“I don’t see how,” he said with a bemused smile.
“It’s simple.” She gazed up at jagged heights of Thaverfell overlooking the lake. “We bring him to us.”
“Aha. A trap?”
“A trap.” She turned left off the path and struck out for the high hill. They hiked up the slope, their boots crunching on the frozen earth and the bits of ice in the depressions in the ground with Freya leading and Omar trailing several paces behind. After a while, she said, “Tell me more about the bloodflies.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I’ve been bitten by bloodflies before. Everyone has. But no one’s turned into a mad, hairy beast before. Why is that?”
“I see.” The foreigner was still behind her, but she could tell from his voice that he was smiling in the dark. He said, “Your average bloodflies are different from the ones we found in the pit on Mount Esja. The ones we released were an ancient and special breed, a breed with the ability to drink not only blood but aether as well, and with that aether they can swallow a drop of their victim’s soul. I can only imagine how vicious and savage those ancient flies were in their prime, engorged with blood and filled with the strength of mountain goats or stags or bears. But that sort of bloodfly must have died out long ago, leaving only their feeble cousins behind to pester you with their buzzing and nipping.”
“So the flies that came out of the pit still had the blood, and the soul, of their last meal in their bellies?” Freya frowned. “I see now. This isn’t a germ-plague at all. It’s a soul-plague?”
“Exactly. These people are all tainted with tiny drips and shreds of the soul of an animal, and from my research, I believe that ancient beast was a giant summer fox, another creature that died out long ago and left only its smaller and less threatening cousin behind to harry your flocks. That would be the winter fox, of course.”
“You can tell all that from the flies?”
“No, I can tell that from the bodies of the victims that I examined over the last few years. And not only was it a red-furred summer fox, but it was a female at that. A vixen, in heat.”
Freya threw a smile over her shoulder. “Now you’re playing games with me. How could you possibly know that it was a female in heat?”
“Because all of the victims, all of the men and women who have been turned into beasts either by the bloodflies or by the bites of other victims, every single one of them, is now a female reaver. There are no males.” Omar paused. “I didn’t notice it at first. But by the time I examined my fourth subject I was becoming suspicious. And then I happened upon a young man lying on the ground just a few leagues out there.” He pointed to the east.
“He was a hunter too, just like you and your husband, and he had killed the reaver that attacked him. The beast lay dead nearby with a spear through its throat. But it had bitten him in the leg, leaving him unable to get home. I stayed with him, trying to keep him calm, watching for the signs of the change. And along with the fur and the ears and eyes of the beast, I saw the little pink buds on his belly.”
Omar cleared his throat. “In the middle of the night I killed him, struck him dead with a single cut to the throat. I couldn’t stand to watch anymore, or hear anymore of his screaming as his bones wrenched apart, stretching his flesh. But when the sun rose the next morning, I stripped away his clothes to examine the body further and found his manhood quite gone. And that is how I know that the summer fox that fed the soul-sucking bloodflies countless eons ago was in fact a vixen, fair lady. I’m guessing that it was in heat from some of the, ahem, behavior that I’ve seen.”
Freya had slowed and finally stopped as she listened to his tale and now she stood still and silent on the hillside beneath the stars, staring at the dark stranger with her mouth hanging open.
My Erik, my poor Erik. He has no idea. I don’t know if he could stand the thought of it. Losing his voice nearly broke his heart when he was a boy. But now, losing his…
This could destroy him if it happened, if he knew. But he doesn’t know. Thank the Allfather for that. And I won’t let it happen, whether the Allfather helps me or not.
Freya started walking again. “Let’s hurry. We need to set our trap.”
At the top of Thaverfell, they found a bare, wind-blasted mound of dry earth and rock with a few light dustings of frost in the cracks in the ground. The night sky spread from one horizon to the next in unbroken cloudless beauty, cold and lifeless and silent. Freya dashed left and right around the hilltop, kneeling to examine this hole or that stone. Eventually she worked her way over to the east side of the hill, which overlooked the lake, and she found a long and narrow defile that ran in lightning jags down to the water’s edge. “Here. This is where we’ll do it.”
“Do what, exactly?” Omar gazed down the slope at the jagged black line sliced into the hillside.
“Snare Fenrir.” Freya took the long, slender cord from her belt and uncoiled it on the ground. She shook her head. “I’ll need to double it up to make sure it’ll hold him, but that won’t leave enough for the second snare. Although, maybe we can cheat on that as well.” She climbed down into the crevasse and trotted along the flat bottom to a sharp corner that shot to the left. “Here.”
“Would you mind terribly giving me some notion of what you’re working on?”
“Fenrir’s a big boy, isn’t he?” She winced. “Fenrir’s big, right? And if we’re going to get a little ring off his finger, we’re going to need to pin him down.”
Omar shrugged. “Or kill him.”
“No! No more killing if we can help it. The reavers are our people, and we’re here to help them, not to kill them.”
“I understand that you think that. But you must understand that the Yslanders in Rekavik are also your people, and your first duty should be to protect them, not the ones who are already infected and are most likely lost forever.” Omar crossed him arms over his chest. “Finding the ring is no guarantee of success. Your trust in Skadi is misplaced.”
“I don’t trust Skadi,” Freya said as she began folding and knotting her cord. “I barely know her.”
“Do you trust me?”
She paused. “I saw your hand heal before my eyes. I’d say that I know you better than I know Skadi.”
“Ah, but I could have been lying to you about who I am and why I’m here,” he said.
Freya grinned. “You could have, but you weren’t. I can tell. Besides, hacking off Leif’s arm was real enough, and I definitely didn’t trust him. So I guess I do trust you. Some.”
Omar nodded and raised his eyebrows. “A reasonable analysis, if ever I heard one. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not yet. But you will.”
Freya devised a complex snare with her cord, creating a spider’s web across the floor of the ravine in the narrow corner where any pursuer would be forced to slow and turn to continue running down the hill. She hid the cord with dead grass and small pebbles, but the deep shadows from the ravine’s walls hid her trap utterly. Then she climbed up to the top of the defile and found a large round stone, which she rolled to the edge of the wall a few paces downhill of the snare.
“And now?” Omar asked.
“And now,” Freya said, sitting down on her stone, “You need to go up to the top of the hill and start waving that fancy sword of yours and yelling at the top of your lungs.”
“Oh really? So I’m to be the bait then in your little trap?”
“Exactly.” Freya smiled up at him.
“And what makes you think Ivar will come? What if he’s too far away to see or hear me? Or what if he had a particularly large elk at tea time and decides to sleep through the evening completely? And what if I find myself surrounded by lesser reavers?”
Freya drew her favorite knife and nodded. “Maybe he won’t come. That’s possible. But I still think we have a better chance of bringing him to us than of us finding him any time soon. Yell Skadi’s name. Maybe that will catch his ear.”
“Hmm.” Omar began trudging up the hill. “And if I am assaulted by a pack of feral monsters, all by myself up there? I may be immortal, but I’m flesh and bone, just like you. I’ll still be very much alive when they start to devour me.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can handle a few unarmed and unclothed vixens,” she said with a smile. “You can dismember a man with a flick of that sword faster than the eye can follow. I have faith in you.”
