Sky in the Deep(6)

The Tala nodded beside him.

I tugged my knife from my belt, watching the firelight against the letters of my name, forged into the smooth surface of the blade below the spine. It was the knife my father gave to me before my first fighting season five years ago. Since then, it had taken too many lives to count.

I came down beside the goat, taking its body into my arms, and found the pulsing artery at his neck with my fingers. I positioned my knife, taking a breath before I recited the words. “We honor you, Sigr, with this undefiled sacrifice.” They were the words I’d heard my father and fellow clansmen say my whole life. “We thank you for your provision and your favor. We ask that you follow us, protect us, until the day we reach Sólbj?rg in final rest.”

I dragged the blade swiftly across the goat’s soft flesh, tightening my grip on him with my other arm as he kicked. The stitches in my arm pulled, sending the sting of the wound down to my wrist. His hot blood poured out over my hands, into the trough, and I pressed my face into his white fur until he was still.

We stood in silence, listening to the blood drain into the trough, and my eyes lifted to the idols of my mother and my brother on the stone. They were lit up in the amber light, shadows dancing over their carved faces.

I’d felt the absence of my mother as soon as she stopped breathing. As if with that last breath, her soul had let go of her body. But with Iri, it had never been that way. I still felt him. Maybe I always would.





FOUR


We woke to the warning whistle in the middle of the night. The horse’s hooves stamped nervously outside our tent and my father was on his feet before my eyes were even open.

“Up, Eelyn.” He was a blur in the dark. “You were right.”

I pulled myself up, reaching for the sword beside my cot and breathing through the pain igniting sharp and angry in my arm. I fought with my boots and pulled my armor vest on, letting my father fasten it for me. He slid my scabbard over my head and across my chest, followed by my axe sheath, and then patted me on the back, letting me know I was ready. I took up the idol of my mother from where it sat beside his cot and quickly pressed it to my lips before I handed it to him. He tucked it into his vest and I tucked the one of Iri into mine.

We slipped out into the night, heading toward the end of the river that wrapped around one side of our camp. The starless sky melted into the night-cloaked land beyond the fires and I could feel them out there.

The Riki.

Thunder grumbled over us and the unmistakable smell of a storm rode on the wind. My father planted a kiss on the top of my head. “Vegr yfir fjor.” He pushed me toward the other end of the line, where I would find Myra.

She pulled me to her, lifting my axe from its sheath on my back and handing it to me. I tightened the bandage around my arm and shook the numbness out of my hand. She didn’t say it this time, but I knew what she was thinking because I was thinking it too. My left side was almost useless now. I’d fought in the dark with my clan before, but never this injured. The thought made me uneasy.

“Stay close to me.” She waited for me to nod in agreement before she led us to the front of the line.

The fighting erupted before we were even in place. To the left, down by the water, the shouting began, but this end of the line was still quiet. I said my prayers, my eyes searching for movement around us as raindrops began to fall. Beside me, Myra’s eyes closed, her lips moving around the ancient words.

The next whistle sounded like the soft call of a bird, and we lifted onto our feet, moving silently as one entity into the black. I put my hand on the back of the Aska in front of me and felt the hot hand of the warrior behind me, keeping us together. We stepped in rhythm, our boots breaking the thin frost on the grass. The sound of the river pulled in from the left and the muted quiet of the forest from the right as the familiar sound of battle grew between.

Straight ahead, the Riki moved toward us like fish under water.

We walked until I could hear them and Myra’s elbow pressed into me, letting me know she heard it too. I clicked my tongue, and the clansmen around me repeated the sound, spreading the message through the line. They were close. Myra pulled up her shield and I tucked myself closer to her as we moved faster. Beneath my vest, my heart beat unevenly, sending my sore ribs into spasms.

A gurgling wail beside us signaled the Riki’s arrival to our end of the line and as soon as I saw movement ahead of us, I swung, driving my sword forward and catching the hard surface of a shield. The form knocked Myra to the ground and I lunged again, swinging my sword up and around me to let it cut down. This time, I heard the scrape of bone on my blade. I kicked at the lump, freeing my sword, and we pushed farther in. The rain fell harder as the sky opened up and the clouds pulled back just enough for a bit of moonlight to fall down on us.

I couldn’t help it. My eyes were already combing through the Riki on the field. Searching.

Lightning washed across the night sky and the mass of warriors scrambled like insects, crawling over the land as it lit everything white and then flickered out again. The crack exploded around us, shaking the ground.

Myra caught the thigh of a man with her knife, knocking him over with her shield, and I came down on him with my axe, grunting against the searing burn in my arm. Myra caught me as I fell, yanking me up and throwing my weight forward. I gripped the handle of my axe as we jumped over the body and the silhouette of a screaming woman came at me from the left. I swung again, catching her in the side. She went down, splashing in the mud, and I doubled over to keep from losing my balance.