CHAPTER FIVE

Attack on the Village

Saga jumped on to Bjørn’s back and rode him down the mountain, taking a different route to avoid the trolls. Fast and faster, until the stars blurred overhead and she tasted snow, kicked up by Bjørn’s huge paws. Fast enough to overtake the trolls. As they ran and slid down the mountain, the magic shield weakened, melting around Saga like ice until it disappeared completely. Though she hated the magic, had feared it since her parents had died for it, it was their last mark on this realm and now it was gone.

She let out a little choked cry then sat taller on her bear’s back.

‘Trolls!’ she screamed as they entered the village. ‘Trolls are coming!’

She rode past the forge, where blades and axes were born in fire so hot it was white as ice. Iron-workers snatched their weapons out of the fires now, holding them high as they ran to where the village met the mountains. She rode past the mead hall, where the Jarl ruled and they feasted on long tables. Someone blew a birch-bark horn to signal danger and the warning spread quickly. People ran from their longhouses, hid their children and bared their axes. Dag was nowhere to be seen. Saga rode through them all towards the most important person in the whole village: her afi. When she saw him standing outside their home, she slid down from Bjørn, her chest aching. ‘The mountain trolls are coming,’ she told him.

‘And the shield?’ he asked quietly.

Saga lowered her eyes. ‘It was my fault.’

‘Saga, listen to me,’ her afi said urgently, crossing the ground between them and lifting her up on to Bjørn’s back. ‘We don’t have much time. You must run. Run before the trolls reach us.’

‘No.’ Saga folded her arms across her fur cape. ‘I will stay and fight with you.’ Ever since she could walk, her afi had been teaching her how to fight with axe and knife and now she was strong enough to lift a shield high.

In the distance, she heard the mountains shuddering as the trolls trudged down them, felt the earth beneath her bear’s paws tremble as they reached the village. In minutes, they’d be here.

‘Go to the Far North,’ her afi insisted. ‘You must tell the sorcerers what is happening in the villages and towns. Only they have the power to defend us from the trolls.’

Saga felt as if he had doused her with ice water. ‘I can’t. The magic –’

Her afi’s glacier-blue eyes burned into hers. ‘Víkingr blood courses through your veins. You are braver than a raider and fiercer than an eagle. Remember your destiny, Saga – the fate of the North rests in your hands.’ He lifted a small pouch on to her lap then unstrapped his scabbard and fastened it round her, giving her his knife.

‘No,’ Saga protested. ‘I can’t leave you!’

‘You must,’ he said fiercely. But, though his voice was as strong as the mountains, his eyes betrayed him: Afi was afraid.

Saga shrank back, panicking. If even her afi, a legendary warrior, was scared, then things were even worse than she’d thought.

Afi drew his battleaxe. It was red-gold and bore the single ice crystal that had long lost its magic. ‘Go now, Saga.’ His voice cracked. ‘Leave at once and ride fast for the Far North. You are our last hope.’

Saga’s eyes filled. ‘Afi,’ she whispered.

‘I know. Safe travels, my Saga.’ He pressed a hand to her cheek. ‘Remember, if you can find Odin’s wagon in the sky, you will never be lost. The stories of the gods are written in the stars for us to find our way in this world.’ Saga desperately held on to his arm, but, as the snarling and thundering footfalls sounded closer, he pulled away, drawing a quick rune that sent the wind rushing towards Bjørn, pushing his paws over the snow, forcing them to leave. ‘Now go!’

Bjørn took off at a lumbering run and Saga clung on tightly to his fur. They ran through the village and up a mountain on the opposite side – one that the trolls hadn’t come from.

‘Stop,’ Saga whispered, her throat thick. Bjørn slowed and she slipped down his back and stood there in horror, watching the scene that unfolded below. What if her afi – she swallowed the thought. It was too painful to even consider.

The village’s fiercest raiders ran towards the trolls, yelling the battle cry ‘Tyr!’, invoking the god of war. Spears, axes and shields were raised against them. But the trolls were taller and thicker than trees and could not be cut down. Saga spotted her afi entering the battle, wielding his axe like the fiercest of warriors. Moonlight glinted from his axe handle; she would have recognized it anywhere. But her afi wasn’t as powerful as her parents had been and didn’t stop to use magic. Only a few villagers held that kind of talent and their blades were stronger than their runes, but the trolls’ skin was hard like a rock and could not be pierced. These were mountain trolls, creatures of stone with all the ferocity and violence of nature’s wild ways.

Saga refused to look away, even as the villagers began to lose. They were brave and she would be too. But the last time the trolls had invaded their village, Saga’s parents had defended it. Now Saga was the one who was meant to hold the fate of the North in her hands – perhaps that marked her as the new defender of her village. Sucking in a trembling breath, she bent down and tried to draw the same rune her afi had, to send a gale tumbling down the mountain and over the trolls. But her hand was shaking and fear was clawing at her mind, and she wasn’t sure whether or not she’d managed to finish the rune before her stomach turned and she was sick on the snow where she’d tried to carve it. Either way, nothing happened. Just a dull ringing in Saga’s ears and a nasty taste in her mouth.

Bjørn whined, lowering his head and shoulders so that she could climb back to the safety of his back.

Now the trolls were circling the villagers, almost as if they were –

‘They’re rounding them up,’ Saga realized.

A troll that was larger than the others slowly stomped through the streets, dragging a cage behind it. Saga squinted. The cage was white, probably made from animal bones lashed together with twine. She grimaced. At least she hoped it was made from animal bones. There were already people inside, shouting and pulling at the giant bars. Saga’s stomach clenched when she realized who they were. The hidden children. Some of the trolls must have been hunting them down while the others fought.

‘They found Dag,’ Saga whispered, spotting his black hair as he tried to get free.

She watched as the rest of the villagers were herded into the giant cage. Afi was one of the last to go, and for a moment Saga thought she saw him stare in her direction and nod, before a troll batted him inside the cage. Saga yelped, launching herself in his direction, desperate to do something, anything, but Bjørn yanked her back, his teeth clamped over her furs. With a great tearing sound, the biggest troll ripped two trees out of the frozen earth. Two other trolls dropped the cage on top of the trees and lifted them like they were nothing more than sticks, each troll carrying two ends as they walked away with the cage.

Saga craned her neck to see in which direction they were leaving the village.

The trolls were taking them north.