“Don’t move,” he said. “Or I’ll tie you to the hull.”
“Nowhere to go, anyway,” the fisherman growled from behind me. “We’re coming up on the Narrows. Even if you’re a swimmer, you’d drown quick enough here.”
The boat lurched beneath us, and the soldier hurried to the bow, the lantern in his hand casting wild shadows across the dark waves surrounding us. A moment later, a rush of water surged over the bow, soaking my legs. The air filled with a hiss and rumble that made me think of the Lucky’s chattering rapids, only louder. Much louder.
“Port!” the soldier yelled. “Hard to port!”
The boat lurched again, throwing me against the wooden floor. Cold water swirled against my cheek. I pressed my eyes closed as I began to shiver violently. I could swim, of course. Da taught us all how to swim in the wide, shallow curves of the Lucky, downstream of the cabin, where the little, laughing river spread out below the potato fields. But I couldn’t swim with my hands tied behind my back. The fisherman was right. If this little skiff turned over, I’d drown in the blackness of the Körmt, my pale legs kicking in the dark as I sank like a stone.
“Steady on,” said the soldier. “We’ll go straight over this one.”
I tried to scream again, but it came out as a choked gag. When the boat tipped again, first rising and then falling in a motion which echoed the surge and sudden dive of the horse’s leap to the barge, the water in the hull flowed over my mouth and nose. I suddenly realized I could drown right here, inside the boat, face-down in a few bucketsful of water. Panic burned hot inside me, making me wrench my arms against the ropes biting into my wrists. My eyes grew wide as I flailed against the planks of the boat, kicking and twisting.
“Quiet!” the fisherman barked.
Pain exploded in my lower back. I twisted away from the fisherman, my vision swimming with bright white stars.
“I’ll kick you again if you don’t lie still,” the fisherman said.
His voice was oddly flat, and I realized he wasn’t actually interested in me. His focus was on the water, the boat, and the barking calls from the soldier in the bow. I tucked my legs under my body and scooted forward slowly, scraping my thighs against the rough wood, until my head lay propped against the sloping curve of the hull. There, hidden by the darkness and with every muscle in my body screaming in pain, an ocean of soft, silent tears rolled down my cheeks.
THE MONSTER’S WIFE: CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I didn’t sleep, exactly, but I did let my mind slink away from the boat, the cold, and the cutting pain of the rope against my raw wrists. My consciousness sank to some dark, distant place where I could hide from the smell of ashes or the way the scent of the horse’s blood had swelled through the air. Eventually, my prone body was jerked upright, but by then I was somewhere far away, and I hardly noticed.
My eyes flickered open. I couldn’t make sense of what I saw. It was as if the golden stars in the heavens had sunk to the Ironwood, to burn and flicker between its branches and shine off the glassy waters of the Körmt. The image made no sense. I pressed my eyes closed and turned my face to the rough surface of the wood.
“I’m taking off your gag,” the soldier snapped. “I suppose you can yell all you want here.”
The heat of his hand against my cheek made me wince. A moment later, the wet fabric was pulled from my lips. My eyes fluttered open in shock as I sucked cold air into my lungs. It smelled odd, like salt and mud.
“Those docks there,” the soldier said, coming to his feet and pointing at the far bank.
I could see his face more clearly now, although he no longer held the lantern. The boatman behind me grunted something, and the bow of the skiff swung gently over the water. I followed the soldier’s arm toward that odd, glowing bank.
Torches. By the Nine Realms, all those dancing, golden lights on the bank were torches. I shuddered as my eyes jumped over the far bank, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. There were as many lights flickering in that darkness as there were stars in the sky. How could there be that many torches in all the worlds?
Fenris had said Evenfel was a small city. I hadn’t realized the truth of those words.
As we slid silently over the water, I realized I’d been mistaken about the Ironwood as well. What I thought were dark trees entangled with stars were actually buildings, just buildings taller than any I’d ever seen. I looked above them for the familiar darkness of pine trees, and saw nothing but gray skies.
My stomach turned in on itself; I felt a deep, sinking cold that had nothing to do with my wet clothes. I had never once been outside of the Ironwood’s shadow, and now I felt horribly exposed. The black buildings loomed like bars on a cage or jagged teeth in a massive jaw. I almost screamed when the skiff bumped something.
“There,” the fisherman said. “We’ve—”
His words were cut short. The soldier pirouetted behind me, and I turned in time to see him grab the boatman’s arm and pin him back. There was a dull silver flash against the boatman’s neck; he collapsed to his knees, scarlet blood spilling down his dirty shirt. The soldier stepped back delicately before the blood could mar the snarling bear sigil on his chest.
“Riches like you’ve never imagined,” the soldier whispered. “From Hel, Queen of the Dead.”
He turned toward me, his lined face looking drawn and tired. I scrambled over the rough boards, jamming my shoulders against the far wall of the skiff. The motion sent fresh bolts of pain up my wrists and through my arms.
The soldier took a cloth from his pocket and used it to wipe his blade clean. “Nowhere for you to run,” he said. “So, let’s not put up a fight.”
His eyes met mine in the flicker of a thousand torches. The boat rocked gently beneath us, creaking against the dock. Somewhere in the distance, I heard male voices singing, loudly and off-key. This city had to be full of people. If I could somehow pull myself over the gunwale of the skiff and run down the dock, perhaps I could find someone. Those singers, maybe.
And the soldier would run after me. Easily catching me. Whom would those drunken singers believe? A half-naked girl, covered with blood and bound with rope, or a man wearing the sigil of their King?
I closed my eyes and turned away as the soldier bent over me, but I did not fight.
He hoisted me to his shoulder, grunting with effort. His boots hit the dock with a clatter, and I landed hard against the jut of his shoulder blade. I kept my eyes shut as he hauled me down the rickety docks, thrown over his shoulder like livestock heading for the slaughter. His footsteps clattered against stone after echoing off the wooden dock. The singing grew louder, then faded as his footsteps pressed on. He shifted my weight several times, his rough hands pressing against my thighs and ass, but the violation of my modesty seemed like a minor offense taking place somewhere far away.
I opened my eyes when he finally stopped. His grip loosened on my thighs, and he slid me from his shoulders.
“Now, you walk,” he panted.
My eyes widened. We stood before a massive, wooden gate, easily big enough to allow four horses to pass through abreast. Atop the gate was a row of iron spikes. Skulls impaled on those spikes grinned down at us through their hollow eyes.
Hope drained out of me like rainwater vanishing into the rocks.
I stood on the threshold of King Nøkkyn’s castle.
THE MONSTER AND THE PRISONER: CHAPTER ONE
I’d never dreamed a building could be so huge.
My neck craned back as the soldier marched me through a small, open door in the foot of the castle’s massive gates. The castle wall’s skull-topped spikes loomed so high above us they seemed to scrape the very underbelly of the sky.
There was another road inside the castle’s gate, this one leading through a cobblestone courtyard. At first glance, the courtyard almost reminded me of the square in Evenfel in front of the White Bull, although this version must have been at least three times larger. Manure piles, heaps of hay, and a scattering of s
mall, wooden shacks huddled against the stone walls as if seeking shelter from the vast darkness of the sky. Two soldiers bearing King Nøkkyn’s ferocious sigil emerged from the shadows beside the gate, shoved torches in our faces, and started barking questions. I hardly cared what they said, or how my captor responded. I stared around the courtyard in a daze, stunned by the enormity of Nøkkyn’s fortress.
This would have been my home.
If I hadn’t met Fenris along the banks of the Lucky, if Bryn and his friends hadn’t showered me with mud and piss as I carried eggs along the road to town, then this cold mountain of stone would be where I lived. Perhaps one of the narrow slits in the dark towers would have been my window.
My chest tightened with a surge of gratitude so intense it almost brought tears to my eyes. Thank the Nine Realms for Fenris. Even if it cost me my very life, thank the stars for my husband. I would take our cramped cave in the Ironwood over this heap of rock a thousand times over.
My captor shoved me between the shoulder blades, and I stumbled forward. The guards watched me closely; the first cold fingers of dread traced their way down the back of my neck. Biting my lip, I glanced down at my body. Týr’s white shirt, my wedding dress, was now stained beyond recognition. The horse’s blood had dried, turning the front stiff and dark, and the left side was still dripping wet from the water that pooled in the bottom of the skiff.
Even at its best, Týr’s shirt barely reached the middle of my thighs. Now, after I’d been hauled up from the docks over the soldier’s shoulder like a net full of wiggling fish, the dress rode high, barely covering my sex. With my hands bound behind my back, there was little I could do to preserve my modesty.
“So, she’s the one who escaped?” one of the gatehouse guards asked.
My captor grunted. The guard leaned closer to me, grinning as if he were considering devouring me. His breath stank of onion, raw and sharp.
“I can see why the King’s upset,” he said.
I flinched as he reached forward and pinched my nipple through the rough fabric of Týr’s shirt. My captor’s hand closed around my shoulder like an iron vise, and he yanked me backward.
“None of that, now,” he growled at the guards. “Escaped or not, she’s property of the King.”
“I’m not,” I cried, seething.
Both guards laughed. Their onion breath washed over me.
“Oh, she’s a feisty one. Seems a pity to waste her, doesn’t it?”
My captor dragged me past the heat and light of the guard’s torches, his hand still gripping my shoulder. The guards laughed behind us.
“Don’t do that again,” he said. His voice was so low I could barely make out his words. “Don’t speak.”
He shoved me forward until we reached a wide set of carved stone steps. Another guard walked toward us, this one holding an elaborate lamp in his hand. He was older, and his graceful movements spoke of contained power. For a moment I was back in the skiff, watching the soldier slit the throat of the fisherman in one smooth, graceful motion. Shivering, I took an involuntary step backward and struck the muscular chest of the soldier who had abducted me.
“Svensen?” the guard on the steps asked.
My captor pushed me forward, into the flickering circle of light cast by the lamp. “It’s her.”
The guard raised an eyebrow, then turned without a word. He climbed the steps slowly, vanishing into the darkness at the top.
I trembled as the lamp’s weak light was swallowed by the hungry shadows at the top of the stairs. I didn’t want to lean against the man who had just slit someone’s throat in front of me, but I felt like my legs were about to fold beneath me, spilling me across the stone courtyard.
The soldier who must have been Svensen tightened his grip on my shoulder, sending a fresh bolt of pain through my arm. Tears flooded my vision, turning the blazing torches at the foot of the stairs into a kaleidoscope of flame and heat. But the pain cut through my weakness, and I found I had the strength to stand after all. I hardly noticed when his hand retreated.
My mind narrowed as I stood at the foot of the stairs to Nøkkyn’s castle. My body ached and burned around me. Somehow, I pulled away from the castle, away from my own pain and discomfort, from the memory of the three fresh graves in my family’s potato field and the howling emptiness of grief inside me. I slipped away from my former life as gently as the fisherman’s body fell to the floor of his skiff. And I remembered my husband’s words. You’re not a whore, Sol. You’re my wife.
“I’m not a whore,” I whispered under my breath. “I am the wife of the Fenris-wolf. And I am not afraid.”
Behind me, the soldier’s feet scraped the courtyard as he shifted position. I raised my eyes to the stairs, determined to hold my head high. Come what may.
The older guard reappeared. He walked toward us with the same fluid grace. This time, I noticed that he refused to meet my gaze. Even when he stopped less than an arm’s length from me, his eyes slid quickly over my face and body, as though he were much more interested in the pile of manure beside my feet or the mouldering skulls atop the gate.
“He doesn’t want to deal with it tonight,” the older guard announced.
“So, where shall I put her?” my captor asked from behind me.
The guard shrugged. “The dungeons?”
His words made my gut roll, but I bit my tongue and locked my knees, determined to show no fear.
Behind me, Svensen grunted. “You take her, then.”
The older guard’s lips twitched in what may have been the barest suggestion of a smile. “Not on your life. You know where the dungeons are.”
Svensen’s feet scraped the cobblestones again, and his hand once again closed around my shoulder. I suppressed my shiver.
“This way,” he said, tugging me toward the enormous staircase.
I EXPECTED THE DUNGEONS to be cold. They were not. Every turn of the winding, slimy staircase Svensen led me down brought us deeper into the bowels of the castle, and the air grew warmer. By the time the narrow staircase bottomed out before a thick, wooden door, the dungeon had become almost uncomfortably hot.
And it stank. Urine, sweat, and the rank smell of desperation filled the air, even before Svensen pushed the heavy door open with his shoulder.
“Tolbertsen’s supposed to be the night guard here,” Svensen grumbled, “but he’s a damned drunk. Not that anyone’s getting out of here, anyway.”
I paused at the doorway, unsure what to do with this information. The passageway beyond was lit with one sickly flickering torch just inside the doorway, making it hard to estimate its length. If I ran, where would I go? Up and up and up that winding staircase, into the cold darkness of the palace? And probably straight into the arms of one of the guards. We’d seen half a dozen other people on our journey down this particular staircase, and they all wore Nøkkyn’s sigil.
Svensen grabbed the torch and turned to me. The wavering light cast his face in stark relief, almost turning the dark shadows under his eyes into bruises. He raised an eyebrow at me, as if daring me to try to scramble away.
I looked down at my own pale, bare feet. Svensen turned, leading the way through the claustrophobic darkness beyond the door. The rotten, nauseating odor was worse here, and it was punctuated by a sharp, metallic scent so thick I could almost taste it. Blood.
Moans and soft, sad rustling noises rolled through the darkness. Somewhere a man’s long, lazy snores punctuated the gloom. My chest tightened, and I tugged at the binds holding my numb wrists behind my back, wishing I could wrap my arms around my chest.
Svensen stopped, grunting in disapproval. The snores had grown louder. I stepped forward into the pool of light from his torch. A man’s round body lay splayed on the stones below us, wrapped in a stained white coverlet and clutching a murky, green bottle in his fist.
“Tolbersen,” Svensen snorted, as though the word were a curse.
He bent over the prone figure. A jolt of panic shot uselessly through
my body. I imagined the gleam of his silver knife and the way the boatman’s body had slid soundlessly to the floor of the skiff.
But Svensen’s hands did not reach for his knife. Instead, they moved methodically across the man’s waist and returned with a clanking, heavy ring of keys. The keys gleamed with an oily, golden sheen.
“This way,” said Svensen. “Damn place’s always full. But the sea cell should be open.”
A voice called from the darkness, pleading through what sounded like a mouthful of sand. My entire body crawled, as if tiny, invisible insects were burrowing under my skin. I didn’t want to touch Svensen, not after the way he’d killed so casually before me, but I didn’t want to be alone in the darkness either. I stayed close enough to feel the weak heat of the sickly lantern against my cheek.
We went lower, and the temperature dropped. Every few steps, the air changed, replacing the fetid stink of the dungeons with a salty tang and the thick underbelly of muddy decay. The ground grew uneven beneath our feet, and I stumbled. Svensen caught my elbow before I could pitch forward, then shifted his torch wordlessly to keep his hand on my arm. I could not quite bring myself to thank him.
“Here,” he said, pulling me up short.
I blinked. The passage had grown very narrow, and the walls were so close I was almost in Svensen’s arms. There was no door before me, and nothing but darkness behind me.
Svensen dropped to his knees. The ring of keys chattered in his hand. Comprehension dawned slowly as something creaked in the ground below me.
“Oh, no,” I whispered.
Svensen grabbed my arm. I jumped back. My head hit the wall, flooding my vision with bright starbursts.
“Down there,” he said. “It’s not far.”
The Complete Fenris Series Page 23
