“Thank goodness for that,” he said drily. He paused to frown down at her. “And I suppose when the fox- queen is upon me, I should lead him, or her, down here to you.” He grimaced. “What joy. Running. In the dark. And what will you be doing down here? Lying in wait with your spear?”
“Eventually. But first I need to make a cord for the second snare.”
“Make a cord? From what?”
Freya held up her bone knife, and then with a quick sawing motion across the back of her head she hacked off her long shining hair and felt the weight of it vanish from her scalp. The bright silvery strands flashed in the starlight once and then hung from her fist like spun gold. “From this.”
The foreigner merely shook his head and hiked up the hillside in silence.
The huntress settled down on her stone seat to work, quickly dividing her shorn lock into three smaller strands, and then each of those into three smaller strands. She frowned.
It’ll work, but only barely. I’ll have to get close to him. Very close. But it will work.
And she set to work braiding and knotting her hair into a cord. Soon she heard Omar’s voice echoing down from the hilltop, and she smiled as she picked out the various curses and jokes that the man was shouting at the northern hills. She saw the flash of his sword once, but after that she only glimpsed a few glimmers of light on the rocks above.
It took most of an hour to finish the new cord to her satisfaction, and to compensate for how short it was she devised a new trick for her second snare. She pushed her large round stone even closer to the edge of the gully so that it tipped out into empty space, and then she rammed a smaller stone underneath to prop it up just enough to keep it from tipping over and plummeting down into the ravine. And then she tied the end of her hair cord to that smaller wedge stone.
She grabbed her knife and spear and dropped down into the gully again and checked the first snare, finding it just as taut and just as hidden as it had been before. Then she grabbed the dangling end of her hair cord and began fashioning it into a noose.
The first howl split the silent night just as the first pale snowflakes began to fall upon the hill. Freya paused in her work to listen to the bestial cry, wondering what sort of sound it was.
A greeting? A warning? A call to the hunt?
As the snowfall quickened and the ground transformed from a jagged nest of shadows into a smooth pillow of moonlight, a second and a third howl rose to the north. High-pitched yips and barks echoed for many long moments afterward.
Freya crouched down in a cleft in the rock wall so that she was facing uphill with a clear view of the tight corner where her first snare lay hidden by the snow. She clutched her spear in one hand and her cord in the other.
A sharp night wind blasted down the gully, spraying her in the eyes with snow and ice crystals, and she felt her shortened hair flying about her head, lighter and wilder than before, and her naked neck prickled with gooseflesh as the cold air crept over the newly exposed skin.
The stars crept across the sky, the snow continued to fall, and the white drifts grew taller all around her.
Erik, are you at the mill? Are you watching the stars? Or are you locked inside with chains on your hands and feet?
Freya heaved a sigh.
And Katja… oh, Katja.
She shivered.
The night settled over her just the same as a hundred other nights out in the hills, in the mountains, by the waters. Hunting. Stalking. Waiting. Freya settled into the night and let her mind wander, but not home to Logarven and the empty house by the lake, or the tower in Denveller, or the castle in Rekavik.
Marrakesh. Ifrica. Alexandria.
She tasted the strange names one by one, wondering what sorts of people lived in those places. What did they eat, and wear, and do? Were they all brown like Omar? Or maybe they came in even more colors, or sizes, or shapes. Her imagination ran wild, folding together the bits of Omar’s bizarre story with the fairy tales the old valas used to tell of dwarves and elves and trolls.
Skyships made of steel, sailing ships made of dead men’s nails.
Men who could not be killed, and drunken gods who murdered their children.
Dragons.
Fenrir.
A deep-throated growl echoed from the hilltop, only to be cut off with a sudden yelp.
Freya sighed.
Poor King Ivar, where are you?
Chapter 17. Killing
Midnight came and went, and Freya sat without moving in a pile of snow as high as her shoulder. Every few minutes she shuffled her feet and pushed the newly fallen snow a bit to each side. The steel spear in her hand was freezing and it was starting to stick to her hand.
From what she could hear, she guessed that Omar had killed four reavers on top of the hill, though she only had a few grunts and yelps to judge by. The foreigner never came down, never called out to her. He just went on shouting at the sky and swinging his bright white sword in the air.
Four poor souls who didn’t even know what they were doing. At least they’re at peace now.
And then she heard the howl. It was a high and clear sound, as pure and fatal as ice. A moment later, a few other reavers answered the howl with their barks and yips and cries, but they were all pale imitations of that first inhuman wail.
So she shook her arms and legs to keep the blood moving, to keep the feeling in her fingers, and she focused on the buried snare in the turn in the gorge. In her mind’s eye, she imagined the beast’s approach.
Now. It happens now. Ivar crosses the snow fields.
The stars turned a bit farther and the snow stopped falling, and the wind died.
He creeps up the hill, his eyes fixed on that white sword. Mesmerized.
She glanced upward, but there was no glimmer of Omar’s blade.
He’s stalking his prey now. Eager. Hungry. But also curious. He’s cautious. Careful. Wary. Hunched down low to the ground, edging forward on his belly. Her belly. Whatever.
Omar’s voice echoed down the hillside again, and the queen’s name resounded loudly in the night.
He’s waiting. Waiting. His heart is slowing. He holds his breath. He’s very still.
Omar stopped yelling.
He strikes.
Omar’s sword flashed at the top of the slope, not just the reflected light but the blade itself shining in the darkness. He was running toward her, a tiny figure illuminated by his deadly weapon, and then he dropped out of sight as he leapt down into the crevasse.
The snow slows Omar down, dragging at his legs, making him uncertain about the ground underneath. Is there a stone? Is there a hole? He second-guesses every step in the darkness, and so Ivar gains on him.
His heart is pounding and he feels the heat of his blood in his face. He’s afraid. He knows that a single misstep means being torn apart by those claws and fangs. Does the fear speed him along, or does it make him careless and clumsy?
The beast snarled and growled, and the man shouted, the sounds echoing up against the black steel of the night sky and distorted by the walls of the crevasse. Freya re-wrapped the cord around her left hand, feeling the strands of her own cold hair scratching her dry skin, and she gripped her spear in both hands, rising into a crouch.
Now, Omar, remember where the snare is. Remember where to jump. Remember!
A slender black figure darted around the corner into view, leaping lightly along a narrow lip of the rock wall
