Chapter Twenty-Four:
No Way Back

It took hours, until sundown, but Valna finally spotted land. We climbed another wave and I saw the edge of the small island. Its edge was lined with boulders and shards of rocks seemingly without end. It was one of the myriad, nameless islets that lined our shores which were, more often than not, too rocky or sea swept to be of any use. As I looked to the north side of the island, I saw masts standing like spears above the rocks.

Hraki’s longships.

“Let’s head over there,” I said and pointed to the masts before putting my weight back to the oars. “Hopefully there’s somewhere nearby we can find to land.”

Valna nodded and renewed her grip on the rudder.

The waves calmed the closer we got to the island, but not by much. Every time we were caught on a wave’s upswell my heart shuddered with the fear of being thrown against the island’s sharp edge.

“Wait,” Valna said over the crash of the waves. “I saw a rock go underwater there.”

I tried my best to stop the boat from moving with the tide and I did well enough that we didn’t crash, though we came too close to some rocks for comfort. Valna gave me directions and wave by wave we edged around the island and into a cove. Three beached longships waited for us. All looked empty.

“Keep the course steady and you’ll hit the beach,” Valna said. “I’ll go and make sure there’s no one guarding the longships.”

She picked up a shield and spear and disappeared.

I wanted to call after her and demand she keep me safe on the water, but she was gone and we had come too far for me to give our position away now.

Instead, I gritted my teeth and did my best to make my way to the shore alone. Without Valna’s guiding voice I had to steer and keep watch at the same time. I kept my gaze on the sharp rocks beside me and twisted around to watch the beach, but the vast dark waters called to me. Each wave’s foamy edge lit up in the winter twilight like pale teeth. Between the dark edges of the rocks waiting to wreck me and the bright teeth of the ocean, I felt trapped and my breathing became too short. I tried to focus on the oars, on the stroke, but too many breaths came between each one.

I felt lightheaded.

The waves were coming for me.

I twisted to see the shore. It must be close. The rocks lurched next to me like claws. I cried out and let go of the oar. Two birds dived past me. I lashed out with a fist, catching the edge of the boat and punching a hole into the gunwale.

Something grabbed the boat and pulled it forward.

I spun, determined not to miss this time, and shot a chunk of ice out from an outstretched palm.

“What the fuck, Edda?” Valna hissed. “I told you to just go straight.”

Valna yanked on the prow, scraping the boat against the sand to beach it. I looked to my right. The rocks were perilously close. Close enough to touch.

“I’m sorry,” I said between deep breaths. “The water... It... I... I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Once again the anger in her eyes dimmed behind a kinder light. “At least the birds caught the oar.”

Two gulls paddled forward, pushing an oar between them. I took it and threw it into the boat.

“Thank you,” I said, unsure if I was aiming it at the birds or Valna.

“Did you find anyone?” I asked as we hid the boat between the rocks up the beach.

Valna nodded towards the longships and I saw scuffed sand and still figures on the ground.

“Only a couple of people. They weren’t expecting me and didn’t make much noise.”

We got our supplies from the boat and made our way over to the beached longships. The two dead guards, lying in the alley between two longships, wore furs to protect against the cold but had not bothered to wear anything to protect against a blade.

“Thank the gods for arrogance,” I said.

The ravens had followed us, flitting from one perch to another in our shadows, and they watched us from the edge of the nearest longship. One of them bent forward and cawed urgently.

We watched the other raven fly up and away from us, calling down as it disappeared into the dark sky.

All around us the other birds began to pull themselves into the air, call out, and peck at each other. After a moment it seemed like hundreds of birds circled above us, wheeling in random patterns before breaking off and flying away.

The raven on the longship spread its wings wide and cawed at us again. It held the stance, then something in it changed. It moved in short bursts. It hopped along the longship until it was above the bodies then swooped down to rest on one of their chests. It looked at us with one beady eye then started to peck at the guard, now carrion.

I watched the motley flock of birds above us dissolve until only a few gulls remained. The tether that had held them all was broken. The poison had done its work.

“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Valna asked. Her eyes shone with tears.

My silence was answer enough. We had another death to lay at Hraki’s feet.

“She was a cranky old woman, but she was always good to me. Well, most of the time.” Valna wiped away a tear with the back of a hand that held a bloody knife she’d pulled from one of the bodies.

“May the gods embrace her,” I said.

“May the gods embrace her,” Valna echoed and then added, in a voice as quiet as the night, “please.”

For a moment we watched the birds. The sky bruised to a deep, glittering purple as the stars became visible. The birds flew above. Patches of shadow obscuring the night as they circled. A weight of sorrow stuck in the back of my throat, which warred with the curious practicality wondering how we would get back without the birds to guide us. Valna looked lost in her own grief. I walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She turned to me and I squeezed gently.

“Let’s burn the longships,” I said. “I don’t want any of these fuckers to get away.”

Valna slapped her bloody hand on mine and nodded. The grief in her eyes was overwhelmed and replaced with familiar fury.

The small bushes and scrub that lined the shoreline were soaked with the sea air and too damp to be used as kindling so we clambered into the longships and found what we needed there. We scattered wood and fuel across the decks and once we were satisfied a fire would envelop the entire longship, I pulled out my flint from my bag.

“Here,” I said and pushed it at Valna. “You set the fires and I’ll keep watch. It’ll go quicker if you jump between the longships.”

“I’m not sure.” She looked from the flint and back to me. “I’ve never been any good at it.”

“You’ll be fine. Look, wipe the blood off your knife and give it here.”

She did and I showed her the best way to scrape the sparks from the metal. She didn’t look utterly convinced but still disappeared and I soon heard muffled curses coming from behind one of the longships. Smothering a smile, I picked my spear up from beside the longship to save it from the oncoming conflagration.

The cursing slowly moved from one longship to another and a low light illuminated the curve of the wood from the inside. I walked along the beach, keeping myself halfway between the prows of the longships and the rocky cliffs. I kept my eyes on the deep shadows between the rocks, any one of them could hide a pathway and an enemy waiting for me to drop my guard. The sigh of the waves washed over the small sounds and I wouldn’t have been able to hear careful footsteps.

The man who appeared from between the rocks was not careful.

“Oi,” he called out as he stumbled free of the shadows. “I brought you something to drink to warm you up.”

He had a waterskin thrown across his shoulders that sloshed with each uneven step, presumably full of ale or mead. The curses and the scrape of the flint stopped. I twisted my grip on my spear and readied to throw.

“Fuck,” he said. “It’s cold out here.”

He stumbled to a halt and let the skin fall from his shoulders. His drunken eyes found me. A slow blink. A frown.

“Where’s Aethel and Gorm?”

As he looked past me, his gaze reflected the glowing longships. His eyes hardened. He fumbled for a knife.

My spear hit him as Valna appeared beside him. He spun from the impact of the spear in his shoulder and Valna slashed her knife across his throat. The drunkard crumpled to the ground.

I ran up to Valna and ripped the spear out of the body. Viscous blood soaked into the sands. Each drop illuminated by the burning ships.

“Is there anyone else coming?” I whispered.

We both squinted at the gap in the rocks where the drunk had come from. I couldn’t make out anyone else in the shadows, but with night’s jaws clamped down on us it was hard to tell.

“I don’t think so,” Valna replied.

“I can’t see anything,” I said. “Did you set the last fire?”

“No, I thought it was more important to do something about him,” Valna said and kicked the body.

“I had it covered.”

She opened her mouth to say something but I waved her down with my spear-wielding hand.

“We don’t have time for this. Someone might come looking for this one. Go and set the last fire and then we’ll make a move.”

“Can’t you do it?” Valna huffed, an echo of her old playful self. “It takes me ages.”

I shot her a look and she rolled her eyes before she disappeared. The scrape of flint and muttered curses began again.

Whilst Valna set the final fire, I picked up the fresh corpse and carried him over to his two friends. I was sure that the night would conceal any tracks we made on the beach, at least until the flames took hold, but I didn’t want to make it any easier than I had to for Hraki to figure out what had happened.

“Done.”

Valna appeared beside me. She handed me back the flint and then readied herself for battle.

A glow grew within each longship. The flame-cast shadows gave life to the figureheads, all carved into vicious dragons, as their eyes stared balefully down at us. I met their gaze for as long as I could, but after a moment I had to look away from the brightness.

“Well, I hope you’ve not got any second thoughts. There’s no turning back now,” Valna said as she moved up next to me to watch the flames engulf the longships.

“There’s been no way back for me for a long time.”

We stayed long enough to be sure that the flames were rooted and then followed the drunkard’s footsteps on the dark pathway between the rocks, hoping we would find Hraki at the other end.

 

*

 

The rocks became steep walls as we crept forward. We moved slowly with our shields held high and our spears low. I took each step with care so as not to slip on any unseen scree and Valna followed a few paces behind. As we travelled further into the chasm, the clouded sky began to clear as though the stars were keen to witness the coming slaughter.

“I don’t like this,” I hissed at Valna. “I can’t see anything.”

“That drunk came this way. There’s nowhere else to go.”

I paused to look at the walls. They were rough, as if the island had been ripped in two and this pathway was little more than a jagged tear in the earth. Salt stained the sharp edges of the stone all the way up. The thought of climbing the walls and slicing my palms on those salt-crusted rocks made me wince. I murmured a curse. There was nothing else to do but push on.

After another hundred heartbeats and half as many paces, warm firelight caressed the contours of the rocks ahead. The corridor widened and the ground sloped up a small distance before disappearing. As we came to the edge of the path we heard the gentle sound of a distant crowd. We found a boulder, perhaps broken off when the island was split, and hid behind it. The boulder was halfway between the top of the slope and the end of the path, too far from the path to be safe, and too low for us to be able to see our enemies. The amber firelight passed over our heads, only illuminating the tip of the passage. For the moment we were hidden. We were safe.

I peered around one side of the boulder and then the other.

“It’s no good,” I said. “I can’t see anything.”

Valna pursed her lips and looked around.

“I’ll jump on top of the rocks.” She pointed back the way we had come. “From up there I should be able to see everything.”

She set down her shield and spear and edged away from the boulder. Now that we had stopped, I felt the distant pull of a volatile energy. It was a quiet mirror to the vibrating power of the Wind I felt inside me and reflected in Valna.

“No, wait.” I grabbed her arm before she could disappear. “Do you feel that?”

Valna frowned at me then her eyes went wide and she nodded. The feeling was strong, but blurred. Trying to say how many Windborn were ahead of us would have been like trying to count the nicks on a sword as it swings towards your head.

“If you start jumping it might give us away. What if they feel you do it and I have to deal with a whole army on my own?”

Valna’s jaw tensed and she shook me off her arm.

“Fine. What do we do then? Do you want to go back to the boat and sail around the island? Try and find somewhere else to land and come at them from the other side?”

“No.”

I rubbed at my eyes and tipped my head back against the boulder. We couldn’t charge in and try and take everyone on. There would be too many people between us and Hraki and, Windborn or not, the two of us would be cut down before we reached him. I looked around at the salt-rimed rocks, hoping that something would come to me, but nothing did.

“What about—”

Valna went silent as someone shouted.

A wordless cry of alarm from beyond the slope. The gentle hum of the crowd was replaced by shouted orders and the clatter of things hastily shoved out of the way.

We looked around, desperate to discover if we had been seen, but I couldn’t see any sign that our hideaway had been discovered. Valna’s wide, confused eyes showed me that she didn’t know what was going on either.

Then I saw it: a faint, burning amber staining the night. The burning longships. I tapped Valna and pointed. We had not been able to see the fire as the rock walls obstructed our view, but now that the flames wrapped themselves around the masts like burning ivy, the flame-engulfed longships were visible from all over the island.

The shouts became more organised as they realised what was happening. Footsteps. A group headed to the longships. They would need to go straight by us.

There was no time to go anywhere.

“Wrap the spearheads,” I hissed at Valna.

She nodded. I flipped our shields so that the bosses wouldn’t give away our position and Valna twisted the spearheads in her tunic to hide the shining metal. We pressed ourselves against the boulder, trying to hide in the rock’s rough edges just in time for a group of warriors to rush past us.

They held torches, knives, axes.

We pressed hard against the boulder. We would survive a fight, but it would be a short lived victory that brought the rest of the fighters down on us.

The first warrior sprinted past without noticing us or our tracks. It was as though he set the standard for the others. None of them glanced in our direction, their attention focused solely on the burning longships. I tried to count them as they went, but they disappeared into the rock-path too quickly. A dozen, maybe. Our distraction had not thinned their numbers by much, but I was thankful for each warrior we had drawn away, for now.

“What now?” Valna whispered.

It was possible they would send someone back for help to fight the fires. We couldn’t wait for that. Whoever came back would see us right away and our only tactical advantage would be lost. I chewed my lip, trying to think of something we could do to get Hraki away from his small army.

Something moved behind Valna.

I looked around her but saw only footsteps across the sand and rocks. Almost all of them pointed to the burning ships but some moved toward the boulder, and us. Three sets let to the boulder. One for me and one for Valna. Whose was the third?

I spun in time to see a rock lifting behind Valna’s head. I yanked her forward as the rock smashed down where her head had been.

Valna’s eyes went wide as I grabbed her, but she was a fighter to her bones, and faster than I could follow she pulled a knife and slashed behind her.

A grunt and a red gash appeared from nowhere.

I pulled my axe from my belt and swung it at the space where I felt a Windborn’s echo. The axe met something solid.

Valna scrambled to her feet and threw a handful of dust and sand at whoever was attacking us. They grunted and spat, but the dust had done its job.

A figure stood before us outlined with a fine coating of sand like a man made from dirty stars. A red line marred the dusty warrior-echo and he slowly bled into view from the wound.

“You bitch,” he grunted.

He launched himself forward to swipe at me with whatever weapon he had in his hand. I blocked with an ice-covered forearm. The ice cracked against the force of it and the invisible weapon bounced off to stab my leg.

I stifled a cry and took another swing with my axe. He blocked it easily and slashed at me again. I flinched back, feeling the air from the weapon brush my cheek, and tripped over the shields on the floor.

The warrior, his blood-soaked tunic now visible up to his shoulders, loomed over me. A shield appeared in the air and he raised it to smash down at me.

“I knew whoever set those fires wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay with the longships. You—”

Valna crashed into him. He crunched into the boulder and bounced off. Valna didn’t let up. She sprinted after him and stabbed at him again and again. Crimson blossomed all over his chest and then he brought the shield around and knocked Valna off her stride.

She fell back, dizzy from the blow, dropping one of her knives.

I jumped in and used the hook of my axe to pull his shield towards me. The movement caught him off guard and he stumbled forward.

By now I could see one of his legs, his arms, and his blood-spittled lips.

I lifted the axe with both hands to bring down on his head, and as I did his weapon slashed against my arm. I kept my grip on my axe and swung hard. The axe connected with his skull with a wet crack. I yanked the weapon free and swung again and again and again and again.

On the fourth swing, his invisibility faded. His body, now in full view, lay still. I let my axe drop to my side.

Valna walked up to me, wiping blood away from her nose with the back of one hand.

“Help me drag him out of sight,” I said. “They might not have spotted us.”

When I tried to grab him, pain shivered through my left arm. I gritted my teeth against the pain and we shoved the body against the boulder.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine, he only shoved me. What about you?”

I glanced down at my arm, hidden in the boulder-shadow, only a scratch and already iced over. The wound in my leg still bled and I pressed my hand against it.

“Let me see,” Valna said.

My muscles burned as I stretched out my leg for Valna to inspect the wound. I felt like a haunch of meat on a butcher’s table.

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s already freezing over.”

It was, but not fast enough. Nal’s knife had stabbed deep into me and black-red ichor, thick with ice crystals, ran down my leg like deadly warpaint.

“We’ve got to get that bandaged up,” Valna said and started to tear strips from her tunic.

“No, wait.” I panted.

I placed my hand over the wound and a fresh wave of pain flared. Blue light shone between my fingertips. I bit down so hard my tongue bled, and pushed as much cold out of me as I could. When I took my hand away, there was a cocoon of ice over the wound, but blood still glistened beneath.

“See,” I said. “Good as new.”

“Bullshit.” She rubbed at her face and looked from me to the body beside us and then to the glowing longships. “This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.”

“It wasn’t a great plan,” I conceded.

Valna offered me a sad smile. She came to sit on my good side and leaned her head on my shoulder.

“Can I go and jump up on the rocks now, then? If they didn’t notice the fight I don’t think they’ll notice me do that.”

I tried to straighten my arm and winced at the blaze of pain. Beyond the slope, the sounds of the crowd had fallen back to a murmur. Although it was a low, tense sound rather than the easy quiet of a hundred conversations.

“I don’t—”

The sharp sound of a kicked stone. A muffled curse. I nodded to the path and picked up my axe. Valna took up her knives and crept to one side of the path’s entrance and I made my way to the other.

Whoever was making their way towards us was doing a piss poor job of masking their movements. Their feet scraped the pebbled floor and there was the intermittent scratch of cloth on stone as they bumped into the walls.

I looked to Valna. Our eyes met. We raised our weapons and nodded.

Two men stepped off the path. One old, the other younger with a bright blond beard, both strong. I swung my axe at the older one.

Runar and Orin.

I saw Valna’s eyes widen and she dropped her knives. Runar spun towards her and flinched back. Orin turned towards me and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand upright. There was a flash of recognition in his eyes. He smiled as though he expected me to stop the axe, drop it maybe, and he straightened.

I felt myself standing on the threshold of a mistake that could bring me justice. The axe kept moving.

All my reasons for wanting Orin dead rumbled through my head with all the excuses I could give merging with them: it was too dark to see who it was; I didn’t recognise him; he owed me a life.

Every step I had taken since my husband drowned echoed in my feet. Each denial of justice clawed its way free of my memory and screamed into the face of the man who took my husband from me, but through my primal fury I scented the true source of my misery.

Hraki.

I had gone too far to jeopardise bringing the Windborn king to justice.

The axe stopped moving. Valna appeared between us and held up her hands to stop me. I pulled the axe close and slipped it into my belt.

“It’s okay, Edda,” she hissed. “It’s Runar and Orin.”

The boulder couldn’t hide all of us so we crouched down at the entrance to the pathway. Blood splatters shone on their clothes and Runar had crimson smears on his arms.

“Why are you here?” Valna asked.

“To get you, you bloody fools,” Runar whispered. “The High King sent us to bring you back. We would have lost you, though, if you hadn’t set light to the longships.”

“We’re not going back without Hraki,” I said.

Valna spun to look at me. “Until we kill him.”

“Valna, now that Runar’s come, we could take Hraki back with us and give him to the High King. He might just let us go if we do that.”

“I don’t want to go back.” She frowned at me. “There’s nothing for me back there, Edda, it’s just pain and memories. We came here to kill Hraki. Fuck the High King. Fuck his justice. Fuck the consequences.”

Her eyes hardened as she talked. Her anger was the kind of rage that can only be stoked by the death of a loved one. I knew that rage. How could I turn Valna away from it, when it had carried me this far?

“Valna.” I spoke softly and took her hands. “I understand. My husband died because of Hraki. I lost everything because of him. My home, my family, my friends, but I found you. There’s still things to live for even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. I’m not saying that we let Hraki go, I’m just saying we should try and bring him to justice. If we can’t do that... then we kill him.”

Her fury fluctuated as I spoke. It seemed like she tried to hold her anger like a shield, but some part of what I said got through. She nodded.

“Fine.”

“We’re not here for Hraki,” Runar said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re here to take you back.”

“What if you brought Hraki back too?” I said. “You’ll deliver the renegade Windborn king to the High King for his justice. You’ll be heroes.”

“Or we could die.”

“That’s always a risk.” I shrugged. “We’re going to try and we could use your help. Once we get him then we’ll come with you. Right, Valna?”

There was a pause. Valna shrugged.

Runar looked from me to Valna and back again. His shoulders slumped and he sighed.

“Fine, but if it goes badly then I’m grabbing who I can and leaving.”

Valna beamed and clapped her hands together. Everyone turned to her and we all hunched a little lower.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

For a tense moment, we listened to the camped warriors over the slope. Nothing seemed to have changed and we relaxed.

“What about you, old man?” Valna asked, with a hint of her old, playful self.

Orin looked around the group. His white hair stood at odd angles and his cheeks had more colour to them than when I had last seen him. His face split into a wide grin.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a proper fight.”

Valna threw herself at Orin and hugged him. There was a spark and a crack when she touched him and her hair stood straight up. Valna pulled away, saw where I was staring, and tried to smother her hair back down. It didn’t budge. I stifled a laugh.

“What’s the plan, then?” Runar said.

“Did you kill the people who went to the longships?” I asked.

“We did. We got some of their weapons too.”

“Good, then we don’t need to worry about someone sneaking up behind us.”

“Let me see what’s over the ridge,” Valna said. “I’ll crawl up there and if anyone sees me I can jump back here.”

“Okay, just be careful.”

She shot me a grin and started to move up to the top of the slope. She kept to the side of the walls, trying to hide her shape in the rough texture of the rock. Once she got close to the crest of the slope, she dropped onto her belly and squirmed forward.

“What do you see?” I whispered.

She ignored me and came back down a moment later.

“There’s at least a hundred of them. They’ve set up tents and there’s a few campfires down there, but all the fighters look on edge. A load of them have their weapons out and none of them look happy.”

“I wouldn’t look happy if I was stuck on this shithole rock,” Orin muttered.

I shot him a look to silence him. “Did you see Hraki?”

Valna shook her head.

“There’s a bigger tent at the back. I’d say he’s in there.”

I looked around our small group. Four fighters wouldn’t be enough to take on one hundred, even if those four were Windborn, and we didn’t know how many Windborn Hraki had left.

“There’s too many,” I said. “We can’t charge in there. We need to draw them out.”

“I can take care of that,” Orin said with a grin.

A shadow passed over his eyes and I felt the echo of his power building in his chest. Above us the stars started to disappear. Clouds blanketed the sky, forming from nothing but thought. Thunder in the distance.

“We can’t just make it rain on them,” I snorted, trying to cover the fear that snaked around my throat at the memory of that first, deadly storm. “We need something to make them come to us.”

“I’ll make us a target,” Runar said. He slapped a hand down on Orin’s shoulder and a tiny streak of lightning jumped at Runar’s hand. “How far are they from the crest of the slope, Valna?”

“Maybe two hundred paces.”

“They’ll be confident with their numbers and should charge straight for us,” I said. “We’ll make a shield wall and—”

“Edda, there’s no way you can stand in a shield wall with your leg,” Valna said, gently.

“I’ll be fine—”

“What’s wrong with your leg?” Runar butted in.

I showed him.

“Shit, you can’t be in a shield wall with that.”

“I can try. A shield wall is the best option. Let them come to us. They’ll tire on the charge and then we cut them down.”

“You’ll not be able to push back in a shield wall with your leg like that. Then you’ll die. Then we’ll all die.” Runar shook his head. “You’re thinking like a fighter, Edda, but not like a Windborn. We don’t want to defend. We need to attack.

“We make a line on that ridge. Orin gets their attention. We can throw these rocks at them as they come running over, a good throw will be lethal, then we take the fight to them. Valna, you fight at the edges and don’t stay in one place too long. The usual. Edda and Valna can go and get Hraki once we’ve thinned out the numbers. Sound good?”

Runar looked at each of us in turn and we all nodded.

A knife-thin grin sliced across Orin’s face. “Let’s show them what it means to be Windborn.”