“They’ll be raiding with us soon enough,” Hoensa said, resting a large hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“Yes!” Uvigg said, smiling. Then frowned. “Though Willa won’t like being left alone with the girls during the summer months.”
“Leave the boys behind and bring her.”
“We have spoken of that — she was always fierce and deadly with bow and blade. But she would not shame her sons by leaving them behi —”
Uvigg gurgled and pitched forward, feathers and arrow-shaft protruding from his throat. It took but a moment for Hoensa to bellow warning and heft his axe. A great cry came from up the path, and men with shields and swords raced down a hill toward them.
The blooded company of Heingistr was hard to surprise and fierce in battle. But many of their number were unblooded. At the first sound of attack, Grislae’s sword was in hand. She crouched, keeping her legs flexed, waiting for the first man to come near enough to kill. No farmers, these men — they bore shields with a scarlet rooster crowing; the men of Risle the captive had spoken of. Accoutred in boiled leather, the soldiers carried steel blades instead of farm implements.
The captives — boys and girls all — cried miserably in their foreign tongue, no doubt pleading to be freed.
Arrows filled the air like maddened wasps, buzzing and hissing. Grislae felt a flashing burn across her cheek, and raised her hand to find that half her ear was gone, ripped away by an ill-aimed arrow and further torn by scarlet fletching. Before she could register the bright pain, a man with a bristling mustache leapt forward, swinging a longsword. Grislae parried with her own, but the blow shivered her arm, wrenched her about, and she fell sideways upon the earth. She scrabbled away on all fours, levering herself with one hand and digging the other into the ground with her fist, still holding her sword, the man fast behind her. She scrambled under the stolen wagon and was up and crouched, ready to strike on the other side when the man rounded the corner. She put her blade in his groin and then ripped it away, cutting red roads in his flesh. He fell, pumping blood.
The next man she took from behind, as he exchanged overmatched blows with Svebder.
Grislae moved on, looking for others to kill. Blood surged in her, her cheeks hot, the ruin of her ear forgotten. She moved easily, her sword an extension of her arm. A terrible finger to point out those to be received by Hel.
Outnumbered. Other Northern raiders must’ve visited these shores, Grislae surmised, and recently. The company of Heingistr was overmatched. But still fierce. There was a moment when the soldiers drew back, and Heingistr, bleeding freely from his chest and arm, rallied his men. Those who remained clustered tightly around the stolen wagon, and as the remaining soldiers mustered the courage to attack, they were met with angry cries and angrier blades.
When Heingistr fell to his knees, the company broke, abandoning the wagon of spoils. Hoensa grabbed Heingistr, despite the man’s stature, and pulled him away, off the road and into the wood. Grislae came after. One of the soldiers marked their exit and followed.
Grislae met the soldier in the wood. He bore a shield and sword, a helm, a studded leather tunic and gauntlets. Bright eyes and an exultant expression, now that the company of the North was routed and their spoils lost. A smile spread across his face like pitch upon the water; he said something in this country’s bubbling, liquid language, gloating. Before he could finish, Grislae stabbed him in the throat, and whatever else he might have said was lost in blood. He went down, wrenching her sword from her hands as he did.
He fell, lying face up, hands at his throat. Grislae stood over him, looking down. Placing her boot on his face, she pulled the blade from his neck and spat on his face when it was free. The gob of spittle landed on the man’s open eye. He did not blink it away.
Turning, she rejoined Hoensa, shouldering Heingistr’s weight to flee to the Reinen.
It took hours to get back to the longship. Soldiers combed the forest and the shore. It was only the evening fog that seeped from the earth and the river’s surface that saved them. Many times Hoensa and Grislae had to hide in the dark, holding their breath, ready to muffle Heingistr’s moans, as men bearing torches searched for survivors of the company. But the light from the soldiers’ own torches blinded them. Grislae and Hoensa were able to slip away and move downriver without incident, bearing Heingistr between them.
It was raining by the time they reached the burnt-out fishing hut and pier where the Reinen was moored. Urtha looked at them with a terrified expression, her constant companion Wen nowhere to be seen. Wen’s absence struck Grislae. She did not like the woman — nor Urtha — but she’d grown accustomed to her presence, and seeing Urtha without her disturbed Grislae in ways she could not puzzle out.
Once, when Grislae was a girl, her father took her to the Midsummer festival in the woods outside of Heingistrhold, and she became separated from him, lost. As she wandered through the trees, standing like silent sentinels around her, she felt a tugging at her stomach, as if some invisible tether drew her onward, and found herself standing at the mouth of a cave. The air was thick there, and she felt a sinking dread, as if the world was worn thin, frayed. In the darkness of the cave mouth, something crouched. Something beyond her ken, beyond all ken. She felt as if at any moment all of creation would unravel and some great horror would stand revealed. It was only when some of the men from Heingistrhold found her, paralyzed with fear, that the feeling dissipated.
As Grislae looked at Urtha, and the Reinen beyond, she felt that way again.
“What has happened, husband?” Urtha asked. She had banked the fire while they were gone.
“Great misfortune,” Hoensa panted. “We were attacked by soldiers. Many of our men drink in golden Valhalla. But for now we wait for whatever survivors make it back to the Reinen. I will keep watch here. Take Heingistr on board and tend his wounds.”
“Nay,” said Urtha. “I will not. The Reinen is cursed! It teems with serpents. And Snurri, he is…”
“He is what?” Grislae asked.
“He is changed,” she said. “Wen entered the livestock hold and she—” Sobbing took her.
“I do not care if Fenrir himself is on board. If we stay here, we will die,” Hoensa said. He drew his sword and watched the dark line of trees wreathed in fog. “While I would welcome a warrior’s death, I would not have you hurt, Urtha, my love. And I won’t abandon what men might make it back here. We will wait until we cannot wait anymore. Go to the Reinen.”
“No,” Urtha said. “I cannot board the ship again. You do not know —”
“I will take Heingistr,” Grislae said. She cared not for the arguments of man and wife. Her ear was on fire now she had the opportunity to consider herself. It throbbed and oozed blood that ran in a dark slick down her neck. She sheathed her sword and, bending, lifted Heingistr’s full weight onto her shoulders, an oxen carry. He did not moan or make any exhalation as she did, though he was still warm. Once on board, she would determine if he still lived. He was a great weight, but no match to her will. She carried him down the pier and aboard the Reinen.
The longship’s deck was empty, devoid of man. Or snake. Grislae carried him down the length of the deck to the covered stern, where she started a touchwood fire with stone and steel in the sheltered cooking brazier, warming water to wash his wounds and her own.
From the shore, there came the sound of men calling to one another, and a cry. The thin yellow light of torches drew shifting lines through the fog. Grislae raced to the side of the Reinen, where the lusty company of Heingistr had disembarked only hours earlier. There, on the shore, lay the bodies of Hoensa and Urtha, heavily feathered with arrows, and joined together forever in death. Hoensa died, at least, with steel in his fist.