Chapter 2 #2
He wasn’t the first to point that out, of course, and a great many people wouldn’t have use for this many weapons.
Lark had carried a dagger and his axe and never looked for more.
But these knives had been forged for me by the man who’d raised me and trained me, the closest to a father I’d ever known; they were all I had left from the time before my life had abruptly and thoroughly gone to shit.
Lark aside, they were the closest things to friends I’d had since then.
Which was none of some sneering bastard’s business. All I ground out was, ‘If you have time to insult me, you might as well help me look.’
He cursed below his breath, but began ransacking the next shelf with quick, experienced hands, as if searching for weapons in the dead of night was something he did on the regular.
I took the other side of the cabinet, working from shelf to shelf, from drawer to drawer, as fast as my shaking hands would let me – feeling for the smoothened touch of Wunjo’s calf-leather sheath, the unnatural weight of Eihwaz’s heft.
Piles of paper, bags of coins, a clunky sword, a pouch of fire steel … and no knives.
‘Nothing here,’ the necromancer reported just as I reached the lowest shelf.
Mists fucking take me. ‘The others were here. They have to be somewhere.’
‘Perhaps one of the guards took a liking to them,’ he suggested, an edge to his voice that seemed both a provocation and a warning that he was fast approaching the end of his patience. ‘They could be anywhere. You do realise they might find our empty cell at any moment, I hope?’
The bloody hypocrisy. He was the one whose unannounced detours had brought us here in the first place. ‘Give me ten minutes.’
A scoff. ‘It’s your head.’
My head. My fingers, too … but those same fingers were itching, and for a moment, in that urgent haze of things to do, I no longer felt the fear. If the bastard knew I was a runewitch, I might at least be a good one – and damn it all, Kjell’s lessons should have prepared me for all of this.
Two steps to the window. Naudiz, sowilo, my hands forming the shapes of the runes without effort or thought – lack, vision, and the glass fogged over. Dagaz, then sowilo again – day, vision – and a small bulb of sunlight bloomed in the palm of my hand.
If that was another curse behind me, I didn’t care enough to register it.
On the wall beside the cabinet, too far from the window to have been visible in the moonlight, was a large workbench full of junk. I rooted through it at lightning speed, more weapons, more documents, and—
Small and unassuming, Wunjo.
I snatched it from the table surface with such speed I nearly cut myself.
Just one to go, then. My thoughts, my vision, my entire being seemed to have shrunk down to nothing but that task before me.
Where could they have hidden a blade of Eihwaz’s side?
Not in the desk drawers, reasonably; I opened them all the same and found only pens and ink and wax stamps inside.
The crates beneath the table? Old clothes and boots.
The cabinet after all, some sneaky corner I hadn’t been able to find by touch alone?
‘Someone’s coming.’ If not for the snappish tension in that soft voice, I’d have missed the words entirely. ‘Time to get out of here.’
I doubled my speed, rifling through the shelves with my right hand, holding the kernel of light in the left. Come on. Come on. Five knives down, one to go; it had to be—
‘Leave the bloody knife,’ the necromancer hissed, his hand clamping down on my shoulder from what seemed out of nowhere. I shook it off, whirling around to survey the room, and he snapped, ‘For hell’s sake, witch—’
‘Thraga,’ I amended, a fraction annoyed. Footsteps were coming closer, indeed. Someone might be yelling in the background. None of it seemed particularly urgent through the narrow tunnel of my focus. ‘The name’s Thraga.’
‘Wish I could say it was a pleasure,’ he bit back, grabbing my elbow again. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Don’t expect me to risk my head for you, if you insist on going through with this madness.’
But he was still here. He’d looked at me with that wide-open eye in the darkness of our cell, a momentary loss of control; he’d been afraid to believe I was speaking the truth until my broken chains had proven it.
Perhaps he wouldn’t sacrifice himself, exactly, but we were nowhere near dead yet, and I was fairly damn sure he would not sacrifice me that easily, either.
Where could the bloody knife be? Black, razor-sharp, instant death …
Oh.
What if someone had cut themselves with it?
They must have thought it was poisoned; the runes the metal had been worked with weren’t visible on the outside. Where would one keep a deadly, poisoned knife? Locked and barred, most likely, which meant—
My eye caught on the square, steel shape behind the door.
Vault. My mind was still attaching word to vision as I yanked my arm free and shot to the other side of the room.
‘Thraga.’ He bit out my name like it was a vulgar swearword, breathless and furious. ‘Get to the damn—’
Thorn alone might not be enough for that much metal. I flicked fehu at it first – abundance – and only then the rune of attack. The vault cracked open at the side.
Several well-filled purses came rolling out, and there it was – blade wrapped in linen but hilt sticking out, black and smooth as onyx.
Thank fucking hell.
I lifted it carefully, unrolled the leather strap with fidgety fingers, and tied the sheath to my shoulder where it ought to be. There. All six of them, all mine again. Now we could—
And only then did I hear the slamming of doors nearby.
Wait.
What had the necromancer said a moment ago?
Someone’s coming. Finally that tight focus sank from my limbs, finally my mind folded open to let the rest of the world in again …
and only then did I truly hear the voices shouting alarm in the corridor.
Barking dogs. Lanterns lighting up outside, enough of them that even the sowilo spell on the window was letting some of the light seep through – a prison in uproar, and somewhere past midnight on an unremarkable Thrym’s day, there were few things that could cause that sort of upheaval.
Oh, shit.
Had I done the thing again?
You and your fixations …
On the other side of the storage room, the necromancer stood staring at me – the way one might stare at a toddler struggling to throw itself into a bubbling acid pool.
‘Right.’ My voice had abruptly gone breathless. They were close, those shouts. Very close. Did I imagine it, or was someone hollering something about witchcraft? ‘Right. Sorry. That may not have been—’
‘Do I need to clarify we’re in trouble?’ he interrupted, lips barely moving.
‘No. No, that’s clear. I’m sorry.’ That seemed woefully insufficient. ‘I mean, I’m really— Oh, hell, I didn’t mean to—’
His eyes narrowed further. ‘Stop apologising. You got your knife, excellent news. Now go hold the door. I’ll clear a path outside.’
‘What?’ I said blankly.
‘Hold. The. Door.’ Every word was a barbed order. ‘I seem to recall you weren’t going to be dead weight?’
He’d gone mad.
I was being worse than dead weight. I was actively dragging him down, had all but dropped him between the monster’s jaws, and what sort of idiot would shrug that off without ensuring I knew exactly what trouble I’d caused?
For all he knew I’d do it again. If he had a single bone of sense in his body, he’d take over and fix this mess for the both of us …
and yet he didn’t seem the slightest bit tempted to take pity on me. Hold the door.
Throwing me to the wolves after all.
‘But …’ My voice cracked. ‘I can’t …’
‘What do you mean, you can’t?’ He sprang into motion, grabbed a hammer from the workbench, and made for the darkened window. ‘You’re a runewitch. You’ve got enough blades on you to arm an orphanage. Go hold the fucking door.’
I’d mess this up.
I’d kill us both.
‘But—’
He turned towards me, lip curled a fraction. ‘That wasn’t a suggestion, Thraga.’
Then his arm rose, and he smashed the hammer through the window before I could attempt to object a third time.
A cacophony of shouts poured into the small, dark room – there they are!
and circle the room! and then, dreaded and inevitable and loudest of all, one of them is a witch!
Footsteps broke into a sprint outside the door.
Far too many footsteps, far too many voices, and I was just me – trained witch and occasional mass murderer, yet all the same, just me …
More glass shattered behind me.
Flamelight flooded in, lighting up the room in a sea of gold and orange.
Keep breathing, Thraga, Kjell had murmured all those years ago as he carried me through the brambles and the firelit woods, away from the burning house in which my mother was about to die. Breathing is the first step of fighting, girl.
I drew a gulp of smoke-tinged air deep into my lungs.
The door slammed open, and my fingers were already moving.
Naudiz and sowilo, because there was no need for the bastards to see me too clearly and know where to aim.
Naudiz again, with ehwaz this time: lack and speed, and the sword swinging at me slowed down as if moving through invisible mud.
Algiz, protection, at my sweat-stiff tunic.
Just in time. A throwing knife slammed against my shoulder, thudding to the ground without drawing blood.
Eihwaz.
Death.
The sword-bearing guard tripped and went down with an inhuman groan.
‘Her fingers!’ someone howled. ‘Take her fingers!’
Like they’d taken Kjell’s fingers in the end, and for once, the thought didn’t make me cower. For once it made me feel like I was breathing the same fire that was roaring behind me.
One step back. Another eihwaz sign. Another body falling. Then three of them were pushing into the room at the same time, and I barely had time for another delaying spell as their fists and swords swung towards me.