Halfdan narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “The latter, I suppose.”
“Then help me put my sister somewhere safe.” Freya reached back and took hold of Arfast’s shaggy coat. “And then you can take us to your queen and be done with us, and go back to guarding your precious wall.”
Halfdan paused, then grinned and called over his shoulder, “Bar the door! Back to your posts, all but Aenar and Tryggvi. We’re letting them in.”
The other guards sealed the iron door and returned to their posts on the dark wall, and most of them grumbled a few curses on their way. Halfdan took the lead and his two friends took the rear and together they all entered the city of Rekavik. The area just inside the wall looked very much like Hengavik, with the same half-buried homes and turf roofs, though here every chimney was smoking and firelight flickered around the doorway curtains, and voices echoed in every house, talking, laughing, and shouting.
A few old men sat smoking their little bone pipes in the lane, a few young women stood gossiping in the shadows, and a few small children still ran through the roads, shouting and fighting and laughing as their mothers called them in to supper. The smells of baked fish and fried fish and seared fish crept from every home and mingled in the streets, telling tales of the meals about to be eaten. Freya licked her lips and teeth, tasting the salt and oil in the air.
As the road sloped down closer to the sea, the houses stood up taller and taller, until they were no longer buried in the earth at all but free-standing and mortared with all manners of clay and mud, with whale bones and walrus tusks arching over them, wrapped in oiled leather to create bulbous roofs that looked like living beasts beached on the stone houses, their innards glowing with firelight and rippling with the shadows of those who dwelled within.
Ahead Freya saw the castle squatting in the center of the peninsula, two levels high and ringed with a high wall. The highest point of the whole building was the tower in its center, but it looked to only be one or two levels higher than the rest of the structure. A dozen trails of smoke were draining upwards from the castle on all sides, but the voices were lower in this neighborhood. There were no men smoking or children playing here.
Halfdan trudged down to the castle gate and walked straight through the narrow iron door in the castle wall, leading the way into the small courtyard where several more men with swords stood beside an open peat fire. Halfdan waved to them, and they waved back, and the bearded guardsman turned left along the inner wall.
“Here.” He pointed at a dark corner against the outer wall of the castle.
Freya saw another iron door, one older and rusted at the bottom of a short stone stair dug into the earth. She trotted down and opened the door, and saw a dank windowless cell barely large enough for two people to stand side by side. A pair of manacles hung from a chain on the back wall. Freya closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.
It’s only for a day or so. That’s all.
“Erik? Can you bring her down, please?”
A moment later her husband came down into the darkness beside her and laid Katja gently on the floor. There was no room for three bodies, so he went back up the steps while Freya gently closed and locked the manacles around her sister’s wrists and then tried to arrange her sleeping body more comfortably on the cold stone floor.
She brushed the hair back from Katja’s face and saw the plague warring with her sister’s flesh, wrinkling her skin and thrusting out the coarse red fur, deforming her nose into a canine snout, blackening her lips, and sharpening her teeth. Katja’s breathing was quick and shallow. Freya leaned back and looked away to wipe her eyes. And then Katja growled.
The fox-woman lurched up and wrapped her long hairy arms around Freya’s waist, shoving her down to the floor and nearly smashing her skull against the wall. Freya looked down once at the huge golden eyes in the feral head, and then she drove her elbow into the black nose, and another elbow to the eye, and another elbow to the ear, and each time Katja would snarl or whine, her eyes impossibly wide, her long black tongue flopping around her mouth, her long white fangs lunging and snapping at Freya’s bare throat.
The huntress wrapped her arms around Katja’s head, pinning that beastly mouth shut against her own chest, and she rolled violently to her right. The twisting motion pulled the chains taut and Katja yelped and let go. Freya leapt to her feet and jumped for the door over her sister’s sprawled body, but a long crooked claw snatched her leg in midair and yanked her down again.
Freya fell flat on her face with the doorway right in front of her nose. Her chest and legs were ablaze with pain, and her brain was boiling with adrenaline and naked fear. She kicked and kicked as hard as she could, smashing her heels down on anything she could strike, and she felt the hard impacts to her sister’s head jarring both of their bodies to the bone.
Katja let go again with a horrible high-pitched yelp and squeal, and Freya lunged up out of the cell and onto the stairs. She turned to grab the door handle and saw her sister’s monstrous face flying toward her out of the darkness.
Freya froze.
The chains clanged taut and the creature stumbled back into the shadows, and Freya slammed the door. She sat there on the ground a moment, the cold air shooting in and out of her sore lungs, stinging her throat. Her blood pounded in her bruised hands and chest, and tiny white spots fluttered across her vision.
She could feel Erik and the others standing over her. They might have been talking, but she couldn’t focus on them, couldn’t worry about them. She could only stare at the iron door. But after a moment, she stood up and climbed the steps, avoiding Erik’s gaze and Wren’s stare as she turned to the bearded guardsman.
“It’s done,” she said, wiping her hands on her trousers. “Now take me to Skadi.”
Halfdan led them inside past the guards into a small dirty room where dozens of heavy fur coats hung on the walls, and then into a long, smoky dining hall where countless bone stools stood or laid against the walls in small piles and three long fire pits glowed full of embers. A handful of old men sat around the last fire, huddled under their blankets, chewing on roasted seal ribs. They were wrinkled and gray men, hunched and dim-eyed, but the bare swords on their belts were bright enough and sharp enough.
At the end of the hall was a curtained doorway where Halfdan paused to say, “Wait here.” As soon as he spoke, two of the old men stood up from their seats and rested their hands on their swords. They still looked wrinkled and gray, but they stood as straight as their blades and the thick veins on their hands hinted at their strength.
“Wait for what?” Freya kept her eyes on the two older men.
“For me!” Halfdan shook his head as he pushed back the curtain. “I have to tell the queen that you’re here.”
“Can’t we just tell her ourselves?” Wren asked. “It might save time.”
Halfdan stared at her a moment. “No.” And he left.
Freya, Erik, and Wren exchanged confused looks to confirm that they all found the procedure ridiculous, and then settled into gazing dully at the two men-at-arms standing by the fire. The other men went on eating as though nothing at all had happened.
The iron door beyond the cloak room clanged and a sharp pair of boots clacked on the stone floor behind them. “What idiot brought that damn animal into the city?” The voice was high for a male, and a moment later a very young man strode into the dining hall.
Freya guessed he was just a bit older than Wren, maybe twenty winters at most, and he wore his youth proudly. His beardless cheeks were pale, his long black hair shone in the torch light, and his sealskin trousers clung to his slender legs. His short leather jacket had been dyed black and his cotton shirt was bleached bone white. His left hand rested on the silver pommel of the sword on his hip, and his knee-high boots shone with oil as he strode across the hall.
He jabbed a finger at the old guards and his voice rose with every word until he was shouting with flecks of spittle on his lips. “How hard is it to understa
nd? You don’t let reavers into the city, you don’t let them past the walls, and you don’t put them in a cell inside the damn castle!”
Freya stepped in front of him with both hands on her knives. “That reaver is my sister.”
The youth stopped and bared his teeth in the most vicious smile she had ever seen. “Then you don’t have a sister anymore, do you?”
What? Did he kill her?
She drew both knives at once, shoving one at his throat and the other at his belly. But the youth’s long-fingered hands were faster, whipping his sword from its sheathe. He smashed her hands aside with the silver pommel and shoved the edge of blade at her neck. Freya’s eyes went wide as she saw the bright gleam of the steel vanish under her chin.
Steel clanged in her right ear, and then scraped harshly beside her head. She turned and saw Erik holding his new steel knife just above her shoulder, blocking the youth’s sword. Her husband grabbed the collar of her coat and yanked her back as he stepped forward, still holding his small knife against the long sword.
Freya glanced once at the older guards, but the two men on their feet looked bored and the four men sitting at the fire were merely watching over their shoulders as they ate.
“I don’t know your face,” the youth said. “Who the hell are you?”
Erik began to sign with his left hand.
“He’s my husband,” Freya said.
Halfdan burst through the leather curtain behind them. “Leif! Put that blade away before I use it to show you your own bowels!”
The youth called Leif shoved Erik’s knife aside and slipped his sword away. “Does the queen know about this?”
“She does now,” Halfdan said. “She wants to see them. Should I tell her that you kept her waiting?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Leif said so softly it was almost a whisper. “Let’s all go see Her Highness together.”
Chapter 8. Queen
Halfdan held back the curtain and Leif strode through first. Freya exchanged a quick nod with Erik and they followed the youth into the next room with Wren and Halfdan close behind them. They emerged from the curtains into an audience chamber half the size of the dining hall behind them. Heavy iron bars filled the windows like rusting teeth, and the cold night air swirled in with the smells of the sea. Two huge iron braziers glowed full of red coals against the walls, forcing everyone who entered to stand between the fiery blasts when they approached the throne. And as much as she knew that she should be looking at the woman on that throne, Freya couldn’t help staring at the chair itself.
It was made of wood. The legs, the seat, the arms, the back, and each little carved bird and flower and crest and bear was pure, veined, grainy, stained wood. It was brown and red and black, polished and gleaming like bright steel and yet warm and vital like Katja’s eyes.
Katja. I kicked her. I kicked her in the face.
Freya blinked and focused on the queen. She was a middle-aged woman, her dark red hair streaked with soft grays. Her eyes were lined with age and worry, and painted black. Her lips were thin and tense, and painted red. Her hands clasped the arms of her throne, displaying her black-painted nails and silver rings studded with blood-red rubies.
The rest of her body was buried in ermine, a river of white and gray fur pouring down from her shoulders to her feet, except for a sliver of milky flesh running from her smooth throat down between the hidden swells of her breasts.
Freya stood between the braziers and felt the heat rolling up the sides of her body. She bowed her head slightly. “Lady Skadi, I’m Freya Nordasdottir, a huntress from Logarven.”
“Yes,” the queen said. “Halfdan says you’ve brought your plague-bitten sister to me.”
“We did. We took her to Gudrun in Denveller first, but she couldn’t help us.” Freya glanced back at Wren. “And she died. But before she went, she told us that Skadi of Hengavik might be able to cure my sister. So here we are.”
“You went to Hengavik?” The queen nodded. “Or what’s left of it?”
“We did. There was no one there but the dead. And the bones of the giant.”
Skadi smiled a little, and then a little more. “The bones of the giant?” She shook her head. “I watched that giant fall from the sky, its flesh all afire, a trail of smoke slashed across the heavens. When it struck the ground, I thought the world itself would shatter and swallow the entire city.”
Freya nodded. “I’m sure I will enjoy hearing that tale some other time, but right now my sister is a rabid beast in a black cell underground, and she needs your help.”
“My help? You want me to cure her?” Skadi curled her fingers into fists. “Don’t you think that if I had the power to cure the plague, I would have done it by now? Do you think I would have that hideous wall casting its shadow on my city?”
Freya felt the icy resolve in her heart begin to melt, dripping down her spine with fear and doubt. “I’ve brought Wren, Gudrun’s apprentice. She has the knowledge of every vala of Denveller, to help you.”
Skadi glanced at the girl in black. “Ah, so you were her last apprentice? You have my sympathy. I had the good sense to leave when I could. I suppose you had the good fortune that Gudrun died before she destroyed too much of your life.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Wren said. “Except at the end.”
The queen nodded, and then frowned. “Logarven? Wasn’t there a vala out there as well?”
“There was,” Freya said. “She’s in your cell at this moment.”
Skadi’s brows rose in understanding. “It would seem our sisterhood has entered a rapid decline of late. And the reavers have gone as far east as Logarven. I suppose it would be asking too much to expect some good news these days.” She rubbed her forehead.
“My lady, do you know where the reavers came from?” Freya asked.
“Has Fenrir really returned?” Wren asked.
Skadi looked up and said, “Yes, I do know, and as to your question, little sister, the answer is yes. Fenrir lives.” The queen called for a drink and the tall girl with the long brown hair at her side poured her goblet of dark wine. “My apprentice, Thora,” the queen said as she took the cup and drank. The tall girl nodded to them curtly. She had sad, serious eyes that took no particular interest in the newcomers.
Skadi handed back the empty cup and said, “It was eight years ago when the skyship fell on Hengavik.”
“A ship?” Freya stared at her. “That thing was a ship, and it was built by people who sail the skies? We never heard anything about this in Logarven.”
The queen frowned. “Yes, I know. It was my order that no one speak of the ship outside of Hengavik. I didn’t want to create a panic with rumors of frost giants and dead gods falling from the heavens. I also didn’t want to risk scavengers and treasure hunters coming to loot the ship or to kidnap the two survivors. But I also knew that the Jarl of Hengavik didn’t have the wits or the strength to protect the ship for long, so I came here to Rekavik, to King Ivar, with a proposition. His vala was old, maybe even older than Gudrun, and a fool to boot. So I became his personal advisor and he brought the skyship survivors and many pieces of the ship itself here to Rekavik where he and I could study them. “
“What sort of people were they? The survivors, I mean,” Freya said. “Were they from Alba?”
Skadi shook her head dismissively. “No, they were from a land called Marrakesh, so far to the south in a place so hot that it never snows, even in winter. They had brown skin and black hair, and wore strange clothes, and spoke many strange languages, but the man spoke Yslander well enough. So when they recovered from their injuries, we began to learn from them. About their homeland and about their ship. At first, King Ivar wanted to build a skyship of his own, to sail to the far south and see this Marrakesh for himself. He dreamed of a fleet of Yslander ships sailing the skies so that we might explore and trade and make war as we did in the old days. But we didn’t have the tools or materials to build even one skyship. The southern woman explained ho
w her country was full of great mines, and giant smithies called factories, and giant laboring beasts, and devices that not even I could imagine. All of these things are needed to build a skyship, and we have none of them.”
Freya nodded, hoping the queen would hurry along to the heart of her story so the huntress could escape the heat of the braziers. “I see. But, the plague?”
“Patience. I’m coming to that. Eventually, I suggested a different use for these foreigners and their machines. The engine that drove them across the sky is a machine that spins, like a mill, so I reasoned that we could use the engine as a drill to tunnel down into the earth.”
Gods! Gudrun was right. Skadi did want to dig up the ancient demons!
Freya asked innocently, “To find iron and silver?”
“Oh no, I had far greater ambitious than mere ore,” Skadi said. “We would drill into the base of Mount Esja to release the molten rock into the bay and the southern fields. The heat would drive back more of the ice, and the new land would give us more homes beside the water, and the fertile soil would strengthen our crops. With one stroke, we would make Rekavik into a thriving paradise, the greatest city in the world. I even secretly dreamed we might one day grow trees again here in Ysland. The king agreed to the plan, and the foreigners agreed to help us. So for two years, our smiths worked to create the pieces of the new engine, Ivar’s Drill. When it was built on the slopes of Mount Esja, it stood taller than Gudrun’s tower. And in the months that followed we drilled deeper and deeper into the mountain.”
“The den of the wolf,” Wren whispered. “When the Allfather defeated Fenrir, the beast was sealed in a prison that had no door, deep in the earth. But no one knows where the den of the wolf is.”
“Yes, well, we know where it is now.” Skadi ran one white hand down the fur trim of her robe from her neck to her chest. “After months of drilling, the foreman sent word that he had found rock walls so hot they glowed red. We thought the drill was about to tap the river of molten rock so Ivar and I went to oversee the work that day. We had grown quite close over those years, and we married just before the drilling began.”
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