Chapter 2 #2
More whispers reached me over the hiss of fires.
“Elvara.”
“She’s alone.”
“… do you think?”
Even though I felt like I needed my arms to hold myself together, I managed to lift a hand in the air, offering the men a short wave. None of their faces were especially welcoming, but I couldn’t show any fear. The initiates at the Hird would be able to smell it.
I had no one here. I knew no one here. But I couldn’t let them know that that bothered me. Sure, Viljan would not leave my side unless I wished so, but I’d never been this far from home. Not alone. Not without my father. Not without Lika.
Blinking hard, I forced the mist from my eyes, headed to one of the cots beneath the rune I should be wielding, and placed my pouch atop it. The bed beside it was free as well, so I took out a few other items of clothing from my satchel and placed them on the bedding so Viljan could remain close.
Gazes continued to burn across my skin, but I ignored them as I went to fill two waterskins from the buckets by the door and picked up a few soft cloths made of animal hide from a shelf by the hearth I’d chosen.
Turning my back on the men, I slipped out of my sticky leathers.
Back home we didn’t care. Jarl, karl, thrall… we all changed and bathed before each other. It wasn’t the Viking way to be modest, and I’d never let men make me uncomfortable before.
Once in my undergarments, I grabbed the waterskins and dumped the contents over my head, using a coarse cloth to scrub the salt and the gray hue from my skin until it pinked. I tried not to wince when a breeze blew through the cracks in the walls and made goose bumps pepper my skin.
“Look at that. Heirs get as dirty as us karls. Who would have known?”
“She’s cold. Bet they only bathe in warm water back at Oenskan.”
“She’s skinny too. Have the Sweengards lost their good fortune? Is that why they sent her instead of Lika?”
“I’m surprised the beloved firstborn daughter deigns to join us here in all the filth. I thought the heirs would have their own tents since they’re so elite.”
They technically weren’t supposed to address me without me approaching them first.
In a formal setting like the Hird, any jarl was ranked higher than the karls, and as such we could choose who we interacted with by deciding to introduce ourselves or not.
I dabbed the cloth over my neck to cool the blood that roared there as I pretended not to hear them try to get around the custom.
But when the four men inched closer, the longhouse felt smaller, the hearth cramped.
“She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she? Even all dirtied up.”
I dragged my tongue over my teeth. Not all karls would be like my people at home—especially the ones here at the Hird—but these four were a special kind of stupid, weren’t they? Did they not understand I could have their heads for talking about me like this?
It wasn’t like they knew I didn’t have my rune, and if I did, I could have killed all four of them unarmed and with my eyes closed.
My hackles rose when one of them knocked something down from a cot by the hearth nearest mine, and without turning their way, I warned, “I might not be dressed, but I can slit your throats with my sword anyway. You’re not to come near me.”
“I’m terrified,” one of them joked.
Another laughed. “They’re always so proud of their swords. As if they’re not forged by the hands of karls.”
“Hers looks heavy for someone so small,” another said before he hiccuped violently. “If we win the sword, do we get to keep it? I should like a blade instead of my knives or axes.”
“Only if we’re chosen to take over as heir,” another replied. “Only the elite gets to carry swords.”
“The iron-bound do too,” someone else chimed in.
I almost laughed. I’d choose a second and third and fourth and a hundredth before any of these idiots came near the Sweengard fylki and island.
The only way would be to kill me, and even then, neither of them could be the new heir unless the king appointed them.
I doubted he would be eager to choose any of these drunk hotheads, even if I hadn’t chosen my second yet.
“Find your spine and say it to my face,” I said instead, keeping my voice calm. “If you dare.”
“So honorable,” one of them snapped. “Her back all turned like she trusts us.”
A prickle ran up my neck. I didn’t care for his tone at all.
But I didn’t turn around. Lika always told me whenever someone on our travels tried to intimidate us, to pretend I was their chief and they were my unruly subjects—never indulge them.
Here at the Hird—in this hall of wolves—if I gave them a finger, they’d tear the whole hand from my wrist and laugh while I bled.
“Watch your mouth,” I warned. “I’ve been patient so far, but I’m tired and hungry from my travels, and my restraint is waning quickly.”
“I heard she can take down grown bears with her father’s rune.” There was a slight note of apprehension in this one’s tone. “My brother fought beside hers in one of the last raids, and he threw a fucking horse at an enemy.”
“This girl can take all four of us?”
The hair on my arms stood at an end when the man laughed, and my hand flew to the rune on my chest.
The rune that was but a ghostly scar.
My heart skipped a beat at the visibly bleached lines, and I grabbed the dirty tunic on the cot and wrangled myself into it before I turned and slid the hilt of my blade into my hands.
“Careful now,” I purred, trying to sound as cold as Lika did when someone annoyed him. “I can take eight of you.”
At least I could have. Now perhaps one. But given the leader seemed to be egging everyone on, maybe one was enough.
It would have to be if this was headed where I thought it was headed.
Energy thrummed under my skin, my father’s and Viljan’s battle training kicking in, and I moved my feet slightly wider, making sure my weight was balanced.
“Do you believe her?” The bearded man in the lead turned to the others.
They shook their heads.
“What happens if an heir… disappears before the trials start and there isn’t a second to replace them yet?” he continued.
My pulse pounded in my ears as they circled the hearth.
“She has a brother who can step in,” the shortest of them, with a long blond braid over his shoulder, said. “And he won’t be happy.”
“Maybe he can disappear too? I haven’t heard very good things about the eldest Sweengard. Perhaps it’s time for a new family to lead Oenskan?” the leader said.
“I think so. Their island is supposed to be particularly beautiful. And safe. Why should they get to keep it for another generation?”
More laughter bounced against the wooden walls, joining the sharp crackling of fires. All four of them swayed as they walked up to the flames that separated us, the orange and red playing across their drunk features.
That’s why they were so brave. They must have drunk a barrel each, judging from how red-rimmed their eyes were.
I shifted the sword in my hands far more clumsily than I used to. Reckless men were dangerous men. I’d learned that the hard way when we were out pillaging and the warriors got drunk at the war camp. Lika had had to step in a few times to get them away from me.
“I don’t think the king would like it if I don’t show up tonight.” I retreated until the cot cut into my legs, my heart racing in my chest and my blood rushing hotly through my veins as I firmed my grip on my blade. “And I don’t like to disappoint.”
The metal clinked when my hand trembled.
I’d never fought without my rune. I didn’t like to admit it, but these men were right.
For the first time in my life, I felt the weight of the steel.
It was no longer like an extension of myself—like a limb I could move as easily as I could flutter my fingers.
Now it was heavy, awkwardly bouncing by my side as I tried to sweep it through the air.
Drums continued splitting the air, sounding similar to how Viljan’s raging stride would thud against the dewy grass if he had to come save me, and when the men smirked wider, a muffled voice that belonged to the king’s attendant broke through the night.
“Welcome to the Hird!”
Laughter and claps and stomps followed.
“Sounds like they’re about to introduce the heirs. I think the king is busy,” the tallest of the men said, his shining eyes hungrily roving over me. “I think everyone is busy.”
I had half a second’s warning before he lunged.
As he made to leap around the fire, my instincts took over.
Using two hands instead of one, I lifted my blade, and when I shot forward instead of retreating, the man stumbled.
I used the moment I gained to kick kindling into his face.
He screamed as the sparks landed across his skin, dropping the axe he’d sneaked into his hand to rub at his eyes.
I should have hesitated, but I didn’t. Slicing my sword through the air with a cry, I put my entire weight behind the strike.
When the man’s head thudded to the ground, the spray of red angered the fire more, sparks furiously shooting toward the wooden ceiling and the rounded hole where smoke twirled toward the sky.
The karl’s head rolled to a stop right before my feet.
I kicked it aside, then planted my feet wide.
It wasn’t only the corpse that gaped in its mask of death. The three men still alive stared at me in disbelief, and the hollow silence that followed was more terrifying than any war-call.
Then the karls started toward me as one, and my heart shot into my throat.
“You killed an unarmed man,” one of them hissed. “You dishonor our people.”
“The gods are watching all of us,” another said. “Even heirs are not above the divine.”
“The king won’t even punish us now,” the third added, his round face glistening with sweat. “There was no honor in her kill. No valor in his death.”
The hilt of my sword slipped in my damp hands, and I cursed to myself when the men split up, charging me from either side of the fire, their deliberate steps ringing in my ears.
They were right. I shouldn’t have killed a man without his axe. It wasn’t our way.