by Carrie Ryan
He took her hand in his, which felt a little awkward at first until they sorted their fingers out. “From my point of view, I can definitely say it’s changed for the better,” he said softly, causing Sera to blush.
She really wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Ever since they’d left home, she’d been so focused on fixing the Breaks that it never occurred to her to think about how their meddling with history affected those they met along the way. She thought about the first Hystorian they’d met, Gloria the butcher, and how her eyes had grown wide when they told her about airplanes and men on the moon. Did she then spend the rest of her life dreaming about such things, or did she go about her ordinary duties as if she’d never met three kids from the future?
Just then, there was a tremendous crashing sound. A few stones fell from the ceiling and shattered at her feet. A long crack snaked up the wall, letting in a slice of sunlight and the sound of men shouting and swords clashing. Another jolt jarred the tower, and Sera and Bill stumbled as they tried to catch their footing.
“It isn’t safe here,” Bill shouted at her over the din of battle. “Follow me.” And then he was leading her through the dim corridor, his hand still holding hers tightly.
They passed a few narrow slits in the walls that Bill explained were arrow loops, meant to allow men inside to fire arrows on anyone attacking. As they passed by each one, Sera snuck glances outside, trying to catch glimpses of the battle. Hundreds of ships lined the river, each one stuffed with men wearing chain mail and helmets, waving swords or shooting at the tower with bows and arrows. All of them moved toward the bridge, disgorging their cargo of soldiers on the nearby shore. Here they joined others digging at the foundation of the tower with pickaxes and shovels, trying to tunnel under the thick wall.
Along the northern bank more Vikings prepped trebuchets and catapults, lobbing stones and flaming pots of oil over the walls of the fortified city. The sky was thick with projectiles, the air dingy with smoke and loud with shouting and screaming. Church bells rang and Viking horns blew as if the two sides could war with sound alone.
Bill drew her through a tight passage into a tiny circular room with a high domed ceiling. “It’s an old turret,” he said. “They changed the design of the tower after this room was built, and most people forget about it. We should be safe here for a while. At least until the bridge clears enough for us to sneak back to the city.”
Narrow gaps were spread along the wall at knee height and Sera pressed her face against one. “Murder holes,” Bill explained. He pointed out how the sides of the holes flared out at steep angles, narrowing the view. “Men can kneel here and shoot crossbows, picking off soldiers outside, but it’s almost impossible to get an arrow back in.”
He leaned against one of the walls and slid until he was sitting. His legs took up a good portion of the floor space, so that Sera had to sit with her knees tucked against her chest. She could still feel the floor trembling beneath her as stones struck the tower. Even though it meant watching the ravaging forces attacking them, she couldn’t help but look outside, trying to catch a glimpse of Dak.
She hoped he was smart enough to keep far, far away from the battlefront. But she also knew him well enough to be pretty sure he’d never stay away from the center of action. “Please don’t be stupid,” she murmured to herself.
As if on cue, her eye caught on a small figure darting through the throng of Vikings. Sera had been in enough PE classes with Dak to recognize his awkward gait as he ducked behind a pile of discarded bloody shields.
“Dak!” she cried out, banging her hand against the wall. But all she could do was watch, and hope none of the flying debris — from either side — would hit her friend.
This wasn’t like dodgeball (a game that Dak never excelled at) — these flying balls could kill!
A single shield detached itself from the pile and started moving haltingly across the battlefield. The wooden circle was huge, at least as tall as Dak, and he teetered under the weight of it. A band of Vikings streamed around him, racing toward the tower with bloodcurdling shouts and roars, but one of them must have knocked into Dak because he tripped and went sprawling.
Just as he started to push himself up, a massive bolt shot from the tower and tore through the air. It barely grazed Dak’s head before skewering seven Vikings who’d been running along behind him.
From somewhere above she heard men cheering as one of them shouted, “Tell the kitchens we have a human kabob for them to cook!”
Sera cried out as the men staggered and then fell. Dak’s face went white with shock and he crouched, seemingly frozen, completely out in the open where anyone could take aim at him.
She heard someone screaming and realized belatedly that it was her, calling Dak’s name and telling him to move.
DAK COULDN’T move. The bolt had come so close to his head he could swear it had created a new part in his hair. He heard the sickening sound of the sharp metal tip striking the Vikings who’d been running behind him and then the grunt as they collapsed. Dark red blood seeped from their chests, turning the ground around them to a scarlet mud.
The reality of where he was and what he was doing struck him like a battering ram against a fortress gate. He was unarmed and unarmored in the middle of a chaotic battlefield. On the positive side, he’d put some distance between himself and Gorm. But getting killed now wouldn’t be helping anyone, least of all himself.
For the briefest moment the violence around him paused, and he thought he heard someone scream his name. He stared up at the tower only a hundred yards away, trying to seek out a familiar face. It was useless, and he knew it. Riq and Sera would be safe inside the island fortress by now — far, far away from the danger of battle.
But then he thought he heard that same voice shout for him to move. He didn’t even question where the command came from. Instead, he just obeyed, tucking into a ball and rolling sharply to his left.
An arrow whizzed through the air with a high-pitched whine, striking the shield underneath Dak with a solid thwunk. Two inches to the left and it would have speared his shoulder.
That’s all it took to get Dak to his feet and sprinting back toward the Viking camp — facing Gorm seemed like the better option at the moment. As he ran he cut from right to left to make himself a more difficult target. He’d just crested a low hill when he saw a line of Vikings — hundreds of them — racing for the battlefield, their shields held over their heads to protect themselves from the rain of stones and arrows.
It was pretty clear pretty fast that Dak would be trampled to death if he kept going. He had no option but to pivot on his heel and run along with them, letting himself get caught up in their roaring energy. Tucked among the massive bodies and huge round shields, Dak felt nearly safe.
It was almost as if he were one of them.
As they approached the tower the sound of stones hitting shields became as deafening as the screaming around him. A reed-thin boy holding a tall pole with a pennant streaming from the top grinned at Dak as they ran alongside each other. Dak had just started to smile back when the boy’s eyes went wide and his teeth turned a pinkish red. When he fell to his knees, Dak saw a thick spear protruding from between his shoulder blades.
Horrified, Dak took a step forward — his instinct was to offer help even though he knew there was nothing he could do. The boy said nothing, just held out the pole, shoving it into Dak’s hands before collapsing. Dak stood there, his hands gripping the pole, no idea what to do next.
One of the other Vikings must have seen the look of terror and confusion on Dak’s face, because he slapped his back in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture but ended up sending a jolt of pain through him.
“You’re the standard-bearer now, boy.” He gestured up at the flag. “That’s Siegfried’s seal there. Upon your life, you cannot let it fall. Best watch yourself —
holding it makes you a target. The Franks would do anything to get that flag as proof of victory.”
And then the man was off, and Dak was left in the middle of battle staring up at the scrap of cloth hanging limply from the top of the pole. A sluggish bit of breeze found its way to him, lifting the flag so that he could see the banner clearly. If his heart wasn’t already frozen in fear, it would have sprouted icicles.
He recognized the symbol Siegfried used for his standard. He’d seen it before on the lapels of Tilda the Lady in Red, etched into the belt buckles of the Amancio brothers, and scraped into a wall in 1792 Paris. It was the symbol of the SQ, and it was apparently now Dak’s responsibility to protect it.
“What in the name of mincemeat is Dak thinking?” Sera groaned. She and Bill knelt side by side, staring out the murder hole to where Dak stood, holding a flag that lifted in the meager breeze. “He’s just made himself a target!”
Beside her, Bill tensed and cursed under his breath, using a word the device in her ear refused to translate.
“What is it?” she asked, dread already pooling in her stomach.
“I recognize the emblem on that standard,” he said. “It’s the symbol of the men who attacked Lindisfarne.”
Sera frowned. “The symbol of the SQ. That’s why we’re here — Siegfried is SQ, and we have to stop him from amassing power.”
Bill pressed his face against the hole again and spoke as she did the same. “It’s not just that one banner I’m worried about. It’s all the others.”
Sera let her eyes roam across the battlefield. Now that she was looking for something other than Dak, she realized that half the men bore some form of the SQ symbol. It was carved into helmets, painted on the hulls of ships, even woven into the cloaks thrown over Viking shoulders.
“They’re everywhere,” she said in shock.
Bill turned until he was facing her and she could feel the warm puffs of his breath against her cheek. “Is there any way they could know that you’re here?”
She shook her head. “No, not unless . . .” She caught herself just as she was about to mention Dak. She knew he wouldn’t have said anything to give the three of them away. Then she remembered the Viking who’d accompanied Siegfried to the cathedral — the one with the scar across his face.
“There was one of Siegfried’s men that seemed like he might have been suspicious. Why?”
Bill leaned back against the wall, his hands worrying along the edge of his dagger. “You represent a threat to the power it’s taken the SQ eleven centuries to amass. If they even suspect there’s someone from the future behind these walls, they’ll stop at nothing to get to you.”
Sera looked back at the battlefield. There were soldiers for as far as she could see. Individually they were like drops of water that combined to create a massive ocean. “How can we hope to fight so many?”
Bill hesitated before answering, which, Sera was coming to realize, was never a good sign.
“I think you have to face the possibility that Paris might fall,” he said at last. “And if that happens, you have no choice but to warp out of here and keep the Infinity Ring from falling into SQ control.”
DAK SPENT most of the next few hours trying to avoid getting killed, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Even though the Franks were wildly outnumbered, they had the benefit of thick walls between them and the Vikings. Plus, they were fighting to defend their homes, which made them especially formidable.
To make his task of staying alive (and in one piece) even more difficult, Dak wore no armor and carried no weapons. He just had the stupid flag, which meant he couldn’t sneak away either. Every time he tried to hand it off to someone else he was met with hearty slaps on the back and congratulations for making it as long as he had. Apparently, standard-bearer was a very short-term gig with a high mortality rate.
The only benefit to his position was that he had plenty of time to race around the fortifications, searching for a way inside. He knew that trying to use force would be useless — if thirty thousand Vikings couldn’t break down the wall, what hope did an eleven-year-old boy have?
His only chance would be to use his brain, which was overflowing with tales of fortresses being taken in various ways. His favorite had always been the story of Château Gaillard, a supposedly impenetrable medieval castle. Among its many features was an extra bathroom built in the chapel. Following the orders of King John of England, a little room had been constructed so that it hung off the side of the building, with a hole in the floor. It’s what passed for luxury in those days.
When the French king Phillip II attacked Château Gaillard, the people inside felt pretty secure about being able to wait out the siege. But then came a soldier named Ralph the Snubnose who noticed a stain under a hole off to the side of one of the walls, and, using the nose for which he was named, figured out what the hole was used for.
That unlucky soldier had to climb his way up the toilet chute and through the hole to get into the castle (ew!). It worked — the guy surprised everyone inside and opened the gate to let his army in.
If that’s what it took for Dak to find a way back to Sera and Riq, he was willing to try it — which is how he found himself staring up at the top of the tower when the men inside rolled a massive stone grinding wheel until it tottered just on the edge. One tiny tap and the thing would come crashing down.
Dak stood next to a group of Vikings wielding pickaxes against the base of the wall. They were so focused on their task that they had no idea of the danger looming above. Dak didn’t even pause to think about the fact that some of these Vikings were with the SQ . . . which technically made them the bad guys.
“Move!” he shouted. He swung his pole around to shove two of the men back and then dove at a third, tackling him to the ground and rolling.
The stone wheel seemed to fall in slow motion, like a clip from an action movie. Dak could have sworn he felt the compression of air around him as a circular shadow grew larger until it seemed to swallow him.
He was pretty sure he was about to be squashed like a bug.
At the last minute he tucked his knees to his chin, just as the wheel slammed into the ground, barely missing his toes. The impact caused his teeth to jar and his whole body to lift into the air.
Men cried out in anguish. One of them had both of his legs pinned, and Dak thought he might have seen a hand sticking out from underneath — the hand of someone who’d been crushed and killed.
Around him Vikings leapt into action, striving to pull the injured men free as smaller stones and arrows fell around them. Dak tried to control his breathing, tried not to vomit all over himself as he dug into the mud to help. He felt his chin wobble and his throat burn with the promise of tears.
With great effort he swallowed them back. He glanced up at the tower, where Frankish soldiers leaned out over the edge, taunting the injured and dead below.
Suddenly, the lines that seemed so clear when they’d warped here became fuzzy. He knew that many of the Vikings must be SQ and therefore his enemy. At the same time, he’d spent the afternoon with these men, listening to their shouts as they worked together and fought together, sometimes even trading jokes. They had protected him with their shields and accepted him as their bannerman.
They couldn’t all be evil, could they? And even if they were . . . did they deserve to die like this?
Dak was still trying to sort it all out when he saw what looked like a curl of smoke rising up from the top of the tower. Riq appeared then, leaning over and shouting something down at Dak, but there was too much noise for him to catch what the older boy was saying. What on earth was he doing up there to begin with?
Riq began to wave his arms frantically, but it wasn’t until Dak saw the lip of a steaming cauldron that he understood what he was trying to say. Riq was warning Dak, telling him to get out of the way. A
lready drops of the burning viscous liquid were falling like rain, hitting the ground around him with popping and hissing sounds.
Dak looked at the Viking soldiers grouped around the injured men, their shields held over their heads to keep their fallen comrades safe. They had no idea what was coming. He wanted to save them — but it was already too late.
Riq’s expression was bleak when he stumbled upon Sera and Bill. As soon as she laid eyes on him, Sera’s stomach tightened into frightened knots. “What’s wrong?”
Riq said only one word, his voice almost a whisper. “Dak.”
She leapt to her feet, ignoring the way her hands were beginning to tremble.
He’s okay, she thought. He just had to be. But the longer Riq avoided her eyes the more she began to fear the rest.
Bill stood and moved next to her, his arm just barely brushing her shoulder. His hand slipped into hers and she squeezed, not realizing until that moment what it meant to have someone by her side for whatever Riq was about to say next.
“What happened?” she whispered.
Riq shook his head. “It was chaos.” He drew in a deep breath as if to steel himself to say the words aloud. “Dak was with a band of Vikings trying to dig under the tower. They . . .” He swallowed a few times. “The Franks dropped cauldrons of hot pitch and wax down on top of them.”
Sera felt like the floor was dropping away from her. The sensation was similar to the aftereffect of a Remnant: nausea, dizziness, and a confusion about time and space.
Riq wiped a hand across his face. “I didn’t realize it was happening until it was too late, or I would have stopped it.”
“Did you see his . . .” No matter how hard Sera struggled, she couldn’t bring herself to say the word body.
But it was clear Riq knew what she was asking. “Some of them jumped into the river. . . .”
