Ransacker

by Emmy Laybourne

“I bring good news, Sister,” said Björn. He sat on a large steamer trunk that occupied a good deal of space on the other side of the carriage. “We are truly family now. For your sister, Sissel, has married the Baron. And you are to be set free.”

  Hanne tried to speak, but the gag prevented it. She wanted to call him a liar, to spit in his face.

  “It’s true. Pastor Jensen has married them. You are safe, so don’t fight us!”

  Harald sat behind her on the fine leather seat of the carriage. He jerked and pulled at the buckles on her jacket. Then Björn took hold of the front of the straitjacket and began to peel it off her. As soon as she regained the use of her arms, she writhed and scrambled to shuck the terrible garment. She reached up and tore off the gag from her mouth.

  “You lie!” Hanne spat. “I don’t believe you!”

  “Come,” Björn said. “You’ll see. You’re safe, and we are leaving.”

  He opened the door to the carriage, and the sunlight blinded her.

  It was hard to walk; her legs had cramped up during the long wait. But she stumbled to the door and was helped down by one of the twins.

  “Back off, men. Give her space,” the Baron said.

  There was Sissel. Hanne rushed forward into her arms. Sissel looked frightened and so small, surrounded by all the men.

  “Are you all right?” Hanne said.

  “What did they do to you?” Sissel cried. She was touching Hanne’s face. Hanne knew there must be an impression from the gag left on her cheeks. “Did they hurt you?”

  “Say it’s not true,” Hanne said. “You’ve not traded your life for mine.”

  “Not her life, Sister,” the Baron said. “She has made me a very happy and proud man by marrying me.”

  “Never,” Hanne said.

  “Yes,” the Baron said. “Pastor Jensen has done the honors.”

  Sissel spoke, just barely audible. “They have three Gatling guns, Hanne. We were surrounded. It was the only way.”

  Hanne looked from Sissel to the Baron, who was smiling proudly, to the faces of the Nytteson around him.

  “No,” Hanne said. “No!”

  She reached for the Baron, to throttle him, but she was lifted off her feet by a gust of wind. The twin, the Storm-Rend, was using his Nytte on her. The wind whisked at her clothes. She spun in the whirlwind head over heels and was lofted in the air, thrown back toward the house. Her bun came undone and her long hair whipped everywhere.

  As she approached the house, the wind became more gentle and she was deposited on the porch, almost tenderly. Her long blond tresses fell gently to her shoulders.

  “Hanne! What happened?” Stieg cried. He was on the porch, as was Owen. Owen knelt and swept her into his arms.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  Hanne brushed her hands down over her skirt, smoothing it.

  “Get ready to fight,” she said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  “Set her down!” Sissel screamed.

  One twin was laughing as the other blew Hanne across the sky. He had his lips pursed and was blowing out little puffs. His eyes were locked on Hanne.

  “Set her down gently, Johan,” Björn said. It was hard to make out the house clearly from where they stood, but it seemed to Sissel that Johan had, indeed, put Hanne down lightly.

  “Come,” Fjelstad said. “We’ll go, and the Pinkertons will follow.”

  “You won’t hurt my family?” Sissel pleaded.

  She had felt powerful, but that was gone. Now they were all at the Baron’s mercy.

  “Baron, look!” one of them said.

  There were streams of something rising from the ground around the house. Whipping tendrils of dust and dirt, Sissel realized. The rising dust began to diffuse into the air, then to whirl around the house, cloaking it in shifting sheets.

  “It’s Stieg,” Johan said. “He’s doing that!

  “Prepare for attack!” Fjelstad shouted. He grabbed Sissel and forced her toward the carriage.

  “Don’t hurt them!” she screamed. “You promised!”

  “Get her in the carriage,” Fjelstad commanded, pushing her into the arms of Harald, the Oar-Breaker.

  “In the trunk, sir?” he asked.

  Sissel looked to the Baron.

  “It’s for your safety, my dear,” he said, and planted a kiss on her forehead.

  Harald lifted Sissel and slung her over his shoulder.

  “Put her in the trunk? What do you mean?” she heard Björn protest.

  Gunfire rang out. Three shots in rapid succession.

  “Don’t let them use the Gatling guns!” Sissel screamed.

  Sissel opened her mind to her Nytte as Harald carried her into the carriage.

  What could she use to save her family?

  It was so dark inside Sissel couldn’t see, but she kept reaching out with her senses. The Gatling guns, three of them, made her sick to touch them. What else was there to use?

  * * *

  AS SOON AS the dust was flying, Hanne crept forward toward the nearest Gatling gun.

  Owen, Lucy, and Knut were positioned through the house with shotguns and plenty of ammunition. Stieg was sitting in the side parlor, fully concentrating on holding his whirling dust storm around the house.

  Hanne tried to keep low, thankful that her dun-colored skirts were a similar color to the dirt in the air. Her Nytte had not fully taken hold of her yet, but she knew that as soon as the first bullet fired, it would consume her.

  “Gods to me, Gods to me,” she repeated in her head. “For Rolf, for Sissel, for Stieg, for Knut, for Owen, for Daisy, for me.”

  “I can’t see anything,” she heard a man say.

  “It’s in my mouth,” another said, cussing.

  “Hold your fire,” came the command from farther away.

  “But something’s moving,” yelled a man quite close by. “There’s someone out there!”

  Then the first bullet fired and the Nytte fully possessed her.

  It was not the clean white presence of the Gods she had felt before. There was too much anger in her, perhaps. This was the bloodlust-filled Berserker, and Hanne welcomed her.

  She could feel the two men at the gun. They were ten paces to her left, and their hearts were beating like rabbits’.

  Hanne got low to the ground and moved in fast.

  “Look!” one of them said. She had the heel of her palm up his nose before he could say another word. He fell as she turned to the other. She took hold of his head and smashed it into the crank of the terrible gun. The handle gauged a hole in his skull. She pulled his head off the crank and the dead man’s body slid to the ground.

  A call came to open fire. From the back of the house, she heard rapid gunfire from the second of these monstrous machines. Then at the front of the house, from the third, but before she could deal with the other guns, she had to disable this one.

  Hanne put her hands on the long, round cylinder of the giant gun and tried to pry it off. It was attached too strongly to the cart. All she could do was rotate the head in the setting, the way it was meant to be moved.

  She let out a growl of frustration.

  “Open fire!” a voice said, coming closer. “Henry! Jake! Fire it up!”

  She tore the chain of bullets away from the head of the gun. That much she could do. There was a whole crate of the bullets linked together this way. Hanne lifted the crate.

  “Goddamn it! Open fire,” the man shouted. He came out of the swirling dust storm looking irritated.

  Hanne lifted the crate of bullets and threw it down on him.

  He fell, bleeding heavily from a gash on his head. She leaped onto him to finish him, but he was already dead. Then a hand grabbed Hanne’s shoulder and spun her around.

  It was the minister.

  “Hello, pretty,” he said. He drove his fist into her face.

  * * *

  INSIDE THE CARRIAGE, Harald kept Sissel pinned to his chest with one arm while he opened a large ste
amer trunk. A vibration blasted out at her from the trunk like light from a lighthouse.

  Lead was shrill and toxic. Sissel clasped her hands over her ears. It was flowing into her head and poisoning her.

  “I’m sorry, Sister,” Harald said. “But you’ll be safe in here.”

  The trunk was upholstered, lavishly, in velvet, but lined, underneath, in lead.

  He deposited her into it.

  “Don’t!” she cried. “Please!”

  She brought her arms up to stop the lid, but he batted them away and closed it.

  * * *

  HANNE REELED BACK from the minister’s punch. She’d never been hit so hard before. No one had ever been fast enough to touch her before.

  She leaped at him, and he met her in the air. He pulled her to him, trying to choke her. She got her knee up between them and used it to push him away. As he fell, she lashed out and scratched him down the face.

  “Only a girl would do that,” the minister growled. He dived forward, hooking his arm around her neck, dragging her to the ground. He was on top of her for one moment; then Hanne head-butted him.

  He fell off to the side. Hanne tried to chop him in the throat, but he was already rolling out of reach.

  “You’re fast,” he said. “But there’s lots I could teach you.”

  Hanne kept low to the ground, looking for a weapon.

  Bullets pounded the stone foundation of the house from the back and the side. She needed to see to those guns, not fight this old man.

  He swung, and she ducked the punch. There, she sighted a shotgun one of the dead Pinkertons had dropped. She backed toward it.

  “No, you don’t,” the minister said. He jumped forward, and Hanne reached behind her to grab it when a terrible pain tore through her consciousness. Stieg! He’d been shot.

  The minister struck her across the temple with his fist. The blow spun her body around. Hanne fell to her knees. She dived for the rifle, but he snatched the gun away.

  She had to go. She could feel the agony her brother was in. She had to help him.

  Hanne got to her feet and tried to run.

  The minister grabbed her by the skirt and threw her to the ground.

  She tried to mule-kick him, but he caught her leg, and there was a sickening crack! that reverberated through Hanne’s body. She scrambled, but she couldn’t get to her feet.

  The leg wouldn’t hold her weight.

  She crawled in the dirt toward Stieg. The dirt settled around her like snow. Her brother had let the dust storm fall.

  “The first lesson you have to learn,” the minister said to her, bending close to her ear, “is not to love.”

  * * *

  SISSEL SNAPPED HER mind shut to her Nytte. She reeled from the lead, swallowing bile.

  Sissel got her feet up against the lid and pushed with all her might. It didn’t budge.

  There was light coming into the trunk, a small amount of it. Sissel saw there were some airholes drilled into the trunk and covered with thin slats.

  She pressed her ear to one of the holes and heard the sound of the Gatling guns firing.

  She closed her eyes and tried to think. The Baron had made this trunk for her in Norway, she realized.

  He had always meant to take her home, willing or not.

  This was the kind of a man he was.

  She pounded her hands against the lid and screamed.

  * * *

  HANNE TRIED TO CRAWL, but each time she raised her chest off the ground, the minister stepped on her, pushing her back into the dirt. Her leg dragged behind her.

  “The first female Berserker in a hundred years,” he said, leaning close and speaking loud so she could hear. “And I beat you without breaking a sweat. Though you did draw blood, I’ll give you that.”

  Hanne turned and looked at him over her shoulder. His dark robes were covered in dirt, and his face bled where she had scratched him.

  New pain came coursing through her—Owen. Her beloved. His shoulder.

  Owen was bleeding, falling down, sliding onto the floor.

  The minister grabbed Hanne by the hair and yanked her head back. He put his foot under her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. The pain from her leg made the world go dark for a moment.

  “Are you broken enough?” the minister said. “Can I take you to the Baron? Or do I have to kill you like I did your old friend Rolf Tjossem?”

  * * *

  SISSEL BRACED HER feet against the lid and heaved again, pushing with all her might, screaming and shouting.

  “Odin!” she called in desperation. “Help me! Freya!”

  Sissel pressed her hands to her eyes. She remembered what Hanne had said about Wolf Creek—opening her heart to the Gods. Surrendering to them. The divine possession.

  “I am lost,” she said. “I surrender. I surrender, you sick bastards!” Her voice was hoarse and scared.

  The gunfire droned on outside, a steady terror.

  Sissel lay back, hopeless, and opened her Nytte. This time to die.

  Let the Baron come and open his trunk and find her dead inside it.

  The lead washed over her, blinding her, filling her eyes and ears and mouth, encasing her, embalming her. She felt her pulse slow; her heart fought to throb against the deadening lead.

  “Heill, Æsir, help me, Gods,” she whispered, and she let go.

  Booming into her came a source of light.

  Sissel was flooded with power.

  She gazed in amazement at her hands. They glowed, as if light ran in her veins.

  She placed them lightly on the lid of the trunk, thought of freedom, and the trunk exploded outward.

  Sissel thought of standing and found her body being drawn through the air. She watched the pieces of the trunk moving in slow motion as she passed them.

  She pushed open the door of the carriage. It flew away from her hand.

  The Baron stood just steps away with a few of his men. The Pinkertons, she saw, were attacking the house.

  She could hear nothing, but Sissel felt bullets streaming toward the house, from one gun in the front of the house, and one gun on the side. The bullets were cased in brass, and she found it easy to locate each one midflight. It made her smile.

  First she reached to the gun on the side and located the stream of bullets. She pushed, hard, and the bullets became jammed into the barrels. The gun exploded.

  Men died, and a tremendous, rich grief possessed her for a fraction of a second and then was gone. The lives of men were precious beyond measure—and yet so easily spent. The Gods communicated this truth to her. They were with her. Were her. Had always been.

  The Baron turned and saw her standing at the door of the carriage. He held his hand up to shield himself from the light radiating from her.

  He shouted to his men, but she could not hear.

  Sissel looked at him, her head cocked to the side. She could see what he was made of—he was made of layers, which were transparent and the Gods helped her read them all at once. His musculature and his veins and organs, but also his desires, his emotions, the anatomy of his soul.

  He was a desperate man, filled with envy.

  His men were coming at her. She wanted to look at them. To see what kind of men they were, but before she dealt with them, she needed to stop the rest of the bullets, and the men attacking her family.

  She reached for the bullets streaming from the remaining Gatling gun and redirected them, sending them to targets. She shot out one knee of each Pinkerton. The bullets went just where she placed them. Dead center of the kneecap. The Pinkertons fell, one by one.

  The men fell in agony and the gun stopped firing.

  Sissel saw, close to the house, that the black-robed minister was standing over her sister. He had hurt her badly. He held a shotgun in his hand and was turning, now, to look and see why the last gun had stopped firing.

  Using her Nytte, Sissel plucked the rifle from his hands and brained him with the wooden stock. He fell. Again, sh
e felt the pulse of grief for his life, then she was at peace.

  She turned back to the Nytteson converging on her. They were squinting at her, trying to shield their eyes from her light.

  “My brothers,” she said. “Do not fight me.”

  She reached for the brass and steel of their buttons and zippers and belt buckles and hoisted them into the air. She left them up there, suspended.

  The Baron fell to his knees in supplication.

  “Please,” he said. “I only ever wanted … I only ever wanted to give glory to the Gods.”

  A raven landed on Sissel’s shoulder.

  She looked it in the eye, and then they both turned their heads to the Baron at the same time.

  “The Gods say this raven brings their justice,” Sissel told the Baron.

  The raven tucked its wings and flew at the Baron, transforming into an arrowhead of black obsidian. It buried itself in his heart and flew out the other side of him.

  The Baron collapsed backward, mouth round, empty eyes staring up at the sky.

  Sissel set her Nytteson brethren back down to the ground gently, and released them.

  * * *

  THE SHOOTING HAD stopped and the minister had fallen, felled with a great crack to the head. Hanne hadn’t seen and didn’t care how he had died. She crawled to the house. Toward her family.

  With every move, her Nytte ebbed away until she was herself again. Pain swept up on her in waves as her powers retreated.

  “Stieg,” she called. “Owen!” Her voice was a rasp.

  Knut burst out of the house.

  “Hanne!” he cried. He ran forward and lifted her. She nearly fainted with the searing agony of her leg.

  The parlor was shot to pieces. Splintered furniture and shattered glass were everywhere. Owen sat against the door to the back hallway. He had a kitchen towel pressed against his shoulder.

  “Owen,” she said.

  “I’m all right,” he said. “Go to your brother.” He pointed with his good hand.

  Knut brought her through the parlor to the sitting room beyond. Stieg was propped in the corner, bleeding from the neck. Lucy had a piece of fabric of some kind pressed on his wound, but the blood was seeping out. There was blood on her hands and all over Stieg’s clothing and the floor.