The Boneless Mercies

by April Genevieve Tucholke

I forced my arm into the air and pounded my fist on my chest, once, twice. My breath came back, a big wave of pain that lifted my ribs.

  “Runa,” I choked.

  She didn’t move.

  “Runa.”

  The cave seemed to grow hazy, as if the blue mist had risen again. My hands began to tingle, and my body felt limp. Numb.

  I was losing consciousness.

  “Finish it,” Ovie shouted. “Finish it, Frey.”

  I blinked and turned my head. Ovie had grabbed the other end of the rope when Runa dropped it and was sweating and swearing, struggling to hold both. Logafell swung at her again, fists like boulders. I felt the air shift as she moved, strong as a wind coming off the sea.

  I heaved myself up to my feet, bent over, and was sick on the floor. I wiped the back of my mouth and glanced to the left. Runa’s body was twisted at an odd angle, head turned one way, legs another.

  Behind me, Ovie screamed my name. I spun around. Logafell was moving back into the far corner again and dragging Ovie with her.

  Finish it, Frey.

  I ran to the wall and scrambled back up, bruising muscles and scraping skin. I scuttled across the jutting ledges. Close … a little closer …

  I leapt.

  My arms flailed as I hit open air. I unclenched my fist—

  And grabbed a handful of Logafell’s tunic. I squeezed my right-hand fingers, tight, until my knuckles turned white. I felt the giant’s skin underneath me, hard as stone. I pulled myself up, foot by foot, heels sinking into her giant spine until I could feel every curve of her vertebrae.

  She writhed and twisted, trying to shake me off. But I clung on and held.

  I inched upward.

  Inch by inch by inch—

  I tilted my head back and saw it. The soft spot at the base of Logafell’s neck, just as Mother Hush had said. A fist-size piece of translucent flesh, a blue cluster of veins, blood pulsing behind delicate skin.

  The chink in the monster’s armor.

  Below me, Ovie was straining, face red, sweat dripping. “Hurry, Frey.”

  I lifted my wounded hand and reached for my knife. I clutched it in my fist, the pain, oh Hel, the pain …

  Logafell reached forward and grabbed one end of the rope. She yanked it backward—

  Ovie flew.

  She hit the wall near the pile of furs and lay still.

  I clung to Logafell’s back and howled, just as she had howled, and her wolves had howled.

  My voice soared across the cavern.

  I lifted myself with my right arm, slowly, slowly, muscles quivering. I dragged my body up, up, one more inch, almost there …

  “Don’t you want to know why I did it, Mercy?”

  Logafell’s words echoed softly off the cavern’s walls.

  I froze.

  “Before you stick me with that Mercy needle, you should know that this was not simple cruelty, the wild rampage of a mindless beast.”

  She had stopped writhing and twisting. She stood still. Savalikk.

  Why?

  I felt the deep intake of her breath, her giant ribs expanding against me. She knew. She knew I had the dagger to her neck and she was about to die.

  I was shaking, with exhaustion, with anger. Just slide the blade in and be done with it, Frey.

  But I hesitated. Just as I’d hesitated with the Cut-Queen. Logafell was a beast. A monster. But she was also a woman.

  I would hear her last words.

  “What was it then, if not cruelty?” I asked.

  “Men, many of them,” she said. “White-haired pirates that came from the sea. They saw my three daughters on the shore, hunting for clams—the oldest was only ten, though they were tall as trees. The men filled my daughters with arrows—their skin had not yet grown hard, was still as soft as yours. I found their bodies on the shore, bloodied and broken. Why did they kill them? For what reason? Because they were different?”

  I took a deep breath and steadied my grip, toes digging into her spine.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. And I was.

  Sweat trickled down my face, and I wiped it away with the sleeve of my left arm. The blade caught my reflection, my bloodshot eyes, as I hung in midair from the giant’s back.

  I looked …

  Fearless.

  “Throw down your dagger, girl. Let us be allies. Let us wander this world together, crushing all before us.”

  “I would,” I said. “In another place, in another time, I would go with you, and we would bring the world to its knees.”

  I paused. I thought of Roth’s broken warriors and the three young girls in Thorsten. I thought of the hanged girl at the crossroads. I thought of the girl in the Thiss Brambles. I thought of all the Mercy-kills through the years, on and on and on.

  I thought of Runa, and Ovie.

  “No. I’m done with death.”

  Her neck twisted to the side. She looked at me over her shoulder with her one remaining eye. “I gave you a purpose, a quest, a chance to be noticed by the gods. I gave you this. Never forget.”

  I squeezed my fingers around the hilt of my knife and groaned with pain. “I’m in your debt, and I won’t forget. I’ll see you in Holhalla, giant.”

  I sank the dagger in deep.

  Logafell screamed.

  It was my very last Mercy-kill.

  I felt the Blue Vee Beast shudder under me—

  And then the blood came.

  It ran and ran, like the waterfall that hid her den, great waves of it, a giant’s torrent. It coated my hair, my face, my body. My hands grew slick with it.

  Logafell began to sway from side to side.

  I let go.

  Down, down, down, down.

  Her body landed on top of a pile of bones—they were crushed to dust, a white plume misting into the air.

  The ground shuddered, tremors echoing through the cave like thunder.

  I fell onto the furs near Ovie. I lay still for a moment, then dragged myself over to her. She was unconscious, but breathing.

  Thank you, Valkree.

  I crawled my way to Logafell, slipping twice in blood.

  She seemed smaller now that she was on the earth instead of towering above. Smaller and more … fragile. I put one palm to her giant cheek, and then slipped my flask of Vite between her lips.

  “Here, drink this, lamb.” I emptied the bottle between her teeth.

  She swallowed, and then sighed.

  I sat, knees touching her shoulder, and waited for her heartbeat to slow, a slight pulse of heat against my skin, growing fainter and fainter.

  “I wanted to die,” she whispered.

  “I know,” I said.

  “I’ve already wandered the earth too long. The last of our race fled the far north, where we’d been hunted down one by one. We used to walk the ice, proud and regal as gods. But when we came to Vorseland, we hid in caves, crawling like demons in the dark, withering for want of sun, for want of purpose. My people died by the dozens, until it was just the four of us, me and my daughters.”

  She took a breath, and it was shallow, soft as a breeze. Blood seeped from the back of her neck, soaking my clothes.

  “They would not bring me a good death, all those men of Blue Vee. You … you five girls finally gave me the end I needed. The end I deserved.”

  Logafell, the Blue Vee Beast, took her last breath and died in my arms.

  * * *

  I got up slowly and crossed the cavern floor, my bones heavy.

  I slid down next to Runa’s limp body. I wrapped my right-hand fingers around her pulse. Nothing. I pushed my palm into her chest. Held.

  Nothing.

  I heard a faint shuffle of feet and smelled salt and wood smoke and pine resin.

  Juniper.

  She knelt beside me, her tunic in tatters, her forehead a mass of welts and bruises. I released Runa, slowly, carefully, and took Juniper in my arms. I pressed my face to her neck and gripped her tight.

  “How is Ovie?” I asked when
I finally let her go.

  Juniper nodded over her shoulder. “She has a few broken ribs, but she lives.”

  Ovie stood near a patch of the glowing mushrooms, one hand clutching her side. I rose to my feet and limped over to her. I held her as I’d held Juniper. We didn’t speak. There was no need. I felt her heart against mine, and it sang the same sad song.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  It took seven strikes to sever Logafell’s head.

  My left arm was useless. I couldn’t move it without my knees going weak from pain. So I decapitated the Blue Vee Beast with one hand, my right fist clamped around the hilt of my grave-dug ax. I swung and swung, the hiss of steel, the crunch of bone.

  We burned the rest of her in the cave, gray smoke melting down dark passageways. I wanted to burn her body under the open sky, to release her spirit into the fresh Vorse air, but her head would have to be enough.

  Juniper, our tiny Sea Witch, carried Runa’s body through the long, dark tunnels. Between Indigo’s shoulder wound and Ovie’s broken ribs and my injured hand … Juniper was the only one of us still strong enough to see it done.

  I would have carried Runa all the way back to Blue Vee in my arms if I could have, the way she carried the hanged girl at the crossroads.

  I’d heard Juniper say that waterfalls caught evil spirits and trapped them like flies in a web. And I did feel protected by the rapids, the cool mist dusting my cheeks like snow as we passed through.

  “We will drink to Runa’s memory,” Ovie said as she cleaned her ax in the snow outside the cave. “Each night beside the fire. Wherever we are, whoever we become, we will not forget.”

  “No,” I said. “Never.”

  We slowly cobbled together two sleds of pine branches. One for Runa. One for Logafell’s head.

  I knew the people of Blue Vee would need to see what remained of the giant. They’d need it to feel safe again, to truly believe the horror was past.

  It took us two days to return to the Hall, slowed down by our wounds and our heavy hearts as much as the heavy sleds behind us. We spoke little on the journey and ate little and slept less. I rubbed a black walnut balm from my pack onto Indigo’s shoulder, as often as she’d let me. I used an Arctica balm on Ovie’s ribs and the vicious-looking rope burns that crisscrossed her palms, arms, and back, red as the Cut-Queen’s welts.

  I used the same balm on the stumps of my missing fingers, when I could bear it, always remembering to hold my breath so I couldn’t smell the burned flesh when I undid the bandage.

  When I’d imagined killing the beast, all those weeks ago in the Hail Inn, I’d mostly thought about the glory, the triumph, of four former Boneless Mercies marching into a Great Hall as heroes, as conquerors.

  Or I’d thought about death. Not a quiet Mercy-death, but an honorable death, one of steel and blood and screams, and the smoke of my pyre rising up to the sky.

  But as we crossed through the gates and trudged up the hill to the Great Hall, my thoughts were not bright and vivid, lingering on our victory.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Runa on the sled, the cold winter wind whipping the edges of her Mercy-cloak, a strand of her dark hair spilling out, the tip touching the snow.

  No, my thoughts were on my friend, and the remains of the giant on the sled beside her.

  A girl gone.

  A giant gone.

  * * *

  They cheered as we entered the hall.

  Heltar, heltar, heltar.

  They yelled out our names, and the sound of it echoed off the rafters.

  We halted under the giant yew tree, half-dead with exhaustion. Word had spread quickly as we’d moved up the hill, and the crowd in the Hall was growing thicker by the moment.

  I heard a shout, then another.

  The mob parted.

  Roth entered.

  I’d asked the guards at the gates about his welfare, and they’d said he’d woken not long after we’d left. I’d smiled for the first time in days.

  The jarl of Blue Vee came to me, blond hair loose, blue cloak rippling. If he was still wounded from the fight with Logafell, he didn’t show it. He clasped my forearm, warm palm cupping my elbow, and my heart beat stronger at his touch.

  He looked down at the sleds beside me, first at Runa, then at Logafell’s head, which we’d covered with a sheepskin rug from her cave.

  “Frey,” he said softly. “It is done.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I turned to the crowd. I gripped my ax with my good hand and raised it in the air. “This is the head of Logafell, the Blue Vee Beast. Treat her with respect. Dennish pirates killed her three young daughters, and they were the last of their kind.” I paused, my eyes scanning the crowd. “We have slain the last Vorse giant, and I want her burned alongside the warrior Runa the Archer, on a great pyre that can be seen by the entire valley.”

  * * *

  Siv took one look at us and began to bark orders.

  We were in the bathhouse. It held several long wooden tubs, each with a fire lit underneath to heat the water. Steam drifted out the small hole in the ceiling. The air smelled verdant, floral—Siv had added dried herbs to the water to stave off infection and help us fight fatigue.

  We couldn’t sleep, not yet. We had a friend to burn.

  Siv handed me an ice fever tonic, and I drank the green glowing liquid with a quick toss of my head. The potion gave me a numb feeling, first my tongue, then my mouth, then arms, torso, legs.

  The pain in my hand lessened for the first time in days.

  The pain in my heart stayed bright and sharp as ever.

  We climbed out of our clothing, Siv helping when needed, and then sank into the tubs. I stretched out my limbs, keeping my wounded hand out of the water. I sighed deeply.

  Indigo hissed as Siv poured a red-colored oil onto the wolf bite. “Do that again, healer, and I’ll skin-fight you.”

  Siv looked at the Glee Starr girl and gave her a mild smile. “Not with that shoulder, you won’t.”

  She did me next, gently patting an ointment onto my stumps. It smelled of honey and frankincense. The last scent of burned flesh disappeared.

  “You lost a lot of blood,” she whispered. “I’m not sure how you all made it back here, hauling two sleds.”

  “We are Vorse,” I said.

  She met my gaze and held. “Trigve is in my hut, waiting to see you. Go to him when you’re done here.”

  I found Trigve in Siv’s small, warm hut, attempting to mix potions with one arm in a sling. He dropped the glass vessel he was holding when he saw me. It crashed to the floor, leaking oily purple fluid everywhere.

  “I didn’t die,” I said. “I kept my promise.”

  We held each other and didn’t let go for a long, long time.

  * * *

  We burned them together that night on a pyre made of mountain birch.

  The girl and the giant.

  The flames rose higher and higher, orange against a black night sky, up and up, twenty feet, thirty feet, until they licked the stars.

  Indigo watched the flames with approval. “Birch burns fast and hot. Runa would not want her body to burn slow.”

  “She will soon be in Holhalla.” I threw Runa’s bow on the pyre. She would take it with her to the Great Hall of the Slain.

  “The time of monsters and men has passed,” Ovie said. “This end is a beginning.”

  Juniper made a witch gesture of truth. “Logafell was the last of the Vorse giants. The Sea Witches dreamed it, and the wind confirms it.”

  “We will never see her like again.” And I meant both Logafell and Runa. “We turned away from the death trade, and our path led to joy and glory. And loss and sorrow.”

  “Such is life.” Ovie put her fist to her heart. “Such is life, Frey.”

  I watched the flames and thought of Runa.

  Beside me, Juniper began to weep.

  Ovie, my stoic Ovie, went to her and wrapped an arm around the Sea Witch’s waist. “Don’t cry for Runa
. It was a good death.”

  Juniper blinked and put her palms to her cheeks. “I don’t cry for Runa. I cry for Frey. She is Vorse and will not weep. I must do it for her.”

  * * *

  I couldn’t sleep those first nights after we returned. I told everyone that my hand pained me and kept me awake, but it was my heart more than anything.

  I’d pace the Hall, thinking of Runa, and eventually Trigve would rise and come find me.

  “She should have gone with the Quicks,” I’d say.

  “It was a good death,” he’d reply. “Don’t take that from her.”

  I’d agree and keep pacing.

  On the fourth night, it was Indigo, instead of Trigve, who found me in the small hours wandering a dark hallway. I turned to find her standing at the end of the corridor, watching me. She wore her arm in a sling, but her shoulder was healing. Siv said she would fully recover, though she’d always have a scar.

  I went to her. “What is it, Indigo?”

  “I’ve made a decision.” She slipped her hand into her tunic and pulled out Runa’s dagger. “I will join the Quicks, as Runa longed to do.”

  She lifted the blade to the nape of her neck.

  “Will you help me?” she asked.

  I nodded. I took the knife and began to saw through her braid as she held it still. Dark strands fell in soft waves at my feet.

  “I told the Sea Witch of my plan,” she said when it was done. “Juniper agreed this would restore the imbalance created when Runa died. There’s no need to mourn now, Frey.”

  I reached up and ran my right hand through her shorn mane. “Roam the Endless Forests, Indigo. Hunt and rove and be free.”

  Indigo grabbed my hand in hers. “Let us be Blood Sisters. Let us spend the seasons running through trees, sleeping under the stars, Runa’s name on our lips.”

  I closed my eyes and pictured myself moving quietly through a winter woodland, my feet turning up freshly fallen snow, Indigo at my side, bow in hand, lone deer up ahead, a song on my tongue …

  “Together we can go back to Logafell’s cave, and follow the tunnels under the Skal Mountains, looking for treasure…”

  I saw us, torches in hand, moving down dark halls, chasing an underground stream, into the mountain, deeper and deeper, until the cave opened up, a cavern strewn with gold …