put her hand on her sister’s cheek. Katja’s skin was hot. Very hot.
At the north end of the lake they found the decaying ruins of a tiny village of three dozen stone cottages. The roofs stood open to the sky and the doorways gaped dark and empty like toothless mouths. One of the houses close to the water had partially collapsed, tumbling and sinking into the warm mud at the lake’s edge.
But one structure still remained in good repair. A small tower stood in the center of the desolate village. It rose three times the height of the cottages, a squared-off block of crooked black stones, its cracks and gaps filled with rotting brown grime that dripped and trickled down the dark faces of the building.
Freya pulled Arfast to a halt well back from the tower and frowned up at the ugly pile of stone.
Erik stopped next to her, his pale blue eyes sweeping the lifeless remains of the village. “Be careful,” he signed. “There are a lot of strange tracks around here.”
She glanced down at the churned up mud in the lanes. It looked as though a troop of men had run through the village.
Or a pack of beasts.
Looking up at the tower, she called out, “Gudrun of Denveller! I’m Freya Nordasdottir, and this is my husband, Erik. We’ve come from Logarven to speak with you.”
Her words echoed through the empty lanes and across the open waters. A raven screamed and hopped across the ragged grass roof of the tower and peered down at the intruders and their white elk.
“Maybe she’s gone,” Erik signed. “Or dead. I’ll go take a look around.”
“No, wait.” Freya pointed up at the tower. “Someone’s there, watching us.” She called out again, “Mistress Gudrun! We come in peace to ask your wisdom and help. My sister is ill.”
“You say you’re from Logarven?” a very young woman’s voice called down from the tower.
“We are,” Freya answered.
“There used to be a vala in Logarven. Couldn’t she help you? Or is she dead?” the voice asked.
“She’s not dead, she’s right here,” Freya said. “Our vala is my sister, Katja. She said to bring her here to see Gudrun. Are you Gudrun?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Freya frowned. She had no time for games. There could be anyone at all hiding in that tower, and the voice was not that of a wise old woman. “She’s sick, and if you’re a healer we need your help, and if you’re not a healer then I’m going to come in there and put my spear through your belly for wasting my time!” She slammed her steel spear’s butt down on a stone and the impact echoed through the empty village. She rested her other hand on one of her bone knives strapped across her belly, and waited.
There was a muffled banging and shuffling inside the tower, and then a bundle of woven grasses flopped up from the roof and a figure emerged, silhouetted against the pale gray sky. The wind whipped up the girl’s hair, a long curling nest of dark red locks. She stepped up onto the roof and peered down at her visitors. The slender leather strap of a sling hung from her hand. “What’s wrong with your sister?”
“She was bitten by something. Is Gudrun here or not, little girl?”
“Little?” The girl smiled. “Well, I suppose I am little compared to some, but not compared to all. The good lord Woden never minded walking the earth as a fellow of modest size.”
“Woden also lost an eye, as I recall.” Freya shook her spear. “If you’re looking to be more like the Allfather, I’d be happy to help.”
The girl laughed. “Oh, thank you, but I am merely a humble apprentice and not worthy of such a holy offer.”
“Apprentice? To Gudrun? So she is here?”
“Of course she’s here,” the girl said cheerily. “Where else would she be? The good lord Woden has seen fit to unburden my mistress of the use of her legs, so she’s less inclined to wander the moors of late.”
Freya frowned and glanced at Erik, who merely shrugged. She said, “Can we speak to Gudrun now?”
“Of course you can, although I wouldn’t expect her to hear you very well, what with you being all the way down there and she being all the way up here, and asleep.”
“Then wake her!” Freya snapped. “My sister is dying!”
“Is she now?” The girl’s good cheer faded from her rosy cheeks and bright eyes. “What bit her?”
“A beast.”
“Like a fox?” the girl asked. “A fox as big as a man?”
Freya hesitated. The general idea was right enough so she said, “Yes.”
“Then I’m sorry. I’ll be sure to pray to the Allfather for your sister’s safe passage to the next world. But you need to turn around and take her away from here, right now. And when the sickness takes her over, you must be ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To kill her.” The girl sniffed and glanced warily to her left and right, staring out at the distant hills before looking down at them again. “Go on now. Quickly.”
“I’m not leaving until I’ve seen Gudrun.” Freya left Arfast in the road and she strode up to the tower’s curtained doorway, which was nearly hidden under layers of mud and clay and gravel plastered over the face of the building. She reached out and clawed a small handful of filth from the edge of the door, and threw the muck down in the road. A small stone shrieked out of the sky and smashed her hand, leaving a thin red tear down the side of her thumb. Freya flattened herself against the cold tower and wrapped her fingers around one of her bone knives. Out in the street, Erik grabbed Arfast and pulled the white elk back behind a crumbling stone wall of an old cottage.
“I’m sorry that I have to ask you to leave,” the girl called down. “Woden has little love for a poor hostess, and I really would love to share some stories with you over some dandelion wine and roasted lamb, if you’ve brought any of either, but I won’t let you bring the plague into my home. I’m sorry about that, but there it is. And if you don’t believe that I’m sorry, then please believe that I have a lot of stones up here, and I’m pretty good with this sling.”
Freya glanced at the blood tricking down her thumb and then up at the lip of the tower’s roof shielding her from her attacker. “Maybe, but you can’t hit what you can’t see, and I won’t be coming out from under here until I get this door open!”
A second stone whistled down, ricocheted off a nearby cottage wall with a sharp crack, and struck Freya in the shoulder. She swore and darted to her left along the grimy black wall.
Above, the girl muttered to herself. “Well, I’m sorry, lord, but I tried being nice to them and you can see where that’s gotten me. You might have intervened, you know. A bolt of lightning or a valkyrie or two. I understand that you’re quite busy, lord, with the frost giants and so on, so I don’t fault you for leaving this business in my hands. It’s a wonderful show of faith on your part, I realize. Just don’t fault me for this when you’re measuring out my soul, if you could, Allfather. It’d be mighty decent of you.”
Freya slipped around the side of the tower, trying to catch a glimpse of Erik, but he was still on the far side of the crumbling cottage. She was about to dart across the road around another house when a third stone snapped off a distant wall and caught her in the hip.
“Nine hells! What are these, magic stones?” Freya muttered as she ran across the street and slid around a corner through the soft mud just as a fourth stone flew down, impaling itself in the roadbed by her foot. Freya called out, “What plague?”
“What?” the girl answered.
“What plague does my sister have?”
“There’s only the one these days. The reaver plague,” the girl said.
“Reaver plague? Never heard of that before.”
“It never existed before. But they raid our villages just like our sea-reavers used to raid the villages of Alba. And besides, do you know the old word for fox?”
“No.”
“It’s refur.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. And if your sister’s been bitten, then she’ll be one of them soon enough. Rabid, crazed, and burning up with hunger. She’ll tear you to pieces. You, your elk, and your very quiet man-friend over there.”
Freya peered up the lane and saw Erik crouched at a far corner. He was gazing intently up at the roof of the
