I threw myself forward, sitting up, and struggled to get my feet beneath me before I fell back down. My hands were bound at the wrists, the wound on my arm bleeding fresh through my sleeve. A few Riki glanced up from where they rode on their horses around me, and my eyes widened, trying to focus.
We were in the eastern valley. Headed toward the mountain. Thora’s mountain.
The Riki marched in a massive group stretching out before and behind me.
My heart rammed against my chest, my breath frantic, sending puffs of fog out before me in the cold air. I crouched back down, studying the edge of forest to my right.
He came into view as I fixed my hands on the side of the cart, ready to make a desperate leap for the ground, and I froze. Iri was riding a silver horse behind me, his eyes boring into me, strained. He gave the slightest shake of his head and glanced up ahead of me. I turned to see a line of archers riding side by side, bows slung over their backs with full quivers of speckled feather arrows at their knees.
I measured the distance between myself and the trees; I’d have five or six arrows in my back by the time I made it to cover. If one of them didn’t run me down with their horse first.
I tried to think. The wound on my arm was still seeping and the swelling on the side of my face was pounding. I licked my lips and tasted dried blood. In the cart in front of me, two men lay on their backs, one missing a leg and the other with his face wrapped in bloody bandages. I sat back down, pulling my knees into my chest.
Iri was still watching me. The dark leather of his armor vest made his hair look like an icy waterfall of bloodstained braids. The scruff on his face sat below sharp cheekbones and round, blue eyes.
Eyes I’d known all my life.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my forehead, thinking about the last time I’d seen him. Five years ago. Fighting beside me in the snow-covered glade with an axe in each hand. Snowflakes in his hair. Blood on his hands. He was tangled in the fight with a young Riki before they fell over the edge of a deep crevice carved into the earth. I could still hear the sound of my own scream as I watched him disappear. I’d crawled on my hands and knees to the edge, where the ground almost gave beneath me. He was lying on his back, his insides spilling out from a gaping wound. His eyes were already empty, staring up into the sky. And beside him, the Riki boy was half-buried in the snow.
I looked up, and Iri’s eyes fixed on mine for another wordless breath, as if he was remembering the same moment. And then he kicked his horse, cutting left into the group, and disappeared.
Ahead, the mountain rose up over the valley. Dark slate rock melting into green forest beneath strokes of snow-crested peaks. Away from the fjord. Away from home.
I didn’t know where the Riki lived, but we had to be on our way to one of their villages. And there’d be no way back to the valley until after the thaw. If I could get free, I could make it back to the fjord.
The cart jolted, coming to a stop as I came onto my feet. The Riki were moving into the trees, where a river snaked into the dense forest. They were stopping to water the horses. I could pick out the back of Iri’s head, weaving in and out of the others.
A Riki woman’s angry eyes met mine as she passed, headed for the water. They hadn’t killed me yet and I’d been fighting the Riki long enough to know why. There weren’t many uses for an Aska prisoner. They would either make me a dyr or sell me to another clan who would. Either way, it would cost me Sólbj?rg.
A hand slapped me hard in the back of the head and the man driving the cart grunted, spitting at me before going back to his horse. “Sit down or I’ll tie your feet and drag you.”
I obeyed, watching over the side of the cart. Iri stood with his horse in the shade of the forest. He wore two crossing axe sheaths on his back, missing the scabbard the others wore. Just like he did when we were children. His gaze was fixed down the tree line, on Fiske, before they drifted in my direction again. They landed on me for only a moment before he turned his attention to his horse, checking the riggings and running his hands over its spotted hide. In the cart in front of us, the man missing his leg was groaning.
The cart rocked as the driver climbed back up onto his horse and he called out as one of the archers came out of the forest. He walked across the clearing toward us with a water skin in his hand, his horse sauntering behind him. His long red hair matched his beard, braided into three haphazard strands.
He waved a hand at the driver as he came to his side, handing him the water. I clutched onto the railing with numb fingers, watching them talk as the horse walked alongside the cart. My heart kicked up, my eyes darting from the horse back to the archer. His quiver of arrows was still fixed to the saddle.
I sat up just enough to look back over the rail. Most of the Riki were off their horses.
I gathered up a handful of hay from beneath me and slipped my hand through the slats, holding it out to the horse. When he spotted it, he rocked his head and took a step toward me.
The men were still talking as I reached for the reins, closing my eyes and murmuring a prayer under my breath. I looked at Iri one last time and, and as if he felt my gaze, his eyes shot back to me. They went wide as I threw myself up and over the rail, landing on the saddle. I slid, my weight falling to one side, and caught myself as the animal reared up.
“Aska!” the driver roared.
I kicked the horse with the heel of my boot and stood in the stirrups, leaning forward to keep my body as low as possible, while chaos exploded around the clearing. From the right, Riki were already running in the distance, weapons drawn as they disappeared into the trees to head me off. It was the only way I could go. If I didn’t get into the trees, the archers would have me.
I shouted, urging the horse faster.
Ahead, Iri’s horse was running with no rider, spooked by the commotion. Iri stood with his hands dropped by his side, eyes bewildered. Behind him, Fiske jumped up onto his horse and took off in the same direction I was headed.
The shriek of an arrow flew past me, striking a tree, and the splinters flew into the air as I passed. I tried to get lower. The Riki were like stones rolling across the overgrowth, coming at me with the same faces I saw on the battlefield the day before. Feet pounding into the ground. Weapons swinging.
I cleared the tree line, swallowed up by the cool of the forest, and looked back.
Fiske was already in my line of sight as I glanced back to the river. He rode in fast, lifting his bow from where it was tucked against his horse, and I cursed. He slowed, falling back as he yanked an arrow free from his saddle, and pulled back on the string. The shot was clear.
The wet pop in my left shoulder sounded in my ears and the forest went quiet around me as I looked down to see the head of an arrow pushing through the leather of my armor vest. The horse kicked up, tilting, and I fell back, landing on the ground so hard it knocked the air from my lungs.
I rolled onto my right side, trying to pull my feet under me, but I still couldn’t breathe. The trees above me swayed, bending over each other in my vision as my stomach roiled. The shouting stopped and I pressed my face into the damp dirt, panting and coughing.
Fiske’s boots hit the ground in front of my face as he dismounted and the sound of more footsteps filled my head.
He reached down, snatching up a handful of my hair, and pulled me to my feet. From the corner of my eye, I could see the others taking hold of the horse’s reins. I moaned, the arrow wedged through my shoulder joint radiating a hot pain down into my arm, neck, and back. I tried to swallow it down as he pulled me, my braids tangled in his fist, back toward the clearing.
Where Iri was waiting.
SIX