Viking Daisy
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“You don’t understand,” I told my friends. “I can feel them, the gods’ magic.” I pointed to the statue of Odin that hung above the altar. “They’re right over there and they’ll come for us soon.” My stomach felt hollow as if some god was sitting on it like a hungry wolf.
Kari laughed at me, but not meanly. He didn’t know why I was so scared. “It’s all your father’s fault. You should have killed him before he got in our way.” The words tasted sour coming from his mouth, and yet he smiled with pride and said it again: “It’s all your father’s fault.”
He walked around the circle of warriors, drawing the sword out of one man’s belt after another. They looked away from him when he took their blades. His eyes burned into mine like a fire, even though his face held no expression; his voice was flat like he wasn’t listening to me anymore.
A hand grabbed me by the arm and pulled me behind him. It belonged to Thorir who said nothing else except, “We’re going to kill everyone here, and you’re staying behind.” I nodded without looking back at my friend. There was nothing more to say.
The last man standing before us had been stripped naked and beaten black and blue, his hair hanging down past his shoulders and matted against his skin with blood. Bloodstained every part of his body, and I knew he’d lost most of it already.
His nose was shattered and his ribs were sticking through the torn flesh. A knife jutted from his chest, and his hands still clutched at it as he tried to push it deeper.
Thorir kicked his legs out from under him and pinned him to the floor with his boot. I watched his face twist in agony, and yet he did not cry out. The warrior managed to turn his head to look up at Thorir. He could only manage two words between gasps of breath.
“Please, please stop. No one will tell anyone about this.”
Thorir shook his head and raised his leg, ready to drive it deep into his guts. As the point approached, I thought of something to ask the dying man. It seemed cruel at first, but then I realized there might be something useful I could learn.
“Who are they?” I asked as Thorir brought his foot down.
The man’s jaw tightened, and a tear rolled down his cheek. “Grimnir’s men, and others. Everyone knows what Grimnir is doing now. Even the gods are mad at him. All he wants is power, wealth, women, whatever. That’s all he cares about.
He never cared about anything else, even his own kin. Now we have to deal with the consequences. You see what happened to my wife and son, do you hear me? My family has paid too dearly for Grimnir’s greed.”
His voice was faint, but his message was clear. “There’s always someone worse off than you.”
And I saw it now as my friends and I entered Grimnir’s hall. We’d killed Grimnir’s men, and Grimnir himself lay dead in his room below. But there were many more of those monsters that Grimnir had sent after us, and they would pay for what they’d done tonight.
But the next time I saw Thorir, he was smiling at me like I was an idiot, telling me how lucky I was to have escaped while others hadn’t. It made me think of the dying man’s words and wonder which was better: having no choice or being able to choose?
***
“Stop crying,” I told myself and wiped my tears away with a dirty sleeve. My mother had taught me that such things showed weakness. If you want to succeed in life, you must hide your feelings. So I stood on the hillside overlooking the town and waited.
It was late afternoon, and the sun shone brightly off the snow on the ground. In the distance, I could see two figures moving through the streets. One was tall and dark-skinned, a man dressed in robes of red silk.
He wore gold rings around each finger, and the silver chain running through his earlobe caught the light of the setting sun. Behind him came another man whose skin was pale as moonlight; his hair was blond as wheat, and his eyes blazed like twin flames in his narrow face. I shivered thinking about what he wanted from my home.
When they passed within sight of me, they halted and stared at me where I sat on the hilltop. The man in front called out to a woman who stood beside him. She wore a cloak made of white fur, and her long hair was braided beneath it. Her face was beautiful, but it was also full of worry. I knew this because she kept glancing over her shoulder and murmuring softly.
I knew why these two travelers had come here; I’d seen them in the marketplace before. The man wore his hair in tight curls and spoke like he was used to giving orders. The woman had fine golden hair, and a pretty face with green eyes that were always looking at me. It made me feel uncomfortable whenever I saw them, and today I decided I had enough of their faces.
I jumped up and ran along the crest of the hill until I reached my tree, climbed up to its lowest branch, and then swung my way down to the town’s outskirts. They followed me at once, though they seemed to be confused by something.
As soon as they caught up with me, they both stopped and pointed at the tree. They looked at it intently and then back to each other. Their mouths opened wide with fear, and I wondered if they were about to run away.
They weren’t so easily intimidated, however. They took a step closer and peered down at me. When I held my arms out from my sides, they laughed and waved their hands above my head as they walked slowly around the tree. Then, without warning, the blond man lifted his hand, and I felt something hard strike me on the back of the neck.
Pain shot up my spine, and my knees buckled as my world turned upside down. My stomach twisted, and stars filled my vision.
My limbs went numb, and I fell forward onto my belly on the snowy ground. Something wet struck the side of my face, and I blinked my eyes open to see the blond man smiling at me. I tried to speak but only managed a few rasping breaths, and blood dribbled down my chin.
Blood from a wound on his arm too. His skin was pale and pockmarked as if he’d been beaten again and again until he was broken.
The woman moved close to him, and he pressed his lips against hers. For a moment, she leaned into him as if he was protecting her, but the look in her eyes was not one of love; it was hunger, and it scared me more than anything else.
She reached inside her cloak, and her hand emerged holding a dagger. I knew what it would do and closed my eyes. I heard the sound of the blade coming down and knew it would end everything before it even began. I didn’t hear anything beyond the rush of air as it drove the knife into my heart, but when I woke, the sky was darkening overhead and my chest burned with pain.
When I looked around, I realized the two had gone, leaving me behind. And they left me alive. That meant something—something important.
What it is, I don’t know yet.
***
“I should never have let you go,” Hjalmar said as we sat across from each other drinking wine at his table.
We sat on opposite sides, and he held his cup under mine so no one could see me drink from it. He was right: I shouldn’t have come home. But then I wouldn’t have met the blond man from the night before. “I had to learn something.”
Hjalmar shook his head sadly. “You’re a fool,” he said and set down his cup. “Your father will not be pleased, and neither shall I.”
That wasn’t true. My mother would be furious. Not at me for going to the marketplace. She would be angry that I hadn’t told her of the blond man first. She would demand to know how I found the courage to go anywhere near him, let alone talk to him.
I knew I couldn’t tell her what had happened, or else she’d think I was crazy. It’s better this way. At least I’ve learned a bit of wisdom from this.
And maybe, just maybe, there might be more to all this than I thought.
“You won’t tell anyone?” I asked. I hated lying to her; it made me feel dirty somehow. I’d promised myself years ago that I would never lie to her, though I did try very hard to cover my tracks. I’d done so much over the years I’d lost count. It was always easier to stay under cover than risk exposure.
As usual, I was wrong.
Her voice floated into the silence of the room. “No,” she replied and smiled at me. Then she turned back to her stew and stirred the pot. A small spoon clattered to the wooden floor. She glanced up from the pot and frowned at me. “But perhaps you should wait before making any rash decisions.”
I nodded, though what rash decision I could possibly make I didn’t understand. “Yes ma’am.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she replied without looking up from the pot. “I’m still here, aren’t I? You haven’t run away yet, so you can hardly blame them for their lack of response.”
I nodded, but I didn’t believe her.
I waited until late that night to leave my mother’s house. It was cold, and snow covered the yard and paths. I pulled my coat tight about me and stepped out into the biting wind and snow. It blew my breath away, and flakes stuck to my hair and cheeks as they flew toward the ground.
The sky was full of dark clouds, and the wind grew stronger, blowing off the water in waves, and I wondered if the storm would grow too strong and wash the island away.
The night felt different, colder, darker, and a shiver ran through me. Perhaps it was because I knew what it was that I sought. It was not an animal as some of the rumors claimed, nor a spirit sent to drive us mad. This was real as my own existence.
It came to me as easily and swiftly as a dream upon waking, and I knew that it would happen again if I stayed. So many people had died because of it. If I’d known it was going to kill them, would I have come? Probably not, but it seemed to be the only way to find anything worthwhile.
My feet carried me quickly across the frozen ground, and when the wind hit me again, it knocked the breath from my lungs and froze the skin on my face.
There had been a time when I was afraid of such things.
I passed by the houses and farms surrounding the village, and the wind swirled around me, sending up whirling eddies that spun off into the darkness like ghostly spirits.
I stopped beneath a stone shelter beside a farmhouse and looked up at the stars. The constellations were hidden, but I imagined they had moved since last night, and it gave me comfort. Even the constellations were being drawn into this thing, just like everyone else.
A light appeared from my left, and it took me a moment to recognize it as one of the men returning with me. He wore a hooded cloak and held a bundle of firewood under his arm. The wind whipped up his hair, which fell loose around his face, but the shadows made it impossible for me to see who it was. I waited until he reached the other side of the shelter before I spoke.
He stood at the base of the stone wall and dropped the wood in front of it, kicking the snow behind it with his boot. “It’s getting worse,” he said and then turned to face me. “I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”
“Didn’t see you there, did I?”
“Not really. What’s your name anyway?”
“Kjartan.”
His brow furrowed. “What happened to your face? Are you sure it’s not just a bruise?”
I shook my head and winced. “Nay. There are teeth marks.”
“You must have fallen down a lot of stairs.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“How far away is the sea?” His eyes darted to the top edge of the wall and back to me.
“That way.”
“Well, we’re nearly home now.” He started walking along the top of the wall and paused to look over the roof, and his eyes widened. “Is that smoke rising over there?”
I nodded. “Smoke and flames.”
“Damn it.”
We climbed the stone wall and dropped to the ground, and we started running for our lives, each step taking me further into that strange land.
The End