"I will do what I can; these are mostly farmers and their families."
"Whatever you plan, it better work the first time or we're all dead."
Ulfrik grunted, then decided not to think any more on it. "I'll look for the gods to give a sign."
Men clambered aboard, throwing sacks of booty onto the deck or shoving captives aboard. Captives cried for mercy and their captors laughed or roared curses into their faces. Heavy bags of loot thudded as they landed on the decks. Men laughed and bragged. Some groaned at wounds given by others strong enough to fight back. From another ship the stolen sheep bleated in despair. Above it all Kjotve's voice carried as he ordered his crew.
Though he knew his family was safely away, Ulfrik could not help envision Runa and Gunnar as these captives. A short man with red hair dragged a woman up the gangplank and dumped her on the deck. Her son, only a few years older than Ulfrik's, ran crying to her side. The red-haired man kicked the mother aside and he measured out rope for her bindings. Ulfrik swallowed and looked away, his hands and feet growing cold with fear.
He scanned the fjord, trying to block out the sounds of defeat. Out there Runa searched for help to defeat Hardar and win his freedom. He wondered what would happen when they arrived and found nothing but ash. How would I even find them again, he worried. As long as they remain within the Faereyjar I can find them. But I beg you, wife, stay long enough for me to escape.
"Now you're a spirited bitch!" Kjotve's shout broke his thoughts. He bounded up the gangplank with the kicking woman still on his shoulder. He let her down as lightly as if she were a child. As soon as the woman's feet alighted on the deck, she stood back and slapped Kjotve. But he blocked her with a muscled arm and laughed. "I hope you fuck like you fight!"
The laughter of the crew was dull in Ulfrik's ears. He focused only on the woman: tall, fair-haired, and noble. She was Ingrid, Hardar's wife. She stood straight though her hair flew loose and wild over her face and her fine green dress was spattered with mud and torn at the shoulder. She struck him again, and Kjotve parried with his thick arm.
"You troll! You promised you would find my daughter." Her shouting died beneath the laughter of Kjotve's crew.
"Come now, I'm not all that bad. I've caught the bastard who stole her from you." He pointed at Ulfrik. "That ought to be worth a kiss at least."
Before she could follow his finger, he seized her arm and yanked her to his mouth. She shrieked and finally landed a slap over his eye. But he jammed his face into hers and kissed her as the crew laughed and clapped.
Ulfrik looked away, unable to watch without imagining Runa in the same position.
Once Kjotve had bound Ingrid, he spun her around for his crew to leer and laugh. Ingrid's head dropped and her fight drained. Someone handed Kjotve a skin of mead, and he guzzled from it. Then he shouted for the ships to push off.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Toki's prayers to Thor and all the gods he could name went unanswered. By the second day at sea, he watched the storm forming, everyone did, knowing they were trapped in a landless expanse of water. Though the summer sun would not set until the heart of night, the sky had grown thick with darkness. Sparse rain drops pattered on the deck, driven slantwise by an increasing wind. Each drop felt like a punch to Toki. Without being issued orders, Thrand and Njall unstepped the mast and stowed the sail.
"Einar, speak with me a moment." Toki beckoned him over. "This storm will be fierce. The angle of the wind …"
"Is bad," Einar finished for him. "We all know it. We have nothing to sacrifice to please the gods, but for ourselves."
Toki put up his hand. "The gods seek their vengeance upon me alone. You and the others will be safe. But let's be sure of it. Tie the women to the rails and Gunnar too. Tie yourselves if there's enough rope left. Better to break an arm than drown."
Einar nodded and started to turn, then paused. "Toki, don't make the gods work easier than it need be."
He laughed, the sound awkward in the tense atmosphere. "I swear to you I will not."
Einar and the others tied off the women and Gunnar. Halla and Dana were pale and trembling. The wind pulled their clothing tight and set their hair dancing. Halla looked at him blankly, in stunned horror. The sea had begun to churn and footing became treacherous. Njall stumbled toward the gunwales, grabbing the rail before falling overboard. Toki's heart pounded and everyone froze, as if to move would condemn him to the sea grave. But Njall landed on the deck.
Runa shielded Gunnar from the wind by covering him within her cloak. She had the most sailing experience of any of the women. But Toki knew she had never experienced a storm like the one approaching. Lightning flashed and Thor's mighty roar boomed across the water. "Spare these people, Thor," he muttered under his breath. "I am the one who offended you."
His arm grew heavy wrestling the tiller. Now the wind and rain had strengthened, gusts driving the ship. The current was not his to command, and rather than lose the steering board, he and Thrand stowed it beneath the deck where the sail lay. All that remained was to wait. He huddled beside Halla, drawing her trembling body close.
At the heart of the black clouds, the wind and rain exploded. Raven's Talon crested its first swell, and crashed down the trough with a shudder. Halla screamed and her hands clawed Toki's sides. They all slid down the deck, seawater and rain drenching them. Their travel chests, heavy with treasure and gear, slid faster and one clipped Toki's side.
"Hold tight to me," he shouted to Halla. The roar of the storm filled his ears. Her arms winded tighter and she cried. He endured what seemed hours of sliding over the deck as waves bashed the ship and thunder broke. He finally chanced to look up over Halla.
Everyone was screaming in the darkness. Waves scoured the deck and pounded the sides. The wind and rain were the roars of angry Fate. But still Toki could hear voices screaming in the mayhem.
"I don't want to die!"
"Thor spare me!"
"I can't hold on!"
Their cries beat on Toki as hard as the waves flailed his ship. He balled up over Halla again, lashed with rain and doused in seawater. He had tied himself to the railing as well. His wrist burned and flowed with blood.
A wave punched down on the deck, slamming them in cold water that turned all sound to the muddied gurgle of water.
Toki was utterly powerless to help anyone, even himself. The gods had tired of him. He had defied them, and now they would fling him into the sea. Down to Rán's Bed at the bottom of the ocean. He was sure of it. But as the water sloshed away, he tossed his head back to check the others. Halla was screaming and sobbing, clenching herself against him.
The storm had stolen all the light from the world. Only flashes of lightning revealed anything. In those stark scenes of black and white, he saw the lumps of bodies huddled to the deck. Runa's hair flowed out from beneath her hood, the only person Toki could identify. Everyone else had slid and shifted and were so bedraggled they all looked the same. But there were six of them, and Toki felt mild relief that no one had been lost yet.
He embraced Halla tighter as they slid once more. The rain and wind sawed at him. Despite the futility of it, he again begged the gods to let them survive.
Toki realized the rain had calmed and the ship no longer shuddered. Halla still clung to him, and she resisted as he tried to stand. He gently but firmly unlatched her arms. His sealskin cloak dumped water as he stood, his knees popping with the effort. He wiped water out of his eyes.
The others were rousing as well. He heard Gunnar calling his mother's name beneath her cloak. Runa pulled back her own sealskin and peered out. The others began to follow. It was still night, the sky dark but for patches of deep blue twilight poking holes in the clouds. A dull bluish light filtered down to outline shapes on the deck. Lightning flashed, now in the distance, and the thunder followed long after. The sea was blood-dark and choppy, but no longer raked with storm winds.