Chapter 11 #2
If anyone in the village woke and saw them running past the homes, she wouldn’t know.
The only sound she could hear was the wind moving past him as they bolted through town.
And then he was leaping over a fence, using one hand to launch himself over it.
Cows lowed at them as they ran by, one of them leaving an image in her mind of white, rolling eyes.
Then, more cobblestone streets that echoed with the sound of his running footsteps.
Suddenly, he turned just slightly, using his arm and shoulder to bash through a door.
She had only the slightest image of horse stalls with the creatures shrieking in fear before they were bursting through the next door and out into the fields beyond.
Fields, she realized, that surrounded the castle limits.
The wheat had long ago been harvested, and it was all flat planes as far as the eye could see. No animals were out here grazing, but on the horizon the sky had turned just slightly pink.
They had run out of time.
Bjorn’s chest heaved with exertion. She could feel every breath thundering out of him, and how sweat slicked his body. And yet, even though the sun was coming up and someone would soon see them, he pushed himself even harder. Faster. They were moving so quickly that everything turned into a blur.
She hadn’t realized anyone could move this fast. Definitely not after he had been tortured in a dungeon for years on end. But Bjorn was running with all the speed of a man who had tasted freedom and who refused to be denied it for even a moment longer.
Astrid pressed her palms against his chest, holding on to his heartbeat as though she could keep the organ in his chest. The trees were so close. The shadows there would hide them if they could make it.
“Troll!” someone shouted. “Troll in the fields!”
Bjorn spun suddenly, twisting his body toward the voice so quickly she squeezed her eyes shut.
He let out a grunt before spinning again and running into the forest. They had made it, she realized.
They had made it into the trees that he now dodged with the deftness of someone who had run past trunks and leapt over fallen logs his entire life.
She didn’t know how he was doing it, but he was.
There was so much grace and beauty in his movements. This was not just a man running. He was running toward something. Freedom. Home. She didn’t know what, but she could feel it rumbling in his heart.
It felt like they ran for hours before he slowed. His footsteps changed from a quick sprint, to a light jog, and then he was walking.
“Are we safe?” she asked as he finally stopped.
“Safe enough.”
Astrid struggled out of the bindings that had glued her to his back and then landed on the forest floor in a heap. Her tangled hair obscured her vision of the forest, but she shoved it all back to stare in awe at what surrounded them.
Emerald moss had cushioned her fall, and the same moss climbed up the silver trunks of the surrounding trees. The morning sunlight shone through the leaves, leaving a dappled texture all along the ground. It was beautiful. Marvelous. Remarkable.
And then something red dripped onto the back of her hand.
After looking down at the droplet, she turned her gaze up to see that Bjorn had an arrow sticking out of his chest. The fletching was crudely made, clearly created out of chicken feathers.
But it had done its job all the same. The arrow stuck into his chest farther than she would have thought, the arrow head so far beneath his skin that she couldn’t see it.
A spike of fear lanced through her chest, right where he’d been hit.
“Bjorn,” she whispered. “What happened?”
He looked down at the arrow and shrugged. “A farmer saw us. It’s fine.”
As though it didn’t bother him at all, he reached up to the arrow and snapped it in half.
Only a small portion of the stick stuck out now, and he left it where it was as he crouched next to her.
His gaze wasn’t on her, a rarity, as he surveyed the forest. “There should be a cottage here. Somewhere.”
No, he wasn’t going to change the subject just like that. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.”
“There is an arrow in your chest, Bjorn. We need to get it out of you.”
“The humans will hunt us.” He finally turned his gaze to her, and she saw the worry in them, the fear that plagued them both.
“They will follow us into the forest. I have taken us deep into the trees, but I do not know how long it will take before they follow my tracks. I did not hide them well so that we could move faster. Now we must hide until they give up searching for us.”
Astrid nodded along with the words. She had no idea how to survive out here, and he did. She wasn’t going to question him.
“But you still have an arrow in you,” she stammered. “What are we going to do about that?”
He gave her a look that clearly said he couldn’t care less about the arrow. “It’s fine, Astrid. I’ve had far worse wounds than this one.”
“Bjorn,” she whispered, her voice broken.
He gave her one look and then sighed. “Fine.”
Then he reached into his chest with those ragged claws and pulled it out. It wasn’t pretty, nor was he gentle with himself. He just cut and sliced and tore until the arrowhead dropped onto the ground. “Now, we find the cottage.”
Astrid thought she might be sick. She stood on shaking legs, so uncertain of how she had gotten to this point in her life.
He’d just dug an arrowhead out of himself like it was nothing.
Like pain didn’t even bother him. She was in the forest, reliant entirely on this troll to care for her, with people hunting them down.
Shouldn’t she be considering rushing in the opposite direction and begging her own people to take her back?
Lord Tolly would. He had gone to the trouble of releasing her from that prison. Surely he would hide her away, keep her safe, make sure that she was comfortable and fed for the rest of her life.
But her sister would never be free if she did that.
Her mind volleyed back and forth between what she wanted to do as she wandered through the forest after Bjorn. A cottage should be easy to find, she thought, but it wasn’t. Until he shouted, “Here!”
She turned to see what looked like a mound of earth.
It was little more than a hill sunken into the ground.
Moss covered the top of it, and the door was so close to the ground, deep inside a hollow that was covered by a fallen tree, she never would have guessed it was anything more than a naturally made hump.
“What is this place?” she said as she walked toward him.
Bjorn reached for what looked like a tangle of wooden sticks, and opened them like a door. “Here is the cottage, Priestess.”
What had she gotten herself into now?