Page 37 of The Girl the Sea Gave Back

Hagalazwasn’t only coming for the Svell. It was coming for me, too.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HALVARD

I kept my head down as we flew through the trees, the pounding of hooves following behind me as the horses climbed the hill.

The Svell army had marched from Ljós in a horde, leaving the ground trampled into a soft pulp beneath us. Signs of them were everywhere, scraping over the trees and dragging through the brush. Their numbers had to be greater than what we’d seen only a day before and that thought made every muscle in my body wind tight as I pushed ahead. With their warriors called to Hylli days ago, Utan would have maybe thirty or forty of our people within its gates.

Thirty people against eight hundred.

I reached back and pulled the axe from my sheath, letting it fall against my leg and urging the horse faster. We found the worn path that carved down the mountain to the fjord and I fixed my eyes on the darkness ahead, waiting forthe gate to appear in the trees. But I could already smell in the air what we would find there. Blood and ash scattered over the broken, fallen remains of a quiet inland village. We were too late.

As soon as the gate came into view, I pulled back on the reins and slowed, dropping from my horse and leaving it behind as I ran on foot to the nearest thicket. The horses reared back, stamping the ground nervously with their heads craning, and Asmund and Kjeld sank down beside me as I watched the forest.

Asmund clicked his tongue before he made his way across an opening in the trees and I followed him to the brush that crested the hill, overlooking the village. I got down, tracing the path from the gate to the ritual house with my eyes. There was no movement, but bodies were strewn in every direction, fallen in the dirt and inside the open doors of empty houses. The flames still worked at some of them, filling the entire village with smoke.

I tried to shake the vision of Fela from my mind, the village I’d grown up in on the mountain. But I could still see it so clearly. The shadowed shape of the Herja spilling in from the trees. Hands dragging me into the forest, screaming. Everything burning in the snow.

Asmund’s eyes flitted over the silent rooftops. “Maybe he didn’t make it here,” he said, almost to himself.

I was thinking the same. From the look of the fire, the Svell had attacked only an hour or two ago. Bard should have had time to warn them, but it looked as if the villagewasn’t empty when they’d arrived. If Bard was here, he was probably one of the bodies lying below.

“Ready?” I waited for Asmund to meet my eyes.

He answered with a jerk of his chin and Kjeld followed, not taking his gaze from the village.

I grabbed ahold of the strap of my scabbard, wincing as I tightened it around my body. It pulled at the wound below my ribs as Asmund took the bow from Kjeld and nocked an arrow, ready to cover my trail. When he gave me a nod, I stepped out from under the cover of the forest and headed across the moonlit grass. The faint sound of a wolf howling echoed in the stillness and I pushed the breath out slowly as I sank low to the ground, trying to calm my racing heart. When I reached the gate, I crouched behind the wooden post, watching.

Asmund made his way from the trees and found a place beside me, his eyes on the main path that led through the village. The mud still glistened around the army’s footprints in the soft earth. Behind me, Kjeld began to pray under his breath and the name of Naðr rolled on his voice like a song.

I whistled softly and tipped my head toward the ritual house, where a trail of white smoke was still spiraling up from the roof. As he caught sight of it, Asmund stepped into the path and Kjeld followed behind him, sword drawn.

We passed the open door of a house with a smoldering fire and I looked back to Asmund. He saw it, too. The bare feet of a dead woman lay in the path, her arms clutchedaround a still child. A muddy axe lay beside them, her fingertips still lightly touching the wooden handle.

I gritted my teeth and ran faster, the urge to throw my axe shooting up my arm like lightning. They’d been defenseless. Helpless. The Svell had poured in from the forest in a flood and the Nadhir hadn’t had a chance.

Asmund moved past me, stopping beside the huge door of the ritual house ahead. He pressed his back into the carved wood, scanning the village around us before he gave me another nod.

I took the knife from my belt and gently leaned into the heavy door until an amber crack of orange light cut through the darkness. I peered inside, where the benches were toppled, the altar fire gone out, but the coals still lit the room in a hazy glow, the smoke billowing up to the opening in the roof. I sucked in a breath and pushed it open, sliding inside with Asmund and Kjeld right behind me.

Pools of blood shone on the stone, bodies still lying where they’d fallen in the fight.

As soon as it was clear, Asmund looked to me. “They’re moving fast.”

“I know.”

The next village was Lund. It sat on the outskirts of Nadhir territory at the base of the mountain. But if Bard hadn’t made it to Utan, then he wasn’t headed to Lund. And there was nothing stopping the Svell army from heading up the mountain either. The only thing we could count on wasthat they’d come for the fjord first and the Nadhir army would be waiting.

Asmund slid his sword back into his belt, stepping over a body and picking an axe up off the ground beside him just as a soft whistle rang outside. He pulled the blade free again, meeting my eyes.

“What is it?” I watched him think before the hint of a smile lifted on his lips.

“It’s Bard,” he breathed. “It’s one of our calls.”

I went back to the door, peering out, and Asmund came to stand on the other side. But the thick smoke hovering over the ground made it impossible to see. My fingers tightened around my knife as I pushed the door open and the ear-splitting crack of an axe hitting the wall beside me made the room spin. I whirled, lifting the blade, and behind us, a Svell warrior stood in the opening of the other set of doors, his hand still lifted from the throw.

I launched forward and ran at him, closing the distance between us in only steps and bringing my axe around me so that the blunt side of the blade caught him in the jaw. The sword fell from his hand as he tumbled backward, sliding on the stone until he rolled over the threshold, landing in the mud outside.

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