The Girl the Sea Gave Back(20)
Lying dead at his feet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HALVARD
Every Svell left standing ran toward me, swords and axes swinging.
The emptiness of the forest behind me stretched in every direction. There was no way to outrun them. No way to hide. Their chieftain lay on the soft earth before me and the only answer for that was death.
But as I watched them rush toward me, I realized that it was an end I’d welcome. It was an end that the gods would favor and that Aghi would be proud of. At the very least, I’d been able to avenge him before I took my last breath. And that was something.
I stood taller despite the pain widening at my side and pulled the axe from the sheath at my back. The breath in my chest calmed, lifting in white puffs before me, the scent of soil and sap thick in my lungs.
Myra’s words came back to haunt me, the sight of her looking up into my face finding me as clearly as if she stood before me now. She’d been right. So had Latham. And when my family made it back to the fjord from the mountain, they wouldn’t find me. Like Aghi, I’d be waiting for them in the afterlife.
Just as the thought skipped across my mind, a whistle rang deep in the forest and I blinked, going still.
Vigdis and the Svell closed in on the stretch of ground between us, screaming, but arrows suddenly fell from the sky, arcing over my head and hitting their marks before me. Svell warriors hit the ground hard, sliding over the forest floor, and I turned, searching the trees.
I knew the call that echoed out, though I hadn’t heard it since I was a boy. It was an old Aska battle signal. But every Nādhir who’d come with us from Hylli was lying dead in the glade behind me.
Horses appeared in the thick brush, three riders hunched over their saddles with bows lifted and arrows drawn. That’s when I saw him. Asmund.
I pivoted on my feet and ran for him, the agony alive at my side piercing deeper with every draw of breath. Asmund and the raiders tore through the forest ahead, their horses kicking mud and moss behind them, and I pressed the heel of my hand into the opening of my vest, growling against the sting, running faster.
I didn’t look back, weaving through the trees and pushing the swell of pain from my mind. I didn’t have to look to know I was losing blood too quickly. I could feel it in the weakening of my muscles and the stuttering flicker of my thoughts. I focused on the black horse ahead, throwing myself forward with the last of the strength I had left.
An axe flew past my head from behind, slamming into a tree, and the splinters hit me in the face as I slid to a stop. Bard’s horse slowed as it reached me and the bow rose before him, his back straight as he sighted down its line. He shot arrow after arrow over me as I hobbled past him, toward Asmund.
“Hurry!” He reached a hand down for me and I took his arm, pulling myself up onto the saddle behind him and throwing my leg over the horse.
In the trees ahead, the Svell chieftain’s brother stood still, his fists clenched at his sides and his black eyes pinned on me as his chest rose and fell with heaving breaths.
We took off and I looked back once more to the sunlit grass where Aghi lay dead. My throat tightened and I hunched forward, the searing pain in my side pushing black into the edges of my vision. A branch caught the sleeve of my tunic, scraping against my skin as we headed into the thicker trees and the glade disappeared behind us, the Svell with it.
“How bad?” Asmund shouted over his shoulder.
“They’re dead.” The words boiled in my gut. “Everyone’s dead.”
He stiffened. “Espen?”
“Everyone.”
He pulled back on the reins, slowing, and the others rounded ahead to meet us, bows still in hand. Their faces held the same look that I imagined was on Asmund’s.
Bard stopped before us. “Let me see.” He pried my bloody hand from my side. “Sword?” I nodded in answer, wincing as he inspected the wound. “He’s bleeding too fast.”
Asmund shook his head, watching around us. “It’ll have to wait. We have to go east.”
“East? I have to get to Hylli,” I grunted.
“You just killed their chieftain, Halvard.” Asmund turned back to look at me. “By sundown this entire forest will be crawling with Svell looking for you.”
“I have to—”
“We’ll head east and then cut north,” Bard interrupted, echoing Asmund’s order.
He kicked his heel into the horse and we took off, the air turning colder as we pushed deeper into the forest. Our tracks still marked the path we’d taken to Ljós only the day before and I breathed through the burn in my eyes, remembering that moment on the trail with Aghi. A moment I would never get back.
We climbed the rise of the earth in a horizontal line until we reached the river and took the horses into the water, pushing against the current to hide our tracks. With any luck, the Svell would have lost our trail by the time they got to their horses. But luck hadn’t been on our side in the glade, and I had no reason to think it would be now.
The sun was hanging above us in the sky when we finally came around the bend in the river where the raiders were camped. Bard stood on the bank ahead, Kjeld beside him, watching me as I slid down from the horse into the water. The blood from my wound clouded pink around me as I trudged up out of the cold river. But my legs gave out, my head spinning, and I fell to my knees on the sand.