“That’s not fair,” I shouted, unable to contain my voice. “The cursed dead do not deserve terms set for mortals.”
The jarl laughed again. “Perhaps so, child of Hlin, but Bjorn Firehand issued the challenge.” His teeth clacked together, flakes of black falling from them. “Now we shall see what his reputation is worth to him.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Bjorn cut me off. “I agree.” He turned on his heel, striding toward me. “I need your shield, Freya. Theirs are all half rotten.”
“No,” I said. “We fight. There’s a chance we can get through them.”
Bjorn shook his head. “I’ll not die a coward.”
“Who cares?” The words tore from my throat. “They are the cursed dead—what does it matter what they think?”
“It doesn’t.” His voice was clipped. “Do what you need to do to survive, Born-in-Fire. You aren’t bound by my word.”
He set his flaming axe on the ground near me, then reached for my shield. My magic disappeared the moment the wood was out of my grip. “Trust Hlin’s power, Freya.”
I ground my teeth. What good was my magic with no shield in my hand?
“Leave the woman be during the fight,” the jarl ordered his followers, and the other draug retreated, their bony feet scratching the ground. “After he’s dead, do what you will to her, but the Firehand is mine.”
Horror soured my stomach as I pressed my back to the wall, helplessness twisting my guts into ropes as Bjorn squared off against the jarl. One of the other draug approached. It looked to have once been a woman, rags of a dress hanging from its skeletal frame. It handed Bjorn an axe, then it caught hold of both combatants’ wrists and lifted them high. From all around, the draug screamed in delight, and I dropped my sword to press my hands against my ears, the sound agony. But I saw the creature’s fleshless jaw move as it spoke. “Begin.”
Preternaturally fast, the jarl swung his weapon.
Bjorn was ready.
His borrowed weapon was up in a flash, the axe catching the jarl’s sword even as he wrenched it sideways. A less experienced fighter would have lost his blade, but the jarl moved with Bjorn, extracting his sword and swinging again.
Bjorn caught the blow with my shield, grunting from the strength of the impact and staggering back. The jarl grinned, revealing his blackened teeth, then struck again. Bjorn parried, but the jarl’s sword cleaved the haft of his borrowed axe and sent the blade flying.
Bjorn cursed, barely managing to block another blow with the shield. Then another and another, the wood cracking and splintering under the onslaught.
Lifting my sword, I shouted, “Bjorn, take mine!” and held it out, hilt first.
He reacted instantly, blocking a blow, and then twisting away. He snatched my weapon from my grip, rotating in time to block another blow.
It went on, Bjorn defending but never going on the offensive because there was no point. My sword would pass right through the draug’s body without doing any harm. The jarl could not be killed except with the power of a god, which Bjorn was stubbornly resisting despite his axe being right there.
All for fucking honor.
My breath came in painful little gasps as I envisioned him dying, yet another to fall because of me and everything I supposedly represented. Tears flowed down my cheeks, because instead of going to Valhalla as he deserved, Bjorn would rise as one of the draug. And I’d have to leave him here. Would have to figure out a way to fight past these creatures so that I might survive, for dying seemed the greatest insult I could possibly give to Bjorn’s sacrifice.
Which meant I needed to find a way to get out.
Bjorn’s shield shattered under one of the jarl’s blows, broken pieces flying everywhere. My eyes skipped over the chunks of wood, all too small to be the slightest bit effective. Nothing within reach was large enough to use, which meant I’d need to try to wrest a shield from one of the draug.
“Fuck,” I breathed, seeing that Bjorn’s strength was fading and I’d found no solution. He’d said to trust Hlin, but what did that mean?
Bjorn stumbled beneath a heavy blow, the reopened cut on his brow splattering the ground with blood, droplets sizzling as they struck his axe where it still rested near my feet.
The axe.
I stared at the weapon, understanding of what I needed to do sending beads of sweat running down my back.
Could I do it again? Could I pick it up? And if I did, what would I be able to do, given my hand would be incinerated in a matter of moments? What had Bjorn believed I could accomplish?
Think, Freya, I silently screamed.
What had been his original plan? What had he hoped to achieve by drawing them here and challenging the jarl, because I didn’t believe for a heartbeat that these vermin would honor the terms agreed to by their vanquished leader.
Unless they had to?
Made to bear the burden of their master’s curse. Bjorn’s voice filled my head, and I abruptly understood what I needed to do.
Pick it up, I ordered myself. End this.
Sweat rolled down my cheeks to mix with my tears, my fear of the pain battling with my fear of watching Bjorn die. Of dying myself.
Do it.
My heart throbbed with terror as I edged closer to the axe. Already the heat of it made me sick, my head spinning.
A sharp hiss of pain caught my attention, my eyes jerking back to the fight to see Bjorn stumble, a gash just above his elbow spilling crimson across the ground. The jarl pushed the advantage, swinging hard.
Steel clashed against steel, my sword flipping out of Bjorn’s hands, the jarl’s mouth gaping wide as he laughed.
There was no more time.
I reached for the axe, clenching my teeth against the pain that would come. Just before I took hold of the weapon, Bjorn’s words filled my ears: Trust Hlin’s power.
“Hlin,” I gasped out. “Protect me.”
Magic surged into my body right as Bjorn fell, landing hard on his back. Tears of terror dripped into my mouth, but I forced myself to focus. Not to push the magic outward, but to draw it over my fingers. My palm. My wrist, until it all glowed with the goddess’s light.
Please let this work. I closed my hand over the handle of the axe, and braced for the burn.
But the smell of charring flesh did not fill my nose.
Rising to my feet, I hefted the weapon as the draug pressed a bony foot down on Bjorn’s chest.
“You are defeated,” the jarl whispered, not seeming to notice that I held the axe as he said to his followers, “You may have the woman after he’s dead, but only I will feast on the flesh of the Firehand.”
The jarl lifted his weapon, and Bjorn grinned. “I forfeit the challenge.”
The draug hesitated, seemingly surprised, and in that heartbeat, I let the axe fly.
It flipped end-over-end, embedding with a thunk in the jarl’s chest. Slowly, he looked down, vacant eye sockets latching onto the burning weapon.
My heart skipped with the fear that I’d erred. That Tyr disapproved of my actions and would deny me his power.
The jarl took one step toward me, reaching—
Only to explode into ash, weapons and armor dropping into a pile on the ground.
And not just him.
All around us, the draug sworn to the jarl turned to ash, the curse binding them to this place broken with the death of their lord. I gaped in amazement as weapons and bits of armor clattered to the tunnel floor, ash billowing up in choking clouds.
If only that were the end of it.
Those who’d come into these tunnels to search for the lost treasure and died for their efforts remained, for it was not the jarl’s greed that had cursed them, but their own.
Teeth clacking, they filtered into the chamber, warily eyeing the burning axe that Bjorn held once again. Fear warring with an endless unsatiable hunger for living flesh.
Bjorn retrieved my sword for me, and with my newfound knowledge of my gift I covered it with magic as we stood back-to-back. “There are fewer of them,” he muttered. “Unlike the jarl’s men, these are not trained warriors.”