Chapter 49
The Western Woods
Hekla woke with mud in her mouth and twigs in her hair. She rolled onto her side and retched up the contents of her stomach, which, apparently, included water, mud, and more water. When there was nothing left to expel, she struggled to a sitting position.
“Fuck,” muttered Hekla. She braced herself against bent knees and stared at the empty sleeve where her prosthetic arm ought to be.
Her insides wrenched at the realization that it had come off.
Teeth clattering with cold, she scanned her surroundings for any sign of her arm—wet, muddy riverbank beneath her; lazy river meandering beside her; the distant crash of the waterfall—
The waterfall. Oh, gods.
“Eyvind!” she shouted, clambering to her feet. Thinking of the monstrous things lurking in the woods, she unsheathed a dagger from her boot.
Silence met her ears.
“Eyvind!” she bellowed even louder, scouring the riverbank for any sign of the warrior. The last thing she remembered was plunging over those falls, but based on their distant sound, she must have drifted some way downstream.
She broke into a run, the soft riverbank impeding her progress. Hekla reached a bend in the river, and the silt thankfully shifted to river stones. And there he was, sprawled on the shore. Eyvind’s face was tilted to the skies, one arm flung out, as though reaching toward her.
“Eyvind,” she gasped, running. As she splashed through a shallow tributary, her foot caught, and the dagger went flying as Hekla fell to her knees. But she was on her feet in an instant, and by Eyvind’s side in another.
Hekla lowered her ear to his lips. A faint puff of air against her skin had her exhaling in relief, but his breaths were shallow and his lips tinged blue.
Hekla wrangled her emotions into place, knowing she had to stay calm—had to work quickly.
Her gaze fell to the red-slicked river rocks beneath Eyvind, and she examined the warrior for injuries.
She discovered a shallow, oozing wound on the side of his temple and a slash into the fleshiest part of his biceps.
But when Hekla’s hand reached Eyvind’s side, she gasped.
Blood pulsed from a jagged wound the length of her hand. Bile rose in Hekla’s throat, but she swallowed it back.
“All right.” Hekla knelt back, raking her hand through her hair. “All right. You’re still alive, which means nothing vital was struck.”
She clumsily shucked off her lébrynja jacket, cursing the lack of her prosthetic arm.
By some miracle, the blades in her battle belt had held in place, as had her survival pouch.
Hekla unsheathed another dagger and cut a swath from her woolen tunic, which she balled up and held firm against Eyvind’s seeping wound.
Hekla surveyed her surroundings. They were on a pebbled bank in the river’s curve, sheltered from the wind.
She knew that when darkness brought the biting cold, they’d need something more to keep them warm.
But with Eyvind’s wound, she could not risk moving him, and so she’d have to make a fire right here.
Hekla propped the makeshift bandage in place against Eyvind’s side using a rock, then pushed to her feet.
“Don’t die on me, Hakonsson,” she barked, before running into the woods.
Half an hour later, Hekla had a small fire crackling on the river’s shore. She supposed she ought to be grateful to the leech for sucking the life from the trees; between the dried moss and deadwood, it hadn’t taken many strikes of her firestone to get it lit.
Now, using her teeth and left hand, she worked on pulling Eyvind’s wet clothing from him so the fire’s heat could reach his skin.
Hekla wondered if this was some dark joke of the gods, forcing her to haul this man’s breeches off, but as her fingertips brushed his cold, clammy thigh, she cursed.
If the wound didn’t kill him, the cold very well might.
Setting her sights on his tunic, Hekla worked with maddening slowness, peeling each fiber from the wound in his side.
When it was fully revealed, she stared at it, feeling sick.
It was deep and jagged, with tiny stones and river muck lodged inside it.
Hekla pinned the makeshift bandage back into place with the rock, then set to work.
She pulled the medicinal supplies from her survival pouch and stared at the curved needle and thread for several measured heartbeats. Her mind drifted to that terrible night following Ilías’s death, when Rey’s wound had required sewing.
You’ll have to stitch it, Hekla had told Silla. I cannot with my hand.
Now she gritted her teeth and blinked furiously. How could she stitch a wound with only one hand? But one glance at Eyvind’s pallid complexion and blue lips had her jumping into action. “You must figure this out,” she told herself, “or he will die.”
To Eyvind, she whispered, “This will hurt, Hakonsson.”
And on an exhale, she pulled the bandage away.
Methodically, Hekla began cleaning Eyvind’s side: a cycle of flushing it with pre-boiled water from her waterskin, then wiping it through with a swath of her tunic.
Throughout the process, Eyvind moaned and writhed.
Yet he did not wake, and for that, Hekla was eternally grateful.
When the wound was clear of muck and debris, Hekla sat back on her haunches and eyed the sewing kit. “You can do this,” she muttered, picking up the needle in her left hand and staring at it. “You must do this.”
Hekla slid the needle into the leg of her breeches to hold it in place, then wet the thread. It took her several tries, and many muttered curses, but when she managed to get the thread through the needle, her heart flared with excitement.
Using her dagger, Hekla cut a long length of thread, then heated the needle over the fire until it glowed red-hot. And then she set her sights on Eyvind. Shimmying onto her stomach, Hekla braced her residual limb on the ground.
“You’ll owe me for this, pretty boy.”
With slow but decisive movements, Hekla sank the needle through the bottom edge of the wound, and then the top.
Twisting, she repeated the motion until she was back to the start.
Transferring the thread to her mouth to keep it taut, Hekla used her left hand to tie it off.
As the knot caught on the flesh, pulling the edges of the wound together, Hekla’s heart filled with hope. Could she actually do this?
Hekla had to do it all over again for the second stitch—thread the needle, heat it, shimmy on her stomach, and perform the stitch.
Over and over, she repeated this process, until she reached the other side.
Hekla knew she could not sew the wound as tight as a two-handed person.
But after tying the last of the thread off, she rose and examined her work.
Her stitches were uneven, but it was enough—the wound had stopped seeping.
Hekla bit down on her lip with a small measure of joy.
It was better than she’d guessed she could do.
Hekla added it to the long list of fuck yous she’d compiled for her former husband.
Quickly, she dressed the wound, applying layers of moss and securing it all in place with a long strip of linen. By the time she was done, Eyvind’s lips were blue. Goosebumps covered every inch of his exposed skin, and Hekla knew they were not in the clear yet.
He was near the fire’s warmth, but it was winter in the northern reaches—they needed a shelter.
Thankfully, this section was on a river bend and driftwood was plentiful.
Hekla collected load after load, dumping them near the edge of the forest. Next, she linked her battle belt with Eyvind’s, then strung them between the roots of a felled tree.
Hekla then propped the driftwood against them.
When she laid the last piece of flattened wood in place, she was ready to collapse from exhaustion.
But she couldn’t—not yet. She dashed back into the forest and found a long, sweeping branch at the base of an evergreen.
It took her a few minutes to snap the branch clean, but soon she was dragging it back onto the beach.
Carefully, she positioned Eyvind on the tender boughs, then began the painstakingly slow process of hauling him up to the shelter.
By the time Eyvind was protected beneath the driftwood roof, with a fresh fire burning low before him, Hekla’s limbs tingled with exertion.
The battle thrill had long faded. She barely managed to peel off her clothing and string it on their shelter’s roof before collapsing onto the evergreen boughs beside Eyvind.
His skin was cold as ice.
“You’d better pull through, Hakonsson.”
Hekla pressed her cheek to Eyvind’s back and counted the beats of his heart. And it wasn’t long before she succumbed to sleep.