Dárja writhed. “Let go of me.”
Marnej held tight, his face grim.
Dárja’s frustration boiled over. “Even they know what you are,” she raged, trying to tear her arms free. “But I suppose you’re still loyal.” She said loyal as if it made her sick. “Loyal to men who want to use you. Men who’ve only ever used you.”
Even in the torchlight, Dárja saw Marnej’s face flush.
He pulled the knife from his belt, then raised its point at her. Dárja bucked and kicked, her eyes on the glinting blade. Marnej’s face was a cold mask.
He raised his blade higher as he grasped Dárja by her wrists. Then, with a deft cut, her hands were free. Marnej reached around her waist without touching her. He pulled back the bolt on the door, then handed her his knife as he drew the sword at his side.
Stunned, Dárja trailed Marnej as he rushed into the courtyard just beyond the hall.
Marnej slashed at the unsuspecting guards.
Dárja grabbed a dead soldier’s sword in time to slice upwards, across the soft flesh of an exposed neck. The man’s throat sprayed blood into her eye. She wiped it away, but another soldier was already upon her. She swung wildly as her vision blurred. She heard a grunt, then lashed out again, swinging blindly at anything in her way. As she ran, Dárja wiped her face with her forearm, footfalls pounding behind her. She planted her foot, then turned to attack, nearly cleaving Marnej’s arm as he fended off two soldiers. Dárja reeled with the momentum, but recovered herself in time to skewer one of the soldiers. Then she and Marnej fought their way past the palisade and picket, taking advantage of the confusion.
As they crossed into the open ground, Dárja sprinted ahead, despite her feet sinking deeper and deeper into the marshy ground. Arrows fell around her with deadly splats. Still, she ran. Her eyes focused on the distant trees. Their tall trunks seemed so impossibly far. Surely an arrow would find her before she found herself in their safety. Dárja ran—begging the gods, then cursing them. She ran until branches whipped about her, stinging her face and arms.
Bleeding and winded, Dárja turned back toward the way she’d come. Bent, with her hands on trembling knees, she watched Marnej. His arms and legs pumped back and forth as he labored to free himself from the fen’s sticky hold. She looked beyond him to where the Olmmoš drew their bows. There were mounted soldiers behind the archers now.
Dárja stood up. She held out her arm as she shouted, “Run! Marnej! Horses!”
Then she felt the hot grasp of his hand in hers. He pulled her forward, and together they ran farther into the willow shrubs and downy birch that filled the gaps between larger pines.
“Wait,” she cried.
Marnej dragged her ahead.
“We’ll never outrun them,” she said, breathless. “We have to find the Song.”
He grunted. Dárja dug in her heels. She wrestled free her hand.
“We have to find the Song!”
Marnej rounded on her. “I don’t know what that means.”
“The voices,” she said, searching for something he would understand. “We have to find the voices.”
Marnej shook his head. “We don’t have time.” He started to turn away.
“It’s the only way,” she said, hating the precious moments they were wasting by arguing.
He spun to face her. “I can’t just . . .” He stopped short. “Besides you said you couldn’t hear them.”
Dárja groaned, suddenly wanting to be free of Marnej’s hesitancy. She could just find the Song herself and be done with him. But even as she thought it, doubt crept up. She pushed it back down. “That’s when I was alone,” she said, grabbing Marnej’s arm. “But together . . . together we can find it.”
“I can’t just summon the voices like that,” he hedged, shaking his head.
Still, he didn’t pull away from her.
“Try,” she implored, glancing back over her shoulder, catching movement through the trees. She faced Marnej, taking his hands in hers. “Do whatever it is you need to,” she said. “I’ll do the rest.”
Marnej closed his eyes. Dárja thought he’d begun seeking out the Song. Then his eyes opened. Uncertainty lurked behind their pale suspicion.
“What if it doesn’t work?” he asked.
Dárja met his gaze. “Then we’ll fight and we’ll die.”
Marnej nodded, his mouth set with determination. He closed his eyes. Dárja said a silent prayer to the gods, then focused her mind on the Song of All. She repeated her song again and again, as if she could conjure all the other voices. Then she thought of the ground below and the trees around and the sky above. She was a part of it all. She sang her song for the ground, the trees, and the sky.
I am daughter of the gods.
I am sister among the Jápmemeahttun.
I started my life at my Origin, with sadness and joy as my companions.
I have braved dangers and met enemies and can see the truth of friendship.
I go into the world to meet my destiny, knowing that the stars watch over me.
For a long moment, Dárja heard nothing. Then like the eagle’s piercing cry she heard:
I am the vessel of a father’s soul.
I have journeyed into the realm of the dreams of the dark sky,
And traveled back in a blaze of light.
I enter into the world to meet my destiny,
Knowing that I have been touched by the gods.
Then all the other songs came flooding in. The trees. The rocks. The birds high on the branches. She felt the raven’s breath as it swooped down across the marsh and felt the trees sigh in the new breeze. The earth pulsed like her own heart and she’d never been gladder or more relieved. Dárja wanted to stay as she was, to bask in the beauty and the power of being connected to everything. Most of all, she wanted to find Irjan’s song. She longed to hear its strange sadness that she’d found a comfort in for all her life.
But she couldn’t. There was Marnej. His presence tugged at her, as if he might pull her back into the Olmmoš realm. Then she heard his song again and this time it was strong and sure. Dárja opened her eyes. Marnej swayed before her like a sapling, then his eyes snapped open, and he doubled over, retching.
Dárja looked beyond his hunched, heaving body, to where the soldiers ran toward them. Their faded yellow tunics darted in and out of the farthest trees. At any moment they would be upon them. The chorus of surging voices swirled around Dárja in a heady mixture of comfort and confidence. She took her fighting stance, instinctively tightening her grip on her sword.
Marnej moaned but seemed to register the change in her stance. He pushed himself to stand just as the soldiers ran past them. He flinched. Gently, so as not to startle him, Dárja touched his shoulder. He turned to face her, swaying with the effort. The soldiers continued to run deeper into the forest. Their frustrated shouts of “Where’d they go?” and “They’ve disappeared!” overlapped with crushing steps and snapping branches.
“They can’t touch us,” Dárja said, as much to remind herself as to reassure Marnej. “Not as long as we stay within the Song of All.”
Marnej nodded, but his eyes were unfocused.
“Listen to the voices,” she urged him. “Call to them. They will protect us. They will guide us back to our kind.”
Marnej opened his mouth to speak but his words came out thick and slurred. Then Dárja heard him say, “Our kind.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE TREES BLURRED AS Marnej ran. He caught sight of Dárja. Her face was flushed with effort. Her dark braid bounced against the small of her back. The sun dipped low in the sky but they had not run long enough to have escaped the soldiers pursuing them. Marnej turned back, his foot catching on a root. He staggered but kept his thoughts focused on the voices within.
It was only a matter of time until the soldiers caught up with them. And then what, Marnej wondered. And then the voices will hide us—protect us, he answered himself silently. But would they? Would they reall
y? He glanced at Dárja again. If she was afraid and tired, it didn’t show. And then it struck him that he didn’t know her well enough to tell when or if she was afraid or tired. She was Jápmea—an Immortal. Maybe she could run forever and never grow tired. But he, despite his training with the Brethren, was afraid. And he was tired. He couldn’t run much farther. He needed to rest.
Marnej’s eyes searched for a place to hide. He knew he was thinking like an Olmmoš, but he couldn’t help it. He was human, or at least most of him was, and he didn’t truly believe the voices would protect him. Not after the way they’d fooled him in the past.
Nothing. No boulders. No caves. No hills. There was nothing but an endless expanse of birch and pine trees.
Then Dárja screamed.
Marnej lurched to a stop, circling in place. “Dárja!”
“I’m here.” Her tight voice rose from behind low mounded crowberry bushes.
Marnej trampled the berry-laden shrub to find himself teetering on the lip of a pit trap. Dárja sprawled below him in a tumble of branches she’d brought down. The soft earth under Marnej’s foot gave way. He dangled momentarily in mid-air before he hit the ground with enough force to knock the breath from his body.
Laying helpless on his back, Marnej blinked. The treetops above blended together. For an instant it seemed the world would collapse in on him. As the air rushed back into his body, he closed his eyes, overcome with relief, then rolled to his side to heave. But nothing remained in his stomach to expel. They’d not had a moment for a sip of water, let alone time to forage for food.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Dárja said as she shifted beside him. “Hurry.”
Marnej pushed himself up onto his elbow and tried to wipe the foul taste from his mouth. The world around him turned again as if it were shaking itself loose of him. Dárja struggled to stand, then collapsed with a whimper, grasping her ankle.
“Is it broken?” he asked, staring into her dark, welling eyes. He heard panic behind his question. With her dirt-smeared face and her hair tangled with twigs, Dárja no longer looked like a proud Immortal who had fought and killed men in the Great Battle. She looked like a scared little girl.
Dárja grimaced, shaking her head, as she cradled her ankle with muddy hands. “I don’t think so,” she said in a tight exhale. “But I can’t stand.”
Marnej hung his head. They’d just managed to stay ahead of the soldiers when they were at a full run. There was no way they could escape while hobbling on three legs between them. He raised his eyes to look at Dárja. “We can’t run if you’re hurt.”
She stiffened.
“I’m not blaming you,” he said quickly. “I’m just stating a fact. Even if you could run, I can’t. I need to rest. I was looking for a place to hide when you found this.” Marnej widened his arms to encompass the pit.
Dárja turned her back on him to crawl away.
“Dárja.” Marnej drug out her name in exasperation. When she continued to move away from him, he called after her again. This time his voice shook with anger—the anger of eighteen seasons of snow with the Brethren, while Dárja had grown up cared for by his father, Irjan. Gods how he hated that man for abandoning him, his own flesh and blood, to live among the Immortals. Still, Marnej burned with jealousy.
Dárja looked up the length of the earthen wall. She used her sword to push herself to her feet, then tottered on her one good leg as she reached for the exposed roots. Her repeated and fruitless efforts acted to temper Marnej’s acrimony.
“Come on,” he cajoled, looking at the fallen branches and the surrounding trees. “You’ve found the perfect hiding place.”
Dárja scowled at him.
Marnej rose to his feet. He circled the pit, regarding it from all angles. If she thought him insincere, so be it. He wasn’t interested in soothing her feelings. He just wanted to secure their cover and get some rest.
“Hand me the branches we knocked down,” he said.
Dárja continued to glare at him without answering.
“Look,” he said. “You’re hurt. I’m tired. This hole is well camouflaged. We can hide and rest and then figure out what we’re going to do next.”
Marnej began to gather the twigs and limbs displaced by her fall.
Dárja didn’t say anything as she eased herself back down to the ground. She merely scooted on her hands and knees toward nearby fallen branches, pushing them over to him. The two of them worked in begrudging silence as he assembled a roof over the pit.
When he’d nearly finished, Marnej held out his hand. “Give me your belt.”
Dárja sat with folded arms. “Why?”
“If we make it until tomorrow without getting caught, we’ll need a way to climb out.”
“The Song of All will protect us,” Dárja said.
Marnej continued to hold out his hand. “You keep saying that, but it’s meaningless to me.”
“The voices,” she snapped. “The voices will protect us.”
“Are they going to get us out of the pit?” he argued, gesturing again for her belt.
Dárja’s sullen mouth twitched. She shifted onto her knees and untied the leather band at her waist. Her tunic drooped open and her leg coverings sagged. Dárja grabbed her clothes to keep them in place as she tossed the belt to Marnej, who offered her no thanks. Taking off his own belt, he joined the lengths of leather, looping them around a sturdy root, then tested their strength. Satisfied, he edged back down into the pit, pulling into place the last bit of greenery.
When his feet touched the ground, Marnej’s legs collapsed under him. He sank down onto the cool dirt. Seated, his breath escaped him in a long, heavy sigh. Then he leaned back, stretched out, and closed his eyes.
Despite his exhaustion, he was still curiously aware of Dárja beside him. They were strangers to one another. Enemies even. Except that their lives had somehow been bound together by the actions of his father.
Dárja shifted, grunted, and then lay still. He smelled her rank but musky scent above his own fetid odor as fragments of voices overtook his thoughts. He heard Dárja’s voice within himself, like the faint whisper of an approaching dream. And then her voice filled every corner of the dark void around him.
I am daughter to the gods.
I am sister among the Jápmemeahttun.
I started my life at my Origin with sadness and joy as my companions.
I have braved dangers and met enemies and can see the truth of friendship.
I go into the world to meet my destiny, knowing that the stars watch over me.
Like a longing he could not control, his own voice rose unbidden from the depths.
I am the vessel of a father’s soul.
I have journeyed into the realm of the dreams of the dark sky,
And traveled back in a blaze of light.
I enter into the world to meet my destiny,
Knowing that I have been touched by the gods.
Touched by the gods echoed in Marnej’s thoughts as he prayed they’d remain hidden from the soldiers who hunted them. Making it safely to the Northlands of the Pohjola seemed too much to ask.
Dárja squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the Song of All. She tried to ignore Marnej’s snoring. Then she counted her own breaths, one after another. It was pointless. Between Marnej’s low rumble and her own aching ankle, she could no more escape into sleep than she could fly away from this pit. Annoyed, she stiffly rolled onto her side to stare daggers at Marnej. She hated him for his ease in sleeping.
Marnej’s head lolled to one side, his mouth open and his lips slack. His otherwise sharp features softened. Dárja marked the slow rise and fall of his chest, feeling a growing uneasiness in her own. Weeks ago, even days ago, she would’ve gladly put her blade between his ribs. She’d been so sure of herself. So sure of her enemy—the Olmmoš. She’d done what she believed to be right. The Olmmoš were never going to stop hunting her kind. They were never going to be satisfied until her kind were wiped fro
m existence.
And Marnej was Olmmoš. More than that, he was a Piijkij. He’d been trained to track and kill her kind. Had he found her in this pit a few weeks ago, she had no doubt that he would’ve killed her without a second thought. Her pulse began to race. She’d seen him do it on the battlefield. He had plunged his blade into her comrades’ hearts. They were dead while he was alive, and she felt the injustice keenly. Still, she could not ignore her part. If pushed to speak the truth, she would have to admit that when she closed her eyes to sleep, she could still hear the cries of those Olmmoš she’d killed in the battle. She could still see their faces.
Dárja winced as she rolled onto her back. She didn’t want to look at Marnej anymore. But looking away didn’t change the fact he was Irjan’s son. Nor did it change the fact he was, at least in part, Jápmemeahttun. Was that why she had saved him? Or was it because he was Irjan’s son and that by giving Irjan what he most wanted in life—his son returned to him—she could somehow make amends for what she’d said.
Dárja’s breath caught. A lump welled in her throat. She would make it right with Irjan if she made it back to the Pohjola. What was done couldn’t be undone, but at least she could forgive him. She should forgive him. He was her bieba. He’d raised her. And when she’d asked, he’d taught her everything about swordcraft and fighting. He’d made her into a Taistelijian. What did it matter that she would remain a nieddaš for the rest of her life? She’d proven herself. She’d killed Olmmoš. Many of them. What did it matter that her body would never change? She was a warrior.
But then, what did it matter that she’d even fought in the battle? She would probably never live to see her people again. Irjan would live out his life believing the worst of her, that she hated him. Dárja pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes. She was determined not to cry, determined instead to hear Irjan’s voice within the Song. Again, she willed that familiar refrain to come forward, but she could not hear it.
Marnej stirred beside her. He mumbled, “How long have I slept?”
“Hours,” Dárja said, turning to face him.
Dreams of the Dark Sky Page 4