood at my back, hackles raised.
After a moment of pained silence, I heard the crunch of retreating footsteps in the snow.
When the wolfdogs finally lay down at my feet, I knew Kiasik was out of sight. I sank beside them, leaning into their warmth.
“And now?” Muirenn asked mildly. I’d almost forgotten about the old woman. She slanted a smile at me, and I knew Loki laughed at the dramas of mortals.
I glanced once at the hovering Moon. “Now we wait. We rest. We don’t need Kiasik. We will have other allies.”
As the sky darkened from violet to black, Brandr finally succumbed to sleep, his head on Muirenn’s lap. She hummed a lilting tune through lips quirked with Loki’s smile.
White Paw rose suddenly to her feet, ears swinging forward, her nose pointing toward the mountains. I squinted into blackness, worried. Sanna would come from the sea, not the shore.
A large white form materialized from the darkness, glowing in the moonlight. It stalked toward us on silent feet. Taqqiq? Come to hunt me down at last? Or to fight by my side, finally my ally?
I reached to shake Brandr awake, but Muirenn shook her head. “Let him rest,” she said softly. “He can’t see it anyway.”
The wolfdogs approached the figure cautiously, tails between their legs, completely submissive. This was no Moon Man. Now I could see the four long legs, the pointed snout, the proud tail held aloft. Yellow eyes glowing like firelight. My protector had returned.
“Singarti.”
As if summoned by the name, one by one the stars appeared above me. The spirits of my family lit their lamps to guide our way. Ataata watched once more from the heavens.
I stood to greet the Wolf, feeling stronger than I ever had. The combined power of all my ancestors stood with me. Sanna would walk by my side. Even Taqqiq would light our way and lend his strength.
With their help, I could chase the Norse from our shores forever.
Far into the night, my army grew. Qangatauq the Raven came next, black wings so wide they blotted out the stars. With a sharp caw, he landed on the ice beside Singarti. Where Wolf traveled, Raven followed. Then another great animal appeared, twice as tall as the tallest Inuk, as wide as an umiaq, as white as the snow: Uqsuralik.
“Aii,” I gasped.
Never before had the great Bear revealed himself to me. Like Singarti, he loomed larger than any animal of the flesh. His black eye sought mine, and in his gaze I saw the wisdom and strength of my grandfather. On his right forepaw, only four black claws scraped the surface of the snow.
Between his feet scurried a dark shadow: Lemming. Bounding among them, a flash of white: Hare. Dancing over the ground, sniffing eagerly with her black nose: Fox. Slinking forward with heavy tail and wicked claws: Wolverine. With a clatter of hooves on ice, thick antlers scraping the sky: Caribou. Plodding slowly toward me, curved horns lowered and shaggy coat rippling in the wind: Musk Ox. Flying on wings of white and black and brown: Owl, Falcon, Ptarmigan. All the winter animals of land and air.
I turned to look over the sea ice, where the rest of my allies struggled toward me. Massive dark forms with ice crystals hanging heavy and pendulous from their whiskers: Bearded Seal and Walrus. If I listened very closely, I could hear the wet sighs of Black Whale and White Whale, the curious clicking of Narwhal, and the keening whistle of Fanged Whale—the aarluk—all swimming through the distant leads.
Through it all, Loki-in-Muirenn stroked Brandr’s hair steadily with one gnarled hand. The Viking slept on beneath her spell.
The most powerful of my new allies finally appeared. She arrived behind a guard of dappled seals, hobbling on legs weak from disuse and clutching a cloak of fur around her slim, pale shoulders. The Sea Mother.
She stepped to the very border between sea ice and earth. Her bare toe hovered above the land for a moment, then withdrew as if burnt.
Flopping across the ice, a familiar ivory-handled blade clutched in her whiskered jaws, came Ringed Seal. She dropped the steel knife at my feet with a barking cry, swung her ponderous body, and galumphed back toward her mistress. It seems things lost at sea could always be recovered.
Sanna looked up through her waterfall of black hair and blinked twice.
“Well, daughter?” she asked, the hint of a smile on her lips. “What now?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Your bears and wolves will strike fear in the heart of Freydis Eriksdottir,” Muirenn said, “but I’m not so sure about the rest of them.” She cast a doubtful eye on Lemming and Hare. “She expects Frost Giants to storm the ships, not rodents.”
“You said the animal spirits were all Frost Giants, like you.”
Muirenn nodded. “But Freydis doesn’t know that. To her, Giants are… well… giant.”
“Fine, then.” A plan swiftly took shape in my mind. “I’ll make us some giants.”
“Out of what?”
“Out of nothing, of course. As my grandfather taught me to.”
I called to Uqsuralik. The great Ice Bear with his graceful, swaying walk came to my side, lowering his head so it hung leve
l with my own. I placed one hand tentatively on his wide, white cheek. “Great Uqsuralik, protector of my grandfather, help me now.”
He bowed his head to me. I clambered up his neck and onto his broad back. My legs didn’t reach around his chest, so I sat as I would on a sled, one leg tucked beneath me, hands fisted into his fur. “Watch Brandr,” I called down to Muirenn. “Keep him safe until I return.”
The spirit animal began to run. I bounced to his stride, my tailbone slamming painfully into the sharp ridge of his spine. I called out to barnacled Black Whale and gleaming Fanged Whale. In answer, they blew a wet burst of air as we passed by the lead in which they swam. As we hurtled across the ice, they followed through the water. We stopped not far from the knarrs, their wooden outlines barely visible in the darkness.
At my instruction, the Whales lifted great stones from the seafloor. Ice Bear pushed them into place. Five inuksuit rose between the ships and the shore. Three times the height of a man they stood, taller than any figures my people had ever built to scare a caribou herd. Their bare stone faces glared across the frozen sea, daring the Norse to approach.
If man and beast were not enough to terrorize Freydis Eriksdottir, then Frost Giants would be.
The Moon alone ruled the sky when I returned to the shore to lead my allies against the Norse ships.
Never had such a strange procession crossed the ice.
As we traveled, the great spirit animals called to their flocks and herds and packs. Soon we walked among a swelling mass of other animals, large and small.
Proud Caribou trotted among a herd of smaller caribou, guiding them toward the ships with his antlers bobbing. Horned Musk Ox moved across the ice amid a swirling curtain of trailing fur. Swift Falcon added her piercing scream to those of her flock. Ptarmigan sheltered a throng of smaller birds beneath wide wings of winter white. Even Lemming scurried within a teeming mass of her smaller, frantic children.
Through it all, Sanna watched calmly. At an open lead, she slipped into the water with the seals and walruses so they might work from beneath the ice.
The Wolf in the Whale Page 43