CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The First Challenge

When Rollo finished speaking, the biggest of the raiders let out a booming war cry and the rest of his pack joined in, banging their cups against the table. The shieldmaidens laughed as the sorcerers observed silently, waiting for it to quieten down again. When the only sound was the gusting wind, he pointed towards an archway at the back of the hall.

‘Choose yourself an empty room.’ His grey eyes glittered. ‘And choose fast or you’ll be sleeping outside the mountain.’

At that, the ice benches scraped back as everyone hurried to the rooms, determined not to be tossed out into the desolate wasteland of snow and ice that awaited them on the other side of the castle doors.

Nobody was faster than Bjørn. He lolloped across the hall, with Saga, Ruvsá and Canute skidding along the ice after him. The doorway led to another dark, icy passage. ‘The whole castle looks like it was carved from one giant block of ice!’ Saga said as they ran ahead of the jostling crowd. Along either side of the passage were doors. Hundreds of small iron doors set into the ice. After a short run, the three children stopped at the twenty-fifth door and looked at each other.

‘Did you want to –’ Saga began awkwardly.

‘Yes,’ Ruvsá agreed, much to Saga’s relief. ‘Hurry inside!’

‘I’m sure one of the warriors from my village will want to share with me,’ Canute said quickly, as if he was afraid Saga was going to ask him to share their room as well. He vanished and Saga and Ruvsá looked at each other, their mouths twitching.

It took both Saga and Ruvsá’s combined strength to shift the door open and fall inside before the crowd came racing by, searching for rooms to claim. Bjørn squeezed through just in time. Saga cast a dismayed eye over the room. ‘We might as well be sleeping outside in a snowdrift,’ she moaned, her teeth clattering together. ‘This is an ice cave!’

It was a small pocket of a room, with low ceilings and thick walls, all made of ice. Either side of the room was an icy platform, strewn with furs for sleeping, and curling branches of ice that wrapped round each platform, tree-like. The fourth wall was carved with images of the clans of the North and the sorcerers’ castle, of Bifrost, and the sorcerers overseeing all. Saga traced one of the sorcerer’s flowing cloaks. ‘Do the sorcerers seem strange to you?’ she asked.

‘In what way?’ Ruvsá was examining an empty fire pit in the middle of the floor.

Saga hesitated, unsure how much to say. ‘Well, my afi told me to travel to the Far North, to tell the sorcerers of the troll attack on our village, but they have refused to send any help, not even an ice crystal …’ She shuddered, sinking deeper into her furs. ‘And why is it so cold in here?’

Ruvsá hugged her arms round herself. ‘C-c-c-can you cast a fire rune?’ She shivered.

‘Can you?’ Saga bounced back.

‘I’m not very good at rune magic.’ Ruvsá’s teeth chattered. ‘I’m b-b-better at … other things.’

‘Me too,’ Saga quickly lied.

Ruvsá gave her a doubtful look as if she knew Saga was playing with the truth, but she didn’t ask any more questions. A confusing mix of guilt and gratitude swirled inside Saga’s head. But they were still too cold.

‘You’re r-r-right about the sorcerers, though,’ Ruvsá added, stamping her boots up and down to warm up. ‘I have a b-b-bad feeling about them. The w-w-way they looked when you asked for help –’

‘Like they didn’t care,’ Saga said quietly, and Ruvsá nodded.

Bjørn growled a warning.

Saga lifted a finger to her lips and the two girls rushed to listen at the door. Heavy bootsteps were crunching along the ice corridor. Saga shot Ruvsá an alarmed look. When the boots hesitated outside their door, she wondered if the owner of the boots could tell that they were listening. Saga’s heart clattered in her chest. Then there was a whoomph of light and heat, and flames suddenly shot up from the fire pit.

‘A sorcerer,’ Saga mouthed to Ruvsá, who nodded. The boots moved on. Saga and Ruvsá hurried to warm their hands on the bright violet fire. As if by agreement, they didn’t speak about the sorcerers again, but their conversation left a bad taste in Saga’s mouth.

‘Why don’t you trust Canute?’ Ruvsá asked later when they were both nestled into their furs, watching the fire dance between their beds. It was a magical fire and though it moved like normal flames and warmed the room, it didn’t melt the ice.

Saga chewed on her lip. ‘How do you know that?’

Ruvsá gave a friendly laugh. ‘You’re not very good at hiding your feelings.’

‘Well, why do you trust him?’ Saga asked.

‘I don’t like thinking the worst of people,’ Ruvsá admitted. ‘It feels mean, like I’m waiting for them to make a mistake.’

‘Hmm.’ Saga felt a bit bad. Then Canute’s smug smile and sauntering walk popped into her head and she didn’t feel bad any more. He had been terrified that she’d overhear his deepest secret, he’d spent half the time acting as if he was as brave as a legendary warrior and the rest of the time he’d been afraid. And then there were all the dragons. ‘He’s hiding something big,’ she told Ruvsá.

Ruvsá shuffled in her furs. ‘I think we all are,’ she whispered. ‘But we all have our reasons for entering this contest and until it ends I think we should form an alliance.’

‘An alliance?’ Saga echoed.

Ruvsá lifted herself up on an elbow, meeting Saga’s eyes across the fire. Her brown hair had fallen round her face and was gleaming in the firelight. ‘You saw the way the others ignored us in the hall until they saw Bjørn. Most of them are bigger than we are, stronger than we are. What will happen when we start to win? They’re not going to like that.’

Saga thought of the shieldmaidens. How fearless they’d been, laughing and throwing their braids back as if they were just feasting by the fire, not on an epic quest to win a horn of ice crystals in the coldest, most ferocious islands that existed. Then Saga thought of her own magic and how she’d never finished carving a single rune. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure we’re going to win.’

Ruvsá slumped back. She was silent for so long that Saga wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then – ‘I have a feeling we’ll do better than they think.’

Saga smiled into the dark. It was the kind of smile that curved like a dagger.

Saga didn’t think she’d be able to sleep. She was far away from home, with her grandfather and best friend in danger, and now she had to win a fearsome contest against all the odds. But she’d been journeying for days to reach the sorcerers’ ice castle and she was the kind of tired that burrows into your bones. She fell into a dream as deep as an ocean.

She was walking down an icy passageway, lit by green-blue lanterns. But, as she walked further into the mountain, the lanterns became further and further apart, until she was swallowed by shadows. Then, dream-Saga drew an unfamiliar rune with her finger and the green-blue light seeped out of the lanterns and gathered. It grew until it was shaped like a great bear of light. When it ran down the passageway, the ice glittered. Saga chased it. But its luminous paws were quick flashes and she couldn’t run fast enough and soon darkness closed over her once more.

When she woke up, Saga was still half dreaming of bears. She and Ruvsá pulled on their boots and mittens and followed Bjørn to the great hall, hoping that the bear’s twitching nose meant breakfast was being served.

It did.

Saga stopped dead in the doorway. The tables were groaning under platters of pickled herring, slices of soft cheeses and meats, loaves of freshly baked breads and steaming cauldrons of porridge. It smelled like a dream. Bjørn huffed with excitement and lolloped over.

Saga gasped and nudged Ruvsá, who was still rubbing her eyes. ‘Look, fresh berries!’ She pointed at the bowls of lingonberries, cloudberries and raspberries dotted over the tables. ‘I haven’t seen fresh fruit since autumn.’ They must have been magically preserved. ‘I guess there are some good things about magic after all,’ she mused, nearly missing Ruvsá’s eyebrows draw together.

‘What do you mean –’ Ruvsá began.

But Saga had spotted something else. ‘No, Bjørn, that porridge is for everyone. Take your paw out of it!’ She hurried over to supervise her bear as Ruvsá giggled.

Saga was eating flatbreads with honey and fruit when Canute appeared. He looked warily at Bjørn, who was gobbling down a ginormous bowl of honey-drizzled porridge, oats all over his paws and nose.

‘He won’t hurt you,’ Saga said through a mouthful of mulched lingonberries. Canute grimaced and Saga gulped it all down. ‘Sorry.’

Bjørn growled as Canute sat down. Saga gave her bear an amused glance. ‘He doesn’t usually dislike people this much.’

‘Great,’ Canute muttered, reaching for a bowl of porridge.

‘Do you have any idea what the first challenge might be?’ Saga asked.

At the same time, Ruvsá questioned, ‘Who’s sharing your room with you? Did you find your warrior friends?’

Canute paused in adding a handful of hazelnuts to his porridge.

‘Answer Ruvsá’s first,’ Saga said, suddenly curious.

‘Well –’

‘There you are!’ A small child popped up at the table, beaming at Canute. Canute looked as if he wished the ice would crack and swallow him whole.

Saga laughed. ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be a warrior?’

‘I’m not a warrior – I’m Elof,’ Elof said, regarding them all seriously from under his floppy brown hair. ‘And I’m five and a half.’

Ruvsá handed Elof a bowl of porridge as he scrambled up to sit next to Canute. ‘What are you doing entering the contest?’ she asked him.

Elof gave her a wary look.

‘We won’t tell anyone,’ Saga promised. ‘Did you journey up here alone?’

Canute grumbled to himself.

‘What was that?’ Saga asked.

Elof giggled. ‘He’s just cross because my cat jumped on his face in the night.’ Elof reached down into his tunic and pulled out a slightly squashed, very fluffy kitten. ‘But Squirrel just likes attention. Leif didn’t mind!’

‘You named your kitten Squirrel?’ Saga tried not to laugh. ‘Wait, who’s Leif?’

Canute jerked his head at the quiet couple Saga had spotted the night before. ‘Him.’

‘Really?’ Saga peeked at them again. Leif was tall and thin and looked like a nervous mouse, and the woman was wearing her red hair in a knotted bun, braided with ribbons. ‘I thought they were together.’

Canute shrugged. ‘That’s Unn. They’re friends from the same village.’

Unn suddenly looked up. Her eyes were as green as spring, her nose as strong as a sword, and her mouth disapproving. Saga quickly turned her attention back to Elof, whose kitten had escaped his arms for the herring.

‘Squirrel, no!’ Elof took off after the grey ball of fluff as Bjørn emerged from his bowl of porridge, ears twitching.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Saga told her bear. ‘We don’t need any more trouble.’ She turned to Ruvsá and Canute, who were discussing the first challenge.

‘My brothers said we’d be hunting winged horses and wrestling captive mountain trolls,’ Ruvsá said, ‘but once they told me that if I collected enough feathers to make a cloak they could cast a rune to make me fly.’

‘Did you?’ Saga asked curiously.

Ruvsá grimaced. ‘I jumped off the roof of our lávvu and fell straight down into a pile of snow while they nearly died laughing.’

‘How many brothers do you have?’ Canute asked. ‘And did they all enter the contest?’

‘Three,’ Ruvsá said miserably. ‘All older than me. Only two of them have entered and it was ten years ago. They were out by the first challenge, but, from the stories they tell, you’d think they’d won the whole thing!’

‘Is that why you entered?’ Saga asked. She’d never imagined having a sibling before – Dag and Bjørn had always been enough for her – but now she wondered what it might have been like.

‘Yes.’ Ruvsá’s eyes blazed with determination. ‘They all think of me as the baby of the family, someone to play tricks on or tease, to keep safe from any adventures … I’m going to prove that I’m just as brave as they are.’

Saga cut Ruvsá a huge chunk of cake, dripping with honey and studded with lush berries. She poured half a jug of thick cream over it. ‘This will give you the energy to prove them all wrong,’ she told her, catching Bjørn’s paw just before it dipped into the cream. ‘I’m going to take Bjørn back to our room now.’

When they’d walked back to the room, Bjørn lowered his head. Saga stroked him behind his ears. ‘I know,’ she told him. ‘I don’t like this either, but I promised the sorcerers you wouldn’t help me.’ Bjørn whined. ‘I’ll be careful.’ Saga rested her forehead against his. ‘And then I’ll come back and we’ll be together again, and maybe we can figure out what to do next. I don’t know how long this contest will take, or if Afi can even wait that long, but if it’s my only chance to save him then I have to do it.’

Bjørn whined again when Saga left the room, but he didn’t try to follow her. She gently closed the door, leaving half of her heart behind.

When Saga re-entered the hall, Rollo was standing at the front, clasping the ice crystal on his forehead. His magic pierced the air, sharp and high-pitched, resonating through the ice and down to her bones. Saga rushed back to the table, trying not to be sick. First the sorcerers had refused to help with the trolls, and now she was plunging straight into the first challenge of the contest she’d never wanted to enter. It was shaping up to be a terrible morning and Saga wished she could close her eyes and wake up in her own bed at home.

‘Are you all right?’ Ruvsá whispered, and Saga nodded, shoving her fears and doubts away. Afi needed her to be strong now.

A crack shuddered through the ice. Rollo raised his arms and it splintered apart, juddering through the hall and leading to the shieldmaidens. They didn’t leap out of the way as Saga thought they would but calmly pushed their bench back as a gaping hole opened up in the floor.

Several contestants exclaimed. Rollo lowered his arms with a wicked grin, as if he was enjoying himself a bit too much. ‘Who would like to go first?’

‘Is this the first challenge?’ Saga asked in an undertone.

Ruvsá shook her head. ‘Before you came in, he said that we’d have to travel to the first challenge. It’s out there somewhere.’ They both looked at the windows cut out of the ice and at the howling darkness beyond. Here, it wasn’t like Saga’s village, where even in the blackest of winters they had a few hours of gentle blue light that dappled the fjords every day. Here, every day was like the middle of the night. The purple flames of the magical fires licked higher, and Saga noticed that the windows weren’t open holes after all; they were coated with a thin film of magic, like a soap bubble. It looked a little like her parents’ shield, and sadness twisted Saga’s stomach. It was chased with determination. She was here for a reason. If the sorcerers wouldn’t help her find her afi, then Saga would have to win that horn of magic and save him herself.

‘I’ll go first.’ Saga stood up, making Canute’s mouth fall open. Rollo watched as she walked over to the hole. She peered inside, but couldn’t see anything; it was a dark mouth. She hoped it wouldn’t bite her. Sitting on the edge, she nodded to Ruvsá, who gave her an encouraging gesture, and then Saga let go.