Page 12 of A Curse Carved in Bone
The Islunders circled warily, glancing toward the village and then back to me. Afraid Bjorn and Tora would pursue, but unable to let go of the profit they’d make off these children without a fight.
“Back away, Skalander,” one of them snarled, a large man with a helm carved like the maw of a bear. “This is not your fight.”
“I am the daughter of Hlin.” I lifted my shield. “This fight is in my blood.”
“So be it.” The bear helm glittered as he charged, a powerful down strike aimed at my shield.
Which he reversed at the last moment.
He sliced at my thighs instead, and though I fell back, the tip of his blade still opened a shallow wound. I landed on my arse and barely managed to shove myself out of range as his blade fell. He cut at meagain, then withdrew when I raised my shield and circled for a better angle. Like he had trained to fight against someone with Hlin’s magic.
“Get them on the ship!” he bellowed. “This one is mine!”
A howl of fury tore from me as they grabbed the crying children and hurled them into the ship. Pushed the vessel into deeper water while I fought to get around the man in the bear helm.
“Freya!”
Bjorn’s distant shout reached my ears, but he wasn’t close enough to help. Wasn’t close enough to stop the Islunders as they readied to row.
I stumbled as Bear Helm attacked without mercy, avoiding my shield and pulling back to keep from striking it even as he wore me down.
“You fight well,” he said between panted breaths. “We will take you with us, if you wish. Our last shield maiden went to Valhalla many seasons ago.”
“I want nothing to do with slavers!”
He gestured to the still-kneeling thralls. “Says the woman fighting for Harald of Nordeland.” He abruptly backed away and waded into the waves.
His fellows caught hold of his arms and lifted him. Fury and fear boiling in my blood, I threw my axe, but it only glanced off the pauldron on his shoulder to fall in the water. He turned to look at me and he laughed. “Come to Islund if you change your mind, Shield Maiden.”
The Islunders began to row, the drakkar slipping over the waves as Bjorn and Tora slid to a stop next to me. Harald arrived next, face splattered in blood as he watched his young subjects stolen away. “Tora,” he asked softly. “Can you stop them?”
“Not without risking the children.” She pushed bloodied hair off her face. “What would you have me do?”
Harald waded into the water, waves rising to his thighs as his gaze went from the drakkar smoldering from a lightning strike to the two overturned vessels floating on the waves amidst corpses of the fallen. No time to right them and pursue, for the Islunders would soon be out of sight. Villagers were stumbling down the beach and screaming forthe children who’d been taken. Begging for someone, anyone, to help them. Harald’s shoulders slumped and he said nothing.
“What would you have me do?” Tora’s voice was frantic. “My king, I must act now if you wish them sunk. The children who survive might swim well enough to reach shore.”
Or be swept away by the current to drown.
Nordeland’s king remained silent, and I fell to my knees. Blood splatter dripped down my face, the taste of it not half so awful as that of the failure I felt, because this was not right. Not right that these children should be stolen from their families for a life of servitude. A life destined to be short and miserable. “Hel, grant me your power.”
Though part of me screamed warning, though Bjorn shouted, “Freya, no!,” it was not enough to silence the words that rose to my lips. “I curse you.”
The ground shuddered as power flooded my veins, driving me to my feet. “I curse every warrior on your ship,” I screamed at Bear Helm, whose smile had fallen away beneath the fangs of his helmet. “You will never see Valhalla, for Hel now claims your souls!”
The waves churned and roots exploded from the depths. Water surged up the beach so that I was drenched to the hip. The roots reached like the tentacles of a great sea monster, snatching up the screaming Islunders and yanking them under the water one by one, but leaving the children untouched. Bear Helm fought the hardest and the longest, wrenching the roots off his body until one wrapped around his waist and dragged him under.
As one, the lifeless bodies, their souls now in Helheim, floated to the surface. It was over.
The only sound to break the silence was the roar of the sea and the weeping of the children in the listing boat. Every breath I took brought the stink of gore, and rivulets of blood trickled down the sand to stain the waves pink as they rolled in and out.
Finally, Harald spoke. “Fetch the children back.”
I sat down heavily in the sand.
A hand closed on my shoulder, and even before I turned my head, I knew it was Bjorn. His face was covered with blood and bits of ash. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
