Runes and Red Sails (Queenmaker Book 1)(62)

She shivered at the thought, but there was nothing to be done. Turning back now would be as treacherous as pressing forward.

For hours they went on thus before Eyvind called for a break. They drifted on a narrow inlet atop still, black waters, chests heaving from nerves as much as from the effort of rowing.

Aelfhild and Ceolwen joined Kolbrun and Jarngrim to relieve the first set of rowers. There were no waves to fight and the pace was unhurried, so it was easy at first. The long oars turned easily in their holes in the hull, and Aelfhild focused on Kolbrun’s shoulders as they moved forward and back, forward and back, always keeping in time.

After the first hour, her side was sore. By the third, every movement drove nails of fresh agony deeper into her ribs. The skin on her hands was raw, even beneath the linen wrappings, and muscles that she was hardly aware she possessed cramped into acid knots. Drenched in sweat and with lungs burning, she focused only on the movement of the oar, following her leader, forward and back.

Beside her, Ceolwen labored in the same wretched state, but sympathy was a luxury long since abandoned.

The pain dragged on for what must have been days. In her mind, Aelfhild saw the sun set and rise anew overhead.

She hated Eyvind for not calling a stop to their toil.

She hated the ice for its endless sprawl.

She hated the oar and the ship and all aboard it.

They were hopelessly lost, of that she was certain, doomed never to find escape from the snaking waterways. Each dip of the oar felt like it would be her last, and only by sheer will did she muster the strength for the next.

Show them you have worth, she repeated with each stroke. Prove you are not a burden.

Finally, mercifully, Eyvind stopped.

Slumping forward, Aelfhild grunted wordless relief.

A reedy, pitiful groan from across the ship told her that Ceolwen stilled lived, but that she might regret that fact. Kolbrun, slick with sweat but gallingly unruffled, helped Aelfhild up and sat her down in the prow.

Ceolwen sprawled next to her servant, and the two lay panting. Any other day, Aelfhild imagined their Thrym companions would have gotten a good laugh from the two young women: broken by a mere half-afternoon of rowing. Today, they all had their own concerns.

“You did well,” Bercthun said as he brought them each a drink of water. “We must be close to finding the way out.”

It sounded more like a wish than a promise, though, and Aelfhild understood why when she raised her head up from the deck.

The sun dipped lower and lower in the sky, but there was no end in sight to the ice field. A good part of the morning and all afternoon they had spent rowing, but there was only white and blue to the west. Kolbrun and Jarngrim took up watch, leaving Aelfhild and her mistress to rest, as the others went back to the oars and quickened their efforts. Spending a night out on the Ormsund was not an option.

Aelfhild dragged herself upright and took up a pole alongside the others. Kolbrun patted her shoulder in approval before shunting a pillar of ice away from the hull.

As the edge of the sun began to kiss the horizon, uncertainty gave way to fear. Sweat beaded on foreheads, breathing quickened and grew ever more ragged. They stole glances westward in hope of a glimpse of open sea. But each turning in the ice gave way to another, one waterway leading into the next in that spidery web-work of channels.

Oars clattered behind her and Aelfhild spun.

Vidar had ceased rowing and curled himself into a ball, rocking back and forth with hands over his ears.

“Vidar,” Eyvind’s voice started as a warning growl, but rose when the man did not respond. “Vidar!”

“No, no, no, no,” they could all hear the craftsman chanting.

“Row, Gods damn you!” Rolf’s voice was a thunderclap, drowning out the buckling ice for a moment.

Vidar screamed back. “We are dead men! Trapped, trapped! He led us straight into death!” He raised an arm to point toward Eyvind, but never completed the gesture.

The spear shaft made a resounding crack as Kolbrun clipped Vidar across the back of the head. He crumpled onto the deck. Bercthun grabbed the man’s feet as the shield-maiden lifted his shoulders, and they dumped him in the prow. Kolbrun took up the trailing oar.

“Forward,” Eyvind said, as flat as though nothing had happened. The crew obeyed.

The screaming still echoed through Aelfhild’s ears. Trapped, trapped! She pushed the voice down as far as possible, but her heart raced at the thought.

Trapped!

In the west the sky was changing from blue to orange and pink as more of the sun disappeared from sight. Ice came at them faster now, the oarsmen churning with growing speed in a last bid to be free of the strait, and Aelfhild set her mind solely to clearing the path.

Piece after piece that drifted toward the hull she pushed back, taking solace in each small victory.

Vidar was folded up at her feet. She ignored his whimpering as best she could.

She caught a glimpse of Ceolwen’s eyes and saw only whites.

Even Kolbrun’s breathing had quickened noticeably.

Trapped! The echoes remained.

But the icebergs seemed to be shrinking. She looked ahead—the waterway was wider here.

They rounded a looming island of white and sky blue, and she risked a glance up and westward.

“Open water!” she shouted. “I can see open water!”

“Row for me, now! One last charge!” cried Eyvind.