Chapter Thirty-One
SOMETHING STIRRED FURTHER along the Oxen Road. Siv glanced back to Tyra, who dragged her feet through the red leaves. Down the road, Siv sensed eight short-lived with six horses, undoubtedly on their way to Jelling. They had a foreign smell about them.
Somewhere up north, beyond the forests and fields lay Jelling where the Chief Harald, son of Gorm the sleepy, lived. Tingsmen called him Bluetan for his greed. Tyra and her had left the Oxen Road briefly to avoid the town on their way to Hedeby. Siv remembered Harald Gormsson from many summers ago, but he would not remember her; she had changed a lot since Jelling and Ash-hill had raided together. Bit by bit she had changed over the winters; the best way not to attract attention. Her hair had become lighter, a little more every summer, her eyes had changed colour too.
‘Come, Tyra,’ Siv called urgently.
Tyra rushed to catch up. The soft curls of her hair flowed behind her and her bow knocked against the arrows she carried on her back. Two furs were wrapped around her neck and shoulders, and along with the ragged hemline of her dress, it made her look like a wild animal.
During their long journey walking south along the road, they had encountered less than a dozen travellers. The Oxen Road was normally crowded in early winter. Few towns had been spared in the southerners’ attack on Jutland, and the empty Oxen Road made that clear.
‘What’s happening?’ Tyra whispered in a soft voice. She reminded Siv so much of Einer.
Siv took Tyra’s hand. ‘There are some people ahead of us,’ Siv gave Tyra’s hand a reassuring clench. Tyra’s hand was so warm and small in hers. Siv smiled. She had always wanted a daughter.
The people Siv sensed came into view along the road. Two riders led a small retinue. The horses were tall like those of the south and their manes had been braided back. Behind the two riders followed a horse pulling a wagon, which was carved and coloured in fancy patterns from the east. A man steered while two women sat at the back, giggling. Behind them rode three more short-lived. The men bore weapons, all six of them; both axes and expensive swords.
Siv and Tyra approached. The men noticed them. Their hands flew to their expensive weapons, ready to draw them. An unease rose within Siv, but she continued on, dragging Tyra with her.
They were foreigners from the east so Siv had to avoid using her influence on them. Those outside of Norse lands tended to be more sensitive to her influence and become hostile to it.
As long as they continued to walk and did not make eye contact, it would be fine, Siv told herself to dismiss the creeping unease. Tyra too was nervous. Her heart rate grew faster.
Rain drizzled from the grey evening clouds down over the dark brown leaves on the Oxen Road. Siv hurried Tyra and her along, past the men. The warriors watched them as they passed. Siv felt their stares, and sped up a little until they were past each other.
Tyra’s stomach grumbled. They had not had anything to eat, except for a handful of roasted chestnuts left over from last night. They had finished the last of their food reserves three night ago.
‘Hungry?’ asked a voice from behind.
One of the men riding at the back had stopped his horse to face them. He held out a bun of bread towards them, with a bite taken out of it that he was still chewing.
‘Takka,’ Siv forced herself to say with a smile without looking the man in the eyes. ‘We’re alright.’
With those words Siv turned away from him and forced Tyra to hurry away too. Tyra’s stomach complained, unhelpfully. The clap of hooves followed them.
Siv stopped up and turned slowly back.
The man had followed them down the road.
‘Are you looking down on me?’ he asked in a dark voice.
The others had stopped further up the road, waiting for him to join them. The other five men still had their hands on their weapons, ready to turn their horses around and fight. The one in front of them leant forward in his saddle, smiling to Tyra. Siv forced Tyra to her back so the man couldn’t look directly at her.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ the man felt the need to say, but he was no longer extending the half-eaten bread bun towards them and he was no longer smiling either.
Siv was about to turn back to the road and keep him away with whispered runes to avoid a fight, when the man spoke again. ‘We’re men of the King,’ he said.
They were men of the King, in Jutland where there were no kings. The retinue was headed north to Jelling, which meant that the self-proclaimed king who had weakened the old forces was none other than the coward chief Harald of Jelling. Finally, Siv knew exactly where Tyra and her were headed, and exactly how to make an entrance too.
With a simple phrase the six eastern warriors had become valuable to Siv and her plans. Unfortunately for them, they were worth more to her dead than alive.
The runes rustled around Siv’s fingertips, ready to be used, but she did not need them.
She let go of Tyra’s hand and allowed the anger to emerge. It tickled her feet and travelled up her spine, along her arms, making the hairs stand up, and tingled out to her hands. Her eyes widened with anger and settled on the horse.
The horse neighed and reared from the sight of Siv’s forefathers. The man tumbled off its back. His horse bolted past the retinue. The other men dismounted. Their horses were spooked, ears darting back and forth, hooves marking the ground.
Meanwhile, the two women were busy talking at the back of their wagon. They were not alarmed, as if this had happened before.
The five men strolled down the road, hands on weapons, while their friend scrambled to get to his feet. He flattened his hair when he got up, and brushed down his tunic.
The ancient anger escaped from Siv’s grip, up her arm, through her chest and out her mouth with the slight growl of a beast. The men fumbled to pull out their swords.
Tyra retreated two feet behind Siv, and Siv could feel Tyra’s weight shift to peek from behind her back and watch the six men. ‘Get back, Tyra,’ Siv warned while she still retained control over her voice.
The earth beneath her feet trembled. Her eyes were blurred from anger that rushed through her and she could not feel her hands anymore from trying to suppress the urge. This was how jotnar went wild and turned into beasts.
‘Continue on your way,’ the man ordered, having suddenly changed his mind about stopping them on their way.
None of the others said anything. The two women on the back of the pretty wagon were laughing over something, watching Siv and Tyra through distant glances. Bravely the six men took a few steps towards Siv and Tyra and aimed the point of their weapons at Siv’s throat.
Siv let her bloodline take over and let go of her own body. The spirits of her forefathers made her burst forward, growling and shaking from the power of their anger.
Her seax hung sloppily at her side, despite her tight grip around the hilt.
With no more than six men, she could allow the forefathers to fight and have enough control by the end to shut them in again, before they noticed Tyra, or before she lost herself and went mad with rage. At least she hoped she had enough strength to stop in time. The forefathers had grown stronger since the last time she had let them out. Allowing them to take over reminded Siv of her childhood back in Jotunheim, and of her uncle who had succumbed to the anger; worse than a frenzied bear. She remembered when her father had killed him. It had not been a pretty death.
The men in front of her prepared to cut her down, and she rushed at them particular. The forefathers lent her their anger and strength.
The men swung their swords, coordinating their attack. One aimed for her feet, two for her neck, two others for her chest and the last aimed for her right hand in which she held the seax.
Siv stepped back and out of their reach. When the men tried to compensate by moving forward, while their weapons were mid-swing, she took another graceful step. Their swords clashed against each other.
Midgard seemed to slow before her. Siv saw the iron blades shake from the blow and the men’s eyes widening in surprise, then closing tight as the jolt from their swords reached their arms and hit their shoulders.
The forefathers heightened Siv’s love for the dance. She swirled around prettily, unnecessarily, flaunting her superiority to these men who no doubt called themselves warriors. A wicked smile crossed her lips, and still she had not lifted her seax.
The men struggled to regain control over their weapons as Siv moved in close to the man furthest to the right, and before he swung his sword, Siv poked him in the side, not with her seax, but with her little finger. The force made the man twist and he swung his sword wildly. Siv slid her feet back on the wet leaves and dropped to the ground, ducking his blow, then caught herself with her left hand, heaved herself up from the ground, and thrust the seax under the man’s chin, up through his head.
The other five moved in to surround her, yelling as their friend collapsed to the ground. They hacked out after Siv’s feet, and she pulled them in and stood straight. The five men were now at her back. Even without facing them, she could feel exactly where they were. The forefathers heightened her senses until she felt invincible; like a berserker.
She shuffled the seax into her left hand and ducked the next wave of attacks, counting each move. At the fifth attack, aimed at the vulnerable spot where her left shoulder met her neck, Siv shifted no more than the width of two fingers out of the way of the blow. She threw her right hand up to clasp her fingers around the sword. She helped the blade along, yanking the man’s hand into reach, and clasped his wrist. Four men moved in with their swords as Siv dragged the round man forward and slit his throat with the seax in her left hand. The four men’s swords tangled with their leader’s blade as the round man fell to the ground.
The forefather’s anger calmed with Siv’s dance.
She avoided one blow and two before the remaining four men realised there was no use hacking out after a long-lived like her. Two of them cast down their swords and reached for their axes.
Siv did not move while they switched weapons, or even as they shared glances and circled her.
The first of them took a step towards Siv, and she slipped around him and slit his throat with a back-hand stroke. She was already shuffling towards the next one as he hit the ground, blocking his swing with her seax and crushing his throat with her free hand. Her hand came back wet with blood.
At that, the last two men lost any calm they might have had and charged at her, yelling. One of them was crying, and she ended him first, driving her seax into his heart as she ducked under his axe. The other had time to hesitate, to his regret, as Siv retrieved her seax, spun out of his reach and around to his back so she could finish him like the others. The man dropped at her feet, throat gushing.
Siv turned to Tyra.
The girl was gaping at the dead guards at Siv’s feet.
Siv took a deep breath, not for air, but to force her forefathers back into the depth of her heart where they usually rested, along with her anger. They would not go back. Not this time. They had found another target. The forefathers had found Tyra.
‘Run!’ Siv yelled to Tyra.
The forefathers lunged after Tyra. With a loud roar, Siv lost herself to their anger.
The last thing she heard was Tyra scream.