Page 10 of A Curse Carved in Bone
A helmed warrior ran screaming at my left and I backhanded him with my shield. The rim sank into his skull, the man dead before he hit the ground. Lightning flared, and I ducked instinctively even as I swung.
Arkyn screamed as my axe sank into his arm. He staggered, but I didn’t pause for the kill because the man trying to kill my Freya was running up the beach.
He should’ve run faster.
I threw my axe. The blade spun through the air and took off one of his legs. As he fell, it reappeared in my hand. I strode after him, his screams faint in my deafened ears. The child of Njord rolled on his back, a knife in his hand. He threw it at me, but I batted the blade away and planted one foot upon his chest. “Call the whales off,” I said. “Let their minds go free from your shackles.”
“Only if you let me go!” he pleaded. “Let me go and I’ll call them away.”
“Call them off!” I rested the blade of my axe against his throat. Flesh sizzled and smoked. He shrieked, loud and piercing as he gestured wildly toward the sea. “They are gone! They are gone! Stop!”
I glanced over my shoulder to discover the orca pod speeding away from Freya and Tora. Then I turned my gaze back upon the man on the ground below me. “You dishonor your blood.” I leaned on my axe, the blade glowing bright as it burned straight down to his spine.
His howl turned into a gurgle as his blood boiled under Tyr’s flame, smoke rising from his blackening, bubbling flesh. A bad way to die but fitting for this bastard, and I kicked the knife in his hand away from him. His eyes went dark, and I muttered a curse that the gods condemn his soul to the cold depths of Niflheim.
Freya.
Turning from the corpse, I took a quick step back at the sight of Arkyn only a dozen paces away. Blood oozed from the blackened wound on his arm, but lightning crackled between his palms. “You should not have come back, Firehand.”
He abruptly staggered but his lightning still shot from his hands to explode into the sand at my feet. I leaped backward and barely kept my balance.Kill him,my fury snarled, and I lifted my axe to send the ugly bastard to his death. Only to discover a blackened hole had appeared in Arkyn’s chest.
Arkyn took one step toward me. Then two. He dragged his foot up for a third step, but life vanished from his eyes and he fell, landing face down in the sand.
I immediately looked to the sea, hunting for Freya’s face. She was treading water far from shore, but next to her, Tora lowered her hands and the lightning between them disappeared. I nodded once at the woman who’d fought at my back more times than I could count—the woman I’d once named as my sister. Tora inclined her head, then began swimming alongside Freya. I allowed myself a moment to gain certainty they were safe, then I raced toward the smoke and screams coming from the village.
Tora and I struggled through the surf toward shore and my body trembled with exhaustion when my feet finally struck sand. The battle had shifted to the village, and the beach was now empty of warriors. The thralls who’d survived all knelt unmoving in the sand, hooded heads lowered. The strangeness of their behavior might have held my attention if it hadn’t been drawn to Steinunn and Volund, who knelt on the beach next to Skade.
The huntress was retching blood. Her right arm hung limp, the awkward angle suggesting it was broken.
Steinunn eyed me nervously as Tora and I stumbled out of the water. “The drakkar struck Skade when it overturned,” she said. “She can’t fight.”
“Yes, I can.” Skade spat more blood, then slowly climbed to her feet. In her hand was her glowing green arrow with its murderously sharp tip.
“Get down, you idiot,” Volund snapped. “Half your ribs are cracked.”
Skade only pushed wet strands of red hair off her face. “I’m fine. I can fight.”
The idea of it would have been laughable if not for the desperate fear in the woman’s eyes as she stared at the flashes of combat visible through the trees. I knew the desire to push past the limits of my body to war against those trying to harm me and mine.
Tora appeared less moved, for she only shook her head. “I’ll go, Skade. You stay with Freya.”
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Skade hissed. “I can fight.”
The child of Thor only gave the huntress a small shove backward. “You know how Harald feels about foolish choices, Skade. You might survive the fight only to wish you had not. Take cover in the trees until this is over.”
Skade’s already pale face blanched colorless and she gave a tight nod. “Fine. Go. Volund, help me now so that I might join them.”
Tora broke into a sprint up the beach to the village, and it was all I could do not to follow her. Battle sang in my blood, the clash of steel coming from just out of sight calling my name. Yet I could not move.
Harald’s voice filled my head:Will you fight for me to protect the village?
My heart stuttered and unease rose in my chest because my feet felt fixed to the sand.
I vow to serve no man not of this blood.I silently repeated the oath I’d sworn to Ylva. Words bound by blood magic. My teeth clenched together so hard they risked breaking. To fight would be to serve Harald, and Ylva’s magic kept me from doing that.
Steinunn and Volund were helping Skade up the beach to the tree line to take cover. I took a deep breath, worried that my oath would anchor me in place until the battle was finished, but my feet moved. I stooped to retrieve a fallen shield, as well as a small axe. Neither of the trio ahead of me made any move to prevent me from arming myself, though Steinunn kept casting glances over her shoulder as though convinced I’d put the axe between her shoulders.
I bared my teeth; she might have stabbed me in the back, but I was not such a coward as to do the same.
