I looked to Asmund and the same thoughts hung heavy on his face. Vigdis had never planned to make the offering of reparation. Just like Latham and Mýra said.
“How many more do you think are coming?” I whispered, staying close to the ground.
Asmund shook his head, his eyes running over their camp. “There are twelve Svell villages. From what we’ve seen of their lands, I’d say in the end they’ll be at least over eight hundred strong.”
There were eleven Nādhir villages, but most of them weren’t as big as the Svell’s. Espen had guessed we’d be able to muster only six hundred from both our territories. It wouldn’t be enough.
“And there will be many more if the Kyrr are coming.” I spoke beneath my breath.
“What?” Kjeld’s eyes found me over Asmund’s head.
“There was a Kyrr with them in the glade.” As soon as I said it, the chill that had run over my skin when I saw the girl with the marks returned. The feeling of her dark eyes had been like the heat of a fire.
Kjeld glared at me. “No, there wasn’t.”
“She was Kyrr, Kjeld. I saw her.” I’d felt her, too.
“You think they’re joining with the Kyrr?” Asmund lifted himself up onto his elbows between us.
But Kjeld’s gaze narrowed. “The Kyrr aren’t with anyone. I’m the only one on the mainland and they would never ally with another clan.”
“She had the marks. I know what I saw.”
“What marks?” His voice rose. “Describe them.”
“They were like yours.”
“They weren’t like mine,” he said, gruffly, “no one’s are the same. Tell me exactly what you saw.”
I tried to remember, pulling the vision of her back to me from the glade. “I don’t know. There was a wing on her throat. The antlers of a stag on her arm, I think.”
He seemed to go suddenly still, leaning forward to listen. “What else?”
“A symbol I didn’t know.” I touched the center of my chest, below my neck. “Here.”
His brow furrowed. “What did it look like?”
“An eye. But it was—”
His lips parted and I watched one of his hands clutch at the soil beneath him before he pinched his eyes shut, the other raking over his face.
“What is it?” Asmund watched him.
“That’s not possible,” he muttered.
“What’s not possible?”
Asmund clicked his tongue and we looked down to see a line of Svell mounting their horses below. I slid back slowly over the wet grass, careful not to pull at the wound on my side, and the others followed. We walked silently through the trees and I watched Kjeld stare at the ground, the stream of frantic thoughts evident on his face. He walked ahead of us until we made it back to the river where Bard was waiting with the horses. But unlike when we’d left only an hour before, he was alone.
“They’re gone?” Asmund said, looking into the trees. His brother was the only raider who hadn’t left.
Bard nodded in answer. “Some went up the mountain, some to the northern valley.”
They would wait out the fight until it was safe to come back. And I understood why. Seeing the Svell’s numbers, I was surer than ever that our chances were next to nothing.
“I’ll get you to Hylli. Then I’m gone,” Asmund said.
I nodded. He’d said long ago that he’d never go home again. I couldn’t ask him to fight for it.
Kjeld’s eyes shifted nervously, his hands fumbling over his saddlebags.
“What is it?” I eyed him.
He hooked his fingers into the strap of his saddle, pulling it tighter. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
“Kjeld,” Asmund pushed.
“I don’t know how she was with them, but the Kyrr aren’t allied with the Svell. I’m sure of it.” He pulled himself up onto his horse, the mutter of a prayer on his breath as he pulled at the copper disc on his wrist.
Other than a few stories, there wasn’t much anyone on the mainland knew about the Kyrr. Only that their people didn’t come down from the headlands because that was where their god dwelled. The legend said that Naðr would never leave the frozen north, so neither would her people. Most of the Nādhir had never seen a single Kyrr in their lifetime, which made Kjeld’s presence unsettling to anyone who saw him. But now there were two of his kind on our shores.
“You haven’t been to the headlands in years.” Asmund watched him. “It’s possible they’ve joined with the Svell.”
“I know my people.” His voice rose, his gaze sharpening on Asmund.
“So, eight hundred Svell.” I turned to Asmund as Kjeld kicked his horse, moving up the bank.
He nodded. “They’ll want the villages. Probably settle their own people to expand their territory into the fjord.”
I’d suspected the same. The Svell were already stronger in number, but they would want the lands. The fjord was a strong, resourceful position and the clans that lived farther east and south wouldn’t be a threat for some time.
“They’ll go to Utan next.” Bard looked to Asmund.
“If Hylli has already called in their warriors, it’s defenseless.” I stared at the ground, imagining it. “You saw what they did in Ljós.”
They would do the same to every village between here and the fjord and by the time the leaders in Hylli knew what was happening, it would be too late.
“I’ll go.” Bard didn’t wait for an answer, pulling himself up into his saddle.
Asmund watched his brother, managing not to protest even though I could see he wanted to.
“Warn them of what’s coming and send them to Möor.” The mountain village would be the safest place to wait it out, and the farthest from the Svell’s reach. They didn’t have time to get to Virki with so many of the enemy already in the valley. “Meet us in Aurvanger. Or don’t. This isn’t your fight if you don’t want it to be.”
“I go where Asmund goes.” Bard leaned forward, stroking the snout of his black horse. The worn, red Aska leathers that their father had probably taken into battle still stretched across the animal’s chest. “If I’m not in Aurvanger by sundown tomorrow, leave without me.”
Asmund gave him a nod and he reached down to take his arm, pulling his brother into him. I wondered if they’d ever been apart in the years since they left Hylli. We’d all been boys in Virki when the Aska and Riki fought the Herja, and they’d come back to an empty home on the fjord. Since then, it had been just the two of them.
Bard turned the horse and took off down the bank of the river, disappearing around the bend. If he hurried, maybe the Svell would find no more than an empty village when they arrived in Utan.
“How long will it take to get to the fjord?” Kjeld finally broke the silence, his fingers still wound in his bracelet.
I arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re coming?”
He shrugged, holding out a handful of tree moss to me. “Where else am I going to go?”
But there was a look hidden beneath his easy eyes, a dark shadow that always seemed to be there. I’d often wondered how Kjeld ended up with Asmund. How he’d come to wander the mainland and what he’d done to be cast out from his own people. Mysteries surrounding him, the way fog shrouded the headlands. Only myths made their way down the narrow sliver of land that arched up from the mainland to the frozen north. A place where the thaw never came, the mist so thick that the blue sky was never seen.
“Thank you.” I took the moss from him. “You’re sure the Kyrr haven’t joined with the Svell?” I asked again.
“I’m sure.” He went to the water’s edge, crouching down to wash up the length of his arms beneath his sleeves. The Kyrr marks were knotted so tightly that in some places, you couldn’t even see the color of his skin.
I lifted my tunic, inspecting the burn at my side. The gash was closed and the bleeding had stopped, but it wouldn’t protect me from the infection that I was sure would come. The tree moss would help keep it clean until I got hom
e. I dipped it into the water to rinse it of the dirt and bark and then held my breath as I pressed it against the raw skin. The pain shot up and over my body until I could feel it in my hands, a singeing burn that made it difficult to draw another breath. I bandaged it tightly, until the sting was numbed enough to move.
“Ready?” Asmund held out the reins to me and I looked up to the horse.
Its amber hide reminded me of Aghi’s horse, the color of warm sunsets over the mountain. The orange light that spilled onto the tree trunks and made everything look like it was on fire.
War is easy.
His words echoed in my mind, and I swallowed hard against the pain in my throat. He’d survived a lifetime of the fighting seasons to protect the fjord and see a new future for his people. Now, I wondered what we would say when we were reunited with him in the afterlife. If we’d have to tell him that it was all gone. The fjord. Our people. The future.
All of it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TOVA
Gunther kept his distance, riding behind as I led us into the forest outside of Ljós, but I could feel his stare at my back. He and Jorrund didn’t speak as we headed away from the glow of the Svell camp. It was expanding every hour as more warriors arrived from the west.
Vigdis had sent word before we’d ever even set out for Ljós, his plan to betray his brother and kill the Nādhir fully conceived since the night I’d cast the runes. I wondered what he would have done if the runes had said something different. If they’d held fortune instead of ruin. But he’d moved against Ljós before that night, and I told myself that the weight of the lives in the Nādhir village and in the glade didn’t fall on me. But even if it were true, I’d still played a part. I’d justified his plan. Confirmed it. Hagalaz was the excuse that Vigdis needed.
We walked in silence, the sounds of night growing in the forest as the sun began to fall. Jorrund waited in the shadows tucked under the trees, his arms tucked in his robes as the tall grass pushed and pulled around him. He didn’t like the idea of summoning the Spinners, but he knew we didn’t have a choice. He was too afraid to call out to Eydis after the betrayal at the glade. He’d try to earn back the honor he’d lost before he went to face his god. And the only way to do it was to be sure the Svell were the ones left standing on the bloodied earth. But Jorrund had too much faith in Eydis. The gods could be even more treacherous than mortals.
I eyed my bow, strapped to Gunther’s horse beside his leg. “Do you owe Vigdis some debt, like you did Jorrund?”
He looked down at me, one eyebrow arching. “What?”
“There has to be some reason he’s tasked you with watching me. And there had to be some reason you came to the beach that day seven years ago.”
I watched him remember. For almost an entire year, Gunther had come to meet me in the meadow. He’d taught me how to make arrows and shoot them. He’d even made my bow. But he had never talked to me other than giving me instruction. He’d never told me why he’d agreed to help me.
“I didn’t do it because I owed a debt to Jorrund,” he answered, gruffly.
“Then why?”
He kicked the horse, riding past me and leaving me to walk alone. I doubted Vigdis or anyone else knew about those days in the meadow. If they did, Gunther wouldn’t hold such a high ranking among the warriors. But Jorrund was good at getting people to do what he wanted. He was good at making people feel like they owed him something.
I moved slowly, watching the pattern of the thicket ahead. We were farther inland than I’d usually be when hunting for henbane, but there was no time to go back to Liera and the sun was already disappearing, cooling the forest around us. If I was going to find the Nādhir, I had to act quickly.
Vigdis’ words came back to me. He’d meant what he said, but even if I did find the man who’d killed his brother, he had plenty of reasons to want me dead. I only had the time between now and then to find a way to keep myself valuable to him. After that, I didn’t know what my future held. My own fate was growing dimmer by the moment.
The truth was that I understood Vigdis, even if I thought he was wrong. His zeal for his clan was pure. It ran through his veins as hot as his blood and Vera’s death had struck him hard. With no children of his own, he’d lost the only soft, warm thing he’d let into his heart and it was easier to blame me than to blame Eydis. I was flesh and blood. I had a face. And most importantly, I could die.
I stopped when I saw the change in the trees ahead, where a narrow offshoot of the river wound waywardly in the dark, widening in the distance. Gunther stopped at the outcropping of stone as I pushed through the reeds. My boots sank into the softening ground and I searched the dried, dead plants of winter that were clustered along the water. If the henbane was anywhere nearby, it would be here. It was too early to find fresh blooms but last year’s fallen stalks would still litter the earth.
I crouched down, digging through damp brush with my fingers and moving down the shore, my hands caked with mud. The light was almost completely gone by the time I found it. A golden bed of spent henbane peeked through a new patch of grass that reached up like fingers toward the warmth of the sun.
I raked the blades back carefully, unearthing an old straw-colored stalk lined with tight rows of seed pods. One was all I needed. I stood, pushing back into the reeds toward Gunther, and we walked back to where Jorrund waited, now almost invisible in the dark.
“I don’t like this,” he said, eyeing the henbane.
“I know,” I whispered, walking past him.
Summoning the Spinners was dangerous, but my entire life with the Svell had been dangerous. I had never really been safe, even if Jorrund had wanted me to believe I was. So I had learned to take risks to make my existence necessary. This was no different.
The fires of the Svell camp were lit in the trees in the distance. They’d been arriving all day and by tomorrow, we’d be headed east with an entire army. Time was running out.
The meeting tent was packed full of bodies as we passed, voices booming over each other in the dark. Jorrund held open the flap of our tent and I ducked inside as he struck the fire-steel and I got to work, laying out the henbane and using my knife to cut the dead blooms from the dry stalk.
“What are you doing?” Gunther watched me warily, the light of the torch reflecting in his eyes.
“I don’t know where the Nādhir is.” I peeled the dried petals back and fit the tip of my blade into the pod, slicing downward in a precise line. The black round seeds glimmered beneath the husk as Jorrund came to stand over me. “So, I’m going to ask someone who does.”
“There are other ways to find him,” Jorrund said.
“Not this quickly.” I dumped the seeds into my palm. If the Spinners had sent the All Seer, I had to believe they were trying to tell me something. That they were trying to guide me, somehow. And it wasn’t only the Nādhir from the glade I wanted to find. I wanted to know more about the Kyrr I’d seen in the forest.
I stood and Jorrund held a bowl out before me, meeting my eyes. “Be careful.”
I took it, not answering. I knew enough about fate to know that being careful had very little to do with living or dying. And I was still too angry with him for going against Bekan to drive away his worry.
We went back out into the crisp night air and I knelt before the nearest fire, scooping hot coals into the bowl with the blade of my knife. Jorrund’s and Gunther’s footsteps hit the ground behind me as I walked into the dark forest. I found a place where the moonlight spilled through the treetops and sat down, my skirt spread out around me. The coals glowed orange and red inside the bowl and I set it before me, closing my eyes and pulling in a long, steady breath.
The thoughts bled from my mind slowly, until I was left in the forest alone, only the darkness of my mind remaining. The cold of the night air wrapped around me and the rustling of leaves trailed through my thoughts until the silence settled. I opened my eyes and stared into the coals, pushing away each thought a
nd replacing them with the sounds of the forest and the pull of the wind through the branches overhead.
I lifted my hand before me and scattered the henbane seeds onto the hot coals. Their shining hulls cracked against the heat and white smoke wound up through the dark before me like curling fingers casting a spell. I leaned over them, breathing deeply until the biting scent of it was deep in my lungs. My eyes closed against the burn in my chest and I drew another breath. The heat pushed between my ribs and I pinched my eyes closed until my hands began to feel heavy in my lap.
My head fell back and the words found my lips, the rasp of my own whispering so quiet that I could hardly hear my own voice. “I call upon the Spinners. I summon the weavers of fate.”
I brought the Nādhir’s face to my mind, seeing him as clearly as I had in the glade. Dark hair pulled into a haphazard braid. Deep-set eyes the color of the sea. The tingle came back up over my skin, as if I could feel him there. As if he was standing just ahead in the trees, his gaze on me.
My head swam, the earth beneath me suddenly pulling me down into it, and the white light of the moon brightened on the ground around me. I blinked, dumping the rest of the seeds onto the coals, and the smoke reignited, pulling up from the bowl in twisting pillars. I breathed it in again, but this time, I couldn’t feel the burn. There was only the sweet taste of the smoke on my tongue and the faint heat lifting from the embers.
“Where are you?” I murmured, the timbre of my own voice strange.
The sound of my breath grew louder in my ears and the warmth spilled out into my body, reaching down into my hands and feet. I lay back into the dirt, my eyes fixed on the black sky, and my weight sank down into the pine needles, my palms turned up at my sides.
I tried to say the words again but my lips wouldn’t move, my face numb against the cold night air when suddenly, he appeared. The Nādhir stood in the darkness before me, the shapes around him rippling like the henbane smoke until I could make out the crude gates of a small village behind him. His eyes locked on mine and I searched the black for the Kyrr. But we were alone. Just the Nādhir and I.
The Girl the Sea Gave Back Page 8