Chapter 24 Bjorn
“He’s here!” Harald shouted, and the terror in his voice made me want to slap him. “We need Freya!”
“It’s impossible for Snorri to be here,” I snarled. “Mustering an army takes time, and it would take days for them to travel to Hrafnheim from the coast on foot!”
Yet there was no denying the fortress was under attack. “Get Tora and the others!” I shoved him toward the great hall. “But leave Freya be! She can’t fight for you anyway!”
Harald took off at a sprint that belied his age, and though every instinct told me to go to Freya’s side, my feet took me to the wall. I was a Nordelander and my promise to defend my people meant something.
Horns blared warning from the watchtowers and Hrafnheim filled with shouts of alarm that turned to screams of terror as civilians stepped out their doors and saw the arrows flying overhead. But the net of wards kept them from coming through, everyone in the streets safe unless the runes were damaged.
No sooner had the thought rolled through my head did I hear a cry of alarm from the wall that the wards had been breached. A heartbeat later, arrows tipped with flame began to fall upon the buildings, catching them ablaze. Panicked people exploded out of their homes and raced to the wells for water, desperate to put out the fires before they spread.
A crying boy crouched in the path before me and I put on a burst of speed, catching him up just before a falling arrow struck. It sliced along my arm instead, the pitch catching my tunic alight until I rolled into a puddle. “Run to the great hall,” I shouted to the boy. “Go! Quickly!”
He obeyed without hesitation. Nordelander children always did.
I ran in the opposite direction, taking the steps rising to the battlements three at a time. Skade was in the thick of things, shouting orders at warriors to fetch water even as she released arrow after glowing arrow into the darkness.
“They covered the runes,” she roared over the noise. “We need to wash away the blood or they’ll set the entire fortress ablaze!”
Leaning over the battlements, a curse tore from my lips at the sight of blood and gore dripping down the wall. It concealed one of the wards, and I knew that it only took damaging one to erase the net of protection they cast over the city. An arrow flew past my shoulder and I ducked behind the wall.
“Shoot them!” I shouted at her.
“I can’t see them!” Skade shouted back. “It’s too dark and they move each time they loose an arrow!”
“Tyr!” I growled the god’s name and my axe appeared in my hand. Immediately two arrows flew in my direction, but I batted them out of the air.
Taking a few steps back, I ran forward and hurled my axe. It flipped end over end, soaring over the dark current of the Rimstrom to sink into the ground a dozen feet up the river’s banks.
Brighter, I silently willed the fire and the flames flared. Illuminating the shadows of the men attacking the fortress. “Skade!”
She’d already lifted her bow. The green arrow arced through the night and punched through the chest of one of the shadows only to reappear in her hand. But the attackers were already running. Fleeing into the darkness where they were out of reach.
Tora exploded up the steps behind me, lightning crackling between her palms. I pointed, and with no hesitation she released a bolt. A scream of agony split the night, and then there was silence outside the walls.
Not so behindus.
Several roofs were engulfed with flame, and smoke hung in a choking cloud over Hrafnheim. If it spread, the bridges would have to be lowered to allow people to escape the fire. Except that meant facing whatever force lurked in the darkness.
“Go!” Skade shouted at the warriors. “Get water! Put out the flames!”
I hesitated, then broke into a run, Tora alongsideme.
“Is it Snorri?” she demanded as we raced to collect water from rain barrels. “Did you see him?”
I shook my head, unease that had nothing to do with the fire souring my stomach. Something about this didn’t feel right.
Taking two buckets of water each, we ran back to where the flames were the thickest. The smoke was choking but Harald stood on the roof of the home nearest to the fire, a pot of paint and a brush in his hands. Painting wards on the rushes to keep them from catching ablaze, coughing and choking, tears streaming down his face.
Guilt pooled in my stomach as I threw the water onto the worst of the fire. If this was indeed an attack by Snorri, every loss that Hrafnheim took tonight was on my shoulders because my decisions had brought him here.
All the people of Hrafnheim worked together to extinguish the flames. Six homes were reduced to sodden ashes, and their former owners stared miserably at what remained of their belongings. Harald waved away Volund when the healer attempted to treat his cough, demanding the man see to individuals with burns.
All around was misery and darkness and fear, but with the attack over and the wards back in place, I headed to the great hall.
Only to find it nearly empty.
“Where is everyone?” I asked a passing warrior.
“Harbor,” he responded. “They fled for fear the hall would be lost to the fire.”
An intelligent choice, but I still felt a prickling of dread as I headed in that direction. The air was heavy with the stink of ash and the streets loud with coughing and crying, the darkness feeling as though it pressed down from above. The quay was packed and the harbor chain lowered during preparations to flee the fire. I searched the crowd for Freya’s pale blond hair but she was nowhere in sight.
“Freya!” I shouted, fear swiftly turning to panic. “Freya!”
Tora appeared.
“Where is Freya?” I demanded. “I can’t find her.”
“I left her in the great hall.” She wiped sweat from her forehead. “She has to be in Hrafnheim somewhere. The bridges are raised.”
The efforts put toward the fires now turned to hunting for Freya. Her name echoed through the town and Harald put the wolves to the search, but with each passing minute, my hope we’d find her helping in some corner of the fortress diminished.
“Skoll and Hati say she came to the harbor,” Harald said, then doubled over coughing.
“Well, she’s not here now!” I scanned the dark waters, gaze moving out to the rapids of the Rimstrom.
“Would she hide?” Harald asked.
“Born-in-Fire does not hide.” What if she’d fallen in the water? Or been pushed? “Freya!”
Then Skade pushed through the crowd, dragging an old man by the arm. “He says his boat is missing. She must have taken the opportunity to escape.”
“She would do no such thing.” I was deeply conscious of my last conversation with Freya. Escape was the last thing on her mind. Yet there was no denying that both wolves stood on the edge of the quay, their yellow eyes fixed on the Rimstrom.
“I saw who took your boat,” a small voice called out. It was the boy I’d rescued during the attack, then sent to the great hall. “It was a stranger carrying his sick wife. He said the smoke was killing her.”
No.
“It wasn’t an attack,” Harald snarled. “It was a diversion.”
Dread pooled in my stomach, along with vicious rage at myself because I could have prevented this. “He’s taken her back.”