CHAPTER SIX

Lost in the Snow

The trolls continued north. Saga, who wasn’t ready to leave her afi yet, was silently following at a distance. ‘It’s not like I’m disobeying Afi,’ she told Bjørn. ‘I need to go this way anyway.’ He grunted in reluctant agreement and Saga went quiet again. It had begun to snow and flakes collected in her hood and on her eyelashes. She blinked them away, staring harder at the trolls and the bone cage two of them were carrying. If she squinted, she could just make out her afi’s strong back and Dag’s spill of black hair at the back of the cage. Were they searching for her? They knew she had escaped the trolls … She couldn’t stop worrying about why the trolls had taken them in the first place. Afi had told her to ask the sorcerers for help, but that would take a long time and what if Afi and Dag were in more serious danger and couldn’t wait?

Snow started to fill in the giant footprints.

‘We need to hurry, Bjørn,’ Saga whispered urgently, sinking her mittens deeper into his fur, ‘or we’re going to lose them.’ But the sky was cloud-thick, hiding the moon and stars, and Saga didn’t dare light a torch. Soon, it grew too dark to see where the trolls had gone. Away from her sheltered village, the wind roared its frozen breath over Saga, showering her with snow. Shivering, she tugged her hood tighter round herself and hung on to Bjørn as he battled a path through the wild weather, snuffling and grunting. ‘I wish we could see the stars,’ Saga whispered to him. ‘I don’t know if we’re still heading north or not. I think –’ she swallowed – ‘I think we might be lost.’ As soon as she said it, she hugged Bjørn tighter. The North was vast and she was just one girl who had been sent on a dangerous journey she’d never wanted. Home felt very far away now.

One of Bjørn’s paws suddenly sank into a patch of deep snow.

It unbalanced him and Saga tried to hold on, but her mittens slipped on his back and she toppled off.

‘Bjørn!’ she shouted. ‘Bjørn?’ Feeling with her arms out, she stumbled across the snow, searching for him in the darkness. Her mittens touched fur and she sighed in relief. ‘There you are.’ But –

‘I am not your bear, child,’ said a voice.

Saga jolted back. One hand fell to her afi’s knife. ‘Who are you?’ She whipped round, trying to see through the night. ‘Where’s Bjørn?’

‘An old friend. Come. Your bear will wait.’ With a sudden fizz, a torch roared to life. The person trudged away, holding it. They wore a long, hooded fur cloak and their back was bent over, from age rather than the howling wind, given the way they walked. Saga hesitated. She saw nothing but moon-white snow illuminated in the pool of firelight. Where had the trolls gone? And where was Bjørn?

‘Come,’ the person repeated. ‘You will not be able to help anyone if the snow swallows you whole.’

Saga wasn’t sure she trusted this person, but she was even more scared of being alone, lost in the dark and snow. She slowly followed the figure. Still, she kept a hand on the hilt of her knife.

After a short distance, a mountain reared in front of them. The stranger raised their torch and in the sputtering light, Saga made out a dark hollow staining the side of the mountain: a cave. She glanced back, searching for Bjørn, worry churning her stomach like an ice storm, until she was suddenly cast into darkness.

Saga scurried after the torchlight, following the stranger’s path, carving through the snow, wending between thin trees and up to where the mountain yawned open. Saga took a deep breath and stepped into the cave.

Fire flickered over the rune-carved walls. Little bunches of dried herbs and feathers were hung above them and a crooked staff leaned against the entrance, thrumming with magic.

Saga had walked into a witch’s cave.