Iron Axe (9 page)

Halli's voice grew harsh. “Answer me, thrall. Would you like that? Would you like me to show you mercy?”

The crowd stared, every eye round and hard. Danr's face burned. Halli was setting a trap, he knew that, but there was only one answer he could give, so he gave it. “Yes, my lord.”

“Very well. Listen carefully, if there's a brain in that stone skull of yours.” Halli crossed his arms. “You can become my personal thrall for life. Or you can be freed of your bond forever—if you first beat the witch bloody and make her confess.”

A murmur went through the crowd that hemmed them in. Still on the ground a few paces away, Aisa gave a gasp behind the scarf covering her face. Halli put the cane in Trollboy's hand with a small smile.

“Go ahead, Trollboy,” Halli said. “Make her bleed until she confesses, and I'll release you from Alfgeir Oxbreeder. I swear before all these witnesses, you'll be a thrall no more.”

Aisa's dark eyes met Danr's again. She was trapped, and they both knew it. Anyone accused of witchcraft took nine strokes with a cane. If that didn't bring a confession, the accused was caned to death. But anyone who did confess was branded on face and hands, and hanged from an ash tree. Or beheaded.

He's already killed me,
said Aisa's eyes.
Take your freedom from it.

A long future stretched ahead of Danr, flat and bleak. He stared at Halli, and Halli stared back. Aisa begged with her eyes.
Get it over with,
they said silently.
Better you than him.

Danr snapped the cane. The crowd rippled.

“You're a coward, Halli,” Danr said. “She's no witch. Those pigs have more honor than you.”

“A pig would know.” Halli made a great show of sighing and gestured to his two guards. The second was only now getting to his feet after Danr had knocked him across the
yard. The first was still cradling his arm. “Take the witch to Skyford keep for caning and execution. Then draw up a bill of sale from the earl for this new thrall of mine.”

The second guard yanked Aisa to her feet, and Danr's mouth fell open. “What are you doing?” he shouted.

“Making the choice you refused,” Halli said reasonably. “For attacking me, you will be my thrall for life. And for the heinous crime of witchcraft, this slave bitch is—”

Danr exploded like an angry volcano. He punched Halli in the stomach, and Halli folded around Danr's fist with an “oof.”
Danr
brought his hand up and cracked Halli on the underside of the jaw. Every insult, every slight, every taunt, every jeer boiled out of him. The monster bellowed his fantastic rage and smashed Halli in the shoulder, slammed him to the ground, kicked him in the ribs. He felt the impact of every hit beneath his hands and feet. He heard the crunch of bone. A lifetime of wrath and injustice boiled around him in a dreadful thundercloud as the punches and kicks fell like hail. Halli dropped to the ground, bleeding and bruised. Danr was only vaguely aware of the crowd around him. He punched Halli hard in the temple. Halli stiffened and went limp. Danr raised both his hands, boulder-hard and mountain-heavy, high above his head. His fists hung there for a moment—

Don't!
said his mother.

Aisa cried out, and Danr brought them both down toward White Halli's skull.

Pain exploded behind Danr's left ear. All his muscles went limp and he staggered. The second guard swung the shovel again. Danr dully watched it coming. Another explosion of pain, and the world slid into darkness.

*   *   *

The trial was short. Danr stood in a circle of spears thrust point-down into the ground with iron shackles weighing down his wrists and ankles. Outside the circle on a small
platform stood Halli's father, Earl Hunin. Like Halli, he was tall and blond, but his hairline had receded, and his blue eyes were watery. A silver coronet circled his brow, and he wore a heavy blue tunic embroidered with silver eagles. Danr's eyes traced the eagle designs. The morning's anger had evaporated, replaced by a leaden resignation that weighed him down more than the shackles. How much would the villagers laugh when Trollboy's head rolled across the grass?

How much would Aisa cry?

He tried to picture Aisa weeping over his corpse, but the image wouldn't come. She had disappeared during the confusion of his attack on Halli and his arrest afterward. She would never guess his name now. No one would. He was seized with a desire to shout his name aloud so everyone would at least know that much about him, but he kept quiet.

Danr had crippled a man. He had intended to kill him.

Halli was propped up in a bed a few paces behind his father, the earl. He wore a splint on his left leg and right arm. His face was a purple mess. But the worst was his eyes. One was swollen and shut. The other was open and glassy. It saw nothing. Halli didn't respond to anything: not food, not drink, not even the voice of his son, Rudin. The little boy sat on the edge of the bed with Halli's hand in his own. The healer in Skytown had said the blow to Halli's temple had driven away his wits, and it was doubtful they would ever return.

Now that the haze of anger had cleared, the awful memory of what Danr had done clung to him like the blood that still stained his tunic. He felt ready to throw up at any moment. It wasn't fair that he felt this way. Halli was, in his own way, a bigger monster than Danr. He had bullied Danr all his life, tortured his own cousin Sigrid, thrown dozens and dozens of innocent men into prison, and worst of all, tried to put Aisa to the witch's cane and rope. But now Halli's little boy hovered like one of the
draugr
at the edge of
Halli's sickbed, and with that came the heavy knowledge that it was because of Danr's own self. The chains he wore felt light in comparison.

On Earl Hunin's left was a priest to Urko, the god who had been cut in half by the Stane as a traitor during their war with the Nine Gods. Mother had told Danr a number of stories about how half of Urko lived with the Nine, and half of him with the Stane, and how both sides thought he spied for the other. Strangely his sacrifice came to associate him with law and justice, as someone who could weigh both sides of every argument, and his priests attended major trials as advisers, witnesses, and occasionally judges. Danr didn't know this priest, but he recognized the strange hooded robe—left half black, right half white. The priest kept an elaborate walking stick at his right side, a symbol of Ashkame, the Great Tree. His face was hidden by the hood, and Danr couldn't read the man's expression, or even tell if he were looking at Danr at all.

Talfi stood at the forefront of the crowd of villagers. His expression was at once angry and helpless. Danr hated appearing in front of his only friend in shackles like an animal. Alfgeir watched from the back with a stony expression. No matter how this went, he was losing Danr as a thrall.

The rest of the villagers were gathered around as well, their faces ranging from angry to curious to frightened. Few were actually sorry that Danr had beaten White Halli into a stupor, but a trial was a show, and no one wanted to miss a moment. They were on a meadow some distance outside of the village, well away from the two
draugr
hovering in the ash grove and the one behind the pigpen. Neither of the ghosts showed any signs of moving. After the trial, the priest of Urko would try to drive them out. Whispers floated around the village that they wanted revenge for their deaths, and the
execution of that troll boy might send the
draugr
away, especially the one that had once been White Halli. Danr pulled into himself at the thought. His head ached, both from the blows he had taken and from being out in the sun for so long without his hat. At least Aisa was safe.

“We've heard the evidence,” said Hunin. His face was a stone, but his eyes were red, and he refused to look in Danr's direction. His fingers twitched, and he stank of sweat even from this distance.

The priest intoned, “The Nine find it inappropriate for the father to pass sentence when his son is the victim.”

“There is no one else,” Hunin snapped.

“It still must be noted.”

“Noted, then.” Hunin's voice was level as a grave. “The normal sentence for . . . injury is for the earl to decide how much the victim has . . . ” Here, Hunin's voice quavered. “. . . has lost. The criminal must pay that amount to the family, or labor for them until the debt is paid.”

Danr swallowed. The debt for White Halli would be high, probably more than Danr could ever work off in a single lifetime. He would be a thrall to Earl Hunin for the rest of his life. The thought of spending years—decades—in the keep under the thumb of a man who probably wanted him dead made his jaw tight and his heart pound at the back of his throat. The earl might order him beaten every day, or branded with hot irons, or sliced with thin knives.

“However,” the earl continued, “the law also demands that injured party's wishes be considered in the sentence. As the injured party, I wish to see this troll's head and hands nailed to my doorpost.”

Danr swayed dizzily and bitter bile piled up behind his tongue.

“Deliberately executing one of the Stane could be seen as an act of war, my brother,” said the priest.

“They executed two of ours!” Hunin shot back. “Three now! My son . . .” His voice broke again. “My son is all but dead because of that stone filth up the mountain. Why shouldn't we go to war? We could take the land they've held for centuries and selfishly refused to let us use. We Kin could become a more powerful presence in Balsia.”

Danr's ears pricked up. It sounded like an old argument between brothers, though it was the first time Danr had ever heard of it. Something more was going on here, something he had never seen or understood. Danr felt abruptly small and stupid, like a
hnefatfl
piece who didn't even know it was in a game. Was it possible Hunin was using Danr only as an excuse to go to war against the Stane? Was his grief nothing more than theatrics?

“The Noss brothers tried to farm land that butts up close to the trolls,” the priest replied from beneath his bicolored hood. “The priesthood can't condone going to war over a few hectares of disputed land.”

“And over my
son
!”

“The defendant was brave!” Talfi called out. “He defeated a wyrm! He took the first two
draugr
out of the village! He stood up to White Halli's false accusations! No one else has done such things!”

On the bed, White Halli stirred. His good leg quivered and he turned his head just a little. Danr started to say something, but Rudin also noticed the change. Hope dawned on his face. The boy grabbed Halli's hand again and mouthed,
Papa.
Halli's remaining eye blinked once, then fixed in the distance again. Rudin hung his head. Danr's words died.

“These actions do not excuse crimes!” Hunin barked, not noticing the exchange behind him. “The troll boy deserves only death!”

“Tread carefully, brother,” said the priest. “Choosing death
only leads to more death. How many other fathers will grieve for their lost sons if you make the wrong decision?”

Rudin spoke from the bed. His face was hard, more adult than a little boy's should have been. “If a half-blood thrall hurt my papa,” he said, “he should die. It is only fair.”

The crowd followed this argument with hungry attention. The last few days had provided more entertainment than the past ten years. Danr stood in his shackles with sunlight pain squeezing his head and waited. Sixteen years as a thrall was all the life he was going to get. The earl closed his eyes for a long moment and the entire crowd stopped breathing.

“The penalty for a man who lays hands on nobility is to become a thrall for the victim's family,” Hunin said. “However, given that Trollboy is not a man, we must impose a stiffer penalty. I call for his death.”

“Thank you, Grandfather,” Rudin said.

The words dropped on Danr's head like stones. Talfi's face went white. Not a murmur stirred the crowd.

“Still,” Hunin continued, “even a father's love is no excuse to increase tensions with the Stane. Therefore, our sentence is exile. Trollboy, you are no longer a member of this community and you no longer enjoy the earl's protection. Beginning at sundown, any man who lays eyes on you may do to you as he wishes. So be it.”

“So be it!” The priest rapped his walking stick on the side of the platform.

Confused babble rushed through the crowd. Danr stood thunderstruck in the circle of spears. Exile. He was an exile. Exile was for men who murdered their parents or raped children, men whose necks weren't worth an axe stroke. Exile meant he had no family, no tribe, no people. He wasn't even a person.

Because you showed the monster,
said his mother's sad
voice in his ear, and that was even worse. Automatically he tried to touch the pouch at his throat, but the shackles held his wrists low and prevented it.

“My lord!” Talfi shouted above the noise. “This isn't fair! You can't mean—”

But the earl had already stepped down from the platform to mount his horse. He rode away without another word. Rudin watched him go from White Halli's bed.

*   *   *

“You could appeal to the priests,” Talfi said in the stable. “Maybe they could get the sentence reversed. Or maybe you could—”

Danr steadfastly ignored Talfi's flow of words and shoved his other tunic into his sack, along with a few candle stubs, a knife, a chipped axe no one wanted, and some flint and steel. Outside, the western mountains were already casting purple shadows over Alfgeir's farm, and he had no doubt White Halli and his men were waiting for the last of the sun to disappear, oh yes, they were.

“. . . and you can have the rest of the food from my aunt,” Talfi continued, handing it to him. “Do you want me to have Uncle Orvandel send word to Father Nikolas in the monastery at Rolk's Fork? Everyone respects Uncle Orvandel, and the priests might . . .”