Chapter 7 Bjorn
T his was precisely what I’d hoped to protect Freya from. Violence that drove her to dark places. The best parts of her forced to use the worst parts of her to do what needed to be done. And though she’d surely saved the lives of all those children, as I watched her sit on the sand farther down the beach, I knew that no part of her felt good aboutit.
I felt compelled to go to her. To say something, anything, that would ease the burden pressing her down and down. To fall into the careless banter between us that had always felt so easy. A war of retorts that meant nothing and everything. Except the skill seemed lost to me. My tongue frozen with the certainty that everything I said drove Freya farther away from me, because our words were no longer moves in a game but blows on the battlefield, cutting and cruel.
“Does Volund need to see to her?” Harald asked, watching as Tora and Guthrum swam out to the drifting drakkar to secure it with a rope.
“She won’t accept help.” All too well, I knew how Freya lived with pain as a form of self-punishment for her perceived transgressions. Vragi had been a piece of weasel shit, abusive to her and all around him. An insult to the god who’d fathered him. He’d deserved death, and yet Freya had always acted as though the burns she’d inflicted upon herself to kill him were a fair punishment. Pain that would sit with her the rest of her life so that she might never forget what she’d done. There was little doubt in my mind that the bleeding wounds on her thighs would serve the same purpose. She’d heal, but the scars would ever remind her of this moment. Though I thought the Islunder raiders deserved their fate, my heart told me that Freya felt no such certainty.
“She fought well,” Harald said. “Saved innocent lives.”
Even from this distance, the horror they’d witnessed was visible on the faces of the children. Innocent no longer, if they ever had been. Nordeland was a hard place, and those who did not have it in their hearts to rage against land, weather, and violence were not long for the mortal realm. “Of course Freya fought well,” I answered. “What is of more surprise is that you also fought well, Father. I had half wondered if you were still capable of swinging a sword in your advanced age, but you acquitted yourself like a man still in his prime.”
He cast me a sidelong look. “Have I mentioned that your wit has been missed?”
“No, it strikes me that you haven’t. An oversight, I’m sure.”
A soft snort exited his lips, then he handed me the end of the rope now bound to the drakkar. “As my strength is spent, I’ll leave it to the young bucks such as yourself to pull them in. Beach it farther down where there is less…” Harald trailed off, looking at the beach soaked in blood and littered with the dead. “Less horror.”
I debated which direction to go before walking down the sand until I stood in Freya’s line of sight. Then I began to pull. Survivors from the village lent their strength and we drew the large vessel onto the beach. Weeping women waded into the water to lift out their sons and daughters, but many children stood unclaimed, teary eyes searching for mothers and fathers who would never sweep them into their arms again. A fact I well knew, for I’d stepped over many bodies of villagers as I’d fought the Islunders. Men and women who’d fought to the last to give their children a chance to escape.
Which was not how it should be. Skade and I rarely saw eye to eye but there was no denying that Nordeland had been left nearly undefended while Harald supported my ambition. An ambition I’d torn to shreds. Which meant the lives lost today had been sacrificed for nothing.
Freya was not alone in feeling sick with guilt, but unlike her, I deserved much of the blame here.
I fastened the end of the rope to a heavy piece of driftwood and then stooped in the waves to wash away the worst of the blood on my skin. Heaving myself into the drakkar, I sat down with the remaining children and then called to the sky, “Kaja!”
The bird was circling above, but at my call, she descended to land on my outstretched arm. Kaja and I had never properly met, but Guthrum knew me well, which meant so did she. Her talons dug into the leather of my bracer as she ruffled her feathers, yellow eyes watching me with a predator’s focus. Yet it was the eyes of the children around me that commanded my attention. Flickers of interest filtered through the haze of shock that held them in its grasp. I stroked the back of Kaja’s head, and she leaned into the pressure.
“Do you wish to touch her?” I asked them. “She is very vain and appreciates the attention.”
Kaja cocked her head and gave me a reproachful glare that suggested she understood my words. Yet she preened beneath the small hands that reached out to tentatively touch her feathers. A small distraction to pull their minds from what they had seen, and though it changed nothing, it would create a different memory to fill the moment when no one had come for them. In my periphery, Harald spoke to the survivors. Those who had a connection to these children were dispatched to claim them until I finally sat alone with the bird.
Bending my head to Kaja’s ear, I murmured instructions. She took flight and I climbed out of the drakkar to join Harald, who stood in the company of Tora and Skade. The latter was bare to the waist but for the leafy branches Volund had woven around her torso and arm. It seemed Eir had deigned to heal, at least in part, whatever injuries Skade had suffered for she moved with relative ease.
“Some of the Islunders will have escaped,” Harald said. “Most will not have seen Freya’s battle on the beach, but all saw Bjorn. If given the chance, they will spread the word that he is returned to Nordeland and it will reach Snorri and confirm his suspicions.” His eyes fell on Skade. “You will hunt them down and ensure they are silenced.”
“Guthrum and Kaja can deal with a few scampering rats,” Skade protested, her eyes flicking to me and then away again. “As your right hand, I should be with you, my king.”
A role I had served until I’d returned to Skaland, and though I had little interest in reclaiming it, I did find it curious that Harald had filled my place with Skade. She had value to him, there was no denying that, but though no one was more loyal to Harald than she was, it had always struck me that he was put off by her sycophancy.
A thought confirmed in the flatness of his eyes as he said, “You are my huntress and none will escape your arrow.”
Typically such flattery would make Skade preen but she instead frowned. “The shield maiden has been on Nordeland’s shores less than a day and already death follows. Saga had the right of it that she should be put down lest all of Nordeland suffer.”
“This raid was not Freya’s doing.” I fought the urge to call my axe as Skade’s bow appeared in her hand. “The Islunders were here for wealth and thralls, not Freya.”
“But they risked coming because we were consumed by her.” Skade spat on the ground at our feet. “If we were here to defend our shores, this would never have happened. It is an ill omen.”
“We are here now.” Harald rubbed at his temples. “And Islund has paid a heavy price for their boldness. See the rest of them dead so that they might know the cost of attacking my lands when none of their drakkar or warriors return. Go.”
Skade wavered, and though my concern was the threat she posed to Freya, this defiance was not something I’d ever seen from her before.
“Bjorn is returned,” Harald said softly. “I do not need you at my right hand any longer.”
Skade blanched, her eyes widening with hurt only for Harald to reach out to cup her cheek. “Islund struck a blow against me, my sweet Skade. They killed our people and that hurts me. You are the only one I trust to deliver appropriate vengeance. Islund must taste the ash of defeat.”
Silence stretched and my skin prickled with the certainty that more was being communicated than just the words Harald had spoken aloud, for a slight smile formed on Skade’s face. As always, she saw praise where I saw manipulation, inclining her head and murmuring, “I shall see it done, my king.”
Twisting on her heel, Skade strode up the beach toward the trees, pausing only to retrieve her tunic and mail before disappearing.
“Skade’s fear makes her a threat,” Harald murmured. As I followed his line of sight, it was to discover him staring at Freya. She still sat in the sand, though now she was tentatively petting Kaja. “Better for her to go somewhere she can do no damage.”
Unease pooled in my stomach. For though it should be a relief that Harald was taking steps to protect Freya’s life, there was something off in the method he was doing it. He didn’t trust Skade the way he once had, and the way Tora stared dead-eyed at the sand spoke to yet more conflict. Much had changed during the time I’d spent in Skaland, and I did not think it was for the better. When I’d left, it had felt as though we were all united in our goals. But now I could feel tension and divides between everyone.
Harald stepped away to give orders to his Nameless. Most of the thralls were Islunders, though some were from Skaland and others still from parts of Nordeland. All big and strong, arms tattooed with knotwork and ravens and wolves, yet I knew what unified them were their crimes. The darkest and worst sort of men who delighted in the ugliest of behavior, all tamed by magic and made to wear hoods that obscured their faces for the rest of their lives as punishment. Men without names. They were the only sort of thralls Harald ever took, and though they deserved punishment, I’d always thought death would be more merciful than what they endured.
Shaking my head, I gripped Tora’s arm. “Thank you for keeping Arkyn from blowing a hole through my chest. Inkwork is costly, and I’d not be best pleased if I had to pay to have it done again.”
The faintest glimmer of her usual spirit filled her eyes and Tora said, “I did not do it for you, arsehole. I vowed to kill Arkyn, and if I’d let you do it, I’d never have heard the end of it.”
“Unfortunate you didn’t get to test out his fingers before you put him down, but I suppose some sacrifices must be made to win the war.”
Tora punched me in the shoulder with enough force that I staggered. “You are such an arse. But I’m glad to have you back, brother.”
My stomach twisted, because Tora and I had been nearly inseparable as children. Siblings of blade, not blood, and all the stronger for it, but the gulf between us was wide because of the things we had done. We had stood on opposite sides of the battlefield twice and lost comrades to each other both times. Bodil had earned a place in Valhalla, but I’d never forget how Tora had broken Freya on the walls of Grindill, Thor’s lightning rebounding off Hlin’s shield into dozens of civilians, the smell of burned flesh thick in the air. Never forgive how Freya had been driven to the point she believed her own death was the only way to protect those she cared about. Though it was not lost on me that Tora had been acting under orders, which made me question whether Harald deserved forgiveness.
Harald had sought Freya’s death right until the moment he’d learned just how dangerous she was, and what she’d done today would only have affirmed in his mind what a weapon she mightbe.
Tora’s lips parted as though she had more to say, but nothing came out. She swallowed hard, then squeezed her eyes shut, and I could see the artery in her throat fluttering from what must be a rapidly beating heart.
“What is it?” I asked softly, my hackles rising because some heavy thought clearly preyed upon her. “Tell me.”
She drew breath as though to speak.
But Harald had finished giving the Nameless their orders, and he shouted at her, “Tora, enough chatter! Get my drakkar set to rights!”
In years past, Tora would have retorted with softhearted defiance but instead she lurched toward the listing vessel, the awkwardness of her motion catching my attention. Tripping and stumbling until she finally righted herself and began giving commands for others to help her overturn the large vessel. The strangeness of it had me watching her with narrowed eyes, wondering if the blow she’d taken when the whale had struck had rattled her skull badly enough that she needed care.
“We leave for Hrafnheim without delay.” Harald’s voice drew my attention back to him. “Only my drakkar and the Nameless necessary to row up the Rimstrom. Volund and the rest shall remain here to help with the injured and see to the dead.”
I frowned, and some strange instinct drew my gaze out to sea. Just in time to catch the flicker of sun catching on metal. Lifting my hand to shade my eyes, I saw the faint outline of a sail. Impossible to tell what sort of vessel it was or how close it had come, but it was heading across the strait toward Skaland.
“The fate your mother foresaw has not been altered.” Harald surveyed the bodies his warriors were dragging up the beach to be burned. “A dark cloud looms over Nordeland, and I think Freya needs to speak to Saga before the storm descends.” He exhaled a breath. “And pray to all the gods that it is not already here.”