Chapter Three:
The Cliff Edge

The square swarmed with twice the number of people than had welcomed us home. I pushed through the tightly packed bodies with Bjolfur’s newly carved shield hanging over one shoulder. As I walked by, people offered me their sympathies. Varin told me how much she would miss skipping stones in the fjord with him. Steinar mumbled something about the tragic loss of a good man. Others squeezed my shoulder or offered vague sympathies as I walked by. Every comment, squeeze, and smile was a worm guzzled by the grieving crow clutching my heart. Each one a writhing reminder that this sorrow wasn’t something that I could enjoy alone. Even now I had to share my husband.

I stopped near the edge of the crowd. Everyone around me had their shields, with intricate sagas carved into them, slung over their backs.

A longship rested in the open space beyond the crowd. It looked real enough, but it wouldn’t float if you took it out. The longship was built from wood too poor to craft a real vessel and was stuffed full of kindling and straw. Hooks ran along its edge. Soon they would be loaded with the shields of everyone around me. It lay ready and waiting like a beached driftwood whale.

Dagnur stood on the other side of the ceremonial longship surrounded by lackeys, laughing at his own crude jokes.

“Edda, what are you doing up here?” someone hissed at me.

It was Fjola. Her auburn hair hung in a single, thick braid down her back and she wore a tunic threaded with bright patterns. I ran a finger through the tangled mess of my own hair and realised I hadn’t changed my clothes.

“I thought you’d come and find me when—” She stopped as her eye flicked to the shield over my shoulder. “I didn’t realise you’d be doing the ceremony today.”

“I didn’t think about doing this until after you left.”

“Is that your shield?” She ran her fingers along the spiral of crudely carved images. “I don’t remember you doing some of these things.”

“No, it’s Bjolfur’s.”

Fjola frowned and cast a furtive look around as though trying to see if anyone had heard me.

“Can you do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “We were going to burn our shields this year, Fjola, this was it for us. I’m going to do it for him.”

“Okay.” The frown deepened. “Just come and find me when you’re done, okay?”

I smiled back at her and told her I would as soon as the shield was on the ship. She grabbed my hand and squeezed before moving back into the crowd to find her family.

The conversations around me started to die away. Dagnur had stepped up to his podium. He raised his hands for silence.

“My friends, we are here to finally celebrate the end of summer. Some of you have raised concerns that we will fall out of the gods’ favour for having the Summer’s End festival almost a week too late, so let me allay those fears once and for all.”

He stepped down and an older woman came forward. The remnants of whispers that had slithered through the crowd during Dagnur’s speech all stilled.

The woman, God-Speaker Sif, seemed to loom over each person in the crowd from where she stood. She was built like a spear; slim and straight, with a sharpness in her eyes that could wound you. When Dagnur spoke he had leaned forward to invite your attention, but Sif stood tall and demanded it. She raked her gaze slowly across the crowd then raised a hand for a silence that was already there.

“I can feel the fear in your hearts, friends,” she began. “I felt that same fear myself. I wondered if the gods would look down on us with disappointment, with anger, if we did not celebrate the Summer’s End festival on time. It is the gods’ law that no raiding shall take place in winter, but our raiders had not yet returned and the end of summer loomed. Without performing the rituals of Summer’s End will the gods think we have forsaken them?”

Some in the crowd began to shift and fidget. It seemed that Sif’s proclamation rang close to the truth.

“I raised these concerns to Dagnur, as some of you did to me, when he asked me if there was any way to delay the ceremony. Everyone should be present, he said, we should begin the winter as a community, as a family, but he did not want to anger the gods. I thought on this and could not see a clear answer, so I went to the sacred grove and gave the gods a sacrifice on the roots of the oak tree. I asked the gods to send me a sign if we could delay the festival, a sign that to do so would not incur their wrath.

“As I waited for an answer, the goat’s blood soaked into my clothes. I thought that this was a sign of our error, that we would soon be drenched in blood. Then, three ravens flew into the grove. They settled on the low branches of the oak and laughed at me.”

Sif sucked in a deep breath and raked another stern expression across the crowd. She had always had a flair for the melodramatic.

“They dropped three leaves before me.” Sif held up a hand showing the leaves. “One of oak, one of elm, and one of ash. One for each tree planted to mark the end of the god-war. Once I had gathered the leaves, the ravens hopped onto the goat carcass and began to feed. The gods accepted the sacrifice.

“We should not fear that we are celebrating the Summer’s End festival too late. We have always been good and faithful to the gods’ laws in our actions and the gods know this.”

A collective sigh of relief swept through the crowd and an excited murmur soon followed as Sif stepped down from the platform.

Dagnur stepped back and took her place. He looked over the crowd with a smile too wide to be genuine. The crowd’s noise died down again as he started the ceremony.

“The gods have seen fit to bless us with a bountiful season,” he said, he pushed his voice deeper as he tried to infuse proper authority into it, “both at home and across the sea, but now it must come to a close. The season has ended already, but it would not do to celebrate without all of our friends and family with us.”

He waited for the gentle cheer to die away and then gestured to the crowd around me.

“Brave warriors, you have fought long and hard for your families, for me, and for your gods. If your sword arm is tired and it is your desire to lay down your weapons and serve the gods from your homes, then step forward now. Bring your saga-carved shields, show us your stories, and let us celebrate your victories.”

A louder cheer went up as he finished. All around me, the shield-bearers shifted and muttered to one another. Most of the people carrying shields had years on me. They were too old to go on a raid and expect to come back, but there were a couple of others my age. Kare had lost his brother on the raid and was needed to help with the farm. I saw Revna as well who, rumour had it, had a child on the way and refused to risk her life over the sea any longer.

An older man stepped out into the space between the crowd and the longship. He was taller than anyone else there and built like an oak tree. He swung his shield from his shoulder and held it high above his head to show the carved saga to the crowd.

“Leif Vorson offers his shields to the gods.”

The cheer that exploded from the crowd shook the ground. Leif had been raiding since he had been old enough to hold a knife, though he had not been out on the ships in a couple of years. Everyone there had fought by his side and he had saved my life more than once. In order to fit all of his exploits onto his shield, he had been forced to carve his saga in a finger-thin spiral.

Someone in the crowd started chanting his name and soon everyone was calling out to him.

“Leif. Leif. Leif. Leif.”

The chant quickened and exploded into cheers and stamping feet as he hooked the shield onto the longship. Leif raised his hands, accepting the adulation of his friends, and then knelt in front of Sif. The god-speaker muttered a prayer and smeared a line of ash across Leif’s forehead with her thumb.

“The gods accept your offering,” she called out. “You fought in their name, offered blood and plunder in their name. Now, rest.”

More cheering accompanied Leif as he walked to the crowd opposite the shield-bearers. Someone passed him a horn of mead and those around him offered congratulations.

The crowd fell silent as another shield-bearer stepped forward and showed her shield, just as Leif did.

“Runa Berasdottir offers her shield to the gods.”

This time the cheer was muted by surprise. Runa was a vicious fighter and had only been raiding for a few seasons. We all thought she would get a taste for it and go out on the ships for many years yet.

Her shield carving was not as long as Leif’s, but the exploits carved into it were no less impressive. At the start, a woman leapt from a longship into a wall of spears. A grim smile tugged at my lips. I had been on that longship. It had been Runa’s first raid, she was barely more than a child, and we were ambushed as our longship crept up a river. Runa had been off the ship and killing before the rest of us had laid down our oars.

She turned and placed her shield on the longship. Sif marked her forehead and said the words and we cheered.

One by one the shield-bearers around me stepped out and put their shields on the longship. The crowd cheered. The gods accepted their offerings. The air around us became hot with anticipation and laced with an underlying hum of power as the ritual began to take hold.

Only I was left. I took a deep breath, felt the familiar black-feathered flutter in my chest, and stepped forward.

As I lifted the shield above my head and turned it to face the crowd, I saw a few people nod. As far as they were concerned it was only right that a widow lay down her shield.

“Bjolfur Hugison offers his shield to the gods.”

Expressions of shock, disbelief, and confusion looked back at me. A few cheers broke through, but most people muttered amongst themselves. Dagnur’s eyes burned with fury. He took a step forward, but Sif got to me first.

“You can’t do that, Edda,” she said. Her voice was gentle and her eyes full of sympathy.

“W—” The black feathers pushed their way up my throat and caught my voice as I tried to speak. “Why not? Doesn’t he deserve this?”

Sif put a hand on my forearm and gently forced me to lower the shield. There was a soothing warmth to her touch that seeped into me. It was the strange heat of the gods’ magic, the kind that was only gifted to a god-speaker.

“Of course, but what we deserve and what the gods give us aren’t always the same thing.”

“He died a brave death,” I whispered.

“I know, and I am sorry that I cannot allow this. For someone to make the offering it must be their saga carved on the shield.”

Sif pulled me around to face her, but her eyes were filled with such raw sorrow and genuine regret that I couldn’t meet them. Instead, I looked at the runes tattooed across her cheekbones.

“He might not be here to make this offering, Edda,” she said in that same, soft tone, “but we can help the gods to find his soul, wherever he is. Come on, let’s—”

Dagnur’s rough hands slapped down on our shoulders. I bared my teeth at him, but he was already talking.

“We can’t blame you for this mistake, Edda.” He leaned forward as though we three were in a private conversation, but his words dripped with forced sympathy and they were loud enough to carry. “Grief has broken the heart and will of many a fine warrior.”

Sif’s strong grip on my wrist stopped me from pulling my knife and showing Dagnur exactly how fine a warrior I was. He shook his head and then flicked his hand at someone behind me. I turned just as one of Dagnur’s guards stepped up behind us.

“He deserves this, Dagnur,” I said through gritted teeth. “Will you tell him you refused when you meet him in the afterlife?”

“He doesn’t deserve anything,” Dagnur hissed. Fury flashed in his eyes, but the sympathetic smile never left his face. “He was just a tenant, like you. Don’t you forget that. What do you have if I throw you out? You’ve got nothing but what I give you.”

He turned to face the assembled crowd.

“Edda asks for your forgiveness. A broken heart can make for an unclear mind. Sif, let us finish the ceremony.”

The guard gripped my arm and tried to drag me out of the way. I ripped my arm free and looked at the guard’s face. Green eyes shone with apprehension in the shadows of his helm.

“If you touch me again, Njal Leifson, I’ll break your fucking arm.”

I brought the shield around in front of me. I wanted him to try. I wanted to break something, to show Dagnur that he didn’t control me.

“Come on, Edda,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to fight you. Just let them get on with it, yeah?”

Sif came up to us. She shot a reproachful look at Njal and pressed a pebble into my hands.

“You can do something for him, Edda, if—”

“Sif,” Dagnur called. “Will you honour us by completing the ceremony so that we can start the festivities?”

She scowled at him.

“Make him one of the Blessed Drowned, Edda.”

Sif dropped my hands, then walked to the burning torch next to the longship. She held it high and showed it to the crowd.

This is what everyone had come for. They had come to watch the longship burn and usher in the winter. People stared at Sif and the flames. Excitement flashed in their eyes and my spectacle was forgotten.

“The gods have accepted these offerings. May each warrior know that they have an honoured place with the gods.”

The magic tension grew all around us like the air before a thunderstorm and the hairs on the back of my arm stood on end. Sif threw the torch in a long overhand arc to land in the straw surrounding the mast. Cloaks and tunics rippled as some force escaped from the longship and shields. Flames engulfed the longship in moments and a weight settled on the air. The weight of a god’s gaze, but which god, I couldn’t say. Everyone cheered and at the front of the crowd Leif whistled.

“As this longship burns, let the gods take this as our promise to follow their laws and lay down our weapons. It is the season for hospitality, co-operation, and peace. Summer has ended and we welcome winter in its place.”

The festival had begun. The longship would burn all through the night, much longer than any bonfire naturally would, and as the ash fell the magic would change it to snow. This ritual was our first glimpse of winter. It had always been a joy to watch, but not this time.

I tried to shrug off the heavy air, to throw off the sight of whatever god had come, but it was inescapable. I looked up, hoping I might see a sky-sized pair of eyes looking down on us. Then I would know where to direct my fury and demand to know why they would come for this ritual, but had not bothered to save my husband. There was only smoke, ash, and sky.

Someone grabbed my hand, Fjola, and pulled me away from the throng.

“Edda, why wouldn’t they let you do it? Was it—” She trailed off when she saw my expression. “Are you okay?”

Bitter disappointment warred with something new in my chest. The pebble in my hands had sparked an ember of hope inside me. I stared at the dark stone as it lay in my palm, its cool weight was reassuring after the hot flush of my earlier embarrassment.

“Sif told me it has to be your shield. You can’t offer someone else’s. But, why shouldn’t I offer his shield to the gods, Fjola? Doesn’t he deserve that much?”

I met her gaze. Her worry and sorrow mirrored my own.

“Of course he does, Edda, but if Sif says it can’t be done then it can’t be done. She doesn’t refuse anything without good reason.” She took a step forward and took my hand in hers. The pebble pressed against my fingers. “I’m sorry.”

I sighed, my breath as heavy as a black feather. “I need to make him one of the Blessed Drowned. I can’t just let his soul wander the ocean floor forever.”

“Of course not, but it’s too dark to do that tonight. Let’s just be thankful that you’re home safe. Come on,” she said, gently, and led me away from the crowd. “Let’s get you a drink.”

She took me to her family at the edge of the square. Her husband ran around a couple of barrels trying to catch their children. When the children noticed me they broke off their barrel-circuits to leap onto me.

“Edda!” they screamed.

“Hello, you two.”

I wrapped my arms around them and spun them around. They laughed, then squirmed free and ran off to play another game.

“Edda, it is good to see you,” Ulfur rumbled and pulled me into a rib-creaking hug.

Fjola’s husband was a head taller than me and looked as though the gods had stretched him. He had plaited his beard and someone had smeared blue paint in random patterns across his face.

“The children wanted to make me look pretty for the festival,” he said, with a sheepish grin.

Fjola pressed a full cup of mead into my hand. “Here. This is supposed to be a celebration. Let’s celebrate Bjolfur tonight, okay?”

I gave Fjola a small smile then raised my drink. “To Bjolfur.”

“To Bjolfur,” they echoed and we drank.

There was something different about the mead. When I asked about it, Fjola delighted in telling me that she had put ginger in it. She went on to tell me how she had strong-armed the merchant into selling the ginger for half the price he asked for. I shook my head at the ferocious glee in her eyes as she relayed the height of her argument with the vendor.

“And when I gave him my best offer I thought his eyes would pop right out of his head. He even called out for the guards. Said I was robbing him! They weren’t happy with his little show and he sold it to me just to get the guards to go away.”

A booming laugh echoed over the crowd and cut through our conversation.

I turned to see Malka surrounded by a gaggle of onlookers waiting to hear about the raid.

As Ulfur refilled our cups he looked around to see what I was looking at and his expression softened.

“Forget her, Edda,” he said. “She’s just trying to impress those idiots.”

“Bjolfur saved her life out on the raid, you know. She wanted to be first into the temple, but a priest hid behind the door. He looked scared shitless and wouldn’t have been a problem if she’d been paying attention. He jumped out with a spear he’d gotten from gods know where, but Bjolfur was there and killed him before he stuck Malka.

“Even after that she still told Dagnur that he drowned. Not a brave death. Bjolfur was brave enough to save her life though, wasn’t he?”

My voice was just a growl when I finished speaking. I wiped the beginnings of tears from my eyes. Out in the crowd, Malka started to act out her story, lifting an arm as though she held a shield, and used the other to bat away an imaginary spear thrust.

I took half a step forward, but Ulfur had his hands on my shoulder and pulled me back.

“We’re done with blades and blood this year. Ignore her.”

He tried to push a full cup into my hands, but I turned away. My nails dug into my palms as I balled my fists to keep them from shaking. The pebble tapped my hip from within my pocket and I thought of Solveig, the first of the Blessed Drowned. Fighting with Malka now would be more trouble than she was worth.

“You’re right,” I said. “Now isn’t the time, but I can’t stand here and listen to her laugh like nothing’s changed. I’m going home.”

I shoved my way through the crowd. After one or two cries of indignation people parted before me like the sea to a longship. Everyone avoided my gaze. Fury mixed with grief in my chest like hot ashes clinging to my lungs.

 

*

 

The sky was dark and the farm was quiet by the time I got home. I looked around for Scratcher, my favourite chicken, in the hopes that her colourful feathers would cheer me up and give me some reminder of the world that was, but she had already gone to roost for the night.

The long evening walk hadn’t improved my mood and now I was being ignored by a chicken.

I yelled to vent my frustration and threw Bjolfur’s shield into the soft mud in front of the house. It slid along the ground and came to rest at a low, slanted angle. The carved side stared at me as though to accuse me of failing Bjolfur again. I couldn’t save him and now I couldn’t burn his shield. I found a wood-axe and raised it over the shield ready to smash it to pieces.

Clouds moved above me and I stood, rooted with indecision. It felt like the gods had swept the clouds aside to watch my misery. My arms tensed. My anger and embarrassment at being turned away from the ritual evaporated as I imagined the sound of the splintering wood, the shards flying from the axe-head as it bit into the shield. What would I have left of Bjolfur then? He deserved better than a crudely carved shield destroyed in a fit of shame. He deserved fury and retribution and remembrance.

I dropped the axe and fell to my knees. I picked up the shield and ran muddy hands over the rough images.

The black-feathered grip on my heart eased as I remembered our time together. Finally, I could breathe without the weight of grief pushing down on me. My fingers smeared dirt across the spiral saga as they followed its path, highlighting the carved wood in bleak, earthen shades.

The story I had carved started the day we met, showing the two of us drinking from horns full of mead. Bjolfur had come to our town as one of the neighbouring chieftain’s retainers. They had come to trade and Dagnur’s predecessor had put on a feast for the occasion. Bjolfur and I found each other during the festivities and tried to drink each other under the table. In the end, it was a draw as Bjolfur passed out when he went for a piss and I threw up while he was gone. I smiled as I remembered stumbling out to find him slumped with his face against the side of a longhouse.

The carved saga swept through the raids and the adventures we had shared. The last picture of us on the spiral, near the edge of the shield, showed us climbing aboard a longship. The rest was waves.

That final image, the roughly chiselled waters, churned at my soul. There was so much given over to the waves. The black wings wrapped themselves around me again, but this time they were hot and furious instead of smothered in frigid grief. We could have had so many more memories. My fingers tightened on the rim of the shield.

“You could have saved him,” I screamed at the sky. “He could have come home.”

The goat brayed at me for disturbing his sleep and some of the chickens clucked from their beds.

The gods said nothing.

As I rubbed my thumb over the rough wooden waves, the story of Solveig, the first of the Blessed Drowned, resurfaced in my mind. I knew what I needed to do with the stone Sif had given me. Solveig’s children had been terrified that their mother’s body would be dredged up and forced to fight at the end of the world along with all of the dread monsters that lived at the bottom of the ocean. They had carved runes into a stone and thrown it into the sea to anchor Solveig’s soul in the hopes it would save her. Soon after, the Sea Giants had found her and, moved by the love and compassion shown by her kin, offered her soul sanctuary in their deep palaces. From then on, if ever anyone was lost at sea, the Sea Giants would offer their soul sanctuary if someone threw a runestone into the ocean for them.

I scrambled back over to the house and rescued the carving knife from within the graveyard of woodchips I’d chiselled from the shield.

Before I began carving, I turned the stone over in my hands. It was perfectly round and the colour of midnight. It reminded me of a summer evening the year before. Bjolfur had just returned from an unsuccessful attempt to find another farm tenancy. I walked out to meet him on his way back and we camped by a lake. As we waited for our fish to cook over the fire we skipped rocks across the water. His longest throw was sixteen skips, beating mine by two. I stood on the beach skipping stones long after he had given up, but couldn’t match him. Bjolfur presented me with a pebble he later told me was veined with a lightning streak of metal, but I’d been so intent on beating his record I skipped it across the lake without thinking.

I choked on a laugh as I remembered the shock on his face, his splashing sprint as he tried to retrieve it.

Turning my focus back to the stone I held, I saw tears had covered its surface as I relived the memory. I wiped my eyes with the back of my palm and gripped the knife. If nothing else, I could give Bjolfur this. I put the knife to stone and scratched through my tears.

The noises from the animals dwindled until only the scratch of the knife against stone penetrated the night.

 

*

 

I went to bed as soon as I finished the runestone, intent on throwing it into the ocean at sunrise, but the weight of it next to me anchored me to consciousness.

Bjolfur’s soul was still drowning. I could go without sleep.

I wrapped myself in fur-lined clothes to protect against the cold, and made for the sea. I followed the forest stream behind our home until the trees thinned. Midnight was well and truly gone by the time I reached the sharp cliffs and the stream had become a shallow river that flowed through a deep chasm and out into the sea.

I took the runestone out of my pocket for the fifth time and turned it over to make sure that I had inscribed both sides of the stone, though I knew I had.

The runes glinted in the starlight. On one side, I had managed to scratch Bjolfur’s initials. On the other side, I had inscribed a single rune. Peace. An instruction, a plea, and a fervent hope.

I looked to the clear sky. The stars looked like the eyes of gods as they speared the night, but the moon was uninterested, with only half of her face turned to shine down on me. As I watched, the stars were joined by blurred streaks of green and purple. The lights began to dance. They flexed and stretched as though trying to test the limits of their sky-prison.

The Winds.

My stomach churned when I realised that the gods had not saved Bjolfur, but instead their imprisoned enemies would watch me cast the runestone. For a moment, I wished that Sif was with me to interpret that portent even as much as I wanted this moment to be mine alone.

I dragged my eyes off of the dancing lights and down to the sea.

My breath caught in my throat.

This was the first time I had truly looked at the churning water since we had returned. In the depths of night, it seemed alive. The waves were endless, ravenous. They moved together, against each other, constantly throwing their formless black weight against the cliff. The taste of salt filled the air as though marking the ocean’s territory, and the scrape of the sea spray against my cheeks felt like eager talons trying to drag me into the water’s unending jaws.

The Winds watched from above and the waves hungered below.

I stepped up to the edge of the cliff and tried to ignore the constriction in my chest as the ocean snapped and hissed. I took a deep breath and forced my attention on the pebble clutched in my hand.

The runestone seemed to glow in the light of the dancing Winds. I squeezed it tight, closed my eyes, and muttered a prayer to all of the Sea Giants I could remember. I hoped it would be enough for them to find Bjolfur.

As I prepared to throw the runestone, something flashed at the edge of my vision and for a mad heartbeat I thought the gods had returned my husband. I ran to the shallow river-chasm and peered over the edge to see two empty boats knocking against the rock. Someone moved in the deep shadows. They seemed to be tying the boats together.

I knew that fishing crews sometimes got blown off course and were forced to take shelter in an unknown cove overnight, but gut instinct stopped me from calling out to them. I pocketed the runestone and crept back onto the sloping ground. I cursed myself for leaving my weapons behind. All I had was the carving knife.

Shadows further up the cliffs perked up their heads. Three figures, moving quiet enough for the sea to drown out any sound they might make. Moonlight glinted against something. A spear.

“What was that?” one of them hissed.

“What?” said another.

“There’s someone out here, Soren.”

“I didn’t hear anything. Go and help Ragnar.”

I slid onto the ground, hoping the meagre light would hide me even though it showed me their spear. I cursed under my breath as the shadowed strangers moved between me and my way home. More weapons glinted in the pale light from the moon and the Winds. Raiders, then, and mine and Fjola’s farms were the closest targets. Again, I cursed myself for leaving my weapons behind. My best chance was to let them pass me, then get home ahead of them and fetch my weapons.

“There. What’s that moving?”

The shadow-figures stood straight and the glinting spear pointed straight at me.

I leapt up and sprinted away.

“Fuck!”

“Get them!”

One of them lunged for me as I passed them, but I ducked through his outstretched arms. They cried out to each other as I ran.

“Don’t catch her, kill her!”

Something hit me in the shoulder. The force of it, and the lancing pain, knocked me off balance and I tumbled forward. I tried to push myself up. My shoulder gave out and I fell face down onto the floor.

A rough hand wrapped around my foot and dragged me back. I kicked out with my other foot, felt a crunch, and heard a yell.

I scrambled upright and ran. I took a few steps then someone grabbed my tunic sleeve.

I spun to face them.

My knife flashed.

A spurt of blood and a pained scream.

The blood looked alive in the eerie Wind-light as it soaked into the ground. As my attacker reeled away from me, clutching their wounded arm, I leapt at them. Sharp iron punched into their belly, chest, neck. They went down.

“Shit! Ada!”

Two others moved towards me, cautious now. They stepped forward and I stepped back. They blocked me and I felt the sea spray caress my neck. I had nowhere to go.

Anger burned in the eyes of the one wielding a knife and axe. The other, clutching a spear, kept glancing from me to the writhing body at my feet.

“What are you doing here?” I said, to try and distract them as I tried inched away from the cliff’s edge.

“Killing you,” said axe-wielder.

They spread out, cutting off my escape, but I refused to step back. Their arms and faces were covered in paint. Blue, green, purple streaks twisted in strange patterns painted across their skin.

“Wind-hunters,” I growled.

Wind-hunters believed the Winds only resurrected the strongest, fiercest fighters. They stalked the nights when the Winds danced and killed as many people as they could before they were slaughtered in turn. Becoming a Wind-hunter was punishable by outlawry and execution. They took the risk so they could become Windborn. Either way, they wouldn’t stop until their last heartbeat.

Axe-wielder grinned, a white slash through the dark paint. “We’ll kill you first, then go and give a proper offering to the Winds.”

“Your friend thought I’d go down easy too.”

They glanced at the body. The writhing stopped. They started closing in. I prayed the body at my feet would make them nervous and clumsy.

“It’s not going to work,” I said. I tried to edge around the spear-wielder, but she jabbed at me until I retreated. “Your friend is dead and the Winds haven’t brought her back. What makes you think you’ll be any different?”

Axe-wielder’s smile sharpened. “We haven’t made a good offering yet.”

He swung the axe. I dodged it, but a spear-thrust from the other Wind-hunter scored my leg. I cried out and went down onto one knee.

Spear-wielder let out a whoop of victory and jumped towards me, pulling her spear back to strike again.

Quick as lightning I grabbed the spear’s shaft and pulled. The force jerked the Wind-hunter off balance and she fell forward as I pulled myself to my feet. Our bodies crashed together in a tangle of limbs.

We struggled for a moment, but fear lent me strength and I got behind her. I took hold of the spear and tried to use it to crush her windpipe. As she pushed against me, straining so hard veins bulged on her painted arms, I managed to pivot us so her body was between me and the axe-wielder.

“Soren, do something!” she rasped through her half-crushed throat.

Soren, the axe-wielder, growled and circled us, but couldn’t get to me without hacking apart his companion.

I grunted with effort as my captive tried to pull away. My hand slid up the wooden shaft and the spearhead sliced into my palm. Blood wept down the spear and my hand slipped.

The Wind-hunter bucked hard against me.

The blood-slick spear slipped from my grip and I fumbled for my knife.

We stumbled away from each other. She stooped to regain the spear and I leaned forward to stop her. My fingers brushed her sweat-soaked hair but did not snare enough to pull her away.

Soren seized on the broken stalemate and swung his axe. Before I could move the freezing iron clawed at my side, skipping over my ribs to slice my belly. Agony blossomed. I screamed. Cold night air snatched at my exposed ribs as hot blood splattered on the ground.

I twisted towards Soren and jabbed at him, but the movement was feeble and I fell to my knees.

A blood-dark puddle pooled around me. It reflected my shocked expression and the writhing Winds. Something crashed into the back of my head and I collapsed onto the blood-puddle. The warm, sticky liquid spread around me as though it wanted to find its way back inside me.

“Shit,” a distant voice said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” growled Soren. “Where the fuck were you? How long does it take to take down a fucking sail?”

“Same time it always takes. How the fuck was I supposed to know you’d be fighting off some mad bitch?”

Someone kicked me over. I stared up at the dancing Winds. The distant lights twisted in the space between the sky and the stars. They pulsed from blue to green to purple and back again. Some far away voice whispered to me in words I didn’t understand.

Soren’s face appeared and blocked the Winds from view. Braided red hair hung limp and his moustache bunched together as he pursed his lips.

“What was she doing out here?”

“Who cares?”

“Come on, it’s cold, let’s go burn some houses.”

“Leave her. Let’s go.”

The voices flowed together. I couldn’t tell who was talking.

“What are we going to tell Hraki? We can’t tell him some bitch took out Gellir before we even reached the village.”

My village. My house. My friends.

“Hraki doesn’t give a shit as long as he gets his Windborn. You know the deal: he gave us weapons and we give him Windborn.”

I needed to tell Fjola what was coming. My body screamed as I tried to move. My hand groped for a hold to drag myself away. My fingers slipped on the bloody rocks. I tried to leap up and run away, but I only twitched.

Pain ran through me like wildfire, but underneath it, I felt something fall out of my pocket and onto my leg. The crow in my chest, which deflated as my life poured out of me onto the clifftop, laughed and told me what it was.

The runestone.

I had not thrown the runestone.

“No. Someone cast the runestone. I’m begging you. Just throw this stone into the ocean. Please.”

I screamed the words with as much force as I could, but all emerged was a desperate, gurgling wheeze.

“Can someone get rid of her? That noise is creeping me out.”

“No. Just throw the runestone. Say the words.” Blood bubbled at the corners of my mouth.

Footsteps. A silhouette against the Winds. The sounds of the ocean grew hungrier, as though eager for the gift of carrion.

“The first offering of the night,” someone mumbled.

They dragged me across the cold ground. My knife slipped from my numb fingers and the runestone fell away from me.

They shoved me off the cliff.

There was a heartbeat of weightless calm. Then the ocean roared in my ears and the cold spray reached me. Lightning strikes of pain pummelled me as sharp rocks stabbed and tore my limbs, but my mind was focused on the small stone abandoned on the clifftop. I prayed that the rocks didn’t kill me. Please, by the Trickster’s black heart, let the ocean make the final blow.

Under the roaring waves, I thought I heard Bjolfur calling to me. It was good that I hadn’t cast the runestone, that he wasn’t one of the Blessed Drowned. Now our souls would wander the ocean floor together.

I smiled as the waves devoured me.