I sighed. “Who knows why they killed her. Or left her hanging here. Brutes.”
“Hurry, Frey.” Trigve was staring down the main road toward Levin. “You need to make a decision.”
And just as he said it, I heard hooves on packed dirt.
Men on horses meant wealth.
The shaggy Ice Horses of Vorseland were small and swift, large enough to carry children but not grown men. Only the wealthiest Vorse men could afford the tall, sleek horses from Iber—jarls, and perhaps the occasional soothsayer.
“They are coming,” Juniper whispered. “Fast.”
Runa gripped my shoulder, and I turned. She pointed her thumb at a small wooden marker near a dark lane lined with yew trees. “If that leads to what I think it does, we can bury her there.”
The marker bore a carved face peering out between leaves and vines—the Green Woman. There was an Elsh graveyard nearby.
I nodded. “Good idea, Runa. And hurry.”
Runa leaned down and picked up the dead girl, one arm under her neck, one under her knees. She gasped as she lifted her, shifted the body in her arms, and started down the lane, the tips of the hanged girl’s hair kissing the earth as she walked.
We followed, quickly putting the twisting yew trees between us and the road, the autumn leaves hiding us from view.
I heard the men pass by a few moments later, but they didn’t stop. My shoulders relaxed.
The lane was overgrown, neglected, unused. It opened up after a half mile and began to wind through a small, fallow field, the clouds casting shadows across the rows of plowed earth.
The only sound was the crisp chirping of a willow warbler and the rustle of Runa’s feet on the path, slow and heavy with the weight of the body.
Trigve and Juniper had brewed a special dandelion tea that morning to help us purge the last of the mushroom poison. We’d all woken up with a headache, except Juniper—she had eaten Sly Barbaric Mushrooms before, during her days with the witches.
Juniper had spent the morning watching the sky, expression thoughtful. “Five people dreaming the very same dream, one of flying and battle and blood—it’s significant. It happens among the Sea Witches sometimes.” Juniper sipped the dandelion tea, swallowed, and then traced her fingers lightly down her throat as if willing it to move faster. “When a group of us had the same dream, Mother Hush would always want to hear about it. Prophecies come like waves, some fierce and white-capped like a winter storm, and some small and soft, a gentle lick upon the sand. Group dreaming leads to fierce visions. It usually signifies the first step down a hard path.”
Runa had just laughed. “Five people and five mushrooms will lead to all sorts of mischief.”
“Quiet, Runa.” My head was pounding, and her laughter made it worse. Trigve gave me the tea, and I drank deeply.
“A hard path is not always a bad thing.” Ovie rubbed her palm over her missing eye. “Who knows what we will learn. All knowledge is useful.”
The willow warbler began his cheerful song again, the notes soaring across the empty field. I looked over my shoulder. Ovie’s cheeks were pink in the hot sun. Runa was grimacing, her feet kicking up clods of dirt with each step. There was no shade now, and we were all hot and still feeling the effects of the night before. The tea had helped my headache, but my muscles ached, as if bruised.
Runa shifted the girl again. Sweat was dripping down her face.
Trigve glanced at her, brow furrowed. “Let me take her for a while, Runa.”
She shook her head. “If a man has hanged a woman,” she said, “then it’s a woman who should carry her body. I will do this alone.”
We were almost to the copse of trees when Runa began to breathe heavily. She was strong, stronger than all of us, but carrying the deadweight of a hanged girl for half a mile was no small feat.
We reached the graveyard at last. We all stood still for a moment, none of us wanting to take the first step, walk past the first dark line of simple stone markers.
We were unfamiliar with cemeteries. They seemed wrong and unnatural … all the bones beneath our feet, the spirits stuck there, unable to rise to Holhalla.
There had been a battle here in this hollow long ago, Vorse against the Green Women warriors from across the Quell Sea. We’d all heard the bards sing “Fire and Earth,” the song of Levin and the ancient battle fought at dawn on a cold spring morning. The Green Women lost but were fearless in battle and valiant in defeat. They were given a plot of land to bury their dead, to send them back to the earth, as their gods commanded.
The Vorse burned their own dead nearby. Fire and smoke and shovels and dirt. This was how battles really end.
The Green Women had almost entirely passed out of Vorse memory, forgotten except for a song. But many had once thrived in northern Elshland, in a stretch of hills called the Strange. I’d never been there. Few Vorse had. It was a wild place, according to the song. A place where women once fought, and women once ruled. The ballad said the Stranger Hills were so high the clouds stroked the women’s cheeks as they passed by.
I’d thought about that line often, when watching the sky.
I’d seen a tapestry of the Green Women once, last winter, in the home of a wealthy, dying widow. It had hung across one wall near a roaring hearth, and it showed a battle scene—the Green Women jumping through the air, attacking fur-clad men, swirling green tattoos up their arms and across their chests.
Something about those women had struck a chord in me.
Juniper had said it was one of the gods of fate plucking my life-strings. Meaning my path would lead me to the Strange someday, and the Green Women would play a part in my life somehow.
We dug a shallow grave for the branded girl in an empty corner near the trees. We had only our daggers and our hands, but the ground was soft from recent rain. Ovie found a large, flat stone to use as a makeshift shovel, and it worked well enough.
Afterward, we covered the top with small rocks to keep away the wolves. When it was done, Juniper knelt and said one of her witch prayers.
Runa’s dark eyes met mine as we watched the Sea Witch pray. We’d left the death trade behind, and here we were, dealing with the dead again.
I wiped my dirty hands on my brown tunic, then stretched my aching back. I looked off into the distance, and my eyes caught movement—a father and a daughter, cutting barley in a nearby field, moving in a graceful rhythm.
I wondered if they had known the hanged girl. I supposed they had, in a village the size of Levin. I wondered if they had welcomed her execution or been grieved by it.
We ate a quick lunch of early-autumn apples and cheese, sitting between worn grave markers, faded symbols of the Green Women carved on each. Trigve kept an eye on the horizon, watching, watching.
Runa took a bite of apple, and then stood and rested her hand on the edge of a gravestone. “Frey, we need weapons for this journey. Not little Mercy-daggers.”
It took a few moments for her meaning to dawn on me.
She began to rub her cheek with her palm, thinking. “This is the only graveyard on the western shore. We won’t get another chance like this.”
I nodded. “You’re right. I thought I would ask Jarl Roth for weapons, if it came to that. But I’d much rather we had our own.”
Ovie tilted her head to the side, hand on her knife. “Stealing from the dead is unlucky.”
Juniper made a Sea Witch gesture, thumb touching forefinger—it meant “honorable theft,” which was a concept she thoroughly embraced. “Runa is right, we do need real weapons. For the Red Willow Marsh, at the very least.”
I looked at Trigve. “What do the Anglon Mystic books say about taking things from the dead?”
He shrugged. “Depends who’s dead.”
I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. “Boneless Mercies don’t steal from the dead, but we are no longer Mercies. Let’s take the blades.”
* * *
We once did a Mercy-kill for a Fremish family, not long aft
er Siggy died. They had come over on a ship from Elshland and were working their way south. They were grave robbers, which was a common enough profession in Frem, almost as common as raiding used to be in Vorseland.
We met them on a hill near Nind. Midwinter, almost twilight. I knew where they hailed from as much for their soft, lilting accents as for the tiny silver owl icons they wore around their necks. Many of the Fremish wanderers worshipped a half-owl, half-human god named the Rover King—he was a nomadic deity and looked with favor on all unsettled people.
There were two older sisters in the family, and three boys younger than me, as well as the father, mother, and grandmother. They all had chestnut hair, but their eyes, down to the youngest, were a pale light blue, like Ovie’s.
“You’ll find no graves to steal from here in Vorseland.” Runa leaned against a nearby juniper tree, black braid over her shoulder, black eyebrows in a scowl.
“We know.” The mother’s voice was elegant, the Fremish accent silky on her tongue. “We’re just passing through. Grandmother here is too sick to carry on. Will you help us?”
I looked the grandmother up and down, my gaze catching on the woman’s much-mended wool dress, fraying at the hems and covered in patches. “Can you pay?”
“Yes,” she said. “But not much.”
“Good enough.” I went to the older woman. She was petite, lean, her back bent and twisted from a life spent digging. She had thick hair to her waist, still a deep brown, though dull with age. Her eyes were sad, but shrewd. She wasn’t feeble, not in her mind.
Juniper gathered the grandchildren together and began to whisper a prayer.
I looked at Runa, and she turned her head away. I looked at Ovie, and she nodded. I would take this one. I reached for the flask in my side pocket and gave it to the woman. She took a long drink of the fiery Vite, and then handed the flask back with a nod of her sharp chin.
Dying makes you thirsty.
I slid my hand behind the mark’s neck. Her skin was as dry and thin as an autumn leaf. “Just relax, lamb.” I put my other hand over her mouth and nose, and pressed in.
I stole her breath, as Siggy had taught me. There would be no blood. I could spare the family this, at least. The woman was weak and would not struggle. Much.
When it was done, I laid her on the ground near the juniper tree. The father had tears in his eyes, but the mother shed none.
I wondered if the Fremish woman had been fierce when she was young. Something told me she had. Something told me she’d lived a full life … a life with many crossroads and dark paths. And now it was over. Everything she was, everything she’d done—it would soon be forgotten, lost to time, just as the name of the Vorseland hill we stood on had been lost to all living memory.
* * *
I dug into the soil, deep and deeper. From Mercy to grave robber, in two short days. Dirt pressed into my fingernails, and rocks scraped my knuckles. My clothing was sweat- and earth-stained. But I liked this work. It was hard and real. I liked feeling the ground between my fingers. Feeling my muscles move under my skin.
Maybe I would have made a good farm woman after all.
I shook my head.
Never.
I never would have been satisfied with farming, chained to one place and one experience year after year.
I flinched and looked up at the sky.
The gods liked to humble people who dream big dreams.
It was late afternoon by the time we were done with the graves, each of us Mercies standing over a deep hole, dripping sweat. We blinked in the slanting sun and stared down at the bones of four Green Women warriors, jade-colored shields covering their torsos.
Their axes were buried beside them, as the song foretold. I knelt again, belly in the dirt. I slipped my soil-black fingers over earth and bone until I felt metal. I pulled the weapon free.
The ax was lighter than a typical Vorse battle-ax. Shorter, slimmer.
The four of us gathered in the middle of the cemetery to compare our finds. All of the short, curved blades were similar, bearing an etching of the leafy Green Woman on the hilt. Rubbed with oil, they would be as good as new.
Trigve declined to dig up his own ax, and I honored his wish. We pushed the dirt back over the bones of the ancient women warriors.
“The ‘Fire and Earth’ ballad mentions twelve women by name,” I said. “Three who lived and nine who died. I like to think we are holding the blades of four women from the song. The four bravest, perhaps. The four fiercest. The four—”
Runa groaned. “Enough, Frey.” She glanced at me, and then went back to pushing dirt.
Afterward, Juniper said a prayer of forgiveness for disturbing the warriors’ peace, and I said a prayer of my own to Valkree— a silent wish to follow in the footsteps of Green Women, to use their sleek, lithe hatchets as they were intended to be used. To fight. To battle.
We walked back to the road as the early-autumn sun set behind us.
Four Boneless Mercies stood at a crossroads near a hangman’s tree.
It was like something from a Vorse saga.
In their hands they held four weapons, freshly ripped from the grave.
I smiled.
EIGHT
I’d heard that Sea Witches will often cast shells and read them like runes, but I’d never seen Juniper do this in the year she’d been with us.
Two mornings after we buried the hanged girl, we were eating a breakfast of apples underneath an old oak tree when Juniper pulled out a deck of worn green cards. She moved her witch-hair behind her ears, whispered a prayer under her breath—one about twists and turns and crossroads—then shuffled the deck. She cut it and flipped over eight cards, laying them out in a straight row across a scattering of copper oak leaves.
“Are we going to gamble?” Runa asked, eyes twinkling.
Juniper smiled. “No. These are Merrow Cards. Every proper Sea Witch has a deck. They help us.”
“Help you do what?” Trigve, curious as always, had risen to his feet and gone to Juniper’s side.
“Divine the truth.”
“So you are going to tell us our fate.” Runa threw her apple core into a nearby stream and looked bored.
Fate. I hated that word.
Juniper shook her head. “No. I’m going to read the truth. That is all.”
We all drew near then, even Runa, and watched over Juniper’s shoulder as she pointed to each card and spoke its name.
The Wanderer.
The Hanged Woman.
The Leaf Witch.
The Red Seer.
The Bone Man.
Death.
The High Priestess, reversed.
The Blue Moon.
“What do they mean?” Ovie leaned over and ran her finger down the Bone Man, touching his red eyes and skeletal frame.
Juniper pointed to the first card again. “We are the Wanderers, starting down a new path.” Her finger moved to the second card. “The Hanged Woman can mean many things, but in this case it is literal—the dead girl at the crossroads. She was important to our journey.” Juniper picked up the third card and held it gently between her thumb and second finger. “The Leaf Witch is a spirit of the forest, of nature. It says we will be given everything we need on our travels.”
I nodded and put my hand to the hilt of my ax, pressing it into my hip bone. I’d made a sheath of leather strips and rabbit fur and tied it to my waist. My ax was now hidden under my cloak, hilt at my thigh, and it could be drawn quickly, if needed. It worked so well that the other Mercies had soon followed my example and made their own sheaths. I smiled to see the other girls walking ahead, weapons at their hips. It gave me a feeling like pride, but sharper, and more violent.
“What about this one?” Runa picked up the Red Seer card. It showed a green-haired woman standing on white sand, a black tree in the background. “It looks evil.”
“It’s not.” Juniper reached up and gently plucked the card out of Runa’s hand. “It’s about the Sea Wit
ches.”
“And what does it portend?” Runa leaned against a crook in the tree and crossed her arms.
Juniper shrugged. “I suppose we’ll find out when we get to the Merrows.”
Trigve picked up the next card. “And this one?”
“The Bone Man.” Juniper drew a circular symbol in the air, something I’d seen her do before to ward off dark spirits. “If you’re looking for an evil card, Runa, this is it.”
“Does the Bone Man signify the Blue Vee Beast?” I asked.
Juniper shook her head. “This reading is only about our journey to Blue Vee. It doesn’t show what will happen when we get there. The Bone Man is something malevolent, something dangerous that will block our path, come between us and our destination.” She put her fingers on the next card. “Death. It could be literal, or it could merely mean the end of something, a path or a choice.”
“And the High Priestess?” I nodded at the card, which showed a woman in a black robe, upside down.
The Sea Witch drew another circle in the air. “The High Priestess, reversed … This is tricky. We will meet someone who appears to be a mystical leader, or visionary, but she is dangerous and should not be trusted. We will need to be on guard.”
“What about the Blue Moon?” The Blue Moon card disturbed me more than the Bone Man. There was something about the shaggy Giantine Wolf howling at the great blue-white orb in the sky … It was ominous. Foreboding.
Juniper shrugged. “The Blue Moon indicates shadows and choices unmade. Our path will fork many times, and our choices will decide the outcome. Nothing is written in the stars—our journey is our own.”
* * *
We followed Juniper as we walked now—only she knew the secret way into the Merrows. The sun was hot over our heads—one last swan song of autumn warmth before winter set in and buried the world in cold and dark and snow.
Around noon, the Sea Witch turned off the main road and took a narrow path that skirted a small woodland. The path was almost invisible, barely more than a deer trail.
We were getting closer, closer to the witches, closer to the sea.
I imagined what the Merrows would be like as we moved down the narrow trail. I’d never met another Sea Witch, only seen a few in passing at Night Markets. The witches rarely left the Merrows. Some of the sagas told of them and of their famous Scorch Trees, and it had sparked my interest long ago.
The Boneless Mercies Page 6
