CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Time to Wield War

The winged horses looked as if they’d flown straight out of a story.

‘Ohhh,’ Solveig said in a feather-soft voice.

Their coats were as silver as moonlight, their manes as golden as star glitter and their wings the colour of fresh snowfall. There were more than Saga had imagined, filling the sky with their vast wingspans and sparkling hooves, tossing their glittering manes and neighing. Ruvsá laughed and waved, riding the horse in front. Saga beamed and waved back. The herd circled the mountaintop and landed on the snowy plateau, huffing and snorting. A few raiders stepped back; the winged horses were taller than Bjørn standing on his hindlegs, and more than one had snarled at the nearest raiders, revealing sharpened teeth that shone like lines of tiny swords.

Ruvsá patted the mane of the horse she rode, singing under her breath until it calmed, its violet eyes gentling. It bowed its head, bending its forelegs, and lowered Ruvsá to the ground. When she sang louder, the entire herd copied, letting Saga, Unn and Leif, the raiders and the shieldmaidens mount them.

‘Now, we ride!’ Saga shouted, thrusting one arm in the air. She reached inside her furs, pulling her talisman out and holding it up before tossing it into the snow. For a moment, it rained talismans as everyone hurried to discard theirs as well. Saga hoped that would fool the sorcerers into believing they were still atop the mountain long enough to give them a head start. ‘We need to fly a different route back to the castle,’ she said to Ruvsá, who nodded in agreement, ‘so that the sorcerers don’t see us overhead.’

Ruvsá whispered into her horse’s twitching ear, and the creature spread its wings wide and cantered off the mountaintop. A moment later, it reappeared, soaring high. Saga’s horse copied, her stomach swooping as it leaped into the air, then again as the current caught its wings and they flew on.

With a battle cry, the rest of their army followed. Canute spread his own wings, joining them in the sky.

The moon and stars lit their way through the dark skies. When Saga glanced at Ruvsá’s horse, it looked back at her, its teardrop-shaped violet eyes filled with the reflection of a hundred stars. She was sad that this was the last colony of winged horses; they were beautiful and majestic, and deeply intelligent, though she hoped she’d never be at the biting end of those sharpened teeth. Saga and Ruvsá smiled at each other, riding side by side back to the ice castle, the wings of their horses nearly touching. ‘They’re a pair,’ Ruvsá told her, stroking her horse’s mane. ‘Sisters.’

‘Like us,’ Saga said shyly, making Ruvsá beam brighter than the moon.

Too soon, the ice castle rose into view. Its jagged mountaintop, glistening ice halls and turrets looked like a threat.

Ruvsá guided the flying herd round the back of the castle, where they landed in a flutter of wings and stamping hooves.

‘I will show Torben where the trolls first took the villagers inside the mines,’ Unn told Saga, ‘then I will return to the great hall to wait for you.’ She directed the last part to Ruvsá, who laid a reassuring hand on her horse, calming it.

Torben quietly raised his shield and whisper-shouted, ‘Tyr!’ as he led his band of raiders after Unn.

That was when Saga realized that the warband of shieldmaidens was missing. ‘Where did they go?’ She whirled around.

‘Up there.’ Leif pointed at the mountain they stood beside, where Solveig and her three shieldmaidens were using ice picks and daggers to swiftly climb up the ice and breach the castle from the outside. Leif then hurried off to sneak into the castle, where he would be waiting beside Unn.

Satisfied that no sorcerer had yet raised the alarm, Saga climbed back on her winged horse. She gulped in a lungful of freezing air and held on to her horse as it leaped into the air, veering almost vertically up the side of the mountain. Following Ruvsá’s horse, the pair soared up past the walls of the ice castle, their wings trailing music that sounded like a dance of silk and snow. Behind them, Saga heard the leathery flap of Canute’s dragon wings as he followed the horses at a careful distance.

The tip of the ice castle came into view – the tallest turret where the ice crystals were stashed and guarded – and the mountain peak that rose behind it. Saga’s heart thudded like a battleaxe.

It was time to wield war.