He ran to Tove, kneeling down beside her as she groaned in pain on the floor. She was dressed in dirty, loose shorts and something approaching a sleeveless shirt. They were made of cheap, rough linen and there was blood on them in a few places. He could see bruises all across her legs and arms.
“Tove!”
When she heard his voice, she immediately turned her head toward him, coming to her knees. She wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Erik, praise Odin.” She squeezed him too tightly, burying her head into his stomach. I thought you’d been taken—”
He knelt down, pulling her away, looking at her. “What are they doing to you? Why are you covered in bruises?”
She looked at her arms. Her voice quivered a bit. “They… It’s a punishment. It doesn’t matter. There are worse things. We have time together, we must use it.”
The sound of footsteps returning made Tove stand. Erik put himself in front of her. The door opened and guards looked at him like he was insane. They placed two plates down on the floor just inside the cell and closed the door again. They had fried sausages and boiled vegetables and bread on them, in stark contrast to the gruel he’d been given before.
“That’s way better than what they gave me last time. Do you think it’s poisoned?” Erik asked.
“What would it matter?”
She had a strong point, though Erik was in no hurry to relive the pain that came along with his last death. He walked to the plates, picking them both up and bringing one to Tove before moving to his wooden bed. The meat was pork, it was tough but had been seasoned with salt and herbs. Tove tore into it without a second thought.
“Did they give you anything to eat before this?”
She shook her head, too focused on the food to bother replying with words. He tore off half of his link of sausage and put it on her plate. In spite of her full mouth, Tove tried to protest. Erik stopped her.
“They’re treating you worse than me. I don’t know why, but you eat while you can.”
Erik took a bite of his food. It wasn’t as good as what they’d had at Inga’s but the fact that he considered the comparison said enough about what he’d been given. It was hard to make sense of.
Tove had slowed down by the time she was through half of the plate and it seemed as good a time as any to ask questions.
“You’ve seen the layout of this place, right?”
Tove nodded, swallowing a bit of food. “I don’t see any trick to this place. Two hallways with cells at the ends of them. The only other rooms I managed to see as they brought me were just down the hall from these cells.”
“Okay. I can’t remember being brought in clearly, but I remember seeing a guard at the end of the hall. And two regularly come down here to look around.”
Tove was back to her food, though she’d slowed down. She took a few more bites, saying nothing. “I think they count four in total. The two who brought me here are not two I’ve seen.”
“So two for us, two for your side. But we don’t know if they’re the same as the one, maybe two at the front of the guard house.” Erik forced himself to eat, though the distraction of deciding how they should get out made it hard to care about the meal.
“Six total, and armored.” Tove frowned, poking at the last bits of food on her plate idly. “I don’t know that I can be of help, especially if they keep… if the punishments continue. Walking is painful.”
He could tell by the tone of her voice that she hadn’t wanted to admit it, that she didn’t want to talk about it. The anger that was becoming so familiar to him crept back into his mind. He shook it off as best he could. There was nothing to be done immediately.
“Erik?”
“Sorry… I got lost in thought for a second. Can we just go when they come back for you? Are they coming back for you?”
“I don’t know.” Tove looked at the door as she said it. “They’ve told me nothing, only come to flog me and then leave. I’ve been through worse, but knowing what it’s like won’t keep my legs working.” She slammed a fist against the bed. “I won’t… I cannot be useless.”
“Then if they come back, we’ll go.”
Tove stood for the first time, on shaky legs. “This is all I can manage. If there are more than two, you’ll just be stabbed and suffer for nothing. And I couldn’t stand that.”
There were footsteps in the hall as soon as she finished talking. Too many to begin pretending there might only be two. Erik jumped to his feet, looking at the door.
Tove put a hand on his arm. “Promise me.”
He turned to look at her, his expression softening.
“And promise you’ll come for me when there are few enough guards that you can kill them.”
He nodded wordlessly as the guards came into the area with the door. There were at least four behind the familiar pair who were waiting just across the threshold, others no doubt waiting in the hallway beyond. He had no idea what they were there for, but stood ready in case they came in holding weapons. The door opened and the normal two came in first.
“Alright, girl. Back to the dark.”
Erik took a step forward, but he felt a tug on his torn shirt. Tove walked past him quietly, looking over her shoulder with a smile.
“I will be waiting.”
He nodded stiffly, trying not to scream or curse or do anything that they might take out on her when she was gone. She was led away with the door still open. Erik went back to his bed when she was out of sight, no longer caring what the commotion was about. He heard the guards outside shifting into the area outside the cells and Haki the Lost spoke up as they did.
“Ásví! I know… that sound! That… dress on… the stone. Ásví… h-have you come… to see me? To… see Haki?”
A metal rapping sounded against the cell door next to his and Haki whimpered, saying nothing more.
The guards formed a wall outside of the door, parting to the side forming a small row and putting clenched fists over their stomachs. Erik heard the quiet click of wooden shoes on stone and the light dragging of a heavy fabric across them.
A woman came into the room, deep red hair falling down over a cloak with fur shoulders and heavy silk trailing behind. She was in her mid-twenties by every estimation Erik could make, whatever that might have meant in Helheim. She unbuttoned the cloak and let it fall behind her as she stepped into his cell, walking to the center and facing him as he sat on the wooden bed.
“Clothes!”
They were the first words the woman said, and not to him. The guards gathered up her cloak and another came in holding a set of very soft looking cotton clothes, the pants brown and the rest dyed light blue.
They were placed on the bed beside Erik. He looked down at them and then back at the woman whose gaze met his.
“Well? Dress yourself.”
Erik raised an eyebrow, looking to the guards and then back to her.
She sensed his hesitation. “I’ve seen more than one cock in my time and I mean to see yours today, else the clothes would have come before I did. Now dress.”
Erik did as he was told. He could feel the eyes of the woman on him as he took off his clothes, trying his best to be naked for as little time as possible. When he was done, she gave a wry smile.
“You’re better looking than was reported, I’ll hand you that. But not much muscle.” She lifted her chin toward the bed. “Sit.”
Erik did as he was told, his eyes moving to the guards regularly. They had again formed their wall in front of the door, ready, in orderly fashion, to burst in should they be needed.
“Tell me your name.”
“Erik.”
“The whole of your name.”
Erik looked at the wall, where his neighbor so often came through, knowing the man was listening. It made him hesitate.
“Go on, boy.”
<
br /> “Haki Erik Styrsson.”
The woman raised her eyebrows for a moment but made no further comment. “I am called Ásví. My husband is jarl of this city and the attendant lands but he often finds himself away pleasing himself with farm girls under the pretense of seeing to the needs of the people. As such, I am responsible for your being brought to this place.”
Erik shot up from the bed and the guards started in, but Ásví raised a hand, stopping them. Erik ignored them. “Then you know why Tove is being punished. And you can stop it.”
Ásví was calm. “I do. And I will not. She aided one of Odin’s chosen in violation of an accord that stretches back much longer than you can imagine.”
“How could she have known?!”
The woman did not so much as shrug, but delivered her answer in a flat, cool voice. “She could not have and it would have made no difference. But I have questions for you.”
She walked over, leaning in to his neck. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his skin and she inhaled deeply. She pulled her face around to just in front of his and narrowed her eyes to study his. She turned away, returning to the center of the cell before facing him again.
Ásví rubbed down the fabric on the front of the heavy, deep purple silk dress she wore. “You have a smell about you. I am not so keen to them as some, but I know it well enough. But your body does not lie. You know not the first thing about battle. How is it that you made a valkyrie bring down a building to stop you? Is Thor your god, perhaps?”
Erik let out a sarcastic laugh. “Made? I couldn’t make a valkyrie do anything.”
Her expression turned to steely suspicion. “Is that how you see it?”
His brow shifted to show his confusion. “How else would I? The fight barely lasted twenty seconds.”
There was an immediate murmur among the guards.
Ásví’s face returned to the calm it had been. She smiled, almost warmly. “You don’t know enough to lie, do you, Erik?”
“Why would I bother? I’m trapped in this cell, so what’s the point?”
“Trapped?” She put a hand over her mouth, covering a tiny laugh. “The doors in these cells do not lock. You are free to go as you like.”
“Bullshit!”
“Have you tried them and found them locked?”
Erik’s jaw fell open. He hadn’t.
“Then you haven’t.” She laughed in spite of her attempts to maintain her demeanor. “I had thought you were wary enough not to try. But you only…” She drew in a breath, composing herself.
“What about Tove, then? You’re torturing her. And you brought me watery oatmeal. And now I’m supposed to believe this isn’t some trick? What do you even want from me?” His mind was racing, but he didn’t have an answer for why any of it was how it was.
“I regret that we did not expect you on the first day.” Ásví walked back over to him, placing a hand on his chest and letting it run down to his stomach before pulling it back up. “I will say it plain so you understand. Your girl will be punished for nine days and nine nights. Then she will be free so long as she does nothing more.” She leaned in, whispering in his ear. “You will be killed by valkyries if you so much as step out the front of this place.” She leaned back, pushing him down onto the bed. Her voice rose back to normal. “That is the extent of our accord with them.” She put on a coy half smile. “And I will watch it each and every time.”
Erik looked up at the woman. He had no idea if she was a friend or an enemy or something altogether different.
The smile faded and she turned, walking toward the door, the guards forming their passage again. “I expect to be entertained, Haki Erik Styrsson.”
chapter|14
It took him hours to get to sleep after Ásví had left the room, and even then he did so sitting in the far corner of the cell from Haki’s frequently used entrance.
The smile on Tove’s face as she walked back to be tortured was something he couldn’t manage to shake from his mind. His brain would reach out, trying to quell the guilt of what was happening to her, reminding him that she had joined herself to him in Kvernes and that he hadn’t asked her to come along. No matter what excuses came, the guilt didn’t go. Her constantly repeated joke that they were a warband had wormed its way into his mind and he’d started to count on it being true. She must have as well. She’d saved him from being pulled into the speed of life in Kvernes, that was something he’d had time to realize sitting on the floor of the cell for what must have been two days by now.
He couldn’t help counting every waking hour since they took her from the cell, wondering what they were doing and when he could get to her. Ásví had told him the door was open, but he’d been sure it was a joke. Parts of him screamed that he should check it. It had made it all the harder to sleep, but he knew the guards would likely make their rounds as scheduled even with the important visits he was offered. And there would be food soon enough as well. They would be fuel to test the limits of what Ásví had claimed he was allowed to do.
Erik stood after a few minutes spent looking at the far wall, waiting to see if Haki would come and harass him again. He hadn’t moved the stone since Ásví’s visit, or more accurately since Erik raised his fist.
Without realizing it, Erik had slept with his fists balled and they’d stayed that way for however few hours it was. The tendons were slow to stretch so he walked the cell, pressing his hands open on the walls while he spent nervous energy. He had confirmation of his worries over timing when the guard pair started their rounds of the cell area. Erik put himself by the door to listen as they came by.
The sounds of boots stopped at his door. One of the guards pulled on the door as he looked in, ignoring that he couldn’t see Erik at all, and continued on. The pair stopped in front of Haki’s door, continuing a conversation Erik hadn’t heard the beginning of.
“No real sense in her worryin’, but talk of valkyries in town gets people that way, I reckon.”
“That’s women though, eh? Love to worry, them.”
It must have been the guard who wore a longer beard that checked Haki’s door, because he heard the gruff voice of the man call out.
“Ah, shit it all.”
Erik heard feet stumble back away from the door, so he stood to see. The guard who’d stumbled back was holding a hand over his mouth.
“He’s not gone and done it again.”
“He only fucking has.” The guard pulled his hand down and wiped his beard flat.
The more kempt of the two, a stout brown-haired man who looked thoroughly unfit to guard much of anything, walked to the door. “Yer turn ain’t it?”
“Fuck off, it ain’t.”
“Gods be good, I… fine.” The stout guard opened Haki’s door.
From his cell, Haki started talking to them. “A… visit. How pleasant… a… pleasant visit.”
“My bloody arse it is. Out”
Haki scampered out of the cell but stuck to the wall nearest. The stout guard went in, complaining, while the other moved to Haki.
“How many fuckin’ times we told you? How many’s it been?” Haki did not answer. “Stop shittin’ in your cell! There’s rooms for it, down the hall. Fresh wool, better’n I use at home. Use them if you need a shit.”
“Can’t… they’ll come. They’ll kill.” Haki started a fit of hacking coughs and the taller guard gave up chastising him.
“Just push it down the fuckin’ hole and let him sleep in the stink. Not like he cares. It’ll dry soon enough.”
The stout guard returned from the room. “What you think I was doin’?”
The guards didn’t usher him back into his cell or do anything of the kind. They just started walking away, continuing their conversation.
“Maybe the new one stays inside so that’s an end of it.”
They walked off down th
e hallway. Haki followed the guards to the edge of the main area outside the cells and they didn’t seem to care or pay much attention one way or another. Haki came walking over to Erik’s door, looking in. Not wanting to be seen, there was no other choice but to crouch and hope that he went away. If he was going to have another conversation with the crazy man it was going to be on his terms, and it was definitely not going to be right after guards complained about him shitting in his cell.
A metal creak from down the hall sent Haki scattering back into his room, shutting the door. Erik went back to pacing around his cell. He’d have to leave and see exactly what the truth was. It was another forty nervous trips back and forth across the stone floor before he grabbed what he thought was just a wooden handle for the door. He twisted it to the side and heard a metal latch slide open, the door swinging free.
He’d wasted time and it hit him all at once. It was time he could have spent finding out whatever he could or attempting to get to Tove. Guilt was another distraction, one he couldn’t afford, so Erik pushed the thoughts out of his mind as best he could and took a step out of the cell. There was no sudden alarm, though he half expected one, and no wind of judgment came rushing down the nearby hall to greet him. Those things did very little to settle his stomach. He saw the room properly for the first time, through clear eyes. There was a small desk between Haki’s cell and the third at the far end of the room. It looked as though it was kept clean but there were no real signs of wear on it. Erik ignored the things in that direction, not wanting to deal with Haki unless it was entirely necessary.
The hallway was larger than Erik remembered. He stood at the edge of the room looking down it for a few seconds before taking a step into it, not sure if Haki was speaking truth when he said the valkyries would come for him. No one did. The two doors that Tove had mentioned were there, on the left side of the hallway as he moved north toward the exit. Erik pulled on the doors and found them to be exactly as the guard had described them. There was tightly pressed, clean wool sitting next to stone seats with holes. He poked his head over one and saw that it went down more than a few feet into what sounded to be the running water that ran under his cell.
From Death to Valhalla (The Last Einherjar Book 1) Page 12