The Strange Maid (17 page)

The herd has reached the festival site before me and half the booths are destroyed, two on fire.

People and monsters dash madly about, flames casting deeper shadows, shadows that fool my eyes. I raise Unferth’s sword and throw myself into the terrible lunacy.

A massive troll blocks my way, canceling out the moon. His tusks are sharp and straight down like a saber-toothed cat’s; he’s wider than Red Stripe and reaches for me. I drop all the spears but one and hook its butt under my boot. It charges into the blade. He howls, hot sweet breath blowing at me, and his weight shoves me and the spear back.

I stumble under his weight but manage to lift Unferth’s sword and jam it up into his neck. It grates against rough skin as I drag it out again. I haven’t killed him—it’s not so easy—but as he grabs at his wounds I seize the scattered spears and run on.

I have to find the mother. Stop her, stop the herd.

Where is Ned?

Firelight and smoke war with the moon to cast shadows and an argument of light into the fray. Trolls tear through the circus. They bash through walls and rip down the canvas booths. I see our Beowulf George in silk pajamas hacking at a pale gray troll with one of the warrior swords. The blade sparks against the hard skin.

“George!” I scream. “Stab! Not slash! Lever it … with your weight!”

I drop the spears again and crash into the troll from behind, Unferth’s sword an arrow in my hand. The point pierces through tough skin. George’s eyes are wide holes and he fumbles to follow suit. The two of us stab and hack, but the troll punches out, knocking George away with a roar and charging toward a few of its brothers.

There are so many of them.

I turn toward more yelling to see other actors caught in the attack. Some flee, some are stock-still, some fighting poorly. “Here!” I throw two of them spears and have three left. The first troll, gushing dark blood from his stomach and neck, comes at me again and I drop the spears to put both hands behind the sword. I thrust it with all my power, and he knocks me aside with a wild swing. My shoulder explodes and I hit the ground, its blood a hot mask on my face. It sticks my lashes together and I think of Valtheow, I think of Sanctus Hervor and her vicious fighting. Suddenly I’m flooded with more joy than fear.

I suck in a breath of sticky, cold air and get up.

The herd heads for the Cove. I grab the discarded spears again, throwing them into whatever hands I can, using this flare of excitement to rally others. We run behind the trolls down the rocky hill toward town.

Everything is alive with fire and screams.

Coveys throw iron pots and use their own swords to attack, broken tables as shields. There’s a barrier built between two houses, and an actor helps me clear out the troll hounding them. He snarls at us and we both drive spears hard into his chest. He hits the house hard enough to shake us all but still lives, still swings back at us, baring his twisted tusks. “Get out!” I yell at the families. “Go to the docks, take the boats while you can!”

Racing forward, I drive Unferth’s sword up into the troll’s softer neck. He falls back, dead weight nearly ripping the sword from my grip; the first one I’ve killed.

A scream of victory feels like laughter tearing up my throat.

Here’s Peachtree, a butcher knife in hand and human blood staining half her face. “Signy.” She grasps my arm, crying and choking. “Come on, we have to get out.”

I take her face in one bloody hand. “Peachtree, gather as many people as you can and
go.
”

She shakes her head desperately but obeys, stumbling away from me with her arms out.

My eyelashes stick together when I blink, and my left shoulder and arm hurt with a constant pressure. My ears ring. I’m alone in a pocket of town where the battle has passed on. We’re barely killing any of them, even with my heavy spears. Our only hope is to keep them off until the sun comes and pray for no cloud cover. My body shakes with adrenaline, but already my legs are like lead. I might not make it until dawn.

And where is Ned? He’s the only other person here who knows how to deal with these monsters. We should be fighting side by side. Where did he go?

The Shipworm. That’s where Rome and Jesca will be. Stepping over bodies, I run toward the center of town. In the darkness a troll looms up, reaching with his massive, crushing hands, and I swing my sword. He catches the blade. I rip the sword free, slicing open a shallow cut in the beast’s palm. He roars and I trip backward. I hit the ground. The troll looms over me, grabs my arm to haul me back up. An excruciating pop as my shoulder jerks out of joint. I scream and he puts his curled yellow tusks to my face and roars again. His fetid breath blackens my vision and I kick desperately at him, take his tusk in my good hand and yank. I punch him in the eye.

He bellows his pain and flings me away before charging on.

Loki’s luck and the cobblestones together jar my shoulder back into the socket. I scream though grinding teeth.

There’s a metal taste clamped to the back of my throat. My fingers are numb, and thank fate it was my left arm. I roll over, grasping for Unferth’s sword. Purple blood stains the blade, is caught in the creases of the pommel, and runs down the fuller to drip onto the cobblestones.

Pushing to my feet, I stumble toward the center of town again. Nausea pulls through my veins, and my skull throbs, my shoulder burns.

The Shipworm is alive with light and people, surrounded by trolls waving fists and broken doors like threats. People are trapped inside, high up, who must have run for the roof instead of out.

A sixth troll enters the courtyard.

She’s bigger than her children, huge, five meters at least, white marble with gray and blue veins. Her stone skin gathers the littlest strands of moonlight and glows. She’s a ghost with flaccid breasts and silver rings piercing her nipples, her ears, her nostril. A looping collar of iron and bone hangs from her neck. Tusks spiral out of her mouth, ivory-yellow and curling gracefully, impractically.

The troll mother.

I step out of the alley. “Mother,” I call.

She turns to me, her marble muscles shifting smoothly. Her eyes are shocking aquamarine, bright and alive.

I raise Unferth’s sword in a challenge. “Fight me!” I cry, voice cracking.

The troll mother roars.

It’s an elegant howl, like the first strain of the Gjallarhorn that blows to signal the end of the world.

Her sons echo the call and I’m trapped in this circle of them. They’re turned away from the Shipworm, and I force a smile so wide I imagine Unferth’s grin behind it, his teeth behind mine, both of us here and dangerous. As the first thin light of dawn kisses the red rooftops, we face each other. Maybe if I can just draw it out long enough. Maybe.

The troll mother opens her mouth and she speaks.
“Valkyrie.”

My spine straightens in shock.
She knows me for what I am.

I work my mouth, but nothing comes out. It doesn’t matter, this shock, this troll mother recognizing me. What matters is distracting her, saving the others. I swallow grit and troll blood.

“Yes!” I cry. “I am Signy Valborn, the Valkyrie of the Tree. The Alfather named me, I am born of death and for death, troll. Who are
you
to be here, to challenge me?”

The troll mother stares at me, and I pray the people in the Shipworm are using the time to escape. I cannot glance their way, can’t let her notice them again. Unferth’s sword trembles in my exhausted hand.

Her stone skin is nicked and lined with scars, claw marks dug in straight lines and patterns, as if purposefully made. One great sickle-shaped scar on her shoulder almost appears to be the rune for
transformation,
and another giant X might be the rune for
day.

The beautiful moon-marble troll twists her mouth into a horrible smile. She flexes her hands, rattling the bone bracelets on her wrists, and makes a huge barking sound.

“Poor lost girl,” she says, and laughs again. “Never know monster inside.”

I shake my head, knees weak.

The troll mother opens her arms invitingly. “You defeat me, they all live.”

I flick my eyes toward the red roofs. No true flash of sunlight, and low clouds could keep her safe for ages still, if Unferth’s stories of the mothers are true.

Dull certainty settles on my shoulders. I won’t survive her that long. Whose poem is this? Hers or mine? My vision wavers, my shoulder burns. I’m so weary, and the arm with Unferth’s sword trembles.

My story. It has to be mine.

“For Hangatyr!” I scream wildly, then run at her.

She doesn’t move but simply allows Unferth’s sword to cut into her chest. Dark blood bubbles around the blade. She casually lifts one arm and bats me away. Her sons hoot and bellow from the edges of the square.

The sword rips from my hands. I tumble over the hard stone yard and hit in a mess of aches and limbs. I struggle up. She pulls the sword out of her own body and tosses it to me. It clangs against the cobblestones.

I sway as I stand. The troll mother waits with an air of patience while people pour out of the Shipworm. Her sons growl and bare fangs at the people, but their mother flings a hand up to keep her sons from attacking. There’s Peggy and some trapped guests fleeing for the docks.

I step forward, arcing around to get between the mother and the inn. I charge her again, dashing across the courtyard, sword raised.

There’s a scream of my name behind me, but I strike.

The troll mother knocks the sword aside and catches me against her chest. Her eyes are right at mine, sea-blue and aquamarine, and her breath warms me, her arms embrace me. She’s so hot, not like stone at all but slick and warm. Comfortable. I feel the beat of her heart like the tide, ancient and strong.

But there in her frozen eyes I see
stone
and
heart.

Her heart.

The knowledge blazes through me. Sudden hope makes me twist and fight and scream again. I punch at her eye and her nose, and she coughs. I grab her tusk but can’t hurt her.

Her mouth opens and she says,
“Your heart.”

I freeze. The runes pulse there in her eyes and I think,
This is the end,
but before I know, hands pull me free. I hit the ground and recognize Unferth’s boots next to my face. I grab at his ankle, but he charges her.

Gore covers Unferth’s gray coat and he stabs a thick troll-spear into her ribs. The mother roars and picks him up by the neck. He kicks. I scramble for his sword.

The troll mother squeezes and Unferth wilts. His arms dangle limp.

My world narrows.

Sunlight touches her head and she ducks. She throws Unferth’s body over her shoulder and barks at her sons.

Then she turns away with him. I try to run after and she swings her arm at me, catches me in the chest. I slam into the cobblestone courtyard again, unable to breathe, wheezing, gasping, clutching at my chest. A sharp, horrible pain branches like lightning from my side. I roll, try to stand. My skull pounds, I can hardly claw my way up the side of the general store to watch the final troll-sons harass the survivors fleeing the Shipworm in every direction. The lightening sky begins to reach the streets and alleys, and the trolls dodge through the remaining shadows after their mother.

I’m suddenly alone again.

Your heart.

Her heart.

The inn smokes, sending up long lines of ashes into the sky. The wind is not only acrid but sharp with blood, the sticky and nauseating smell of a funeral pyre. Strings of lanterns and colored paper flutter on the ground, scattering fake coins everywhere.

My eyes won’t focus at first on the lumps on the ground. There aren’t too many right here, mostly strangers I don’t know. Blood is frozen across their hands and faces. Their teeth shine from open mouths.

I whirl away, but there’s Amelia the dentist against the well, her dress stiff with blood. And there the actor Leif pinned to the earth with one of the troll-spears. My throat closes.

Then I see Bethya the mead mistress, but only because the tips of her braid suddenly catches fire. I stagger to her and fall to my knees, batting the fire out with my hands. The musky smell of burning hair gags me and I wretch against the ground, gripping deep into the cracked cobblestones until two of my fingernails break. Tears fall from pain and grief, and my heart is an ever-widening chasm.

Wiping my eyes, I turn toward a sudden flurry of movement.

The wind ruffles Jesca’s graying hair and the end of Rome’s blue shirt.
No! They were supposed to escape.
But here they are, fallen beside each other, his shattered arm half on top of her. A tiny wail worms its way out of my mouth. Both their faces flash before me, golden and laughing. I remember the roughness in Rome’s voice when he called me
daughter
and Jesca hugging me with hands as delicate as bird wings.
Even the Alfather has a family.