water running down her back, her eyes were beginning to droop.
For two days she had marched across the hills, and then lain awake all night to battle Fenrir, and then run back again, only to find herself alone on the wrong side of a wall with three snarling reavers between her and the door.
And Leif is still inside.
And Wren is too, somewhere.
And my Erik is out there, by himself.
She started walking toward the door with one eye on the slavering creatures and one eye on the men above. After a moment the men saw her approaching, and some tried to wave her back, but she shook her head. One of the men had a harpoon in his hand.
They need to start throwing those harpoons instead of just stabbing with them.
She waved to him and tried to signal that he should hurl his weapon down at the reavers. He seemed unwilling to let his only means of defense out of his grip, and it took several gestures, but eventually he nodded and turned to wave behind him. Two more young men climbed up beside the spear-fisher with slings in their hands.
That would have been so much easier with Erik.
She nodded at them, and they nodded at her, and she raised her spear, and screamed.
The harpoon flew first, splitting the first reaver’s skull and skewering it into the ground. Two sling-stones hit the second reaver, which howled and skittered back from the wall toward the water. And the third reaver turned on all fours to growl at Freya. She hurled her spear, and it plunged straight through the creature’s open maw. The reaver snapped over backward and fell flat on the beach, its arms and legs twisted at unnatural angles.
The remaining reaver took another pair of sling-stones to the head and it yelped in pain and scrambled back into the water. Freya jogged up to the locked door and drew her knives in each hand. At her feet were the broken, mangled, and partly devoured bodies of five or six men, their limbs tossed everywhere, their blood still glistening and steaming on the stones. And beyond the carnage hunched the last reaver, alternately snarling in hatred and whining in fear.
Freya slowly lowered her knives.
The reaver snapped his fangs at her once, and then loped off through the shallow water, vanishing into the night.
A howl rose over the water, a long clear cry that ululated on and on, and Freya shivered as she listened to it echo long after the unseen beast fell silent. And then it cried out again, this time roaring with a man’s deep grating voice, “JUSTICE!”
The word echoed again and again across the dark waves.
Behind her the door clanged and groaned, and she stepped back inside the wall, her arms and back quivering with fatigue, her vision bleary, her skin prickling with gooseflesh as the water of the bay continued to dribble and drip from her soaked clothing.
There was no cheering inside. There was only relief, weary smiles and quiet sobs and distant voices shouting in the dark, searching for loved ones, searching for answers.
A warm dry blanket was thrown across her shoulders. Men were talking to her and patting her on the back, some asking about the fighting and others wondering at the bellowing voice. Freya shuffled through them, gently pushing her way through all the bodies and faces, trudging toward the castle.
An unfamiliar youth with fair hair and an earnest smile hurried up beside her and placed her spear in her hand. She felt the freezing steel in her naked fingers, felt the weight of it pulling down on her shoulder. Freya bared her teeth and shivered.
And this damned night still isn’t over yet.
Chapter 23. Lies
Freya was nearing the castle wall with a small entourage of house carls, fishermen, and young boys who still seemed to have too much energy in them when she heard the shouts coming from the south end of the city. She paused to listen, a weight in her belly, fearing that more reavers had struck the south wall, but there were no bells ringing. Compared to an hour ago, the city was nearly silent with exhaustion and grief.
But the small angry voices were shouting, and they were coming closer, and Freya waited in the castle courtyard, amid the forgotten and trampled remains of her victory feast, to see what was coming. Half her heart wanted to chase down Leif, to find Wren, to put an end to the cancer inside the city. It was the right thing to do. Her blood cried out to her weary bones to keep going, to deliver some sort of justice to these people.
But there was a shadow in her mind, as well. A shadow that whispered that Wren might already be dead, and even if she wasn’t yet she would be soon, one way or another, and that she was beyond helping. And the shadow whispered that even if she killed Leif, it would only make more trouble for her here, trouble that she didn’t have time for. Because all she really wanted was to run out into that black night, over the hills, and down the stream to the water mill where her Erik was waiting for her.
He doesn’t have much time left. I should be with him, in his last moments, and I should be there to silence his pain, when the time comes. And to hell with the rest of the world.
But the voices in her heart and in her head somehow never took hold of her, and so she stood there in the dark and the cold, waiting for the shouts to arrive with whatever new pain they might bring.
Just as the band of newcomers began to come through the iron door in the castle wall, Freya saw the inner door open and out came Skadi with Thora at her side, but there was no sign of Wren.
“Omar!”
Freya spun to see Halfdan crashing through the crowd and snatching up the southerner in a bear hug. The warrior laughed and put the man down, and Omar stumbled back with a smile. The huntress blinked. “Omar?”
It must have been him shouting over the bay! But why?
He sauntered forward and clasped her arm. “Ah, you made it back, fair lady. Good, very good. I was worried when I heard the reavers howling this evening, and I saw them skirting the bay, making for the city. But they were leagues ahead of me, beyond my reach. I take it the battle went well?”
“No thanks to you!” Leif yelled from behind the queen. The young warrior strode into the courtyard and drew his sword. He shouted to the crowd, “Omar Bakhoum was a loyal friend to our king and queen, right to the bitter end when Fenrir killed him. The queen and I both saw him fall! This is not Omar Bakhoum, it’s a demon! He must have led the reavers here tonight. He’s in league with the beasts!”
Freya rolled her eyes, but to her amazement dozens of angry voices rose to support Leif’s claims, echoing his story about the death of the king and of Omar. There were shouts to kill Omar, and others to exile him, and others to sacrifice him on Mount Esja to appease the Allfather.
“No, no!” Freya shouted over the din. “He’s lying. Leif is lying to you all. He’s been lying to you for years. Fenrir didn’t kill Omar. It was Leif who struck him down. The beast from the pit killed three men that day, and Leif killed the rest so there would be no witnesses, no one to tell the truth of what happened on the mountain!”
The crowd fell silent. Most of their eyes glared darkly at her, lips curled and ready to shout her down, but for a moment they listened.
“But Omar survived and he ran away,” she said. “He went to the vala at Glymur Falls, and there he stayed all this time, for five years, trying to cure the plague on his own, living in fear for his life should Leif ever find him again.” She glanced at the southerner and saw a sort of nervous amusement in his eyes. But he gave her no other sign of what he might want her to say, or not say.
How much should I reveal? Can I tell them that Omar is immortal? Can I tell them that Fenrir was really Ivar? How much will they be willing to hear, or believe? And what will they do to us, whether they believe me or not?
“And we did find him, me and Erik and Leif. Leif drew his sword, and Omar cut off his arm and let him fall into the river. That’s what really happened. And Omar was the one who struck off Fenrir’s head when we trapped the beast. Omar is your champion, not me, and certainly not Leif!”
The following shouting match was deafening. Everyone had an opinion or a question, everyone took sides.
