Daughters Of The Storm

by Kim Wilkins

  Wylm had to trudge out of the hollow to see the rest of the island. Standing on a high ridge, he could turn in a slow circle and see the cold sea stretching off in all directions. Down at the rocky beach, between a dragon-head ship with bare masts buffeted by the wind and a collection of small round fishing boats, Wylm could see a group of five men practising axe throwing. The sound of the waves on the rocks carried up to him with the call of seabirds, and the occasional thundering grunt as a raider threw an axe with all his might — such strenuous effort that Wylm wondered their shoulders didn’t dislocate. The axe would land in the sand, the raider would fetch it, then it would be the next man’s turn.

  Hakon had said Bluebell threw an axe from a mile’s distance and that is how his face had become so disfigured. Wylm turned this thought over. It couldn’t be true. Could it? The burly raiders on the beach were throwing only a dozen yards. He supposed Hakon might promote the story of Bluebell’s supernatural prowess to hide an embarrassing truth: that he had simply been bested by a woman of flesh and blood and bone.

  Flesh. Blood. Bone. And Wylm would be the one to kill her. The randrman had been certain of it: he was the kyndrepa, a word he had come to understand meant ‘kinslayer’. He shivered, told himself it was the cold sea wind and went back inside to the warm smoky hut.

  Deep, deep in the night, Wylm woke to a thudding noise. A moment passed, another, as he tried to remember where he was. The roar of the cold sea told him.

  The thudding again. It was at his door.

  He stood, lifted the latch, and a big hairy man thrust Eni at him. ‘He won’t stop crying. Hakon says he must sleep with you.’

  Wylm caught Eni before the boy fell to the reed floor and the raider was gone before he could reply.

  Eni’s two cold hands clung to Wylm’s wrist. ‘Rabbit?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know where your rabbit is.’

  Eni lifted his hand and felt his way up to Wylm’s chest. Pressed firmly. ‘Rabbit,’ he said.

  And Wylm understood: the child was calling him Rabbit. He had only told Eni his name once, and clearly it had been forgotten. Instead, he had become the man who forced roast rabbit on him, who carved a stick like a rabbit. He had become Rabbit to the boy.

  ‘Yes, it’s me. It’s Rabbit,’ Wylm said. ‘Will you sleep in my bed?’

  Eni hooked his arm through Wylm’s and allowed himself to be led to the straw bed. Wylm lay next to him, trying to keep a few inches of space between them, but the boy wriggled across the gap and was soon sleeping peacefully with his bony knees curled into Wylm’s ribs.

  Wylm lay awake much longer. Rabbit. What a grim joke it was. He should be Wolf to the child, or Bear, or Fox. But Rabbit he was, and would remain until ...

  Well, Wylm could not conceive the boy’s ultimate fate. It lay behind a veil of darkness, beyond his destiny as kyndrepa.

  His destiny. Yes, he liked the sound of that. The randrman had seen it in a dream: only kin could slay Bluebell, and who else could that be but him? Her sisters were in her thrall, her own father loved her better than he loved Gudrun. He rolled the thought over in his mind and it grew dull and round and pulled him down to sweet darkness.

  Just as he was succumbing to sleep, he thought he heard a strange voice on the wind outside. Neither human nor animal. Alert now, he listened into the dark.

  It was singing. A strange, howling song.

  He rose, careful not to wake Eni, and peered out the doorway. Up on the ridge danced Eirik, the randrman. The moon had risen: just a sliver off full. The sky was clear and the sea boomed. The randrman was no longer a stooped, fragile figure. He was lithe and mobile, his joints as fluid as a child’s. His movements were so at odds with his tufted hair and wrinkled skin that it gave Wylm an unnatural chill. The song continued, the hooting and dancing, his voice carrying away far, far out to sea as the moon shone down on Hrafnsey.

  For four days and nights the same pattern unfolded. They took Eni in the morning to spend the day with Hakon and his men. Wylm caught a glimpse of them occasionally as he spent his day darting away from the icy curiosity of the raiders. Hakon firmly but gently led the child from forge to stable to bakehouse, as though assessing his fitness for any of these tasks, then muttered and clicked in exasperation. Wylm knew Hakon’s patience would eventually run out. Not this month, nor the next, but by the time winter came and Eni stood exposed as a mouth to feed in lean times, Hakon would tire of the game and a pair of rough hands would hold him under the sea until it was over.

  Wylm spent each day out of the hut so that Eirik the randrman could sleep among his smoking prophetic herbs and dream about the mystical trollblade that he said Wylm would wield against his stepsister. The sword was even now being forged and shaped with an ominous clanking rhythm that echoed through the settlement.

  They brought Eni crying to Wylm at night, every night, with thinning patience and hardening carelessness. After, Wylm lay listening to the strange howling song of the randrman, high and cold on the hill, drifting in and out of sleep. He knew that he couldn’t leave Eni here with Hakon. Not because he had grown soft and worried about the boy: travelling would be far easier on his own. But because, whatever sword they gave him to defeat Bluebell, he would still need a shield.

  Eni was that shield.

  Late, late at night, the door swung open and Wylm barely woke, so used was he to Eni’s nocturnal appearance. But the door remained open, and a cold prickle made him open his eyes and sit up.

  The randrman stood there, wearing a strange crown of black feathers that hung down around his ears and over his brow.

  ‘What is it?’ Wylm said, his voice catching on sleep.

  ‘It’s time to come to the forge, kyndrepa. The blade needs tempering.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about making a sword.’

  ‘You don’t need to know anything. Just follow me.’

  Wylm pushed back the woven blanket. The sea-cold air licked over him and he shivered. The randrman had already gone ahead and Wylm had to hurry after him, barefoot, over the gritty earth and down into the hollow of the village, behind Hakon’s hall to the smithy. Firelight glowed under the shutters.

  The randrman pushed the door open and the hot smell of iron rushed out. Hakon stood by the forge, along with a young, tall blacksmith whose hands were wrapped up with coarse cloth. Wylm, just a few moments out of sleep, felt as though he were dreaming the dark and the smells and the orange glow of the forge.

  ‘Here he is,’ Hakon said, as though it was perfectly natural that they were meeting in the forge at midnight.

  The smith held out the sword, but it wasn’t a sword. It was a dark unfinished blade, with no pommel or crossguard, just an exposed tang. Wylm’s stomach dropped. He thought of Bluebell’s sword, the Widowsmith. A fine, gleaming blade forged by famous swordmakers in Blicstowe, home of exceptional steel.

  The randrman, as if sensing his concern, leaned into him. Hot breath flowed over his ear. ‘Griðbani is not finished. The magic has yet to be poured in.’

  Wylm took heart in the randrman’s words, in the prophecy.

  ‘Hold out your hand,’ Hakon said to Wylm.

  Wylm extended his sword hand to take the blade.

  ‘No, your off-hand,’ Hakon barked, jerking Wylm’s left hand towards him and turning it palm up.

  ‘No, I’m —’

  In a blur that lasted half a moment, the smith brought the edge of the rough blade down on Wylm’s palm. The blow was a hot sting. Blood flowed.

  ‘First bite,’ the randrman said, still close to Wylm’s ear. ‘Now see.’

  The smith shoved the blade back into the forge. Wylm’s blood dripped steadily onto the dirt floor. He stared at the wound in alarm.

  ‘Go with Eirik,’ Hakon said, as the smith pulled the blade out and quenched it in a barrel beside the forge. ‘He will tend to your wound.’

  Out again into the night. ‘It is yours now,’ the randrman said. ‘Your blood is in the steel. Only you can kill her now
. Only you or one of your blood.’

  ‘I’m left-handed. You just cut the hand that needs to hold the sword.’

  The randrman didn’t miss a beat. ‘That is how it will fall, then. Blood from your sword-bearing hand will only make the magic stronger. Destiny will rush upon us; you cannot escape what has gone before and what is to come.’

  A thin drizzling rain fell. But Wylm’s blood was too hot and thudding with pain to feel the cold.

  The wound was deep and long, and although Eirik had wrapped it, it seeped blood all that night and all the next day. The randrman told him that the healing would take as long as it needed to take. They were in no rush to kill Bluebell, but Wylm was. Every day that crept by was a day his mother might be in danger. He could hear the clanking and clattering of the smithy and knew that the time for him to take up the sword was drawing closer. He began to think about how he could slip away and take Eni with him. Hakon had made a claim on the boy, keeping him beside him most of the day and at every meal in the long hall. When Wylm had raised the possibility of taking Eni with him, Hakon had been surprisingly aggressive.

  ‘He’s mine,’ Hakon had shouted, firelight making horrid shadows of his face. ‘I will find a use for him yet.’

  But Wylm needed Eni. He needed the boy to make Bluebell weak, because as much as he believed the randrman’s kyndrepa prophecy, it was unclear whether killing Bluebell would result in his own death too. And while it might suit Hakon to have Bluebell dead at the expense of Wylm’s life, it certainly didn’t suit Wylm.

  Two times in the past week, Wylm had seen a small group of raiders go out to sea in a round fishing boat made of wood and leather. It was a big enough boat for four men to sit comfortably, with a covered end. As they rowed away from shore, one of them would erect a sturdy mast in the middle, and the sail helped them negotiate the tricky departure and return under strong prevailing winds. Often his mind returned to this boat, to the distance back to the mainland with the winds in his favour, of his capacity to sail the boat and navigate it to the place closest to where Bluebell’s lover had said she’d taken Æthlric. He had sailed many times on the river near his childhood home, and knew how to handle a boat and a sail.

  All he needed now was the sword.

  But before the sword arrived, the pain did. Pain in his left hand, throbbing from one end to another, making him unable to stretch or curl his fingers. In the smoky half-dark of his hut at night, he peeled back the bandage gingerly to see a cruel purple edge on the wound. An infection was setting in.

  They came for him at dawn, Hakon and the randrman. Eni was with them, dressed identically to Hakon, in rough wool dyed green and a string of amber beads with a silver raven hung about his neck. He hadn’t seen Eni for days; the boy looked tired and desolate, shadowed around his eyes. Wylm wondered what Hakon had been putting him through.

  ‘It’s time,’ the randrman said.

  Wylm climbed out of bed and pulled on his breeches. ‘Are we going to the forge?’

  At the sound of Wylm’s voice, Eni grew agitated. ‘Rabbit?’ he said. ‘Rabbit?’

  ‘Silence!’ Hakon shouted, and his voice cracked through the dark. Eni froze, collapsed in on himself, hands pulled up defensively against his chest.

  Hakon rolled his eye in contempt, then said, ‘No, we are going to the crown of the island. Follow.’

  In the dim light, he followed. Eni stuck close to Hakon now, fearful of being shouted at again. Wylm came next and the randrman behind. They crested the island, then descended into a shallow valley, then up again towards a rocky outcrop where a fire burned high. Wylm had seen the outcrop before, but had never seen the steps carved into its eastern face. They rounded the outcrop and began to ascend. Gulls circled them. The smell was seaweed and birdshit. Up and up they went, until they arrived at a half-sheltered plateau of dark grey rock, where the smith stood with a sword that caught the morning light on one side and the firelight on the other.

  Hakon caught Eni between his hands and pressed the child against him, standing back. The smith handed the sword to the randrman and stood back also. Up here, the wind gusted randomly. One minute flat, the next pushing salty air down Wylm’s throat. The flame of the bonfire rode the wind and Wylm was careful to keep his legs away from the heat.

  The randrman threw some herbs on the fire and then stood tall and began to move, that lithe, unnatural movement Wylm had seen out on the ridge at night. It was as though his old age had fled his joints, and left a young man in his place.

  ‘Kyndrepa,’ he said, holding out the sword on two palms. ‘Meet Griðbani.’

  Wylm took the sword and hefted it in his left hand, wincing.

  ‘Only kin can slay Bluebell the Fierce,’ the randrman intoned. ‘With the trollblade, Griðbani, forged with your own blood, you will meet her in battle. Go forward with this blade, kyndrepa. Though you may yet suffer injury or death, know that you can end her reign.’

  Eirik then began his strange song, dancing and howling as though he were an exotic bird. Wylm considered the craftsmanship of the blade in the firelight. No jewels or gold embellishment, but it was a strong, sleek weapon. And it was a weapon forged with magic, the raven magic of King Hakon. Forged to slay his sister.

  Wylm caught his breath, purpose hardening and fusing in him. The moment seared itself on his mind’s eye: Eni in green with his black eyes sightless and his face bathed in firelight, the first glimmer of dawn touching Hakon’s fair beard, the strange dancing contortions of the randrman’s body, the smith looking on in wonder. And the weight of the sword in his hands; the weight of his destiny in his hands.

  Wylm was rolling up his clothes, stuffing them into his pack along with some bread and dried fish he’d lifted from the pantry after breakfast when the door to the hut burst in and Eirik stood there, once again a stooped old man.

  ‘Let me see your wound,’ he said.

  Wylm offered the randrman his hand. Perhaps he could be of some use, perhaps he would put a poultice on it. ‘It heals slowly,’ he said gruffly. The sword lay casually in its sheath on the bed beside them. He’d barely dared look at it since taking ownership of it. To see the grim runic inscriptions on its grip was to be reminded of the cold, dark task ahead of him, and his own possible fate. Though you may yet suffer injury or death ...

  ‘You were cautious with it this morning.’ Eirik unwrapped the wound, and Wylm winced as the cloth brushed against the swelling. Eirik clicked his tongue in concern. ‘It’s infected.’

  ‘It will be fine.’

  The randrman drew close in the dim room, his pupils still unnaturally small as he eyed Wylm. ‘Fever?’

  Wylm gulped. He had felt a little sweaty behind the eyeballs this morning. ‘No.’

  ‘To bed,’ Eirik said. ‘I’ll bring you some ale and a bucket of salt water to soak your hand in.’ He eyed Wylm’s pack by the door. ‘You won’t be going anywhere until it’s healed.’

  He was constrained to spend the day in bed and, in truth, felt the better for it. He’d had an infection once before as a child. A nail had caught his shoulder and the wound had pained him for weeks and healed in a swollen scar. He expected this would be the same, and was itching to move, to be off this birdshit-stained island and on his way. Perhaps another day or two to grow well.

  Late in the night, as had so often happened before, the door to the hut opened. Wylm opened his eyes and looked. Eni stood there, framed by moonlight. No Hakon, no retainers accompanying him. The boy hadn’t been brought to him in over a week. This was new.

  ‘Eni?’ he said, his voice catching on sleep.

  ‘Rabbit.’

  ‘Did you come alone?’

  The boy felt his way across the room to the bed and sat down, not saying a word, just hitching a sob. Wylm understood that Eni had got away from Hakon somehow, and had come to him for comfort.

  ‘What is it?’ Wylm asked, knowing that the boy neither understood the question, nor could frame an answer. He grasped the child’s shoulder and Eni g
asped with pain.

  ‘What have they done to you?’ Wylm muttered, and he opened the shutter to let a little weak moonlight in, and peeled up Eni’s shirt to see dark shadows on his ribs. Bruises.

  Now. The time was now. His heart beat with it. He had Eni, he had the sword, he knew how to get off the island.

  The time was now.

  ‘Eni,’ he said in a low voice, ‘Rabbit’s going to take care of you now. We are going in a boat away from here, but you must be very quiet and do as I say.’

  Nothing about Eni’s demeanour or expression indicated he had heard or understood, but Wylm climbed out of bed and dressed anyway. ‘Come on.’

  Eni hesitated, then stood and reached out to find Wylm’s hand. He took it firmly, and Wylm almost shrieked with pain. Eni backed off, frightened.

  ‘No, no,’ Wylm said softly. ‘No, it’s not your fault. I have a cut on my hand and ... here.’ He offered Eni his good hand. ‘See, Rabbit’s not angry.’

  Eni nodded. Wylm dropped his hand and grabbed his pack, attached the trollblade and its sheath to his belt and opened the door. ‘Follow my footfalls, boy,’ he said. ‘We’re going on an adventure.’

  Down on the gritty beach, the cold wind caught his breath and enlivened him. He was filled with certainty — Griðbani, his sword; Eni, his shield; prophecy on his side. He would make fate bend to him, he would be that man who could change the course of history. He threw his goods into the little hide-skin boat and helped Eni in.