Warrior of the Wild(79)

“Don’t, please. I’m asking you to wait.”

Her already frail body seems to shrink further. “Why?”

“Because I am ready to face the god. He has been a plague upon our people, and I believe I can end it all. Today. No more Payments. No more worrying about the god who lurks in the wild. No more starving children.”

“But—”

“If you truly regret what you’ve done and wish to make things right with me, you will abide by my wishes.”

She licks her cracked lips. “I do, and I will.”

“Good. Now please, I need some distance from you.”

“Whatever you need.” She disappears behind my father’s shoulder.

By the goddess, what was that?

My heart is throbbing within my chest, and my mind is turning over the conversation again and again.

“Are you all right?” Irrenia asks.

“How long has she been like this?” I ask, pointing to Mother.

“It started just after you left. She won’t take any of the treatments I try to give her.”

I can’t deal with this. Not now. Not when so much is riding on today. Not when I keep wondering if I’ve made the right choice.

Should I have let her tell Father the truth and call the whole thing off?

No.

The word is absolute, leaving no room to question it. I’ve challenged the god. There is no taking that back. Regardless of whether my mattugr is lifted or not, he knows I’m alive now. He will look for me, might even punish my village for my challenge if he learns where I’m from. I have to see this through.

I start toward the center of the clearing. It’s dawn. Peruxolo should be here already. But just like he does with the village leaders during the Payment, he is making me wait.

Soren follows after me silently. There is nothing more to be said until this is done. Iric falls into step with us, leaving Aros to stand with his parents.

We stop in the center of the clearing, in the grooves of the road. For something to do, I windmill my arms, letting the muscles loosen. I walk in place, stretch my legs, prepare my body for what is to come. Soren and Iric stand by my sides, waiting with me.

The sun inches higher in the sky, and still Peruxolo doesn’t show.

I send a prayer to the goddess, begging her for guidance and strength. What will I do if the low god doesn’t show? How am I to return home and make things right if I can’t do the task that was set for me? If he comes for me and my family in the night?

After another ten minutes go by, I realize I needn’t have worried.

He appears in the trees, just as he did over three months ago. He steps off a branch and hovers in the air, cape swaying behind him, hood raised.

Terrifying, as always.

But as I watch him, watch how he appears to stand in the air, as though an invisible wall holds him up—I remember the piece of metal I saw in his forge. The one I thought appeared to be the length of a man’s foot.

It was.

Exactly the length of this god’s foot, in fact.

Peruxolo has lodestones in the base of each boot. He must have iron buried in the ground right there. He climbs the tree and appears to float because of the negative reaction between the metals. Oh, so clever.

Soren gives my shoulder a squeeze, and then I hear him and Iric retreat, leaving me to my task.

“I’ve been challenged,” Peruxolo says in that cutting, dangerous tone he uses. The voice that makes us tremble; the voice we feel in our bones.

Except, now that I don’t fear him as I once did, I don’t really feel his voice in my bones. That was just my imagination, something born of raw fear.

“You have,” I snap. “And you’re late.”

Gasps sound all around me. No one is short with the god. No one dares ever speak to him in such a way.

I dare.

Because if I already made my intent to kill him clear, he can hardly be offended by my tone.

“A god’s time is not dictated by mortals,” he says. “I was foolish not to watch you die the last time we met. I will not make that mistake today. I will break your body in every way possible before I end you.”

He leaps down from his “floating” position and rises to his full height, well over six feet, but he does not pull his ax from off his back.

Instead he flicks his wrist.

I dodge the move and hear a chink as his power hits the rocks where I once stood, but as I look at the space, I see something familiar sticking up out of the ground.

It’s small, easily missed if I hadn’t already seen one before. I reach for it, and pull the metal triangle from the ground carefully, so as not to cut myself against the edges.

And then I remember the night I saw the previous village leader of Restin fall. Peruxolo flicked his wrist, and he fell over dead with blood pooling around him.

And a thought strikes me.

Iric had to build us spears in order for us to kill the hyggja. My village and all the other villages—we have built our weapons to survive in the wild, to kill our most common enemy, the ziken. That is why we use battle-axes, because they are the only things strong enough to pierce their hides.

The villages all keep to themselves—we’ve not had battles against one another. Our enemies have never been human. But if one’s enemy were human? Well, he would need a weapon that cut through human skin. No need for a battle-ax. Anything sharp and projected quickly enough would draw blood. All someone would have to do is aim for the large vein in the neck and tear right through it.