Peaceweaver

by Rebecca Barnhouse

  Her legs carried her forward and she pelted through the woods, not thinking, just moving.

  The monster’s roar took on a different tone, a howl that rose to a shriek of rage and grief so loud and long the trees quaked to hear it. It had found its dead child.

  As cold and bruised and exhausted as she was, Hild stretched out her stride, running faster than she’d ever gone before. Branches whipped at her arms, vines reached out to trip her, and twigs slashed at her face, but she kept going, leaping over stones and dodging trees. She knew how fast the creature could move, and now revenge would fuel it.

  She prayed that fear would fuel her own speed—yet she felt no fear. Instead, exhilaration flowed through her and she gulped in the cold, clean air. It tasted sweet on her tongue, her throat. The pale light of dawn lit her way. Birds chittered in the branches, a group of them lifting into startled flight as she neared. Through the trees she could make out a hint of the sun’s glow, drawing her forward, telling her the way. As if she was guided by the goddess, her feet took flight.

  The sun rose and still she ran, sword in one hand, skirt held up with the other to allow her legs the freedom of their stride. Deer trails appeared before her and she took them when she could, always heading into the sun.

  She wasn’t sure how long ago the creature’s howls had faded. The only sounds now were her feet hitting the ground, the crackle of branches and bracken as she pushed through them, and her breath, strong and steady. The scream of a hawk hunting for its prey barely startled her.

  As the sun climbed, the ground fell, becoming rockier as it descended.

  Hild’s breath came in gasps now, and the strength that had carried her forward began to diminish—while her side began to throb insistently. “Just a little farther,” she told herself, but she stumbled over a rock and hit her hands as she fell, the sword tumbling from her grip.

  She grabbed it, clambered to her feet, and kept going, sliding on loose rocks, grasping at tree trunks to hold herself upright.

  A steady rushing sound like wind in branches pulled her onward a few more steps. One foot after another, she moved forward until the rushing sound resolved itself into water.

  She stepped out of the trees. In front of her, the river sparkled in the morning sun.

  She crumpled into a heap beside the brown water.

  • • •

  At the sound of a jay shrieking, Hild roused herself. She couldn’t stop yet; it wasn’t safe. Still, she’d made it this far, and that was something. She whispered a prayer of thanks to the goddess.

  A terrible thirst gripped her, but getting to the water was no simple matter, the bank was so steep. The river was swift and broad, and in places, the bank crumbled, dirt and leaves swirling into the current. She found a likely spot, but even then, she had to leave the sword above and grasp at weeds and bushes to steady herself.

  The water was icy. Hild scooped one handful after another into her mouth, feeling it dribble down her chin and onto her gown. She knew she would regret it later when her wet garments made her cold, but for now, the water tasted too good for her to be more careful.

  Sated, she climbed the bank again and gazed down the river.

  A movement caught her eye and she stepped behind a tree, clutching her side to hold in the pain. In the distance, a figure led a horse to the riverbank. Someone else joined him, a bow in his hands, his blond hair gleaming in the sunlight. Wulf. The first figure was Thialfi, she felt sure.

  She stepped farther into the woods, her heart thumping. She didn’t think they had seen her. Surely they would have reacted if they had. If she was going to evade the creature and find Unwen’s people, she had to get away from here. Now.

  Keeping the river on her sword-hand side, she started walking, going as fast as she could while weariness, hunger, and pain dragged at her. Her feet were cut and bruised from her wild run through the forest, her hands from her battle with the stones. The throbbing in her side grew sharper with every step. A cold wind whipped off the river, catching at her wet clothes and chilling her through.

  All the exhilaration that had buoyed her as she’d fled the creature was gone. In its wake, fear crept in, and she watched and listened for the monster—and for the men.

  How far would Unwen have gotten by now? Would she have already found her people? Or—Hild hesitated, not sure she wanted to admit the possibility—could she have met the same fate as Brynjolf?

  A bramble caught her skirt. As she struggled to get loose from the thorns without tearing her already scratched and bruised fingers, she remembered the change that had come to Mord after she had saved him from the monster. She thought of the way his eyes had looked and the way he had spoken to her.

  She thought of the two Geatish brothers, grieving for their father, and of Gizzur sitting beside his dead horse.

  She thought of Hadding looking after her in Unwen’s absence, and Thialfi riding alongside her to keep her from falling off Fire-eyes when she fell asleep in the saddle.

  They would be looking for her, as they should be, waiting in the woods in case she returned. And every single moment they waited for her made them vulnerable to attack by the creature.

  She shoved the thought aside and kept going. Unwen might have already reached her home, and if she had, her people would be watching for Hild. Maybe they would come along the river to find her. They could be waiting around the next bend.

  The farther she went, the slower her pace became, until finally, she slowed to a walk, dizzy with fatigue and hunger. As she leaned against an oak trunk, light-headedness made her sway. The world darkened. She bent down, hands on her knees, fighting the sensation. Behind her closed lids, a dark shape rose: the monster, loping through the trees, its gait awkward and jerky, half its face covered by its claws.

  Hild stood upright, heart pounding. Where was it? She blinked, staring into the woods, straining her ears. And then she knew, in the same way she’d known about her cousin. The monster was headed toward the river. Toward the men.

  What did it matter? Let it have them.

  Brynjolf’s face came to her, and the sound of his laughter, now forever silenced. Sudden anger filled her. Why were they still waiting for her? They should have left and not put themselves in danger.

  She took a step toward Unwen, toward freedom, then stopped and looked behind her. They needed to be warned. But if she went back now, she’d give up her last chance of escape. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t. The bend in the river wasn’t far now, and Unwen’s people could be just beyond it. She started moving again.

  A root snagged her foot and she stumbled, catching herself just before she fell. Had she heard something? She listened, but the only sounds were the rush of wind over water and the rattle of dry leaves in the branches. She tasted blood and licked her lip where she’d bitten it in the monster’s cave.

  Then, angry tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, she turned toward the men.

  With half her mind, she could see the way ahead of her, the tree branches that reached out to grab at her. With the other half, she sensed the creature, crashing through the woods, heading for the camp. She had to hurry.

  She picked up her pace, stumbling as she ran, the vision urging her on. She didn’t know how far away the monster was, or how soon it would reach the men. She only knew that it was coming.

  When the trees thinned, she moved back to the riverbank. Surely the men would see her, or hear her movement through the woods. But now that she wanted to be seen, none of them stood by the bank. If they were guarding their camp, she thought irritably, they weren’t doing a very good job of it.

  She tripped over a rock and went down, dropping the sword. She grabbed for the hilt and lay panting on the ground. She was spent. She couldn’t go any farther.

  The monster growled.

  She was up before she realized it, running again, not knowing if the sound had been in her ears or her mind. It didn’t matter. The creature was on its way.

  “Just a littl
e farther,” she told herself, “a little farther,” but her footsteps grew plodding and leaden. She couldn’t do it.

  She grabbed at a branch, then at another, and found she could pull herself along. It helped, propelling her forward a step, and then another, until the trees parted before her.

  She had made it. She was in the camp.

  The men were mounted, their backs to her, looking as if they were just about to ride away. One of them shouted and they wheeled their horses, turning toward her. Before she had a chance to speak, they raised their weapons—arrow, sword, and spear.

  All of them were aimed directly at Hild.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE MEN STARED AT HER, THEIR EYES WILD BEHIND THEIR masks, their mouths open, as if they were afraid of her. What was wrong with them, that they had their weapons trained on her? “Hurry, it’s coming,” she said, but her voice was too weak for them to hear.

  “It’s a spirit, sent back to haunt us,” one of them whispered with a Geatish accent.

  “It’s angry because we failed her,” someone else said. Mord.

  Mord? Didn’t he recognize her?

  “Don’t say anything and maybe it will go away.”

  “Why should I go away?” Hild asked, her voice cracking with incredulity.

  “My lady?” Thialfi asked. He dismounted and rushed to her side, Mord directly behind him, both of them catching her as she swayed.

  “My lady!” They spoke the words simultaneously, the two of them lowering her to the ground and crouching before her.

  “We have to hurry,” she said. “The monster, it’s coming.”

  “You need rest, my lady,” Mord said.

  “We have to go. Now.”

  They stared at her and then she saw the two men looking at each other, a silent agreement being negotiated, but she was too tired to care what it was.

  “Can you stay on a horse?” Thialfi asked, and she nodded, hissing in pain as he gently pulled her to her feet.

  Gizzur had already dismounted from Fire-eyes and was readying the horse for her. As she came close, Fire-eyes whinnied, shying away. Hild didn’t have the strength to wonder why. Instead, she concentrated on getting into the saddle as Thialfi and Gizzur lifted her.

  She heard Mord giving orders, but she didn’t listen; she just focused on not falling off the nervous horse as they moved out, guards before her, behind her, on either side of her.

  She let her head drop to her chest and trusted Fire-eyes to know his own business. All she had to do was stay on his back.

  The landscape passed in a haze of pain and exhaustion. She heard water splashing as they forded the river, and felt the slope of the land pushing her backward in the saddle as they began the climb into the rocks on the other bank. She wished she’d thought to ask for something to eat before they started, but changed her mind when the thought of food made her gorge rise.

  Her eyes closed and she swayed back and forth with Fire-eyes’s stride. Occasionally she felt hands gently nudging her back to the middle of the saddle, and she thought she might have heard someone saying her name, but none of it roused her from her stupor.

  The sun was gone when they finally stopped. Hands she didn’t bother to look at helped her down from the horse and led her to a blanket, where she fell into a sleep so deep she might have been dead.

  “My lady,” an urgent voice whispered, and Hild opened her eyes a slit to see the gray light of dawn in a rocky landscape devoid of trees.

  “The horses are ready. We must go.” She closed her eyes again and allowed the two men on either side of her to lead her to her horse and get her into the saddle. When one of them handed her the reins, she let them slip from her fingers. Fire-eyes was on his own again. She slumped back into her trance, waking up enough to refuse the dried fish Thialfi offered her. At first she felt hungry, but then she felt as if she would retch. She put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes.

  When they stopped, the sun had just begun its downward climb. Hild looked around her as Mord helped her from the horse. Why were they stopping during the daylight? The monster could still be out there, following them.

  Mord must have understood what she was thinking. “We’ve ridden the horses hard, and this is a good place to rest,” he said. “A hideout of the Geats’ that’s easy to defend.”

  It took all her strength to nod. They were in Geatish territory now—but she was too tired to care. Mord led her to a rock outcropping that made a natural roof, and she saw a stack of firewood that had been left by the previous visitors.

  “You must eat something, my lady,” Mord said, but Hild shook her head. Her stomach felt tight and peculiar, as if she’d been ill for a long time, but at least the pain in her side had dulled.

  “Just sleep,” she whispered.

  When the scent of roasting meat woke her, she realized she was ravenous. She sat up, blinking in the firelight, and saw Thialfi kneeling beside a fire, looking at her. When he saw her sitting up, he smiled, then turned to reach for something—a bowl.

  “Broth,” he said as he handed it to her. “Drink it slowly, my lady.”

  She tried to do as he said, but she couldn’t get it down fast enough. “Is there more?”

  He smiled again and shook his head. “Not broth, but I think we could find you some meat, if you wanted it.”

  She nodded enthusiastically, then looked around as she heard a chuckle. Wulf was sitting near her, grinning broadly, and across from him, Hadding stood up, a skewer in his hands. “Here, my lady, take mine.” He beamed as he gave her the roasted bird.

  She didn’t have time to thank him, because she was too busy chewing, unconcerned by the fluff and feathers that still clung to the bird, sucking on her fingers when she burned them in her haste.

  Eating exhausted her and she had barely swallowed the last bite before her lids closed again. She felt someone settling a blanket over her, but she was too comfortable and too sleepy to see who it was.

  It was morning when she woke again, and cold. She sat up and looked around at the campsite. The larger of the Geatish brothers, the one whose name she still didn’t know, saw her and gave a small bow, which the others must have noticed, because one by one they inclined their heads or offered her smiles.

  She stood unsteadily and made her way closer to the fire. The Geat backed away, giving her the best spot—a stone that made a comfortable seat just close enough to the flames that she could warm her fingers and toes without singeing them.

  “Here you are, my lady,” he said, and Hild looked up to see him presenting her with another bowl of broth.

  She took it gratefully, thanking him as he backed away, and tried her best not to slurp it down. As she drained the bowl, he took it and handed her a sloshing skin of water, then moved away again.

  “You needn’t be afraid of me,” she said. “I don’t bite.”

  He colored and looked down, then busied himself with something on the other side of the fire that she couldn’t see.

  She already knew he was quiet; he must be shy, too.

  She turned at the sound of footsteps—Mord was coming up a steep path into the camp. He stopped to talk to Gizzur, who left the way Mord had come. They must be keeping a heavy post of guards.

  Mord lowered himself to the fire a little way from Hild and stretched out his hands to warm them. He looked at something on the ground, then looked up at Hild.

  “What is it?” she asked, unable to read his expression. If she didn’t know better, she would have said he was embarrassed.

  “My lady,” he said, and then looked down again and cleared his throat.

  The Geat rose from his position across the fire and hurried away.

  Hild heard movement behind her—Hadding had joined the Geat, the two of them almost racing each other down the path away from the campsite.

  She looked back at Mord.

  “My lady,” he started again, looking into the flames. “We, uh, we can stay here for another day.”

  She wai
ted.

  “There’s a tarn not far from here, a little pool with good, fresh water,” he said brightly, pointing and looking off as if he could see the tarn from where he sat.

  “We’ll have plenty to drink, then,” Hild said, thinking that they sounded for all the world as if they were sitting in comfort in her uncle’s hall, making pleasant conversation. Why was Mord avoiding her eyes?

  His expression grew troubled and he looked back at the fire. The red-brown hair of his beard, she saw, wasn’t entirely hiding the red of his face. He was blushing.

  “What is it?” she asked again.

  “Well, we thought …,” he said, and then stopped, his cheeks now flaming.

  “Thought what, Mord?” She didn’t have the strength for games. What was he getting at?

  “It’s just that you, uh, might want to, well, wash, my lady,” he said, rising to his feet. “We could bring water here and heat it for you,” he called over his shoulder as he fled from the fire.

  Hild felt her own face growing warm. She looked down at her skirt and raised her hand to her face, her hair. Her clothes were stiff with blood and dirt, and her face must be streaked with them, as well. Her hair was falling out of the slave’s braid she’d made when she’d put it up for Brynjolf’s funeral so long ago, and she could feel twigs and cobwebs and bits of things she’d rather not imagine in it, too. Hadding’s beard must look positively tidy compared to her hair. No wonder they’d thought her a spirit.

  Her appearance was bad enough, but now that she took a whiff of herself, she understood instantly why the men had tried to keep their distance. Even Fire-eyes had objected, and now she knew why. She must still bear the foul odor of the creature from when it carried her to its lair. She smelled terrible.

  She turned to see Mord standing at the edge of the campsite, Thialfi beside him. She stood, pulling herself to her full height, and spoke in her most dignified voice. “I wish to bathe.”

  The two warriors glanced at her, and the fear in their eyes made her smile. The smile turned into a grin, and the grin into a laugh.