“I know the course of the threads of your destinies. The water will not kill you. There is some driftwood in the cave, enough to dry your clothes by a fire. The smoke can escape through a vent in the rock. You are well protected down below. If you stay out here, you will either die at the hands of your pursuer, or the cold will kill you.”
“I trust Gundar,” said Ulric, although the thought of the icy water made him feel queasy.
“I’m coming with you, wherever you go,” said Halgard, reaching out for his hand. Her fingers were as cold as ice.
Ulric hesitated. With Halgard at his side, walking out on the thin ice was suddenly something very different. “And the cold water won’t harm any of us?” he asked doubtfully.
“No. But you have to wait in the cave until they find you.”
“I don’t think anyone knows this place,” Yilvina protested. “How are they supposed to find us?”
“I can’t reveal your future to you,” Gundar replied. His voice sounded very tired now. “It is one of the weaver of fate’s ironclad rules. I’ve already told you far too much.”
Ulric took a step forward. The ice cracked menacingly. He saw a network of fine cracks eat through the crust atop the water. He took a deep breath. He remembered the time his father had thrashed him with a leather strap because he had thrown a gold-rimmed drinking horn into the coals of the fire. He wished he was back again in the warm hall of his house on that afternoon. Anything would be better than being here. For the space of a heartbeat, he closed his eyes. If he wished it enough, then perhaps none of this would be happening. He would lie across his father’s lap and take his well-deserved hiding.
“Ulric,” he heard the priest’s friendly voice say. Gundar was looking at him sadly from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “It has to be.”
The boy took another deep breath. Then he took a determined step forward. Halgard held on to him tightly.
The sound of the breaking ice grew more ominous. Everything in Ulric fought against the next step.
“Don’t do it,” whispered the elf.
He moved his foot forward. Defiantly, he stepped onto the ice. He wanted to put it behind him. Water rose through the cracks, onto the surface of the ice. Suddenly, there was a loud crack, like splintering wood. With a jolt, Ulric was thrown off his feet. Halgard let out a high-pitched scream. Blood barked madly.
A merciless cold snatched at the boy. Now he screamed, too, as his heavy winter clothes sucked up their fill of water. As if by an invisible hand, he was pulled deeper. He made no attempt to hold on to the jagged break in the ice. Something sharp-edged banged against his cheek. With an effort, he still kept his head above water. He tried to see where Gundar was, but the priest had disappeared.
Yilvina had thrown herself flat on the ice and was trying to reach him with her outstretched hand. Halgard clung to him. Ulric’s feet pedaled but could find no grip. Then he sank. The water closed over his head, and he held his breath. He opened his eyes, squinting. He felt as stiff as a frozen salmon.
Halgard was holding on to his arm with both hands. Where was Gundar? Something dark slipped through the water beside them. Blood! The dog had followed them. Ulric reached out for the big dog but could not get a grip on the wet fur. Suddenly, in front of them, a bright light glowed. Gundar was back!
You have to hold on to Ulric’s belt, Halgard, so he can use his arms. Gundar’s voice was in his head. Halgard obviously heard it, too, for she did what the priest told her.
Now paddle with your arms, boy, and come to me.
Ulric felt himself growing rigid with the cold. A burning pain began to spread inside him. He wanted to breathe.
Don’t do that. Come to me now. You can do it!
Ulric moved his arms. Slowly, inch by inch, he found he could move toward the priest. He could feel Halgard writhing. Did the same fire burn in her?
Faster, Ulric.
Beside the priest, a dark hole gaped in the rock wall. The boy steered for it, but the water around him seemed to become more solid. The strength in his arms flagged. He hardly made any progress at all. The fire spread inside him—he had to get air! The cold water would still the flames.
Something jabbed into his back and pushed him forward. Blood! Ulric’s head broke through the water’s surface and he gasped for breath. The air eased the burning in his lungs and slowly made it subside.
Gundar appeared again. The light that played around the priest drove back the darkness. A smooth stone floor rose gradually from the water. Driftwood, bleached as bones, lay all around.
Gasping, paddling clumsily with his arms, Ulric splashed forward. Halgard’s teeth were chattering so much that she could not talk. Her lips were dark from the cold.
With the last of his strength, Ulric pulled himself clear of the water. Blood sank his teeth into Halgard’s coat and helped drag her up where it was dry.
“You have to collect the driftwood,” said the priest. The voice was no longer in Ulric’s head. “Hurry up, boy. I can’t stay much longer. Then you have to get out of your clothes, or the fire won’t warm you at all.”
Trembling all over, Ulric picked up a few branches and layered them for a fire. There was not as much wood in the cave as he would have liked.
Gundar stretched one hand toward the pile of wood. He closed his eyes, and deep folds appeared on his forehead. Flames flared from inside the pile—tiny flames, but they licked hungrily along the thin branches. Ulric could see them gaining in strength, and as they brightened, the priest’s apparition faded.
“I wish you luck,” Gundar breathed, his voice drifting away as he became one with the blackening wood.
Blood shook himself, and a shower of water droplets sprayed onto the fire, extinguishing some of the flames.
“Get away!” Ulric cried. “Don’t do that again.” Quickly, he hunted along the water’s edge for more thin branches. The fire was losing strength.
“Please, Luth, don’t let it go out,” he begged. “I promise I’ll do what Mother says, always. But don’t let it go out.” He layered the small branches carefully around the last of the flame and held his breath for an anxious moment. Finally, the fire began to grow again. And now it burned stronger than before, one good flame licking along the bleached wood, growing as it moved, before it jumped across to the branches above it.
Halgard pressed a shivering kiss to Ulric’s cheek. She tried to say something, but the chattering of her teeth smothered all words.
“You have to take your clothes off now,” Ulric said uncertainly.
Awkwardly, Halgard pulled off her coat. The boy turned aside, embarrassed. He knew that it wasn’t right to watch when a girl got undressed. He peeled off his own clothes until all he had left was a pair of woolen shorts. They clung to his loins like ice, even as he felt the warmth of the fire on his arms and chest.
Halgard had taken off her clothes and now crouched close to the flames. Her skin was wrinkled all over, and her arms and legs were like brittle branches. The line of fine bones down her spine stood out beneath the skin of her back, and her ribs showed down her side. She rubbed her hands under her arms.
Hesitantly, Ulric removed his shorts, too. Only then did it occur to him that Halgard could not see him at all. How could he have forgotten that? Relieved, he sat beside her, and Blood also lay beside the fire. The big dog, with an expression of annoyance, looked across at Ulric. Steam rose from Blood’s fur. Then, with a deep sigh, he stretched, flailed his paws like a puppy, and rolled onto his back.
Something slid, jangling across the stone floor. Ulric and Blood both leaped to their feet. Halgard let out a sharp cry. “What is it? What’s happening?” she cried fearfully.
Yilvina was trying to push herself out of the water. She had thrown her sword ashore. Ulric tried to help, but the slightly built elf woman was heavier than she looked. Only when Halgard came to his aid was he able to drag Yilvina up until she was lying in the dry part of the cave.
She said something in a language Ulric did not understand.
Her eyes were aglow with fever.
“We have to undress her, too,” said Halgard.
Working together, they pulled her chain mail tunic over her head. Halgard touched Yilvina’s body lightly with her hands. “I’ve never felt cloth so soft,” she said quietly. “She must be wearing wonderful clothes.”
Ulric did not think there was anything particularly special about the padded jacket and shirt that the elf was wearing beneath the mail, but he did not say anything. He did not want to spoil Halgard’s pleasure.
Pulling off Yilvina’s boots was all but impossible. The leather wrapped her calves like a thick second skin. Ulric toiled at the boots while Halgard removed her last layer above: a delicate silk shirt.
The elf’s clothes were soaked with blood. Yilvina groaned and doubled over in pain when they freed her from the shirt, which had stuck to the scabs of her wounds. A bone protruded sideways from her torso, and blood was now seeping again through the thick scab. Her entire chest and most of her belly were discolored red and blue. Her body looked strangely misshapen, and Ulric found something else confusing as he examined her terrible bruises. He had to look for a long time before he realized what it was. On the left side of her chest, no ribs stood out anymore. In disbelief, he ran his fingers over the damaged skin. Bones could not disappear like that! He felt something firm in the flesh, and it moved under his touch.
Yilvina groaned. She looked at Ulric, tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Yilvina nodded weakly. Her lips were trembling. Ulric had to lean very close over her to hear what she was saying. “My sword . . . give it . . . to me.”
“What does she want?” asked Halgard.
“Her sword.”
“What use is it to her now?”
“You don’t understand,” said Ulric adamantly. “She’s a warrior. She will feel better if she has her sword.”
“I don’t understand that at all,” Halgard replied, her feelings hurt. “In fact, it sounds like complete nonsense to me.”
Ulric did not reply. He did not want an argument now. Besides, Halgard usually won their arguments. She simply found the better words, and afterward he always felt like a complete idiot. Sometimes, after they’d fought, Halgard’s words would still be going through his head even hours later. He laid out every possible response in his mind, but by then it was too late—they rarely argued about the same thing twice.
The boy looked around inside the cave. It was Yilvina’s wish to have her sword, so there was nothing left to discuss!
Their hideout was not particularly big. Ulric could stand upright without banging his head, but only just. They were surrounded by gray rock that was veined with white and rust-colored lines. The cave was an irregular shape, with several niches into which the light of the fire barely penetrated at all.
Ulric saw the sword lying on the floor close to the rear wall of the cave. He went back to it tiredly. All he wanted was to stretch out by the fire and sleep.
The wavering firelight distorted his shadow grotesquely where it danced across the irregular walls. Ulric ducked lower. Just in front of him, the wall cut back. The water had eroded an elongated alcove into the rock. And inside it was . . . someone . . .
Ulric hastily grabbed for the sword. In the alcove lay a warrior in green armor, sound asleep!
“Is something wrong?” Halgard asked.
“Shh!” Ulric hissed. He strained to see into the niche in the wall. The sleeper did not move. Slowly, the boy’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. The man wore a green winged helmet. His face was hidden behind wide cheek guards. A green breastplate reached the warrior’s hips. His pale gauntlets held a magnificent sword with a broad blade. His breeches were tattered, the fabric decorated with a pattern Ulric had never seen, and the leather of his boots was shriveled and cracked.
Holding his breath, Ulric leaned in, trying to look at the man’s face. He had never heard of a warrior with green armor, but someone like that would have caught people’s attention.
He crept forward until he was as close to the alcove as he could get, then pushed his head inside. His heart was beating wildly. He must not touch the sleeper! Luth only knew what kind of fellow this was. He certainly did not come from the Fjordlands—no one there wore such strange armor.
Ulric turned his head. He had to support himself with one hand on the alcove ceiling to stop himself from losing his balance. Just a few inches more. Finally! His face was very pale—no! Shocked, Ulric jerked back, banging his head on the ceiling. He lost his balance and fell across the man’s body. But the man would not awaken. Never again. The helmet concealed a skull.
Blood had jumped up and run to Ulric’s side. Sniffing curiously, he pushed into the alcove beside Ulric, who had trouble pulling him out again. Halgard also came, feeling her way carefully over the cave floor. She made Ulric describe the dead man in detail.
Now Ulric discovered two holes in the side of the man’s breastplate. In one was a rotted wooden shaft. On the roof of the alcove, something had been painted in brown, almost faded away now. A spider! The sign of Luth.
“And his armor is all green?” Halgard asked.
“Yes.”
“Take a stone and scratch it.”
What? What was this now? Only a girl could think of something like that.
“Do it for me?” Halgard urged him.
Ulric sighed. He was cold. He wanted to return to the fire. And he had to give Yilvina her sword. Carefully, he took the elven blade and scraped it across the breastplate.
“Well?” Halgard said.
Ulric squinted. “There’s something golden underneath the green,” he said in amazement.
“Bronze,” the girl replied triumphantly. “I thought so.”
“What?” Ulric was annoyed. Yet again, she’d made him look a fool.
“It’s King Osaberg!” Halgard announced reverently.
“Never!” Ulric said. “Osaberg is lying at the bottom of the fjord. You don’t know the story right.”
But the girl was not about to let him put her off. “He must have made it into the cave, just like we did. He hid from his enemies in here. He just wanted to rest, but he was too badly injured, and he died.”
“It’s just some soldier,” Ulric said truculently.
“No. Luth gave him a winged helmet, and the king of the kobolds gave him a sword with a blade that would never rust and never get dull.”
Somehow, Ulric did not want to admit that Halgard was right. He had always imagined Osaberg as a big, strong warrior with long hair, lying stretched out on the bottom of the fjord, asleep. He was a hero waiting to return, not just a pile of bones in a cave. Ulric stood and went back to the fire. He laid Yilvina’s sword close beside the sleeping elf. Will she sleep here forever, too? he wondered uneasily.
Blood followed him to the fire, and then Halgard. Her teeth were chattering again. She rubbed her hands over her skinny arms. “It is Osaberg,” she murmured defiantly.
Blood growled.
You can’t stand girls who have to be right all the time either, can you? Ulric thought, and he grinned.
The black dog rose to its feet. Its growls grew deeper and more menacing.
Wavelets splashed up the slope at the water’s edge. Suddenly, a big, ungainly head rose from the water. Ulric recognized the face instantly. He had seen it again and again in his nightmares. It was the troll Yilvina had wounded so gravely days before.
JUST ONE WORD
Kalf pulled himself up onto the wall-walk inside the second palisade. In the moonlight, the trolls were gathering just out of range of the archers, their outlines clear against the snow as they formed into a column.
Kalf looked along the wall-walk. A short distance away stood the wagon maker, Sigvald, supporting himself on the shaft of a poleaxe. He looked as if he barely had the strength to stay on his feet.
“Where are our archers?” Kalf called.
Sigvald pointed up to the cliff on the western e
nd of the palisade. “Kodran sent them up there. He wanted fighters on the wall. No children.”
Kalf nodded. He looked up to the edge of the cliff. Nothing moved. By foot, it took almost half an hour to get up there. He knew that Kodran was trying to save the children and young men, and sighed. The trolls had given themselves two days to prepare for their new attack. Maybe they still needed a little longer.
The second palisade, situated as it was at the top of the trail that led up the pass, was not as high as the wall they had already lost. It would be easier for the trolls to pull themselves up. The defenders had also had little time to reinforce the defenses with more tree trunks. The clash would be harder this time. But the men who stood along the wall-walk were also the better fighters. On the first palisade, those who had fallen were unskilled fighters or simply unlucky. The survivors were a harder breed to kill. And in the final reckoning, on the barricade close to the village, only the best would remain.
A low drone sounded. Below, the trolls on the pass trail began to move. They swarmed around something that lay in the snow. A drumbeat reverberated, a slow, sinister rhythm.
Kalf squinted his eyes to slits. What was going on down there? The troll warriors had formed into a column. The fisherman glanced up to the clifftop—the archers had not yet arrived.
“So what are the bastards up to?” a familiar voice asked loudly. Asla! She was not supposed to be there. Kalf sighed. Trying to send her back would be a waste of time.
“I think the trolls are trying to impress us by holding hands, Duchess,” Kodran called.
Laughter rang. Even Kalf had to smile. With Asla there, hope returned, and laughter with it. He did not know how she did it, but it was at least a little miraculous.
“What’s become of your mail tunic, Duchess?” Sigvald asked.
“If I’m picking a fight with hand-holding trolls, I don’t need chain mail. I could have brought a decent-sized wooden spoon and left my sword at home.”
Below, a single command rang out. The trolls hoisted something between them. They weren’t holding hands at all, but were carrying something, all of them, together! To the beat of the drum, the column of trolls began to move up the hill. Kalf refused to believe what he saw. This was the end—it could not be!
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