Sisters of the Fire

by Kim Wilkins

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it would give me control of the port, but mostly because I saw with my own eye it is in disarray.’ He pointed to his remaining eye. ‘Your sister can barely hold it. It’s ripe for the taking if somebody is bold enough to take it.’

  Willow thought of the chapels across Sæcaster, all hollowed out and burning. The books of Maava scorched and disfigured. Willow felt her destiny rushing upon her. It was perfect. It was right. Ivy couldn’t go unpunished for burning the chapels. ‘Hakon,’ she said, her voice trembling with the significance of what she had to ask. ‘What miracle would prove to you that Maava is real and is in favour of your plan?’

  ‘I don’t need Maava’s permission,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I do as I please.’

  ‘Name it,’ she said. ‘Name your miracle. I will ensure you get it, if you promise to convert yourself and all of your army.’

  His smile dropped away and he tilted his head curiously. ‘You seem very sure of yourself.’

  ‘I feel the surge of destiny in my blood.’ And in her teeth and toenails.

  ‘Whether one god or another,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No man knows.’

  ‘I know.’

  His hand moved to his face, to the hole in his cheek through which she could see his gums, the yellow outline of his back teeth, and she knew – even though he was too embarrassed to say it – that this was the miracle he hoped for. To have his face restored. The lost sight in his missing eye he had learned to compensate for, could cover with a patch readily enough, but this most ugly of wounds still stung him.

  ‘I will make it so,’ she said softly.

  He looked away diffidently. ‘You are almost ready,’ he said again. ‘Keep working.’

  Willow walked back across the mud to her tent and began to pray.

  She prayed all afternoon. She prayed through supper and didn’t eat, instead cherishing the pangs of hunger as signs that she was in Maava’s good favour. She prayed as the long shadows and low light came, for night did not come this far north in summer.

  But as she fell asleep, still praying, the angels kept showing her the same image over and over again.

  The pedlar in the alehouse, selling his charms.

  After a night of good sleep and a slow start in the morning, Bluebell could readily declare herself fit for duty once more. No trace of the nausea and bloating and brain fog of the last few days remained. If Torr’s vigorous step was an indicator, he too was recovered.

  In the hard light of noon, looking at Ash was more alarming than the night before. Deep shadows circled her eyes. The apples of her cheeks had become points. But it was the expression in her eyes that Bluebell flinched from the most. Something had died inside her, something young and sunny. Bluebell had seen that expression before: a young soldier she had taken into a skirmish during the building of the stronghold at Harrow’s Fell. He had frozen in battle, watched companions die in horrific and unimaginable ways. He was too sensitive for war, and he never recovered. Last time she had seen him, he had been wandering the low streets of Blicstowe, cringing at loud laughter and pulling at threads on his clothes.

  Bluebell needed to get Ash home, to a soft bed and regular meals. If the only way to do that was to kill a dragon, then by fuck she would kill a dragon.

  Ash had kept a camp in a river valley a mile and a half from the sea. Bluebell wanted to leave the ghost horse behind – just looking at the thing made Bluebell’s skin prickle, and when she’d accidentally rubbed against it her shoulder had come away icy – but Ash needed a mount and wasn’t afraid of it. They could bring it with them for now, she decided, and together they set out.

  On the journey, Bluebell observed Ash’s posture, her actions, her continual glances at the sky. Her desire to escape from this situation was written all over her face. At any moment, Ash expected the creature to come for them. More than once, she cried and told Bluebell to go home, to leave her to her fate. Bluebell didn’t. Wary, she wouldn’t let Ash out of her sight on any of their rest stops. Bluebell had to end this quickly. One or two days more, then the weight of worry and guilt would grow too heavy and Ash would disappear again.

  They returned to the cold ashes of Ash’s fireplace while the sun was beginning its long summer descent. Bluebell dismounted and took Torr to drink, then began to unsaddle him. Ash’s mount needed no such luxuries: she climbed down and it headed towards the shadows of the woods.

  ‘Do you not fear it?’ Bluebell asked her sister.

  ‘He’s a well-tempered horse,’ Ash replied. ‘I am a thing of the shadows too. I understand him.’

  A thing of the shadows. It reminded Bluebell of the story Grimbald had told, and perhaps now was the time to ask if it was true. ‘Ash, I stopped at an inn where you and Unweder stayed… there had been an incident...’

  She immediately regretted bringing it up. Ash hunched her shoulders as though to protect herself from a blow. ‘Not me,’ she said. ‘My elementals. I am learning to control them but sometimes… What a horror that night was. I sometimes think, maybe she lived. Burned, but recovered yet. Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Bluebell lied, then found the ghost horse with her eyes, standing still and silent at the hem of the wood. ‘Will you keep him? I don’t know a stableboy in all of Thyrsland who will have him near.’

  ‘He doesn’t need a stable.’

  ‘If you keep him, you should give him a name. How about Wraith?’

  Ash shook her head. ‘If we survive, then I will name him.’

  Bluebell thought Wraith was a really good name. ‘We will survive,’ she said. ‘Let me see that spear.’

  Ash handed her the spear and Bluebell inspected it closely. The workmanship was superb.

  ‘The smith said she’d worked on the Widowsmith,’ Ash said.

  ‘Is that right? Father gave her to me so I never knew who forged her. This spear and my sword are sisters, Ash. Like us. It bodes well.’

  The pinched look around Ash’s mouth told Bluebell she was imagining the worst again.

  Bluebell reached out and stroked her ragged hair. ‘Sister, I came to find you for a reason. Are you ready to hear that reason now, or shall we wait until the dragon is dead?’

  ‘I – tell me. Tell me now.’

  ‘A randrman of Hakon’s forged a sword to kill me. He said one of my sisters has it. Which one?’

  Ash blinked twice. ‘Bluebell, you know which one.’

  ‘No, I need you to reach out with your mind and –’

  ‘Who else would it be but Willow?’

  This fact, stated so plainly by Ash, hit Bluebell hard. She realised that as long as the wielder of the sword had remained a mystery, she was able to believe her family all loved and served her. But now Ash said it, Bluebell knew that of course it was Willow. Rose was often angry at her, but had been her closest friend of childhood. Ash shared a special bond with Bluebell. Ivy was too silly and too weak to take up arms. Only Willow, with her head full of Maava’s hate, and her height and reach could be any threat to her.

  ‘But she’s a trimartyr … she wouldn’t touch heathen magic.’

  ‘Perhaps she believes it is Maava’s magic,’ Ash said. ‘All magic looks the same from the outside.’

  ‘I need to find her,’ Bluebell said.

  ‘If she has the sword and intends to use it, I expect she will find you.’

  Bluebell let that thought settle and sink inside her. The trollblade existed to kill her. Willow intended to use it. And so here she was, faced with having to kill her sister first.

  That was a thought for tomorrow. For after the dragon was dead. ‘I still have some good sisters,’ she said. ‘Sisters worth dying for. Let’s do this. Let’s kill this dragon.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘Should we not … wait a night? Until you are recovered?’

  ‘I’m recovered. What’s our plan?’

  Ash fell mute for a full minute, and Bluebell waited patiently.

 
‘There is only one way to kill this beast. A soft spot between its eyes.’ Ash drew a triangle on her own face, on her brow and the bridge of her nose. ‘Unfortunately, the front of its head is where the fire comes out.’

  ‘I have my shield.’

  ‘It will burn.’

  Bluebell shrugged. ‘Not quickly.’

  Ash continued. ‘It lives in a cave on a rocky island just off the coast. But it will come to us – it will come for me. It hates me because I tried to drown it. So we can choose a place to stand that suits us, out in the open where you can get a clear shot.’

  ‘It will come?’

  ‘I believe so. Eventually.’

  ‘Then let us go and wait for it.’

  Ash trembled, and Bluebell grasped her hand. ‘Let me put my armour on and we will go down to the shore.’

  Bluebell crouched among her possessions and pulled on her mail byrnie, her helm, and lifted her shield. Her sword, as ever, hung by her side, but if the creature was in flight, the spear was the best way to kill it. She thought about Gytha and her famed spear arm, then reminded herself that Gytha owed her fame to Bluebell’s training. Heavy with her armour, she strode down to the sea.

  Ash flitted around her, begging her not to go in one breath and offering her advice in the next. The cloak she wore rattled softly as she moved. Bluebell told her, over and over, that she had no intention of dying and to please stop worrying. And so it continued all the way through the valley and out of the trees, and down over rocks, and finally to the shore.

  The sisters stood side by side. The grey sea was swollen with the high tide. Only a thin strip of sand stood between rocks and water. The waves lapped close.

  ‘That’s the island,’ Ash said, pointing to a hump-backed rock standing out of the water, no more than a mile and a half away.

  ‘And it sees you from there?’

  Ash shook her head. ‘The entrance to its lair is on the other side, facing out to the horizon. It senses me.’

  ‘Come on, fucker,’ Bluebell shouted, bashing the handle of the spear on her shield. ‘We’re here.’

  Nothing happened. Bluebell knew she wasn’t the most patient person in the world, but it seemed a long time passed and still nothing happened. The sun drew lower, the afternoon breeze came rattling in, the tide began to pull out.

  ‘Nothing’s happening,’ Bluebell said at length.

  ‘It will come for me.’

  ‘What if you’re wrong?’

  ‘It has before. Ever since I tried to drown it.’

  Bluebell turned to Ash, whose eyes remained fixed on the island. The breeze plucked at her cloak, and it made that soft noise again.

  ‘Ash, why does your cloak make that noise?’ Bluebell asked.

  ‘The hem is full of charms.’

  ‘What kind of charms?’

  ‘Sea charms, protection charms, found for me by the same little sea-spirit that reunited us.’ Ash’s eyes widened as realisation came to her. ‘Protection charms.’

  ‘Were you wearing it last time the dragon came looking for you?’

  ‘No. Nor was I wearing it the day it nearly roasted me alive between rocks.’ Ash began to untie the clasp that held the cloak on.

  Bluebell stopped her. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Taking it off.’

  Bluebell held her by the shoulders. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have a better idea.’

  Maava, give me the strength to do what I must in your name.

  Willow crept from her own tent. A huddle of raiders sat around the fire, talking in soft voices. She had to walk right past them to get to Hakon.

  Light of foot, chin raised high.

  They said something to her. Ragnar, Hakon’s second-in-command, laughed. She ignored them, kept moving towards Hakon’s tent. As she lifted the flap and peered in, she heard more laughter. She knew what they were joking about.

  Hakon was asleep on his side, wearing only a pair of trousers. He slept on a bearskin, with a wool blanket kicked off beside him. Willow had two shirts on and was still cold. These raiders had skin like seals.

  His head rested on a rolled-up blanket, his wounded cheek pressed against it. She could see a dark patch of drool. In her palm, she could feel the weight of the charm she had bought.

  ‘I knew you’d be back,’ the pedlar had said.

  Willow hadn’t made conversation with him. She had merely stated what she needed and given him a gold coin. She could not wait to be rid of the charm. It looked just like a shiny stone, unless she peered very close, then she could see the soft swirling mist inside it. She kneeled next to Hakon.

  His eye opened. He asked her a question in his own language. She presumed it was something like, ‘What are you doing here?’ She had never come to his tent before.

  ‘I have come to pray,’ she said quickly, so he didn’t think she was offering her body to him.

  ‘I don’t want to be prayed over.’

  ‘I will be silent.’

  Hakon rolled onto his other side, pulled up his blanket. Willow began to pray in her head, long rambling prayers to Maava for forgiveness, for help, for reassurance that she was doing the right thing. All for His name. All that He might be the king of Is-hjarta and then all of Thyrsland after. Of course she was doing the right thing. The angels had sent her to the pedlar. They had all but screamed at her to go, they had rejoiced and sung the whole way across the causeway.

  When she was certain Hakon had gone back to sleep, she quickly and silently slid the charm under his pillow. Softly, she muttered the words the pedlar had told her, ‘You are healed.’ Then she sat down and grasped her knees and kept praying, long into the night.

  Twenty-two

  Willow awoke, disoriented. She could hear heavy snoring, and realised she had fallen asleep next to Hakon. She blinked sleep out of her eyes and turned to look at him. The hideous wound was still there. She slid her hand under his pillow. The charm was gone.

  Disappointment’s sharp edge pressed her heart. She ought to have known that rough magic wouldn’t work, not in Maava’s name. She had brought her god low by trying the stupid trick. She got to her feet and left silently. The raiders on watch snickered at her again as she walked past, heading to the lake to splash her face and drink some water.

  She sat by the lake a long time as the sun rose and the camp woke up. At length, Hakon came, grunted a greeting at her and then kneeled next to the lake’s edge to drink.

  He froze, his hand halfway to the water, looking at his reflection. He turned his face this way and that, and his body flexed so that she could see the muscles between his ribs bulge.

  He turned his face to her, eyes round. And then he smiled, the death’s head grimace that made him so fearsome to all. ‘I am healed,’ he said.

  Willow scrambled to understand. He was most decidely not healed.

  He turned back to his reflection, ran his thumb over the wound and even though he must have felt the gum and the teeth through the tear, he laughed wildly. ‘Look at me. My face is whole again!’ He leapt to his feet and grabbed her, pulling her against his sweat-stinking body to garble something in his own language.

  Now she understood. The charm had made Hakon think he was healed, even though he was not. But this wouldn’t work. Everybody could see with their own eyes that his face was still a mutilated mess. He stood back and dragged her by the hand towards the encampment. What happened next was a blur, and Willow understood none of what was said.

  There was shouting, mostly Hakon. He tore the triangle from around Willow’s neck and held it up and she heard him say ‘Maava’ several times and turned his cheek for the gathered army to see.

  Ragnar fixed Willow with a frosty gaze as Hakon raised her floppy hand with his hard fingers. The men looked at each other, then to Hakon. One by one they started to kneel and, clear as a bird’s call, she heard them say Maava’s name. It rippled over the crowd and Hakon gave her a broad grin and shook her arm again.

  Then one young soldier called out,
to say that Hakon looked as he ever had, Willow presumed.

  Hakon dropped Willow’s arm. Handed her back the triangle. He marched directly to the young man and snatched his axe from his hand. With a swift, brutal blow, he buried the axe in the young man’s head. Willow heard the crack, saw the splatter, then closed her eyes and prayed and prayed.

  When she opened her eyes again, they were all on their knees. Hakon took her fingers once again in his bloody hand and said, ‘Here is your trimartyr army.’

  And even though a small, thin voice at the back of her mind told her it couldn’t last, it wasn’t real, the charm would wear off and Hakon would eventually see sense, that all were reluctant if not hostile, she silenced that voice and swelled with pride and godly fervour. Because hundreds of rough men now knelt before her, with Maava’s name on their lips.

  Hakon came to Willow’s tent late that afternoon. She had found a rocky part of the ground to kneel on so that her prayers were more than usually painful, and she dedicated herself heart and mind to her Lord. She felt unaccountably guilty and fearful, despite the morning’s triumph. The conclusion proved the method was just. No angels had told her differently. Perhaps she had been hoping for more of a sign from Maava. Perhaps it was just her own innate wisdom telling her that Hakon’s army could never truly trust her.

  She looked up from her prayers to see Hakon smiling down on her. He sat, crossing his long legs so that his knees seemed to sit up around his ears. ‘You need to come to training,’ he said.

  ‘I was praying,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t kill somebody with prayers.’ He smoothed his hand over his face again, his fingers not noticing that he had pulled down the corner of the tear. It popped back into place with a wet sound that he didn’t hear. The charm had him utterly convinced. Her guts clenched, thinking about how evil heathen magic was.

  ‘I need you to use steel,’ he continued. ‘You and I have to go north to Marvik. To my brother.’

  ‘Marvik? I thought we were returning to Sæcaster.’