I watched out the front door, across the path to Gyda’s house, where Inge and Runa were inside. The labor had already been going for hours, but it was Gyda’s first baby. They could be there all night.
Halvard finished eating and climbed the ladder, leaving Fiske, Iri, and me by the fire. I pulled a pair of Halvard’s pants into my lap and started mending them where he’d torn a hole in the knee.
“I’ll stay until the thaw,” I said, pulling the needle through the wool.
Iri sat up, leaning forward. Beside him, Fiske glanced at me, his gaze lingering for only a moment.
“I’ll stay until the thaw and then I’ll go home.”
Iri nodded, smiling. “Alright.”
If Inge wasn’t going to tell anyone, there was no sense in me taking the risk now. I would stay out of sight and out of trouble. I’d go home and face my shame and try to find a way to earn back what I’d lost in the eyes of Sigr.
Runa came through the door, her face flushed from the cold, and fetched a wooden box from the shelf. I filled a bowl with the stew we’d eaten for supper and handed it to her.
She hesitated, looking at it and then behind me to where Iri sat. She took the bowl, smiling. “Thank you.”
I sat back down, starting on the pants again, embarrassed. I hadn’t thought about it. I’d just done it.
“Did the baby come?” Iri caught her hand as she passed and pulled her to him.
She smiled, touching her nose to his. “Not yet.” Her fingers slipped through his grasp and she went back out the door.
Halvard’s snoring rumbled in the loft and Fiske and Iri sat in front of the fire, mending opposite ends of a net. I listened to them, talking about the next hunt. The next fighting season. The next visit from the Riki traders. Making plans.
Their lives would go on when I left. I would fade like a bruise or a memory.
Fiske rubbed the salve into the broken skin on his knuckles that appeared after he went to see Thorpe. I ran my fingers over the wound on my arm and the same sting that had crawled over me when he touched me ignited again, making me feel too warm by the fire.
A screech echoed through the air outside and we all straightened, Iri and Fiske falling quiet. I stood, looking out the door, into the dark village, but I couldn’t see anything. It was quiet again.
“Maybe it was Gyda.” I leaned into the doorpost.
Iri relaxed back into his seat, throwing another log onto the fire. “Eelyn’s good with nets.”
I looked back at them. “What?”
“We need a new net made. Can you make it?”
I looked back out the door, remembering. Sitting on the dock with salty rope in my hands. Tying knots and repairing broken strands while Iri cleaned fish beside me. I nodded.
Another scream rang out and Iri shot to his feet and froze. Listening.
Then another. And another.
I knew that sound. We all did. Screaming in the middle of a clear night. Wood breaking. Metal clanging.
They were the sounds of a raid.
TWENTY-SIX
As soon as I thought it, the warning bell sounded in the ritual house and Iri and Fiske moved like one person, going for their weapons on the wall.
I pulled the door, leaving it cracked open just enough to peer out. The only thing I could see was the warm glow of the fire in Gyda’s house across the path. When I turned back around, Fiske was holding my weapons in his hands. They hovered in the air between us. My sword and my axe. My knife.
I stared down at them, my mouth falling open.
“Fiske?” Halvard’s sleepy, wavering voice came down from the loft.
He pushed the weapons into my hands and I clutched them to my chest as that still quiet poured into me. That sure, steady thing I knew. The fight inside of me. The whistle sounded again and the bellowing grew, getting closer. Fiske looked at the door and then back to Halvard.
“Go.” I dropped the scabbard over my head, tightening the straps. “I’ll stay with him.”
He looked at me and then back up to Halvard. “Get across the path to Gyda’s when it’s clear.” He waited for me to nod.
Iri went to the door, sliding his knife into his belt and taking an axe into each hand. I swallowed hard, turning back to the fire, and they slipped out into the dark, where more wailing echoed in the village.
I fit the axe onto my back and it centered me. Brought me back into myself. The familiar weight of my sword at my hip was an anchor.
Above me, Halvard peered over the edge of the loft. “What’s happening?” Tears glistened in his eyes.
There was no point in coddling him. He knew what a raid was. “Where are your weapons?”
He disappeared over the ledge and a few minutes later, he came down the ladder with his scabbard fit to him. He went to the trunk against the wall and pulled out a belt with a knife in it.
He handed it to me. “It was my father’s.”
I pulled it around his waist, tying the leather into a knot because it was too big to fit him. But it would do. He could reach it and that was all that mattered.
I knelt down in front of him, looking up into his eyes. “Have you ever killed a man?”
He shook his head skittishly.
“Do you know how? Where to strike?”
“I—I think so.”
“Show me.”
His small, shaking hand lifted, pressing to my neck. I nodded. Then he dropped it down to my stomach, my side, my lower back.
“That’s right.” I tried to smile. “Are you better with a sword or a knife?” I knew he wasn’t very good with the axe. I’d seen it.
“Sword.” He lifted his chin and tried to pull the nerves back inside.
“Alright. Take a deep breath and listen to what I’m about to tell you.”
He obeyed, inhaling slowly and standing up straight in front of me.
“In a moment, someone will come through that door. They will try to kill us or take us, but I’m going to kill them before that happens.”
He nodded.
“If they kill me, or they take me, it will be your job to kill them. Understand?”
“Yes.”
I uttered the words that had once been said to me, the night my mother died. “You run into the forest. You don’t stop until morning. No matter what.”
The sound of screaming echoed in my head, taking me back to that night in Hylli. Running barefoot in the trees. Iri before me. My father’s deep, grinding voice behind me.
Run!
Halvard’s eyes danced over my face. “Alright.”
“You don’t try to help me. You don’t come back for Inge or Fiske or Iri. You run. You leave them behind.”
The night Iri pulled me into the forest was the same night I’d become a warrior. If he survived, this would be that night for Halvard too.
The tears smarted in his eyes again.
“Don’t cry,” I ordered, standing. “If you die tonight, you’ll see your father in Frier. Right?”
He smiled, sniffing. “Right.”
The door creaked and Halvard’s face fell, his eyes going wide. I turned to stand in front of him, sliding my sword from its sheath slowly.
A figure stood in the open doorway.
And I knew right away. My sword almost fell from my grasp, my heart stopping. A wildfire of fear ran over me and I tried to pull air into my lungs. I blinked.
Slick, shining furs. The glint of silver. White, dead eyes.
Herja.
My eyes ran over him. His long stringy hair fell down around his face and he stared down at me with no expression. I eyed the sword in his hand and stepped back slowly.
“It’s just a dyr,” he called back over his shoulder, his eyes on the collar around my neck.
Another man came into view behind him, glancing inside, and then disappeared.
“Stay back, Halvard,” I said calmly, my heart finding its rhythm again.
He obeyed, moving toward the wall on the other side of the fire, his small sword in his hand.
The Herja took a step toward us and the blood ran faster under my skin. Reaching every muscle. I watched his movements carefully, sinking into my feet and finding my balance. He looked around the house, his eyes taking stock. What he wanted to take. And who he wanted to kill.
I watched, waiting for it.
One breath.
He pulled his knife free.
Two breaths.
He took another step.