60

 

“Agnes,” Val hissed. “You want no part of this.”

“What is this?” the girl asked. She showed no signs of fear, as she had after the lamprey field and Val’s killing spree. Now she seemed interested. She also showed no sign that she was going to go away.

Val turned her attention back to Oskar, who waited wide-eyed under Val’s hands. Val slid her hand away from his mouth. “Do you believe I will cut you?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “What have I done wrong?”

“I need information from you, Oskar, and I will cut pieces from you and stab you here in the dirt if you do not deliver it. Do you understand?”

“What do you want to know?” Oskar whined. “Anything.”

“The green-eyed woman. Tell me. Everything.” Val’s knife involuntarily pushed harder against Oskar’s neck as she said it, drawing a slim line of blood.

“Okay. Okay,” he said, panicked. “It is like Morten told. What do you want to know?”

“Where did you take the woman? Who was the man who hired you?”

“It was nearly twenty years ago,” Oskar started, his voice beginning to rise. Val quickly pressed the blade harder against his throat while clamping her hand on his mouth. She glanced back at the field, beyond Agnes and back toward the rest of her sleeping party. It would already be difficult enough to explain this to the girl. Having to explain to the others would be awkward. Oskar stayed quiet under her palm, and she slowly removed her hand.

“How many years? Exactly.”

Oskar thought for a second, and Val could tell he was counting in his head. “Eighteen.”

She pressed against his throat at the volume.

In a much lower voice, he went on. “We took her at Lulea, on the gulf. Then we took her with us back to a village on the sea, called Narvik. The man’s name was Vikord. I don’t know anything else. It is like Morten said. We were desperate for work and for food.”

Val glanced up to see Agnes attentively watching, but still rooted in place. In one swift move, Val leapt back, pulling the blade from Oskar’s neck and her hand from his mouth.

“You will say nothing to Morten about this. Nothing,” she hissed, pointing the tip of the blade at him. “You will continue to fight for me and for this group, to keep this girl alive and get us safely back to Stavanger. The human race is more important than this issue.”

Oskar sat up, rubbing a hand on his neck and smearing the thin line of blood there. “I do not understand why you have treated me like this. Have I not always fought for you?”

Val had to control herself from lunging at the man again. “I owe you a blood debt, Oskar the Abductor of Women. The man you killed was my father. The woman you took...was my mother.” With that she tugged the goggles from her face, her green eyes haunting in the beam of moonlight piercing the trees.

Oskar’s mouth hung open in shock, his eyes widening. She watched his face, as it seemed like he was working through his chances of drawing his blade and killing her.

“I would not do it, Laplander,” came a low voice from behind Val.

She whirled to find Ulrik emerging from behind a tree. In his hands he held his long ax.

“You probably would not be able to take her, Oskar. But I would definitely cleave your intestines out and drag your corpse around by them, if you did. The end of all life would be on us then, since she is the only one who knows where to find the machine part Halvard sent us to retrieve. If Ragnarok is assured, I will gut you in a second.”

The four stayed quiet for a moment. Then Oskar slowly got to his feet, his hands far from the hilt of his sword. “I will not draw weapons on my comrades.” His eyes darted toward Val, with the look of a wounded dog. “Even if they would draw on me. I am sorry for what we did to your parents, Val. It was long ago, and we were dying from hunger. If I knew anything else, I would tell you.”

He turned to walk back to the greenhouse, and Ulrik laid a meaty hand on the slim man’s shoulder. “Not a word to Morten. If you fight well, and if we make it back to Stavanger, I will protect you from her wrath until the end. But if you falter, anywhere from here to there...” He let the threat hang.

Oskar looked back to Val. “I will keep it from Morten, and I will continue to fight for you. I was just fifteen at the time, Val. Younger than Agnes. And I have proved myself for you many times since we left the North. Hopefully you will find some forgiveness in your heart by the time we return.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but pulled free from Ulrik’s grasp and stalked back to the camp.

Val started after him, to ensure that his first move would not be to rouse Morten, but Ulrik stopped her with a wave of his hand. “His heart is good, despite his bluster. We have seen that these last months on the road. He will keep his word.”

“Yes,” Val said. “And I think we should rectify the issue with the machine part.” She glanced at Agnes, who had stood from her perch in the grass. “You both need to know what it is, and where to find it.”

 

 

She showed them the rough map Halvard and Nils had drawn for her in Stavanger, and a detailed hand-drawing of the wheel-like object. Then they returned to the camp, where the others were all asleep, and where Oskar laid under his blanket, wide-eyed but silent.

The next day they moved on, and Ulrik lingered close to Oskar and Morten throughout the day, watching and listening. Oskar was more helpful than ever with finding wood for the cooking fires, and he talked less, but he showed no other sign that he intended to betray his word.

Four days later they came to the outer reaches of Rotterdam, where Halvard had told Val she would find the mysterious machine part.

Winding like a snake through the crumbled and seemingly empty city, was a river running east to west. Countless stacks of metal containers reaching a hundred feet high lined the banks. The Vikings crept through the streets, staying behind cover at all times. Anders requested permission to climb a huge metal structure like a criss-crossed ladder, with rusted metal cables dangling from its tip. They guessed the thing was used to move the colorful boxes onto the huge boats—now empty carcasses—that were still moored in the deep river.

At some time during the Uttslettelse or after, the waters had risen beyond their original point, and many industrial yards and buildings were now under a foot of clear water.

They waited at the base of the large skeletal structure as Anders climbed, accessing a tiny glassed-in room at the top. From there he would have a good view of the river, and would be able to spot any obvious dangers in the town.

It took an hour for Anders to make the climb and return to the ground with the hooded Skjold, but it was well worth the wait.

“We are not alone,” he said, his bow gripped tightly in his hand.