I pulled at the ropes tying my hands and feet to the cart with blistering fingers, trying to hold myself still on my right side as it rocked and swayed over the uneven ground. The arrow was still threaded between my bones, the pain so deep now that I could feel it spreading through my entire body.
Iri rode behind, watching me, and I gave up trying to read the look on his face so I could focus every ounce of strength I had left on keeping still. When darkness fell and the cart began to slow, I watched fires light through half-opened eyes and was asleep before the camp quieted.
Morning came a wheezing breath later. I swallowed against a raw throat and listened to the Riki come awake, putting out fires and readying their horses. I bit down so hard I thought my teeth might break when we started moving again, hooking my arms and legs into the rails of the cart to brace myself.
The white-hot heat in my shoulder ached all the way into my ears, making my head feel like it was going to crack open. I didn’t look for Iri again. The only thing cutting deeper than the agony of the arrow was the knowledge that he was a traitor. That he was alive. All this time.
Hours passed in between waking and sleeping until I wasn’t sure if I was dead or alive. The cart slowed again and the crunch of hooves on frozen ground replaced the sound of sliding rock. I curled up tighter as we started to go uphill and tried not to scream as my weight was pulled toward my feet.
We didn’t stop until the air turned cold in the setting sun and the scent of snow met the smell of fire. Then there was cheering. The muffled sound of crying. Warriors coming home for the winter to wives and husbands and children. I knew that sound. I could see the fjord in my mind. The view of it from up on the ridge. Blues and greens jetting up out of the water and disappearing into the foggy sky. The black rock beach with whitewashed driftwood piled on the shore. My clansmen were probably already there, warming themselves before the fires in their wood-planked homes. Burrowed into their beds with full stomachs.
My father. Myra.
It stung almost as much as the arrow punctured through my flesh.
The Riki left me lying there until voices pushed in at the edges of my blurred thoughts and the cart shook again. I cringed.
“Where am I going to put her?” A rasping voice came from the darkness beside me.
Another body climbed up and I winced against the pain it sent running through my back. “I’ll do it.”
The ropes around me were cut and hands pulled at my legs, sliding me to the end of the cart. As I was lifted up, the arrow caught on something and I groaned. My insides churned in a violent sea and my eyes flew open to see Iri’s face above me. I blinked, trying to bring him into focus before my eyes rolled back into my head.
When I pulled them open again, I was on the ground. Inside. The color of fire lit the dark room around me. A barn. Or maybe a storehouse.
A calloused hand pressed to my face. “She’s burning up.”
“Probably infection.” Another voice. “Get her on the table.”
The hands took me up again and the room spun around me.
Cold night air pinched at my skin as they worked at my armor vest and I kicked, reaching for my knife, but the sheath was empty.
“Stop.” Iri’s face came back into view.
I grabbed onto him, my fingers digging into the leather of his armor. “Get it out,” I whimpered as hot tears gathered at the corners of my eyes.
“We will.” He disappeared from view again.
Another shadow stepped in front of me and hands gently pressed around the arrowhead. “We should wait for Runa.”
“She’s with the wounded from Aurvanger. Just get it out of her.” My brother’s deep voice was too loud in my head. His hand grasped my arm and I wrenched it back, cursing. I needed him to take out the arrow, but the thought of him trying to comfort me made me sick.
The figure in front of me shifted and the firelight caught his face. Fiske.
I jerked back. “Get away from me!”
His hand came down over my mouth and I took his throat in between my fingers, compressing his windpipe. He knocked my hand away.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, writhing on the table.
“He’s going to take it out, Eelyn. Quiet.” Iri was behind me, tearing fabric into strips.
“He put it there!” I pinned my eyes on Fiske, the fury coursing through my body and my heart pounding like it was going to burst through my ribs.
Fiske looked down at me with no expression on his face.
“If he hadn’t shot you in the shoulder, another arrow would have caught you in the heart and you would be lying dead in the forest right now. You should be thanking him.”
I looked back at Iri, glaring. “Thanking him? I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for him.” I could hardly put the words together through the clench of my teeth.
“I told you to stop following us.” Fiske wiped his brow with the back of his arm. His hands were wet with my blood. “I can take the arrow out now or you can wait for Runa. It might be a while.”
“Take it out.” Iri’s voice was tired, his eyes pulled with worry. It was a look I remembered well—one that had been painted on his face many times.
Again!
I could hear his voice echoing in my mind. The sun was setting over the fjord and it was almost too dark to see. Our father watched from the window of our home, silhouetted in firelight.
Again, Eelyn!
Iri was only a year and a half older than me, but I was always much smaller. I couldn’t hold the shield well enough to fight with it. So he had taught me to fight without one, wielding my axe in my left hand and my sword in my right. He was bruised and bleeding, training me before our first fighting season.
Again!
That same look hung in his eyes now. He was wondering if I was strong enough.
Fiske stepped toward me and I watched him warily. I knew I didn’t have a choice. I’d been sick and wounded before, but never in my life had I felt pain like this.
Fiske looked me in the eye as he came to stand over me. “It’s going to hurt.”
Iri handed me a piece of leather and I took it. “Just do it.” I bit down hard on the strap, pulling in a deep breath and pinning my eyes to the rafters above.
Iri came around the front of me, hooking his arm beneath my neck to brace the back of my head and I held onto him with shaking fists. The arrow cracked behind me, releasing an explosion of white light behind my eyes and filling the whole room. I groaned into Iri’s chest, twisting my hands into his tunic as Fiske dug at the front of the arrow until he’d caught it with his fingernails.
When he had it, he waited, letting me catch my breath. “Ready?” He looked down at me.
I pushed the air out in three hissing spurts, steeling myself before I gave a quick nod.
He yanked his arm back, pulling it free.
I bucked beneath Iri’s weight and felt my body go limp as the arrow hit the floor. Fiske’s hands quickly replaced the hole with a wadded cloth and clamped down on my shoulder so hard that I couldn’t breathe. I blinked slowly, trying to see it, but my eyes weren’t working.
“What in the name of Thora…” The high-pitched whisper of a girl trailed off and a pair of boots beneath a long wool skirt stopped at the door. “Iri?”
He stood, going to the door and leaving only Fiske’s hand to keep me from rolling off the table. My head fell to the side and Fiske came back into view, his dark hair falling around his face as he worked at cleaning my shoulder. I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. I couldn’t feel anything.
“Who are you?” The words cracked in my chest.
He stilled, the hard angles of his face severe in the dim light.
The heat of a tear slowly trailed down the side of my face. “Who are you to my brother?”
His mouth pressed together before he answered, his hands stilling on the wound. “He’s my brother. And if you get him killed, I will cut your throat like I should have done in Aurvanger.”
SEVEN