Page 9 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings
“Look, child,” she pointed, and I saw it: a raider running out of the tree line, heading straight for us.
“Stay back!” I pulled the sword from her hands, wondering where she’d gotten such a violent thing. Bracing myself, I sacrificed one hand to push Hilda through the entryway to her longhouse. She protested and grabbed at my wrist, but she spiraled into a coughing attack and released my arm long enough for me to pull the door shut. I stood in front of it in case she got any wild ideas to come back outside, the sword’sleather grip in my hands being squeezed and flattened under my newfound strength.
Shouts came from behind me, signaling the rest of the raiders had hit the village from another angle. I cursed under my breath, unsure if I should charge and leave Hilda unprotected, or continue to stand around like a lamb ready for slaughter. Hilda’s cries from inside made my decision for me, and I dug my feet into the stone beneath my boots, ready for a fight.
The raider moved to strike, but I got to him first, slicing down his forearm. The animal skin lining his arm split in two, blood spilling. He hissed but lunged again. Yet again, I dodged his blade. This time, when I moved to attack, my sword clashed with his in a collision of silver and crimson.
As we battled, I talked myself through every step, grinding my teeth, holding my ground even as he pushed harder. I had fuel of my own, sourced from the sounds of my people fighting back, fighting forourland.
I. Will. Not. Let. This. Man. Win.
With one final push, I shoved the blade into the man’s stomach. His mouth fell open just before the rest of his body hit the ground. There was nothing I wanted more than to let my heavy arms fall to my sides, but more raiders were coming, and Hilda still needed protecting.
A viking raider screamed as he pushed through the tree line, and a guttural yowl ripped from his throat when he raised his bow.
Before I could run, before I could breathe, he released an arrow into the air. I tried to deflect the arrowhead with my sword, but as I raised the shiny weapon, I caught a glimpse of something horrible reflecting back at me. I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the black, rotting eyes in my skull, and as a reward, white hot pain coursed through my shoulder. As I stared atmyself in the reflective metal, I heard the air leave my lungs and felt my knees crack against stone.
Never had I known a darkness so pure, so infinite. I was no longer sure if my eyes were open or closed, because all that filled my vision was the expanse of a starless sky. I collected bits of sounds here and there, distorted and detached, as if they’d been echoes of another realm. And then, there it was: a sound so real, it might’ve pulled me from my slip into the void.
“I have you.”
CHAPTER SIX
OATHBREAKER
Rune
Nine realms, Rune.
I should have known. I shouldn’t have let my sick curiosities distract me from every warning sign that hung in the air like a waving red flag. I’d collected enough souls in my time to know raiders’ appetites were bottomless, and there was no trusting they’d stop just because one village was sacked.
My toes curled in my boots as I watched the seeress swing the too-heavy sword, slicing flesh and dodging her opponent. Apple whined at me to leave it be, to fly back to Valhalla where we belonged—where it was safe. I wasn’t worried about these pathetic raiders taking down Apple or myself. No, I was terrified about what I might do if they pulled even a drop of blood from the seeress.
She wasmymortal, not to be touched, not to be trifled with. Without her, what were my nights? Eating, drinking, and collecting? The same three things every day until I drew my last breath. She was what grounded me, what allowed me to feel connection to this realm of mortals, what reminded mewhat it was to be truly alive, not just living. She survived when her family and so many others hadn’t. No one would fuck with something so pure. I wouldn’t let them.
I lurked behind an alder tree, burying my boots into the loose dirt Apple had pulled up. My hand gripped the hilt of my sword, and Apple failed to nudge it away as I watched the scene before me unfold. Kari slid the blade into her attacker, and the man dropped to the stone pathway they’d fought upon.
“That’s my girl,” I began to mutter, but just as pride began to swell in my chest, she was struck.
No, no, no.
Blood dribbled down her shoulder as she fell to the ground below. The arrow protruded unnaturally from her body in a way I’d seen on a nightly basis, though those bodies held unfamiliar faces, and hers was far from unfamiliar. I’d memorized every line drawn into her uniquely beautiful face, every curve of her body, every sound she made when she thought she wasn't being watched.
I made a promise, one to end whoever pulled blood from the one thing in my life that grounded me to my mortality. The goddess of love and war wouldn’t have her today. No. Freyja would have to wait.
Before I could stop myself, I pulled my sword free from its sheath and began slaying each raider, one quick movement after another, until all that remained was me and her. My own blood pulsed in my head, temporarily distorting my thoughts, allowing me not to dwell on the knowledge that I had killed mortals, that I had broken my sacred oaths.
My bloodied weapon found a home within its sheath, and I dropped to the crimson ground where the seeress lay. I pulled her into my arms, thewound from which the arrow protruded oozed blood. “I have you.”
I wasn’t trained in healing humans, or what to do when one was injured. I dealt with themafterthey’d succumbed to their fatal injury.
Do I pull the arrow out? Break it? Leave it in?
The woman in my arms, at first rigid under my touch, began to grow limp. She wouldn’t survive my indecision.
“APPLE… EPLI!” I screamed into the night, knowing the pegasus wanted to stay far away from this mess. Even so, when her name left my lips, she came trotting out of the forest. She stepped over the fallen raiders, and when I looked up at her, golden armor and golden feathers shining under the light of fire, I’d never been more thankful to see her.
“Brace yourself,” I warned. “It’s not just me you’re taking home tonight.”
