CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Together Again

After all the magic she’d used, then hearing the voice of a god so close to where she had been standing, Saga was bone-tired. She leaned against Bjørn, and they slowly made their way back into the ice castle and down through its twisted icy passageways. Together.

In the great hall, they discovered the sorcerers all huddling together, casting terrified looks at the four shieldmaidens that stood over them with their armour glinting in the lanternlight, their swords held high.

‘What happened?’ Saga asked Solveig.

Solveig shrugged casually. ‘Once you make an example of one or two of them, the rest fall in line pretty quickly.’ She tossed an ice crystal into the air and caught it with one hand. ‘These helped.’

‘Were there any more frost giants?’

‘No. Just the one that was trying to claw its way out of the turret as it fell, but your dragon friend took care of that.’ Solveig almost looked disappointed.

Saga’s smile was tight. She was exhausted and relieved, but her worries were still churning like a rough sea. ‘Where’s Ruvsá?’

‘I haven’t seen her,’ Solveig said.

‘I’m certain she’s down in the mines,’ another shieldmaiden added. ‘As much as he’s fond of boasting, Torben and his raiders were incapable of subduing the mountain trolls by themselves.’ She shared a smirk with Solveig.

Everything but Ruvsá flew out of Saga’s head. ‘I have to find her.’ She climbed on Bjørn’s back, rushing further down the castle, following the frozen maze of passageways and silent halls dripping with icicles, until they’d reached the colder, gloomy lower part, where the castle met the mountain.

There, the door to the mines was hanging off the wall.

Bjørn hesitated. A colossal roar shook the mountain itself and Saga dredged up her last tiny reserve of energy and urged her bear on. Bjørn half slid, half galloped down the slick stairwell and they burst out into the mines, Saga already attempting to conjure her light-bear rune. A tiny pinprick of light emerged with a snout and two ears before fizzling out. Her well had run dry. Instead, Saga reached for her grandfather’s dagger, always hidden within her furs, and clenched it while Bjørn cautiously prowled on.

The huge cavern was empty.

As Saga and Bjørn picked their way through it, signs of a mighty battle were everywhere. Smashed ice crystals, overturned sledges, pickaxes embedded in the rock where they had been thrown. A couple of knocked-out mountain trolls were lying there too. When another roar sounded, Saga snapped her head round.

‘There!’ she told Bjørn, spotting a gaping hole in the wall, ringed with flames.

Carefully placing his paws between the smouldering ruins, Bjørn walked through it with Saga on his back.

They emerged outside.

There, in the snow, the battle was raging to an end.

A great silver fire was still burning, its light dancing over Canute’s dragon scales like molten moonlight as he faced off against two of the biggest mountain trolls Saga had ever seen. With seven heads and five arms between them, they bellowed angrily at Canute, tossing huge boulders at him. Canute was incinerating each one with his own fire-breath. At his side fought a lone sorcerer: Rollo. He was limping, but he had survived the fall.

Another troll was using an entire tree as a club, roots and all, batting at a couple of white bears that were pouncing at it. Only one person could have brought bears into the battle.

‘Ruvsá,’ Saga murmured, searching through the fiery, snowy chaos for her friend. ‘She’s over there!’

Bjørn huffed, padding quickly to where Ruvsá was hiding behind the fallen turret, guiding the bears to attack.

Saga slid off Bjørn and hurried over.

‘Saga!’ Ruvsá beamed and threw her arms round her. Saga hugged her fiercely, laughing as Bjørn pushed his nose between them, wanting to be included.

‘Look, we did it,’ Ruvsá said. ‘Your plan worked!’ She pointed at a pack of raiders, led by Torben, who were armed with the last of the ice crystals as they chased off another few trolls. The trolls’ thundering footsteps felt like an earthquake as they fled, the raiders cheering at their victory. Some of the raiders looked more familiar than she’d expected, and Saga squinted at them. ‘Is that … my Jarl?’

Ruvsá laughed. ‘After we freed the villagers from the mines, quite a few of them wanted to join in the fight.’

Saga looked at them again, realizing that Torben was not only leading raiders but villagers as well. Some of them, like the Jarl, were even from her village. Her gaze turned searching. ‘Where’s –’

‘Saga,’ a voice said behind her.

It was the voice of bedtime stories, the one that framed her day from dawn to dusk, who made her feel safe, who sent her worries scuttling away, who had taught her how to fight with sword and shield, who made the very best porridge. It was the voice of home. Hearing it again made Saga’s heart swell so much that she thought it would burst through her chest.

‘Afi,’ she gasped, turning and falling into his waiting arms. When they closed round her, she was home again. ‘I missed you so much.’

‘You have found me.’ His arms tightened, his beard tickling her forehead just as she remembered. ‘And now we are together again nothing will keep us apart. Saga, my favourite story of all, now you have some stories of your own to tell.’ His glacier-blue eyes shone down at her as she smiled at him.

Another figure came racing over the snow and Saga laughed with delight. ‘Dag!’

‘Did you miss me?’ He grinned back at her, coming to a stop just in front of her, where he paused awkwardly. His nose was pink, his oil-black hair spilling down, his hat still too big for him. Saga pounced on him to give him a fierce hug as he weakly protested. ‘Did you see that dragon?’ he asked. ‘Do you think it would let us ride it?’ His mouth fell open as Canute’s scales shimmered back into his skin and he lost his tail.

Saga giggled. ‘Probably not, but you could ask.’ She introduced Dag to Ruvsá and Canute before her afi led her away to where their Jarl was having a serious discussion with Unn and Leif and several other people about what had happened and what was to be done next. Unn was standing close to another woman with short blue braids, who Saga guessed was her partner, Frida. The two women were bright with happiness, their little glances at each other shining with affection.

‘I commend you, young Saga,’ the Jarl told her. ‘If it wasn’t for you, this story could have had a very different ending.’ Though his tone was solemn, his eyes were kind and Saga suddenly had a rush of relief that her part in all of this was done.

‘Does that mean we can go home now?’ she asked.