The Rot

by Siri Pettersen

  The third man.

  Hirka turned. The thickset man with the oil container was running back from the church. She would never manage a man his size on her own. But another bang stopped him in his tracks. He fell to his knees. His body swayed. Behind him she saw flames licking at the walls of the church. An alarm blared. Then he toppled onto his side.

  Someone ran past her. The figure she’d seen on the fire escape. He kneeled down beside the man on the ground. She heard a crack. For a moment she thought he’d broken the dead man’s fingers, but she could see both his hands, so it must have been something else.

  Police sirens. Hirka had heard them before. They signaled disaster. The end. She pressed her hands over her ears. She was shaking. Shaking so much she wasn’t able to block out the sound. Blood ran down the knife and onto her fingers. Her rescuer got back up and walked toward her. She’d have recognized him anywhere. It was him. The man in the hoodie. She held out the knife and backed away.

  He walked straight past her and got in the car. “Come on. Time’s really not on our side,” he said.

  Hirka stared at the flames. Why did everything have to burn? Why did everything she touched turn to ash? All she wanted was to piece things back together. Suddenly she was back in Ym, standing on the ridge, watching the cabin burn. Father was dead. Everyone was dead.

  She walked as if in a trance, then climbed into the car with the stranger. He started the car and it lurched forward. She heard a thump and looked back. Mickey had fallen to the ground when the car started moving. Hirka put her hand on the window.

  “Don’t touch anything!” The man in the hoodie swatted her hand away. The car swerved a little. “They’ll find us if you do.” What was he talking about? She was touching the seat. So was he. He glanced at her. “The police? Fingerprints?” He rubbed his thumb and index finger together. He was wearing gloves.

  “They won’t find me,” she answered and hugged her bag.

  “They find everyone, sooner or later. Why wouldn’t they find you?”

  “I don’t exist,” she answered.

  He barked out a laugh. “Wishful thinking, girl.”

  He turned onto a bigger road, into a line of other cars. Then he started to speed up.

  OPPOSITION

  The swords sang as they came together, and Rime suddenly found himself face to face with Svarteld. The master’s gaze was as steady as ever. He gave nothing away when he was fighting. His dark skin made his eyes seem brighter than those of most men. Perhaps that was why it was so difficult to read him. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  But Rime had. Changing tack now would mean losing. His arms were burning, and the master knew it. He thought he could see a hint of a smile in his eyes. Rime gritted his teeth. He was trapped. That made him think of Hirka again.

  Rime brought his heel down on Svarteld’s toes. The master gave a grunt and jumped back. Rime followed, striking three times until his sword came to rest at Svarteld’s throat. The master laughed. His amusement was the only reason Rime had gained the advantage. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d caught Svarteld off guard, and this wasn’t one of them.

  “To think she taught you more about fighting than I could,” Svarteld said with a grin.

  Rime let his sword arm drop. “She?” he asked, even though he knew full well who he was referring to.

  “You were never impulsive before you met her.”

  Rime was disappointed that the master wouldn’t say her name. Hearing it from others made her real. Like she was somewhere nearby. Somewhere he could get to.

  He walked back to the center of the room and lifted his sword again.

  Svarteld came toward him. “And there I was thinking you’d get fat and lazy sitting around the table in Eisvaldr. Ravenbearers don’t need to sweat. Or is the staff really that heavy to bear?” He started circling Rime, unaware that he’d opened a wound no one could see.

  Rime followed his movements. “I’ve only held the staff once, and that was during the handover ceremony.”

  “No Seer. No staff. No raven on your forehead. How are you supposed to lead if no one sees you?” Svarteld asked, aiming a blow at Rime’s side. Rime turned his sword and parried. He refused to let himself be fazed.

  “The most important thing is that they listen to me.”

  “You’re not stupid enough to believe that.”

  Svarteld unleashed a barrage of blows that forced him back. Rime ducked under the blade and around him. The master rewarded him with a moment to catch his breath.

  “Rime, working against them is no help to anyone. The Council must be united. Each and every one of you was born for this task.”

  “No one is born for this task! No one has a god-given right to the chairs!”

  Rime opened the folding doors and walked out onto the cliff edge. He’d always thought Blindból gave him a sense of peace, but the truth was he’d never known peace. All he had were moments of oblivion.

  Far below him, the fog lay thicker than usual. The snow had settled on the same side of all the mountains. The wind swept it from the peaks, making it appear as though they were crumbling.

  He heard Svarteld’s footsteps in the snow behind him.

  “You’ll rue the day you lose to me,” Rime said.

  “The day I lose to you, it’ll be out of love,” the master said. The words were unexpected. Spoken completely without warmth, but they were a reminder that Rime had people behind him. Family.

  “They’re fighting against me, master. Even harder than you with your sword. Every day they do something new in an attempt to silence me. To consign me to oblivion. They’d kill me if they could.”

  Svarteld stepped up next to him. “Maybe some silence wouldn’t hurt.”

  Rime looked at him. “A submissive ravenbearer? Can you imagine anything more dangerous?”

  Svarteld didn’t reply. Rime slid his sword into the scabbard on his back. “They want me to pledge myself to someone. Find a wife.”

  “Well, that would solve a lot of problems.”

  “That’s what I keep saying! Me finding a wife won’t solve any—”

  “No, I mean it,” Svarteld said. “It would solve a lot of problems.”

  For a moment Rime thought he’d misheard. As Kolkagga’s master, Svarteld ought to have been the first to reject the idea of being bound to someone else. Rime clenched his fists. Not even Svarteld was on his side.

  “Spending money on a wedding won’t put more food on people’s tables.”

  Svarteld chuckled. “How many other excuses do you have?”

  “Enough,” Rime replied, looking away.

  “You’re looking at it all wrong, Rime. Think what it could give you, not what it could take away. I’ve heard mention of a girl from the north. That would certainly bring Ravnhov and the Council closer together, whether they like it or not.”

  Rime didn’t reply. He knew Svarteld was right, but it all still felt ridiculous to him. He had more important things to worry about. Things like the gateways.

  Svarteld pointed his sword at the fifty or so Kolkagga scaling the sheer rock face some distance away. On their backs, they carried woven baskets. Fish, birds, winter grass. Even survival was a training exercise in Blindból, and it was often the newest recruits who were tasked with ensuring this. Their black clothes made them indistinguishable from the rock, so much so that it sometimes looked like the baskets were floating up on their own.

  “They scale that cliff several times a day,” Svarteld said. “To stay alive. To keep us alive. Remember?”

  Remember? I still have marks on my shoulders from the straps.

  “When the day is done, they lie down to sleep. Then they get up the next day and do the same thing all over again. But then comes the winter solstice. They sit around the fire in their huts, drinking wine and fermented tea. They roll up their sleeves and show off their scars. Laugh at each other’s mistakes. Give each other things they’ve made, bought, or stolen. And the following da
y, they sleep in.”

  “Sleep in?” Rime raised an eyebrow at the master, who coughed sheepishly.

  “Later than on other days, in any case. But my question to you is this: should we deprive them of that evening?”

  “Of course not, master.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the days are hard enough as they are.” Rime knew he was walking into a trap, but Svarteld’s traps were difficult to avoid. One way or another, you were caught.

  “That’s true, the days are hard enough as they are. Give a man something to celebrate, and you can torment him for the rest of the year.”

  “So let’s celebrate without bringing wives into it!”

  Svarteld looked at him. “You’re the Ravenbearer. They can’t force you. But if you started a family, the people would celebrate. They’d forget all about the people who died at Ravnhov. Forget the ash that’s killing the crops. They’d even forget the Raven. All they’d see was youth, hope, and love. A new generation of An-Elderins. Something constant amid the chaos. And no matter how you look at it, Rime, it is your chaos. The worst thing that can happen is you’ll have a warm embrace to sink into in the evenings. There are worse things in life, boy.”

  Rime stared at him.

  Svarteld was clearly enjoying himself. “What? Did you think being the Ravenbearer wouldn’t come at a price? That you wouldn’t have to make sacrifices?”

  Rime didn’t reply. What was there to say? He’d already sacrificed the only thing that mattered to him. Being bound to someone else felt like a death sentence. It meant accepting that Hirka was lost to him. That she was never coming back.

  A black-clad Kolkagga came running from between the trees. “Master Svarteld! A raven!”

  He approached them and did his best to hide how short of breath he was. He gave Svarteld a white sleeve bearing the Council seal. The mark of the raven lived, even though the Seer never had.

  Svarteld handed the sleeve to Rime. “It’s for you.”

  Rime took it and unrolled the small length of paper. The hairs on his arms stood on end as he read. “It’s the last group of soldiers returning from Ravnhov. They’re near Mannfalla. They say they’ve been attacked and that several of them are badly wounded.”

  Svarteld nodded. “I know. But we sent them all the help we could weeks ago.”

  “No. They were attacked recently.” Rime handed him the letter. “And not by ymlings. They say it was nábyrn.”

  Svarteld snatched the letter. No one had seen the blind since Bromfjell erupted. That fateful day. The day Urd had died and the Rite Hall had fallen. When Hirka had still been in Ym. She was gone now, and they’d all thought the blind were, too.

  Rime squeezed the sleeve in his fist. Svarteld looked at him.

  “Be careful what you wish for, Rime An-Elderin. You might just have found your reason to put off the celebrations.”

  THE HUNTER

  I’ve killed.

  The thought was there before she even realized she was awake. Hot blood on her hand as she held the knife. Her murder. Her ruin. “Thou shalt not kill,” Father Brody had said. Hirka wished he’d said Thou shalt not die instead. Maybe then he’d still be alive.

  Her eyes felt puffy, and she remembered crying. It wasn’t fair. Waking up was meant to be sacred. Devoid of memory, just for a little while. Until you remembered everything that was wrong. She’d often thought that. In another world. Another time. In the cabin in Elveroa, the gulls shrieking outside, and Father by the hearth, grinding dried soldrop. Back then she’d woken up a normal girl. Until she remembered.

  Child of Odin. The rot. What am I now?

  As soon as she opened her eyes, everything would be gone. No cabin. No shuttered windows. Not even proper log walls. Just a featureless room in a hotel. A tall inn where nobody knew each other. She could hear the buzz of the city. It was there when she woke up, and there when she fell asleep. It was a wonder people didn’t go mad here. Then she remembered what had happened, and realized that they probably were mad. Each and every one of them. She should never have come here.

  Had she stayed in Ym, they’d still be alive. Father Brody. Jay and her mum and little sister. The pain smoldered in her chest. Layer upon layer of sorrow, for everything and everyone she hadn’t been able to keep. She’d been born on the run.

  At least she hadn’t been entirely alone. She’d had Kuro. A friend who knew she was telling the truth, because they’d come here together. They’d been an us. Now it was just her.

  And the blindling …

  She had to get going. Get back to the greenhouse before anyone found him. Before he woke up and wandered off. Naked. And with as little knowledge of this place as she’d had.

  Hirka opened her eyes. A green lamp was humming away on the bedside table. She still had her clothes on, but someone had pulled a duvet over her. It must have been him. The man who’d robbed her. And rescued her. The man in the hoodie.

  She smelled smoke and rolled over cautiously. He was sitting in a chair by the window, staring out at the gray sky. He’d lowered his hood. His brown hair stuck out in every direction, like tufts of grass. The tips had been bleached by the sun. He looked like a different person now. Now that she knew he wasn’t going to hurt her.

  His fingers were drumming on the armrest. A cigarette was glowing between his fingers. Jay had smoked on occasion, though she’d kept it from her mum. Apparently smoking killed. But smoking wasn’t what had killed Jay.

  The man glanced over and gave a start when he saw that she was awake. He tapped the screen of his phone. “It’s four in the afternoon. You’ve been asleep for hours,” he said.

  Hirka sat up in the bed. People here were obsessed with time. As though there was never enough of it. All she had to do was look outside. The sky told her how long she’d been asleep. She didn’t need time to be divided into smaller chunks than that.

  She got up and went over to the window. They were high up. In the distance she saw the church, surrounded by cars and flashing lights. It was impossible to tell how much of it was left, but the tower was still standing. Charred black. People were crowded together outside the gate. Were they still inside? Father Brody and the others?

  “Sit down,” the man said, pointing at an empty chair. Hirka did as she was told. She’d already annoyed him by insisting they stay in the city. She hadn’t even been able to tell him why. But he’d listened to her. For reasons she didn’t think either of them understood.

  He pulled out his weapon. A black, angular piece of metal that was even uglier now that she knew its purpose. He put it down on the glass table between them.

  “You have no idea what this is, do you?” he asked. Hirka said nothing. She knew and she didn’t know at the same time.

  His feet were tapping nervously. He was wearing blue trousers. The heavy kind, with a name she couldn’t remember. A lot of them were donated to the church, usually in better condition than his. There were holes in the knees and the material had worn thin below the pockets. He leaned forward.

  “Nobody’s that calm when they have a Glock pressed to their temple. Nobody.”

  He took a drag of his cigarette and put it out in a glass, even though it wasn’t finished. “But you were,” he said, studying her. He was maybe twice her age. Eyes brown like his hair. Her gaze was once again drawn to the pale mark by his lip. A scar that tugged his mouth up slightly on one side. Almost unnoticeable under his stubble.

  “So how does a youngster keep her cool with a muzzle pressed to her head? That’s what I keep wondering, right? And you know what, I can only come up with two possible answers.” He leaned back. “Either she’s been in so many dicey situations she can hide how scared she is, which seems unlikely. Nobody would drag a girl into something like that. The second option is she simply doesn’t know what’s going on. So this is a Glock 19. A nine-millimeter handgun. A pistol. But you don’t know what that is, do you?”

  Hirka thought she understood what he was saying, even though half
the words were new to her. Glock? Pistol? She looked at the weapon on the table. “It’s a weapon. It kills people,” she said, then shrugged, trying to make it look like she’d been talking about such things all her life.

  “Yes, you know that now. But you didn’t before, did you?”

  Hirka shook her head. There was no point in pretending to know things she didn’t. After all, the man had helped her, albeit reluctantly.

  “No. And you’ve never been in an elevator before?”

  “Elevator?”

  “The hotel elevator. The thing that carried us up here when we arrived.”

  “Oh … no.”

  “And you have no idea what these are worth?” He dropped three stones on the table. They were hers. The ones he’d taken.

  “Those are mine!” Hirka grabbed them. “They were given to me,” she added, giving him an accusing look. He was the thief, not her.

  “I’ll take that as a no? You have no idea how much they’re worth?”

  “I do. Just … not here.”

  “No. And that’s the interesting bit. You know how much they’re worth somewhere, but not here. Which begs another question.” He leaned forward again. “Where the hell are you from?”

  Hirka bit her lip. Talking about where she was from never led to anything good.

  “Do you have anything to drink?” she asked.

  He looked momentarily perplexed. As if he’d never been asked for something so simple before. He got up and went into the bathroom anyway. Hirka glanced at the door. Should she make a run for it? This might be her only chance. She shifted in the chair, but she’d hesitated too long.

  He came back and set a glass of water down in front of her. Hirka drank it all. He didn’t ask if she wanted more.