Gods. Gods know what.
But there was one thing she had learned since the new moon. As long as there was life, there was hope, and she was still alive. Confined, cold, and hungry, but alive. And as long as she was alive, anything could happen. She just had to keep her head. Look for opportunities and seize them. If only she had …
The knife!
She pulled up her knees and arched her back as much as the small crate allowed. Luckily her arms were bound at the front. Urd clearly hadn’t expected any trouble from her, knocked out by dreamwort as she was meant to be. She stretched her fingers toward her feet, all the while keeping in mind the fact that the councillor had excessive faith in his own abilities. She reached as far as the fold on her boots. A little more. Just a little more.
There! She grasped the makeshift knife eagerly, got it up to her mouth and clamped her teeth around the end. It didn’t take long to saw through the ropes. Her wrists were hot and clammy, but free. She wanted to have a go at her feet, but the cramped crate made it difficult to reach them.
She took a break and lay there, gauging the cart’s movements. When would be the right time to escape? At the city walls? No. The guardsmen would drag her back again, if they didn’t just club her to death on the spot. It would have to be outside the walls. The question was how.
She started to work on the knots by her feet. The trick was not to make them tighter. Urd expected her to sleep through the night. Hirka could feel the weight of the lid above her. She hated being in enclosed spaces! Her knees hit the side when she tried to pull them up, and there wasn’t enough room to turn around. She had managed to prop herself up enough that she could push at the lid with her head, but it had been no use. It didn’t feel locked, just weighted down.
She dug her thumb into the knot by her ankles and found a weak spot. She pulled on the rope and felt it loosen. She tugged at it until she was free. Then she pushed the lid open a crack and stuck her hand out in the darkness. Blankets. There were blankets piled on top of the crate. She tugged on them and they thumped to the floor, but the cart continued on as before.
So she was alone in the cart. That made things easier. Finally something was going her way. Hirka climbed out of the crate and started to feel her way around. It was pitch-black. Night. It had been a long time since she had seen a flicker of light through the wooden boards. So they were outside the city walls. Maybe.
There were more blankets in the cart. A couple of oil lamps, with no oil. Several crates like the one she had been held captive in. A merchant’s cart. But nothing she could use to escape. Apart from the wooden knife.
The image of her assailant forced its way back into her thoughts. The way he had lain twitching on the floor of the pit. But his fate would have been far worse had he managed to have her. The rot.
It was his fault. Not yours.
Hirka pressed her ear against the front wall and listened. At least two horses in front and just as many behind. Maybe more. That complicated matters. But she could hear wind in the trees. A couple of crows. The smell of fairy’s kiss and moss. The forest. At least here she had a hope of getting away. Maybe she could get up on the roof so that—
Her thoughts were interrupted by two heavy thuds. Whinnying horses. The cart lurched to a sudden stop. She fell against the wall but managed to stay on her feet. Shouting. What was happening? She had to know what was happening! Hirka’s hands skittered along the boards in search of an opening. Someone screamed outside.
“KOLKAGGA!”
The hysterical scream sounded as though the man didn’t actually believe what he was seeing. Panic erupted outside.
Hirka felt a cold grip her. They were here. They’d finally found her. The black shadows. Her hands started to tingle and were difficult to raise. She fumbled for the latch, but her fingers wouldn’t obey. She kicked at it. It gave way and the tailboard crashed to the ground and lay there like a ramp.
Hirka saw one of the riders on the ground. She ran down the ramp, which bounced beneath her. With a wave of nausea she realized that another rider was lying motionless under the tailboard. She didn’t stop. She ran away from the cart. Away from the shouts. But there were no longer any shouts. Just the sound of someone riding off at a tremendous speed.
Don’t look! Run! Just run!
But Hirka couldn’t help but look. She turned. A black figure was crouched on the roof of the cart, staring by turns at her and the man fleeing on horseback.
Not me! Go after him! He’s bigger!
“HIRKA!”
All hope was lost. It was her they wanted. She ran up a slope. Her feet threatened to give out on her and she pulled at the moss to drag herself up. She could hear him coming after her. She tasted blood. A strong hand grabbed her by the tunic, which tore at the neck, and she fell onto her back. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t.
NO! No …
She lay in the moss with the weight of a black monster on her. It sat astride her and pinned her arms to the ground. It was like being back in the pit again. But this time he wouldn’t budge. He locked her hips between his knees, and he had a firm grip on her wrists. White eyes sparkled like ice in the darkness.
Wolf eyes.
Rime?
The shadow tore off a black hood and stared at her. A white ponytail fell down into her face.
“Rime? RIME!” Was he really here? Her chest collapsed with relief. Rime.
He let go of her. She raised her hands to his jaw. Ran them over his face as if to confirm what her eyes were seeing. It was him. He had come. He had saved her! Dressed as Kolkagga, he had scared Slabba’s men off. She laughed, but it sounded more like a sob.
“Rime! You scared the wits out of me! And out of them!” Hirka glanced over at the motionless figures by the cart. The laughter caught in her throat. It was too dark to see the faces over there, but there was no sign of life. They could have been rocks on the road, had she not known better. Her elation withered.
“Rime, what have you done?” She took her hand away from his face. He stared at her. She searched his eyes for regret over what had just happened, but she couldn’t find any.
His voice was hoarse. Cold as the night. “They’d have killed you if they’d had the chance.”
Hirka swallowed. That wasn’t true. What he was saying wasn’t true. These were not the men who had hog-tied her and thrown her into a wooden crate. They were probably ordinary men. Men with a job to do. Now they were dead.
“We can’t stay here. We have to move.” Rime got up and pulled her to her feet. Hirka hesitated. She had a lot she wanted to say. Rime had saved her. Not just now—he had been there during the Rite too. She had seen his face when the Ravenbearer revealed the truth about her. The truth that swept through the hall like wildfire.
“Rime, I couldn’t tell—”
“Of course not. Some things can’t be told. It’s fine.” He sounded like he meant it. As though it didn’t have anything to do with him. Maybe it was all an act? Or maybe he had other things to think about. He had just killed, after all.
Determined to take his mind off it, Hirka started to talk. Unsteadily at first, like a newborn calf. Trying to create a sense of order, to make sense of everything she had seen and heard. She told him about Urd. About the man with the puppets. And about the blind. It gradually got easier and she found her own voice again. Talked faster and faster. She asked questions she tried to answer herself. Questions about the stone circles, and about what Urd wanted her for.
Rime didn’t respond. He let her purge herself while they plowed onward between tall conifers. Occasionally she glanced up at his back to make sure that he was still listening. He never turned toward her. All she could see was his white hair. Most of it was gathered in a ponytail that fell down over what looked like a flat, square rucksack. It was as black as his clothes and held in place by wide black straps that crossed his chest.
White fairy’s kiss glittered like stars on the forest floor. They were bigger here than back home in Elver
oa. Hirka stopped again.
“Where are we going?” She hadn’t thought about that until now.
“To higher ground, while we can still get the lay of the land.”
“No! Rime, we have to go back. The Council has to be told about Urd! And about the blind!”
“The Council knows about the blind, Hirka.”
“What about Urd? They don’t know that he’s the one who—”
“It doesn’t make a difference to them. They’ll do what they stand to gain the most from, regardless.”
“But … if we can explain to them that—”
Rime stopped and looked at her. She stopped too.
“I’ve grown up with them, Hirka. I’ve seen them play with people’s lives and futures. The Council won’t help you. The Council has condemned you to death. As long as they get what they want, the truth doesn’t matter. They wouldn’t be where they are now if it did.”
He kept walking. Hirka swallowed. He was right. Of course. She was naive, thinking a simple solution could be found. Had she not personally tried to explain herself to these powerful people? She had bled for it. Her words were worth nothing.
But Rime could explain! He was one of them.
“They’ll listen to you!”
Rime was some distance ahead of her. He disappeared between two enormous boulders. Hirka hurried after him. “Rime?” Where was he? Not even the moonlight reached between the boulders. They were slick with moss. She felt her way forward.
“Here.”
She looked up in the direction of the voice. Rime was on top of one of the boulders. It was the size of a small mountain. He reached out to her and helped her up far enough so that she could get a foothold. Then he continued up. Jumped toward the top and pulled himself up. He reached down to help her when he was at the top, but Hirka made it up on her own. She didn’t sit down either. Didn’t want him to think she was tired, though in truth she was close to blacking out. She was starving.
They were standing on the highest boulder in the area. There were a lot of them, scattered here and there, as though the gods had played dice and never cleaned up after themselves. The game now lay here, forgotten and overgrown with moss. The moon hung above the forest. The sky was bruised. In the distance she could see the sprawling mountaintops of Blindból. It didn’t look like they had gone that far.
“They’ll listen to you,” she repeated.
“Hirka, let me try to explain the position we’re in. The Council couldn’t care less whether or not you broke the law. You were in Ravnhov and prevented them from assassinating Eirik. They probably would have succeeded, had it not been for you. That alone is reason to kill you. You’ve escaped from the pits and you’ve killed—”
“I haven’t killed. Urd killed them! He—”
Hirka shut her mouth. Rime looked at her. He knew she hadn’t killed anyone. “I get it,” she whispered. “I didn’t kill them, but that doesn’t matter.”
“You’re learning.” Rime drew his sword from its scabbard and chopped a couple branches off a tree that had grown up between the boulders. He started to weave them together into a large mat. Maybe he was settling in for the night. Hirka didn’t know what else to do, so she helped. They sat in silence for a moment before she dared to ask. “Who were they?”
“Who?”
“The guardsmen who died in the pits.”
“There are thousands of guardsmen in Mannfalla. I didn’t know them.”
Hirka couldn’t bear to ask about the others. The ones lying by the cart. She had to look on the bright side. She was alive. Rime wasn’t saying more than he had to, so it was up to her to lighten the mood. “That was a great idea. You really scared them. Dressing up as Kolkagga and hounding them over stock and stone.”
She laughed. Rime didn’t. He got up and hopped down from the boulder with the woven mat in his hands. Hirka didn’t have time to remind him how high up they were. She leaned over the edge, but he was walking around, apparently unhurt, on the ground below. He camouflaged the mat with moss and grass, positioning it right up against the boulder. He stepped on it and the twigs gave a couple of cracks.
A warning system. He climbed back up to her, but she didn’t have to ask who he was expecting.
Kolkagga. Actual Kolkagga.
“And those clothes! Where in the Seer’s name did you get those clothes?” She laughed again, but something didn’t smell right. She suddenly didn’t feel so well.
“You talk too much,” he said. He turned his back to her and chopped off a couple more branches. Hirka stared at him while he finished chopping. Then he sheathed his sword again. Quickly. Without looking. As though he had done it hundreds of times a day, all his life. Hirka pulled the sleeves of her tunic over her hands to keep warm, but it didn’t help. The cold she was feeling came from within, pushing an unwelcome suspicion to the surface.
Rime started to weave another mat out of twigs. An eternity passed before he next spoke. “The clothes are mine.”
Hirka got up and took a couple of steps back. The figure in front of her didn’t meet her gaze. The clothes were his. His own. He didn’t need to dress up. Didn’t need to get them from anywhere.
The truth came so hard and fast that the wind was knocked out of her.
“You’re one of them! You’re Kolkagga!”
“Lower your voice! Do you want half the world to know where we are?”
“You killed. You kill …”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” He said it as a matter of fact. Completely devoid of feelings. Was this a nightmare? Was she going to wake up?
“I’m alive because three men are dead!”
And Father. And Eirik, nearly. The prisoner. The guards. I’m alive because others have died.
“Would you rather be dead?!” Rime hissed. He grabbed a hold of her and pushed her firmly to the ground again. Hirka didn’t answer. She curled up into a ball and gnawed on her tunic.
He was one of them.
Rime was Kolkagga.
SLABBA’S SLIP UP
Urd woke with a start. He’d heard something. He was sure of it. He raised a hand to his throat, but that wasn’t it. The same gnawing pain as always, but no Voice. He sat up, tangled in sweat-drenched bed linen. Had he slept at all? When had he last slept?
His dreams weren’t like they used to be. They were dark and disturbing. They stayed with him. Urd’s hands were clammy. They were here. They’d come. Time was up.
No! It couldn’t be. He had protection! He swung his feet down onto the cool stone floor. A narrow arrow slit let a shaft of moonlight into the room. Urd’s eyes swept the floor. He could see a circle of deeper darkness around his bed. The stone tiles reflected the moonlight, but where it fell on the circle of raven’s blood, it disappeared. It was absorbed. The protection was intact. The blind couldn’t reach him here. None of them.
What in Slokna’s name was he thinking?! What was he? A petrified child? One of Damayanti’s trembling girls? Had he lost his mind? What did a man like him have to fear? Nothing!
Someone knocked three times and he jumped up. The knocking grew louder and a familiar voice stuttered: “U-Urd-fadri?”
Urd grabbed the robe hanging over the armchair and threw it on. He tied the belt around his waist as he headed for the door. He unlocked and opened it. The unoiled hinges creaked, as they were supposed to. If anyone tried anything, he’d hear them coming.
“This better be a matter of life and death!”
Rendar stood before him with bags under his eyes. He’d fallen asleep at his post. Rendar would have to go, he was good for nothing. Too young, like so many of the guardsmen. And nowhere near as ambitious as he ought to be.
“There’s—there’s a man outside.” Rendar hugged his helmet to his chest.
“A man?” Urd raised an eyebrow. Could he have been any less specific? Doubtless his parents were siblings.
“He s-says it’s urgent.”
Urd sighed. His patience was wearing thin. “Who is it?
I assume he has a name and a face?”
“I … He wouldn’t tell me his name. He’s … big.”
Rendar threw his arms out to illustrate a man of significant girth.
Slabba. Blackest Blindból! What is he doing here?
Something must have gone wrong. Slabba ought to have been halfway to Ravnhov with the girl by now. Urd stalked along the corridors with Rendar on his heels. The young guardsman was all but clueless when it came to his duties, including discretion. Urd stopped for a moment and stared at him.
He waited until Rendar had taken the hint and withdrawn before continuing to the doors in the entryway. The bolt had been drawn back and one of them was ajar. The idiot had probably just mumbled “wait here” before rushing to wake him. Risking his life! He’d make sure he didn’t forget that anytime soon.
He could see Slabba through the chink of the door. He opened it and somehow managed to pull him inside before slamming the doors and locking them.
“Never, I said! Never set foot here!”
Slabba was quivering like pudding. He didn’t look at all well. His skin was pale, almost green. He was sweatier than usual, not that that said much. “It’s all gone to Slokna! We’re done for!”
“Hush!” Urd hissed, pulling the wreck of a man into the sitting room. The wine goblets were still on the table by the fire. Both his and Hirka’s. Slabba collapsed into the chair the girl had been sitting in. “Could I trouble you for a drink?”
“What are you doing here, Slabba? Where’s the girl?”
“Kolkagga have her!”
“Have you completely lost your—”
“Kolkagga, Urd! He attacked us before we’d even made it to the Blackwood.”
“He …?”
Slabba got up and started pacing around the room, rubbing his arms. “He killed two of my men. I’m lucky to be alive! What am I going to do, Urd? What are we going to do?! They have her. They’re going to work out who owns the cart. I’m a dead man! We’re dead men, both of us!”
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