Peaceweaver (20 page)

She could hear the way he’d snort with laughter when she and Beyla teased him, and see his broken-toothed smile. She’d always envied Beyla for having a brother. She still envied her, even with the pain she would carry with her for the rest of her life, the empty place Brynjolf had left behind. Brynjolf! How could he be gone?

Tears spilled onto her cheeks and wet her hair.

Birdsong woke her. She raised herself to her elbows, blinking her swollen eyes open. Shafts of sunlight broke through the trees, illuminating autumn mist. Hadding, standing beside the fire, saw her sitting up and limped over to put something on the ground beside her before retreating again. Her cloak. She reached for it gratefully, burrowing into it against the cold.

In the daylight, it was both harder and easier to believe that the previous night’s events had been real. Harder because the creature seemed like something from a story told to frighten children, or from a nightmare, not something a person should ever truly encounter in this life. But when Hild looked around her, at the broken branches, the blood on the ground, it was all too easy to believe what had happened. Especially when she saw Brynjolf’s body in a little clearing not far from her, his hands and sword arranged over his chest to hide his terrible wounds. She took a ragged breath and looked away.

Behind an oak, she could just make out Gizzur sitting on the ground, his palm resting on a mound of rock, his knees drawn up, his face pressed to them. She watched him curiously for a moment before she realized the mound was his horse, its belly split open. Quick, foolish tears pricked at her eyes. He must have felt the same way about his horse as she had about Fleetfoot.

She shook the tears away and rose, moving to the fire. Hadding stood beside it, an oatcake in each hand, chewing on one of them and eyeing the other. She glanced at him to see if he was wounded, but the limp she’d seen earlier appeared to be his normal clubfooted gait. Below his helmet’s mask, his beard had more bits of twigs and leaves in it than usual.

“Here, my lady,” he said, offering her the oatcake he’d been just about to bite into.

She took it, forcing herself not to cringe at the layers of
dirt on his fingers. With Unwen gone, had he been assigned to her?
Brynjolf would be a better choice
, she thought, then remembered that Brynjolf was dead.

Hadding pushed a log nearer the fire for her and she sat, looking around for the other men. Mord and Thialfi were over by the riverbank, but the other two Geats were hidden from her view. Wherever they were, she knew their weapons would be in their hands. They were the ones who had warned Mord not to take this route to the river; they were the ones who had heard stories of a creature that lived in the fens.

A bird warbled somewhere in the woods, unconcerned with the secrets hidden behind the trees.

As the fire warmed her, Hild’s strength began to return. Her eyes finally detected the Geatish brothers standing watch, as motionless as trees. The horses had returned, too. Some of them, anyway. When she looked more closely, she saw that Fire-eyes wasn’t with them. Nor was the pony.

Mord and Thialfi came back, Mord grimacing from his wounded leg. Not far from where Hild sat, Gizzur and Hadding started to dig a grave.
In this hard ground?
She knew the blaze from a funeral pyre would call too much attention to them, but she wasn’t surprised when Gizzur finally set down the rock he was using to dig with.

“We’ll cover him with stones,” Mord said. Something in his voice made her wonder if this was the first time he had lost someone under his command.

She stood, beckoning to him. “Your leg,” she said when he limped up to her.

He nodded and sat on the log she’d just vacated so she could examine the place above his knee where the creature’s claws had raked him. Thialfi brought her water and handed her a little bag of herbs. When she washed the blood away to see how deep the wound was, Mord gritted his teeth but made no sound. She crumbled dried leaves of heal-all into her palm, mixing them with ashes and spit to make a paste. As she stirred them with her fingers, she chanted the words Aunt Var had taught her:

Then she patted the concoction onto Mord’s wound. He knew as well as she did that the wound would fester or it would heal, depending on what pleased the gods. If they looked kindly on him, the herbs might help.

As she leaned over to tie a cloth around the wound, a sound from the woods drew her upright.

Mord rose, unsheathing his sword, the bandage hanging from his leg. The other men stood alert, weapons in their hands.

Steps came toward them through the bracken. Mord pushed her behind him.

Something moved behind an oak tree.

She clenched her fingers. If only she had her sword!

Then the pony nosed out from behind a tree, followed by Fire-eyes.

Hild let out her breath, her knees wobbly with relief. Forgetting Mord’s half-wrapped bandage, she ran to the horse, pressed her face against his warm neck, and wrapped her fingers in his mane. When she could breathe easily again, she looked him over. He had cuts and scratches, but nothing worse. Thialfi stepped forward to help her take off the saddle.

When she turned back to the fire, she saw that Mord was trying to finish tying the bandage himself, and making a bad job of it.

“Here,” she said, pushing his hands away. She rewrapped it, tying it neatly.

“My thanks, Lady Hild.” He dipped his head to her. “Will you see to Gizzur’s arm?”

Her own wrist throbbed, and every time she moved, she could feel the bruises on her side, but she nodded. If Mord could ignore the pain a deep cut like his must cause, she wouldn’t let herself be bothered, either.

Gizzur approached her reluctantly, pulling his cloak back to reveal the cut on his wiry arm, just below the band of twisted metal he wore. It looked like a claw had gotten him, too, but it wasn’t as bad as Mord’s wound. She made another paste of heal-all, spit, and ashes and chanted while
she applied it to his arm. He endured her ministrations silently, never meeting her eyes, and stood the moment she finished tying his bandage.

“Gizzur,” she said softly, touching his shoulder.

He looked at her through his narrow eyes.

“I’m sorry about your horse.”

For an instant, his face changed, his eyes widening, the thin line of his lips softening. Then he nodded and moved away, returning to the cairn Hadding was building.

Hild rose. She couldn’t bear to look at the body up close. But she had to, for Beyla’s sake. She moved uncertainly toward the cairn. As she approached it, Gizzur stopped his work and elbowed Hadding. The two of them backed away, leaving Hild alone with Brynjolf. Keeping her eyes away from his bloody tunic, she knelt beside him. Dirt streaked his forehead just above his brows and Hild reached to wipe it off, trying not to recoil at the feel of his cold skin. She slipped off the silver band Beyla had given her and tried to work it over one of Brynjolf’s lifeless hands. It wasn’t easy and she almost gave up. But he’d earned an armband, even if he hadn’t lived long enough to receive it from the king. She tried again, and this time she got it over his stiff fingers and onto his arm. Softly, she called on Odin, saying, “Receive this warrior into your hall.” She hoped the silver band would help Brynjolf find a place among the warriors who had died in battle.

When she rose, Gizzur and Hadding stepped forward
again. “That was a good thing you did, my lady,” Hadding said, nodding toward Brynjolf’s arm. Then he placed another stone on the pile.

Hild turned away. As she did, Mord approached her. “We’ve found a place to ford the river, my lady,” he said. “Now that the horses are back, we can go. As soon as we’ve done right by Brynjolf.” He dropped his voice, his tone uncertain. “Would you sing him out, my lady?”

Hild looked at him, startled. Of course they would need a woman to sing for Brynjolf. She nodded.

While the men finished their grim work, she combed her fingers through her hair, struggling to bind it up, finally resorting to braiding it the way slaves wore their hair, in order to wind it around her head. Doing so made her think of Beyla’s unruly curls falling out of their knot. How many times had she had to retie it for her friend? “Oh, Beyla,” she whispered. She wished that none of this had happened, that the two of them were standing in the stables at home, making each other laugh, that Brynjolf would come around the corner at any moment, smiling his broken-toothed smile at them.

She closed her eyes for a space, then opened them and turned back to the men.

Thialfi was kneeling, arranging the cloak around the body. Brynjolf’s sword was clutched in one of his hands and his bloody fingers had stiffened. Mord struggled to loosen the weapon, but in death, Brynjolf held fast. Finally, Mord
worked it free and replaced it with the dagger Brynjolf had been so proud of, polished again to a high gleam. Holding the sword, Mord looked from face to face, Hadding standing at the dead warrior’s head, Gizzur at his feet, the three Geats at his shoulders. “It was his father’s before him. Now it will go to his cousin Borr,” Mord said.

Hild felt tears threatening. If she didn’t start now, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to at all. She stepped forward. Without waiting for acknowledgment, she squared her shoulders, drew in her breath, and began to sing.

She’d never sung the funeral rites before, but she knew them; she’d heard them often enough. She thought of her father’s funeral and Aunt Var standing beside the pyre, singing him to the gods. Her own voice sounded high and thin, like a child’s, not rich and resonant like Var’s. Would the gods accept her song, so ill-sung? There was nothing to do but press on, her eyes closed against the wound on Brynjolf’s chest.

As the last word lingered on the cold air, Mord leaned down to place the first rock over the young warrior’s body. Hild stepped back and stood in silence as, stone by stone, the men covered him. Brynjolf had still had so much to learn about being a warrior. Hild smiled a little through her tears, remembering how often he had forgotten his task as a rear guard. He’d always been so good-natured when she and Beyla teased him, laughing along with them. She recalled the way he had played with his little sister Inga and
his puppy outside Freyja’s temple in what now seemed like another life. She wished she could have found a sprig of holly to lay on the cairn.

A bird trilled from a nearby branch, the sound incongruously joyous to Hild’s ears. Then, as if it recognized her thoughts, it fell silent. Somewhere in the woods, she saw something move. She listened but heard nothing. It must have been the bird.

A horse whinnied. Brynjolf’s horse? Did it know its master was dead?

She turned her attention back to the cairn. An edge of Brynjolf’s cloak peeked out from the rocks, and Hild hoped they wouldn’t leave it uncovered.

She pulled her own cloak more closely around her. As she did, she saw Mord rising from the head of the cairn, his mouth open in surprise. At the same time, a potent stench reached her nostrils, making her think of the leather tanners at home. She turned.

Something ran at her—something huge. It was on her so fast she couldn’t react. A powerful arm wrapped around her torso, lifting her from her feet. Twisting, biting on thick hide, she tried to free herself, but her arms were pinned to her sides.

She kicked, then kicked again, wrenching her back. She was tight in the creature’s grip, her face mashed against its wiry fur. She couldn’t get away. And now it was running. Out of one eye, she could see trees passing in a blur. Where
were Mord and the others? She could hear them but she couldn’t see them.

She struggled, but it was no use.

Moving with incredible speed, the creature headed into the forest, Hild tight in its grip.

The shouts of the men faded into the distance.

TWENTY

F
UR AS COARSE AS HORSEHAIR SCRATCHED INTO HER CHEEK
and neck, scraping them raw. The creature leapt over stones and glided around trees, moving silently through the woods.

Hild stopped struggling. It did no good and it was tiring her out. She tried to watch where they were going, but fear crowded out thought. She heard a whimpering sound, then realized it was coming from her own lips. She willed herself to stop.

The terrible smell threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t breathe. Or was it fear that kept her from getting her breath?

It could have killed me if it had wanted to
, she told herself. She knew she needed to pay attention, to watch where she was being taken, but even if she could quell her terror, she could barely see.

She could hear, though. Her ear was pressed into the creature’s chest, and its heart beat almost like a human’s. Its breath came in sharp inhalations, but it didn’t sound tired or even winded. Its feet made hardly any sound at all, which seemed improbable for a creature so huge. It must have been half again as tall as she was.

Where were they going? She tried not to think of animals that liked their meat fresh.