Europa (29 page)

She grabbed her knife and spear and dropped down into the gully again and checked the first snare, finding it just as taut and just as hidden as it had been before. Then she grabbed the dangling end of her hair cord and began fashioning it into a noose.

The first howl split the silent night just as the first pale snowflakes began to fall upon the hill. Freya paused in her work to listen to the bestial cry, wondering what sort of sound it was.

A greeting? A warning? A call to the hunt?

As the snowfall quickened and the ground transformed from a jagged nest of shadows into a smooth pillow of moonlight, a second and a third howl rose to the north. High-pitched yips and barks echoed for many long moments afterward.

Freya crouched down in a cleft in the rock wall so that she was facing uphill with a clear view of the tight corner where her first snare lay hidden by the snow. She clutched her spear in one hand and her cord in the other.

A sharp night wind blasted down the gully, spraying her in the eyes with snow and ice crystals, and she felt her shortened hair flying about her head, lighter and wilder than before, and her naked neck prickled with gooseflesh as the cold air crept over the newly exposed skin.

The stars crept across the sky, the snow continued to fall, and the white drifts grew taller all around her.

Erik, are you at the mill? Are you watching the stars? Or are you locked inside with chains on your hands and feet?

Freya heaved a sigh.

And Katja… oh, Katja.

She shivered.

The night settled over her just the same as a hundred other nights out in the hills, in the mountains, by the waters. Hunting. Stalking. Waiting. Freya settled into the night and let her mind wander, but not home to Logarven and the empty house by the lake, or the tower in Denveller, or the castle in Rekavik.

Marrakesh. Ifrica. Alexandria.

She tasted the strange names one by one, wondering what sorts of people lived in those places. What did they eat, and wear, and do? Were they all brown like Omar? Or maybe they came in even more colors, or sizes, or shapes. Her imagination ran wild, folding together the bits of Omar’s bizarre story with the fairy tales the old valas used to tell of dwarves and elves and trolls.

Skyships made of steel, sailing ships made of dead men’s nails.

Men who could not be killed, and drunken gods who murdered their children.

Dragons.

Fenrir.

A deep-throated growl echoed from the hilltop, only to be cut off with a sudden yelp.

Freya sighed.

Poor King Ivar, where are you?

Midnight came and went, and Freya sat without moving in a pile of snow as high as her shoulder. Every few minutes she shuffled her feet and pushed the newly fallen snow a bit to each side. The steel spear in her hand was freezing and it was starting to stick to her hand.

From what she could hear, she guessed that Omar had killed four reavers on top of the hill, though she only had a few grunts and yelps to judge by. The foreigner never came down, never called out to her. He just went on shouting at the sky and swinging his bright white sword in the air.

Four poor souls who didn’t even know what they were doing. At least they’re at peace now.

And then she heard the howl. It was a high and clear sound, as pure and fatal as ice. A moment later, a few other reavers answered the howl with their barks and yips and cries, but they were all pale imitations of that first inhuman wail.

So she shook her arms and legs to keep the blood moving, to keep the feeling in her fingers, and she focused on the buried snare in the turn in the gorge. In her mind’s eye, she imagined the beast’s approach.

Now. It happens now. Ivar crosses the snow fields.

The stars turned a bit farther and the snow stopped falling, and the wind died.

He creeps up the hill, his eyes fixed on that white sword. Mesmerized.

She glanced upward, but there was no glimmer of Omar’s blade.

He’s stalking his prey now. Eager. Hungry. But also curious. He’s cautious. Careful. Wary. Hunched down low to the ground, edging forward on his belly. Her belly. Whatever.

Omar’s voice echoed down the hillside again, and the queen’s name resounded loudly in the night.

He’s waiting. Waiting. His heart is slowing. He holds his breath. He’s very still.

Omar stopped yelling.

He strikes.

Omar’s sword flashed at the top of the slope, not just the reflected light but the blade itself shining in the darkness. He was running toward her, a tiny figure illuminated by his deadly weapon, and then he dropped out of sight as he leapt down into the crevasse.

The snow slows Omar down, dragging at his legs, making him uncertain about the ground underneath. Is there a stone? Is there a hole? He second-guesses every step in the darkness, and so Ivar gains on him.

His heart is pounding and he feels the heat of his blood in his face. He’s afraid. He knows that a single misstep means being torn apart by those claws and fangs. Does the fear speed him along, or does it make him careless and clumsy?

The beast snarled and growled, and the man shouted, the sounds echoing up against the black steel of the night sky and distorted by the walls of the crevasse. Freya re-wrapped the cord around her left hand, feeling the strands of her own cold hair scratching her dry skin, and she gripped her spear in both hands, rising into a crouch.

Now, Omar, remember where the snare is. Remember where to jump. Remember!

A slender black figure darted around the corner into view, leaping lightly along a narrow lip of the rock wall just above the level of the snow. Omar held his blazing sword out level over the snow, illuminating the path over the snare, and as he came through the sharp corner he turned to look over his shoulder.

No! Never look back!

Omar’s last step on the rock ledge didn’t hold. His boot slipped off the lip and he plunged down into the snow up to his hip and the man tumbled face-first into the drift.

“Omar!” Freya rose up. He had fallen only a dozen paces in front of her, but she couldn’t move that far without letting go of her cord tied to the teetering stone above her head. “Omar!”

A second shadow appeared in the pass, and then a long sleek snout came into view. Ivar’s head hung above the snow, his jaws open to release his steaming breath past his black gums and white fangs. Between the canine muzzle and the tall ears covered in blood-red fur, Freya saw the beast’s bright golden eyes staring at her.

He’s huge.

She glanced down at the dark hole in the snow where Omar had vanished, and then she looked back up at the deformed king. “Come on! I’m right here! Come on!”

The beast shuffled forward through the snow, bringing his arms and shoulders around the corner, but then he stopped again, sniffing at the snow, sniffing at the ledge where Omar had run before his fall.

“Come on, Ivar! You want Skadi, don’t you? Skadi? Remember her? She left you, abandoned you. Hell, it’s her fault you were stung by the bloodflies in the first place!” Freya straightened up, focused only on the head of the creature.

The great reaver licked its fangs, and said, “You think me a fool? You think me a simple beast?” His snarling voice was broken, deep, and gurgling, but his words rang out clearly enough. “I am a king. I am a god!”

Freya took half a step back.

He can talk!

“I know what I am. Do you, little girl? Pretty little girl…” The monster laughed, a sound choked with phlegm and bile. And then Ivar reached up to the rock walls on either side of the pristine snow covering the snare, and he lifted himself up off the ground. He was clumsy and awkward as he braced his arms and legs across the width of the crevasse, scraping for footholds on the icy ledges, and at any moment one of his claws was slipping and scrambling to reset its grip on the wall. But he did hold. And he did climb forward, far above the snare.

Freya shouted, “I am Freya Nordasdottir, and I’ve come for your ring! That’s all we want. Please, King Ivar, just give us the ring and we’ll leave you in peace! With the ring, we can cure you. Can you understand me?”

Her only answer was a bloodcurdling roar that echoed and shrieked down the gorge.

I guess not.

Freya let go of the cord and took two running steps before she hurled her spear at the giant fox demon climbing through the ravine toward her. The weapon flashed across the snow and struck the beast a glancing blow across the shoulder. He roared and his claws ripped free of the wall, and he crashed down into the snow atop the snare.

Fall! Damn you, fall all the way down!

She spun back to grab the dangling cord behind her as she drew her serrated knife from her belt. And there, not three paces in front of her, was a reaver.

It was one of the small ones, like the ones she had killed in Denveller with Erik. Just a person covered in hair with twisted bones and yellow eyes. Somehow, after seeing the bestial form of the king in all its inhuman strangeness, the common reaver suddenly didn’t look so frightening. In the darkness, she could almost mistake the creature in front of her for a person wearing a mask and a tattered fur coat.

The reaver snarled.

Behind her, the king rose out of the snow, roaring, “Freya Nordasdottir! I am your holy king! Kneel before me and I will give you the blessings of my flesh!”

“And become a monster, like that?” She pointed at the reaver crouched below her.

“One bite from me will make you like that one,” the king growled. “But you are no craven fool. You are a huntress. Stronger, braver than the others. Submit to me, girl, and I will bite you again and again. Ten times. Twenty times. Serve me, and I will make you a goddess like me, little girl. A goddess of the wild! A goddess of the hunt!”

Freya glanced back at the king and saw him rising above the snow, his claws clutching the rock walls of the gorge.

When in doubt, take the weaker one.

Freya dropped the cord and ran, plowing a deep furrow in the snow as she drew a second knife and lunged at the slavering plague victim. It swung its crooked claws at her head to grab it in a violent bear hug, but she drove inside its reach and slammed her knives into the reaver’s flesh, plunging one blade straight up through the jaw into the brain as she slipped the other between the ribs. The reaver went limp instantly, collapsing with its full weight on top of her, driving her down to her knees in the snow.

With a sharp kick and shove, she pulled her blades free and shoved the corpse off of her just as the blood began to pour out of the open wounds onto the ground. The hot blood steamed in the snow, melting round holes in the white drifts.

Ivar!

Gasping for breath and feeling her lungs burning with the cold night air, Freya spun to face the other beast with her two dripping knives. But the king was not just a step behind her, poised and ready to strike her dead. The king was still up in the narrow pass, knee-deep in the snow, and struggling to claw his way forward into the wider part of the ravine.

Her eyes wide with astonishment, Freya slammed her second knife back into its sheathe as she bolted up the slope toward the little nook in the wall where she had waited all night, where her braided cord of hair still dangled. She ran easily over the trampled snow and reached back into the nook for the cord just as Ivar roared and stumbled out of the narrow turn and crashed down into the snow several paces away from the snare.

Freya froze with her knife in one hand and the slender cord in the other. She stared as the huge vulpine monster reared up out of the snow and shook the icy white clumps from its fur. She swallowed, and raised her knife in a shaking hand.

Ivar shook his head again, and suddenly his head snapped to the right, facing her, staring at her with his golden eyes, his entire body visible in the bright starlight. Freya saw that he wasn’t twisted or stretched or broken. His limbs were smooth and massive, a gleaming coat of red fur over sinewy muscles from his broad chest to his long legs. His head was entirely inhuman, entirely that of a fox, long and sharp. And writhing about his buttocks she saw not one but three thick red tails.

His dripping fangs parted and his huge clawing hand reached down between his legs to hover over his transformed sex. “It burns,” he rasped, his claws shaking in the air. “Always burning, always craving, always hungry. It wants… it needs… I need…”

He slowly lowered himself to all fours, his jaw trembling with excitement, his haunches shivering, his hips jerking in short, sharp thrusts. Panting, his huge golden eyes shining in the starlight, the reaver king crept toward her. He lowered his head and raised his buttocks, and whined.

She felt her tiny bone knife in her hand, and her thin cord in the other.

He’s too big. Too heavy. Too fast. It can’t be done.

She let go of the cord and lowered herself into a crouch, gripping her knife so tightly that she could feel her own blood thundering through her hand.

The throat. I can slit the throat before he grabs me. I can kill him just before he kills me. And then it will end. The plague will begin to die out as soon as he’s gone.

I’m sorry, Katja. I’m sorry, Erik. I failed you both. But I can still save everyone else in Ysland, and that’s worth a good death. It’s worth dying for.

So here I come, Woden.

She lunged and the beast lunged. Her knife swept up and his claws swept down. For a tiny instant she looked into the creature’s face, searching for some hint of a man who had fallen in love, and been betrayed, and left to suffer in the wilderness for five long years, trapped between pain and fear and madness. But all she saw were fangs.

A muscular hand grabbed her shirt and yanked her down into the snow, and as she fell Freya saw Omar stagger up with his burning white sword in his other hand. His collarbone had erupted through his chest and his head was tilted back at an impossible angle, but he shoved his head back onto his neck with a crack, and the protruding bone slowly pulled itself back into his chest as he gasped and shook and groaned. But then it was over, and he stood up straight, and lifted his sword.