Sólmánuður
The Sun’s Month
July
They threw me into the ship’s belly, an unlit chamber filled with sacks of dried fish, kegs of fresh water, and piles of bloody clothes. I screamed curses at them until they slammed the door. A gangly boy huddled in the corner; his long legs were curled up to his chest. I recognized him. Vidar was the son of the town swordsmith and was a few years younger than my seventeen. He was the only other child in our generation to bear the navigator’s marks, which made him a kinsman of sorts, however distant. He had his hands pressed over his ears and he rocked back and forth in time with the ship’s sway.
I stumbled to his corner and sank to the floor beside him. I was still breathing hard. My feet were lacerated, with small stones sticking to my heels. I wore only a nightdress and a blue pendant my grandmother had given me, which I never took off.
Vidar glanced at me with swollen eyes. I had known him for years. He and Lief had been friends, and my mother had taught him to ride after his father bought a roan gelding with one eye the color of a sunlit sky. Vidar had never been much of a rider, nor much of a swordsman. If we were going to get out of the ship alive, it was up to me to lead us.
I scanned the ceiling, looking for any weak points or cracks. For any chance of escape, we needed to get off the ship before it sailed too far from the coast. I was a strong swimmer, but no one could survive long in the freezing Arctic waters that separated our island from the continent. The cold water made even the best swimmers disoriented, until they couldn’t tell if they swam toward the surface or into the depths.
Vidar wiped his face on his torn sleeve. “They killed everyone. Even my father, who has the marks…”
I nodded and bit my lower lip. It didn’t surprise me that the sailors had killed Vidar’s father. Unlike his son, Floki was a formidable warrior, as skilled at using a sword as he was at forging them. And he was rumored to have a will as unbreakable as his tempered steel. Mama had always complained about his stubbornness after the town met for council. Jarl Haakon would have struggled to coerce him.
The warrior who had grabbed me had said they were looking for children. They only wanted the weak, those they thought they could compel. I scoffed. I would show them what a mistake they had made. Haakon’s fighters had probably imagined that they’d be stealing babies from their mothers’ breasts. They’d missed that opportunity by a decade. Only one baby had been born in the past few years showing the navigator’s marks, and she had died while still an infant. Vidar and I were the youngest they would find.
I wondered where Yarra was now. There had been no sound from my uncle’s cottage. She could be dead, a small corpse lying cold on her bed, fragile in death in a way she had never been in life. The thought made my stomach cramp so hard I nearly vomited. I would have to believe, as much as I could, that she was still alive, that my lie had saved her.
“We have to get out,” I said. “As soon as we can. Once the ship rows away, we’ll have less of a chance. If we can get off, we can swim to shore and run for the mountains. I know the caves.”
“Weren’t you listening?” Vidar demanded and sniffled hard. “They’re killing everyone. There’s no one for us to go back to.”
“That’s not true.”
“Ragna,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “It is.”
Anger coursed through me, hot as fire. “So they killed everyone you cared about, and you’re just going to do what they want?” I stood and paced the hold, kicking clothes and empty sacks aside. “My cousin might still be alive. I have to go back for her.”
A pair of sturdy leather boots caught my eye, half-hidden behind a sack of pelts. I grabbed them. They were far too large, made for a man, but I shoved my feet into them anyway. I didn’t want to cut my feet when I made my escape.
“We choice do we have?” Vidar wrapped his arms around his chest again. “I don’t want to die.”
The memories of the warrior’s sword, dripping with blood as he emerged from my parents’ bedchamber, and my brother’s final scream made me shiver. “I don’t want to die either.” Blinking back tears, I said, with more conviction than I felt, “At least not yet. If I’m dead, I can’t make them pay.”
* * *
We were left alone while the ship’s crew prepared to sail. Above us, boots drummed on the deck, the shroud creaked, and the ship’s stryimaðr barked orders. I found a loose plank and ripped it from the ceiling. The hole wasn’t wide enough to crawl through, so I fashioned the board into a weapon. Vidar watched me with wide eyes as I jumped on the plank to break off a shard of wood, then scraped it against a barrel of ale to taper the end into a point. The only way out of the hold was through the door. When they opened it, I would be ready.
“You shouldn’t provoke them,” Vidar squeaked. While I sharpened my pike, he had made a nest in the corner and used a tattered cloak as a blanket.
“I’m not just going to provoke them. I’m getting out,” I snapped.
“Lift the anchor!” A gruff, male voice shouted. “Take your oars.”
A heavy metal clang sounded on the deck and the ship lurched forward. I swallowed and sat beside Vidar. I clutched my makeshift pike, but covered it with a pelt, out of view. Anyone who came to check on us would be armed. I couldn’t rush at them with a piece of wood when they would have iron axes and hammers. I needed the sailors to come close enough to take them by surprise. I might only get one chance to run.
Lulled by the swaying motion of the ship, Vidar fell asleep. Tears made trails down his soot-stained face. He twitched in a dream. Suddenly, he reminded me too painfully of Lief. I shifted so he could rest his head on my shoulder.
While we waited, my mind churned over the raid. Jarl Haakon’s wealth was already legendary. It was said that the jarl had built a burial mound just to fill the hillside with his gold. He had hundreds of warriors at his command and hired mercenaries from all over the continent. A man that rich already, why would he need a navigator? What treasure couldn’t he find?
The door flew open. Vidar woke with a whine. I tightened my grip on my pike. A willowy, dark-haired sailor in a blood-splattered tunic pushed his way inside. He tossed a loaf of bread at us. Vidar caught it, but I kept my hands, and my weapon, hidden.
Vidar ripped off a piece of the bread. He popped it into his mouth and chewed greedily. How could he be hungry? After everything we’d just endured? I tried not to resent him for his easy concession. He was still a child, and I shouldn’t blame him for trying to survive.
When I made no move to touch the bread, the man narrowed his eyes. “What’s wrong, girl? Doesn’t measure up to your usual? What your mother made?”
“I don’t dine with murderers.” I lifted my chin and stared him down.
Vidar made a noise somewhere between a snort and a whimper.
The sailor stepped forward with a snarl. “You’ll dine when and where I say. Be a good girl and take a bite. Or I can make this nasty for you. Our jarl won’t be pleased if you die on this voyage.”
“Fuck your jarl,” I said. Vidar tensed.
The sailor stooped and yanked the pelt away. When his gaze fell on my sharpened pike, he staggered back and raised his sword. He had an inexpert grip on the hilt and a farmer’s calloused fingers. His eyes were bloodshot; his knees still shook with battle fever. I knew that leaders like Haakon, who sent men on continuous campaigns, required an endless supply of new blood to fill their feasting halls. When they were out of seasoned warriors, they turned to the fields for men. It didn’t seem that Haakon spent a lot of time educating his new warriors. This man was new and clumsy.
“Toss that over here,” he barked. He jabbed his sword at me, then tried to knock the pike from my grip with his blade.
I shook my head and waited for him to move within an arm’s length. I’d never killed a person, but I knew where to strike. Mama had wanted me to stay in the town and breed horses as she did, but that was Yarra’s dream and never mine. I’d always planned to make my fortune at sea. With my magic, I could find riches anywhere, if I had the courage to look. Mama hated that. She remembered her lost brother and feared that I might meet the same fate.
Once, Uncle Bjorn had made me a toy drekkar in his forge. When Mama had seen it, she had grabbed the toy and burned it on a pyre, heedless of my cries. After that, I barely spoke to her about my dream. She knew that I practiced and hoped to join a jarl’s household and maybe one day captain my own ship, but we didn’t speak of it.
“I said give it over. This voyage can be easy for you, or very, very hard,” the sailor shouted.
“Why would I want to make anything easy for you?” I spat and lunged for him. My pike nicked his calf, leaving a livid, red scratch.
He thrust his sword into the open air, and I returned his blow, hitting him squarely in the chest with the pike. But it wasn’t as sharp as a blade, and I didn’t have the strength to drive the blunt wood into his flesh.
The sailor grabbed my hair as I jabbed at his legs again. He fumbled with his sword, then raised it to strike. I braced myself. I’d been raised on stories of Valhalla. If I died bravely, I would wake in the gods’ feasting hall and be lulled to a final sleep with mead and song. I’d see Mama, Astra, and Lief again. But if there was a chance Yarra was still alive, I needed to get back to her. I owed my Uncle that, for everything he’d taught me. The sailor swung wide again. I dodged. A smirk tugged at my lips. Then Vidar let out a strangled cry, as the sword slashed across his thigh.
Even though it was not my blood that flowed onto the ship’s floor, I screamed. Vidar began to cry as blood spurted from the deep wound. The sailor backed up against the wall, chest heaving, eyes wild.
The hold door burst open. A towering man with piercing blue eyes and a black beard stepped inside. His face was handsome, despite the stern wrinkles around his eyes. He wore golden rings on each of his fingers; a deep black cloak of pressed velvet hung from his shoulders. The sailor lowered his eyes. This had to be the stryimaðr. Looking from his man to Vidar, the captain pulled out his own sword. In a blink, he sliced the sailor’s head from his shoulders.
The stryimaðr stepped carefully over the sailor’s corpse. Two other men hovered in the doorway behind him, waiting for his command. Their faces were blank and did not betray any surprise that their leader had killed a sea-brother.
“Tie her up on deck,” the stryimaðr whispered. “The prisoner will stay within my sight for the voyage.”
A thin, pock-faced sailor seized me and wrenched the pike from my grasp. He jerked his head toward Vidar. “What about him?”
The stryimaðr crouched beside Vidar. He stroked the boy’s hair, then pressed two fingers to his lips to quiet him. Vidar’s face was going pale, and his eyelids drooped. “He’ll bleed out before we can help him. Throw him overboard.”
Vidar’s eyes flew open again. “No!” he whimpered.
“The sharks have to eat too,” the stryimaðr said.
“My lord?” one of the sailors asked. “Shouldn’t we at least try to stem the bleeding?”
The stryimaðr shook his head. “I don’t want to explain to Jarl Haakon how this happened. Do you? Better we tell him that there was only one.”