Fate's Needle (10 page)

“I don’t know what you were planned to do after you killed him,” the man said as he pulled her along. “You’re a marked slave; you would never get anywhere, not with winter approaching. Would you prefer to freeze?”

“Freeze or burn, what’s the difference?” Runa said. “Lord Ulfrik promised me my freedom if I rescued his sword. That’s what I fought for.”

He stopped at those words and turned to face her. “You have spoken to Lord Ulfrik?”

“Yes, when I fled the first time. I met him in the woods.”

The man seemed excited and Runa’s hope revived. “He promised freedom if I could get his sword and mail. That’s why we returned. I fled when Grim appeared, but that creature Aud caught me. Otherwise I could’ve done it.”

“What does Ulfrik plan to do? Is he nearby?”

Runa realized she had already said too much. The hope she felt vanished. This man wanted to be Grim’s hero, to find Ulfrik and kill him. Although she owed Ulfrik nothing, she would not betray him. She squared her jaw as the man awaited an answer.

Releasing her arm, he held up the sword. “This is Lord Ulfrik’s sword. Did you even know? Or are you as poor a liar as you are a slave?”

Runa gasped and unconsciously raised her hand to grab it, but the man snatched it away. “Please,” she begged. “I only knew it was kept at the front of the hall. Please, Lord Ulfrik will free me for returning it. I swear it.”

The man stared at her impassively.

Runa felt heat on her face and a trembling hopelessness in her joints. The man grabbed her arm again, firmly this time and without aggression. As he pulled her toward the slave hut, he began to talk in a hushed voice. “If you can get this sword to Lord Ulfrik, as you say, you can send him a message then?”

“Of course,” Runa said, loud enough to elicit a hiss from the man. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Of course I would do so, if it meant my freedom.”

“Deliver my message and I can hand you the sword when it is done,” the man said, tightening his grip on her arm.

“No,” Runa said before she could even consider her response. “I must have the sword to prove my trust. Otherwise, he will think I am working for Grim.”

“Won’t he think you’re working for Grim if you have the sword? How else could you get it so easily?”

“You call this easy?” Runa was finding her confidence again. “Anyway, I have to try. He’s my only chance in this cursed place.”

The man smiled and relaxed his grip. “Then here is my message. Tell him that Snorri has no love for Grim, and that he would swear a true oath to Lord Ulfrik. Many others would do the same. We see through Grim’s treachery, but our homes are here and we have little choice. If Ulfrik sends word, we will join him.”

Runa repeated the message to Snorri and he nodded in satisfaction. Then he handed her the sword. “Now take this, and bite my arm as hard as you can.”

At first, Runa did not understand, but Snorri pushed his wrist up to her face. “Go on. After all, you were strong enough to kill a warrior. Why not escape from me as well?”

So Runa bit, sinking her teeth in until Snorri could bear it no more and finally screamed. Then he released her. She stood for just a moment before starting to run.

Snorri gave chase, swearing. As she ran, Runa wondered if he meant all the curses he sent at her. But he let her outpace him, and soon she could see the tree line ahead. When she entered the trees and looked back, Snorri was gone. Resting on her haunches to catch her breath, she noticed a column of men assembling outside the village. They were kitted for war, moving with the gravity of men readying for a fight. Another column marched to join them and drew Runa’s attention to a less orderly group of men appearing over a rise to the far left of the village. There must have been more than a hundred men gathering, bringing mail and flashing spears.

Not waiting to count them, Runa fled to the trees. Now to find the northern path, and hope Ulfrik waited there, as he had said. Clutching Ulfrik’s sword to her breast, she vanished into the shadows of the trees.

Eleven

Black smoke coiling in the clear sky—Ulfrik and his men knew what that meant. They had been making progress in the forest, held back only by a night of cold and heavy rain, which they cursed as they trudged through it. When they turned east to join the northern track, the trees thinned to reveal smoke where Auden’s hall should have been. On the track, scores of jumbled, blurred footprints in the mud marked the passage of an army. Grim’s army.

Ulfrik ran the last few furlongs, charging ahead of the others. Black fingers of despair climbed into the clouds above Auden’s hall, and as he approached Ulfrik heard the fluttering and cawing of crows, arguing over their spoils. He did not slow his run, rushing past the burned remains to where the hall door still held, three spear hafts laced into the handles to trap the victims while the hall burned. Where windows were intact, charred corpses draped over the sills. Some were affixed to the wood by spears, impaled as they attempted to escape the firestorm. The hall burning had been well planned; it seemed no one had escaped.

His mind’s eye saw the hall as it was: wide and warm, filled with boastful songs and roasting meats. Auden and his wife at the head table, raising their horns to toast a warrior’s exploits. Auden asking the riddles he loved; everyone else groaning that they had been heard too many times. His aunt smiling patiently as Auden questioned their guests. Then, warriors banging their tankards on the tables, calling for a song, drinking themselves into a stupor.

Now the tables were corrugated black embers. Ulfrik went around the door, jumping into the ashes and sending the crows screaming. The drinking horns and tankards were lost amid the ash and the hands that once gripped them now clawed from beneath scorched and fallen beams. The white leg of a girl jutted from beneath the debris. Ulfrik thought of his cousins, and his stomach churned. The stench of burnt wood and the tang of burnt flesh seemed to thicken in his nostrils as he began to sift through the ruins, his heart pounding.
Perhaps Auden has escaped.
Maybe he burst through the burning walls, sword in hand, bellowing curses, and hacked a path out of the men who ringed his hall
, Ulfrik thought. Or hoped.

But the more he searched, the more the vision paled. He found mail coats fused into useless clumps, weapons melted in their sheaths—all abandoned as their terrorized owners struggled to escape. Corpses strewn close to the hall were skewered by arrows, archers having picked off those who escaped or who came to extinguish the fire. There had been no bold escape, only panic and death. Beneath the cinders, Ulfrik knew Auden’s bones mingled with the ashes of his men and his family.

Yngvar and Magnus stood apart, their heads bowed, their countenances inscrutable. All stood in silence amid the blowing ash, listening to the crow’s gleeful caws belying the bright afternoon sun. Ulfrik watched as the place he had called home for decades, the people he had loved and defended, blew away on the wind.

“I will not die until I have avenged Grim’s crimes. All of them,” Ulfrik said, strangely calm. “I swear this by Odin’s one eye.”

Yngvar and Magnus nodded in somber agreement. For long moments, Ulfrik anticipated the hot tears that threatened his eyes. But they did not flow. They would not, although he did not understand why. The two men held his gaze and tacitly assured him they would pledge their swords to the deed.

Suddenly disturbed, the crows and ravens scattered with angry shrieks, and the three men instinctively gripped their sword hilts as someone stepped from the forest and crossed the cleared field before them.

Runa!

Ulfrik relaxed his stance. A breeze puffed out her ragged shift as she neared and he noticed she clutched something to her chest, something that shone and sparkled green in the glaring light—Fate’s Needle. At last, the tears washed the ash and grit from his eyes.

No one spoke as Runa walked directly to him, moving with a confidence no slave possessed. She stood before him, a queen greeting her warrior, and presented the sword. Ulfrik held her gaze as he reached out and gripped the scabbard with one hand. She looked tired and thin, but her eyes flashed with hope and she smiled feebly as she released the sword.

At last, she lowered her head. “This is your sword, Lord Ulfrik. As I swore to you, I have helped you find it again.”

“Thank you, Runa.” Too many emotions overwhelmed him. He dared speak no more, lest his words were foolish. Instead, he flashed a smile and looked away, fastening the sword to his belt.

“The sword comes with a message,” Runa said and relayed Snorri’s words.

They should have heartened him, Ulfrik knew, and perhaps some corner of his soul did gladden. Yet the day still remained a loss, and the roster of losses increased daily. He merely nodded his head to Runa’s message, and patted her shoulder in thanks.

“So you managed to keep your word. I guess you’re not a faithless liar.” Yngvar joined them and nodded toward the sword.

Ulfrik had not bothered to mention Runa to Magnus, assuming she had been either captured or killed. The big man seemed to accept that Runa was his slave anyway. Ulfrik did not pursue it.

“So let’s hear it. What happened?” Yngvar turned to more practical matters.

With a smile at Yngvar’s shrouded apology, Runa told her story, omitting nothing, not even the stark detail.

Ulfrik doubted parts of it, but the bruises on her body vouched for her and he felt a twinge of guilt. Runa had endured much. When she came to the end, and her encounter with Snorri, she had captured even Magnus’s attention. They all stepped closer, anxious for details.

“When I saw all those warriors gathering, I knew I had to find our meeting place,” she said, evidently relishing the attention. “But you weren’t there. So I trekked north along the track, guessing you would go that way.

“I spent some time gathering nuts and looking for water, and when I was done I heard the men marching. I followed them through the forest—hard when they had men scouting all around. I think one mistook me for a forest spirit.” She giggled at this, but then caught herself.

“How many were there? Was Grim there?” Ulfrik’s patience with her long tale finally snapped.

“At least one hundred men. I saw Grim from afar, always with another important man. That one seemed to be the real commander. I was so tired that, when they stopped the advance for some reason, I fell asleep. I’m sorry I did. When I woke, they were gone.

“Up the track, the night clouds were red with fire, so I ran as fast as I could. When I got here…” Runa surveyed the devastation around them.

Ulfrik nodded, avoiding a description of the obvious. He did not want to hear how Auden died in his den like an abandoned pup. The trap had been well laid, and complete in its execution. He focused instead on the future. “When did this happen? What did they do after this?”

“Three days ago.” Runa’s gaze returned to him. “A downpour put out the embers yesterday, or this place would still be burning. I didn’t dare get too close. The fire made too much noise for me to hear clearly, but the important man shouted some things and left with most of the men. They had captured horses from the stables. Many rode off in another direction. Grim yelled something about the surrounding farms. I did hear both of your names.” She turned toward Magnus. “And if you’re Magnus, I heard that name, too. Then they all ran off in different directions. I had to hide under leaves to avoid them.”

Ulfrik considered all that Runa had described. The men of Grenner would not attack their own, so Grim must have commanded one hundred Vestfolders. Auden was an obvious threat to Grim’s new alliance, one they had dispatched before it could materialize. Such foresight was unlike Grim. Ulfrik guessed Grim’s Vestfolder commander planned for him. Dealing with his brother now seemed impossible.

Runa continued to describe her trials following the raid, but Ulfrik’s attention was half-hearted. Yngvar and Magnus had both left to examine the wreckage of the hall and surrounding buildings.

“I guess no one cares.”

The smallness of Runa’s voice drew Ulfrik’s attention back to her. Her expression was plaintive and her queenly presence had vanished.

Ulfrik smiled and thanked her again, more earnestly this time. She returned the smile, but her eyes were downcast. Whether or not she accepted the thanks, Ulfrik had to consider their next step. They were outlaws hemmed into hostile country. He unbuckled his old sword and extended it to Runa. “You will probably need this in the coming days. Do you know how to use it?”

Her eyes widened as she accepted the blade, nodding. Ulfrik doubted she could wield a sword, but if she truly was from a noble family, her father or brothers might have taught her the basics. Ulfrik needed everyone armed and fighting, even half-starved slaves.

Stepping from the ruins of Auden’s hall, he finally wiped his eyes and looked for the others. Magnus and Yngvar had already begun to salvage a few useful items from the surrounding buildings. There was scant food, but enough had been left untouched to feed them for a few days. In an open area between the ravaged buildings they had also piled some heavy furs, which would stave off the approaching winter. The greatest find, however, was two hunting bows and eleven arrows. Yngvar and Ulfrik took these and divided the arrows.

“They haven’t fully looted the place,” Magnus observed. “Which means they’ll be back soon, maybe today.”

Ulfrik nodded, understanding it was time to vanish. “Magnus, we had better collect your family. Runa said she heard your name. I fear what Grim might do.”

Magnus held his gaze and Ulfrik read the emotions behind the man’s eyes: fear, anger, desperation. But, taciturn as always, Magnus just nodded his bushy bearded head in agreement. Ulfrik didn’t understand why these men had made the sacrifices they had, but he was grateful. He hoped Fate would allow him to repay them.

“We will have to stick close to the road to make good time,” Yngvar said, cupping a hand to his rugged brow as he scouted the horizon. “No smoke plumes, which means our scab-faced grub and his men might already be finished with their mischief.”