The night sky is black as tar. Mawu is a sliver, her face turned away from us. Like she can’t bear to watch what will happen next. The still, frigid air carries the promise of autumn, but I left the cloak Freydis gave me behind. I’d rather be cold than encumbered tonight. And I won’t be cold for long.
I did decide to wear both my necklaces. “Hey, Ranveig,” I’d said when I put on the teeth earlier today. “What was it you said about where wolf’s teeth are?”
Her answering grin reminded me of Alvtir.
She sticks close to me now as the seven of us crawl on our bellies out of the tall grasses and into the royal compound. We reach the Great Hall and straighten one by one, prowling quietly around the back like the predators we are. We don’t want to alert the guard at the watchtower to our presence. Not until the last possible moment.
Fear has been steadily swelling inside me all day, and now it’s a tidal wave poised to crash. But I feel something else, too: the Úlfheðinn stirring awake. My heartbeat roars between my ears, from terror or fervor or both.
When I was training with the hird, I thought a raid would be my first test as a shield maiden.
Instead, I’m leading a coup.
I reach the front edge of the hall and raise my fist behind me, signaling the others to halt. The door guards’ conversation rises above the music and merriment filtering out from the hall.
“…be our turn to raise our horns and enjoy some of King Balli’s generosity?”
“Kjartan, you old mare, you’d be lucky to get a thrall girl’s table scraps.”
“If he gets the scraps, I’ll take the girl!”
I risk a quick peek. Six guards slouch in front of the doors, illuminated by torches on either side. One for each of us, save Freydis.
It’s the night of the Freysblot, the feast celebrating the harvest and honoring the god Frey. According to Freydis, in addition to Skíringssal’s farmers, Balli’s guards and the captains of the hird should all be in attendance. Was it only a year ago that Broskrap left for this very same feast, leaving me to visit the harbor and dream of escape? It’s hard to believe.
I lock eyes with the others. First Ranveig, then Ingmar, then Dag, Hetha, Wisna, and finally Freydis. Each of them nods back. Lightning cracks open the sky. In the flash of white, with mud on their ragged armor and vengeance in their eyes, they are more than soldiers. They are the stuff of nightmares.
Even Freydis looks more ferocious than I’ve ever seen her. She wears Alvtir’s oversized, little-used leather cuirass under the wolf vest I made her. The sword she stole from the guard rests at her hip. We trained her to wield it over the last few weeks. Mostly to defend herself, but also to attack, if needed. I can only hope it will be enough to keep her alive. Either way, I know her aunt would be proud of her. She would be proud of all of us.
I leap out into the open, jolting the six guards from their complacency.
“Hey! Remember me?”
The guards chase me around the corner. Fools. My companions are on the guards before they can even unsheathe their swords. Ranveig slices the first man’s head clean off his shoulders as Hetha buries her ax in the chest of another. Ingmar, Dag, and Wisna take down their companions just as easily. The Úlfheðinn rears its head within me, smelling blood. No sooner does the last guard round the corner than I plunge a dagger into that vulnerable spot between the neck and shoulder. His mouth opens and closes like a fish as he falls.
“No thrall girls for you tonight,” Ranveig growls, the gleam in her eye turning savage in the dim torchlight.
Thunder rumbles in the distance as the seven of us step out from the shadows. A droplet of rain taps my head. Then another. Suddenly the rain is pouring down in buckets. I let Freydis take the lead when we reach the door, positioning myself behind her shoulder.
The trumpet sounds from the watchtower in a series of fitful spurts. The signal for an attack.
Good. We’re done hiding.
The sky flashes and booms: the war-cry of the gods. Whether they’re with us or against us, we’ll know soon enough.
For now, it doesn’t matter.
For now, we fight for ourselves.
Freydis throws open the doors of the Great Hall, and we charge inside with the storm.
Inside the Great Hall, the music has stopped. Empty horns and platters line the tables. The closest tables are for the farmers and their families. They are already shrinking back from us, their panicked murmurs filling the air. But those at the far tables—the captains of the hird, Balli’s guards, and finally Balli, Yngvild, and Snorri themselves—stay seated. They swivel their heads at us as we enter, their expressions befuddled. There are forty, maybe fifty in total.
“Freydis.” Balli’s voice is slurred.
Freydis ignores him, addressing the farmers instead. “If you wish to live, go home. Now.” We move to the side, freeing up the doorway so the farmers can escape.
In the days leading up to our gathering with the thralls in the Dead City, the seven of us hotly debated the plan. To my shock and dismay, Freydis wanted to set fire to the Great Hall, blocking the doors from the outside. So did Ranveig. It was the first time the two have ever been in agreement. Dag and even Wisna took their side, arguing that we were too severely outnumbered to stand a chance. But I couldn’t just overlook the fact that the farmers and their families are innocent. Not to mention the thralls, not all of whom could be warned.
Freydis and the others believed their lives were a necessary sacrifice for our cause, but I ultimately won them over by pointing out that there’s no honor in killing without showing your face. If Freydis was truly to become queen of Agder, it wouldn’t be enough for Balli to die. He must die in the right way, at the right time. Freydis would stand no chance against him in a holmgang; he may be old and out of fighting shape, but he was once a warrior. Still, she needed to challenge him publicly and face his forces with honor—to prove to the people that she deserved to succeed him by more than blood alone. Otherwise, one of the jarls would simply take his place. Even Freydis couldn’t deny my reasoning there.
So we decided to fight, even though we would be only seven against dozens of soldiers and guards. We could only pray that Bronaugh’s help would be enough to tip the scales, that the thralls would come to our aid.
That is, until we saw Werian at the barn in the Dead City. Then we thought of another way to level the playing field.
We also gambled that the farmers wouldn’t take up arms against us. That they’d rather flee with their wives and children than risk their necks defending their king, even against so few as seven.
And we were right. The farmers don’t need to be told twice. They stampede past us, as do most of the serving thralls, leaving the hall half empty. Dag quickly closes the doors.
That’s when I see the thrall slumped against the column next to the hearth, bound with his hands behind his back. He lifts his head.
My heart stops as I take in his rich brown skin, his lined face and short gray hair.
Nyeru.
He smiles faintly, but rage overwhelms me.
What were they planning to do to him?
I glare hotly at Snorri, my blood boiling at his exultant sneer. I want to scream. I want to throw a dagger at his head, even though he’s almost certainly too far away for even my aim to hit its mark. I want to kill everyone in this hall, innocent or no.
But Freydis’s voice rings out strong and clear, stopping me. As she speaks, Dag, Ingmar, Hetha, and Wisna drag the nearest table over to the doors and block them.
“King Balli of Skíringssal, you have broken your oath to protect the people and ruled without honor. Now I have come to claim what is mine. Before the sun rises, you will be dead. I will take your place as queen of Agder.”
A long, silent moment passes. The hall seems frozen, until Helge steps forward toward Yngvild, who sits gaping at her daughter. She says something I can’t hear, struggling to help Yngvild out of her seat.
Helge—who is too old, too long enslaved to even dream of freedom—is the first to protect her master.
Then Snorri begins to laugh. I hold his mocking gaze without blinking.
“Kill them,” Balli orders. Snorri quiets as the king struggles to his feet. “I said, kill them!”
The captains rush us, followed by the guards. Or rather, they try to. Their legs seem to be failing them. They’re bouncing off one another and running into columns, their movements sluggish and uncoordinated, their sense of balance skewed from more than just a few horns of ale.
I lock eyes with Werian, Balli’s serving boy and the key to our plan. He stands a few paces behind the royals with the handful of thralls, girls and boys and Helge, who stayed. His smile is triumphant. Mine is too.
Werian knows where Balli keeps his supply of henbane. His job was to pour the potion into certain pitchers of ale: only the pitchers that would be served to the royals, the hirdmen, and the guards. He could recruit any other thralls he was absolutely certain he could trust to help him.
From the looks of the soldiers, he has done his task perfectly.
According to Freydis, henbane relieves pain in the body and calms the mind. But only if you have a little. In higher amounts, it has the opposite effect, causing the drinker to become agitated and clumsy, even delirious, like a fever from an infected wound. It can even cause death, though it doesn’t look as if we’ll be so lucky tonight. The guards and hirdmen are largely out of their wits, but they’ll still put up a fight.
The Úlfheðinn howls with delight. I let it suffuse me as I line up shoulder-to-shoulder with my friends. My warriors. Ingmar moves to my right, Dag to his. Ranveig moves to my left, followed by Wisna, then Hetha. Freydis drops behind us, as we’d agreed.
I raise my daggers above my head and strike them together. The clang echoes around the hall. “For Valhalla!” I shout.
“For Valhalla!” comes the response.
Before we can charge, Werian shouts something in a language I don’t know. He makes a mad dash for Balli, holding a carving knife in his right hand.
“Werian—no!” I shout.
But I’m too late. Snorri’s sword is already buried in his gut.
A look of pure hatred passes between Snorri and me. It takes me a moment to realize that Snorri was too quick, his blow too precise. My eyes flicker to the horn in front of him.
It’s full.
For all his many vices, Snorri Broskrapsson is not like his father. He didn’t drink his ale.
Werian clutches his stomach, an expression of agony twisting his young face. Then he falls.
The dam bursts. A feral cry rips through me. My warriors echo it.
Screaming like demons, we race forward and crash into the first wave of Balli’s men.
The Úlfheðinn takes over. Still screaming, I parry one captain’s attack and stab him in the heart. The blade sinks in easily; he wears neither cuirass nor chain mail. Another approaches—a guard. He is wearing a full suit of armor, so I throw my other dagger into his thigh, where he’s unprotected, retrieving it as he tumbles past me. Blood from the artery spatters my arm.
I glance around. It looks like Balli did learn a thing or two from the attack at Freydis’s wedding: He had his guards come in full armor tonight. But the hirdmen appear to have only their weapons, leaving them vulnerable in their drugged state.
This might just work.
The thought invigorates me as another woozy guard tries to rush me. He’s not even holding his sword correctly. I knock it out of his hand before kicking him in the kneecap with all my strength. He shrieks in agony as it dislodges, which I cut short with a slice to the jugular.
I whirl around, looking for the next man to kill. But none are coming for me. My friends are sickles, and their former brothers are ripe for harvesting.
Ranveig is laughing—laughing—as she chops an arm off one of the captains. Arinbjorn, I think his name was. She kicks him into a table so hard it’s knocked over. The empty platters shatter on the floor. A weaponless guard lunges for her, and she slaps him in the face like an insolent child. Which is what he is, compared with her. She picks up one of the clay shards and uses it to puncture his eye, cackling all the while as he screams in anguish.
I would vomit if I weren’t in awe. I was right about Ranveig: She must be a berserker, like Alvtir. Frey will get his blood tonight after all.
And then I remember: Nyeru.
Ingmar is closest to me, still at my right, ripping his long ax out of a soldier’s neck. “Ingmar!” I shout. “Cover me!” He watches my back as I sprint to the column where Nyeru is tied.
“I knew you would save me again,” Nyeru says weakly as I slice through the ropes binding his wrists. Freed, he stumbles forward but quickly regains his balance.
“Hide, kinsman.”
I help Nyeru under one of the few tables still upright. I launch my dagger at the closest captain before he can come for us. He goes down. That one’s name I never learned.
But there is a captain whose name I know all too well. And he’s still alive.
“Snorri Broskrapsson!” the Úlfheðinn screams through me as I turn to Balli’s table. But I can’t see him or Balli. On the dais, the guards have interlocked their shields, forming a barrier, with spears protruding from the gaps. I remember this formation from training: a shield wall. It can be used offensively to break through an enemy’s line, or defensively to protect something—or someone. Balli and Snorri must be hiding just behind.
I fight my way to the dais, leaping over the bodies of the dead. But the barrier is already moving. They reach the side wall and turn, reassembling with the wall covering their backs before I arrive.
Now I can see what was concealed behind them on the dais. The few serving thralls who stayed behind are all bleeding out on the ground. I recognize the thrall girl who had been sitting on Erik’s lap at the Dísablót staring lifelessly up at the ceiling, an ax buried in her skull.
Rage bursts through me again. I lunge and bang fruitlessly on the shields, trying to hack my way to an opening. A spear comes at my stomach, nearly skewering me. I spin out of the way in time, but it still grazes my side. Stings, but I’ll live. The opening closes as quickly as it appeared. I clutch the wound, backing away in disbelief.
“Cowards! Honorless nithings!” the Úlfheðinn shouts.
My friends finish off what’s left of the guards and captains while I fling insults at the shields, as if my words could break through when my daggers could not. “Fight me, Snorri Broskrapsson! Fight for the life of your king!”
But the barrier doesn’t break. The shield wall advances like nothing happened, shuffling closer and closer to the door, taking Balli and Snorri with them.
“Want to know why they call me Shield-Breaker?”
Ingmar’s bloodstained hand falls on my shoulder. I answer with a smile. There’s blood on his face, too. And I feel the blood on mine.
It’s not over yet.
The rest of us gather behind Ingmar. The hall is a mess of shards of clay pots, slabs of meat, smashed fruits, ripped sheepskins, overturned tables, benches cracked in two. And many, many bodies. And blood. Blood everywhere, on everything. I scan for Nyeru and am relieved to find him crouching against the far wall, terrified but alive.
Freydis is the last to join us. Sweat pours down her face, clumping the strands of hair that have fallen from her braid. I look her over. She doesn’t seem to have any injuries. She gives me a brief nod; she’s all right.
Ingmar races forward, hooks his long ax around one of the shields, and yanks it back, creating an opening. We crowd around the hole. But more swords and spears come out from the gap, and the shield wall closes in the span of a heartbeat.
Ingmar grunts in pain. I wheel around as he falls back, clutching his arm.
Panic swells in me as blood streams from his wound. “Back up!” I shout to the others.
Thank the gods, Ingmar hefts his sword and regroups. We match the shield wall’s movement toward the door but keep our distance. “I’ll go in again,” he says, panting.
“No!” I grab his uninjured arm. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We have no choice.”
“Wait until they reach the doors. They’ll have to break formation when they get to the barricade.”
No sooner do the words leave my mouth than an earsplitting boom sounds from the doors. The table shakes, scooting back.
“It’s the rest of the hird,” Hetha says needlessly.
No. Not yet.
Another boom, and the table scrapes back.
“Get ready!” I shout, also needlessly.
We line up facing the door. Freydis again drops behind us, taking cover.
One last boom, and the doors fly open. The hirdmen pour into the hall like ants into an anthill.
These are the lower-ranking soldiers. The ones who weren’t invited to the feast. Who didn’t help themselves to horn after horn of the king’s ale.
The ones who weren’t drugged.
They slam into us. “Hold your ground!” Dag shouts.
And we hold our ground. We are still their betters. We are still Alvtir’s chosen warriors. And the open doors still silo the hirdmen, so they can’t hit us with their full force.
We fight them back steadily, ignoring the exhaustion. Ignoring the blood on our faces, in our hair, on our armor, and now streaming from our wounds. Dag roars like something inhuman as he picks up a bench and tosses it into the onslaught of hirdmen, taking five down all at once. Ranveig picks up a bowl and chucks it at the next man’s head.
Suddenly there’s a lull. The stream thins to a trickle; fewer and fewer hirdmen are coming at us. We press forward, regaining some ground. Then the shield wall disappears out the door. Ingmar hurls his ax with all his might, but it hits a shield and bounces off harmlessly.
“They’re getting away!” I shout as the hirdmen resume rushing in around them.
“Soldiers!” Freydis calls out from behind us. “I beg you: Drop your weapons, or turn them around! The king you fight for is not worthy of your lives!”
They don’t listen. There are too many of them. They force us back. And back.
We’re trapped now. There’s no way we can take all of them. There’s no way out.
Hetha stumbles over a fallen body. “Hetha!” I cry. But I’m fending off two hirdmen; I can’t help her.
Wisna steps forward, parrying the soldier’s killing blow just in time. Hetha staggers back to her feet, meeting the next soldier’s sword with her shield.
My heart falls. We can’t keep this up. We have minutes, maybe seconds, until Balli’s soldiers gut us one by one.
We’re going to die. And it’s all my fault.
Papa was wrong. I believed in this crazy, reckless plan. I believed with all my heart. But believing didn’t give it power. It only made me lead my friends to their deaths.
Mawu-Lisa…Odin…Freya…Gu…if any of you are with us in this, let us find a way out of here alive.
“Kyaaaahh!”
A voice from outside. The hirdmen stop their assault. A moment of confusion. We pause, catching our breath.
Then they’re falling back.
Outside, through the doors, lightning flashes, revealing a whirl of brown skin—skin the color of mine.
My heart leaps in my chest.
It’s Ademola, leading the thralls. His undyed tunic is ripped at the sleeves, revealing his muscular arms as he leaps in the air, gripping a scythe with both hands.
“Kyaaaahh!” he cries again. The thralls slam into the hird from both sides. The soldiers falter and wheel around, confused by this new attack.
“Now!” I shout.
The seven of us charge the door, killing the retreating hirdmen as we go. The fire in our hearts has sparked anew, and now everyone in our path is kindling. Wisna spins like a tornado, flinging soldiers this way and that. Ranveig falls to the ground, scoops up a spear, and jams it into a soldier’s stomach as she slides between his legs. Ingmar takes that soldier’s sword as he falls and uses it to cleave another in two.
There’re only two more hirdmen left in the hall. Dag runs headlong into them. They turn around, panicking, but he tramples them like a bull loosed in a chicken coop. Hetha and I finish them off.
We reach the door. We should be free now, but there’s a barricade of bodies just outside. Thrall and soldier clashing, pressing together in a writhing mass, blocking our exit.
The shield wall is gone, dissipated in the chaos. The rain has stopped, but the sky flashes again, and I catch the flutter of a red cloak before it disappears down the hill. It’s Balli, leaving the battle like the coward he is, making for the safety of his fields. Escaping.
The Úlfheðinn howls its wrath. “I need out—now!”
Wisna interlocks her fingers and reaches down. I step in and springboard up from her hands.
I land smack in the center of the core of hirdmen, knocking one down as I land. I take advantage of the momentary confusion and slash out wildly.
“For Alvtir!” I hear Ranveig cry out overhead. She lands next to me and plunges her sword into the chest of one of the soldiers. Dag is next, then Ingmar. All four of us slash and hack our way out.
I look back at Ingmar, who twirls his ax above his head and brings it down onto the skull of a soldier, cracking it in half like a melon.
“Go!” he shouts. “We’ll hold!”
I spin back around and make a break for it. “Cover Yafeu!” Dag shouts. Ademola and another thrall step in front of me, fighting off the soldiers as I make my way out of the fray.
The night air hits my burning skin. I nearly fall over myself as I sprint through the darkness down the hill. I leap over the fence into the barley field, now barren after the harvest, save for a handful of dark figures on the other side. One of them wheels around.
“Stop her!” Snorri’s voice.
Two other figures, guards or hirdmen, move toward me.
But the Úlfheðinn won’t be stopped.
I charge them, slicing their necks in an instant, one with each dagger. I hear them gurgling as they die layered over the gentle chirp of crickets, the groan of trees in the forest just ahead, bending in the wind that always blows so angrily off the fjord.
Snorri and the king vanish into the forest. I race toward the tree line as fast as my legs will carry me.
I slow as I enter the darkness, sheathing one of my daggers. My hunting instincts take over. I’ve learned how to walk in these boots, and I make myself silent as I stalk through the trees. Sight becomes secondary to sound as I listen for the snap of a twig that will show me to the creature that doesn’t belong here.
It’s not long before I hear it: a crunch from behind the low branches of a large birch. I stalk over to the trunk and yank the king out from behind it.
He brandishes a sword, and even in the darkness, its nyama is unmistakable. It’s Alvtir’s sword, Angrboda. Yet more rage courses through me at the sight of such a cowardly man wielding the weapon of a true warrior.
Before he can so much as blink, I slice off his sword-hand.
He screams as I thrust him up against the birch trunk, shrinking in my grasp. His blood is warm against my chest. I never realized before how small Balli is.
Mawu shines down through a gap in the canopy, illuminating his terror-stricken face. I gaze, exultant, into his frenzied eyes as the realization of his impending doom seeps into them.
“Look at me, King Balli, and know that Yafeu is the one who will end you.”
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he snarls.
“For Alvtir.” I echo Ranveig, raising my dagger high.
I can just make out the gleam of Mawu’s light on his teeth. I squint: He’s smiling at me. No, not at me. Over my shoulder.
I spin around just in time to dodge a crushing blow from—Snorri. “Heill, Úlfheðinn.”
The king leaps on me from behind, wrapping his arms around my neck. I slam my head back into his and he ricochets off the trunk of the tree. He lets go and falls to the ground, unconscious. It gives me just enough time to dodge Snorri’s next blow and regain my footing.
“I’ve dreamed of this moment for a long time,” Snorri says, flourishing his sword eagerly.
“So have I.” I unsheathe the second dagger, twirling both around my hands.
He lunges. I cross the daggers and catch it, but the force of his blow ricochets through my bones.
I toss him to the side, scraping the daggers down his arm. He shrieks and slashes back at me. This time I’m not quick enough—I leap away but he slices a deep gash into my thigh.
The burning pain overwhelms my senses for a moment. He takes advantage, lunging again.
I roll to the side and jump back up, fighting through the pain, but I feel myself growing dizzier and dizzier. My thigh is slick with my own blood. The Úlfheðinn is bleeding out of me.
Snorri kicks the daggers out of my hands. My grip fails me. I’m weaponless. Hopeless.
He chuckles as I fall to my knees. Mawu’s light seems to disappear. Darkness creeps in around me.
Snorri leans down and whispers in my ear: “You’re nothing more than a black elf whore, pretending to be someone you’re not and could never be. It’s time to end this little game.” He raises his sword above his head.
“And you’re nothing more than a man.” I grab the carving knife—hidden in a small sheath strapped to my calf—and slice the tendon above his right heel.
Snorri screams and collapses, dropping his sword.
I climb unsteadily to my feet, trading places with him. He whimpers as he crawls backward on his elbows, propping himself up against the nearest tree.
Summoning the Úlfheðinn’s last ounce of strength, I drive the knife through his left shoulder, pinning him to the tree. He screams again, and the sound brings a smile to my lips.
The desire to make him suffer enlivens me. I bring my foot down hard on his nether regions. He shrieks and coughs blood, which joins the blood from his shoulder as it soils his tunic.
I bend down and whisper in his ear, just like he did to me. “You squeal just like your father did before I took his life.”
His breath is raspy, wheezing. Even through his pain, his fingers inch toward his sword, just beyond his grasp. I kick it away.
“No—for Valhalla!” he begs. “You have to give me my sword!”
“Valhalla doesn’t want you.” I wrench the knife from his shoulder. “For Alvtir,” I say again, looking deep into his eyes as I drag the knife across his neck.
Snorri gurgles and moans as the blood spills out of his body. I stand over him, watching the life drain from him. Finally, his head falls to the side, his eyes lolled open.
A wave of triumph crashes over me.
Snorri is dead.
I killed him.
But when the elation recedes, it leaves nothing behind.
I fall to the ground, the last of the fire leaving my body with the blood from the gash in my leg. I feel dizzy again.
A shadow looms over me. Have my ancestors come for me already?
Through the haze, I suddenly remember: the king.
I look up to see him towering over me, holding Snorri’s sword in his left hand. I try to roll away, but I can barely move. It’s all I can do to stare up at him with every ounce of defiance I still have. At the man who will succeed, at last, in ending my life.
So be it.
His lips turn up into a sneer, and then—
A sword bursts through his chest.
The bloody runes glitter in the moonlight. Angrboda.
His blood splatters onto my face, just like the merchant’s blood in Anfa. Balli looks down at it in shock, then stumbles forward and plummets face-forward onto the ground beside me. Dead.
I look up at the figure looming behind him. Her face is shrouded in darkness.
“Alvtir?” I murmur.
But she morphs into another: Freydis. Covered in the blood of her father.
And then all is black.