Peaceweaver (19 page)

A stone bit through her shoe, and a cobweb caught in her hair, but she ignored them. She felt like a nightwalker from the old stories, strong and certain in the dark woods. If only Unwen would hurry! She heard an “oomph” and
turned to see the slave, no more than a shape in the darkness, coming around a tree. Hild waited, then started forward again.

Shouts sounded in the distance. She smiled and kept moving. The men would never find them now.

The darkness grew total, but Hild hardly slackened her pace. She leapt over a stone, yanked her cloak from a branch that grabbed at it, and kept moving.

A scream shattered the night.

Hild stopped so fast that Unwen bumped into her.

They stood without speaking, the noise of Unwen’s breathing masking the sounds Hild listened for: footsteps, voices, bodies moving through the forest.

The scream came again. Then a sound Hild didn’t know, an inhuman cry that sent a shiver down the back of her neck. Something flashed like fire in front of her eyes. She blinked, but nothing was there.

Suddenly, she knew she had to go back.

No!
she argued.
I won’t!

But her desires didn’t matter. A summons drew her like a royal command.

“No!” she whispered through clenched teeth. But even as she said the word, she turned to grip Unwen’s shoulder. In a low, urgent voice, she said, “You have to keep going. Don’t stop until you get to your people. Here.” She pushed the food bag into Unwen’s hands. “I’ll catch up with you.”

The slave didn’t answer. Hild fought the irritation that surged through her. She didn’t have time to explain, even if she could have; she needed Unwen to do what she said, and do it fast. “Do you understand me?”

Unwen stared at her, and in the starlight filtering through the tree branches, Hild recognized not the fear or the protest she expected in her eyes, but a strange, fierce joy.

Hild drew back as if she’d been slapped.

More than ten winters of loyalty and what Hild had taken for love—gone in an instant. Unwen had no care for Hild, not anymore. Instead, she was intent on finding her home, her people, her far-minded daughter.

Unwen was no longer a slave.

“Go, then. And the gods go with you,” Hild said. As she spoke, the powerful compulsion took hold of her. She couldn’t fight it. She had to leave
now
. Without another glance, she tore off through the forest, heading back toward the men she’d escaped.

•   •   •

Hild passed tree, stone, bush, and bramble, leaping, dodging, running full tilt, the sword in her hand. The blanket lay somewhere behind, snagged by branches. In the darkness, she could somehow feel her way without slowing, without stumbling, as if something was guiding her feet. What she was running toward, she didn’t know.

But she recognized the same feeling she’d had before, back when she’d saved her cousin’s life. She might not be
able to control it, but this time, she was still aware of herself. A part of her was still Hild.

And despite the desperate urgency she felt, there was room in her heart for the hurt of Unwen’s leaving. “I didn’t make her a slave,” she whispered angrily. “The gods did. She knows that.” Yet another part of her knew that if the gods had made her a slave, she, too, would have done everything in her power to go home again.

“How could she leave me?” she asked herself, then remembered that she was the one who had commanded Unwen to go. “But she could have argued, just a little!”

A branch sliced at her face, grabbing at her hair and pulling strands of it free from its knot. Ahead she could hear confused noises, muffled shouting, a horse neighing in terror, and someone—or some
thing
—moving through the woods.

Hild ran faster, the sword gripped tight, all thoughts of Unwen banished from her mind. Her senses focused on what was before her. She couldn’t stop if she wanted to, but now she didn’t want to stop. Whatever it was, she needed to get to it.

Through the trees, she could see the glow of fire. A smell like rotting meat assaulted her nose, and ahead of her, something grunted angrily. She heard a terrified whinny and the sound of hooves—a horse was crashing through the woods toward her. She stepped out of the way just in time as it passed her.

Closer now, nearer the campfire, she could see another
horse, lying on the ground, entrails spilling onto the dirt. Near it lay a man, face turned away from her. She didn’t stop to see who it was.

Gripping the sword hilt, she wove past a tree. Thorns yanked at her cloak, pulling her up short. She fumbled with the brooch that fastened the cloak, tugging at the pin until it came loose, and let the cloak fall to the ground as she ran. She stepped on something that made her foot recoil—someone’s arm. She didn’t look down.

As she burst into the space where the campfire blazed, a movement caught her eye. She turned.

A shadow lurked in the trees. A bear? It was too big to be a man.

Sword out, Hild ran.

“My lady! Stop!” someone yelled, and a hand reached for her. She pushed it aside and kept going. A rancid smell threatened to choke her, but she gulped air through her mouth. Ten sword lengths away now, she could see how enormous the creature was. Five sword lengths and the flickering firelight illumined the green fur, matted with gore. The creature raised a huge rock in its claws, bigger than any man could lift. Below, on the ground, lay Mord. Firelight reflected in the whites of his eyes.

He’s nothing to me
, Hild told herself.
Why should I help him?
But the words didn’t stop her, even as someone grabbed her arm. Thialfi. She shoved him away with strength she knew wasn’t hers and kept going.

The stench made her eyes water, but she blinked and focused on a spot just under the creature’s raised arm.

Around the tree, and
now!
Her sword met resistance but she pushed and pushed again as Mord twisted out of the way of the falling rock.

She didn’t have time to watch him—he’d have to take care of himself. The creature roared. It turned toward her, wrenching her sword arm. She gasped in pain.

She tried to pull the blade free, but it was too deeply embedded in the monster’s body. The creature moved toward her, its fangs so close she could see the spittle dripping from them. The terrible red maw leered down at her, its fetid reek making her retch. Again she pulled, but now, when she needed it, her strength was ebbing away.

She dropped her hand from the hilt and took a step back, stumbling over a root and righting herself. Horror threatened to overtake her.

The creature stopped and Hild stared at its green fur hanging in clumps like seaweed.

She’d seen it before—in her dream.

It raised its head and screamed, the sound ripping through the dark woods. Her eyes cringed shut. She backed away but a tree blocked her escape. She was hemmed in.

She forced herself to open her eyes. Even if she’d had the sword, her strength was no match for the creature’s.

She was going to die.

It peered at her through red, inhuman eyes set far back in its face, then swung its claw.

Hild didn’t move. There was no place for her to go.

The creature screamed again, and Hild thought her skull might shatter from the sound. Maybe it had shattered. She couldn’t get her breath. She watched the creature as if from a distance, as if she weren’t standing a hand’s breadth from it. As if she were already dead.

It brought its claw to its chest, then turned and loped away, melting silently into the darkness.

Hild swayed. Her knees buckled and she sank to the ground.

“My lady!” a man called out.

Blackness enveloped her.

NINETEEN

A
CRACKING SOUND INTRUDED INTO HER DREAMS, WAKING
her. It was still night. A black sky pressed down on her; fingers of cold pinched at her scalp, her face, her feet. Rocks dug into her hip bones and shoulders. Her wrist ached.

The cracking noise came again—somebody breaking sticks for kindling. Sparks from a campfire floated into the trees, and above the bare branches, she could see stars, hard and bright. A voice reached her ears, one man speaking softly to another.

Memories rushed back: a man lying on the ground, a horse with its belly slit, the arm she’d stepped on, the creature she’d fought.

The creature! What was it? Where was it now? Hild sat bolt upright, heart pounding, pain flaring in her ribs and her arm.

She blinked in the darkness, the scene around her coming into focus. A few footsteps away, Mord sat by the fire. Seeing her sitting up, he raised himself and limped toward her. On the other side of the fire, Thialfi sat with a stick in his hand, his face lit a lurid red by the flames.

Hild moved her hand to the ground beside her, under the blanket, hoping to find her sword. It wasn’t there. Then she remembered where she had last seen it: buried in the monster’s chest.

Mord lowered himself to one knee beside her, grimacing as he did.

“Is it still alive?” she whispered.

He gave her a curt nod.

“And the men. Did … did we lose anyone?”

“Your slave is missing.”

Hild looked at him. Did he not realize what she and Unwen had done? Did he not know that she had almost escaped him? His face, contorted by pain, revealed nothing.

“And—” He stopped. It wasn’t just physical pain he was feeling. Hild held her breath, waiting to hear.

Mord shook his head, his eyes cast down, his thumb going to the scar on his lip. “Brynjolf’s dead.”

Hild stared at him. Brynjolf? Not Hadding, not Gizzur, not the Geats, but Brynjolf? She closed her eyes for the space of a breath. Then, locking the information tightly away, refusing to think about it just yet, she looked back at Mord. “How badly are you hurt?”

He shook his head. “I’ll be right by sunup.”

She doubted that. “What about the horses?”

“Gizzur’s horse was killed, my lady. The others—if they’re alive, they’ll come back.”

“And the other men?”

“They’ll mend.” He looked into the dark, and when Hild followed his gaze, she could just make out the shapes of two men, shadows against the darker shades of the trees, the firelight barely revealing their presence. When he turned his head in the other direction, she understood that they were surrounded by guards, even if she couldn’t see them. She would never be able to get away.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “What was it that attacked us?”

Mord shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Thialfi says his people speak of a creature that lives in the fens.…” His voice trailed off.

“Will it come back?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that I’m alive thanks to you, my lady.”

The sincerity in his voice took her by surprise and she gazed at his dirt-streaked face. He had a cut on his cheek, but it didn’t look deep. Firelight gleamed on the white scar above his lip. His eyes, usually so evasive, were trained on hers and she looked into them, trying to understand him.

“I don’t know how you did what you did,” he said. “But Bragi’s wrong. The gods are with you.”

There was an awkward silence. Mord rose to his feet, grunting as he did so, and limped back to the fire.

She watched him go and saw that Thialfi was looking at her, an expression on his face that she couldn’t read. Suddenly, it hit her. Mord might not know that she’d tried to escape, but Thialfi did.

Someone had thrown a blanket over her and she rearranged it before she lay back down, shaky from the effort of sitting up. Firelight glowed on the branches above her and she watched it flickering.

Had the gods been with her? Saving her cousin, the atheling, the heir to the throne,
that
she could understand. But giving up her freedom to save Mord? Why would the gods want that?

The creature was out there somewhere, alive. And so was Unwen, armed with only a knife. It didn’t matter what weapon the slave had with her—she was no match for the monster’s strength if it found her. Hild closed her eyes to banish an image of Unwen being attacked, her body ripped open by the creature’s claws. She hoped what she was seeing was a product of her own fear, not a vision.

She trembled and pulled the blanket up to her chin. Her cloak was gone; she remembered dropping it in the woods. She would have to wait until morning to find it.

Finally, carefully, she allowed herself to think about Brynjolf. Only it wasn’t Brynjolf she was thinking of; it was Beyla. Who would tell her about her brother? Hild wanted
to pull her friend into an embrace, to protect her from the pain. She pictured a crowd of women—aunts, neighbors, cousins—enveloping Beyla like a flock of crows, mourning with her, trying to ease her sorrow. It wouldn’t help.

Had the arm she’d trodden on been Brynjolf’s? She shuddered and tried to push the memory away, but it kept coming back.

How could he be dead? Although he’d been made a member of the men’s troop, he was still a boy, full of fun and merriment. If it weren’t for the endless fighting, and the unceasing need for new warriors, he’d be at home in the boys’ troop, practicing the kinds of moves that might have saved him. He’d still be alive.