I caught Trigve’s eye through the mob, and he winked at me. He was enjoying the fight as much as the rest.
Runa slammed her forehead into Indigo’s nose, then in turn was sent sprawling when Indigo kicked her in the stomach. Bright red blood dripped down Indigo’s face. Both girls were shouting insults now, though I couldn’t catch their words over the cheers of the crowd.
Next to me, Juniper looked anxious and worried. I wanted to comfort her, but my heart was also stirred by the fight, and I couldn’t keep from grinning.
Runa won in the end, but barely, finally pinning Indigo when the Glee Starr girl tripped over a nearby deerhound that was somehow managing to sleep through the noise. She dug her knee into Indigo’s chest, swearing as the girl writhed underneath her.
Indigo howled in frustration … and then began to laugh.
“Good fight,” she shouted. “Good fight.” She pulled her hand across her face, wiping away blood. “Shall we go again?”
A moment passed, and then both girls were laughing.
Runa held out her hand and helped the girl to her feet. They got dressed, still laughing, and then approached Jarl Roth at the front of the crowd to ask his forgiveness, as was tradition.
Roth looked slightly bemused. “It was a welcome bit of entertainment,” he announced, “and you each fought well.”
Afterward, I went to Runa’s side and touched the purple bruise that was blossoming near her left eye. “What in Hel did she say to make you skin-fight her?”
Runa just shrugged, but Indigo looked at me and grinned.
“I asked this Boneless Mercy if she’d ever killed anyone who wasn’t sick or dying, and then I asked her what on earth made her think she could slay our giant.” She laughed again, an infectious rolling sound that filled the Hall. “She didn’t like that much.”
“Is that all?” I glanced at Runa. “I’d have wondered this, too, in her place.”
“I have a temper.” Runa put her hand to her ribs and flinched.
“And I never get angry.” Indigo moved closer to Runa and slid her arm around her shoulders. “So let’s be friends.”
I laughed. “Now go to the healer and get fixed up, both of you.” I nodded at the dark-haired girl in yellow—she was standing near the hearth, still talking to Trigve.
The two girls moved off together, their long dark braids swinging.
Leave it to Runa to get into a skin-fight our first night in Blue Vee.
The Hall was beginning to empty now, for the mead was gone and the fun over. Servants disappeared behind tapestries. Warriors fetched furs and threw them beside the open hearth.
I returned to the high table and gathered up my cloak and ax. We would sleep by the fire if the men would make room for us.
I heard someone say my name, and I turned, expecting to see Trigve. I found Roth instead.
“Will you come to my room and take some Vite with me?”
I hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. “Just let me speak with my companions first.”
I scanned the Hall. Trigve was with the healer, examining Runa while Indigo looked on. Juniper stood beside the young man in the bearskin cloak—they were both petting one of the dogs. I finally spotted Ovie near the yew tree. She must have been quite drunk, for she was sitting cross-legged behind Vale, weaving several small braids into the girl’s hair.
I’d asked Ovie to braid my hair many times, but she’d never agreed. Yet here she was now with this stranger, quick fingers diving in and out of soft strands.
“Vale has that effect on people.” Roth nodded toward the pair. “She’s got a way about her. I’ve seen her tame feral dogs with just a look. Seems she’s worked her magic on your stoic friend. Your companions are making themselves at home, Frey.”
My eyes met his. “People tend to think Boneless Mercies are grim and solitary, but the reverse is generally true. We crave society and form friendships easily. It is the nature of a wanderer—settled folk can take their time and create bonds with leisure, but we meet people only in passing and have to make the most of it.”
Roth smiled. “I agree. Let’s make the most of it.”
* * *
I followed the jarl of Blue Vee behind a large tapestry of two longboats at sea. It was woven in shades of yellow and black and blue, and mythical creatures danced along the border. We moved down a dark hall, steadily but slowly. Roth’s leg injury was not recent—he’d learned how to walk fairly smoothly, without putting too much weight on his right side.
He made a quick left and opened a heavy door.
The jarl’s bedroom was modest compared with the Hall, but it was warm and comfortable. Fire blazed in twin braziers, and shields hung from each wall—some were new, and some had dents and splinters and faded paint. Fur pelts covered the bed, and its heavy, carved frame was wide enough to fit four, perhaps five, full-grown Vorse men.
Roth crossed the room and took a tall bottle from a wooden stand in the corner. He began pouring Vite into two small black drinking horns. I threw my cloak and ax onto the floor and sat down in a broad, simple chair near the braziers. A sheepskin pelt lay near my feet—I picked it up and placed it across my knees.
“So how did you get that silver hair?” Roth asked over his shoulder.
“My mother was born into a Finnish band of Relic Hunters. She fell in love with my father when her family was passing through Vorseland.”
“Have you ever been to Finnmark?”
“No, but I’d like to travel there someday and track down my kin.”
“In what region do they reside? I have distant family near the Twilight Sea.”
I shrugged. “My mother’s family name was Sand, which is a very common Finn name, and they were roamers as well. I wouldn’t know where to start looking.” I paused. “You ask a lot of questions.”
He handed me one of the drinking horns, and then sat down in the chair next to mine. “Yes. And now it’s your turn. Ask me anything you like.”
“How did you hurt your leg?” I’ve always found that some things are best approached directly.
“I climbed to the top of the giant yew as a child … and then promptly fell. We had no Mender at the time—the bone broke and didn’t heal properly.” He paused. “People used to whisper behind my back, ‘a cripple will never become jarl.’ They said the gods wouldn’t allow it. And the same people say it’s my fault the beast attacks Blue Vee, for a broken man leads a broken land.”
Roth was quoting the Bloodbringer Saga—one of the characters in the saga was a one-armed jarl named Scolt, who calls down a dragon from the high hills, and it brings destruction, fire, blood, and death.
I took a sip from the horn, and the Vite burned its way down my throat. I scrutinized Roth as I drank. He was lean with worry, almost haggard. He’d barely touched his dinner.
He would not live long like this. His jarldom was dying, and he was dying with it.
It was good that we Mercies had come.
I nodded at his right leg. “Does your injury prevent you from tracking the beast yourself?”
Roth downed his Vite in one swallow. He rose and refilled the horn. “Yes. I can’t go to the beast, and she can’t come to me. And so here we are.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. “What about—”
“An Iber horse?” He shook his head. “The first time Logafell attacked, I rode out with thirty other men on horseback. She killed all but seven of the horses and the men riding them as well. I sold the rest, which is where I got the gold for the reward.”
I was surprised. I’d assumed all jarls were wealthy beyond counting. Nothing was ever simple, it seemed.
I stood and went over to him. I poured myself more of the fire-spirit, and then eyed Roth’s cheek. “And how did you get the scar?”
“Fighting Dennish pirates. They came up the Quell Sea, hoping to find treasure in Elshland. When they realized nothing was left on those shores, they came here. We met them on the sand one cold winter day. I was j
ust a scrawny fourteen-year-old then, with a damaged leg. I demanded to come with, though I had to be carried on the back of a small Ice Horse. When I saw my father fall, I jumped down and stood over his body. I fought shoulder to shoulder with his men until every last pirate lay dead. I earned the jarldom that day, in their eyes at least.”
He paused. “Is that the last of your questions?”
I laughed softly. “Not quite. Tell me, do you invite all the Logafell glory-seekers to your room for a drink after the feast?”
“No. Not all.” He rubbed his jaw with the palm of his hand and smiled. His blue eyes flickered, and I got a glimpse of the man he’d been before the beast. Proud and brave, but also lighthearted and quick to laugh.
I’d seen many people in my travels, but Roth struck me as rare—the kind you meet only a handful of times in life.
The kind who can change you for the better.
I sat back down next to Roth by the fire, and proceeded to tell him all my tales then, from Siggy to the dead girl at the crossroads. From Gunhild’s last stand to the Sea Witches. From the Cut-Queen to the Quicks.
He was an excellent listener. Intense, but quiet. He interrupted only once, to ask detailed questions about the Cut-Queen’s resurrection. I told him everything I could remember, from the feel of her blood across the back of my hands to the glow that began in her heart and grew until it pierced the room with blinding light.
Roth stretched out his right leg when I finished and began to massage his thigh in an absentminded way. “If you are right, and this signifies the beginning of a Witch War…” He paused. “The winds are shifting in Vorseland. Can you feel it?”
“Yes. Sometimes.” I stood and fetched the Vite again. I refilled our drinking horns, and then refilled the flask in my pack as well.
I returned to my chair, and looked at Roth. “Blue Vee isn’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“A Hall of wild-eyed men shouting insults, full of scorn. I was prepared to defend myself and the Mercies. I was prepared to fight.”
Roth smiled, but it was sad this time, without the spark from before. “They might have done this, at first. But they’ve seen too many friends die to be scornful or arrogant. They no longer have the luxury of rejecting help when it comes simply because it has a different shape than they’re used to.”
I nodded, and tucked the sheepskin around my legs. “Regardless, I didn’t expect to be drinking liquor with the jarl in his room, telling stories by the fire.”
He laughed softly. “Seek the simple pleasures, Frey. Don’t ask questions.”
We both were quiet then for a while, staring into the dying red flames in the brazier.
“What is it you want from life?” Roth asked a while later.
I lifted one leg and rested my arm on my knee. “I want glory. I want to be remembered.”
“And do your companions desire this as well?”
“These thoughts drift through all women’s hearts.” It took me a moment to realize this was an echo of what the Cut-Queen had said back in her hut. I flinched.
Roth, who was watching me closely, saw it. “Perhaps you should have gone with the Quicks. You could be in the Green Wild Forest now, hunting every day, free as the water and the wind. Instead, you will die here, like all the rest. And I’m sorry for it.”
“I might not fail,” I said. “We could succeed. We stand a chance.”
“Yes, you do.” He paused. “But only fools seek greatness, Frey.”
“My mentor, Siggy, used to say the same thing. I never believed her.”
Roth just laughed.
He told me about Logafell, then. He said she was over twelve feet tall, based on the accounts of the few eyewitnesses who’d seen one of her attacks. The people said she was a Jotun—one of the giants of ancient Vorseland, spoken of in the sagas.
“I had a hundred and sixty-eight men before she came that first terrible night last spring.” Roth began to grip the arms of his chair, and his knuckles turned pale. “The first two nights, she tried to break through the gates, but they held. On the third night, she started burning. Every last man, woman, and child were dead in the village by the time we saw the flames. She picked my warriors off one by one as we charged across the Destin Lush Valley in the dark. I lost thirty that night, and the rest over the course of the summer.”
“And now you are down to sixteen.”
“Yes. And now I have just sixteen.” Roth sighed. “We are not rich here. Many of my warriors are also farmers and shepherds. Most lived in three of the larger hamlets nearby—and these were the first the beast burned to the ground. As if she knew.”
“She did know.” I swallowed another long sip of Vite and gasped as it burned the back of my throat. “The people of Blue Vee are right—this beast is a Jotun. Mother Hush said the same, that Logafell is a remnant of the giants who used to live north of the Skal Mountains, in the Wild Ice Plains.”
He nodded. “I thought as much.”
I began to undo my long braid. I shook my silver hair free around my shoulders and rubbed my scalp with my fingertips. “Tell me, how many outsiders have come here, seeking to kill the beast and collect the reward?”
“Thirty-seven. All young. All men, until you. They come. They feast. They wait for Logafell to attack. They rush after her, though I warn them it’s a trap … And they never come back.” He paused. “The village burnings are simply a distraction—a way to draw my men out of the Hall until she’s killed every last one of us.”
Roth looked down at his leg and frowned. “Four weeks ago, Flinn had a vision of the giant—he saw her skulking through the Sleet Heath, blond hair to her waist, skin slick as stone, her fists clutching bones, fingers curving into blood-caked claws. Eight red wolves ran at her heels. I sent a band of twenty-five warriors east to that barren stretch of land to find her den. They never returned. If I still had my Iber horses, I would have led them into the heart of the heath myself. Instead, I’m stuck here, drinking and feasting and watching my people die. Which, some would argue, is worse than death.”
Roth rose to refill his horn. I noticed that he swayed a bit as he walked.
How much has he had to drink? How much have I?
“What else happened when you visited the Sea Witches?” he asked when he returned to the fire. “You didn’t say much about this.”
I leaned back in the chair and laughed softly. “Mother Hush drowned me in the Quell Sea to give me a vision. Then she brought me back to life and gave me the secret to slaying the giant, in return for my promise to kill the Cut-Queen.”
Roth gave me a shrewd look and leaned forward. “The secret?”
I nodded. “Hush said she has a weak spot on the back of her neck.”
Roth pondered this for a moment. “Even if that is true, you’d have to get close enough to reach it. No easy feat.”
“No, it’s not.”
“She’s no fool, that queen of the Sea Witches.”
“No. And she’ll need that cunning for the coming Witch War.”
“Won’t we all.” He paused. “Indeed, I have a feeling that Logafell is the start of something, rather than the end. Can you really kill this beast, Frey?”
I thought of Ergill’s Saga again, of the brave farm boy who took on a dragon and won. Would I have the courage to face Logafell when the time came?
A breeze blew through a nearby window, and the fur-lined covering flapped against the frame.
Rogue winds are a sign the gods are watching.
I shivered suddenly, thorns up my spine. The flames in the brazier roared up as if in answer, and the firelight made the shadows dance.
* * *
“Frey?” Roth spoke my name sometime later, after we’d both drifted into silence again. I was nearly asleep, curled up with my sheepskin like a cat. The fire, the warmth, the feast, the mead, the Vite … I was done in.
“Yes?”
“Are you bound to the man who came with you?”
/> I hesitated. “Yes … and no. We are bound to each other as friends, but not lovers.”
“Ah. That is a deeper thing, then.”
“It is.”
I looked over at Roth. He was getting tired, too—his eyelids were heavy, and he’d relaxed into an easy slouch, his shoulders nestled into the corner of the chair.
He looked young suddenly. Too young to be so troubled.
“Roth?”
“Yes?”
“Is your mother dead, as well as your father?”
“Yes.”
“No uncles, or aunts, or grandparents?”
He shook his head.
“So you are like me and Trigve and the other Mercies. Alone.”
“Except I have Vale.”
That was true. He had his sister.
“Roth?”
“Yes?”
“What is your given name?”
“Esca.”
I smiled. “Trigve has told me of the Moon Serpent Saga. A snake-eyed boy named Esca takes his magical sword, Wrath, on a quest to save the world.”
“I used to love that tale as a child. Do you know the end?”
I shook my head.
“Obin attends Esca’s wedding feast in the far north disguised as a beggar. He steals Esca’s sword and plunges it into an ancient ash tree, a tree so old it has turned to stone. Obin then declares that whoever can pull the sword from the tree will inherit Esca’s jarldom. They say the sword is still there to this day.”
I sleepily raised my eyebrows. “Do you believe it?”
“I don’t know. I was determined to find it when I was young. I had dreams of gathering my boyhood friends together and journeying through the Green Wild Forest until we found Esca’s forgotten lands and the sword buried in the stone tree.”
I sat up and put my hand on Roth’s arm. “Is that an invitation? If so, then yes. I will accompany you on this Moon Serpent quest once I bring down Logafell. All I ask is that I get first chance at the sword.”
Roth laughed. “Done.”
I sighed deeply and then rose from my chair with reluctance. “Can I bring this sheepskin with me to the hearth in the Hall?” I’d grown rather attached to the black wool rug in the way only a wanderer could.
The Boneless Mercies Page 19
