After the Fall (Raud Grima Book 2)

by Sophia Martin

  The room was much deeper’n I’d have guessed looking in from the doorway. What seemed like a back wall shelf was instead standing like a straightened top line on an Uruz rune, connecting the two that flanked the entry. There was a gap ’tween the two entry shelves and the back one, though, and there were more shelves beyond it. I made my way around to them, pulling out any boxes what weren’t already taken down and pawing through them. Mostly papers. Some odds and ends—a leather bill-fold, a pair of silk gloves I thought about taking, then decided against. What would I do with fancy silk gloves? A set of keys with nowt to say what they unlocked, for the papers in that box must be among the thousands carpeting the floor. A satin draw-string bag with some sort of dried leaves inside it. I sniffed it but it didn’t smell like much. On a shelf above my head I found a grisly collection. A blood-stained chemise, and in several more boxes, more stained clothing. I never liked to think about why they were stained, or why the Officers had seen fit to hang on to them. There were half a dozen of them boxes, at least, and it spoke of some awful slaughter. I almost gave up on that shelf entirely, but I forced myself to pull each down in turn. I might not have found the mask and vest at all, for the mask’s splash of red caught in the beam of the glim seemed like just another bloodstain at first, except that after a moment my mind latched onto it. I’d already put the box back when the thought come, That was too red. Indeed, all the other stains’d been more like the reddish brown of the ink in the first poem I come across. This was like a crimson rose.

  I reached again, somehow unsure of myself, my hand hovering over the edge of the box which rested on the shelf above. Could it be? I hardly credited it as possible. But I had to look again, to be sure.

  With a yank I brung the box down, caught it in both hands and sat cross-legged, the box in my lap and the glim in my teeth. The bit of red stuck out from under a heavy black, coarse fabric. The red had the sheen of rough silk, like what you seen some fancy jarldises wear on their nights out in town. I touched the red with the tip of my finger, then pinched it, and drew it out, slow as you please.

  The golden embroidery by the eyes caught for a moment on the course black fabric of the thing what lay on top of it. I took care in pulling it free.

  The mask. Raud Gríma’s mask.

  The black thing turned out to be a sack, and under it, lying folded all neat and proper, was a leather vest with a hood, also dyed black as night. On the back, the sleeves, and again over the hood, the leather’d been worked into designs, looking like snakes coiling over and under each other, and swallowing each other’s tails. Inside the vest hung a plain enough scabbard, but the hilt of the dagger buried in it had the same snakes carved into it, each still swallowing the other’s tail. I pulled on the hilt and the light caught the blade that appeared. It was a beautiful thing. I noticed that the bar ’tween the hilt and the blade was shaped like horns.

  I’d read more’n my share of stories about Raud Gríma—all about the old highwayman, course, for none were yet written about Jarldis Sölbói. But even without them I’d have known what I’d found. Any child could have told you what them snakes meant, or the horns, or the golden threaded eyes of the red mask. We were all raised to fear such symbols, for weren’t Luka coming to take all the naughty children one day? Or so they told you when you were bad. Luka the flame-haired. Luka the father of the Great Serpent, doomed to suffer chained under the dripping poison of Skadi’s serpent in punishment for murdering Baldr—the two serpents representing both his son and his tormentor, the two sides of Luka’s evil: destruction and suffering. Luka, the Horned One.

  It gave me a chill, and no mistake, and I doubted for a moment I’d made the right choice. But there weren’t no going back, and I knew it. I was Luka’s charge, now. I’d sworn myself to Him, for better or worse, no less’n a bride to her husband. And Luka meant for me to find Raud Gríma’s disguise, of that I was certain, and no less so when I heard noises outside the storeroom in the hall of the prison. Sure enough, I’d found what’d I’d come for, so I’d run out of time.

  ~~~

  It took no small talent to hide from the scavengers what’d come into the tower for another look around. At first, though, I feared they seen me somehow and were looking for me specific-like. Luckily enough, no, they weren’t. But I’d no way to escape the storeroom ’fore they come upon it, so I had to shove myself into a space ’tween shelves and finally behind one, and I nearly knocked it clear over when I did, and wouldn’t that have been hard to pretend away? I froze still as I could, hardly daring to breathe, as they rustled through the papers and the boxes and the bloodstained clothes, swearing to each other and grumping and moaning on account of how there weren’t nothing good left over from the last time someone’d been through. You’re right about that, I thought as they did, for I’d stuffed the costume and my other treasures in before me. Except I realized after I come out again that I must have forgotten the scarf, and they’d picked it up. Which just made my skin crawl all over again, because weren’t it a scarf with Frigga’s symbol on it? And wouldn’t you know, Luka never wanted me to keep it?

  Seeing as how I couldn’t be sure they were alone, and I didn’t want to run into no one, I made my way down the tower fast as I could and never spent no more time looking at nothing, not even the things I’d collected. I stuffed everything into the black sack I’d found with Raud Gríma’s disguise, put my arms through the straps quick as you please, and it was hurry down to the street as fast as you can, Ginna-my-girl.

  Dawn was coming and it weren’t quite night no more outside, though it weren’t really light yet neither. Good enough for me. I stepped out of the broken doorway, into the street, leaving Grumflein behind me. It was a relief, like I’d been a prisoner there myself.

  But it weren’t long ’fore I heard a light rattle behind me, and after another few steps there was the sound of a footstep in a puddle, and I knew they must’ve seen me after all, and they were following. My mind started working over my options. If I stopped to pull the sack off my back and dig the dagger out—and believe me, Amma’s voice was there in my ear, scolding me for not keeping it out from the start—they’d be on me ’fore I’d got to it. I still had my own knives, mind, but none of them was as nice as that dagger. More’n that, I wished I had found a gun, but it weren’t to be, it seemed.

  I made a show of running my hand through my hair. I’ve mentioned it’s brown, which is rare enough it might distract them, while my other hand pulled the knife from my belt. I held it close in front of me so’s they’d not spot it too easily. A few more paces and I could hear them clear-like, which meant they’d decided not to hide no more, and soon enough they’d be on me. I shrugged the straps of the bag loose and readied my free hand. The footsteps behind me crunched against gritty bits of rubble as they pushed to run at me. I dropped the sack, whipped round, and yanked another knife out of its spot at my waist in back.

  Two slashers. It was a piece of luck they didn’t have a whole pack with them. I cut my eyes from them as much as I dared to scan the wrecked fa�ades and broken windows in the buildings on either side of the alley I’d been trying to sneak through.

  You can usually tell a slasher from a toady on account of toadies are answerable to some boss what don’t want them dressing too flash on account of that would make them stand out too much. Slashers don’t answer to nobody so they like to find whatever nice clothes the nobles left behind and wear them. I knew these two were slashers on account of they were all decked out in gray silk trousers and black jackets, with scarves what’d once been the colour of cream. Their clothes were plenty stained and dusty, though, so they didn’t look so flash.

  They were eyeing me just as I was eyeing them, ’cause they’d not reckoned on the knives, I gathered.

  “Hey there, bearcat,” the one on the left said to me. He made a noise like a purr. “Hey there, kitty, kitty.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” I replied, still checking out the corners of my eyes for anymore coming from the
shadows.

  “Now now,” he scolded. “That’s no nice thing to say, girlie.”

  Right about then I stopped feeling scared. Amma might have counseled me to run, but her voice in my head was all drowned out by the memory of the sounds the poor woman had made the night before. The wrath I’d felt what made me swear myself to Luka come rushing back, and it looked to me like He was handing me my very first kill, nice as apples.

  The two slashers had no sense of it, though, and they kept grinning like they thought they’d make short work of the knives and have some fun with me in a moment.

  I ground my teeth together and widened my arms—a stupid thing to do if you’ve never been in a knife fight, but I sure have been. They didn’t know that, though, so they smiled even wider and the one on the right—the quiet one, I’d come to think of him—lunged at me with the other on his heels.

  I felt Him then. Name of Gods, I felt Him like He was in my arms, in my legs. My movements weren’t nothing I’d not done before—no new tricks, mind. But I felt stronger’n ever I had, and faster. The quiet one was dead at my feet ’fore the chatty one had the chance to take a swipe at me. He stumbled away when he seen his mate’s throat laid open like a great mouth of blood.

  “Fuck,” he gasped, his eyes so wide you could see white all around their dark centres. “Fuck.”

  I wanted to open his throat up just the same, but he turned his wild gaze from his mate to me and stumbled back some more.

  “Sinmara,” he blurted. He turned and ran.

  Sinmara. She was the giant-demon Surtr’s consort, a giant-demoness herself, also called the Goddess of Gold, the Pale Goddess. I’d read of her in the Fjölsvinnsmál, an epic poem about a hero’s quest in which she held a weapon he needed. I liked the comparison, but I didn’t understand it. The name “Sinmara” meant “nerve-breaking nightmare.” Perhaps that was it, then—I’d broken his nerve, after all. I was right satisfied.

  ~~~

  All the rest of the way home it was only Amma’s counsel in my mind what kept me from acting the duffer and walking clear out in the open the whole way. I was heady with my victory, with the blood I’d spilt, sure enough, but the lack of food and sleep had a part to play, as well.

  I’d never have thought myself the kind to get blood-drunk, but there I was, replaying the sight of the quiet one with his throat slit at my feet. I liked it, treasured it, stroked it in my mind like a precious pet. There, I told the woman from the tunnels. There, you see. They’ll not get away with their evil-doing. I’ll not let them.

  When I reached the shaft I liked best for going home, I hurried down it, taking the quiet ways outta habit more’n any sense of danger. I felt powerful. I felt like I would kill any slasher or toady foolish enough to come near me. Amma’s voice in my mind scolded me for it: What, you’ll be sprouting wings along with your sudden invincibility, Ginna-my-girl? But I hardly paid her any mind. It was Luka’s blessing what kept me safe that whole journey home, and no mistake.

  Mosstown was awake and full of noise and bustle when I come round the bend what led into it. Kevan Shald’s brown chickens were flapping their wings and pecking at ankles as folk walked by. I seen Dag and his mum shouting at each other in back of one shanty, and down a ways Abjörn Kúss, who made baskets to sell, and old Nokki Leifr, who never done much but complain and shake his cane at everyone, were having a row of their own. Several old konas were gossiping in the doorway to Busla Freylaug’s shanty. I felt like I must be glowing like a lamp, but none of them paid me no mind at first. Then Dag glanced my way. He jerked and looked again, and his mum followed his eyes and did the same.

  Soon enough more of them took a gander and went wide-eyed and pale, and finally old Busla run over and grabbed my hand.

  “Are you hurt, Ginna?” she asked, her eyebrows drawn tight.

  I shook my head but looked down at myself, and that’s the first I noticed all the blood.

  “I—I don’t know,” I muttered, and Busla dragged me a few doors down into Háulfor Ótrygger’s shanty. His wife, I couldn’t remember her given name, hustled in after us, for she’d been one of them gossiping with Busla. I don’t know whether Busla chose her house over her own because it was closer or on account of the blood and not wanting her own things stained. Either way, Kona Ótrygger didn’t have nowt to say about it, and she was too concerned about me to think on the stains, most likely. Most folk in Mosstown are kind-hearted, at least to their own.

  “Go get Kona Alvör and tell her we’ve her Ginna here and she looks injured,” Busla said sharp-like to one of the Ótrygger little ones. He stared at me with eyes like moons, then bolted out the door.

  “No, not Mum,” I said to Busla. “She’ll only panic. I’m alright, anyhow.”

  “He’s sure to bring your Amma,” Kona Ótrygger said with a nod at me. “Don’t you fret now, Ginna. Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?”

  Two more of the konas from Busla’s doorway had joined us now and Busla was ordering them around like Fóstra Gróa, who set up the first battlefield hospital a hundred years since. The more I watched Busla the more it seemed to me she was Fóstra Gróa, and I knew I was half-dreaming, but I also thought I must tell Ivarr about it, on account of how he gave me the book what told her story.

  “I’m fine, really,” I said, but my voice sounded weak to my own ears, which were starting to ring. Or rather, which had been ringing for some time, I realized, but the ringing was getting right loud. And lights were starting to pop in front of my eyes in the most distressing way. I knew it for the hunger getting the better of me, but there was no telling any of the konas that, for they were bent on pulling my stained clothes from me and washing the blood off to find wherever I’d been stabbed.

  As they did, my mind began puzzling over how much of the blood was the woman’s, and how much the slasher’s, and for a moment I thought I could tell the difference. Then the ringing drowned everyone out, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor and they were all clucking around me like Kevan Shald’s chickens.

  I closed my eyes and let them go about it, but I wished more’n anything for something to drink what might settle my stomach, on account of it was starting to cramp in earnest. Nausea was rolling over me, and when they went to bring me up off the floor, I started retching, but nowt come up.

  “She’s half-starved!” one of them crowed, and then they were running about calling back and forth to each other so fast I couldn’t follow, I just sat where they left me with my head hanging like a gelded horse.

  Then hard fingers gripped my jaw and pushed my head up, and it was Amma, peering at me for a moment before bringing a spoon of broth to my mouth.

  “What damn fool thing did you go and do, Ginna-my-girl?” she asked in her rusty voice.

  I gazed back at her in pure confusion. By then I was off my head, more or less, and I was sure she’d been with me the whole way.

  Amma spooned more broth into my mouth, and after a few swallows my head felt a bit better, and so’d my stomach. Soon enough everything settled down, more normal-like, and the foggy confusion lifted. “I’m sorry, Amma,” I said. “I didn’t think it through.”

  She tutted at me and kept giving me broth.

  Even as I got my wits about me, so the bloodlust slipped away. I thought of the slasher I’d killed, and the nausea swept over me ten times as hard, and I retched all the broth up, splattering the floor. Amma growled at me and the konas clucked, and I realized Mum was one of them, and she about had a fit. They all had to calm her down, and then it must have been a quarter of an hour ’fore I was cleaned up enough and the floor was cleaned up enough for Amma to start helping me eat again. But I must’ve kept some of the broth down, ’cause I didn’t get confused again, and by the time they’d dealt with the sick and Amma sat down next to me again with the broth I felt good enough to feed myself. When I finished the bowl they all resumed fussing over cleaning the blood off me.

  “None of the blood was hers,” one kona said at last
after they’d checked me over for the third time.

  “Name of Gods,” Mum cried.

  “How did you get so much blood on you without it being none of your’n?” Amma demanded.

  I sighed and couldn’t think what to say, for I’d no wish to talk about the woman, or the slasher, either. “Got in a fight,” I muttered at last, and that sent the konas into a flutter again, but it didn’t satisfy Amma the least bit. Mum just burst into tears.

  “A fight?” Amma said. “And what kind of fight ends with one girl covered in so much blood the other’d have to be dead, I’d like to know?”

  I gave up. “Two dead,” I replied, and Mum wailed and covered her mouth. Everyone else stopped saying owt at all and stared at me. “Not at once,” I clarified. “There was a woman in the Undergrunnsby, what got took by slashers, wouldn’t you know.”

  Hums and moans of appreciation and grief followed that.

  “She weren’t no one from Mosstown, mind,” I said. “I didn’t know her. Never got her name ’fore she died, more’s the pity.”

  “And the other?” Amma said, her face hard as a rock.

  “A slasher, later. Not one of the ones what killed the woman, though I wish to the Gods he was.”

  “Dead?” Amma asked, raising one sparse, white-haired eyebrow.

  “Dead,” I confirmed, my stomach turning over so bad I thought I’d lose the broth again. Amma seen and leaned me down ’tween my legs. I stayed there ’til the nausea passed.

  When I sat up again, Amma’s eyes, which are a blue so dark most times they look black, was glaring at me like she had about a dozen more questions but she didn’t dare ask them on account of the risk to the broth. I shrugged at her, helpless-like, for how could I tell her any of it without sicking everything up again? I’d best forget it all, if I could.