“With the deepest regret, I report that the rescue ship arrived too late. The party’s vehicle is missing. It must have broken down, and they proceeded on foot with the precious books they had found. Though the brave explorers made it to the outpost for rescue, all perished in a battle with a swarm, perhaps as late as last night. They took the swarm with them as an honor guard to Valhalla. We have built their pyres as is right and proper and will return their ashes to their families. Trond, out.”
Static hissed and snarled in the momentary silence.
“We can’t let him say that.” Emil made a grab for the microphone, currently turned off.
Even as Tuuri pulled it away, Mikkel, crowded into the back of the office/radio compartment, reached across the desk to block his hand. “It’s not up to us to argue with him. We’re already dead, you and I.”
Tuuri shivered at those words in Mikkel’s deep, slow voice. She too wanted to argue with Trond, but … “It’s not up to us, either. Me and Lalli.” Lalli was asleep, but as always, she felt free to speak for him. “Onni’s our only family, and he knows we’re alive.”
Sigrun straightened; she had been leaning against the door frame. At her full height, she towered over Tuuri in her seat by the radio. “He knows? Did Braidy get through to him then?”
It was progress that Sigrun referred to Reynir as “Braidy” instead of “the baggage”. She was forced to accept him as part of the team, now and forever. Tuuri shrugged off that thought. “No, he still can’t. But Onni’s a noita. He knows his family, so he’d know if I died, or Lalli did. And Lalli would know if Onni did.”
“Would you know?” Once Mikkel accepted the reality of magic, he’d questioned her and Reynir about every aspect. It was just his bad luck that neither of them knew very much.
“No. I’m not a mage.” Not a mage, not immune, not much of anything, really. She pushed away the familiar thought.
“Guess it’s up to me and Braidy, then,” Sigrun said. “For me … Well, Dagny always wanted to be a general, and she’ll be better at it than I ever would.” She grinned, gazing from one face to another. “But she doesn’t get to explore the south!” After a moment, she sobered. “Yeah, but you should ask Braidy.”
As Sigrun backed out of the doorway, Tuuri rose and pushed past Emil to join Reynir, who was watching the monitors while the team listened to the radio. Though he was close enough to hear Trond’s words, she knew his understanding of Swedish was too poor to follow Norwegian interspersed with static.
“Trond is telling the world that we’re all dead,” Tuuri explained. “We’re close enough that we can argue with him, but we’re not sure that we should. Do you want us to?”
Reynir looked down at her, lips parted and eyes wide in shock. “My parents —” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
“You don’t have to decide now,” Mikkel said from inside the compartment, his voice gentle. “He’s pretending to burn our bodies, so he can’t leave immediately, and for the next few days, we should still be close enough to contact passing ships even after he leaves.”
“I — Yes, I need to think — I don’t —”
Tuuri patted him on the shoulder. “No hurry, then.”
“Will he come after us? To make sure?” Tuuri spun around at Emil’s question. She hadn’t even thought of that.
“No.” Mikkel switched off the radio, and Tuuri gave him a resentful glare. The radio was her responsibility.
In the sudden silence, Sigrun said, “Why not? Trond is ruthless.”
“Ruthless, yes, but also practical. He came here on a rescue mission. If the party is dead, there’s no reason to search for us. He’ll have to leave after pretending to burn our bodies.”
“But why declare us dead?” Tuuri asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s thinking at all.”
“We need to get moving,” Sigrun said. “It looks like more rain.”
Tuuri drove, and the others took their accustomed places: Sigrun and Mikkel on the passengers’ seat, with Mikkel by the window, Emil standing behind them and Reynir behind Tuuri, with the kitten on his shoulder. Lalli was sleeping in his den under Mikkel’s bed, as usual.
They were always quiet as Tuuri drove, but today the silence was deeper, sadder.
It’s not my fault. I didn’t ask them to stay. I asked them not to stay. I tried. It’s not my fault. As she maneuvered the tank around a washed-out section of the decaying road, she thought back to their arrival at the outpost in the afternoon, four days before.
By mid-afternoon, the emotion of the night before, the thrill of their decision to stay in the Silent World, had largely worn off. Lalli rode behind Tuuri, forcing Reynir to crowd in next to a displeased Emil. As they approached the triple fence blocking the narrow peninsula on which the outpost stood, Lalli pointed out a padlocked gate, and Tuuri guided the tank to park beside it. She saw a plastic box wired to the fence beside the gate; it would contain the key to the padlock.
“The gate’s not big enough for the tank,” Tuuri said, turning in her seat to address the others.
“We didn’t expect the tanks to reach this outpost,” Mikkel said.
Sigrun, already on her feet, cocked her head at him. “We? You were —”
“I mean the army, not me. We all knew the plan. We were supposed to take and clear the first island, then move on to the others over the years. These outposts would house scouts to inventory the local grosslings, map concentrations, that sort of thing.” He shrugged. “All that ended after Kastrup, of course.”
Sigrun shooed Reynir and Emil ahead of her so she could pull her uniform from the decontamination closet. “Right, then. Let’s get to work. We have a lot of books to carry, and it looks like rain.”
Mikkel followed her, reaching for his own uniform. “We may not have to carry them. There should be supplies here, and if we’re lucky, there could even be a wheelbarrow.”
They were lucky. The wheelbarrow was in a small, well-built, windowless warehouse that had withstood a decade of neglect without leaking. With it were treasures: a crate of canned cod (“Better than tuna, I guess,” Emil muttered), two crates of ammunition for rifles and pistols, and a crate of incendiaries. Tuuri thought they’d have to drag Emil away from that crate.
Working together, they moved four loads of books into the warehouse before the rain hit. Lalli, who had not helped move the books, found a tarpaulin in good shape. When Tuuri passed on the word to the others, they used that as a cover as they carried the crates to the tank. By the time they finished that task, Lalli beckoned them to another windowless warehouse, which proved to be full of split logs: firewood.
“We can’t fit all of this in the tank,” Mikkel said with genuine regret in his voice. “Not even if we take the crates out.”
“We can’t take the crates out! Or at least, not my incendiaries!”
Mikkel gave Emil a quick, sly smile, Sigrun laughed, and Tuuri found herself grinning wider than she had since … well, since she’d been scratched. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad.
“We’ll take what we can,” Sigrun said. “There’s always more wood.”
“This is already split. And well-seasoned,” Mikkel said, running his hand over a log.
“You just don’t want to gather fuel. The exercise is good for you.” Sigrun feinted a punch at Mikkel’s abdomen, and he stepped aside without comment.
It occurred to Tuuri that Mikkel had lost the modest beer belly he’d had when they started the expedition. He would always be a big man, but now he looked quite trim. She’d lost weight too; her uniform hung loose these days, and she would soon need a belt to keep her trousers up. Had it really been only two months since they’d set out?
“Can we check out the bunkhouses now?” Emil was looking out the open door, disregarding the byplay between Sigrun and Mikkel. “I wish — I mean, as long as we’re here, we could try them out.”
There were two bunkhouses. The elements had gotten into one, joined by mold, insects, and mice, but the other was still weather-tight. In Keuruu, this would have been small and crowded, with its tiny kitchen, its cramped bathroom (no running water today), and its two rows of bunks (eight bunks in total) divided by a narrow aisle. Compared to the tight quarters of the tank, this was luxury itself, and Emil was not the only one who wanted to spend the night there.
There were no mattresses on the bunks, but a large, sturdy, vermin-proof wooden chest provided eight bedrolls. When the team collected their thin mattresses, pillows, and bedding from the tank, Tuuri stopped on her way out to apologize to Rosli and promise to return.
They enjoyed a supper of cod fried in tallow, sitting in heavy wooden chairs around a blocky wooden table while rain spattered against double-paned windows. After supper, Reynir washed the dishes and Tuuri dried them.
“You don’t have to stay,” Tuuri said, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear her over the rain. “You can go home and —”
Reynir returned a plate to the tub of soapy water and leaned close to her. “If I go home, my mom and dad will make me feel so guilty for leaving. They’ll never let me out of their sight again. I’ll just take care of sheep forever.” He lifted his head, looking past her at the window and the rain beyond. “And I’ll never know what happened to you.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Any of you.”
Tuuri wanted to say something more, but couldn’t find the words. She picked up a plate that was already dry and wiped it again. Reynir gave her another cleaned plate.
With all the plates put away, Tuuri talked to Mikkel. “I will not be rescued,” he said. “I have my own reasons.”
There being little she could say to that, she tried Emil. “I — I — I’m safer here,” he said. “Trond might — Trond is dangerous.” He bit his lip. “I’ll help you. We’ll be okay. We’ll, you know, we’ll explore the Silent World together.” He looked near tears, so she let him be.
Sigrun laughed. “You think I’d leave you here without a troll-hunter captain to protect you? No way! The story of this quest will be told by the hearth for a thousand years!” She waved away Tuuri’s weak objection that no one was going to hear about their quest. “Of course they will. You’ll write it down, and the gods will see to it that my clan gets the word.”
Tuuri’s last try was with Lalli, urging him to be rescued, to go back to Onni. He gave her one of his looks, the one that meant, “That’s a stupid question.” But all he said was, “Onni doesn’t need me. You do.” And he ran out to scout the next leg of their journey.
A branch scraped the side of the tank, a long drawn-out screech. Tuuri winced at the sound, even though she’d apologized one night for scratching the tank. Rosli had answered with a light blinking red in the darkness: “Don’t worry. It happens.” Rosli so seldom communicated that Tuuri suspected it was difficult for her, perhaps even painful. She wished that she could visit Rosli in a dream again, that they could explore Rosli’s haven together. Most of all, she wished that they could look each other in the eye as she thanked the woman who’d saved her from the terrors of the Rash.
Tuuri steered past a fallen tree, her eyes intent on the road. She was outside all the walls. She would write the tale of their travels, and one day, Sigrun’s gods would make sure the tale went back to the Known World.
Onni stands atop the rocky cliff of his haven, an island in the sea that goes on forever. There are other mages, other islands, but they are far away and hidden by the mist that covers the sea. Waves hiss over the narrow beach below the cliff, and the air smells of salt and seaweed.
There are storms on the horizon. Onni has visited his haven for almost twenty years, and the horizon has always been dark. Now, storms rage and lightning flashes. He has never seen mage-space like this before.
Almost, he calls the form of his luonto. Almost, he takes the shape of an eagle-owl to fly free, far above the mists, to seek out Lalli’s haven. But he remains a man standing atop the cliff.
A creature of shadow, a dragon with its broad black wings and long clawed limbs, circles nearby, watching him with eyes like embers. He trembles as a mouse does when an owl drifts soundlessly above. The dragon swoops down, and he backs away. It can’t enter his haven, but if he takes flight, if it catches him over the sea …
Onni scrambles down the rough track into the forest. Fallen leaves crunch under his feet, and trees are red, gold, brown, with their autumn finery. The dragon can’t see him here. He slumps to the ground with a sigh.
Onni awoke in the Västerströms’ guest room, his head throbbing with each heartbeat. Over the sound of rain pounding on the roof and windows came the high-pitched voices of the triplets in the next room. He should be with them, should help them grieve for their cousin, Emil, since Trond’s devastating report of his death. Instead, he had told them he had a headache and needed to lie down.
Mid-morning sunlight struggled through the rain. Lalli was a night scout, so he should be asleep and visiting his haven in his dreams. Onni had wanted to talk to him and find out what had happened, was happening, to the team. But he couldn’t get past the dragon.
Onni rolled off the bed and went downstairs to brew some willow-bark tea. If he couldn’t find answers in mage-space, he would have to find them in the material realm.
Trond had the answers. Trond would go to Iceland, and so Onni must confront him there. He rubbed his temples, already planning his journey.
In the early afternoon, Tuuri halted the tank almost a kilometer short of the campsite Lalli had chosen.
Sigrun peered around with her hand on her dagger. “What is it? A troll?”
Tuuri's lips tried to curl into a grin at the captain's eagerness. “No, I'm just looking at that bridge.”
Leaning forward to look past her, Sigrun said in an unnaturally deep and slow voice, “In my opinion, this vehicle is unlikely to be able to traverse that structure.”
The middle span of the bridge was missing. Broken slabs jutted up from the rushing waters and chunks of broken concrete dangled from twisted rebar on the ends of the surviving spans.
“Indeed,” Tuuri said, deepening her voice as much as she could, “but I observe that if we can't make the crossing, neither can any grosslings that may choose to become hostile. This bridge may prove to be a defensible campsite.”
Emil and Reynir echoed Sigrun's laugh, and even Mikkel was heard to chuckle. “Clever girl!” Sigrun said in her natural voice. “Yes, that's a good idea.” Her brows drew together as she studied the bridge. “If that thing won't fall down when you drive on it.”
Tuuri turned the tank in place and drove forward, stopping just before the abutment. “That's why I'm going to inspect it before I risk driving on it.”
As four people made their way to the main compartment and pulled on their uniforms, Tuuri thought longingly of the outpost, where everyone could dress without bumping elbows and stepping on toes. But at last the task was done, and they all jumped down from the tank.
With Sigrun and Emil on either side of her, Tuuri made for the bridge, while Mikkel uncoiled the tank's hose and pulled it down to the river. The purr of the tank's pump joined the rattle of wind through the bare branches of the forest and the splash and gurgle of the river. Tuuri took a deep breath of the clean air with its scent of wet earth.
As she picked her way down the rocky riverbank, Tuuri hummed a jaunty drinking song. She gave the bridge abutment a brief glance; though the sides were crumbling, the center would hold the weight of the tank. Picking her way over the rocks under the bridge, she studied each pier and the underside of the deck. Concrete had spalled away in places, leaving bare rusty rebar. Considering the pressure under the tank's treads and its overall weight, she judged the overall structure to be sturdy enough.
Tuuri led the way to the other edge and scrambled up the bank and over the abutment. Broken concrete crunched under her feet as she jogged up to the deck. Weeds had grown in cracks, and dirt in the expansion joints supported small bushes and even a stunted tree. Taking a chisel from her work-belt, she dug into the concrete near an expansion joint; a sliver of concrete broke away, no more.
She got to her feet and led the others forward. Perhaps ten meters from the ragged end, she pointed to a spot several meters from the side barrier. “Emil, you stand here.”
He looked at the spot, frowning. “Why?”
“The bridge will take the weight of the tank all the way out to there.” She pointed forward. “But for safety's sake, I want to park here. I need you to show me where to stop.”
After a quick look at Sigrun, who nodded, Emil moved to the chosen spot and stood with his arms folded and his shoulders hunched. Tuuri waved to Sigrun and trotted back towards the tank. At the end of the abutment, she stopped and pointed down the bank. “You stand down there. Watch the deck and wave if you see a lot of stuff falling off. I'll have to stop if that happens.”
“Get in the tank first,” Sigrun ordered, running alongside her to the door. By the time Tuuri dropped into her driver's seat and instructed Mikkel to watch for Sigrun's signal, the captain was back in place. Mikkel had already stowed the hose, so there was no reason to wait. With a deep breath she tried to conceal, Tuuri drove the tank forward.
After all her preparation, the result was an anticlimax. Tuuri drove up the bridge to Emil and pivoted so the side door faced the approach. Leaning back and wiggling her fingers, she gave Mikkel and Reynir a grin as if she'd never had any worries at all.
While Mikkel and Reynir prepared lunch and Sigrun and Emil cleaned their rifles and chatted about their planned hunt that afternoon, Tuuri settled herself at her desk, considering her notes on the day's observations. Note the secondary growth close to the road. It looks stunted. Maybe the soil is bad? Is that interesting enough to include?
Tuuri gazed at the wall across the room, her fingers poised over the typewriter keys. Note the structure of the bridge. Well-built. I wonder what happened to that middle span.
She drummed her fingers lightly on the keys. The words that normally flowed from mind to fingers didn't come. Rather, she heard again Trond's terrible words. Why did he say that? Didn't he find my note?
“Write a note for Trond,” Sigrun ordered Tuuri in the morning, placing paper, ink bottle, and quill pen on the kitchen table in the bunkhouse. “Tell him Mikkel and Emil are dead, and me and you and the scout and your boyfriend are all going to explore.”
“Dead?” Tuuri echoed. Mikkel’s back was to her as he fried cod for breakfast. He didn’t answer. “I guess, uh, then we were attacked by a swarm, and they were killed —”
“Say that Trond upset him, and he walked away,” Sigrun said, her gaze fixed on Mikkel’s back.
“You don't need to —” Mikkel began, without turning.
“Yes, I do. Trond should know what he's done. Say that Mikkel said he had unfinished business in Kastrup, and I couldn’t stop him.” Tuuri looked from one to the other. Even in the warmth of the bunkhouse, she shivered, remembering that last disastrous radio call.
“Very well.” Mikkel's voice was resigned.
Tuuri opened and closed her mouth, wanting but not daring to ask why, and after a moment, she took up the quill pen. “O–okay.”
As she dipped the pen into the ink bottle, Emil slid into the seat beside her. “I guess if Mikkel doesn’t get a heroic death, I shouldn’t either. Maybe I, uh, you know, went out to get firewood and got eaten.”
Tuuri’s hands trembled as she let the ink drip back into the bottle, organizing the note in her mind.
Mikkel and Emil are dead, and the rest of us are going to explore the Silent World. Goodbye. No, wait, he should know about my recovery. Maybe somebody can recreate the cure. Maybe the Icelandic mages can come up with a safer way to restore the spirit. Yes, he should know. Oh, and he'd better pay our families with all those books we got.
She dipped the pen again and touched it to the paper.
To General Trond,
We’re not here. Don’t bother to look for us. Here’s what happened to us.
After this, there was no turning back.
Their lunch was a hasty affair as Sigrun was eager to go hunting. Emil frowned down at his plate, making Tuuri wonder if he objected to roast goose with mint, but he finished both his first and his second servings. It was only after they'd finished and Reynir had collected their plates that Emil spoke up.
“But how can Trond keep an entire ship's crew quiet?” he asked no one in particular as he slung his rifle over his shoulder. “Everyone knows sailors get drunk and tell stories. Will he … kill them all?”
“No,” Mikkel said from his position by the sink, and everyone turned to look at him. “That would be too obvious, and he doesn't need to anyway. He'll order them to hold to the story.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head, his face as blank and expressionless as Tuuri had ever seen it. “When Trond looks you in the eye and commands you, you obey.”
Tuuri squinted at him. Had he shuddered as he said that?
“It is almost … unthinkable … to disobey, and they have no reason to even try. Not for a good story. Not for you.”
“But you did,” Emil said, and Mikkel gave a jerky nod, as if forcing tense muscles to bend.
After a moment in which no one moved or spoke, Sigrun patted her rifle. “Okay, we're wasting sunlight. Come on, kiddo, I want venison for supper.”
As they jumped down and raced away into the forest, Mikkel resumed washing dishes, and Tuuri cleaned her rifle.
Maybe it's better that we're here. Trond sounds like a monster in his own right.
She'd only met Trond once and had never spoken to him. Now, she felt fortunate in that.
With the dishes washed and put away, Tuuri and Reynir stripped the bunks while Mikkel set out and filled the washtub. The morning's rainclouds had blown away, and their position on the bridge was secure enough that he felt safe washing clothing and bedclothes outside. Still, he asked Tuuri to keep watch, and she in turn asked Rosli to keep watch and flash a light to alert her if necessary.
As Tuuri sat in the doorway, swinging her feet, and the men sorted laundry, Reynir stopped, twisted his braid around his left arm several times, and announced, “I've decided. It's … it's best for my family if they think I'm dead. They'll worry otherwise …” His gaze darted from Tuuri to Mikkel and back again. “I don't want you to radio.”
Mikkel nodded. “It's your decision, but I agree. It's best for them.”
Tuuri could think of nothing to say to that, and settled for giving Reynir an encouraging smile. He ducked his head and went back to sorting clothes as Mikkel slipped the first shirt into the washtub.
“Is that why Trond lied?” Tuuri asked after a while. “So our families wouldn't worry?”
“No.” Mikkel scrutinized the dripping sleeve of a shirt and dropped it back in the washtub. “No, there must be some other reason. Trond is … he isn't cruel for cruelty's sake, but he isn't kind unless it serves his goal. And sparing your families worry would take an effort but wouldn't affect his goal.”
“What's his goal?” Reynir asked, taking a clothespin from his mouth to hang up another shirt.
“He wants to save the world.” A snort of laughter escaped before Tuuri could stop it, and Mikkel turned to give her a mild but level look. “I assure you, that is his goal, his only goal. Everything he does is to save humanity and reclaim the world from the Rash.”
Tuuri leaned forward. “Even your mission here?”
Mikkel gave her a sharp look before returning his attention to the shirt. “I did mention it, I suppose. Yes. It was a long shot, but it should have taken only three weeks, so he thought it should be tried.” He pulled the shirt from the water and twisted it with large, strong hands, wringing out the water.
Reynir stood waiting for something to hang up. “What was your mission?”
In the long silence that followed, Tuuri feared they'd gone too far. Mikkel's mysterious mission must be a sore point for him. In that last radio conversation, he'd said he failed at his mission, and then he'd run out into the night. Sigrun had brought him back that time, but if he ran away now, the two of them couldn't stop him.
“I was sent to recover a book,” Mikkel said at last. His knuckles were white with his grip on the shirt, and Tuuri wondered if he might twist it in two. “It was supposed to be the ‘key to defeating the Rash’. I don't know how a book could do that. Maybe it contained a cure that actually worked, or a vaccine — something that makes people immune to a disease — or a weapon against the grosslings. I don't know. But Trond thought it was worth investigating.” He held the shirt out to Reynir, who struggled to untwist it.
“But then … you didn't find it? You should have asked us to help —”
“I couldn't ask. It was against my orders.” Mikkel scrubbed a wet hand across his face. “And you couldn't have helped anyway.”
Tuuri caught Reynir's eye and touched a finger to her lips. If Mikkel was about to tell all, she didn't want any interruptions.
“I knew where the book was supposed to be. The building, the room, even the desk drawer.”
“How?” The question slipped out despite her intentions.
Mikkel picked up a pair of Lalli's trousers, and plunged it into the washtub. “There was a Dane trapped in Norway when the borders closed. He was infected. While he was in quarantine, he wrote his final notes.”
Tuuri nodded. She'd written her own final notes to Onni, Lalli, Reynir, and the rest of the team. When she miraculously survived, she'd burned the notes. Such things were too personal to keep around.
“He said his aunt in Copenhagen was a scholar. She had written a manuscript that for some reason she couldn't publish. There was only one copy. He'd seen it and knew where she kept it, but he hadn't read it. When the Rash came, when they realized it was the end of the world, she told him the book contained the key to defeating the disease. He wrote out everything he remembered about the book, and then he died.”
Mikkel straightened, looking off into the forest. “Trond's people found the notes a couple of years ago in the remains of the quarantine facility. It seemed like the ravings of a sick man. But Trond thought it was worth a few weeks' effort to get the book and examine it, even if it might be useless. As long as the Nordic Council paid for the expedition, why not?
“Anyway, I knew where the book was. Except it wasn't there. I searched …” He yanked the trousers out of the washtub, splattering water on himself. “I searched everywhere. It wasn't there. It isn't there. You couldn't have helped me.” He wrung out the trousers.
The chuckle of the river and the sigh of wind in the trees were loud in the silence after his words. Tuuri leaned back to look at the overhead light, hoping Rosli might have something to add. There was no reason Rosli would have known this scholar or what happened to her, but maybe …
The light didn't flash.
Something had torn apart his snare. As Lalli recovered the pieces, he studied the shreds of rabbit fur and the pawprints that surrounded him. A whiff of wet dog. At least he hadn't fed a real animal to a grossling. Stuffing the snare in his pocket, Lalli set out at a scout's ground-eating trot.
He'd meant to catch a rabbit as a surprise for Tuuri: something other than venison for a change. But they'd camped on that broken bridge, not where he'd told them, and a wild dog had taken it instead. If they won't camp where I tell them, he fumed as he ran, I won't set any more snares. If they want to camp on broken bridges, Tuuri should have told me. I didn't make a mistake. She just didn't tell me.
And they didn't even need a scout. “We need to go south,” Tuuri had said. This road went south. There were occasional cars rusting away on or beside the road, few washouts, and so far, no fallen trees across the road. He might as well have slept while the tank rumbled along.
The kilometers rolled by under his quiet footsteps. In the east, the waning third-quarter moon rose, casting silver light and long shadows across the landscape. A light breeze brought scents of wet soil and fallen leaves from the forest and a hint of salt from the sea to the west. Small animals scuttled through the leaf litter, and an owl hooted at him as he passed.
Unnatural silence off to his right. Lalli stopped a moment, listening. Real animals rustled about between him and the silence, uninterrupted. The grossling at the heart of the silence couldn't move, then. Lalli trotted down the road, which now curved to the right.
As the road curved back to the left, Lalli came to a halt. A tangled mass of wrecked cars blocked the way, stretching for dozens of meters and spilling off the road into the ditches and the forest on either side.
Lalli considered the mass. Could they pass? They'd gotten the tank through much longer traffic jams on the great bridges, but the salt air had reduced those cars to pieces the team could shift. These, though, were largely intact and jammed together into an interlocking puzzle. Even the big Dane couldn't pull apart the sturdy metal frames.
No, the tank could never get through. Lalli turned back, already reviewing the crossroads he'd passed through.
The sounds from the east changed. Owls fell silent, and small animals raced aside. Even as Lalli turned to peer into the dense, leafless forest, a branch cracked. Not on the ground, but above his head level.
He could run. Even a giant would struggle to catch him. But that would leave this monster on the loose, perhaps lurking close enough to notice the tank as it passed. He could shoot it; he bore his grandmother's rifle as always, and a pistol was holstered on his hip. But that noise could stir up even more grosslings.
Lalli whirled and ran for the pileup. A quick survey of the wreckage — rusty roofs and twisted beams, but some parts sturdy enough to take his weight — and he clambered up and across. More branches cracked, faster, closer, as he found a stable perch near the center of the pileup.
The troll, almost big enough to be a giant, broke through the bare branches of bushes and trees by the road. Its stocky body was perhaps three meters long, with six multi-jointed legs ending in broad human feet and a near-human head drawn out into a fanged muzzle that drooled and snapped as the monster spotted Lalli.
The creature broke into a lumbering run, charging into the wrecked and corroded mass. While it flailed forward, squealing as supports broke and caught at its limbs, Lalli watched, intent, waiting.
The troll's forelimbs plunged through a rusted roof; it toppled forward, slamming its face into the window frame before it. In that moment, Lalli jumped, landed on its broad back, spun about, and plunged his dagger into its vulnerable spine. As the monster went limp, he leapt to his stable perch and retraced his path to the road.
Before he set out once more to find an alternate route, he gave the troll a final contemptuous look. It had never stood a chance against him, because Lalli was the best.
He broke into a trot once more, backtracking to the north. He would find another road going south.
Lalli always found a way.
Lalli stopped to carve a handspan of bark from a tree, revealing the white inner wood against the dark bark. He trotted along, halfway back, thinking with satisfaction of the route he’d found. It ran almost due south, with a broken bridge for a campsite at the end. That should make Tuuri happy.
Faint and far away, a sound that didn't belong. He stopped, silent and motionless, listening. There it was again. The flat crack of a rifle.
Lalli broke into a run. He was still some eight kilometers from the tank.
As his pounding feet carried him kilometer after kilometer, rifle fire came more rapidly, joined now by the boom of a shotgun. He pushed himself harder, chest heaving with effort, and rounded the last curve to see the battle underway.
Stenches of grossling slime, blood, gunpowder. Heaps of deformed bodies in the moonlight, small groups farther from the bridge, and large groups closer until the abutment was covered with them. The survivors climbed over the corpses, slipping and scrabbling but moving towards the tank. Four humans standing on the tank, Tuuri's small figure among them.
Lalli slammed to a halt, rifle already in hand, and fired. Skills drilled into him since he could hold a rifle guided his aim as he shot troll after troll, deadly accurate even as he panted from his run. His gunfire from the side confused the trolls. Half a dozen turned towards him, but they managed only a few steps before falling to his shots.
At length, it was over. Nothing moved before the tank, and no troll lay within three meters of it. Lalli turned in place, listening as the normal forest sounds returned. No silent places, no cracking branches. Perhaps more grosslings were coming, attracted by the gunfire, but they were not close.
After a long moment, the four humans climbed down from the tank, the bigger people staying between Tuuri and the corpses. Lalli watched them, rifle ready, alert for even a twitch from the trolls. But nothing moved as Mikkel pulled open the door and waved the others in. He followed, but waited in the doorway, beckoning to Lalli.
Lalli leapt over twisted, sprawled limbs, ran up the bridge, and scrambled into the tank, leaving the big Dane to close the door behind him. The smells within hit him: gunpowder, excitement, a trace of fear. But no grossling slime, not here. And no blood.
Everyone was on their feet, Tuuri and Reynir in their masks. Ignoring the others and their chatter, Lalli rushed to Tuuri. His nostrils flared. She smelled of gunpowder, excitement, and fear.
“You were out there! You —”
“They needed another rifle.” Her voice was defensive and yet proud.
He took a deep breath through his nose. “You’re not hurt?” He was sure — almost sure — if only there weren’t so many people, so many old smells of food and soap and smoke.
“Don't you worry about me too. I've already got Mikkel fussing over me, even though Sigrun and I both told him I wasn't touched.”
As Sigrun said something and Tuuri turned to her, Lalli looked around. He knew the scent of pain; no one here was suffering. The battle had gone well even before he arrived.
Having nothing to say, annoyed at all the voices and movement, he stripped off his uniform, tossed it in the decontamination cabinet, and retreated to his bed under Mikkel’s bunk. With two bedrolls from the outpost added to his blankets, it was warm and cozy. He burrowed into his bedding, wrapping himself up except for his face.
At length, the team quieted down, stowed their uniforms, and went to bed. All but Mikkel, who remained on watch.
As a scout, Lalli could sleep deeply yet awaken instantly at an unexpected sound. Now, he came awake at the sound of heavy, stealthy footsteps and opened his eyes to peer out into the dim light of the monitors.
Mikkel had left his post and was rummaging in the decontamination cabinet. After a few moments, he pulled out a uniform and boots, closed the cabinet, and quietly returned to his post. As he set the boots and uniform jacket on the floor by his chair, Lalli recognized them as Tuuri’s. Fascinated, he watched as Mikkel held the cuff of one trouser-leg in the glow of the monitors, scrutinizing and running his fingers across it. He continued to study the trousers, all the way down the first leg, then the second.
That done, Mikkel folded the trousers and picked up a boot. As he examined the boot with eyes and fingers, Lalli allowed himself to fall asleep. His last thought as sleep took him was, He worries about Tuuri. He’s a good man.
“Will you teach me to shoot a rifle like Tuuri?”
Reynir was driving, with Mikkel in the passenger seat beside him. Everyone else was sleeping after the long night and the battle. Mikkel gazed ahead as the tank rumbled along the frost-heaved road, bare branches scraping as Reynir steered to the side to dodge the worst damage.
Put another non-immune in danger. A tentacle reaching up, wrapping around Tuuri’s ankle, unnoticed … Stop that! You know she wasn’t touched. She wasn’t infected. Stop obsessing —
“I–I know you don’t want us to fight, but if there’s another big swarm —”
“I don’t want you to fight, but that isn’t the problem. The sponsors kitted us out on a shoestring, so we have no spare rifles. And only one shotgun, which is mine.”
“Okay.” Reynir’s shoulders slumped. “I just want to … to help. Somehow.”
“You’re driving right now so Tuuri can sleep. That’s helping.”
But he’s defenseless. If a grossling gets past us, it doesn’t matter if he fights back or not; he’s doomed. He needs a weapon now that we’re stuck here with no safety anywhere for him. Maybe I should give him my pistol.
Mikkel’s hand dropped to his belt where his dagger had been before he gave it to Sigrun. If he gave Reynir his pistol … Mikkel straightened up.
“What is it?” Reynir slowed the tank and scanned around. “Did you see something?”
“Keep going before everybody wakes up and gets worried. No, I just remembered we have a spare pistol. Sigrun found it and cleaned it up. She said it’s in good shape. We can teach you to use that. If things get dire, you can join the fight.”
“Thank you!” Reynir pushed the tank to its best speed, then slowed as it jolted over the rough remains of the pavement. After a long silence in which Mikkel’s eyelids drooped, Reynir added, “Maybe Lalli could find a rifle for me. He’s found other things, right?”
Mikkel came awake. “Um. A rifle. Perhaps. I’ll ask Tuuri to ask him. Though I mean to propose a change of protocol, and he won’t like it.”
“He won’t like it,” Tuuri said in the early afternoon, after they’d made camp on the broken bridge Lalli had found.
Sigrun gave Mikkel a grin before answering. “Probably not, but the big guy’s right.”
“He’s always been a night scout. Always. Making him into a day scout is, is an insult. And anyway, you guys didn’t say anything before.”
“That was when we had work to do during the day,” Mikkel said, “so it made sense for him to scout by night.” He waved towards the windshield. “Now, we’re just driving by day.”
“We have to hunt and gather fuel,” Sigrun said. “But we don’t need all afternoon for that.” She gestured to Mikkel to continue.
“We only travel half as far as Lalli runs during the night. Less even. And the nights are getting shorter, so that’ll just get worse. If he runs a kilometer or two ahead of us by day, he can still find obstructions and detours, but we can travel much farther every day.”
“There’s no hurry —” Tuuri began.
“Also, look at what happened last night,” Mikkel interrupted.
Sigrun folded her arms. “We won, but you had to risk the Rash to join the fight. Next time … who knows? We need your cousin here with us when the next attack comes.”
“As it will,” Mikkel said.
Tuuri nodded, frowning. “I’ll ask him. But he won’t like it.”
Lalli didn’t like it. When Tuuri sat on the floor and talked to him in his den under Mikkel’s bunk, he turned his back and pulled the covers over his head. She sighed and got to her feet with a shrug at Sigrun and Mikkel. “I guess we’ll find out tonight.”
“Giant! Giant!”
Snapping awake at Lalli’s shout, Mikkel rolled out of his bunk the moment Sigrun dropped from her bunk above him. Lalli ran forward, still shouting, pulled on his boots, and grabbed his rifle with Sigrun and Mikkel behind him.
“Coming from the northwest,” Emil reported from his position by the monitors, picking up his rifle that had leaned on the wall beside him. “About a hundred meters and moving this way.” Mikkel gave him a nod while donning his own boots and slinging his rifle. The younger man already wore his uniform with his hood pulled up to hide his burned-off hair. Tuuri, with her mask on and her rifle slung, pushed past the rest on her way to the front. Farther back in the compartment, Reynir held the kitten, which was now bushed out but not raising the alarm.
“Okay,” Sigrun said. “Emil and Lalli with me. Mikkel, you’ll get the door. Tuuri, blind it when I yell. Ready?”
With Emil, Lalli, and Mikkel in their places, Sigrun pointed at the door. Mikkel flung it open, and the other three leapt out, rifles leveled. Shotgun in hand, Mikkel took his place behind them. Branches cracked in the distance. Overhead, a faint creak as the big triangular lights turned towards the sound. An owl hooted deep in the forest. The wind whispered through leafless branches.
The team held its position, silent and ready, until something moved in the dim light of the waning moon.
“Hold,” Sigrun murmured.
First one deer, then half a dozen, broke from the underbrush to the west, bounded across the road, and vanished into the forest.
More branches cracked, closer. The shotgun was cold in Mikkel’s hands.
The giant lunged through the underbrush and into the road. Its long body extended back into the trees, and its head was a round blob, features indistinct in the moonlight.
“Blind!” Sigrun shouted, and the overhead lights came on.
The harsh light showed a brown, segmented body a dozen meters long, streaked and spotted with dark green. Squealing with a broad, fanged maw, the monster brought two thin limbs across lidless eyes as wide as Mikkel’s palm. A pair of thin limbs supported each segment of its body, driving it forward.
“Fire!”
Three rifle-shots together. Mikkel raised his shotgun but didn’t fire. The range was still too long for him.
Still the giant lumbered forward, its ruined eyes weeping blood and its forelimbs stretching towards them.
“Two shots!” Sigrun ordered. She and Emil fired twice, Lalli a beat behind each time.
The giant staggered, limbs on its right side flailed, and it toppled over, left limbs waving in the air.
“Giant!” Lalli fired, and the other two joined him.
Its head ruined, the giant thrashed a moment longer, and a few last shudders ran through it before it went limp. Lalli said something in Finnish, and Tuuri, appearing by Mikkel’s shoulder, said, “Dead.”
“Dead,” Lalli echoed, slinging his rifle and climbing into the tank as Mikkel and Lalli gave way. Sigrun and Emil followed.
While Lalli stowed his rifle and boots, Sigrun gave the team a broad smile. “Clean kill, nice and smooth. You all did your parts just right.” As Lalli darted across the compartment and rolled into his den, she rolled her eyes at Mikkel before adding, “Short stuff, tell your cousin he did good. Learning to talk, too. This is going great.” She stowed her own gear. “There’ll be more grosslings after a while. So let’s get some sleep while we can. Blondy, it’s still your watch.”
Mikkel donned his uniform as the others went to their bunks. “Emil, my watch is in half an hour, so it’s not worth it for me to try to sleep. I’ll take over if you like.”
“No,” Emil said, scowling, arms crossed.
“Very well.” Mikkel started forward.
“I didn’t neglect my duties.”
Mikkel stopped. “Of course you didn’t.”
“Lalli started yelling before the giant showed on the monitors.”
“He has that ability.”
Emil glared at him. “So you don’t need to take over for me!”
“Of course I don’t. I’m going forward until my watch.” Mikkel edged between Emil and the monitors. Just as his hand touched the door to the driving compartment, Emil spoke again.
“Wait.”
Mikkel remained still and silent. Since he’d admitted to Trond’s orders, Emil had avoided him, so if Emil wanted to talk, he didn’t want to do or say anything to discourage him.
“You’re a skeptic, aren’t you?”
At that surprising question, Mikkel thought it safe to face the other man. “Yes.”
“Then — then — Look, I don’t know what to think. Lalli’s ability is magic … I mean, his ability, the ghosts, the fire spirit: it’s all magic. But magic isn't real. I've always believed it isn't real … only it is real.” His right hand rose to stroke his hood. “I’ve felt it. And I don’t know … If magic is real, are all the gods real? Are all the superstitions true?”
“I don't believe in gods, and I certainly don't believe that all the superstitions can be true.” Mikkel set his back against the door. “We’re skeptics, you and I. That means we require evidence, but we also accept evidence. And we have evidence of ghosts and fire spirits.”
“But magic —”
“You’re thinking magic is something unknowable, beyond understanding, aren’t you? I don’t accept that. We’re seeing something new that we don’t understand now, but we can work on understanding it.”
“Okay, then what’s the fire spirit? I asked Tuuri, and she said it’s a fylgja. So it’s a companion spirit, but what’s a spirit? A ghost?”
“No, I don’t believe it’s a ghost. I’ve given that a lot of thought.” Mikkel gestured at the monitors, and Emil started, returning his gaze to them. “Remember when you and I and Sigrun fought the ghosts in Rosli’s tank? I’ve been back there twice since. I’ve seen her haven, the forest around her tank. You’ve heard about Reynir’s haven and all that he and Onni and Rosli did for Tuuri. Right? So, the fylgjas were there in all those cases. Reynir’s dog, Rosli’s crow, Onni’s owl. Well, Onni’s owl is a luonto, but still. Anyway, I think the havens are in … let’s call it another realm. And the fylgjas live in that realm, like we and other animals live here.”
Emil stroked his hood. “The fire spirit was here.”
“Apparently fylgjas can come here, just as we can go there. The visits seem brief in either case.”
“I guess that makes sense …”
“Think of it this way. We’re like fish in the sea. Some of us have poked our noses out and discovered the sky and birds. And some birds dive into the sea, where we can see them. They’re strange, but we can learn to understand them.”
Emil frowned. “Birds dive into the sea to eat fish.”
“I suppose the analogy breaks down there.”
Emil gestured at the monitors. “Some things are moving in.”
Mikkel squinted at the images. “They’re not very big. Vermin beasts, I’d say.” He glanced at the sleepers just as Lalli emerged from his den.
“Safe,” Lalli said in his heavy accent and returned to his blankets.
Emil grinned at Mikkel for the first time in days. “I guess that settles it. We don’t need to wake everybody.”
“It may be advantageous to have him here every night.”
Together, they watched the vermin beasts scavenge the giant until Emil’s watch ended and he went to bed. Once he was gone, Mikkel moved into his place to watch for grossling activity.
We’ve been attacked twice in two nights. Coincidence? Is it just the warming weather? Or are we doing something that attracts them? We need to move faster to find that castle to shelter in. At least it looks like Lalli’s going to cooperate.
As he stood watch for the rest of the night, Mikkel couldn’t shake the thought of birds diving into the sea to eat fish.
“A big ditch.”
Emil had to agree with Sigrun’s opinion. When Mikkel told them they would have to cross the Kiel Canal, which ran from one sea to the other, Emil had pictured an arm of the sea across the land. He’d imagined blue water, white-capped waves, and seagulls calling, not this expanse of murky, stagnant water more than a hundred meters across and extending from horizon to horizon, topped with brown algae, broken branches, and rotting leaves. Whenever the fitful north breeze died, the stench of rotten eggs, moldy hay, and a hint of sewage wafted to him as he stood on the broken bridge some forty meters above.
He picked his way over tilted asphalt, scattered chunks of rubble, tough dried weeds, and thin vines that had crawled up from the foul water. His small weight, added to the many tons of concrete and asphalt, wouldn’t break off more of the bridge, but it would be easy to trip, and the canal waited far below. The wind whispered through leafless branches of stunted bushes as he approached the ragged edge.
Here rebar jutted from broken concrete, deeply rusted and bent crazily in all directions. The break was old, as he had expected since there were no cars decaying on the bridge, just the pavement stretching far to the north and to the south on the other side of the canal. Emil admired the workmanship of the break. Only the part of the bridge that had spanned the canal lay shattered in the water below, leaving the deck and supporting piers almost undamaged.
Retreating from the edge, Emil stopped to shade his eyes and squint at the high bridge to the west. The span over the canal lay in a tangled heap below the bridge. While he couldn’t see the damaged beams from some three kilometers away, the towers standing proudly on either side told their own story.
He turned to the others. “Hey, can I have the binoculars?”
“In a minute,” Tuuri said, not lowering the team’s only pair of binoculars as she scanned the far bank. Lalli and Sigrun stood guard close by. Not that there was any danger, since grosslings would have to approach up the road, passing the tank parked several hundred meters north. Mikkel and Reynir had remained with the tank, keeping watch, and Emil suspected Lalli and Sigrun just wanted to get out in the fresh air.
As the shadow of a cloud swept over them, the air turned colder. Emil rubbed his arms and bounced on his toes as he waited for the binoculars. When Sigrun caught his eye and grinned at him, he grinned back and pretended he was enjoying the outing, despite a renewed assault on his nostrils from the canal.
At last, Tuuri slipped the strap of the binoculars from her neck to his, and he focused on the distant bridge. As he had expected, rusty beams on the remaining spans bent away from the long-ago blasts, and he wished he could have seen those magnificent explosions.
“Both blown up,” he reported. “They did a good job.”
Sigrun and Tuuri nodded; Lalli did not, for his attention was focused on the skyline of the city a couple of kilometers to the west. Unnerved, Emil scanned the distant ruins where nothing moved. When he turned back, Sigrun shrugged. “Let’s go, then,” she said. “Nothing more to see here.”
As they walked back to the tank, left several hundred meters back since Tuuri couldn’t examine the underside of the bridge because of the swampy ground, Sigrun looked over at Tuuri. “Well?”
“If we have to,” Tuuri said.
“We’ll have to,” Mikkel said after they explained their observations, “if we want to go south.”
Sigrun sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I think, too. But I was hoping you had a better idea.”
Mikkel ran a thick finger along the track of the canal on the map laid out before them. “One bridge might be sabotage. But two, and the canal closed off at both ends … this has to be the work of the government cutting off contact to stop the contagion. They’ll have broken all the bridges. No point trying the others.”
“So now, which way do we go? Back to the north, or on to the south?”
Emil looked up in surprise, expecting the captain to make the decision alone. As she returned his gaze without hinting at her opinion, Tuuri said, “Can’t we just stay here? We’re defended on three sides, and we have long sight lines to the north.”
It was the sort of analysis a soldier would make, and Emil wished he’d suggested it.
“We’ll have to move for supplies,” Mikkel said. “Water, fuel, hunting. We can use this as a base, though.”
“Nah,” Sigrun said. “I mean, it’s a good spot and we can stay for a while, but I don’t like being this close to that city. Not with the grosslings getting active like they are.” They’d suffered two small swarm attacks in the week since the giant attacked. “We could use a little time off, though. How long can we stay for now?”
“We’ve got food, and there’s water for a couple of days, if we don’t do the laundry or bathe.”
“If we’re just hanging out, we won’t get dirty,” Sigrun said, rolling her eyes at Emil.
“I can set explosives down the bridge,” Emil offered, “in case a swarm comes up after us.”
Sigrun reached across the table to thump him on the shoulder. “Good man. So, we’ll stay here a couple of days, rest up, and then … what do you guys think? North or south?”
In the ensuing silence, Emil stroked his hood, the rasping sound loud in his ears. “Are there mountains in the south?”
“Yes,” Mikkel said. “Many mountains, but they’re a long way south. It’ll take us months to reach them.”
Months. Somehow I keep forgetting that I’m here, in this tank, with these five people, for the rest of my life. Months, years, my whole life. For a moment, as his reality hit him again, Emil wanted to scream, to run away, to bury his head under the covers, but instead he said, “I want to go south. To the mountains.”
“We’re exploring the Silent World,” Tuuri said, “and we’ve seen Denmark. I vote we go south. No one knows what’s down there.”
Mikkel nodded. “You ask Lalli; I’ll ask Reynir.”
The two translators left Emil and Sigrun facing each other across the table. She dropped her gaze to the map and murmured, “I’d like to see the mountains too.”
That’s three. I don’t think Lalli or Reynir will argue with Tuuri. Emil glanced at Reynir, who stood watching the monitors with his back to them, and felt a pang of jealousy, quickly squelched. Tuuri and Reynir seemed to be an item, and he was left out in the cold. Forever, maybe.
So it’s only Mikkel, and he’s argued for going south all along. He took a deep breath, thinking of the canal and the mysteries beyond. It was no surprise to anyone that Tuuri and Mikkel reported that the other two would go south, and that Mikkel voted for south as well.
Sigrun gave everyone the afternoon off. Lalli went to sleep, Sigrun climbed on the tank to survey their surroundings with the binoculars, and Tuuri, Reynir, and Mikkel wandered along the bridge to enjoy the day. Emil, meanwhile, lay with his back against the tank, watching birds soaring over the trees and squirrels running their little errands in leafless trees.
Maybe Mikkel’s right, and there are still lost villages in the south. But he has to be right! Out of all the world, we can’t be the only survivors. And after so long, they’ll all be immune, so Tuuri could stay there. If we find a lost village down there — maybe even a lost city! — we can go home and be famous. Trond couldn’t touch us then. And there might even be a girl for me …
Emil lost himself in daydreams until Mikkel called everyone to supper.
Boom!
“Troll!” — Lalli’s heavy accent.
“Swarm!” — Tuuri’s high voice.
Emil and Sigrun rolled out of their bunks at the same time, followed closely by Mikkel. Still shouting his warning, Lalli pulled on his uniform and snatched up his rifle. Tuuri was already in uniform with her rifle slung over her shoulder as she stood watch. In under a minute, the immunes were in uniform and armed, rushing out the door with Tuuri as Reynir took over the watch.
With the moon a thread-thin crescent low in the eastern sky, they felt their way to the back of the tank and climbed up one by one, kneeling to squint at the distant flames. Another explosion drowned out the shrieks and howls of the trolls for a moment.
“Did your bombs break the bridge?” Tuuri asked. “We’ve got to —”
“Of course not! I know better than that. Our explosives are marked ‘front’ and ‘back’ for a reason.”
“Well, how was I to know? You don’t let us look at —”
“Quiet, both of you,” Sigrun ordered.
They waited in silence as the flames burned down and the cries died away. At length, Reynir said over the external speakers, “All clear,” and Lalli led the way down and into the tank.
With everyone inside, Sigrun beckoned Emil to her. “Well done, kiddo. But we’d better put some more explosives out for the next batch. Fetch some, and we’ll go together.”
Emil didn’t want to admit to any weakness, and yet … “I’ll need my flashlight. The trolls might see me.”
“Eh, I need a flashlight too. But we’ll be ready for the trolls. Get your stuff.” She turned to Tuuri. “Tell the scout he’s going with us to put out explosives. He’ll watch for grosslings. Got it?”
Soon, as they trotted down the road with Lalli in the lead, Sigrun said in a low, cautious voice, “How many of those explosives have you got?”
“A crate full. I didn’t count. A couple of hundred, I think.”
“Good.”
After several minutes of silence, he ventured, “Are you worried we’ll run out? Because I can make more.”
She stumbled as she turned to him. “You can?”
“I can make gunpowder if Lalli can find me the materials. They’re not that hard to find. And, uh, the Cleansers taught us to make improvised explosives and incendiaries.” For once, he could be a good Cleanser and not a junior troll-hunter.
Sigrun thumped him on the shoulder. “Good man! That helps a lot. Not that I was worried, of course. We’ve got a whole crate of ammo and your stuff. We’ll be fine.”
As they reached his traps, Sigrun switched off her flashlight to avoid attracting attention, while he traced wires with a single light that shone between his fingers covering his own flashlight. Finding the explosives that had been detonated, he switched off his flashlight, and his hands worked with quiet expertise in the darkness. On either side of him were the darker shadows that were Lalli and Sigrun.
Emil was already considering what he needed to produce gunpowder. Homemade explosives would be dangerous on this bridge, but if they found a castle, he could protect the whole team forever with his skills as a Cleanser. He hugged that thought to himself as they trotted back to the tank, until the memory of his cousins far off in Mora poured cold water on that daydream.
Far off in Mora, Sweden, 11-year-old Anna Västerström lay wakeful in her chilly, darkened bedroom, thinking of her cousin, Emil.
Emil is alive, even if he’s stuck in the Silent World. He has to be alive. Dad convinced him to go on this expedition. Dad lied to him to get him to go. So if Emil isn’t alive, then Dad killed him. No. He has to be alive.
General Trond Anderson had reported that Emil’s whole team was dead. But Trond lied. She knew this, because Onni Hotakainen hadn’t grieved for his sister and cousin. He was a noita and would know if they were dead. So Trond lied, and Emil was alive. That’s what she’d told her brothers three days before.
Anna stared into the darkness. Trond lied, and they weren’t all dead.
But …
If only Onni hadn’t gone off to Iceland. He’d hinted that he could talk to Reynir, far away in Silent Denmark. Had he talked to Reynir about Emil? Could he have, if she’d asked him to?
Of course Emil is alive. He's alive, and he's coming back to us. And the good times will come back with him.
Anna closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
The tank lurched, tilted to the left, and dropped back level. Ahead, Lalli waved, and Tuuri steered to the right as he pointed.
Slither. Thump
Emil, who had been standing behind the passenger seat, darted into the small radio compartment and soon returned. Sigrun frowned. Something had not been properly secured. Since she and Mikkel had traded places, she had to lean forward to look past him at Tuuri, who had been responsible for stowing everything in that compartment. Tuuri's face, set and intent as she drove through this young forest in the shadow of the elevated roadway, discouraged any comment.
They'd had a full day off and a peaceful night. Yet, something, a troll-hunter's sense, a feeling of menace, had drawn her gaze again and again to the city two kilometers away. The scout had felt it too. He had spent hours sitting on the tank with his rifle across his knees, watching the city.
No, it wasn't safe to stay on that bridge, so now they planned to cross the canal into the mysteries of the south.
Should I have argued for going north? Find another broken bridge up north, somewhere far from any city. Camp there until the grosslings quiet down in the summertime. Maybe go south later.
Sigrun pushed away the unworthy thought that if they stayed to the north, and if Tuuri died, then the rest of them could find a way back into the Known World. It was vast, and Trond’s forces couldn’t be everywhere.
She couldn't order the team to go north, for the expedition had ended when they refused rescue. She now commanded only because they valued her expertise as a troll hunter captain. If she gave an order that they strongly disagreed with, she would lose that authority at once. And so, though it went against her nature, she had put the choice up to a vote.
Mikkel had been clear that he wanted to go south. When both Tuuri and Emil chose to go south as well, she had joined them, knowing that Lalli and Reynir would agree with Tuuri.
That troubled Sigrun. Tuuri had grown a second power center around herself. Not intentionally, but the situation had the potential to become dangerous in their small and isolated group. To avoid damaging conflict, Sigrun had to ensure unanimity on decisions as best she could.
The tank lurched again as the young forest around them gave way to reeds and willow bushes. Ahead was the waterway. Tuuri had said that the vehicle could not make it down the steep banks of the canal, and Rosli had agreed. However, the two had assured the team that it could get down the long, shallow banks of the waterway and even up again if they couldn’t get up the south bank of the canal.
Lalli waved them to a halt and ran for the door, mud splashing with every footstep. Spatter as he climbed in. Plop as he threw his boots into the disinfecting cabinet. Mikkel's shoulders shifted against Sigrun’s as he sighed, and she turned away to hide her smile.
Only Mikkel would worry about mud on the floor when we’re about to cross a canal in a tank. I can't laugh, though. He gets touchy about it, and this thing would be pretty foul by now if he didn't work so hard to keep it clean.
She grimaced as she remembered a hunting camp in Sweden where she and a dozen others had stayed for a month. By the end of that month, the floor of the bunkhouse had been filthy, and the bunks themselves had stunk of sweat and gunpowder. Mikkel would never tolerate such conditions.
Lalli joined the group in front, pushing Reynir to crowd in beside Emil so that he could stand behind Tuuri. As he murmured to Tuuri, the tank ground down a shallow slope into the swampy waterway.
We’re crossing the Rubicon.
She’d learned that expression from older people of the clan. The Rubicon is the river that runs between the land of the living and the land of the dead, and once you cross, you can never return.
It’s not like that. If we make it to the south, we can still get back. Build a raft, maybe find a boat. But not the tank. We’d have to leave it behind. It, and Rosli.
She patted the dashboard as if to apologize to Rosli for her thoughts.
The swampy waterway was shallower than the canal and covered with water lilies, now brown and winter-killed. In a month or two, it might be quite pretty. For now, the tank tilted down as it reached the bank. As the blunt front plunged into the water, it sent a bow wave before it, and the water lilies rippled as if something swam beneath them.
Sigrun shuddered at the thought. Anything might be under that murky water. But, of course, Lalli would warn them if there were any grosslings in the waterway or the canal. Besides that worry, she had to wonder if the vehicle would really float. Tuuri had said it would, and Rosli had agreed, but neither of them could know for sure.
They plowed forward, and then, with a splash, the front came up and the tank bobbed, an unexpected, disquieting, nauseating sensation. Behind Tuuri, Lalli gulped audibly and fled into the main compartment. There was a scraping as he opened the window and a crash as he flung open the protective metal shutter, followed by the unmistakable sound of him being sick into the water below.
The stench of the stagnant water rushed in through the open window, and Sigrun herself held back a gag. She pulled her shirt up over her nose, and beside her, Mikkel did the same.
“Tuuri,” Mikkel said, his voice muffled by his shirt and his hand, “did Lalli take his herbs?”
Sigrun would have sympathized if the scout hadn’t taken the smelly little packet of dried herbs Mikkel had offered; she would have hesitated to take it herself. Tuuri called a question in Finnish, Lalli’s angry answer filtered back through the window, and Tuuri said, “He did, but they’re not working.”
Mikkel lowered his hand and muttered, “I can’t give him any more. They’ll make him sick if he takes too much.” After a moment, he shrugged. “He won’t die of seasickness, and this will soon be over.”
“Soon” seemed a long time.
Somewhat to Sigrun’s surprise, the tank’s tracks propelled it forward in the water. Tuuri guided it to the center of the waterway and turned left. They inched past a low, willow-choked island, and as they came around the east end, the canal itself appeared before them. From water level, it looked far wider than it had from high overhead on the road.
On a good road, the tank’s top speed was faster than even Lalli could run. In the water, though …
I could swim across faster than this. I could tow the thing. Well, Blondy can swim; he could help me. And I’m sure the little scout can swim too. Three ropes, and three of us swimming …
Imagining towing the tank distracted Sigrun for a time as they made their slow way across the canal. But every time she thought her nose was getting numb to the stench, they hit another patch of foulness: sulfurous fumes, decaying flesh, once even grossling stench as the tracks nudged a drowned body.
Even the worst journey eventually comes to its end, and so at last they reached an eroded section of the south bank, shallower than the rest. Mikkel and Sigrun stood, pressing against the dashboard, with Emil, Reynir, and Lalli crowding behind them. The front of the tank was heavier than the back, but the more weight they could add to it, the more traction it would have.
Tuuri looked over at the team, nodded once, and turned back. The motor groaned as she drove forward through the water and against the bank. Everyone staggered but kept their places as the tank tipped backwards and heaved itself up. Mud and broken branches sprayed around it.
The tank veered to the right as the left track found traction by crushing a willow sapling. As Tuuri fought the controls, it straightened and moved upwards again. The edge of the bank appeared just meters before them … and they slid backwards again. The team swore in their various languages and the motor’s groan turned to a whine as Tuuri drove it harder. Up and up … the front of the tank was in the air now while the tracks behind tore up the bank. A strange metallic smell joined the various stenches they endured, and several red lights flashed among the sensors.
At last, the tank slammed down, leveled out, and rumbled forward several meters before Tuuri could stop it. “Made it!” she said, and slumped in her seat with trembling hands over her face.
Pushing Reynir out of his way, Lalli pulled on his boots, grabbed his rifle, and ran out the door. Even as the others retreated to the more open area of the main compartment, Mikkel pointed at one flashing light. “Rosli says ‘burned out’,” he translated.
“What?” Tuuri looked down at the light. “Can you fix it?” After a series of flashes too fast for Sigrun to interpret, she said, “Then can I fix it? Okay.” She got to her feet and headed to the radio compartment for her toolkit.
“Blondy, big guy, with me,” Sigrun said. “We’ll guard her. Braidy, you know which are the speakers? Good. Then Rosli, you tell Braidy when it’s fixed, and he’ll tell us.
Toolkit under her arm, Tuuri rushed out with the immunes behind her. Sigrun pointed Emil to the west while she trotted to the east and Mikkel stayed beside Tuuri, raising the hood for her. Sigrun supposed Lalli would have stayed close if there were any grosslings around, but the high reeds and willow bushes gave ample cover, and grosslings could wallow in the mud for protection.
She looked back along their trail and the wide gullies where they had struggled up the bank. Water still dripped from the muddy back of the tank; she hoped Tuuri was right that the back compartment was water-tight. Surely Rosli would have signaled if they needed to drain it, though.
A rustle to the south brought Sigrun around, dagger ready, but it was only Lalli. Ignoring her, he climbed onto the tank and settled down to watch. She sighed.
It isn’t fair. The little forest mage can spot grosslings from a hundred meters away, and I can’t. Still, it’d be handy to have one with every hunting team so you could set up ambushes. I wonder how many mages like that there are in Finland.
She shook her head. It didn’t matter; she would never work with another hunting team or even another Finn.
“Fixed,” Reynir announced over the speakers. After a murmured conversation with Tuuri, Mikkel closed the hood, and everyone returned inside except for Lalli, who stood before the tank and pointed between the willow trees.
The elevated roadway was free of vehicles on this side, too, so they would camp on it. After a rough drive through a couple of hundred meters of forest, they bumped over a curb and onto the on-ramp. Though it was blocked by a decaying car, still identifiable as a police car with its overhead lights, they were experienced in dealing with such obstacles. They didn’t need the plow to clear it; Mikkel and Reynir shifted the engine block while Lalli stood guard and Sigrun and Emil moved the smaller debris. Soon they rolled up the ramp and out onto the roadway.
The sun was low in the sky when Tuuri turned the tank to face south and parked it. Eager to set his traps, Emil ran to the back (which was indeed water-tight) to grab his gear and race down the road a couple of hundred meters. The others, even Tuuri and Reynir, followed at a slower pace.
“This clump of bushes is your marker,” Sigrun said, as they passed a clump some one hundred fifty meters from the tank. Emil and Tuuri nodded their understanding. “See those willows up ahead? Tell Braidy that’s his mark. When the swarm reaches them, he blinds them.”
As Tuuri translated for Reynir, whose Swedish still wasn’t up to military planning, Sigrun gazed out at the city to the west, a continuation of the city on the other side of the canal. That same feeling of menace hung over it, and she wished they could have moved on and found a better campsite. But stowing, lashing down, or bracing everything in the tank had taken all morning, and then crossing the canal had taken longer than she’d expected. This was the best campsite around, and after all, they’d done nothing to attract attention.
We did nothing to attract attention on the other side, either.
Sigrun shook off the thought, sent the others back, and went forward to guard Emil while he set his traps.
After supper, Sigrun sent everyone else to bed while she watched the monitors and considered their next moves. They were low on both water and food. Not on fuel, though, for Mikkel and Emil had packed in as much wood as possible to brace the crates.
Sigrun wrinkled her nose. Despite their efforts to air out the tank, it still stank, since the north wind had brought in more of the reek of the canal instead of clearing it. She was pretty sure their clothes and hair had picked up the stench too. In the morning, no one would argue about moving as far from the canal as they could.
It seemed inevitable that the swarm came a couple of hours after sunset. Perhaps everyone had expected it, because they rolled out of their bunks, yanked on their uniforms, and snatched up their weapons almost as soon as she raised the alarm.
During their rest day, she had sat down to hash out a standard plan for dealing with swarms. Tuuri had served as translator for Lalli and Reynir, and she’d insisted that she be included in the plan. Wasn’t she a better sniper than Emil? Not so good as Sigrun and Lalli, perhaps, but certainly better than Emil. And Mikkel … well, no one even mentioned Mikkel as a sniper.
So now, everyone but Reynir climbed onto the tank. Mikkel stood behind the others, who knelt on either side of the overhead spotlights, rifles ready as they stared into the darkness. Emil had given Mikkel a box of incendiaries just in case.
Crack!
Sigrun jerked at the sound. Lalli had fired into pitch darkness. Glancing at him in annoyance, she saw the mage-light playing around his eyes. The mage’s night vision was another unfair advantage; she had no doubt he’d hit his target.
“Ready,” Reynir said over the speakers, and Sigrun closed her eyes. The world went red beyond her eyelids, while trolls squealed and shrieked in the blinding light. She opened her eyes a slit and began firing, taking the fastest-moving trolls on the right. Lalli took those on the left. At this range — some three hundred meters — each shot brought down a troll.
The swarm came forward, a moving mass of mismatched limbs and slavering jaws. Rifle fire cracked again and again, but two gunmen could not stop the flood. Still, they’d killed the strays, so when the trolls reached Emil’s traps, they hit the incendiaries as a crowd. Flames roared up, leaping from troll to troll in the close-packed swarm.
Few things could deter a swarm; fire was one of those things. Trolls ran howling to the sides, several crashing through the rusted guardrails and toppling over to fall to the marshy ground below. Others fled backwards, tangling with those still untouched.
Sigrun squinted hard. What was that far back, almost invisible behind the swarm? A giant, she thought, black against black. When the rising flames picked out a long head with sideways mandibles, she raised her rifle. But the smoke and flames were fickle, and she lost sight of it. No matter; she would shoot it, or Lalli would, when it came closer.
But it never did, and she was too busy to worry about it.
The flames died down, and the surviving trolls moved forward once more. As the horde reached the clump of bushes Sigrun had chosen, Tuuri and Emil joined the shooting. At this range, their every shot killed a troll.
And still the swarm came on. Diminished, but still a deadly peril, the trolls were some sixty or seventy meters away when Mikkel made his move, rearing back and heaving an incendiary with all his prodigious strength. The incendiary was still in the air when flames burst forth and trolls clawed at each other in their desperate efforts to get out from under it. The fire landed among them, reaching out in all directions, and another incendiary was already on its way. And another. Few trolls escaped the inferno, and the gunmen picked off those stragglers with ease.
Ears ringing, nose numbed by the smell of gunpowder and the canal, Sigrun could hardly believe it was over. Nothing moved on the bridge but black smoke from the smoldering trolls. She waited in the sudden silence until Lalli said, “Dead,” slung his rifle over his shoulder, and climbed down the ladder. The other four followed him inside.
Reynir stayed by the monitors, out of the way, as Mikkel treated everyone else’s ears with the hearing remedy. As the ringing died away, Sigrun looked over her team with delight. “That was glorious, kids! Not a single wasted shot, and we wiped out the whole swarm!”
Tuuri shivered. “So many trolls, though.”
Sigrun paused to consider that point. “Yeah, must have been half the trolls in that city.”
“Let’s hope the other half don’t turn up,” Mikkel said grimly.
“I’d better replace the traps now.” For once, Emil sounded unenthusiastic about dealing with his Cleanser tools.
Tuuri said something to Lalli, who strode to the door and waited, arms folded, until Emil joined him. The two left together while Sigrun joined Reynir at the monitors. He gave her a half-nod, slipped past, and climbed into his bunk. She watched him go for a moment, then dismissed the puzzle. It was Mikkel’s watch, not Reynir’s, so there was no reason he shouldn’t get some sleep.
Though nothing moved but the men, Sigrun watched until they trotted back. With everyone safe inside, she yielded the watch to Mikkel.
“I don't understand this,” Emil said as he rolled into his bunk. “We just got here. How did they find us so fast?”
Tuuri, already half asleep, pulled the covers away from her ears. “It's like someone rang the dinner bell.”
Mikkel frowned, looking from her to Sigrun. “Yes,” he said, “it's exactly like that.”
“It's like someone rang the dinner bell.”
The words hung in the air after the others snuggled into their covers and fell silent. Mikkel leaned against the wall, studying the monitors. Though the IR sensors were almost useless because of the hot spots where trolls still smoldered, the radar was only slightly troubled by drifting smoke. Nothing else moved on the bridge.
“Rosli, have you had any ghost attacks?” Mikkel asked in a low voice so as not to disturb the sleepers. A green light under the monitors flashed in Morse code.
no
“Did you see anything drive the swarm against us?”
no
He tapped his fingers against the wall in thought. “And yet they swarmed just as we arrived, as if something prompted them. It could still be ghosts that you didn’t see. Maybe some that stayed out of the light, just like you. They could’ve learned from before, followed us, built up a bigger force for these attacks.” He frowned. “Reynir needs to ward the tank. He’s let that slide.”
Something moved across the bridge, and Mikkel squinted at the radar and the video feed. It was only an owl swooping down to peer at the scattered troll remains before flying away.
r drew
“What? While we were fighting?”
yes scared
“Reynir’s fear-driven magic. No wonder he didn’t know he was a mage before he came here.” In the darkness and silence, Mikkel allowed himself a small smile. “But perhaps our enemies’ attacks will backfire by making him stronger.” The smile became a frown. “A dangerous gamble, though. I did scare him once to get him to ward the tank before. I can try to do that again. Or maybe he can scare himself.”
maybe
A movement on the bridge caught Mikkel’s intense attention. “Look at that.” He glanced at the sleepers. “Could be the fastest of a swarm.” The creature stopped by one of the trolls that Sigrun had shot. “Probably just a scavenger. I don’t want to wake everyone …”
scout?
“Trolls don’t have — well, yes. Swarms don’t wait around for intruders, either.” He drummed his fingers on the wall for a moment, then padded over to kneel by his bunk. “Lalli,” he whispered.
At times, depending on obstacles, weather, and perhaps even Lalli’s tiredness, the radar detected creatures out of his range. It seemed this was one of those times, as the little scout rolled out of his den and followed Mikkel to the monitors.
Mikkel held up one finger and shrugged. “One?” He flashed all ten fingers several times and shrugged again. “Many?”
Lalli watched these actions without reaction, then pulled on his uniform, shouldered his rifle, took up his dagger, and slipped out the door so quickly and silently that the sleepers didn’t wake. Watching him trot surefooted in moonless darkness over frost-heaved pavement, dead grass, and small bushes, Mikkel sighed. Of course, the scout was a mage, not bound by normal limitations.
When Lalli was some fifty meters from the unknown creature, it bounded towards him, falling twice along the way. The two forms met. There was a flurry of action that Mikkel couldn’t follow on the monitors. Leaving the creature motionless behind him, Lalli trotted on, disappearing from the radar behind bushes as the bridge sloped downwards.
Lalli wouldn’t take on a swarm, and he can outrun any troll, but still … Mikkel tugged his sideburns, glancing at the sleepers. If he runs into trouble, we can’t reach him in time to help. Let them sleep. Nothing moved on the monitors. Strange to think, if he should die, Onni would know in Sweden, but we wouldn’t know until we found the body.
After several long minutes where Mikkel squinted at the radar, hoping for any glimpse of the scout, Lalli jogged back along the bridge and slipped into the tank. He held up one finger for Mikkel, though his expression was uneasy and mage-light played around his eyes. After a moment, he shrugged, stowed his uniform and weapons and returned to his den.
One troll, and he dealt with it. And yet, something’s bothering him. Should I wake Tuuri to ask him what’s going on? No, if there were real danger, he’d wake her up himself. I’ll just let it go. He can talk to her in the morning. With a mixture of relief and lingering concern, Mikkel focused on the monitors again, but it was not long before he looked down at the green light.
“I wish we could talk. I’ve — I don’t know how to reach you. There’s so much we could discuss, especially now, in Germany. Have you been to Germany?”
yes long ago
Her answer surprised him into a chuckle. “I imagine it’s changed somewhat.” Another owl, or perhaps the same one, soared over the bridge. “Have the trolls come back to your haven?”
no trolls dragons outside
Mikkel nodded. “Reynir’s seen them too. Strange. It’s like they and the grosslings are waking up together.” He glanced at the temperature gauge. -1°. “Still cold. What’s the weather like, uh, there?”
sunny always
“Odd, then. Have you tried shooting them?”
fell in sea
Another chuckle. “At least you can fight them. You can’t walk on water, though, can you? I mean, can you walk on water?”
no
After another glance at the sleepers, Mikkel returned his gaze to the monitors. Even though Rosli’s knowledge was almost a century out of date, it was still more than all of the team put together. He sighed. “I’ll have to sleep tomorrow while we’re driving. I’ll try to reach you then.” He tried every night, picturing her tank, her haven … herself. But almost a month had passed, and he hadn’t found his way back to her haven.
Though nothing else had attacked during the night, the team didn’t delay leaving. Waiting only long enough for Emil to retrieve his explosives, Tuuri drove down the long bridge to the south with everyone in their usual positions.
Sigrun leaned forward to peer past Mikkel on one side and Tuuri on the other. “Does anyone see a giant?” she asked. After a chorus of “no”, she sat back with a frown. “I saw one last night. I never got a clear shot at it, but it didn’t come after us, so I figured the scout got it. Weird. It must have turned back.”
“But I thought you said grosslings never turn back,” Emil said from behind her. “They always keep attacking.”
“That’s the rule, kiddo. It’s like all firearms are loaded. Maybe this one’s different, but a hunter’s gonna live a lot longer if she follows the rules.”
“So —”
“So, sometimes a grossling gets a bite of something, and he goes off to eat it.” She elbowed Mikkel. “The big guy ran one off one time by shoving a box in its mouth.”
Face heating, Mikkel took an intense interest in watching the city through the side window. The box had contained all the research on the Danish cure, and so he, Sigrun, and Lalli had had to chase down and kill the troll to retrieve the papers.
“Some of them have enough sense to run away from fire, too. Guess this giant saw the fires ahead and all the yummy dead ones lying around. Just took a big bite and went home. But!” She turned around to point a finger at Emil. “Don’t ever count on a grossling turning away.”
At Emil’s fervent nod, she turned to face forward, and they proceeded in silence down the bridge and onto a lesser road leading southeast. Though Lalli was far out of sight, he’d blazed a trail for Tuuri to follow. Once they were well away from the city, Mikkel thought it safe to retreat to his bunk for a nap.
Thud
Mikkel snapped awake, rolling over to see the tank’s door wide open.
“Oops, sorry, big guy,” Sigrun said, standing by the door and waving Tuuri out. “Meant to let you sleep. But we’ve got a nice clean river out here, and the scout says no threats. Time to clean up! We all stink from that horrible canal. You, too.”
Mikkel hastened to join the others outside. The tank was parked on the south side of the river, having crossed on a vine-covered stone bridge, still sturdy after perhaps centuries. After hooking up the tank’s hose to refill its tank, he joined the others in frigid water that came almost to his shoulders. No one stayed in the water for long; after a hurried dunking and scrubbing, everyone scrambled out to dry off and don their only clean clothes.
Since the kitten’s coat had picked up the reek of the canal and she declined all invitations to bathe, Mikkel settled for petting her thoroughly with damp hands, ruffling her fur to let in the clean air. With that done, he and Reynir set to work washing clothing and bedding. Meanwhile, Sigrun and Emil went hunting, Tuuri made notes of the local flora, and Lalli stood guard.
“Tuuri said it was weird the swarm came so fast,” Reynir said after they’d worked for some while in companionable silence.
“True. But no one really knows what prompts swarms to move out. Perhaps it’s something about the weather waking them up. And we’re south of anything in the Known World. Maybe trolls act differently here.”
“I guess. But she said Lalli thinks something’s wrong. He doesn’t know what, though. And then Sigrun said there was a giant that acted funny.”
“Just so.”
Reynir gave him an uncertain look. “I’ve been thinking about Anne. You know, the pastor, the — the troll in the church. She remembered who she was. Well, mostly. But anyway, I thought she remembered because she was so good. And what if there was someone who remembered because he was so bad?”
Mikkel stopped with his hands holding a sheet deep in warm, soapy water. “You mean the giant. You mean the giant drove the swarm against us.”
“Ye–yes? I mean, it’s just an idea because Tuuri said —”
“It’s a very good idea. I thought we might have more ghosts after us, but a giant, a giant that remembers who he — it — was …” His gaze traced the path of the tank: broken and shredded bushes, churned-up mud, overturned stones. A normal troll couldn’t follow that trail, but a man, or a giant with the mind of a man, could do so with ease. “We know how to fight a giant. And maybe it will be satisfied now that it’s driven us out of the city.” He returned to scrubbing the sheet.
After several more minutes, he remembered his discussion with Rosli. “You drew something last night.”
“Oh, yes, I was trying to come up with a galdrastafur to keep trolls away.”
“Didn’t you try that before the — that is, when the ghosts and trolls attacked?”
“I did, but I guess I didn’t remember right, or maybe these aren’t exactly trolls like — Um. But I have another idea.” Reynir’s natural enthusiasm returned. “See, I remembered a design the farm mages back home — I mean, in Iceland — They use it for directing sheep. It suggests to sheep or, you know, anything, even children, to change their path a bit, and go around it. Basically it says: ‘Hey, why not walk around that way instead?’ So I tried to remember it well enough that I could use it to nudge trolls to walk on by and leave us alone.”
“And did you?”
“I think so.” The Icelander looked away from him at the forest to the north across the river.
Mikkel followed his gaze. Forests were always dangerous, since you never knew what grosslings lurked in hiding. Now, the forest seemed malevolent. What if the giant had followed them?
Mikkel agrees with me about the giant! He hadn’t already thought of it, either. Reynir hugged the thought to himself. I’ll tell Tuuri. Maybe she’ll be pleased.
That thought dimmed his pleasure. Tuuri … she wasn’t cold to him, no, she could never be cold. But she wasn’t warm. In Copenhagen, they had had long chats in the tank when Lalli was asleep, the others were working outside, and the kitten was purring in his lap. But then when she was infected, Mikkel hadn’t let him see her for so long. And afterwards …
Afterwards, there was The Kiss. Reynir hunched his shoulders a little at the memory, finished wringing out a shirt, and hung it up. The Kiss hadn’t meant anything. At least, it hadn’t meant much. Mikkel had talked about her like she was a troll, a menace to every non-immune, and she had looked so sad when she said she’d stay in the Silent World. And so he’d kissed her because he wasn’t immune, and he would stay with her because she wasn’t a troll, and she wasn’t a menace.
That was all it meant. But ever since, they hadn’t had any of those chats. Not that they could, of course. Now that they were travelling all day, one or another of the others was always there, and even if only Mikkel could understand them, the others would see their faces, hear the emotion in their voices.
No, he couldn’t talk to her in front of the others. And what would he say anyway? Was she offended by The Kiss? Or did she … could she … was it possible that she wanted another kiss? How could he ask?
Reynir accepted a pair of trousers from Mikkel and plunged them into the fast, cold current to rinse. There was no point thinking about it.
He lifted the trousers and wrung out streams of cold water. As he hung them on a line to dry, his attention drifted to Tuuri again, kneeling on the gravel bar. She’d turned now to sketch the stone bridge they’d crossed. That one errant lock fell across her forehead again, and she flicked it aside. He smiled at her knitted brow as she worked.
He raised his eyes. Beyond the bridge, the river headed westward before bending north and losing itself in the woods. In the late winter, the river was low, choked with sandbars and gravel bars, as it waited for the snowmelt to transform it. Leafless bushes lined the banks, and beyond were the bare trees of the forest. These trees were not the small, tame, and beloved trees of Iceland; they were vast, wild, and brooding, with monsters hiding under roots and in thickets.
Meters from him, Mikkel knelt by the washtub, scrubbing. Beyond, Tuuri sketched, and Lalli stood nearby, watchful. All was well, yet night would come, night and the new moon. And during the last new moon, ghosts and trolls had swarmed in on them, bringing terror to Tuuri. Reynir shivered as the light breeze stirred the clothes drying on the line.
Rustle
Reynir’s breath caught. What was that? With the tank behind them, they were all blind to what stirred in the forest to the south.
Rustle
That can’t be a troll. It’s just a bird, or a squirrel. Or the wind. The sun is shining. Lalli’s watching. He’d kill any troll. That’s why he’s here. That can’t be a troll. We’re safe.
But against this immense forest, they were just six people and one tiny tank. The forest, the world, glared down on Reynir, studying him, watching for any weakness, any chance to strike. His breath came short and sharp; his pulse thudded in his ears. He had to get away.
“Mikkel,” he forced through dry, stiff lips, “I need a break.”
“Of course. If you —”
But Reynir was already running the few meters to the tank. Inside, with the door closed behind him and that pitiless stare shut out, he pressed his back against his cabinet, staring at the door.
ok?
Reynir had studied Mikkel’s notes on Danish Morse code, and he had no trouble understanding the flashing light.
“Yeah,” he managed. But am I? Really? The world is still out there, and night will fall in just hours. I’ve got to do something!
The cabinet’s handle dug into his back as he pressed against it. When he shifted away, a trembling hand fell on the handle, and almost by instinct, he opened the cabinet. His other clothes were outside in the laundry, leaving little in the cabinet except …
Reynir picked up the bowl of fire smears — paint made with ashes mixed with tallow — and his crude paintbrush. The bristles were in sad shape, half fallen out and the rest stiff with tallow. He touched the red hairs, seeing Sigrun and Emil with most of their hair burned off and only about a centimeter long where it had begun growing back, seeing Sigrun’s arm bleeding where the troll had bitten her instead of him. If they could make such sacrifices, how could he whine about losing a bit of his braid?
Untying the string holding the bristles to the brush, he let the hairs fall to the floor as he took the scissors from the first aid kit and cut off several centimeters from the end of his braid. With shaking hands, he tied the new bristles in place and stirred up the paint with the other end of the brush. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he pushed open the door and stepped out.
Mikkel knelt on the gravel bar, rinsing a pillowcase. Tuuri was still sketching, and Lalli stood guard, sparing Reynir the briefest glance. And yet the world was still out there, silent, dangerous.
Stir the paint again. Draw a circle.
Reynir closed his eyes, picturing the galdrastafur as he’d reconstructed it the night before. With a quick look behind him — was something creeping up? — he made the next strokes, focusing on what he wanted it to do.
Don’t look at us. Don’t think about us. Move on. Things are better over there.
A dot here, a short slash there.
Reynir stopped, studying the pattern. There should be a curved line right here, but was that right? The curve felt like the mild eyes of a ewe looking at her lamb. That was wrong. After a moment, he drew a jagged line that felt like the unreasoning hatred of a troll. Finishing up, he looked behind him again and found Mikkel and Tuuri watching.
“What will that do?” Tuuri asked, not doubtful but curious.
“It might tell trolls to pass us by,” Reynir said, leaning against the tank, careful not to touch the galdrastafur. He wanted her to understand, but he lacked the energy to give a longer explanation.
“Perhaps you should rest,” Mikkel said.
“The laundry —”
“Is my job, not yours. Your job is magical protection.”
“It might not work.”
“In that case, your job is to figure out how to do it better. Get some rest.”
Though Reynir hated to look weak in front of Tuuri, he nodded and obeyed. In the tank, he felt too weary to pull down his own bunk and climb up into it. Surely Mikkel wouldn’t mind … he crawled into the older man’s bunk and fell asleep.
When Mikkel woke Reynir for supper, the whole team was already together inside the tank with steel walls keeping them safe from what lurked outside. As Reynir rolled out of Mikkel’s bunk, face heating — he hadn’t even asked permission! — the Dane said nothing about the intrusion, only told him that Tuuri had moved the tank onto the bridge for protection overnight.
Reynir took a deep breath, hunger waking at the odor of roast goose. It made a nice change from venison, though as Mikkel served it out, he muttered that they really needed vegetables. Even Reynir understood that comment, grinning at Sigrun when she rolled her eyes.
“You only put the symbol by the door,” Tuuri said as she passed her plate to Reynir to wash. “Don’t we need it on the front and back, where the trolls will see it?”
“No, at home — I mean in Iceland — they carve it on a gatepost, and then the sheep won’t go near the gatepost. They don’t have to see it.”
“But you painted the ghost symbol on all the doors.”
“I don’t know exactly how that one works. I saw it on a door, so I think it needs to be on each door. But this one shouldn’t.” He hunched his shoulders and scrubbed the plate.
Tuuri turned to Lalli for a discussion. Or at least, Tuuri asked long questions and Lalli gave short answers. “Lalli says you didn’t need to put it on all the doors. The ghost symbol, I mean. He says it makes a shield all around the tank that he can see. But he doesn’t know about this new one. It’s really magic, but it doesn’t make a shield.”
“No, not a shield. It can’t stop them; it just makes them not notice us and not want to come this way. Unless they already know we’re here. Then they would keep coming. Like, if the sheep see you have a treat for them when you go in the garden, then —”
“What’s the range?” Mikkel said, accepting the clean plate. “How close can grosslings get?”
“The sheep don’t get within a couple of meters, but —”
Tuuri stared at him. “That doesn’t help! We can’t let grosslings get that close!”
“But this is a really big symbol. I think it’ll keep them a long way from the tank.”
“If the symbol is bigger, it pushes them farther away? But then … but then, you could protect a whole village! Just paint a really big one on the palisade —”
“Oh, no, I don’t think —”
“That one symbol exhausted him,” Mikkel said, putting away the plate.
“But there are so many of your people! You have lots of mages! They could come out, paint on the palisade, as many big symbols as they need, and then we’d be protected.”
“The magic doesn’t last,” Reynir said, pushing another clean plate at Mikkel without looking and almost dropping it. “Every time it, um, acts, it gets a little weaker. You’d have to have mages there all the time to renew it. It’d take so many … I mean, if the magic works.”
Tuuri’s shoulders slumped, and Reynir ducked his head, focusing on scrubbing another plate. Behind him, Sigrun demanded a translation, and Tuuri answered in a low voice.
While Reynir stood watch in the pre-dawn hours, something moved through the forest in the halting, unsymmetrical pace of a grossling. As he turned to the sleeping compartment, twisting his braid around his arm and wondering whether he should raise the alarm, Lalli rolled out of his den and padded over to join him. They watched together as the grossling slowed, stopped dozens of meters from the tank, turned, and wandered away.
“Okay,” Lalli said in his soft voice. Before Reynir could formulate a question the Finn might understand, he padded back to his den.
What did he mean? Did he mean the galdrastafur worked? Or just that it’s okay and I don’t have to raise the alarm?
He would have to wait until morning to ask Tuuri.
Reynir basked in his triumph all the next day. Lalli confirmed that he had felt the magic surge just before the grossling turned away, and he even went out to examine the tracks and determine how far the effect reached: a little over thirty meters.
At first, Reynir had been dismayed at the news. “You were shooting the swarm way farther than thirty meters,” he had said to Tuuri. “This is useless.”
“What? You mean on those long, long bridges? You didn’t notice that’s the only time we’ve done that? Most nights we camp in the forest, and look!” She had waved at the forest around them. “We don’t have a thirty-meter sight line here. Your symbol will turn them away long before we can get a clean shot.” And she’d smiled at him, and he basked in the memory of that smile all day too.
In the late afternoon, Lalli waited for the tank beside a large rectangular building. As they drew closer, the condition of the building — an old barn — became more clear. Though grasses, bushes, and small trees crowded around it, the paint was gone, and the front doors had fallen from rusted hinges, the structure appeared intact. Tuuri said something triumphant, spun the tank around to face north, and backed it over the fallen doors and into the barn.
Inside, dim sunlight shone through holes in the roof, ferns speckled the dirt floor, and mold reached long fingers down the walls. After peering at it through the windshield for a good minute, Mikkel said, “We can stay one night. Only one night.” Reynir understood that much and got the gist of his explanation: the air was not healthy.
The air in the barn was so unhealthy, in fact, that Mikkel insisted on cooking and eating supper outside, despite the cold and the overcast sky. Though Reynir still feared the forest, the thought of his symbol silently guarding the tank alongside Lalli kept the fear from growing into terror. And, after all, they’d probably left the giant behind.
After supper, most of the team retreated to the filtered air of the tank while Emil laid out his traps some twenty meters away, cursing as he cut or tore underbrush out of the way. Reynir smiled, listening and improving his vocabulary.
As evening fell, Sigrun gave instructions to the others while they readied their firearms. Reynir watched, left out of preparations as always. But he had made the galdrastafur, so this time, at least, he had helped. Since Sigrun had the first watch, Reynir and the others climbed into their bunks.
“Swarm!”
Reynir snapped awake as Sigrun called the warning. Everyone else piled out of their bunks, yanked on their uniforms, and snatched up their weapons. But then they stopped, all but Lalli crowding forward to peer at the monitors, which could show only what approached towards the open doorway of the barn.
A troll shambled toward the barn from the north, slowed, hesitated, and veered off to the east. A soft sigh rose from the crowd as several people let out held breath. Another troll wandered away to the west, and Emil pumped a fist. Reynir grinned at his back. It was working!
But more trolls came, and more. They hesitated longer now, as if uncertain. Reynir swallowed hard. What if —
“Fight!” Lalli exclaimed, pulling open the door and darting out. The others followed in a rush, leaving Reynir alone in the tank to listen to them scrambling onto the roof. As the noise overhead quieted, he took his seat at the controls, ready to switch on the lights and blind the swarm when Sigrun gave the order.
Fire flared outside: the swarm had reached Emil’s traps. Over a cacophony of shrieks and squeals, Sigrun called for lights, and he pressed a button. His duty was done. All he could do now was watch while gunfire cracked overhead.
I failed. I thought I could be useful and great, that my magic would save us. But I'm just a shepherd pretending to be a mage. All I'm good for is helping Mikkel with the housework.
A deep, expectant silence filled the tank. Outside sounds — the crack of breaking branches, the thump of Mikkel throwing firewood into the back compartment, the crunch of dry vegetation under the treads — struck like a blow, and were forgotten. Low, dark clouds hung overhead, dimming the early afternoon sunlight.
With Lalli running ahead to scout, Mikkel following the tank and picking up broken branches, and Sigrun and Emil hunting, Tuuri and Reynir were alone in the tank, but for the kitten sprawled across Reynir’s lap, sound asleep.
Tuuri squinted ahead. After four days of their following this battered road southwards, it ended at a T-intersection where Lalli's trail marks told her to turn west. As she turned the tank to the right, Reynir cleared his throat, and she tensed, dreading the conversation.
“I tried to reach Onni again last night,” he said.
Some of the tension went out of her. “I guess you didn't make it.”
“I thought the mist might hide me, but as soon as I left my island, a dragon stooped on me. I ran back to the shore, and it veered off. They can’t come on the shore, somehow.” He stroked the kitten in his lap. “I couldn't fight it. I don't have any weapons.”
Tuuri licked her lips as silence fell again, wishing one of the others would return. Still, they could stay on this topic. “Even Onni couldn't fight a dragon,” she said. “He told me about them. Well, he told Lalli, but I was there. And he said he didn’t know any mage who would dare even try to fight a dragon.”
“Onni warned me. He said, ‘There are dangers in this world you know nothing of.’ But he didn’t say anything about dragons.”
“He said they’re dangerous but rare. Like bears, you know. You probably won’t see one, but you have to get away if you do.”
“I guess that’s why he didn’t tell me about them. They’re not rare now, though. I never saw a dragon until a couple of weeks ago, only now it’s like they’re everywhere.”
The resounding crack as the tank broke a heavy overhanging branch distracted Tuuri, and she attended to her driving. Ahead, the road curved back to the south. As the heavy silence built up in the tank, Reynir said, as if to himself, “There are no bears in Iceland.”
Tuuri's shoulders tensed again. It's not my fault. I didn't ask him to stay. I asked him not to stay. He chose. They all chose. And — and — but —
Her thoughts were interrupted when Lalli darted in front of the tank and waved her to a halt, while Reynir sat up and stared forward. “What is that?”
Tuuri scanned the forest for threats, then glanced at the kitten, still sleeping. “What is what?”
“There’s a … kind of a fog bank right in front of us. Don’t you —” He glanced at her and reached up to clutch his braid with one hand. “I guess it must be magic.”
Tuuri closed her eyes. Of course it was magic. And of course she couldn’t see it. “Tell me what it looks like.”
“Well … it goes south right on top of the road. And it goes north too. It's like a straight line with, uh, very sharp sides. I think it goes higher than the tank. Not much higher. That's all. Oh, and it's not very deep. It goes all the way across the road and a little bit more.” He screwed up his face as if trying to focus. “It's kind of thin, like mist, and it swirls a little. I think it does, anyway.”
Lalli climbed into the tank and came forward. “There’s a thing up there.”
“Yeah, Reynir sees it too. What does it look like to you?”
Lalli’s description was much like Reynir’s, but he’d scouted the obstacle. “I followed it north and south, but there’s no end, so I came back. I went inside, too. It’s magic, but … it didn’t … see me.” He made a face. “It was weird.”
Tuuri agreed wholeheartedly with that sentiment. Before she could ask more questions, Mikkel climbed into the tank and joined them. “What’s wrong? Why have you stopped? It's too early to camp.”
“Yeah, I know that. There's something ahead of us that only they can see.” Tuuri might not be immune, and she might not be a mage, but she was the only person who could talk to everyone. Describing the invisible fog bank for Mikkel and Rosli, she finished with, “So what is it?”
Mikkel shook his head. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. A distinct line of invisible fog across the landscape? It —” He pointed at Rosli’s light as it flickered for attention.
ley line
Tuuri repeated the words aloud, looking from the light to Mikkel, who shook his head, frowning.
“Is it dangerous? What does it do?” he asked.
don’t know connects places of power
“What’s a place of power?” Tuuri asked Mikkel and Reynir. When Mikkel shrugged and Reynir twisted his braid around his arm without looking at her, Tuuri repeated the question for Lalli.
“A lehto,” Lalli said.
“I don’t think there are any lehtos in Denmark. Or, well, I guess we’re in Germany now, but —” She broke off as Lalli gave her one of his looks. With a sigh, she told the others. “He doesn’t know what it is either. So, now what do we do? Should we keep going?”
Mikkel shook his head. “Let's wait for Sigrun to come back. This is a question for the captain.” He looked past her at the forest, where there was no trace of fog. “Magic again,” he said under his breath.
By the time Sigrun and Emil returned half an hour later with a cleaned goose, Lalli had run off to scout southwards while the other three and Rosli had discussed the limits of Rosli’s knowledge. She had read somewhere, perhaps in a novel, about “ley lines” that ran across the landscape and connected places of power.
Rosli had agreed that sacred groves might be places of power, adding that standing stones might be as well, and that churches or cathedrals might be built on top of such places. Beyond that, she knew nothing about ley lines. In fact, she didn’t know this line was a ley line, but she could think of nothing else it might be. Though Mikkel had looked as frustrated as Tuuri was, he had thanked Rosli politely, adding, "We've forgotten so much lore. Without you, we'd be fumbling in the dark."
Like Mikkel, Sigrun asked what the problem was as soon she walked in, and Mikkel left it to Tuuri to explain as he and Reynir sat down to pluck the goose.
Sigrun went forward to look out, as if she might spot the ley line herself. Returning, she folded her arms and gave the others a triumphant grin. “I know what it is.”
“A ley line,” Mikkel muttered.
“It’s the track of a giant snail. A magic giant snail. And snails have pearls under their shells —”
“That’s oysters,” Mikkel said in his best long-suffering voice.
“— and a giant magic snail will have a giant magic pearl.” Sigrun patted Tuuri’s shoulder. “A great story for your saga, short stuff.”
As Tuuri ducked her head, not wanting Sigrun to see her doubts, Emil leaned against the door and drawled in a deep voice, “We're living in a haunted tank, and we’re blocked by an invisible fog bank. Is it really so much of a stretch to believe that we've found the track of a giant magic snail?”
Mikkel shook his head, but his lips curled in a small smile. “A point. In any case, whatever is at the end of this line, a place of power or a giant magic snail, we need to decide what to do about it. We need to go south, so do we find another road? If so, do we cross through it or leave it and backtrack?”
Tuuri put in, “Or do we go right into it and drive down the road inside it?”
Sigrun folded her arms again and looked forward. “It didn’t hurt the scout,” she said at length. “He and Braidy can see if there’s something weird in it. And our road is right there.” She turned back to the team. “Let’s go in and stop. If nothing happens, we’ll follow it for a while. It’s not very wide, so if there’s any danger, we’ll just drive right out of it.” She bent to peer past legs to Lalli’s den. “Where’s Lalli?”
“He’s scouting to the south,” Tuuri said. “I thought we’d need to go that way whatever we decided.”
“Clever girl. Well, let’s get moving. Just drive into it and stop.”
After Mikkel and Reynir washed their hands, leaving the half-plucked goose on the table, the team took their usual positions. Watching all around as if she might spot a threat, Tuuri drove forward into the mystery until Reynir told her to stop. Hands still on the controls, ready to speed away if anything strange happened, Tuuri turned to survey the others, a deep fear in the pit of her stomach. What if the magic did something to them all?
As the non-mages peered about, Reynir stood staring forward, eyes wide. “It’s like … springtime,” he whispered. “Like the first sunshine after the long winter. It’s …” He lowered his gaze to Tuuri’s face. “This is wonderful.”
“Back up,” Mikkel ordered, staring at Reynir with narrowed eyes. “Back out of the line.”
Tuuri obeyed as Sigrun said, “What’s the problem? It’s not hurting him.”
“Lots of poisons don’t hurt you. Sometimes they even feel good. At first. And then the pain hits.”
Once they were back at their original position, Mikkel got to his feet to study Reynir’s face. “How do you feel? Do you want — need — to go back?”
“No? I mean, it was great, so I’d love to go back, but if we don’t …” Reynir shrugged. “I don’t think it’ll hurt us, though.”
“Where’s the scout?” Sigrun asked.
Emil, watching the monitors, said, “Something’s coming. Moving fast.” He smiled. “It’s got to be Lalli.”
He was shortly proven correct as Lalli climbed into the tank, giving the assembled team a look of alarm before eeling through the crowd to talk to Tuuri. “It goes way south. It’s on top of the road. I found a campsite. Part of it’s under that thing but not all of it.”
Tuuri glanced at Reynir, still talking to Mikkel. “Is it safe to be in that thing? Reynir said it felt really good, like sunshine in winter, but Mikkel thinks that might be dangerous.”
Lalli looked past her at the invisible fog bank. “It didn’t hurt me. But inside it … I saw more.” He gestured outwards. “More far.”
“You mean it, uh, makes your magic sight better?” He gave her an “isn’t that obvious” look. “Okay, right. Maybe that’s what it did to Reynir, and that’s why it felt good.”
Lalli shrugged. “Do you want to go on or not?”
Once Tuuri passed on his report, Sigrun took one more look at the place where the line should be, gave a curt nod, and said, “We’ll risk staying on the road and head for his campsite. Depending on how things go, we might risk camping inside the thing, but we don’t have to.”
When Tuuri took her seat, Lalli took his place behind her, and the other four settled in the passenger area. The tank crept forward, turning to follow the road, and Tuuri shivered, knowing they were inside the ley line, invisible to her eyes.
Soon, the overhanging clouds delivered the threatened rain, a sudden deluge that pounded on the tank and filled every hole in the decaying road with mud puddles. Tuuri drove on, ignoring the low-voiced conversation to her right as the tank splashed and slithered through the mud.
“The galdrastafur is washing away,” Mikkel said in Icelandic, loud enough for Tuuri to hear over the rain drumming on the roof.
“I know. I–I’ll have to redraw it,” Reynir said.
Tuuri thought about the galdrastafur, which Reynir had redrawn after the first failure. It had deflected small swarms on the next two nights before collapsing again on the third night. Though he redrew it, he had grown more discouraged with each failure, despite Mikkel and Tuuri’s reassurances. And now it was washing away. Even if he redrew it, what if the rain kept up all night?
Tuuri straightened. “Hey, Reynir, why are you drawing that thing outside? Didn’t you say it works even if the trolls can’t see it?” She didn’t dare look away from the road as she spoke; it would be too easy to damage the tank on an upturned slab.
“I could draw it inside? I could, couldn’t I!” His normal enthusiasm returned for a moment before fading again. “Oh, but it has to be big, and there’s no clear space on the walls.”
“The door?” Mikkel suggested.
“You guys — I mean, it’s okay, but — uh, you guys shoulder it open all the time. You’d rub it away.”
Well, it had been a good idea, but with cabinets, folding bunks, monitors, and shelves in her office, every bit of wall was taken up with something.
Or was it?
“What about above the door? There’s nothing up there, and I think there’s enough space.”
Rustle, mutters of complaint, footsteps. Reynir and Mikkel went to the main compartment, soon returning to take their places with more complaints from Sigrun and Emil.
“The space is too small for the big one,” Reynir said, “but I could fit a smaller one. Only a little smaller, so it’ll probably be okay. I might even fit two, but I don’t know if they, you know, work together.”
“But you’ll try it,” Mikkel said, before launching into a Danish explanation for Sigrun and Emil.
Tuuri grinned to herself. I’m not a mage, but I’m clever and I can direct the mages. I’ve got something to contribute besides driving and translating.
Evening shadows were long when Lalli pointed out the remains of a parking lot and building. Since half was under the line, half clear, Tuuri parked in the clear area to discuss their options.
The non-mages had felt no strangeness along the way. Questioned by Mikkel, Reynir answered, “It felt really good. I don’t think it will hurt us. But if you want to stay away, it’s okay.” Lalli shrugged in answer to Tuuri’s question. “It doesn’t see us.”
Reynir’s magic seemed to be powered by fear, which might be a handicap in safe, quiet Iceland. In Silent Germany, with swarms attacking almost every night, there was plenty of fear to go around. Once Mikkel set a folding chair before the door, Reynir climbed up, paintbrush and crude paint in hand. Mikkel stayed close, ready to steady him if necessary.
Sigrun watched this activity with narrowed eyes before turning to Tuuri. “You said your cousin’s magic is better inside the line?” Tuuri murmured agreement without looking away. “What about Braidy? If his magic is better too, maybe that thing won’t fail as fast.”
“Do you want to risk staying in there all night?” Mikkel asked.
“We were in it for hours, and it didn’t do anything to us. Yeah, it’s a risk to stay in there, but our mages say it’s okay, so I guess it is. Look, we can’t keep wasting ammo on all these trolls. If the magic is lots better in there, maybe we won’t have to. Maybe we don’t even need your castle.”
Mikkel winced, and Tuuri shot him a sympathetic smile. The road atlas Lalli had found for them showed few castles, and those were all in cities. Though Mikkel believed there were thousands of castles and they were sure to stumble across one, they hadn’t found any so far.
“Right.” Sigrun clapped her hands. “Tell the mages we’re camping inside the line.”
Moving across the parking lot took mere moments. Once she’d parked the tank, Tuuri stood, stretched, turned to talk to Lalli, and found him gazing up at Reynir’s galdrastafur. Following his gaze, she saw only the painted lines. “What is it?” she asked, trying to keep frustration out of her voice.
“It glows. It’s —” Lalli didn’t turn away. “It’s strong.”
Tuuri looked up at the painted lines and sighed. Maybe it would work better. They would find out during the night.
“There they go,” Sigrun said as she watched the monitors, crowded in behind Tuuri and Emil with Mikkel and Reynir. She thumped Reynir on the shoulder. “Good man!”
“That one’s not going.” Emil pointed at a blob on the IR monitor. “It’s still hanging around.”
Tuuri pointed. “That one, too.”
“Huh.” Sigrun frowned. “Guess they know we’re here somewhere. Or is the magic about to break?”
Tuuri called a question to Lalli, who sat on the floor well away from the others, and got an irritated answer. “He says the magic is holding up, and he’d tell us if it wasn’t.”
Mikkel smiled to himself. We can always count on Lalli. He stifled a yawn. Emil had woken them all up in the wee hours to prepare as the swarm approached. A couple of dozen this time, but most were wandering away, leaving five or six lurking nearby. Nearby, but not inside the invisible barrier of Reynir’s galdrastafur.
Sigrun folded her arms. “I wish we had enough hunters to just hunt that giant down. With my old team, I could take him even with his swarms.” Mikkel sighed, and she rolled her eyes at him. “Right, then. Most of them are running off, and we’ll deal with the strays in the morning. Nice and quiet, blades before bullets. Time to —”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Mikkel said.
“What? They’re trolls. We’ll put them out of their misery.”
“I’m concerned about our misery. Look, I know you’re all experienced troll-hunters, but even experienced troll-hunters can get hurt. Badly hurt. And I’m just a medic with a glorified first-aid kit. I can deal with minor injuries, but …” He shook his head. “It’s best if we don’t take any unnecessary risks. Our situation is perilous enough as it is.”
In the ensuing silence, Sigrun pushed out her lower lip like a petulant child before she took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose. “Okay, I get your point. And we’ve got to move on in the morning, anyway. But Blondy’s got to fetch his toys before we go, so me and the little guy will go with him and kill anything that goes for him. Just those.” She turned to the others. “Show’s over. Emil’s still on watch. Let’s get some sleep.”
As days were still shorter than nights, the team was awake before dawn. The lurking trolls made every excursion from the tank fraught, with someone watching the monitors at all times in case a visit to the latrine would draw their attention, but the trolls stayed in whatever shelters they’d found.
Since they’d embarked on this expedition, the men had shaved outside unless their fingers were too cold to hold the razor, but the risk was too great this morning. Shaving over the small basin that doubled as their kitchen sink left tiny bits of stubble on it, and Mikkel had to scrub it thoroughly several times before he could bring himself to fix breakfast.
After breakfast, Sigrun leaned back in her chair, pushing away her empty plate for Reynir to collect. “This magic works so well we don’t even need a castle for defense.”
“I’d, uh, I’d like a castle,” Emil said from his seat beside her. “We could have our own rooms there.”
“And proper beds,” Tuuri added.
Reynir paused on his way to the sink with plates. “I will have a room.”
Mikkel allowed a small smile at that. After less than three months of exposure, Reynir had become fairly good at understanding their speech.
Sigrun tilted her chin at her bunk, high above Tuuri’s bunk and Mikkel’s. “I could use a nice bed. On the floor. So I don’t kick Mikkel all the time getting down.”
“You don’t kick me often.”
“Not more’n once or twice a week.”
“Mikkel’s used to getting kicked,” Tuuri said with a grin. Mikkel stiffened.
“Okay,” Sigrun said. “Then we’ll still look for a castle. Short stuff, tell the scout to keep looking for a castle. On this line, if he can.”
“Will do.”
After a long draught of water, Sigrun added, “We’re sure lucky the road runs under the line.”
“It’s not luck,” Mikkel said, drawing doubtful looks from the others, even Reynir. “Rosli knows about the ley line; therefore pre-Rash people knew about it. If you knew about places of power and the line between them, wouldn’t you build a road on that line? To easily get from one to the other?”
Sigrun frowned. “But if they knew, why didn’t they use the line against the trolls like we do?”
Tuuri took on the didactic expression she had in schooling Reynir. “The gods took magic away a long time ago.” She shrugged. “So everybody’d give up on the lines, right? They forgot about them. But after the Rash, the gods gave magic back to us.” She nodded. “Strange the trolls crossed the ley line, though.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Mikkel asked. “We did.”
Tuuri spoke as if pointing out the obvious. “Because trolls are part magic.”
Mikkel didn’t answer, though Emil looked at him with knitted brows. The team got to their feet and prepared for the day.
When dawn came at last, Emil collected his explosive traps, his escorts close beside him. Only one troll went for him, and Sigrun and Lalli disposed of it quickly, efficiently, and with no injuries, as Sigrun smugly pointed out to Mikkel.
Mikkel nodded without comment. As a medic, he was paid — or would be, if any of them were being paid — to worry about even remote risks. And the risks here were by no means remote.
Once they were well past the strays, Mikkel climbed out into the drizzling morning to collect branches broken by the tank, wearing his pistol and shotgun, just in case.
After almost an hour, when Mikkel had gathered about half of what he intended, something writhed before him among the twigs and mud in the tank’s trail. On closer examination, it proved to be a viper. Only its head and the front of its body moved, while the rest was crushed and torn. Mikkel stood over it, grieving its small life, before crushing its head with his heavy boot.
The incident darkened his day as he walked on. Some hurts couldn’t be healed, no matter what he did. All around him in the wintry forest, trolls and beasts lurked, suffering. Sigrun wants to end their suffering, even at risk of her own. So do I. But with the whole world afflicted, what can one man do?
The tank stopped ahead, and Mikkel hurried to catch up. Before he reached it, the tank moved on, leaving Emil behind to join Mikkel.
“I have a question.” At Mikkel’s carry-on gesture, “Do you really believe trolls are part magical?”
“Ah.” Mikkel picked up a branch and broke it across his knee. “I’m still a skeptic, if that’s your concern. But I have to go with the evidence. Trolls do things no natural creature could do. For instance, sprouting new limbs like your dog beast.”
“Not my dog beast,” Emil muttered.
“Or giants defying the square-cube law.” Emil screwed up his face, but this was not the time for a lecture on physics. “I mean, giants’ legs are far too weak to hold up their bodies, yet they do. Anyway, we also have the evidence of Reynir’s experience with the ghosts.”
“We all —”
“When he witnessed the ghosts go into the light, every ghost had a kind of spirit clinging to it. The spirit fell off and melted into nothing in the light. Beyond that, consider that Rosli and Tuuri’s havens were both full of spirits that looked like grosslings. Rash spirits, let’s say.”
Mikkel picked up a branch and broke off the twigs. Beside him, Emil did the same.
“If Rash spirits exist, invade havens of the infected, and attach themselves to spirits, what happens if a patient doesn’t get the cure? Wouldn’t the Rash spirits just stay? Wouldn’t that explain how grosslings do what ought to be impossible?”
Emil stared at Mikkel before stumbling and returning his attention to the rough track. “Okay, so trolls are part magic. But then why didn’t the ley line stop them?”
“Tuuri doesn’t know any more about ley lines than we do. She thought the ley line ought to stop something that’s part magic. Now we know it doesn’t.”
They walked in silence, loading a day’s fuel supply into the back compartment, before running forward to rejoin the others.
In the early afternoon, they stopped by a wide, clear stream to refill the tank’s water supply, almost empty since they hadn’t refilled the day before. Since the skies had cleared, the team took the opportunity to revel in being outside, despite the cold.
“I think we should set up a bed in the back compartment,” Emil said after a while. He leaned against the tank, eyes always searching the forest before him. Mikkel approved; the young man was growing into a good soldier.
“We going to have guests?” Sigrun asked, grinning, having just finished jogging around the tank several times.
“No, I mean for privacy. It’s cramped, but someone could sleep in the walkway between the crates.”
Tuuri looked up from making notes of the withered plants around them. “Someone being you?”
Emil blushed. “I figured we’d take turns.”
“We’ve got those four extra bedrolls we could use for padding,” Mikkel said. “It’s a trifle chilly back there, but if you take your bedding with you, you should be warm enough.”
“What if we need you? You or whoever,” Sigrun asked, no longer grinning.
Emil bit his lip. “You could pound on the back wall.”
“Or Rosli could flash the lights,” Mikkel put in.
Sigrun nodded slowly. “Good idea. Good for morale.” She grinned again. “Whoever had third watch gets the bed the next night, so the first guy is … Emil!”
Tuuri laughed. “That’s a great idea. Hey, I just remembered, I have third watch tonight.” That got a chuckle, even from Mikkel. “Is the tank full? ’Cause we have to move on pretty soon or Lalli’ll get upset and think we won’t camp where he’s picked out.”
Four days later, on a heavily overcast, rainy morning, the team stood around the table, examining their atlas. After two nights of swarming trolls, they’d had a peaceful night, which Mikkel appreciated since he’d had the “private room” for the night. He’d slept better than he had in months, which worried him. Mikkel worried about anything that changed, even for the better.
“That’s a small town,” Tuuri said, pointing. “We’ll reach it in an hour or two, if the road isn’t blocked.”
Sigrun tapped the blob representing the town. “Small enough we could get through by nightfall, if the streets aren’t too bad. But with the trolls as active as they’ve been, and the rain … No, I don’t like it. Better to go around. We can link up with the line on the other side.”
“What if the line ends in the town?” Tuuri’s question was logical, but brought all attention to her.
“You mean the giant magic snail is hanging out in there? Hmm.” Mikkel and Emil exchanged glances as Sigrun rubbed her chin. “I still don’t like it. See if your cousin can check for the line on the other side. If it goes on, we’ll circle and get back to it.” She tapped the map again. “We’ll have to hurry. I don’t want us getting stuck off the line at nightfall.”
After a Finnish exchange — short on Lalli’s side, long on Tuuri’s — she reported he could go around the town, find a trail for the tank, and look for the line on the other side, but he probably couldn’t make it back before dawn.
“Okay, then. We’ll stay here and wait while he scouts.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Emil said. “We’re going to stay on the line where we’re safe, and he’s going to be running around off the line in the darkness?”
“Yeah, I know, but we’ve got to do something. Sit here, go forward to look for a castle, or go back. And if we go on, we need to know what we’re getting into.”
“If we go back, we might run into the giant.” There was a pause as everyone considered Tuuri’s words.
At length, Sigrun said, “Yeah, we might. And maybe we could actually fight the thing. I’m tired of waiting for it to get bored and go away. It’s been pretty sneaky so far, though. If we go back, it’ll probably back off and keep throwing swarms at us.”
Lalli ended the discussion by taking up his rifle and darting out the door. Showing her palms in a helpless gesture, Tuuri retreated to watch the monitors, and the others settled down for a day without even the changing scenery of travel.
Mikkel took up his broom, but cleaning didn’t stop his worries.
We don’t want to leave the line, but is it safe to stay on it so long? It feels good to Reynir, everyone seems more cheerful, and I … I slept better. The magic works to protect us, but are we being lured into something? Or even just getting addicted to the good feelings? Sigrun would say it’s a huge benefit that we’d be stupid to give up. That makes sense, but … is this really a good idea?
Mikkel thumped on the wall, and by the time he, Emil, and Reynir were in uniform, Sigrun climbed in, already dressed and armed. They all crowded to the monitors to see what Tuuri had spotted.
Dot after dot appeared on the radar; blob after blob appeared on the IR monitor. Most moved in, wandered about, and drifted off, while a few remained.
“They’re early tonight.” When Sigrun looked over at him, Mikkel realized he’d spoken aloud. No one answered his obvious comment. In the past, the swarms had showed up late in the second watch or in the third watch, not very early in the second watch.
Mikkel glanced up at the galdrastafur above the door. Just ashy gray lines to his eyes; how could they know if it was about to fail without Lalli’s special senses? As if he’d divined Mikkel’s thoughts, Reynir pushed past him and reached up to hold his hand near the symbol. “It’s warm. It’s really warm. It feels like lots of magic.” He rejoined the others to watch the monitors.
“This isn’t right,” Sigrun said after a while. “This isn’t a swarm.”
Tuuri gestured at the dozens of dots on the radar.
“Yeah, there’s a bunch of them, but they’re coming from all around us, not from our back trail like before.” Sigrun's frown sat oddly on her normally cheerful face. “It’s weird.”
“It’s like someone rang the dinner bell,” Mikkel said, and Sigrun’s head snapped up to face him.
“Yeah! It’s the giant. He’s here; he’s calling them.” She leaned forward. “Do you see him? He’s bigger than trolls.”
As the trolls continued to mill about, the team studied their IR images. “What about that one?” Emil asked. With the moon almost full, they could use the video feed, but by the time Tuuri had aimed the camera at Emil’s choice, the troll was wandering away. It was large, but not a giant, and its head didn’t resemble what Sigrun had described.
“We just need to spot him,” Sigrun said. “If we know where he is, the scout can follow his trail tomorrow when he gets back. No giant can hide from our scout! And then we’ll take him out in the daylight, and be done with all this. All we have to do is spot him.”
But they didn’t. Though they watched for hours, until all but a dozen trolls had wandered away, they never saw a giant.
The next morning, after a quiet breakfast, Sigrun announced, “We’re going to move once we’ve got some daylight.”
“But —” Tuuri began.
“This tank leaves a track a blind man could follow. Your cousin won’t have any trouble. But I don’t want to be sitting here in the middle of this lot when the next swarm hits.”
Mikkel nodded. He had no doubt there would be another swarm that night and neither, it seemed, did anyone else.
“I’ve got to get my explosives,” Emil said.
“Right, and here’s how we’re going to do it …”
Two hours later, Emil set out with his rifle over his shoulder and a bucket in his hand. Sigrun and Mikkel flanked him, while Tuuri climbed onto the tank and scanned about, rifle in hand. Since they knew from the monitors where every troll was, Sigrun watched the nearest for signs of movement and Mikkel watched the next nearest while Emil disarmed each trap and added it to his bucket.
They moved clockwise around Emil’s circle of traps. This reassured Mikkel even though, as a skeptic, he didn’t believe going counterclockwise — widdershins — was bad luck. Almost a quarter of the way around the circle, the first troll made its move.
But only briefly, as Sigrun leapt forward, dodged to the side when the insectile troll swiped at her with a talon-tipped leg, jumped forward while it tried to turn to her attack, and stabbed down into its elongated head with all her strength. The troll collapsed, Sigrun cleaned her dagger with dried grass, and the three went back to work.
Two-thirds of the way through, two more insectile trolls crashed through a screen of leafless bushes, squealing as the thorns tore them and the sun burned them. Sigrun went after one while Mikkel rushed forward to stop the other. Leaving his shotgun slung, he raised his trusty crowbar as the monster charged. His first blow was too slow, hitting the creature across the neck, and only a few quick and desperate steps kept him from being slashed by a flailing leg. Still, his powerful blow had knocked the troll off its feet, and before it could get up, his crowbar smashed into its skull with Mikkel’s full weight behind it, and the troll never moved again. Mikkel’s hands stung with the force of the blow as he looked around for the next foe.
“Keep going,” Sigrun told Emil, who stood between them with his dagger in hand. Emil hastened to crouch and disarm the next trap. Soon, they finished and ran back to the tank, waiting briefly for Tuuri to go in first.
Leaving Mikkel and Tuuri inside with Reynir, Sigrun and Emil ran down the road to the south, scouting ahead as Tuuri drove the tank slowly in their wake.
Two kilometers down the road, with the tank parked in an old parking lot, Sigrun and Emil went hunting, leaving the other three in the tank. At Mikkel’s urging, Reynir took a nap while Mikkel cleaned the tank and Tuuri watched the monitors, alternately wringing her hands and biting her nails.
“Take a nap,” Mikkel told her yet again. “He won’t come back any faster because you’re watching, and time will pass faster for you if you’re asleep.”
Tuuri ignored his words, only moving her feet so he could sweep around her.
“I shouldn’t have brought him here. I shouldn’t have let him stay.”
Mikkel continued to sweep. “Lalli is a grown man. He makes his own choices. We’re all grown men, in fact. Well, except Sigrun. She’s a grown woman.”
Tuuri didn’t chuckle at his sally. “You all stayed because of me. I should have —”
“Stop. I’ll grant that if you could have gone home, they probably would have gone with you. But you couldn’t, and we wouldn’t leave you here alone. We wouldn’t abandon you when you were … sick, and we won’t abandon you now.”
She turned to him. “But this is the rest of your life. The rest of all your lives.” She waved at the monitors without looking at them. “Just this, until we all get killed.”
At least he’d distracted her. “We may find a castle to live in. And I believe there are lost villages here somewhere. We may find —”
“Do you really believe that, after all these years? There haven’t been any recently —”
“No, but then, our people searched for lost villages pretty thoroughly early on. From the reports I read, though, the villages could have kept going for at least a couple more generations if they hadn’t been found. No reason there couldn’t be some still surviving here.”
“Do you think they’d welcome us? That we’d have a home?” Her sudden eagerness was painful to him.
“If we can find them, most would probably welcome us. Many of them suffered from inbreeding when they were found, so they …” Mikkel hesitated. Lost villages survived because the founders were immune; they would not want her non-immune genes entering their population. “Well, they could use some strong backs and clever minds added to their populations.”
Tuuri nodded. Perhaps she’d missed the implication, or perhaps she’d accepted her genetic undesirability long before. Turning back to the monitors, she straightened … and then slumped. “It’s just Sigrun and Emil. They’ve got a goose.”
With the weather cold and partly cloudy, and no grosslings nearby, Mikkel and Reynir roasted the goose outside. When everyone had eaten their fill, Mikkel loaded a plate for Lalli and put it and the remnants of the goose in the back compartment. If — when — Lalli came back, he would be hungry. The late-February forest had little to forage, even for a scout.
And then they all went inside to wait.
“There he is!”
Sigrun and Emil left the rifles they’d been cleaning for the second time, and Mikkel and Reynir abandoned their polishing rags, as everyone crowded behind Tuuri to see the figure sprinting through the forest. It was Lalli; no grossling could run that smoothly and that fast.
When Lalli opened the door and found everyone waiting, he hesitated as if wanting to retreat, but had no chance. Tuuri seized his collar, pulled him in by main force, and pushed him to the table, scolding him every step of the way. Mikkel darted out, retrieved the plate of food, and brought it back to place it in front of the scout. Though he was prepared for a contest of wills, Lalli dug into the cold goose without complaint as Tuuri continued to scold.
“Let the little guy be, short stuff,” Sigrun said with a chuckle. “He’s back in one piece, and we’ll find out what he saw after he eats.” She glanced forward at the late afternoon sunlight shining through the windshield. “It’s too late to go much of anywhere today.”
Once Lalli had eaten, been interrogated by Tuuri, and retreated into his den, she reported that the ley line did continue past the town, and he had found a route for the tank to avoid the town and get back to the line.
“Did he run into a swarm?” Sigrun asked. “Is that why he was so late?”
“No, no swarm; it was just hard to find a route.”
“Well, that’s good. Show me the route.”
While the two bent their heads over the map, Mikkel stepped back, frowning. Why didn’t a swarm go after Lalli? Because all the available trolls came after us? Or … is there something I’m missing here?
“Here they come,” Reynir murmured. “Should we …?”
Mikkel studied the blips on the radar. “Let them sleep for a moment.” Reynir had relieved Mikkel on watch half an hour before, but Mikkel had remained, expecting another attack and seeing no point trying to sleep.
All the others were asleep in the main compartment, even Emil, though it was his turn to enjoy the “private room.” The Cleanser had even laid out two rings of traps, explaining afterwards that there wasn’t room for three.
“They’re passing us,” Reynir said. “But they must be out of range.”
Mikkel glanced up at the galdrastafur above the door, which Reynir had renewed with trembling hands after supper. “They’re going north. Look, there are some to the left going that way too.” With a curt nod, he added, “Okay, wake them up. There’s a swarm forming, and they’ll be down here soon.”
Despite the close quarters, the other four were dressed and armed within minutes. As usual when he stood watch, Mikkel was already in uniform with his pistol on his hip. Sigrun joined the two by the monitors, where Mikkel described what they’d seen
Sigrun rubbed her chin for a moment. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. It feels like a storm getting ready to break.” She rubbed her chin again. “Braidy, be ready with the lights.” Reynir’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he nodded. “We’re getting up on top now. Blondy, where’s that bucket for Mikkel?”
“In back.” Emil already had the door open and hopped down, closely followed by Lalli, Sigrun, and Tuuri. Scooping up his shotgun, Mikkel joined them outside.
With short sight lines and only four sharpshooters, Sigrun organized them with Emil at the back, Tuuri at the front, Lalli covering the right side, and Sigrun herself on the left side. Mikkel stood in the middle with his shotgun and bucket of incendiaries, ready to support any side that appeared threatened. They knelt to be less visible in the moonlight and waited for the swarm to come.
They didn’t wait for long. Breaking branches and twigs heralded a few trolls bumbling through the forest from the north. These trolls veered off to the east and crashed away, but there were more behind them. And more, and more.
The forest filled with crunches and crashes, and over that a constant confusion of moans, squeals, and the occasional almost human voice. “Where?” something asked plaintively, its voice fading as it blundered off to the southwest. “Where? Where?”
That doesn’t mean it’s actually searching for us. It just remembers that word. It’s probably been repeating it since the Catastrophe. But Mikkel had the uneasy feeling that the swarm was searching, that it had been sent to find them.
A fitful north wind brought the stench of the swarm to them, like the smell of a village’s waste rotting in a swamp under the summer sun. Even after so many fights, Mikkel suppressed a gag as it hit him. He and the others kept their places, still waiting.
“Bad,” Lalli whispered, and in the same moment, the noise of the swarm’s passage stopped. Lit by moonlight through leafless branches, dozens of misshapen heads turned towards the tank. With no need of orders, the team got to their feet and stood, firearms in hand.
The trolls charged, crawling, slithering, and hobbling in a bewildering tangle of arms, legs, tentacles, and giant claws. While the humans held their fire, flame bloomed to the east as the first trolls hit Emil’s traps. Shrieks, wails, groans joined the uproar, and within it a small child’s voice cried, “Pain! Pain!”
Mikkel grimaced and turned his shotgun to the burning mass. But in all those, how could he identify the child? If it was a child, and not a trick of the Rash, it had been suffering as a troll for ninety years. He hated that they caused it more pain, but its misery would end this night. The voice fell silent, and there was only the cacophony of monstrous howls, now sounding from all around as Emil’s traps burned on all sides.
For a moment, Mikkel allowed himself to hope the first ring of traps had stopped the swarm, but it was not to be. As the flames died, the trolls advanced once, climbing over the charred bodies, charging forward … directly into Emil’s second ring of traps. Fire surrounded the tank once more.
Crack!
A batrachian troll collapsed inside the second ring, shot by Lalli, and now all the sharpshooters were firing. The traps had done their part, but, like the magic, they were overwhelmed. Mikkel gripped his shotgun tighter, watching for anything approaching too closely.
But there! Just inside the tree line lurked six or eight trolls. Smarter or more cautious than their brethren, they hung back from the ongoing attack. One incendiary and Mikkel’s powerful throw ended their existences.
The sharpshooters fired as fast as their weapons would allow, but still the trolls advanced. Mikkel edged towards Tuuri, shooting several trolls mere meters from the tank. He had almost reached her when a tentacle appeared over the side. Without time for thought, without time to look for the troll, Mikkel swept Tuuri behind him with one powerful arm and stamped on the tentacle. A squeal from below, and more tentacles shot up to wrap around his legs. Sigrun cursed behind him, hardly audible over the uproar, as the troll dragged him off the top of the tank.
Mikkel had the presence of mind to curl forward so as not to crack his head on the tank and to raise his shotgun. Still entangled in tentacles, he fell onto the remains of trolls, the open maw of the tentacled troll yawning before him. He shoved the shotgun inside and fired. The troll fell dead, but its tentacles tightened around his legs.
Mikkel cursed, struggling to get his feet under him, to free himself from the dead grasp of the troll, but there was no time. A troll reached for his arm, but crumpled with one shot. Rifles cracked overhead as Mikkel twisted in his tentacle-trap, firing left and right as creatures crawled at him, maws drooling, mandibles clacking. Something moved inside the mass of dead trolls, clawing at his leg. Pinned by the dead troll, he couldn’t even kick it. He fired twice where he guessed a head would be, and the clawing stopped.
Even that momentary delay had allowed an insectile troll to get within arm’s reach, talons closing on the shotgun and pushing it aside. Mikkel dropped it to hang on its strap while he slammed the troll’s head between powerful fists. A revolting crunch, and the thing fell dead.
As more trolls moved in, too close for him to maneuver the shotgun, he drew his pistol instead, wishing he had his crowbar. When the pistol clicked empty, he dropped it and raised his fists. “Come on, then,” he muttered as a long, skull-like head reached for him from a round body half-concealed in the mess.
The troll lunged, jaws wide and dripping saliva. Mikkel backhanded it, knocking it into another troll which clamped its own jaws on the monster. While the two fought, momentarily blocking others from attacking him, he snatched up the pistol and replaced the magazine. He had two more, he thought, as he shot another troll at close range. The numbers seemed endless, the noise and smell overpowering, as trolls crawled over their fellows to attack him.
But now the noise was dying down. Mikkel scanned around, thinking he was growing deaf from the gunfire. Yet no new trolls appeared before him, and the rifle-fire above had slowed to an occasional shot. Mikkel holstered his pistol and tugged at a tentacle which held his leg in a painfully tight grip. A squelching crunch beside him. Mikkel’s pistol was in his hand as he twisted to see the latest enemy.
Sigrun froze. “Hey, big guy, it’s me. You okay?”
“I almost shot —” His hands trembled as he holstered the pistol. “I’m well enough. Tuuri?”
“Fine. Up there with Lalli. We’ve got to get her down.”
Mikkel surveyed the trolls heaped around the tank and the blood and slime spattered on it. Getting Tuuri down without risking infection would be tricky. He looked down at his captive legs with a sigh. “I could use some help.”
“Blondy! Get down here.” Sigrun knelt atop a troll and examined the tentacle. “This thing have hooks?”
“Just tight, and I don’t have a good angle.”
Emil picked his way to them from the back of the tank, having apparently chosen to climb down the ladder rather than jump into a pile of trolls. With the two working together, Mikkel was soon untangled.
Sigrun helped him to his feet, and tugged him with her, keeping a tight grip on his arm.
“We need to get Tuuri —” Mikkel began.
“She can wait. We need to get you inside.”
“Southwest. One,” Reynir’s voice announced, and a rifle crack followed within seconds from atop the tank.
“I don’t need —”
“Yeah, you do. Come on.”
If Mikkel had chosen to resist, Sigrun could not have forced him, but he allowed her to take him to other side of the tank, where Emil opened the slime-spattered door and Sigrun climbed in, pulling Mikkel after her.
They were tracking in slime, mud, troll blood … and human blood. Mikkel frowned down at the mess as Sigrun led him to his bunk. This needed to be cleaned up before Tuuri or Reynir stepped in it.
“Take down his trousers,” Sigrun ordered, and Emil obeyed.
Mikkel landed on his bunk with his trousers around his ankles and Emil pulling off his right boot. Now he had a clear view of the problem: his right trouser leg was slashed to the knee, his right leg was filthy to mid-thigh, and blood seeped through the slime on his right calf.
“Can you deal with this?” Sigrun asked, pulling out the first-aid kit.
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s go, Blondy. Let’s get our girl down.”
Emil leapt to his feet, ran for the door. Following him, Sigrun paused for a moment. “Don’t bleed to death.”
And they were gone.
“North-northwest. One,” Reynir announced, and several seconds later a shot rang out. The dot on the radar stopped moving.
Reynir glanced at Mikkel, who stood by the little kitchen sink, scrubbing the slime off his leg with a rag. Three slashes on his right calf still oozed blood. Winding his braid around his arm, Reynir returned his attention to the monitors.
If only I could help! But I’m on watch, and anyway he’d never let me. He’s got slime all over him — it’s even in his hair. And I can’t do anything to get Tuuri down.
Or can I?
“I can drive. I can get us out of this mess so —” Mikkel hadn’t even looked around at his words, merely returning to his bunk and taking up a bottle.
Is he angry at me for sitting here in safety while he fought? No, that can’t be. He knows I’m on watch. And Sigrun shouted at him, but she couldn’t be angry …
Raising his voice, he began again. “Mikkel.” This time Mikkel looked up. “I can drive. I can pull forward out of this mess and then —”
But Mikkel shook his head. “That would be a last resort,” he said in a loud voice. “She might well fall off. There’s nothing to hold onto up there except the lights, and they’d break off.” Reynir gave a reluctant nod, remembering driving lessons with Tuuri. They had to retract the lights before they drove, because the lights were irreplaceable, and a branch passing overhead could sweep them off.
“Can’t we just wait? It must be near fifteen minutes by now.”
Mikkel took out a bandage, one of the red ones that wouldn’t show blood. “The virus will die in fifteen minutes in blood and slime, but inside the bodies? Maybe not. If a broken bone scratched her … No, the bodies are dangerous even for us, much less Tuuri.”
“For you?”
“We can’t get the Rash, no, but trolls are filthy beasts.” He tightened the bandage around his calf and tied it off. “There are many other infections.”
Reynir focused on the monitors, hoping the other man wouldn’t see him blush.
I forget sometimes that they have all the same weaknesses we have. All but one, the one makes all the difference.
He called out another pair of contacts.
“Don’t worry,” Mikkel said, getting to his feet and pulling on his uniform trousers and the knee-high uniform boots he hadn’t worn in weeks. “We’ll have her down safely very soon.” Stripping off his jacket and shirt, he washed his hands, palmed the soap, pulled his one clean shirt from his cabinet, and strode out the door, bare-chested.
Reynir blinked at the closed door. What is Mikkel thinking? He looked up at the galdrastafur above the door. If only Tuuri were here to take the watch, I could renew that. Maybe it would hold off the next swarm. If it’s smaller. If only Tuuri were here and safe!
A radar contact, moving fast and smoothly through the forest. Reynir raised the microphone, then stopped. A troll wouldn’t move like that. Even a deer wouldn’t. So this must be …
With a small flash of pride in his skill, he directed the video feed to show an owl landing on a branch to peer at the activity below.
Could that be Onni, come to see how we’re doing? No, it can’t be. Just going to Denmark exhausted him, and we’re a long way south of there. He didn’t make his owl appear in the real world anyway. Can he? I wish he could. I’ll bet he could deal with that giant all by himself.
But maybe it’s better if that’s not him. He’d be furious if he knew we’d put Tuuri in so much danger.
The owl flew away. After a brief study of the other monitors, Reynir directed the video feed to the back of the tank: no one there. Beside the door … His mouth fell open and he snatched up the microphone. Almost, he shouted at them. Almost …
A blip appeared on the radar. As he announced it, his outrage cooled somewhat, and he regarded the video feed almost calmly.
Emil stood by, holding Mikkel’s shirt in his bare hand, while Sigrun held the hose and Mikkel washed his hair. After a brief glance at the radar, Reynir returned to glaring at the video.
I don’t believe this. Slime in his hair, yes, it’s disgusting, but it won’t hurt him. How can he, how dare he, worry about his hair when Tuuri’s in danger? And they’re helping him! He checked the outside temperature gauge. It’s near freezing out there. Serves him right if he dies of the cold because he doesn’t even care about Tuuri.
He studied the radar, took a deep, calming breath, and checked the video again. Mikkel had his shirt on and Emil his gloves, as the three walked together to the back, Sigrun pulling the hose behind her. Before Reynir could reach the controls, the feed switched to the back, showing them walking into the frame. “Thank you, Rosli,” he whispered, and a telltale flickered, not Morse code, just an acknowledgment.
Once Sigrun had rinsed the ladder, Mikkel climbed up, stopping halfway so she could rinse his trousers and boots. Reynir had to force himself to attend to his duties, calling out two contacts approaching from the east. When he looked back, Sigrun stood alone by the ladder. Water sluiced across the door; Emil was rinsing it off, then.
Heavy footsteps crossed the roof; light footsteps joined them. Reynir called out another contact and a rifle-crack soon answered. More heavy footsteps made their way to the back, and Mikkel climbed down the ladder with Tuuri riding piggyback. Just before the feed switched away to the door side, Lalli climbed down after him.
Mikkel picked his way between the corpses, Sigrun close by but not touching either of them, until Emil opened the door and Mikkel climbed in and turned his back to Reynir.
Reynir’s knees went weak as he steadied Tuuri. Sliding down Mikkel’s broad back, she landed on the clear floor right of the door and, with a quick grin to Reynir, darted to the driving compartment. Once Sigrun and Emil had climbed in and closed the door, Tuuri announced, “There’s another clear area ahead. Lalli’s going to lead us there. Hang on, this will be rough.” With Mikkel sitting on his bunk and the other two on the floor, Reynir rushed to take the passenger seat as a faint mechanical thump told him the lights had been retracted and stowed.
Mikkel had been right about the danger. As Tuuri guided the tank after Lalli, it tipped up, to the left, back to the right, and down again, but it stayed upright and ground down the road. “They’ll never let me do that again,” she said, almost shouting. “But they need me with a swarm like that.”
Reynir looked at his hands, the hands that had drawn the galdrastafur that had failed in the face of the swarm. “Because you got trapped up there? I’ve got an idea —”
Up ahead, Lalli waved them to a halt and darted away to the east. Movement in the main compartment: Mikkel treating each person’s ears with the hearing remedy. When Reynir nudged her and pointed, Tuuri rushed to get her own treatment.
Left alone in the front, Reynir bent to coax the kitten out from under his seat and gather her in his arms. She was wide-eyed but her fur was smooth; no trolls within range, then. “I know that was scary, but it’s all over now. Does it stink? I’ll bet it does.”
His hand touched his mask, Tuuri’s spare mask. These are good Icelandic masks. They’re supposed to last a long time, but what about when they fail? Or if one gets broken? We’ll have to stay inside whatever shelter we’ve found. It’s okay for me, but she’ll hate it. He touched the mask again. I shouldn’t wear it. Then it’ll last longer, and she can have it when hers fails. I should take it off … But he didn’t.
Tuuri came back to the driver’s seat. “That’s so much better. All that gunfire just makes your ears ring, you know.”
Reynir didn’t know. Growing up in the safety of Iceland, he’d never heard a single gunshot before joining this expedition. “Um, I was thinking. We need a ladder. Then —”
She nudged the controls forward as Lalli darted back into the road and waved her on. “We have a ladder.”
“I mean, another ladder, a portable one. Then they could just hose down around the door, open it and set up the ladder, and you could just climb down and step right inside.”
Tuuri gave him a smile. “That’s a really good idea.” The smile faded as she returned her attention to the road. “But they still won’t let me.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mikkel had to save me!”
“But — but he didn’t. We could have found another way to get you down —”
She took her eyes off the road to glare at him for a moment. “Don’t you know why he fell off?”
“No?” There were no cameras on top of the tank. The video feed had shown trolls, and the next time around, Mikkel had been in the middle of them.
“A troll reached for me, and he got in front of me. It would have pulled me off instead.” She grimaced. “I’m so tired of owing my life to people.”
Reynir petted the kitten. He’s strong and brave and he saved her life and he carried her down the ladder like she didn’t weigh anything. He sighed. And he’s smart and he just fixed her ears and I’m just a shepherd boy who doesn’t know anything. How could I ever compare myself to him? As if she’d heard his thoughts, the kitten stood in his lap and patted his cheek. He stroked her, and she purred, curling up again. But Tuuri’s happy. That’s the important thing. She’s happy.
The forest opened out before them, and Tuuri maneuvered the tank to the center, swiveling it around to face north before parking. If another swarm came, they expected it to come from the north. If another swarm came …
The galdrastafur did hold them off at first. If the next swarm is little, maybe we won’t have to fight.
In the main compartment, Emil was mopping while Sigrun argued with Mikkel. Though Reynir couldn’t entirely follow the rapid conversation, he gathered Sigrun wanted Mikkel to rest, and he wanted to clean. Of course he did. Reynir felt a pang of guilt for thinking the man was just worried about the state of his hair when he took a cold shower in freezing weather.
“Uh, is it safe for me to walk in there? I want to renew the galdrastafur.”
Mikkel broke away from Sigrun. “I’d rather you stayed in the clean area. Let me set things up.” He carried a chair to the door and offered a hand to help Reynir step onto the chair without touching the contaminated floor. After fetching the paint and brush, he took up a rag and knelt to scrub the floor around the chair. Sigrun said something that sounded like a curse; Reynir added it to his vocabulary and devoted his attention to the galdrastafur. His hands trembled a little as he hurried to finish before the next swarm came.
By the time Reynir finished the galdrastafur, the others had cleaned the floor, changed into cleaner clothes, and stowed all the befouled clothing in the UV cabinet. Tuuri had explained the situation to Lalli through the speakers, so he waited until Reynir moved the chair and Sigrun opened the door. After throwing his surprisingly clean gear in the UV cabinet, he turned back and stopped, staring at the renewed galdrastafur. His lips parted for a moment before he resumed his customary impassive expression, nodded to Reynir, rolled into his den, and pulled the covers over his ears.
Far more than fifteen minutes had passed while they cleaned. With Mikkel’s permission, and not without a gulp of fear, Reynir removed his mask. And gulped again to hold back a gag at the stench. “Can we open the windows? At least one? We could close it really fast if something showed up on the monitors.”
Sigrun laughed, and for a moment, he thought she’d laughed at his fumbling Swedish. “First time? Yeah, it’s pretty awful. Just keep breathing, and pretty soon your nose’ll go numb and you won’t smell it any more.”
“Will my nose ever work again?”
“Oh, sure. And then it’ll smell just as bad the next time, too.”
“Can we open the windows?” Emil asked.
“I don’t believe there will be any mosquitoes,” Mikkel said, “and the rest of the night would be more pleasant if we aired things out a bit.” An overhead light blinked repeatedly. “Screen. Slides. I see. Let me check.” After opening the window and running his fingers along the edge, he slid an insect screen across.
“Right, so —” Sigrun began.
“I’ve got to set traps,” Emil said, and with weary sighs, the three pulled on their uniforms, filthy and stinking but not infectious thanks to time and the UV cabinet. They trooped out, and soon a couple of thumps told of Emil’s taking out his traps.
Reynir slumped against the wall by the door. There’s got to be something I can do to help. But the only thing I can do that no one else can is magic, and I only know a few galdrastafur. He counted on his fingers. That one, the one against ghosts, the one for frostbite, and then good luck and good health. Five. And no way to learn more. No books and no one to ask. If I could reach Onni, he could at least look at some and draw them for me. But I can’t even do that.
His gaze wandered around the main compartment. Back in Iceland, maybe I could have gotten training. Maybe I could be one of the mages that make the … that make the remedies? He straightened and crossed the compartment in a few long strides. With an uneasy look at Mikkel’s bunk, he opened the man’s cabinet and found the first-aid kit on top of everything else, ready for use. Taking it and quietly closing the cabinet door, he headed for the radio compartment that doubled as Tuuri’s office.
“May I use some of your paper? And the pen and ink?”
Tuuri shrugged and gestured at her office without looking away from the monitors.
In the office, Reynir set out the remedy bottles, paper, and a quill pen. He opened an ink bottle, raised the pen, and hesitated. Maybe mere ink wasn’t enough. With an anticipatory wince, he took out a lancet, cleaned it with alcohol, stabbed his finger, squeezed several drops in the ink, and cleaned it again before stowing it. Though the alcohol bottle was nearly full, he shook it and asked Tuuri, “Do you know how to make a still?”
“Sure.” She peeked in at him. “But if you want something to drink, beer’s easier.” He held up the bottle. “Oh. That. I guess we’ll have to plan for that. I can’t build one in the tank, though. It’s pretty big and pretty delicate.” She turned back to the monitors.
Reynir mumbled agreement and went back to work, shaking up the ink and laying the bottle of antiseptic beside a piece of paper. Running his finger over the galdrastafur incised in the bottle, he felt the warmth, the power. With the pattern clear in his mind, he drew it, thinking about Mikkel. The man seemed accident-prone. He’d already been wounded by grosslings twice on this expedition, not to mention getting his feet frostbitten. Certainly he needed this sort of magic.
After making two antiseptic galdrastafur for Mikkel, Reynir moved on to make one for each of the others, including Tuuri and himself. There were many other infections, as Mikkel had said. What is this bottle? Antibiotics? Ah, that’s in case you get an infection anyway. He made one of those for each person.
Reynir slouched down in the chair, eyes closed. After a moment, he picked up his braid and twisted it. What right do I have to be tired? Everyone else has been fighting, even Tuuri. They must be far more tired than I am. He picked up the next bottle and read the label. “What’s ‘analgesic’ mean?”
“Painkiller.” Tuuri peeked in. “What are you doing, anyway?”
“I’m making some healing galdrastafur. I hope so, anyway.” The papers felt warm, warmer even than the bottles, and he hoped the ley line was helping him.
“Good idea. Great idea, in fact.” She went back to keeping watch.
By the time he finished half a dozen analgesic galdrastafur, Reynir struggled to screw the lid on the ink bottle. Leaving everything strewn on Tuuri’s desk, he staggered to his bunk, pulled it down, and dragged himself up the ladder. His last thought as sleep claimed him was, “I helped!”
Oh, joy, a lecture.
Emil poked at his venison bacon. It didn’t matter that this came from the first deer he’d ever brought down with his bow. He was tired of venison, tired of running and fighting, tired of sleeping in a tiny compartment with five other people.
Mikkel had finished his breakfast first and had announced, “I’ve been thinking about the swarm attacks, and I have a theory about what’s happening.”
Yeah, we’re being chased across the continent by a crazy giant that keeps sending swarms after us. I don’t need a lecture to know that.
Emil had been tired of lectures since before he left school. Slumping down in his chair, he gnawed at a piece of bacon and prepared to zone out for Mikkel’s lecture.
“Okay, there’s been a consistent pattern where we get hit every night or two by a small swarm that comes up our back trail and arrives late.”
Emil rolled his eyes at Sigrun, who grinned back.
“But three nights ago there was a change in the pattern. The trolls came early and from all directions. We thought the enemy was there, calling them, and we looked for it, but we couldn’t spot it.”
“The giant caught up with us,” Sigrun said, “but it still stayed out of sight. If we’d had the scout there —”
Emil took the last piece of bacon from his plate and examined it with distaste before popping it into his mouth.
“But he wasn’t there,” Mikkel said, “and we stayed where we were, waiting for him. That’s significant.”
Emil held back a yawn. He hadn’t had to stand watch the night before, but he hadn’t slept well.
“The next night, we were just two kilometers down the road. The swarm came early again, it was huge, and it came along our back trail.”
“We know all this,” Sigrun said.
“I’m trying to show that there’s a real pattern. Yesterday we bypassed that town, and last night was quiet.”
Tuuri got a quiet night in the private bed. But I gave up my night back there so I’d be ready to fight, and no one even noticed.
“So my point is that the one real break in the pattern happened three nights ago, the only time we stayed in the same place for two nights.”
“And so …” Sigrun prompted.
“The only explanation I’ve been able to come up with — and I’ve thought about this for days — is that the enemy can’t see the tank.”
“What!” Emil sat up in surprise, as did the others, even Reynir.
“But it found us that one night —” Tuuri said.
“No, I don’t think it did. It didn’t find us the next night, when we were just two kilometers away. No, I think it finds our campsites. I don’t know how; maybe we leave traces it can detect. Each night, it finds our previous campsite, calls whatever trolls are nearby, and sends them to find us.”
Mikkel scanned their faces. “Don’t you see? This explains the break in the pattern and also the timing. When we stayed at the same campsite, it called the trolls right on top of us. When we were still close to it, most of the trolls reached us quickly. When we’ve moved a long way, or if there’s a town between us and our campsite, they find us late, only a few of them, or maybe none at all.”
He looked away as if uncomfortable. “During the big swarm, I heard a troll saying, ‘Where? Where?’ I thought it might have been repeating that since the Catastrophe, but now I think it really was looking for us. I think they all were. But the enemy itself can’t find us. It must not be able to see us. That’s the only explanation.”
“But how?” Sigrun asked finally. “How can it not see us?”
“We’re not dealing with a giant, not even one with a human mind. We just accepted that because we had no other ideas, but I’ve never heard of a giant or a troll that could summon other trolls.”
Sigrun nodded slowly. “Me neither.”
“Okay,” Mikkel went on, “now let’s think about fylgjas. They seem to belong to another realm, mage-space as Tuuri calls it. They can manifest briefly in our world. Emil’s fire spirit, of course. And Reynir’s dog left tracks to guide him. But there are other things in mage-space, hostile things. Dragons, maybe others.”
He looked straight at Emil. “The other day, Emil suggested to me that things like that might come into our world to eat us. And now I wonder if he’s right, and this thing comes from mage-space.”
Tuuri muttered to Reynir while Sigrun regarded Emil with a slight smile.
Is Tuuri talking about me? Making fun of my suggestion? And Sigrun, what is she thinking now? I didn’t expect Mikkel to take the idea seriously. He’s supposed to be a skeptic, and he’s talking about something from “mage-space” invading our world to hunt us down?
“So why can’t something from mage-space see us? It might not really ‘see’ in our sense at all.” He gestured at the symbol above the door. “We don’t really know what that galdrastafur up there affects. Trolls, yes, but maybe this thing too. And there’s also an anti-ghost galdrastafur in the back compartment. This thing could be enough like a ghost to be affected by that.” He shrugged. “Something is stopping it from seeing us, and those are the only magic things around here that I know of.”
“But why?” Emil could keep still no longer. “Why would a … a magic thing be chasing us all over Germany? What does it want?”
Mikkel sighed. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine what we might have done to provoke something like this.”
“Okay, then,” Sigrun said, “if it goes to our campsite, let’s stay somewhere and fight it. We’ve got the scout now, he sees stuff like that, and so —”
“How can we fight it? We don’t know what it is or how powerful it is. Reynir doesn’t seem to have any magical fighting ability, so Lalli would have to take it on alone in some kind of magical combat. Do we dare risk that?” Mikkel shook his head. “I don’t think so. But I believe we can reduce the attacks by moving fast and never camping anywhere two days in a row. That’s the one thing we can do while we try to figure out what it is and what we can do about.”
As silence fell around the table, Emil gave Reynir an uncomfortable glance. Although Sigrun now called the Icelander “Braidy”, in Emil’s mind, he was still “the baggage”. But if his drawings were keeping the team safe …
Sigrun stood. “Right, so the big guy has this idea. It sounds good. Well, not good, but anyway, if he’s right, we need to get going. We’ll keep away from it ’til our mages figure out how to kill it. Let’s go, kid.”
Emil and Sigrun went out in the dawn-light to collect his traps. Even with no grosslings around and someone watching the monitors, Sigrun insisted on standing guard while he worked.
The finicky, mechanical task was a relief after listening to Mikkel’s bizarre ideas. What kind of skeptic was that man? And yet Emil himself had called a fire spirit, and Reynir’s drawings kept the trolls away. He shook his head and told himself to focus.
When Emil had cleared almost half the circle, Sigrun said, “I’m taking your third watch, day after tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Emil disarmed an incendiary and added it to his bucket. “Wait, isn’t that your night in the back?”
“I’m giving it to you. You gave up your night to be ready to fight. Good thing, too. You took out a lot of trolls with these things, and you shot a bunch too. So you’ll take my night and your night too.” She waved away his stumbling thanks. “Won’t hurt me, and you deserve it. Now pick up your traps so we can get going.”
Emil picked up his traps.
First watch was usually quiet, and so it was that night. Emil yawned as he watched small glows on the IR monitor: animals foraging in the dead leaves.
Two nights sleeping on a pile of bedrolls between the crates with no one around. That’s luxury these days. And I thought I was poor when I had to rent Uncle Torbjörn’s spare room because I couldn’t afford a flat. But I had my own room. A real bed. Evenings babysitting the kids instead of these monitors. Something to eat besides venison. Vegetables. Onions. Carrots. Potatoes. Even that spinach Aunt Siv likes so much.
He licked his lips, trying to remember the tastes.
And I gave it all up because I thought I was poor. Now, I would give anything to be back in Uncle Torbjörn’s spare room.
The full moon that shone on the tank in Silent Germany shone also on Mora and the Västerströms’ home. Moonlight flooded into the room as Anna gazed out the window, unable to sleep for the pain of her broken finger.
“Lucky it’s only one finger, and only the little one,” the school nurse had said as she splinted it.
Next time, it might be my hand. Or worse. Shivering, Anna cradled her right hand against her body. I’m never going back to school. We’re never going back.
An owl ghosted over the rooftops of Mora, its broad wings silhouetted against the moon before it landed on the roof ridge across the street. As its rounded head swiveled left and right, for a moment its large, dark eyes stared directly into hers.
Anna gasped. When Onni collapsed and Mom blamed the children, Taru had said Onni had an owl, or was an owl. Before the children could ask questions, Mom told Taru to hush about that nonsense. Onni himself would not discuss it.
Is this Onni’s owl, then? Or Onni himself? Can he — will he — help us? She reached for the window latch just as the owl launched itself from the roof, gliding away to lose itself among the rooftops.
Betrayed, Anna watched it go. She and her brothers were on their own against the world.
Again.
Clearly Mikkel wanted to talk privately. He didn’t need to limp a hundred meters from the tank to gather pine needles, and he didn’t need Sigrun as a guard in daylight.
Pine needles. Again. Mikkel sweetened his pine needle tea with honey, and he insisted the tea prevented scurvy (whatever that was), but she would kill for a cup of acorn coffee. When Mikkel stopped below a leafless oak, Sigrun kicked dead leaves out of the way, hoping for acorns the squirrels had overlooked.
“The day after tomorrow is the fifth of March,” Mikkel said.
Sigrun looked up from the acorn-less mud. From the weather, she’d thought it mid-March at least. Trust Mikkel to know the exact date. “And so …”
“That’s Tuuri and Reynir’s birthday.”
“What, both of them?”
“Just so. And they don’t just share a birthday; they were born the same day in the Year 69.”
“Really? Then they were made for each other.”
“I’d say so.” He gave her a quick, sly smile. “But best not to say so.”
“Children.” Sigrun gave a fond grin. “I won’t say.” As he broke off a twig with fresh young needles, she asked, “How do you know?”
“Her birthday was in the dossiers we were given.”
Sigrun took an intense interest in a dense, leafless bush that might — but probably didn’t — harbor a small grossling.
“And I asked him a couple of weeks ago, when I thought of having birthday celebrations for morale.”
“Ah, good idea.” She scuffed up some more leaves. Still no acorns. “What about everyone else?”
“Lalli on the twentieth of April. Emil on the first of June. They’ll both be twenty.”
“And you?”
“The eleventh of August.”
Five months away. Will we all still be alive in five months to celebrate his birthday?
Sigrun shook off the thought. “So what are you doing for their birthday?”
“I’ll fix them a special meal.”
She snickered, and Mikkel gave her a level stare. “I am not a terrible cook.” As he turned on his heel and limped away towards the tank, back stiff and shoulders rigid, he added, “There’s little I can do with meat, tallow, pine needles, and honey. I haven’t even found mint in weeks.”
After a moment blinking at Mikkel’s back, Sigrun ran to catch up. “But then, what can you fix?”
Mikkel pointed at a patch of greenery amidst the mud and dead leaves. “That’s chickweed. It’s edible. And I —”
“Aren’t you going to pick it?”
“There’s plenty more. I’ll pick some fresh tomorrow.”
They walked unspeaking for a dozen meters, twigs cracking underfoot.
“Did you tell Emil?”
“I thought you would.” He snapped off another twig.
“Okay, yeah.” After a moment, she grinned. “Did you tell Lalli?”
Mikkel shrugged broad shoulders. “I drew a calendar and tried to show him the fifth was Reynir and Tuuri’s birthday. In pantomime. I believe he found it entertaining.”
Sigrun laughed at the image before looking around at the forest. “So, what can we give them? Any ideas?”
“We’ll pass a town tomorrow. If you hurry, you can get over to it and —”
“Where?”
“I’ll show you on the map.”
Silence fell as Sigrun considered what might still be usable in a town. They saw the tank through the trees before Mikkel spoke again. “Tuuri likes blue. And I could use more honey.”
Emil raised the crowbar, showing it to Sigrun as if she hadn’t just told him to take it. “I don’t know how —”
“If we get attacked, just drop it and fight like always.”
“Then shouldn’t Mikkel —”
“He’s got his own work. Come on, we’ve got a ways to go.” They trotted westwards together until Sigrun reckoned no one could hear them. “We’re not hunting today. We’re scavenging. Tomorrow is Tuuri and Reynir’s birthday, and we’re getting them presents.”
Emil stopped to stare at her. “They have the same birthday?”
“That’s what the big guy told me. Hurry up. There’s a town over that way. Might take us a while to find something.”
As they trotted on, the tank ground and crunched its way south. Birds flitted from tree to tree, a squirrel stopped to watch them pass, and small things foraged among dead leaves. Until …
“Hsst!” Sigrun blocked Emil with a hand and whispered, “Listen. Do you hear it?”
Off to their left, branches cracked under the tank’s treads, leaves rustled behind them, and the east wind tugged at the canvas bags tucked into their belts before passing on and sighing through bare branches.
“No?”
“That’s right. Nothing’s moving ahead. There’s a grossling in there. The critters know. They stay away. Or get eaten.” Sigrun looked around, listening. Something moved through dry leaves far to their left. “Okay, we’ll go around. This way.”
“We won’t kill it?”
“Nah, not unless it comes after us. Don’t think it will, though. It must smell us, but it’s not charging. Must be stuck. I wish — but we need to hurry.”
A raven glided to land on a branch ahead, staring at them. As they passed by, Sigrun gave it a respectful nod. Though she doubted the All-Father was interested in their scavenging, one never knew, and it didn’t hurt to be respectful.
“We’re in luck!” Sigrun crowed half an hour later. “Warehouses!” On either side of the street loomed huge windowless buildings with broad metal roll-up doors.
“They don’t look so good,” Emil said, waving at the nearest two. The roof of one had collapsed, while most of the front of the other lay in heaps of rubble before it.
“Meh. There’s always some messed up. There’ll be some good ones. Let’s check that way.” They picked their way past the rubble, checking buildings as they went. When Sigrun pointed to the human-sized door of a likely-looking building, Emil pried it open, dropping the crowbar and drawing his dagger as it swung open on rusted hinges. Nothing rushed out, and he retrieved the crowbar, blushing.
“We’ll come back to this if we can’t find better,” Sigrun said after shining her flashlight inside. All she could see within were fallen beams and debris. “But hey, we’ve got a bunch more to check.”
As Emil pried open a third door, the stench of trolls rolled through the gap, followed by a small insectoid troll which pushed through, squealing, before two daggers silenced it. Scrabbling alerted them to the next troll, similar but larger, which slammed into the door, forcing it fully open. This troll, too, fell to their daggers.
Sigrun shook her head. “Everything in there’s all slimed up. Let’s go on.”
Though troll-stench spilled through the crack as Emil struggled to open the next door, nothing charged out when it was partway open. The two stood together, daggers ready, listening.
“Stuck,” Sigrun said at length. “This might be good. Get the door all the way open. I’ll guard.”
Emil seized the edge of the door with both hands and heaved, putting his back into the effort. Metal screamed on concrete, and something within gave an answering shriek. With the door fully open, they saw the troll: a barrel-shaped body over a meter high; a massive beak on its front, snapping at the air in threat; two eyes on stalks, now turned back from the daylight; and several arm-thick tentacles scrabbling across the slime-covered floor at the intruders.
“One, two, three, go!” On Sigrun’s “go”, they raced into the building. Emil stumbled aside and jumped as a questing tentacle snatched at his boot. Hooks on the tentacle’s underside scraped on the sole as he pulled away. Just meters away, Sigrun slipped on something under the slime, caught her balance, and ran on, dodging another tentacle. Reaching the troll together, they plunged their daggers into the top just behind the eyes. The tentacles writhing towards them stiffened and collapsed.
The two stood, daggers drawn, and peered around. The warehouse had had rows of racks, but all within the troll’s reach had been pulled over and whatever they had borne was lost under a stinking coating of slime. “Doesn’t look good.” Wiping his nose with a clean part of his sleeve, Emil turned towards the door.
Sigrun smiled. The kid always gives up too early. “This part’s bad. But let’s look farther in, where the thing couldn’t reach.” Flicking on her flashlight, Sigrun led the way to the back, where racks stood intact.
“Sif’s blessed hands,” Sigrun whispered, her light wavering a little as she swept it across the racks. “We could clothe my whole clan with this. I hoped for clothes, but this!” She took a shaky breath and pulled a plastic-wrapped garment from the nearest rack. “This is blue jeans. Good, sturdy trousers.” Drawing on her long-ago scavenging experience as a young hunter, she pointed to numbers on the package. “These show the size. The numbers for Reynir should be …” Eyes closed as she pictured each person, she reeled off her estimates of the sizes for each person.
“But it’s not my birthday —”
“We’re not leaving this treasure! Grab … three. Three pairs for each of us. Stuff ’em in your sack. We need shirts too. You get these while I look for shirts.”
The racks of shirts were nearby. Sigrun hummed a harvest song as she grabbed light blue shirts for Tuuri, deep green shirts for Reynir, gray shirts for everyone else. Four shirts apiece fit into her sack. Emil’s light reflected off the racks as he moved behind her.
“Sigrun!” Emil’s voice sounded strained, but not frightened. “Sigrun, come here. You’ve got to see!”
Slinging her sack over her back, Sigrun ran around the end of a rack and stopped, stunned.
“Socks!” Emil said unnecessarily as he swept his light over bin after bin of socks.
They stared at this bounty for another moment before attacking the bins. Thick socks, thin socks … They stuffed socks into their sacks, into their pockets, down the fronts of their shirts. Sigrun even remembered to grab large socks for Reynir and Mikkel, and small socks for Tuuri. When they could carry no more socks, they slung their sacks over their shoulders and made their way to the front door.
“Close the door,” Sigrun ordered, and they threw themselves against it, forcing it shut with another metal-on-concrete scream. Taking up their sacks again, they high-fived each other and ran for the tank.
“Where’s the scout?”
Mikkel and Tuuri sat on his bunk with their heads together over a book, while Reynir chopped greens at the table. All three looked up at Sigrun’s question, their attention immediately drawn to the canvas sack Emil slung into the tank as he climbed in.
“He said there was something he had to check on,” Tuuri answered with a hint of worry. The last time Lalli had “had to check on something”, he’d raced back to report they were about to be overrun.
Sigrun smiled; perhaps Lalli had understood Mikkel’s pantomime after all. “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. But we didn’t get any game, so we’ll have to have the venison again tonight.” No one groaned, but their nods were resigned. “However …” She extended an arm in a dramatic gesture at Emil, who upended the sack.
Socks poured out, black, white, even a few green and red, sliding over each other in their plastic packages. Over stunned gasps — even Mikkel looked startled — she said, “Three pairs each. Short stuff, you grab your cousin’s share. Go on, go on, grab while the grabbing’s good!”
Dropping to her knees, she snagged a red pair she’d had her eye on. Emil, Tuuri, and Reynir joined her on the floor, laughing and snatching packages from each other.
“Be careful with the packages,” Mikkel said as he joined the scrum. “I can use the plastic —”
Sigrun threw a sock in his face. Astonished, he hesitated for a moment before throwing it back. And that was the end of decorum. Socks flew in all directions. Emil’s hood was knocked back, and he didn’t even pull it up, so intent was he on pelting Reynir and Mikkel.
The door opened. Everyone froze as Lalli stopped halfway in, his eyes tracking across the sock-strewn compartment. Sigrun looked at Mikkel, Mikkel at Sigrun. Speaking rapidly in Finnish, Tuuri scrambled to pull together matching socks while Lalli picked his way through the mess, rolled into his den, and pulled his blanket over his head.
The others gathered their own socks, giggling and trading mismatched socks back and forth. With his three pairs secured, Emil fished two pairs of stained, mended socks from his cabinet, carried them at arm’s length with an expression of distaste, and dropped them into the UV cabinet. As the rest of the team finished matching their socks, they did likewise.
But two socks, one of Mikkel’s and one of Tuuri’s, had quite vanished.
Supper was pan-seared venison, as usual, but served on a bed of chickweed. Mikkel was even generous with honey in their pine-needle tea, though Sigrun had forgotten all about fetching more honey for him. That night, it was Reynir’s turn to enjoy the privacy of the back compartment, and she worried for a moment that he might poke around and find the trousers, the shirts, and more than half the socks. But he was a good lad; she was sure he wouldn’t open Emil’s crates of explosives.
Next morning, when Mikkel escorted Reynir from the back, both carrying bowls of greens, the rest of the team was awake, waiting for their breakfast. As soon as the men set down their bowls, Mikkel stepped back, folded his arms, and said, “Today is the fifth of March. It is Tuuri’s birthday and also Reynir’s.”
Clearly, the two had not compared birthdays, as they looked at each other with visible surprise. Everyone else watched them with amusement.
“How old are you today?” Sigrun asked.
“Twenty-two,” they chorused, now looking even more astonished. Tuuri might even look appalled.
“Well, Reynir,” Mikkel said, “as it’s your birthday, I expect you to take it easy. I’ll take care of the cooking. That’s my present for the two of you. Now, all of you stay out of my way.”
It was still too dark to drive, but since there had been no swarm the night before and no trolls lurked nearby, Sigrun invited the birthday couple to enjoy the outdoors with her, Emil, and Lalli. The four other than Lalli sat together on upturned slabs, watching the dawn grow in the east and stars fade away.
When Mikkel called them in at last, Sigrun breathed deep the smell of garlic that filled the tank. How long had it been? Breakfast was venison bacon on a bed of wilted chickweed and ivy with garlic. As they dawdled over it, savoring each bite, Lalli darted out, soon returning with two dusty boxes. He set the larger box beside Reynir and the smaller beside Tuuri, stepping back to watch.
“Boots!” Tuuri cried in delight as she opened her box, and Sigrun felt a momentary surge of envy. Lalli had somewhere found faux-leather boots with faux-fleece linings for both Tuuri and Reynir. Mikkel already had such boots, but it seemed that, unless Sigrun injured her feet, she wasn’t likely to get her own until her birthday in October.
After fervent thanks from both recipients, Lalli left again for his usual scouting. The breakfast broke up. Once Mikkel had washed pots and dishes, forbidding Reynir to help, they all took their positions in the front, and the long journey resumed.
Lunch was similar to breakfast, with an added sauce for the venison, composed of honey and pine needle tea. Afterwards Sigrun brought out three blue shirts for Tuuri and three dark green for Reynir. Tuuri exclaimed in delight over her new shirts, putting one on and twirling before the team to show it off, while Reynir’s green shirt set off his red braid perfectly. His lengthy and stumbling thanks gave Sigrun a twinge of guilt for having called him “the baggage” for so long.
When Tuuri parked in the evening, everyone but Mikkel left the tank again, speculating what Mikkel had planned for supper. As if the gods themselves offered birthday wishes, the sky was clear, the air was warm, and a gentle breeze toyed with their hair as they waited.
Mikkel called them in and passed out plates of food. This time, he’d formed minced meat and greens into small balls which he’d fried in tallow and drizzled with a sauce of honey, pine needle tea, and even a few rose hips that he’d found still clinging to their bushes. Once he’d cleared away the dishes, Emil brought out his gifts, the blue jeans. Watching the faces about the table as the two thanked him, Sigrun thought Mikkel looked ever so slightly wistful, and she smiled to herself, planning to slip an outfit into each person’s cabinet in a week or so.
All we need is a good mead, and this would be perfect.
Sigrun leaned back, smiling, content with a good meal and good friends. Though they were still trapped in the Silent World, in that moment, she thought it was all going to work out.
The missing socks turned up three days later under the passenger seat. Accusations were leveled at the kitten, but nothing was ever proven.
Two nights after the birthday party, Tuuri lay awake on her hard, narrow bunk, staring at the underside of Sigrun’s bunk and glancing now and then at the clock with its tiny nightlight. She had the third watch while Reynir had the second, and she intended to ensure that she didn’t oversleep. That he didn’t let her oversleep, as he had the previous time she had the third watch.
He means to help. Of course he does, even though he drives me crazy. He’d take all three watches if Sigrun would let him. She glanced at the clock again. Ten minutes. Maybe she should let him. He could watch all night, sleep all day … No, Sigrun’s right. That wouldn’t be fair. He does work during the day.
Tuuri squinted up at the symbol above the door, lost in shadows. Sometimes she thought she almost saw it out of the corner of her eye, a flash of green or blue, always gone when she looked straight at it.
He does a lot. Without him, we’d all probably be dead by now. Yes, but I’m keeping us ahead of the enemy. That’s just like what the immunes do. We all owe each other our lives. Only it’s not the same after what he did. I have to talk to him … argh!
She wanted to thump her head against the bunk, but that would wake Mikkel in the bunk below and Sigrun in the bunk above, and she’d have to pretend to have had a nightmare. All in all, the satisfaction of working out her frustrations against the bunk wasn’t worth it.
Tuuri glanced at the clock again. Close enough. She rolled out of her bunk, landing as lightly as she could. With Emil sleeping — and snoring — in the back compartment, every sound was magnified: the low whirr of fans, the clicks and pops of the tank adjusting to cold night air, even her own breathing. Mikkel stirred, and she held her breath until he sighed and was still again.
With a last glance back at him, she tiptoed to Reynir’s side. The dark green of his birthday shirt set off his long red braid even in the faint glow of the monitors.
“You have to understand. It’s not the same thing —” But all the words went out of her head as Reynir turned to greet her with a smile. “It’s just a coincidence,” she blurted out, shoving her hands in her pockets before she could wring them.
“Coincid– Oh! The birthdays. Oh, sure. Wild coincidence, though, isn’t it?” Before Tuuri could answer, he continued, “I wish we'd been born on different days, though.”
It didn’t matter that we were born the same day, and it doesn’t matter that he wishes we weren’t. Of course not.
“If I’d been born a few days later, we could have another birthday party. That was so much fun! But, you know, the equinox is two weeks away.”
“Right, yes, we could have a party for that. Another feast, maybe.”
“It’s not our custom to give presents at the equinox,” Reynir said. Tuuri shook her head. It wasn’t her people’s custom either. “But we could, you know. And I have an idea for what we can give everybody.”
“Yeah, okay, let’s talk to everybody about that tomorrow.” She pulled her hands from her pockets and jammed them back in. “I, um, I wanted to say … um, look, I’m not a princess in a tower that you won by killing the giant.”
Reynir seemed confused in the blue light of the monitors. “No? I mean, no?” He looked around the tank, almost as if wondering how it could be mistaken for a tower. “I couldn’t kill a giant anyway, but you could.” Tuuri struggled to interpret his smile. Admiring? Or proud and possessive?
He put a hand to the pistol holstered at his side. “Do you think Lalli could find some ammo for me? So I could practice a little? Or maybe a shotgun? Mikkel says you don’t need to practice as much with a shotgun.”
With a shrug, she mumbled, “Yes, sure. I — Good idea. I’ll talk to him.”
“Thank you! Oh, it’s your watch.” He gave her a rather good salute and tiptoed to his bunk.
What kind of presents could we possibly come up with in two weeks? Lalli will have to find us something. More ammo, that’s a good idea. But … She leaned against the wall and shook her head at the monitors. At least we sort of talked.
The next morning, Mikkel had a plan to throw the enemy off their scent — literally. As soon as he and Reynir had washed the breakfast dishes and pots, he and Emil policed the campsite, collecting anything they might have lost or discarded, and throwing it all in the latrine. Kitchen scraps, contents of the litter box: everything went in. That done, they shoveled clean dirt over it and, while they and Sigrun stood guard, Reynir used a stick to scratch galdrastafur, one against ghosts and one against trolls, into the dirt. Back in the tank, he lay on Mikkel’s bunk to nap, as it was lower and safer than his own when the tank was moving.
Because of their late start, they were but half a kilometer from the campsite when Lalli sprinted back to the tank. As Tuuri brought the tank to a halt, the immunes snatched up their weapons. Opening the door to find the three armed and ready, Lalli gave an impatient wave, muttered “Safe” in his bad Swedish, and climbed in to report to his cousin.
“The road stops in a couple of kilometers,” he said, holding out one arm and pressing his other hand to it to form a T. “The line goes on in the forest.”
While Tuuri translated, Mikkel pulled down their folding table and spread the map on it. Though their road was too minor to show on the map, they knew roughly where they were from rivers they’d crossed or forded. Lalli and Emil retreated to the front, giving the others room around the table.
“So, driver,” Sigrun said, “what do you want to do?”
Tuuri glanced up at the symbol above the door. “I’d rather stay with the line. But the tank is … well, it’s old, and we’ve been pushing it hard. Much too hard. I wish I could take a week and tear it down, fix —” Sigrun cleared her throat, and Tuuri nodded. “Right. I think the tank hasn’t broken down yet because Rosli is fixing the little stuff.” The light overhead flickered an acknowledgment. “The roads are bad enough. If we go overland, we may break something she can’t fix. Or I can’t fix. So, I think we have to find another road.”
“Leaving the line,” Mikkel said with his own glance at the symbol. “I suppose this time had to come.”
Sigrun nodded. “We better not go too far from the line. Might have to run for it. If he can find a road going south not more than … hmm, three kilometers from the line, we’ll take it. Sound good?”
Tuuri wrung her hands. “Three kilometers is a long way.”
“If we’re lucky, he’ll find one closer.”
“He needs to go east,” Mikkel said. “Three kilometers takes us too close to this town to the west.”
With a last, worried look at the galdrastafur above the door, Tuuri gave Lalli his instructions. As he raced away, she guided the tank down the road, avoiding up-heaved slabs, wash-outs, and fallen trees.
They were lucky; Lalli found a southbound road less than two kilometers from the ley line. Studying the dense forest with binoculars, Tuuri thought Sigrun’s idea of “running for it” was far too optimistic. At best, if they had to, they could pick their slow way through the trees with Lalli running ahead to find blockages. That night, they thought Mikkel’s idea had worked, for no trolls approached at all.
The team set forth the next day in a hopeful frame of mind after burying and magically shielding the latrine. However, a small swarm arrived in the early morning hours despite their precautions, though the trolls did wander away.
“The drawing is weak,” Lalli said, staring up at the galdrastafur as the team finished breakfast. “Not like it was.”
Reynir ducked his head and nodded when Tuuri translated. “I know. It’s not … warm anymore. Without the ley line, I’m not really very good at this.”
“We don’t know that,” Mikkel said, startling them both. “Have you ever heard of a mage driving off trolls like this?” Tuuri waited for Reynir to answer — he was an Icelander, after all — but he merely looked puzzled. “I haven’t,” Mikkel continued, “not even when I was in Iceland. The ley line made you stronger, yes, but you drove off swarms before we ever found it.”
“But it broke —”
“Maybe we should get back under the line,” Emil said.
Tuuri shook her head. “I’d rather not unless we have to.”
Mikkel shrugged. “As long as we keep moving, we’ll get smaller swarms that Reynir can manage.” He addressed the Icelander. “You need to renew the galdrastafur every day. Starting now.”
Reynir jumped up to grab paint and brush and set to work.
Sigrun watched him for a moment. “For now, we’ll keep to the road. See how it goes.”
In the mid-afternoon, four days after the T-intersection, Lalli waved Tuuri onto a westbound road. Despite puzzled murmurs from her passengers, she trusted him and turned as directed. Half a kilometer later, she stopped in astonishment.
The tank now stood in an overgrown parking lot beside a broad, deep ditch that surrounded a castle. Though trees had grown up in the ditch, their bare branches could not hide the castle’s high stone walls and the tower just visible beyond.
At Sigrun’s excited urging, the whole team climbed onto the tank to study the castle. Though Tuuri took the team’s binoculars to survey the wall, she already knew her answer. The gray stone walls were high where they still stood, but in too many places, the walls had crumbled into piles of rubble flowing down into the ditch. Once, this castle could have stood against an army even with just six defenders.
Not now.
“We can’t fix that wall,” Tuuri said with regret, lowering the binoculars. “We don’t have the manpower, and we can’t defend it as it is. The building inside … maybe, but it doesn’t look good either. I can see fallen stonework even from here.”
“Yeah,” Sigrun said with a sigh. “That’s kind of what I thought, too.”
Mikkel took the binoculars for his own examination. “I agree. But there are supposed to be thousands of castles in Germany, many in good shape. Better than this, at least.”
Sigrun nodded, leading the way off the tank. “Okay, then, just write it in that journal of yours, and we’ll keep looking.”
“Should we go back to our road now?” Emil asked.
“No reason to, I guess,” Sigrun said. “We’re a ways away from our campsite, and that’s what counts. We’ll just camp here.”
While Mikkel and Reynir cleaned the tank before starting supper, Tuuri sketched the castle in her journal, and the other three roamed about, alert and on guard. Just as Tuuri finished her sketch, Emil came to her and held out a trumpet-shaped flower with four bright yellow petals perhaps three centimeters long. “Have you ever seen one of these before?”
Tuuri took the flower to examine. “No, never. Are there more of them?”
“A whole bush full. It’s over by that little ruin.”
With Sigrun and Lalli trailing after them, Tuuri and Emil trotted over to the ruined building at the edge of the parking lot. The bush stood as promised: a rounded bush taller than Tuuri or even Emil, its branches arching away from the base, leafless but dense with bright yellow flowers. Seating herself on a rusty fallen beam, Tuuri took out her journal and began to sketch once more. Sigrun and Lalli, more interested in threats than in flowers, spread out to keep watch while Emil stayed close by.
“Do you think this is silly?” Tuuri asked after a while without looking up from the drawing. “Making a journal that no one will ever see?”
Emil sat on the other end of the beam. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, I just have this feeling that it’s going to work out. We’ll shake that enemy and find a lost village, and then we can go home. We’ll be famous and —”
“I can’t.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, sorry.” Emil hesitated, stroking his hood. “Okay, then you and Reynir can stay with the lost village, Lalli too. They’ll all be immune, so even if Mikkel’s right and the Rash comes back, it’s, um, not so bad …”
Tuuri looked up. Mikkel’s claim still rankled. “It won’t. And anyway, I still have some of the cure.”
“Good, then that’s okay. So you can stay, and me and Sigrun, and Mikkel if he’ll go, we’ll head west to the coast and find a fishing village. Someone’ll sail us up to the Known World, and we’ll take your journal back.”
Tuuri returned to her sketch with a sigh. “I’ll be stuck behind walls again.”
“No, no, you’ll have the tank. You can scavenge and explore, find other villages. That’s how the Known World got started, after all. You can bring together all those —”
“Oh, but then Onni can join us,” Tuuri interrupted, now warming to the daydream. “You’ll go up there and tell him where we are, and he’ll come rushing to us.” She sighed, seeing her brother in her mind’s eye.
“Hey, you know, my cousins are eleven —”
“All of them?”
“All three. They’re triplets.” He smiled, a little proudly and a lot fondly. “So in three years, they’ll be adults. Then I can bring them to see your village. Your villages.” He too sighed. “I miss the kids so much. But at least they’re home and safe, and they’ll be rich now. Uncle Torbjörn and Aunt Siv got sponsor’s shares, and I left my share to the kids. So everything’s taken care of at home.”
Tuuri finished the sketch and got to her feet. They needed to get back to the tank before dark.
Cold seeped through Sune’s trousers as he sat on the roof ridge in the darkness. The aurora danced in the north, long green streamers twisting across the sky. Snow glittered, reflecting starlight and aurora. On this moonless night, the roofs of Mora might be hills, and the glow of a distant window might be the campfire of other explorers.
Sune rubbed his shoulder. All the bruises from his desperate escape still ached, but his shoulders most of all, perhaps because the attack had been so unexpected. For two weeks, he’d been happy working in the First Ring, earning money for the first time in his life. Then Marc and his bullies had found him. He’d run, swung himself into a tree, climbed higher and higher. Safe. Out of reach. And then the pain between his shoulder blades as the first stone hit him, and he’d known …
There were no teachers. No grownups. No one at all to stop the bullies from — he didn’t want to think about that.
Someone climbing up the tree below him. The leap to another tree as Marc shouted threats below. The jump to a roof, the stunning impact, the scramble up and over and down the downspout.
Darting into the shop and meeting the dignified, elderly shopkeeper. Even now, Sune couldn’t help grinning as he thought of her giggling when the bullies fled at her offer to measure them for pink lace lingerie.
The grin faded. The triplets dared not go to school, where the bullies had broken Anna’s finger and would surely do worse if they could. Now, they dared not even venture out of the house. At least Ingrid, their babysitter, had agreed to let them stay home if they didn’t cause trouble or make a mess.
Sune rubbed his shoulder again. They were safe at home. For a week. But then Dad and Mom would come back from Iceland. Of course they would. Despite the “thrilling sea stories” he’d read, tentacles never reached out of the sea and snatched passengers off the deck. Ships were too well designed for that, these days.
Onni would come back with them. Anna thought Onni would make everything good again. Sune rolled his eyes at the thought. Much as he loved his siblings, they didn’t understand the need to plan. They always improvised.
Sune liked the word “improvise”. Mormor had given it to him in Swedish and Icelandic, and once he explained the idea, Onni had given it to him in Finnish. Sometimes — often, if he were entirely truthful — his plans failed and he too had to improvise. Still, it was always better to start with a plan.
Onni would come back, and things would be better. But Onni wouldn’t stay; how could he? His sister was lost in the Silent World, and once he made his plan, he’d go after her. Sune didn’t know what Onni’s plan would be, but he would surely have one. Onni was much too smart to run off without a plan.
The green streamers twined around each other, flowing eastwards. Sune wished he could sprout wings and follow them, be free in the wide world … But he couldn’t. He sighed. Two years and eight months before he turned fourteen. Before they all turned fourteen and were free of their parents forever.
He’d had plans to get through those two years and eight months, but they’d all depended on Emil, and Emil was lost. In those happy two weeks in the First Circle, he’d begun to plan their futures there, but that had failed too.
Sune sighed again as he looked out over the sleeping city. Far to the east, streamers writhed and twisted over Finland. If the triplets were Finns, they’d only have to wait one year and eight months to be free.
His rump was freezing and his hands growing numb. It was time to go. Even here, in his domain of hills and valleys, he hadn’t found a new plan. As he picked his careful way to his downspout, he gave the aurora a final look before turning his back on the great green whirlpool that swirled over Finland.
Hiss!
Broad daylight. The pleasant scents of earth and water. The burble of a stream.
And the creature lunging from the bushes.
Emil jumped left, Sigrun right, daggers in their hands as if by magic. As the creature turned towards Sigrun, Emil’s trained eye noted the thin neck rising from the broad, white body. Without conscious thought, his razor-sharp dagger swept across that neck, backed by his full weight.
The head fell one way, the body the other. Emil blinked at the creature. A white troll? “It’s a — It’s —”
“It’s a swan, kiddo.” Sigrun stepped across an outstretched wing to clout him on the shoulder. “Good job. Perfect reflexes.”
“But it’s a swan. I just killed —”
“Hey, swans are dangerous. That thing could kill a man. Not us, of course. Not troll-hunters.” She turned it over. “We can eat it, too. You field-dress it. I want to check something.”
While he cleaned the swan as she’d taught him to clean geese, Sigrun disappeared into the bushes, soon returning with a broad grin. “Eggs!” she announced. “Fresh eggs and swan meat. Everybody’s going to love us when we get back.”
Emil didn’t even mind getting blood on his jacket as he carried the swan back to the tank. The prospect of something new to eat — scrambled eggs and swan stew — would cheer everyone up, dispelling the pall cast by the ruined castle four days before.
Three days to the equinox. Emil stepped into the shop, peered about, making sure to check the ceiling, and took a deep breath through his nose. No troll-slime, no troll-stench. “I think it’s okay.”
Sigrun glanced through the remains of the picture window. “Looks good. Don’t go too far in, though.”
With a nod, Emil picked his way through fallen shelves and broken glass. Though he’d found gifts for the men two days before, he still lacked gifts for the women, and time was getting short. If Mikkel was right about where they were, this was the last town they’d pass before the equinox.
Unless they picked up the pace, that is, but Tuuri resisted any such suggestions. The slower they went, the less risk to the tank, and as long as they made about fifteen kilometers per day, the nightly swarms were small and sometimes didn’t come at all.
Lots of dust in this shop, with many tracks. Though Emil studied the tracks with his flashlight, he could make nothing of them. Whatever had left them was small. Rats, maybe. Rat beasts … he remembered the beasts that had chased and bitten Mikkel. But no, rat beasts would stink.
Wishing he had Lalli’s ability to just find what he needed, Emil knelt to examine a package on the floor. Broken. Junk. He scanned around for another, picked it up. This was promising. This was, in fact, a prize. Near him was another. And another. Humming, he picked out the best.
Something moved in the back of the store. Emil was on his feet, dagger in hand. Something small, he thought. Bigger than a rat, far too small for a wolf. Treasures in hand, dagger still ready, he backed out and joined Sigrun. “Okay, I’m done.”
Since Sigrun already had all her presents, there was no reason to stay in this desolate town with its shattered windows and crumbling brick. They ran to rejoin the tank.
The equinox had come at last. Now the days, the human time, were longer than the troll-haunted nights, and all their spirits rose at the thought.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs. By the taste, they weren’t swan’s eggs, but no one asked Mikkel what they were or where he’d found them. It was enough that, for once, they had scrambled eggs instead of venison bacon.
When Emil climbed into the tank after gathering fuel, he was greeted by the sharp, pungent odor of garlic. With a deep, satisfying breath, he joined Sigrun, Reynir, and Tuuri at the table as they waited for Mikkel to serve a lunch of venison in a garlic sauce on wilted greens.
Supper was fried balls of minced meat and greens, as Mikkel had made for the birthday party, but with ample honey and garlic. Lalli returned for the meal, and the team lingered, savoring every bite.
Then, of course, there was the party. And the gifts. Mikkel had given them the feast. Now, everyone awaited what else might be brought out.
Sigrun ran to the back to gather her presents, returning with a broad grin and an armload of packages of different shapes and sizes.
“Big guy, your trousers are falling down these days. Not that I mind, really.” Did Mikkel blush as the team laughed? “So, here you go, brand new belt.” Mikkel accepted the gift and donned it with thanks. He’d lost so much weight over the past months that he really did need a new belt.
“Okay, short stuff. The sponsors are a bunch of cheapskates. That toolkit they gave you … anyway, here you go.” The new toolkit came in a chest so heavy Tuuri nearly dropped it.
“Braidy, your girl told me you need a weapon.” Reynir’s face turned red, splotched with freckles. “Got you your very own rifle.” She passed him a tall box. “Some ammo, too. I’ll take you out next time we reach a good spot and teach you to handle it.” Waving off Reynir’s stumbling thanks, she turned to Lalli.
“What do you get for a scout? Has to be small … ah, here’s something.” She pulled a package from her pocket and held it out to him. With an uncertain glance at Tuuri, he accepted it and, after a moment of looking around as if seeking escape, opened it to reveal a pair of binoculars. Tuuri stepped in to offer thanks as he examined it.
“And now, my right-hand warrior.” From another pocket, Sigrun took out a bone-handled dagger in a silver-inlaid sheath and held it out. “From the captain’s hand to the hand of the new troll-hunter.” Emil hesitated, and Sigrun shook her head, smiling. “Take it, troll-hunter. Best dagger I could find. Not a recruit anymore, kiddo.”
Emil took the dagger with mumbled thanks before removing his former dagger from his belt and replacing it with the new one. A real troll-hunter. What the kids would say — He pushed away the thought as the others congratulated him while Lalli darted out.
Lalli returned with a number of plastic bags, faded blue with a logo in bold, clean, white: “C&A”. With a quick look into each, he passed them out to the others and … Emil stared. He hadn’t known Lalli could blush. Almost afraid to look, he opened his bag and found …
Underwear. Half a dozen pairs of underwear, still in their plastic, yellowed but perfect.
As the others opened their bags and offered enthusiastic thanks for Tuuri to pass on, her face turned scarlet while Sigrun … giggled. The troll-hunter captain giggled? Emil looked from one woman to the other. What on Earth had Lalli given them?
“Tell him, ah, thanks,” Sigrun managed. “That’s so — no man has ever given me a bra before.” Tuuri covered her eyes and mumbled in Finnish, while Lalli stared at Sigrun as if she’d grown another head.
After that, Emil thought his gifts might be underwhelming, but he pulled them from his cabinet anyway. For each man, a grooming kit: a tortoiseshell mirror with matching brush, comb, shaving brush, and cutthroat razor. Since Reynir had arrived with no shaving equipment, and had been using Mikkel's, which was old and battered, they both vocally appreciated their kits. For each woman, a sturdy plastic case containing a mirror with the back inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a matching brush, and a comb. Lalli gave him a thoughtful nod while the others thanked him with every evidence of sincerity.
Finally, Reynir ran to the radio compartment, returning with knitted garments draped over his arms. “These are just tabards,” Tuuri said apologetically as she accepted them and sorted them out. “We didn’t have time to knit sweaters.”
Each tabard consisted of two knitted rectangles connected by short knitted pieces at the top. The rectangles were gray, with black patterns that Emil immediately recognized as Reynir’s anti-ghost galdrastafur on one rectangle of each tabard and the anti-troll galdrastafur on the other. Mikkel accepted the largest tabard, pulling it over his head so one rectangle covered his front and the other his back.
“I knitted the gray parts. Reynir did the galdrastafur. We think he got the magic into them. So, if you get caught outside the tank, you can kind of … hunker down, and trolls or, or whatever will just go around you.”
“This is amazing,” Mikkel said. “Portable protection against trolls.”
“It won’t last forever. The magic wears off when you use it, you know, like the magic here.” Tuuri waved at the galdrastafur above the door. “But it could help if you need it.”
Sigrun pulled on her own tabard, smaller than Mikkel’s and more suited to her frame. “Great gift, short stuff. And you, Braidy.”
Emil had been upstaged again. How can I compete with a mage? But grooming’s important, too. We might never use these, but we need to groom ourselves every day. With such thoughts, he was able to put sincerity into his thanks.
Emil had the back compartment that night. Alone, he took out his new dagger, turning it over and over, swinging it experimentally.
A real troll-hunter’s dagger. I’ll have to sharpen it. I’m sure my dagger needs to know I love it just as much as my rifle does.
No one awakened him that night, and at breakfast, Tuuri reported there’d been a medium-sized swarm that had wandered off, leaving eight or ten trolls sheltering near the tank. None were close enough to attack while he disarmed and collected his traps. Yawning, he trotted back to the tank with Sigrun and Mikkel. Another day of boring travel loomed ahead.
A half-hour later, Lalli ran back to the tank from scouting ahead. As always, the immunes snatched up their weapons and stood ready as he climbed in. Sparing them barely a glance, he darted to Tuuri.
Emil watched Tuuri’s face as Lalli spoke rapidly and urgently. Surprised, disbelieving, astonished? She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving. Wordless, unmoving, the team waited to learn Lalli’s report.
What did Lalli find?
“A lost village,” Tuuri mumbled between her fingers. She cleared her throat, pulled her hands away from her face, clasped them together to stop their trembling. “He found a lost village.”
“A live lost village?” Even Sigrun sounded breathless.
“He smelled them. Smoke, latrines, sheep — And he saw them on the wall. They’re in a castle.” She took a shaky breath. “We’ve found them. We really have.”
No one spoke.
Mikkel stumbled away to sit on his bunk, staring straight ahead. Emil gave a wide-eyed look to Lalli, who now stood with his back against the door. Sigrun looked at the symbol above the door as if there were answers there.
Reynir came to stand by Tuuri. She looked up at him, and he looked down at her, lips parted, eyes wide and shining. Unlike the others in their uniforms, the two of them wore blue jeans, flannel shirts, fleece-lined boots.
We’re the outsiders. Not immune. Hardly even combatants. But this terrible journey is over at last. Emil’s right. The others can go home now, go back to their families, and we’ll stay here. No scientists to poke and prod me like an experimental animal. Not trapped behind the walls. We’ll have the tank, we’ll explore, we’ll build a new Known World.
She smiled up at him for a moment before looking back at Lalli, who watched with narrowed eyes.
Sigrun leaned her rifle against the wall and rubbed her forehead. “Okay. Okay. We’re in Germany, right? What language do they speak?”
“German,” Tuuri and Mikkel said together.
“I can try to talk to them,” Tuuri continued. “I don’t really, um, speak German. Maybe they’ll understand. And I can write things down, if they can read.”
“Okay, good.” Sigrun took a deep breath. “We need to go slow, be careful.” Tuuri opened her mouth to object, and Sigrun shook her head. “These people have been here ninety years. We don’t know them. And —” She shot Reynir a quick glance. “And remember what the Icelanders did.”
Tuuri did remember. For almost fifty years after the Catastrophe, they’d kept the Rash from their shores. They’d done it by sinking every ship that approached the island.
Tuuri looked at her hands rather than see his reaction. It’s not his fault. But if my ancestors had done that —
Mikkel shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, and said, “They might have firearms. Ammo keeps if you’re careful. At least they won’t have explosives —”
Emil straightened. “Explosives can keep. If they found some TNT and took care of it, they could still have some.”
“There’s no reason —” Tuuri began.
“We’re probably worrying for nothing,” Mikkel said. “But Sigrun’s right. We don’t know how they’ll feel about strangers. And this tank, all by itself, is a treasure beyond price. We need to be careful.”
“Where exactly are they?” Sigrun asked, and Tuuri fell into the rhythm of interpreting to and from Lalli.
The village was just over two kilometers to their southeast, at the end of an east-west road. Near noon, Tuuri stopped the tank some thirty meters from the great gray castle with its high wall and the towers within. All the vegetation had been burned off for a good forty meters around it, as far as she could see. Smoke drifted from somewhere within. The castle looked strong, invincible. Welcoming.
In accordance with their hastily devised plan, Tuuri turned the tank so that the side door opened towards the castle. Getting to her feet and taking a deep breath through her mask, she accepted a bucket of canned cod from Mikkel. With his imposing bulk on one side and Emil on the other, she advanced towards the castle, stopping halfway between it and the tank. A cow lowed far off, and several ravens croaked as they flapped over her head. Men’s heads peered down from the wall, while a heavy wooden door in the wall creaked open, releasing half a dozen men.
The men were of average height, sturdy, with full black or brown beards. They wore brown leather trousers and boots, and brown leather jerkins over light fawn felt shirts, and daggers hung sheathed from their belts. Alert, cautious, they approached as the heavy door boomed shut behind them.
“We travel from far away,” Tuuri said, pronouncing each syllable distinctly, hoping the men could make out her meaning. She had the same words neatly printed on a piece of paper in her pocket. “We wish to be friends. We have these gifts for you.” She set down the bucket and gestured at it with both hands.
The first man came close, looked down at the bucket and up at her. Had he smiled behind all that hair? No one spoke as the other men came up behind him. Tuuri gestured at the bucket again. “Gifts.”
“Mine!” the man said as his left hand shot out, fast as a striking snake, and caught Tuuri’s wrist, yanking her towards him. With the hiss of steel against leather, all the men drew their daggers. Just as quickly, the man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled, freeing her. Without a heartbeat’s hesitation, Tuuri turned and fled for the open door of the tank, Mikkel’s heavy tread and Emil’s lighter footsteps just behind her.
Tuuri’s back itched, expecting a dagger or an arrow to strike. Instead, Mikkel’s powerful arm swept her off her feet and slammed her against his body as he ran on without missing a step.
That man. Now Mikkel. Big men do what they want, and I can’t stop them.
Gasping, she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. He loosened his embrace, a small mercy, as she peered over his shoulder at that man now getting to his feet.
Lalli let you live. Just go home, and we’ll go away and pretend we’re all alone … forever.
What are you doing? Why are you chasing us? We’ll kill you all. Blood on our hands … or … no!
Jolted with Mikkel’s every step, Tuuri managed, “They chase — campsite — trolls —”
“Ah.” One syllable, then he raised his voice, shouting by her ear. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” As he scrambled into the tank, shouldering Sigrun out of the way, Tuuri dropped from his arms. Dodging Emil, still getting to his feet after diving through the door, she ran for the driver’s seat just as the heavy door slammed shut.
“You idiot!” Sigrun shouted behind her. “I wasn’t going to shoot you! Open that door!”
“We don’t —”
“Hang on!” Tuuri shouted as she slammed the tank around and back along its trail at its best speed. Reynir stumbled forward, fell into the passenger’s seat, pulled himself up, and peered at the side mirror. “They’re catching up. One of them is —” There was a thump in back. “He must be climbing the ladder.”
“He grabbed Tuuri! Like she was a thing! Vikings don’t run from scum —”
“We’re not running! We’re saving am—”
“Hang on!” As Tuuri jerked the left track back hard, the tank groaned, swerved hard to the left. A shriek, thumps across the roof. Tuuri yanked the tank back around and onto its prior trail.
“He fell in some bushes,” Reynir reported. “The others just left him there. Still chasing.”
Did he die? Did I just kill a man? Am I planning to kill them all?
Tuuri shivered, eyes burning as she focused unblinkingly on the trail ahead. That man’s hand still seemed to grip her wrist.
Emil had made his way to the front now, leaving Mikkel and Sigrun still shouting in the main compartment and taking his place behind the passenger seat. “Where’s Lalli?” he asked.
“He looked sick. He went to his den,” Reynir said, “right after — oh! Did he knock that man down?”
“Yes, of course.” Tuuri didn’t take her eyes off the trail.
“That honorless peasant laid hands on Tuuri! And you’ll let him live?”
“Yes! Honorless! Those men are as honorless as trolls.”
“But they’re —”
Mikkel’s voice rose to a window-shaking volume. “You’d lure trolls into a trap to save ammo. That’s what Tuuri’s doing.”
Tuuri winced. She’d had no idea Mikkel could bellow like that. He seemed to have stunned Sigrun into silence, and now he moderated his voice.
“Those men are troll-hunters of —”
“They are not!”
“At least, they defend that village against trolls. If you kill them, as you easily could, that village might be overwhelmed. It’s our duty — yours, mine, any human’s — to protect humanity against trolls.” His tone turned pleading. “We have to give them a chance to live.”
“They laid hands on Tuuri.” But Sigrun’s voice was calmer, more sullen.
Tuuri’s wrist ached, and she wanted to take her beautiful new shirt off and burn it to take away the taint of that man’s touch. Her chest and back ached where Mikkel had scooped her into his arms.
Long legs and short legs. He did what he had to. If they’d caught up with me … But it still isn’t fair that I’m so small.
Tuuri blinked back tears as she fled from the castle.
Now that the shouting had stopped, the tank was very quiet. The ventilation fans hummed, and branches broken when they first came through now crunched under the tracks. Tuuri followed the trail as it dodged around a tree fallen across the road and wondered how much distance the pursuers had gained because of that delay. She kept her eyes on the trail, trying not to glance at the mirrors. But her eyes strayed to the mirrors anyway. Maybe this time they would have turned back.
Sigrun and Mikkel came forward, quiet now. Sigrun displaced Reynir to his usual position behind Tuuri, while Mikkel stopped at the monitors. Visible in the side mirrors, five men still pursued the tank. It was just fast enough to stay ahead, not fast enough to lose them. If she hadn’t followed her existing trail on the road, they would have already caught up.
If they catch us … Well, we have firearms, and they have daggers. We’ll kill them all. But Mikkel’s right. What happens to their village then?
Tuuri shivered. Lalli hadn’t killed the man who touched her. She didn’t want Sigrun, or Mikkel, or Emil to kill men. She especially didn’t want to kill a man herself.
The tank rumbled into the campsite, intentionally running close to the sheltering trolls, and pivoted to wait for the villagers to catch up. As they ran in, as claws and tentacles and jaws reached for them, Tuuri slammed it forward again, roared past the men now fighting off the trolls, and fled west into the forest.
Tuuri risk a single glance at the mirror. The villagers were still fighting. Part of her hoped the trolls would kill them all. Part of her hoped they would retreat, leaving the trolls unable to follow in daylight. She wasn’t sure which part was stronger.
“Where’s Lalli?” Mikkel asked as Tuuri slowed on the unscouted ground.
“Passed out,” Sigrun said. “I’ll scout.” She jumped to her feet, elbowed Mikkel out of her way, grabbed her rifle, and was out the door without even waiting for Tuuri to stop.
Too slow, too slow. A child could catch us.
Ahead of the tank, Sigrun held up a hand and pointed to the left. Tuuri pulled the tank into a ponderous turn, avoiding a fallen tree, and crept onwards with Sigrun running just ahead. A track slipped on soggy ground, caught on a bush, tried to turn the tank. Intent on her driving, Tuuri couldn’t spare a glance to the left, to the villagers who might have resumed the pursuit.
“Are they coming after us?” Her voice shook, but that was due to the bumpy ride, of course.
Emil had taken the passenger’s seat, leaning forward to peer past her. “I can’t see. Too many trees.”
“The contacts are separating,” Mikkel said.
“What does that mean?” Reynir whispered from his position behind Tuuri’s seat.
“The villagers are getting away from the trolls.” Tuuri raised her voice. “But are they coming after us?”
Mikkel was silent for a moment. “I think not. Moving south. Not getting closer. They must be staying on the road.”
Tuuri’s wrist hurt. “How many?” How many did I kill?
“They’re bunched together. Hard to tell. Four, certainly.”
I led them into the trap and — did one die?
Reynir made his way to Mikkel’s side, bracing himself in the rocking tank. “Those are the trolls,” Mikkel said. “These are the men.”
“Five,” Reynir said at length.
“Hmm. Possibly. In any case, not chasing us.”
Tuuri shivered. Is one dead? Is it my fault? And the other man … “Reynir, that man I threw off the tank. Did I — did he — was he alive?”
Reynir made his way back to her. “I saw him stand up, but he didn’t come after us. Maybe he’d had enough.”
She blinked back tears. I wouldn’t mind if that man died … but it might not be him that died.
Ahead, Sigrun pointed to the right, and Tuuri turned the tank, grinding more bushes and fallen branches into the damp forest floor.
“What if they come after us again?” Emil asked. “They can’t miss this trail.”
Only the need to drive kept Tuuri from wringing her hands. There were many more men in that castle; she’d seen them peering down from the wall.
“I hope we’ve frightened them,” Mikkel said. “One of their men struck down without a wound, our campsite in the middle of a troll’s nest — I hope they wonder what other magic we have.”
“I wonder what magic they might have,” Tuuri muttered.
After a moment of silence in the tank, Mikkel said, “They didn’t use any magic against us.”
“Neither did we, except Lalli knocking out that — that — person.”
“And Lalli can’t even do that again,” Emil said, “not when he’s, um, asleep or whatever he is.”
“But the villagers don’t know that.” Mikkel's face was grim. “Maybe they have magic, but we have firearms. In all the stories I’ve heard, magic doesn’t have the range or power of firearms.”
Tuuri shivered, thinking of having to fight the men of the village. Please, just go home and stay there. Let us go in peace.
She could do nothing but keep driving.
Sigrun had led them in a long arc back to the road that led to the castle, though several kilometers from it. She waited as Tuuri guided the tank onto the battered and overgrown roadway, then climbed into the tank.
“Where are they?”
“Out of range,” Mikkel replied from his position before the monitors. “The last contact showed them moving south.”
“Going home. Giving up? Or getting reinforcements?” No one answered. “Well, this road isn’t too bad. We’ll go west. Maybe we can find the ley line.” Sigrun turned towards the door.
“A moment, Captain Eide,” Mikkel said.
“What?”
“I was insubordinate and undermined your authority.”
“You mutinied. Gave orders that —”
“No!” Tuuri was surprised at her own boldness. “He didn’t give any orders. It was my idea. He just went along with it.”
Sigrun regarded her for a moment before addressing Mikkel again. “What punishment do you suggest for an insubordinate second in command?”
“He should be demoted. Either Emil Västerström or Tuuri Hotakainen is well qualified to take his place. He should further be assigned all night watches from now on.”
“And the driver?”
“She is to be commended for her exercise of initiative. Since she did not disobey any orders, she should not be punished.”
“I’ll think on this.” The door clanged shut behind Sigrun, and Tuuri hurried to take the driver’s seat and follow.
“She shouldn’t demote you,” Emil said after a while.
“It’s all right. I’ve been demoted before. Many times.”
“Why?” Tuuri asked, squinting at a branch that was too low for comfort. She swerved to avoid it.
“I have a habit of insubordination.”
Tuuri was surprised into a chuckle, but the moment couldn't last. “Do you think maybe they all, um, survived?”
“Maybe. It was hard to tell. The IR blobs were close together.”
“Do you think they’ll come after us again?” Emil said.
“I would, if I were them. Assuming I were the sort to attack Tuuri without reason or warning, of course. I’d want the tank, too.”
“They could have had the tank! We’d’ve stayed with them. I’d’ve driven the tank to scavenge and explore and … and we’d’ve had a home.” Tuuri blinked back tears. “And instead I lured them into a trap and maybe got them killed and we can nev—”
“No.” Mikkel came forward and sat sideways on the passengers’ seat to address her. “Emil, watch the monitors. Now, listen to me, Tuuri. You didn’t ‘lure’ those men any more than a rabbit ‘lures’ a fox. They tried to grab you and they chased you. Whatever happened to them is their own fault.”
“But I —”
“No. You bear no guilt, no guilt at all, for doing what you had to do to escape. They’re predators, but you are not prey.”
“But we didn’t get a home!”
“I wouldn’t want a home there with those people. But now we know for sure there are lost villages here, and —”
“What if they’re all like that?”
Mikkel was silent for a beat. “I don’t think they will be. We’ll be more cautious in our approach after this. I will go alone to talk to villagers.”
“You don’t speak German.”
Mikkel gave a huff of amusement. “I’m not sure you do either. But I can carry written notes with the best of them.”
“There it is,” Reynir whispered. “We’ve found it again.”
Tuuri straightened. The road ahead and the surrounding forest looked like the road and forest behind. “The ley line?” She bit her lip. “This wouldn’t be a great campsite, and Sigrun’s still looking for one, and … and I don’t want to make her mad. Madder.”
There was silence in the tank as she drove forward.
“Stop in the ley line,” Mikkel said. “I am still second in command, and I am giving you an order.”
“O–okay. Reynir, tell me when.”
Several dozen meters later, Reynir said, “Stop now.”
“Good,” Mikkel said as the tank ground to a halt. “The detour to the castle cost us time. We’ll probably get a large swarm tonight, so Reynir, you need to renew the galdrastafur right now, while the ley line can boost it. If Sigrun isn’t back when you finish, we’ll follow her.”
Reynir was still working on the galdrastafur when Sigrun jogged up to the tank. Alerted by Mikkel, he climbed down and moved his chair out of the way before she entered. After a quick glance at the paint and brush in his hands, she said, “So this is the ley line?”
Tuuri looked at her hands. Though Mikkel had given her a direct order so as to take the blame himself, she didn’t want to get him into more trouble.
“Y–yes?” Reynir said.
“Fine, then. Finish what you were doing.”
Tuuri relaxed a little. They weren’t in trouble. More trouble, that is.
Sigrun turned to Mikkel at the monitors, and Tuuri and Emil beyond him. “I found a campsite, not far. It’s not much better than this, so we’ll camp here instead. Maybe we’ll get some help from the line. What about the enemies?”
“Still no sign of them,” Mikkel answered.
“It’s getting late. Are they stupid enough to chase us at night?”
“They may want to catch us before we get too far away.”
“Still stupid.”
“The moon —”
“Yeah, almost full. I know. Well, we’ll be ready for them and the swarm both.” Sigrun took a deep breath and drew herself up. “I have decided. Mikkel remains second in command. For now. He takes all night watches for the next eight days. Everybody gets their private nights like usual, except him. Tuuri gets his nights as well as hers. After eight days, we go back to the regular watches.”
Mikkel bowed his head without a word. Tuuri tried to feel appropriately solemn, but … extra private nights!
Sigrun looked from one face to the next. “We can’t afford division in command. But troll-hunters — even medics — get to speak their minds. Tuuri had a good idea and Mikkel supported it. Next time, let’s not shout about it.” She brushed her hands together. “So that’s the end of this. Now let’s get ready for tonight. And have supper.”
Tuuri shivered. Though the season was Spring by the calendar, her breath still smoked before her in the chilly air. With Lalli still unconscious, they had lost their early warning of swarms approaching and of the magic breaking. Since they expected a large swarm, Sigrun had led the remaining team to the roof, leaving Reynir in the tank to watch the monitors and operate the lights. Emil had, with difficulty, laid out two circles of traps in the forest, but not even he claimed they would hold off the expected trolls.
All four on the roof wore tabards in hopes of avoiding notice; Tuuri wore Lalli’s since she and Reynir had not had time to knit another. While the sharpshooters watched their back trail, Mikkel turned to watch for anything sneaking up from behind. Despite knowing Reynir was watching the monitors, Tuuri found it reassuring that someone on the roof was alert as well.
The waxing moon rose higher. In the moonlit forest, an owl hooted, and small creatures foraged in fallen leaves. Tuuri shivered again as she knelt on the roof.
Surely those aren’t beasts. Lalli would know. He’d jump down there and kill any beasts without even mentioning it. But we don’t know. There could be beasts all around us.
Movement glimpsed through the bare branches distracted her from her thoughts. The first trolls, misshapen insectoids, scuttled towards the tank, but turned and wandered off. Behind them came more. And more.
As more trolls approached, they hesitated longer, looking around before moving on. Even without mage senses, Tuuri knew the magic was failing. She was, therefore, not surprised when every face, every stalked eye, turned to the tank, and a hungry yammering rose from the throng.
Without a word, the team leapt to their feet and readied their weapons. Parked as they were in the forest, they had no long sight lines, so Sigrun had ordered the sharpshooters to fire only to keep the trolls bunched up.
Even as the first trolls struck the traps and the first flames rose, something moved behind the crowd. An enormous shape rose through the trees, cracking branches as it did so. A neck that Tuuri could not have spanned with both arms. A massive, drooling, champing mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. Above, a single stalked eye glaring from one human to the next. And all of it covered with thick gray scales.
The peripheral lights flickered once; Tuuri closed her eyes just as the overhead lights came on. Trolls shrieked and howled. The giant’s eye vanished in a spray of blood as Sigrun fired. Tuuri fired into its mouth, but the monster came on, crushing other trolls and snapping at whatever was before it.
“Everyone get back!” Emil shouted. For a moment Tuuri glanced at him. He held an ember in his hand — he flung it — he crumpled to the roof. The giant still crawled forward on many slender, jointed legs. The ember had grown, was still growing, was a dog of flame.
The fire spirit landed, already the size of the tank, and flung itself on the giant. Trying not to watch the battle between fire spirit and giant, Tuuri tracked the trolls that had crossed the first circle of traps and were now striking the second circle. While more flames rose, a single troll threw itself over burning bodies and charged towards the tank. Though it was in Emil's assigned area, Tuuri shot it since he still lay motionless.
The giant shrieked — screamed — howled — as flames rose from its massive body. It snapped blindly around it, wounding and killing trolls. Now some trolls turned back to attack it themselves as the dog of flame climbed on its back, leaving flame everywhere it touched. At last, the giant collapsed, burning, crushing still more trolls, and the fire spirit leapt off and ran into the trolls crowding against those piled on the second circle of traps. Black smoke drifted across the tank. While Sigrun and Mikkel coughed, Tuuri was, for once, grateful for her mask.
The shotgun boomed twice behind Tuuri. Biting her lip, she hunched her shoulders without turning. She was watching both her and Emil’s areas; if Mikkel needed help, Sigrun would have to step in. Rifle cracks told her Sigrun, too, was at work.
As an inferno rose around the tank, the howls and shrieks of the trolls died away. The fire spirit continued to circle, a red and yellow glare behind the dense smoke billowing from the still-burning trolls. Even as Tuuri watched, the flames grew brighter.
The fire spirit was coming back for Emil.
Sigrun rushed to Emil’s side. “Tuuri, get over there.”
Tuuri hesitated, wanting to help. Yet they were none of them mages, and she doubted even Onni could deal with this fire spirit. And there was no water nearby at all. She retreated to Mikkel’s side as the fire spirit appeared out of the smoke, its fiery dog’s head higher than the tank.
“Stop!” Sigrun shouted. The fire spirit stopped, its head turning as it looked from Sigrun to Emil to the others and back to Sigrun. “Sit!” Tuuri had never before heard Sigrun’s command voice, so powerful that even the fire spirit obeyed.
“Good. Goood boy,” Sigrun crooned as the spirit sat on its haunches. “Good, brave boy. My good boy saved everybody.” The spirit’s tail wagged, setting bushes aflame. “But now my good boy has to go home. Go home now.”
After a moment, the spirit looked back over its shoulder. “Yes, you go home now.” The fire spirit stood, looked down once more at Emil, then turned and trotted away. “Goood boy. Very good boy.” As it trotted, the spirit grew smaller until it was only a spark.
And then it was gone.
“I didn’t think that would work,” Mikkel said in the sudden silence broken only by the crackle of flames.
“Neither did I.” Did Sigrun’s voice shake a little? “Okay, let’s get him off the roof. I want some clean air.”
As Mikkel and Sigrun discussed plans, considering the height of the tank, Tuuri looked around. “Hey, guys. Just slide him down the windshield onto the hood and lower him from there.”
The other two exchanged a glance, and Mikkel shrugged. “Clever girl,” Sigrun said as she took Emil’s hands and dragged him to the front.
Within minutes, the team was inside, breathing the tank’s cool, filtered air. Once Mikkel confirmed that Emil had no discernible injuries, Sigrun climbed into her bunk. Lacking her ability to sleep anytime and too wound up to even try, Tuuri watched the monitors with Mikkel while Reynir restored the galdrastafur above the door.
After perhaps half an hour, Tuuri rolled into her bunk. She had just dozed off when Mikkel raised the alarm: “The villagers are here.”
Swearing, Sigrun jumped down and joined Mikkel, closely followed by Tuuri and more slowly by Reynir. “We’re already down two men,” Sigrun said, pulling on her uniform and taking up her rifle. “And I’m not risking anyone talking to these clowns.”
Mikkel was still in uniform with his shotgun leaning against the wall beside him. At first, Tuuri only wrung her hands, but when Sigrun frowned at her, she donned her own uniform and slung her rifle over her shoulder.
“How many?” Sigrun asked.
Mikkel studied the monitor. “They’re crowded together. At least a dozen. Probably more.”
Sigrun swore again. “With luck, maybe after we shoot a few, the others will retreat.” Reluctant though Mikkel appeared, he nodded. “Okay, then,” Sigrun continued, “Tuuri, get over there and be ready. Mikkel, you’ll open the door and we —”
“Wait,” Mikkel said. “They’ve stopped. They’re — yes, they’re right at the edge of the trolls. I think they’re talking.”
Sigrun and Tuuri crowded in beside him to study the monitors. Though the tank’s lights were off, the moonlight sufficed for the video feed, which showed a group of men armed with spears. The three watched in silence, Tuuri hardly daring to breathe, until the men turned and strode away.
All but one. The last man — the man who had grabbed her — stood glaring at the tank. It was only after the others disappeared into the forest that he followed them, pausing to give a gesture that even Tuuri recognized as rude.
“Not completely stupid, then,” Sigrun said, stowing her rifle. “We’ll put some distance between us and them tomorrow. Be done with the whole thing.” She climbed into her bunk and, Tuuri supposed, fell asleep at once.
“I didn’t want to kill them,” Tuuri whispered.
Mikkel answered without looking at her. “Nor did I. Get some sleep now. Oh — don’t you have the back compartment? I’ll escort —”
Tuuri thought of being alone in the back compartment with a door that couldn’t be locked and that man perhaps still lurking around. “No, thanks. I’ll sleep in here.”
The thunderstorm broke an hour later.
Crash!
Sigrun was out of her bunk, feet on the floor and rifle in hand, before her mind caught up with her body. While Tuuri and Reynir sat up in alarm, Mikkel said, “Thunderstorm.” Rain drummed on the roof, and another thunderclap made everyone flinch.
“But —” Tuuri began.
Tap. Tap–tap–tap. Tap.
As Sigrun strode to the monitors, Mikkel backed away to give her room. Which was a pity, because she would have liked to elbow him out of the way. She’d had to declare the conflict over, since they couldn’t afford a crisis of command. And she’d had to say Tuuri had a good idea, even had to reward her, since she couldn’t afford a dispute with Tuuri and her allies. But that didn’t mean she had to like it, and she didn’t.
Tap–tap.
The rain blocked the radar, and dense clouds smothered the moonlight and blinded the video feed. At least the IR worked, showing nothing around them.
Tap. Tap. Tap–tap–tap.
Something was on the roof. Mikkel had allowed something to slip past his watch and climb onto the tank. This time she wouldn’t let it slide. This time she would dress him down in front of everyone. Sigrun glared at him, opened her mouth —
Tap–tap–tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Boom!
The tapping had merged into a single sound, a drumming a hundred times louder than the rain. This could not be a creature on the roof.
Sigrun pushed past Mikkel to open the driving compartment and look out through the windshield. She stared in disbelief. White blobs fell from above, sliding down the windshield or bouncing off the hood. A momentary blast of cold air as the outside door opened and closed, and Mikkel stood holding out a double handful of the things.
“Ice,” he said. “Ice is falling from the sky.”
Tuuri leaned close to examine his prize. “It’s called ‘hail’. I’ve read about it, but —” She looked up at Sigrun. “This storm isn’t natural.”
The storm didn’t seem natural to Sigrun either. “You feel there’s magic here?”
“No, I can’t. But you were up on the roof too. The clouds weren’t building, there was no thunder, and I didn’t smell any rain. This storm just … appeared. Out of nowhere.”
As Mikkel dropped the hailstones into their small sink, Sigrun glared at him, silently daring him to argue. “The villagers have a weather mage. A strong one, too, to whip up a thunderstorm like this.”
Mikkel gestured with his chin to Lalli in his den and Emil in his bunk. “Surely magic this powerful will knock out the weather mage for a while. They didn’t do this to make a point or even to scare us off.”
Another thunderclap overhead. Tuuri gave the roof a fearful look. “If a tree falls on us …”
“Yeah, right,” Sigrun said. “Okay, we’re not going to sit here under this storm. It can’t be very big, so we’ll just run out from under it. I’ve scouted ahead. Come on. The road should be clear for a hundred meters or more, if nothing’s fallen on it. Yet.”
The women ran to the driving compartment, while Mikkel and Reynir stood talking in low-voiced Icelandic. Even as Tuuri drove the tank forward at a snail’s pace, with the wipers giving only brief glimpses of the road ahead, Mikkel called, “We’re going to the back.” The men were gone into the hail and rain before Sigrun could answer.
After several seconds, Sigrun leaned to regard the air filter light. “Rosli, are they in the back?”
yes
“Thanks.” As she sat back and squinted at the road, the kitten — a half-grown cat now — climbed her leg, curled up in her lap, and butted her. Petting the cat with one hand, she gripped the dagger at her belt with the other.
I should give it back. He’s just a Dane. He’ll probably thank me. She fumed for a moment, picturing handing Mikkel the dagger. He wouldn’t defend the girl himself. He wouldn’t even let me defend her. Honorless Dane!
The cat nudged the hand that held the dagger, and Sigrun gave in, stroking thick fur with both hands.
The scout could have killed that man, but he didn’t. And she said it was her own idea, and Mikkel just went along with it. Are the Finns honorless, too? Am I the only one in this tank with any honor?
Her hands had slowed, and the cat butted her to remind her of her duties.
No, my man called his fire spirit to save us from the giant, even though there was no water around. He knew he might burn to death, and he did it anyway. A man of honor. But what are the two of us doing with these others, then?
A blinding flash, an earsplitting thunderclap, a rending crack, and a crash that rocked the tank.
Sigrun didn’t know Finnish, but she knew the sound of curses. She joined in with curses of her own, peering at the side mirror, seeking to see the damage through heavy rain and hail. “It’s a tree —”
“I know!” The tank whined, swerved, sprayed mud and broken branches, as it struggled to pull itself out from under the tree trunk and its sprawling branches. At length, with a jolt, it lunged forward, and the tree trunk pivoted, dragged after it for a few meters, and slipped off with scrapes and bangs that drowned out even the hail.
Sigrun jumped up to look back at the main compartment, ignoring the cat’s mewed protest. Undamaged. Much as she wanted to run back to check the back compartment, she had to remain to direct Tuuri. “How bad is it?”
“How should I know! I’ve got to watch the road, and —”
Sigrun looked up at the overhead light. “Rosli, status report?”
dents
Sigrun frowned. She was no mechanic, but she knew their vehicle was a tank in name only, lacking the heavy armor a true tank would have. That tree should have crushed the rear compartment. “Dents? From a tree falling on it? Are you sure?”
yes
Sigrun took a breath, steadied her voice. “And the men?”
safe
“Ah — thank you.” She returned to her seat, lifting the cat into her lap. “I guess the tree wasn’t as heavy as it looked. You’re getting close to a washout. See the blaze on that tree? Go left into the forest there.”
As the tank ground its way through mud and bushes just leafing out, the hail and rain slackened together, lightning flashed and thunder roared behind them, and they ran out from under the storm. When the uproar had quieted, Sigrun said, “I would have killed that man for laying hands on you.”
Knuckles white, eyes focused on the trail blazed through the forest, Tuuri said, “I–I know. And I’m grateful. Really grateful. But I didn’t want you to have to.” Sigrun frowned at her, but before she could speak, Tuuri went on, “See, the mages told us that ‘blood on your hands drips onto your spirit.’ So, I didn’t want their blood on your hands. Or mine, or anyone’s.”
“They could have caught you before you reached the tank.”
“I know. And the mages knew that too. Someday you might have to kill a person. There’s a … a ceremony, I think is the word, to ask the gods to wash the blood from your hands. They will, if your heart is pure. But we can’t do that here. We need a lehto.”
“Did you tell Mikkel all this?”
“No, I just told him if they chased us, I’d lead them to the campsite and the trolls.”
Sigrun petted the cat, considering.
That’s why her cousin didn’t kill that man. If you think killing a man stains your spirit, there must be honor in saving someone from having to kill. It’s not my kind of honor, but it’s honor all the same.
She touched the hilt of the dagger, still sheathed on her belt.
When Mikkel argued with me, he had to be guessing at her reasons. Saving ammo, not killing off the village’s fighters … She was the one offended, and she didn’t want the men killed, so he supported her, argued for her. He was ready to sacrifice his position, take any punishment, because she wanted it. Surely there is honor in that.
There was a thump — the back door closing — and a few seconds later, the outside door opened, and Mikkel returned, dripping and alone.
“Where’s Braidy?”
“Sleeping in the back. He’s exhausted. He drew a galdrastafur on the roof that the Icelanders use to strengthen roofs. Against heavy snow, you know. He’d just finished it when something fell on the tank.”
“A tree,” Sigrun said.
“Reynir strengthened the tank enough to stand up to a tree,” Tuuri said, taking her eyes off the trail for a moment to shoot Sigrun an unreadable look.
“Why’d he draw it back there? Did he know the tree was going to fall there? ’Cause we’ll need strengthening up here, too.”
“He needed to stand on the crates to reach the roof. Couldn’t do it in here.” Mikkel waved at their minimal furnishings. “We could use a stepladder, next time someone feels like scavenging. But he said the whole tank would be strengthened.”
Sigrun scanned the roof, imagining the galdrastafur their mage could draw up there, the protection they could have. “Good job. Really good job. Now, we’ve got away from the storm — yeah, you noticed — so I think we need to get to my campsite that I picked out and get some rest. We’ll get moving the minute it’s light enough. Those villagers will think they trapped us in that storm, and they’ll come looking for us.” She glanced at Tuuri, who had returned to her intense focus on the trail. “With luck, we’ll be so far away they’ll give it up.”
Mikkel nodded and took his position before the monitors. He had the watch for the rest of the night, and for the next week.
After Tuuri parked the tank, and she and Sigrun climbed into their bunks, for once, Sigrun didn’t fall asleep at once. As the cat purred beside her ear, she stared up at the ceiling, thinking of honor.
Mikkel’s honor made him willing to sacrifice his position for Tuuri. What else, who else, is he willing to sacrifice? And for whom?
Emil awakened to find himself lying on his back. Which was strange, as he’d expected that he’d arrive in the afterlife on his feet. Sigrun had assured him that a Swedish skeptic could make it to Valhalla if he died in battle, and in the split second between deciding to call the fire and actually calling it, he’d wondered if being burned alive by his own fire spirit would count.
But he doubted Valhalla, or even the domain of Hel, would sound like a ventilation fan and a purring kitten. Nor would it smell like bleach, sweat, gun oil, and a whiff of litter box. He inhaled again. No stench of burning hair, burning flesh, comfrey …
Emil sat up and looked around. Ash-blonde hair just showed from a bundle of blankets on Tuuri’s bunk; another bundle lay under Mikkel’s bunk, and Sigrun stood at the monitors, petting the purring kitten in her arms and smiling at him. And that was all.
“M–Mikkel? Is he — is —”
“He’s fetching breakfast,” Sigrun said, “and lazybones over there is just sleeping in.”
“I heard that,” said the bundle of blankets.
“But then, the fire spirit didn’t come —”
Sigrun’s smile broadened. “Oh, he came all right, killed the giant, wiped out the trolls. He’s a good boy, though. He was going to jump on you, but I told him to sit, so he did. Then I told him to go home, so off he went.”
For a moment, Emil felt a strange resentment. The fire spirit was his fire spirit. What gave Sigrun the right to command it? But common sense reasserted itself; if she hadn’t commanded it, the fire spirit might well have burned him alive.
Tuuri sat up, blankets still around her shoulders, and dangled her feet off her bunk. “Who’s a good doggy? Is ums a good doggy? Ums is such a good doggy —”
Sigrun pantomimed throwing something at her. “I told him he was a good boy, that’s all. And you, little skald, you get this right in your saga. My man is a hero. He thought he’d get burned again, even worse ’cause there was no water. He didn’t know the fire dog would obey me. You put that in.”
Emil looked down at his hands. Am I a hero? I wasn’t thinking that way. There were all those trolls, and then the giant, and I just saw what I had to do. Is that what a hero does? And who will ever read Tuuri’s records? Will Father? Or the triplets? Will they ever know that Sigrun said I was a hero?
His thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and Mikkel and Reynir climbed in. Tension he hadn’t been aware of drained out of him. Though Sigrun had implied Mikkel was unharmed by the fire spirit, Emil had to see him to fully believe it.
Passing a bowl of venison to Reynir, Mikkel stopped to study Emil. “Good, you’re awake. How are you?”
Though he was exhausted despite having slept for hours, Emil didn’t want to show weakness to the others. “I’m okay.” When the medic continued to regard him with narrowed eyes, Emil added, “But I need to step out.”
“Me too,” Tuuri said, shedding her blankets and jumping down from her bunk. In the resulting commotion, as she and Emil donned their boots and Mikkel took over the watch, Lalli awakened at last. With a nod to Tuuri, ignoring everyone else, he pulled on his own boots and raced out into the darkness. No one commented; they knew his ways. Soon Sigrun escorted Tuuri to one bush, Emil went to another, and the kitten ran a little way away to do her own business.
With everyone back inside, even Lalli and the kitten, the team settled down for breakfast. Lalli took his usual corner beside his den, Mikkel stood watch, and Reynir fried venison and passed it out to everyone, while Sigrun, Emil, and Tuuri sat around the folding table. Making sure not to talk with his mouth full, Emil asked the question that had bothered him since walking out into the decaying parking lot. “Why did you move the tank?”
“Had to,” Sigrun said with her mouth full. “Some weather mage whipped up a thunderstorm on top of us.”
Tuuri swallowed, holding a piece of venison suspended over her plate. “It was wild. Thunder and lightning and hail. That’s balls of ice just falling out of the sky.” Emil tried not to be jealous that everyone else had gotten to see the ice. “Then a tree fell on the tank, but it didn’t smash us flat because Reynir strengthened the roof.” She gave Reynir an admiring smile, and Emil told himself that even if Reynir could strengthen a roof, he couldn’t summon a fire spirit. Which reminded him …
Emil turned to address the other skeptic. “Why didn’t we know about this? Why did they tell us that magic wasn’t real when there are people who summon fire spirits and thunderstorms? Or fylgjas that walk around leaving tracks, like his did?” He pointed at Reynir. “Or fylgja-things that call up trolls to hunt us? Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
As Mikkel shook his head and showed his hands in a helpless gesture, Tuuri shifted, drawing Emil’s attention to her.
“There aren’t a lot of weather mages that can summon a thunderstorm. I mean, I heard about them, not that anyone ever saw them do it. There were a couple of weather mages at Keuruu, but all they did was warn us when bad weather was coming and maybe sometimes make a storm … less bad.”
“That’s what our weather mage at Dalsnes did, too,” Sigrun said.
“Something that could be chance,” Mikkel put in.
Tuuri switched to Finnish, eliciting brief answers from Lalli, and to Icelandic for more lengthy responses from Reynir. After several exchanges, Sigrun said, with impatience mirroring Emil’s, “What’s he saying?”
“He’s never heard of fylgjas appearing like his did or like Emil’s fire spirit. Sometimes they appear when someone’s about to die, but that’s all. He’s heard of weather mages that summon storms, but that’s just rumors of mages far away. And I remember something Onni told me a long time ago: ‘Even the ancients knew there’s more magic in the wild places of the world.’ ”
After a silence broken only by the scrape of utensils, Mikkel said, “So maybe all this is happening because we’re in the deep Silent World.”
“Then the enemy couldn’t chase us if we were back in the Known World?” Emil asked.
“Yeah, if you were,” Tuuri said.
Face heating as he realized his error, Emil stuffed venison bacon in his mouth to silence himself. As he chewed, he saw another implication of Mikkel’s words. “You mean I couldn’t summon the fire spirit back there?”
Mikkel frowned at the monitors. At length, he said, “I don’t think you could, no. If fylgjas and fire spirits could appear — materialize — easily in the Known World, it should happen all the time. No shortage of crises in the Known World. And then there’d be no doubt about them; we wouldn’t question the existence of magic any more than we question … the Lights, I suppose.”
Emil sighed in hidden relief. I couldn’t have accidentally summoned the fire spirit. I couldn’t have burned down the factory, no matter how much I hated it. It wasn’t my fault!
“Okay,” Sigrun said. “Whatever, we’re stuck here. The villagers called that storm trying to trap us, and they’ll be along looking for us pretty soon. It’s not like we can hide our trail, so we’ll have to outrun them.” She addressed Tuuri. “Tell your cousin we need to get moving. We’ll go west for now, but there’s no mountains that way, so tell him we want to go south when we can. Try to get us back on the ley line, too. Or maybe he can find another one.”
When Tuuri passed on the instructions, Lalli shrugged, nodded, and ran out the door. Once Reynir had washed the dishes, Sigrun led the way forward. Weary as he was, Emil didn’t want to stand as usual while Tuuri drove, but, as he might have expected, he didn’t need to. Mikkel had been up all night, standing watch or fighting, so once they got moving, he took to his bunk for a nap. Seating himself on the passengers’ bench, Emil looked ahead into the faint pre-dawn light as the journey continued.
By mid-afternoon, they were moving south on a road so decayed it was hardly better than the forest, and the situation was not improved by a constant drizzle. Though the rain seemed natural, the kitten was on edge, demanding constant petting. When they stopped for breaks and she joined the team outside, she peered about as if looking for something that no one else could see.
Petting the kitten in his lap, Emil bit his tongue so as not to blurt out what he thought: they were being stalked. Beside him, Sigrun checked the mirrors, the side windows, and forward, over and over. Reynir had gone back to the main compartment to talk to Mikkel, no doubt trying to come up with some new defense. Emil glanced at Tuuri, driving white-knuckled. They didn’t need his words; they all felt it, but what could they do, when stopping to confront this enemy would only open them to a greater attack by a troll swarm?
When they camped that evening in an overgrown parking lot, Tuuri and Lalli talked for a bit before Lalli ran off into the neighboring ruins, returning with several steel brackets. After sanding off spots of rust, Tuuri mounted them on the doors inside the back compartment, and Mikkel found a long, straight, sturdy branch to serve as a bar.
As everyone looked over the result, Sigrun said, “Why do you need to bar the doors? No troll’s going to work that latch.” Which was true; though the latch could not be locked, it required a mind to figure out the mechanism and two hands with thumbs to work it.
“What if —” Tuuri swallowed. “What if that man comes back?”
“That’s why we post watches.”
Mikkel, standing behind Tuuri, patted the air as if to calm things down. “It’s a bit of extra security for someone sleeping back —”
Sigrun folded her arms and glared at him. “What if something happens and we have to get in there?”
“We can take the doors off the hinges if we have to, but it won’t be quiet; no one can sneak up on her doing that.”
As Sigrun squinted at the doors, shrugged, and walked away to check on the kitten, who stood on an upturned slab, staring into the forest, Emil shook off tension. He hated to see Sigrun and Mikkel argue. He hated to see anyone argue, but especially the two most senior members of the team. And what did it matter anyway? Even he might feel a little more secure sleeping back there with the door barred.
They had made good time that day, and nothing attacked in the night.
The rain continued the next day, rendering the road muddy and slippery. Still, as Lalli led them south, putting more kilometers between them and the village, the kitten remained alert, making everyone around her nervous. She so far forgot her training as to leave a puddle on the floor, despite being let outside several times. When Emil stepped in the puddle and tracked it across the floor, even Mikkel was annoyed enough to swear as he cleaned up the mess, and no one complained about the nose-stinging odor of excessive bleach that he’d used to mask the smell.
When Tuuri took her turn that night in the back compartment, no one commented that she wore her pistol on her hip.
The rain and the tension continued for the next day. Despite frequent rest stops, despite all Mikkel’s efforts, the kitten left a puddle again. She was even more on edge, demanding to be petted and crying when left alone. Sigrun climbed onto the tank several times to scan around with binoculars, but saw nothing threatening.
Emil joined Mikkel in following the tank, not so much to gather fuel — it was all wet anyway — as to burn off some energy. A long chat about magic brought them no closer to a conclusion. Magic was stronger here than in the Known World, even away from the ley line, and they had no idea why.
The rain finally ended the next day, but the kitten was even more agitated, and neither Lalli nor Sigrun could see any reason for it. Emil considered suggesting that they lock her in the back compartment, but that night would be his private night, and he didn’t want puddles back there. Perhaps others had the same thought, but no one proposed it. Mikkel tempted her with canned cod, which got them some peace, though not for long. Sigrun and Emil went hunting, ranging far afield — farther than they needed to — and returned with a single rabbit for their troubles. At least they’d escaped the tension in the tank for a while.
Emil took his pistol with him to the back compartment that night, and barred the door even though Mikkel was on watch.
“Kitty! Kitty! Here, kitty!” Tuuri stopped calling long enough to curse in three languages. “Here, kitty!”
“Now what?” Sigrun muttered to Emil. “What’s the stupid cat done now?”
“Probably slipped inside to leave Mikkel another puddle. Tuuri will smell it pretty soon.”
But the kitten was not in the tank or anywhere near it. Everyone had had their afternoon rest stop, and it was time to move on, but they stayed so long, searching for her, that Lalli came back from scouting, annoyed that they hadn’t shown up at his chosen campsite.
“He says we trampled all over her tracks, and he wants us to get inside and be quiet so he can search,” Tuuri translated, blinking back tears. They obeyed, crowding around the monitors to watch Lalli casting about for a trail. After several false starts, he set off to the north towards an abandoned town.
“She wouldn’t go into a town, would she?” Emil asked. Towns were full of trolls, and cats hated trolls. Untrained cats would throw themselves into battle with any troll, even those too big for them to handle. Annoyed though he was with the kitten, he hated to think of her torn apart by a troll.
No one answered as Lalli vanished from the monitors, out of range.
Mikkel retreated to his bunk, stroking his sideburns and staring up at the clock, eyes narrowed. After several minutes, he said, “I think I know what’s wrong.” Everyone turned to him. “Fertile queens experience ‘heat’. That means they want to mate. I think our kitten has grown up enough to go into heat. That’s why she’s been so upset. And now she’s looking for a tom.”
Sigrun swore, loud and long. Once her words became printable, she said, “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t know —”
“Odin’s blind eye! You’re a medic. You’re supposed to know this stuff. Didn’t they have cats in your army?”
Mikkel got to his feet and glared at her. “Yes, we had cats, but they weren’t fertile queens. Did your clan waste fertile queens in battle? And anyway, the cats had their own vets. I was just a medic. Nobody trained me to care for cats.”
Emil looked around for help. Tuuri wrung her hands while Reynir twisted his braid around his arm. Neither looked to have anything to contribute. “We had cats in the Cleansers, but I never heard of ‘heat’.” A thought struck him, and he looked up at the light. “Rosli, did you know about ‘heat’?”
knew never saw
Sigrun gave him a smoldering glance before folding her arms and addressing Mikkel.
“So now what? Is our cat just gone?”
Mikkel sighed and lowered his head. “I don’t know. I think when a queen finds a tom, she mates and then goes home. That’s cats in the Known World. But our cat is feral, from ninety years of feral cats. I don’t know if she’ll come back. Or if there even is a tom out there for her to find.”
“She’s not feral,” Tuuri objected. “She’s been with us since she was a baby.”
“I know, but —”
“There have to be other cats,” Emil said. “I mean, she had a mother and a father.”
“In Copenhagen, yes. But here?” Mikkel tugged his sideburns again.
Sigrun took a breath and exhaled hard through her nose. “Okay. The scout will find her, or he won’t. Whichever, we have to move. We can’t sit here like troll snacks.”
Tuuri stared at her in horror. “You — you mean we’ll leave her?”
“If your cousin can’t bring her back, we have no choice. It won’t help her if we get swarmed.” With that, Sigrun strode to the driving compartment and stared out the window.
Lalli returned almost an hour later, without the kitten. Emil couldn’t read his impassive expression, but his posture seemed … frustrated. Or was it defeated? Tuuri drove after him as the full moon rose, and when they reached the campsite, Emil set out his traps and retreated to his bunk, trying not to hear Tuuri crying.
They had no supper.
The grove was not a lehto.
Onni leaned against a moss-covered oak, praying for a scrap of its strength. He had travelled so far, and he was so tired. The endless seasick voyage from Iceland and the long row up the great lake, Saimaa, had brought him here, to Toivosaari. His home. Here, in the graveyard, he had placed the urns the Icelanders had given him for Tuuri and Lalli. They contained only wood ash, but they might be the only memorial his remaining family would have.
A lifetime ago — or was it only eleven years? — he had joined his village, his family, in this grove on the summer solstice to offer their prayers and their fresh flowers to show the nature spirits and the forest gods, Tapio and Mielikki, that they would be welcomed here. He and Venla had walked hand in hand, and they had placed two pebbles amidst the roots of … that oak, that one over there.
Kneeling before the oak, he searched through snow and fallen leaves with careful fingers. One pebble. The other was gone, swept away.
Like Venla.
Onni had killed Venla the day before. Hearing her voice in the babble of the trapped ones, the spirits imprisoned in the monstrous bodies of trolls, he’d hunted her down. While he fought her, the Kade, the spirit that had murdered his village, his family, had sought to sneak up on him. She had dashed past him and slashed its corrupting eye before allowing him to strike her down, and with the hideous troll body dead, her spirit had forgiven him before flying away on the Bird’s Path.
Hot tears melted the snow before him.
Venla had slashed the Kade’s corrupting eye. He could fight it with his eyes open. He could fight the spirit that had defeated and enslaved the most powerful mage he’d ever known, his grandmother, Ensi. He would have to move fast now, to find it before its corrupting eye grew back.
Onni pushed himself to his feet, leaning against the ancient oak. Though cold wind toyed with his hair, the rough bark was warm against his shoulder. Closing his eyes, he listened to the silence. No one prayed here. No one brought dried flowers in the winter, nor fresh flowers in the summer. But if he could kill the Kade, then someday, people could come back, could rebuild the village. Maybe even Tuuri and Lalli.
With one last searching look, Onni strode out of the grove that was not yet a lehto.
“Two strays,” Mikkel murmured. “Here and here.”
Sigrun checked the IR monitor. The stray trolls were well away from the latrine, but she buckled on her dagger and pistol and shouldered her rifle before stepping out into the pre-dawn darkness. When she eased shut the door, one perimeter light came on at its lowest setting, just bright enough that, once her eyes adapted, she could make her way to the latrine and back without tripping. Somewhat to her disappointment, the trolls did not approach.
As Sigrun put away her weapons and boots, Mikkel began, “About the kitty —”
“We had to move yesterday and we have to move again today.”
“Yes, of course, certainly, but —”
“But we just have to move, and it doesn’t matter where we go. So we’ll backtrack today and look for the kitty. Right?”
“Uh … right. Yes.”
Sigrun smirked at him. It wasn’t often that she managed to steal his shot, and she reveled in his chagrin.
The scuff of a foot behind her: Emil had joined them. “What if we run into the villagers?” he asked.
Mikkel answered before Sigrun could. “I don’t think we will.” He stopped to look at her, raising an eyebrow, and she gestured for him to continue. He was better at explaining things. “I think they would have either attacked or turned back days ago.” He waved a hand at the tank. “This tank, and Tuuri, of course, they are great prizes. But every day they pursue us is a day they leave their village unprotected. And every night they camp in our back trail is a night they’re right in the path of a swarm. I don’t think it’s worth it to them.”
Emil furrowed his brow. “But they called the storm.”
“Hoping to trap or disable us, yes. No doubt they came looking for us afterwards, but when they found us gone, escaped, I don’t think they’d pursue us for long.”
Tuuri was now sitting up on her bunk, her eyelids red and swollen. After Sigrun’s explanation of the plan, Tuuri’s face brightened, and she hurried to climb down from her bunk. As she knelt to speak to Lalli in his den, Mikkel gave Sigrun a quick glance for approval before saying, “We should go into the town itself, if there’s a clear path and the sky is clear. That’ll make it easier for us to find her, or for her to find us. And we still need a stepladder, and no doubt there are other things in there we could use.”
Sigrun nodded. “May as well. We need to camp away from before anyway.”
With even Lalli in his own way eager to get moving, they were on the way at first light. Reynir watched the monitors while Lalli led and Tuuri drove after him but, as Mikkel had predicted, they didn’t encounter pursuing villagers.
Small fluffy clouds scudded across the sky as they turned towards the town before noon, grinding over bushes and broken slabs to reach the town square with its ancient oak tree in the center. Once Tuuri had parked, Sigrun and Emil left together and Lalli left alone, all three searching for the cat or any useful gear, leaving Mikkel to guard the tank and gather fallen branches from the oak tree for fuel.
“Kitty, kitty,” Emil called as he and Sigrun picked their way through the rubble-strewn street. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
Sigrun scanned about, checking each shattered window, each doorway still blocked by a half-rotted door, each collapsed roof. She hoped for a flash of orange and white fur, expected tentacles or talons or even (despite Mikkel’s assurances) a spear-armed man. Several times, things shifted within piles of debris, hiss of scales on rotting wood, but nothing braved the sunlight to strike at them. And once, faint and far off, they heard a cry. Or was it an unfamiliar bird? They worked their way in its direction, but it wasn’t repeated, and they found nothing to explain it.
By the time they returned at noon, they and Lalli had found nothing, not the cat, and not a ladder. After lunch, Lalli led the tank away on the long drive to a campsite some two kilometers from where they’d camped two nights before. Although it rained that night, the nightly swarm found them, and four strays found shelter around them.
“Climb! Get up!” Sigrun shouted near noon the next day, scrambling up the nearest ruined wall. Emil had learned unquestioning obedience; on the other side of the street, he too climbed as fast as he could. The boar, charging down the muddy street at a terrifying speed, went for him, its forelegs scrabbling at broken bricks that fell away, yielding no purchase.
“Don’t shoot!” Emil had no experience with boars, and would waste ammunition shooting in the wrong place, but even Sigrun didn’t have a good shot with it trying to climb up after him. “Hey, boar! Look over here!” The first brick she hurled at it bounced off its head without effect, but with the second, it spun and charged her.
The rubble around Sigrun’s wall was sturdier than around Emil’s, and the boar flung itself upwards with alarming speed. Retreating along the remains of the wall, she held her pistol ready, watching for the right moment …
Now! Sigrun’s pistol cracked, and blood spurted from the wound. The bullet had entered at the perfect angle, through the lung and into the heart. But boars die very hard, and the animal’s hooves drove it forward and upwards, snorting and slashing at broken bricks with its tusks in its fury. Every bullet counted, and Sigrun knew she’d given it a mortal wound. Holstering her pistol, she drew her dagger and slashed at the boar’s sensitive nose.
Recoiling, the boar lost its balance and toppled down the rubble before getting to its feet and shaking its head. With a last glare at her, it staggered away almost as quickly as a man could run.
“Sit still,” Sigrun said. “It’s dead, but it doesn’t know it yet, and it can still fight.”
“That — that was a boar?”
“Sure was. You never saw one before?”
“Not alive.”
Sigrun laughed. “We hunt them at home, you know. When we go after them, we have boar spears, though. I should ask Tuuri to make us some. They’ve got crossbars, see, so the boar can’t just keep running up the spear. They’ll do that if they can.”
Emil shook his head. “I didn’t know real animals were so tough. It was worse than a troll.”
“They are. Smarter, quicker, and they come in sounders, too. That means a bunch of them. This one was a male, so he was probably by himself. Just as well. We’re not ready to take out a sounder.” She looked up the street, spotting the boar lying amidst the debris some hundred meters away. Nothing had approached it. Yet. “Okay, come on, let’s get the meat before a troll or something comes along.”
Even now, Sigrun moved with caution, watching the animal’s chest for signs of breathing. Ordering Emil to climb out of reach, holding her pistol ready, she threw a brick at the boar’s head. And another. When the animal didn’t react, she approached more closely. Blood no longer ran from its slashed nose.
“Okay, get down. We’ll take the hams and loins. We can’t carry all this meat back.”
While Emil butchered the carcass, Sigrun watched for movement and listened for the grunt-snuffle of an approaching sounder. Crows landed on a tree that grew through a ruined house, watching and waiting for their chance. To her disappointment, no cat appeared to claim a share. Perhaps there were no cats in this town. No living cats, at least.
After carving off the meat, Emil sighed and, grimacing, bundled the heavy, blood-soaked load into his jacket. “Mikkel will scrub out the blood,” Sigrun told him with a grin. “And we’ll have roast boar today.” As they headed back to the tank, she considered next steps. They’d have to salt most of the meat, which would take far more salt than they had. Well, the scout could find more. There was always salt in these old towns, since the stuff didn’t rot.
Back at the camp, they found Lalli on guard instead of Mikkel. Though Lalli had found a ladder and a stepladder, both were too heavy for him, and so Mikkel had had to fetch them instead. Reynir was already on the stepladder, painting a galdrastafur on the roof in the main compartment, and Mikkel had gone back for the ladder.
By the time Mikkel got back with a long ladder balanced on his shoulder, Emil had built a fire beside the tank. He and Tuuri had started roasting some of the boar meat since, after finishing his work, Reynir had been exhausted and lain down for a nap. With Sigrun and Emil present as guards, Lalli had left to search for salt.
Mikkel listened with concern to the story of the boar. He knew of boars, of course, but had never hunted them. And now they had yet another threat to worry about as they travelled through Silent Germany. As soon as the boar meat was roasted, by common consent, everyone at the tank moved into the tank to eat.
When Lalli returned, staggering under the weight of a sackful of salt packages, Mikkel gave him a plateful of roast boar, which he consumed with surprising enthusiasm. Taking the salt, Mikkel and Reynir put the remaining boar meat in a couple of clean buckets, filled the buckets with salty water, put on the lids, and stowed the buckets in the back compartment. The meat would be good for weeks.
After lunch, they drove south, watching for the cat and for boars as they made their way to a new camping location. Over their supper of roast boar, Sigrun announced that they would go back north the next day and look for the kitty again. Though Tuuri gave her a grateful smile, Mikkel stroked his sideburns, frowning.
“What’s the problem, big guy?”
“I’m concerned about the boar. Where there is one boar, there may well be many. You survived an attack by one, but what if you’d run into a sounder?”
Sigrun shrugged. “We’d climb up and shoot them. Blondy, do you see where I shot that one?”
“You, uh, you waited until it was trying to climb up, then shot under its chin into its chest.”
“Good eye! Your pistol can’t get through the skull, so you want to shoot for the heart. Can’t shoot through the back, ’cause the bones are too thick.” Emil nodded, face intent.
“I’d suggest taking some incendiaries and maybe even some explosives,” Mikkel said. “Fire might drive them off more effectively than gunshots.”
Emil’s expression brightened at once, as always at the prospect of lighting fires, and Sigrun couldn’t help chuckling. With the decision made, the team dealt with evening chores and took to their bunks, except for Tuuri, who took her pistol with her when Sigrun escorted her to the back compartment. This was Mikkel’s last night of taking all watches, which Sigrun thought was just as well. Though he made no complaints, his face was drawn, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
In the morning, they found seven trolls lurking near the tank. One charged as Emil collected his traps, but Sigrun disposed of it with her usual ease.
As before, Tuuri followed Lalli northwards into the town. Once she parked in an overgrown plaza beside a battered monument, Sigrun and Emil left together and Lalli alone to search for the missing cat for an hour.
And as before, the three returned without the cat. No one commented on their failure, and Lalli led the way to a new campsite north of the town.
That night, the swarm arrived while Emil stood the last watch. He raised no alarm, but in the morning, there were over a dozen trolls sheltering near the tank, and both Sigrun and Mikkel had to protect him as he gathered his traps.
“We’re getting more and more trolls,” Mikkel said quietly as they returned to the tank. “The enemy calls more to this area every night.”
“Yeah, I think so too. We can’t keep searching like this, or pretty soon we’ll get a swarm that’ll break the magic.” Sigrun glanced at Emil. “Of course, we have got the fire spirit.”
Emil straightened a little, but Mikkel shook his head. “I don’t think Emil should call it except in dire emergencies —”
“Like a giant almost on top of us?” Emil asked, defensive.
“Why shouldn’t he?”
“The fact that he passes out for hours worries me. Could the summoning do him some permanent harm? I don’t know. It wasn’t mentioned in my training, obviously. And it worries me.”
Sigrun glanced at Emil. His head was bowed, and he stroked his hood with his free hand. “We’ll try not to get into any dire emergencies, then,” she said, and they climbed into the tank in silence.
In the gray, windy mid-afternoon, Sigrun and Emil returned empty-handed to the tank. Lalli returned with another sack of salt packages, but no cat. Much as it would distress Tuuri — not to mention everyone else — Sigrun decided that they needed to move on. Dead or fled, the cat was gone, and they couldn’t afford to stay and search forever.
But when to make that announcement? As they left the town and headed south again? After supper? Or in the morning, so that Tuuri would at least get a good night’s sleep?
Sigrun hadn’t decided as the team sat down to a late lunch of salt pork. Perhaps the others already felt the decision in the air, for the silence around the table was broken only by the scrape of utensils on plates. While Reynir washed the dishes, Mikkel took the leftover pork to the back compartment.
Mikkel was gone longer than Sigrun expected. She set down the pistol she was cleaning and strode to the monitors, currently unmanned. As she passed the outside door, it swung open and Mikkel climbed in.
Behind her, Tuuri gasped and Reynir dropped a plate with a clatter.
“Look at your little paws,” Mikkel said. “Have you been running all over looking for us?”
Mikkel held the warm, furry body close, her purrs vibrating against his chest. He’d felt Sigrun’s decision in the air, and he’d agreed: they couldn’t risk the whole team searching for the kitten any longer. And yet, here the little cat was, in his arms.
Much as he would like to keep holding her, others had missed her as well, and he had work to do. “Tuuri, please wash the mud off her paws.”
Already on her feet before Mikkel spoke, Tuuri rushed to take the purring kitten, cooing in Finnish as she carried her to the sink. As Mikkel opened his cabinet, Sigrun asked, “How did you find her?”
“She found us.” Mikkel raised his voice to be heard over the kitten’s vocal objections to being washed. “I’d just latched the door, and I spotted her running down the street to us. Limping. I didn’t find any broken bones, so she may be just footsore.” From his first aid kit, he laid out bandages, sutures, and alcohol on the table. After a moment, he added his own gloves. “Also, she’s lost weight. I felt her ribs. Emil, please fetch some cod for her.” Emil was out the door with only a moment’s pause to check the monitors.
“Her poor little paw is bleeding,” Tuuri said, carrying the kitten to Mikkel, Reynir beside her. The kitten was purring again, despite the indignity of having her paws washed.
Mikkel took the kitten, stroked her for a moment, and laid her on the table on her back. “Reynir, put on my gloves. Hold her forelegs. Tuuri, take that leg.” Holding the remaining leg, he found the injury was a cut that would heal without stitches. As he cleaned and disinfected the wound, the kitten yowled and struggled but did not, he was pleased to see, bite anyone.
By the time Mikkel had bandaged the paw, Emil had set up food and water dishes. The kitten recoiled from the three who had so mistreated her, so he lifted her down and placed her before the dishes. Hunger and thirst overcame offense, and she dug in with a will.
“Well, that’s done,” Sigrun said. “Now we need to get moving. We’re burning daylight. Driver, scout, to work!”
While Tuuri ran forward and Lalli pulled on his boots, Emil put a hand on the kitten to hold her in place. “We need a harness. That’s what we did with the cats in the Cleansers.” He released her once Lalli had left and closed the door.
“Yeah,” Sigrun agreed as she went forward to the passengers’ seat. “We’ll make one tonight.” Emil nodded and followed her.
Stifling a yawn, Mikkel folded up and latched the table. Reynir sat on the floor with his back against the door, watching over the kitten, while Mikkel should have gone forward with Sigrun and Tuuri. But the Sun was shining, the kitten was back, all was well, and they didn’t need him. He still hadn’t quite recovered from over a week of standing watches all night and working during the days. A brief nap, he thought, and then he could handle supper and the first watch.
With another yawn, Mikkel stretched out on his bunk.
Mikkel is young and trim in his army uniform with the boots Lalli found for him. The thin mattress and patched blankets are gone from his bunk, replaced by a thick rectangular cushion. Before him, where the folding table should be, is an overstuffed armchair with a hassock before it. Cushion, armchair, and hassock are all upholstered with deep red cloth with a pattern of stylized gold lions. Beneath his feet, the cold metal floor is covered by a burgundy rug with an intricate, almost floral pattern of black and gold. Reluctant though he is to step on it with his heavy boots, he gets to his feet.
“Rosli?” In the silence that follows, he wonders if she is somehow in the other tank, the material tank. Should he wander around in her haven without her? But a warm breeze through the open side door carries with it birdsong and the fugitive scents of wildflowers, and his summer was long ago.
He treads gently across the rug and jumps down into a glade full of knee-high wildflowers, golden and red and white. Bees hum from one flower to another, butterflies in jewel colors dance in the sunlight, leaves rustle in the breeze, and birds call from the forest around the glade.
“Rosli?” he calls again.
“Mikkel! You made it!” Rosli rushes around the front of the tank, smiling. She wears blue jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt, with her rifle slung over her shoulder.
Mikkel smiles back as something eases within him. “It’s good to see you again,” he says, because “I’ve missed you” would mean too much. His face is under control again, showing polite interest. “You’ve changed things in the tank.”
“Isn’t it great?” She joins him by the door, scanning the interior with a satisfied air. “I was so tired of the bare steel.” She glances at him for a moment before returning her attention to the tank. “I never could make so many things before; it, um, weakens me to make them so I can only have a few, and then I have to unmake them. Except when we were on the ley line, it was so much easier, and I decorated the place. I thought they might all vanish away when we left the line, but no.”
“It’s all beautiful.” He hesitates. “Reynir’s galdrastafur. Do they bother you?”
“No, not at all. I feel them. They’re … warm, I guess. Warmer on the line, not so much now.” She walks towards the front of the tank, and he follows. “Would you like to walk around, see the place?”
Mikkel is surprised into another brief smile as the ghost who died before his grandparents were born sounds like a proud homeowner. “Certainly.”
As she leads the way across the glade, so different from his last sight of it, with the flowers all trampled and stained with troll slime, he asks, “Have the trolls come back?”
“No, no.” She taps the rifle’s shoulder strap. “This is just in case. I don’t know how all this works. The dragons haven’t come in here. Yet. Maybe they really can’t, but I’m ready. Oh —” She raises a hand, the air shimmers, and she holds a shotgun. Mikkel accepts it and slings it over his shoulder.
“Do you know anything about our enemy? Have you, ah, perceived anything we haven’t?”
Rosli slows and looks over at him. “I don’t know anything. But there were a couple of times, at the canal and then again that time we stayed in one place too long, when I felt … it’s hard to describe. Itchy, maybe.” She shudders. “Like little things crawling all over me. I’ve never felt anything like that before, not even when I was, well, alive.”
Mikkel frowns at the forest. “We didn’t feel anything like that. Do dragons make you feel that way at all?”
“No, but then they don’t come very near me. Can’t come near, maybe.” Her smile is back. “By now, I think they’re afraid of me. I’ve shot about a dozen.” Her smile dims. “But there are always more. This way; I’ll show you one.”
They walk in silence for a while before Mikkel asks, “Did you hear my theory — my guesses — about the enemy?”
“You mean, that it’s something from here, a runaway fylgja or a dragon? Yeah, it makes sense. The thing doesn’t seem like anything natural. Or even unnatural, a mage or a Rash monster maybe. Still, it might not be from here. It could be from someplace else altogether.”
“Someplace else?”
“That pastor opened the way for all the ghosts into another kind of world —”
“The Summerland.”
“That’s its name?”
“So I was told. The bull, the one that joined the fight, that’s my fylgja. He said that’s where I’ll go when I die.”
“I wondered about that bull. He talks? My crow doesn’t talk.” She scans the trees, but the crow remains absent. “You’d think she would. Crows are really smart.”
“Still,” Mikkel says, “I don’t think the enemy could come from the Summerland. It always summons trolls, not real animals, so it must be somehow connected to the Rash. And Reynir said when the ghosts went into the light, the Summerland, it destroyed the Rash spirits clinging to them.”
Rosli rubs her chin. “I remember that. But if the Summerland’s a world of light, maybe there’s a world of darkness the Rash spirits come from. The enemy could come from there. Or here, of course.”
Mikkel nods, though guessing where the enemy comes from doesn’t seem to progress their defense against it. “Do you think we should stand and fight? That’s what Sigrun wants to do.”
After a dozen silent steps, she answers. “No, you shouldn’t risk it. I’d try to fight from here if you did, but I don’t know … that itchy feeling … and if it’s not material, then that fire spirit may not be able to touch it. Reynir doesn’t seem to have any offensive magic, so you’re down to Lalli. And he passed out just knocking out a man for a minute or so.”
“My analysis as well.”
They come out of the forest onto a rocky headland. Though sunlight sparkles on waves crashing on shining white beaches on either side, the sea farther out is shrouded in mist. Rosli points up and to the left. “There’s one.”
As the huge black dragon circles above the misty sea, Mikkel catalogs its shape in his careful way. The wings are not like a bird’s or even a bat’s, more like vast black sails. Four legs dangle from the long body; the thing has six limbs, like no bird, lizard, or mammal that ever lived.
Its head turns. It glares at him with burning red eyes as its wings drive it towards him.
Beside him, Rosli raises her rifle. “Smile,” she says and pulls the trigger.
The dragon veers in the air, its wings flail, and it falls into the sea not far offshore. As Mikkel opens his mouth to speak, to suggest trying to retrieve it, a long, thick, corpse-white tentacle reaches out of the mist and pulls the dragon down and away.
“That always happens,” Rosli says casually. “I’d like to get a better look at one, but …” She shrugs.
Mikkel stares at the waves. There is no sign of the dragon or the tentacled creature. “And Reynir walks on that water.”
“He took me and Onni running on the sea. It’s like the things in there don’t notice us on the surface, but they notice the dragons splashing down. I don’t see any more dragons. Nothing much else to see here but water and mist.” She leads the way back into the forest.
“The lost village,” Mikkel says after they’ve walked for a time. “I don’t know if you saw —”
Rosli’s face turns grim. “I saw enough.”
“We didn’t do anything to anger them. Not that I know of, at least. Is that what we can expect from every German village?”
“I don’t think so. In my time, Germans weren’t bad people. Not the sort who would try to kidnap a woman. But, well, strange things grow in isolation.”
As Mikkel nods, he glances at Rosli and away. She was in isolation as long as the lost village. But there is nothing strange about her. He opens his mouth to ask —
“Oof!” Having landed with all four feet on his belly, the kitten strolled across him to curl up beside his head, purring. Mikkel sighed and closed his eyes, willing himself back to sleep. But when the tank stopped and Reynir awakened him to help with supper, he had not found his way back to Rosli’s haven.
At least the stupid cat was using its litter box again, and after three days, it had stopped whining about the harness and leash Tuuri had made. Sitting on the floor in his usual corner, Lalli took another bite of fried pork as he watched Sigrun take the cat outside on her leash. He didn’t like cats. Not that he disliked cats, but he compared every cat to Hera and Artemis, Tapsa’s cats that he’d known as a child in Toivosaari, and no cat ever measured up. Especially not this cat.
This cat had run off and left Tuuri to cry for four days. His cousin was half of his surviving family, and no one should make her cry. He had searched for the cat every day for Tuuri’s sake, both because the cat would stop her crying and because the cat would also serve as a troll alarm for the team while he was away. It had disappeared into ruins that even he could not enter, so, to his disgust, he’d been reduced to calling the stupid animal. At least no one had heard him.
Lalli finished his breakfast, nodded to Tuuri, and set his plate on the floor for the Dane to pick up. Losing the contest of wills with the man over meals still rankled. As if he couldn’t forage while he scouted! But he had to confess, if only to himself, that meat cooked with garlic, mint, sometimes even honey was better than grubs and raw eggs and whatever else he could spot on the run. Beyond that, the man had carried Tuuri to safety twice, and that bought him much goodwill.
Outside, he checked around the tank in the predawn light. The third-quarter moon, low in the eastern sky, cast dim shadows to confuse the eye. He missed night scouting, but they did make better time if he scouted by day. With his usual shrug at his usual thought, he trotted away southwards, ever southwards.
When the sun had just begun its long slide down to the west, Lalli stopped at an intersection, climbed a tree, and pulled his binoculars, in their protective box, from his jacket pocket. As a night scout, he had never wanted nor needed binoculars. As a day scout, he found them a treasure. The Norwegian had given them to him, and he had to respect her for knowing he needed them. She had controlled the fire spirit, and he had to respect her for that, too. Still, though she’d learned not to hit him when she was pleased with him, she was too loud for his taste, and he avoided her when he could.
Spring was coming, budding leaves speckled the trees with green, and soon he wouldn’t be able to see through the forest. But for now, his sight lines were clear as he scanned the road ahead and to the east. The tank would have to crush several saplings to get around a fallen tree to the south. To the east, the road was clear as far as he could see. And somewhere to the east lay the ley line. How far, he didn’t know. But it was over there, and he had a feeling they needed to find it. He climbed down, marked the trees to show Tuuri where she should turn, and trotted down the road to the east.
They crossed the ley line the next day; as it was too early to camp, they kept going to a southbound road about a kilometer farther east. Perhaps it was the same road they’d been following when they found the lost village. Tuuri thought so and worried that that man, as she called him, might track them down, despite Lalli’s conviction that man had long since given up.
The southbound road was in unusually good shape, so they made good time and camped early in a well-made parking lot. Though weeds and bushes grew in every crack, the few trees that had taken root were stunted and no challenge for the tank to push past or over. Not far to the east was a town, and once the tank was settled, Tuuri sent him to fetch metal parts, giving him drawings of the things she wanted. Lalli didn’t ask what the parts were for. If he did, she would explain, the words raining down on him until he wanted to run away and hide, when there was nowhere to hide in their camp.
When Lalli returned with his sack of heavy steel brackets, Tuuri was waiting with her welding gear. She didn’t need to know about the two trolls he’d killed in the ruined warehouse and the third one that had pursued him for three blocks before fleeing into the remains of a shop to escape the burning sunlight.
Lalli and the other immunes stood guard while Tuuri welded brackets on the roof. As darkness fell, she climbed down with a satisfied smile. Lalli followed her into the tank without asking what she was planning. He stretched his perceptions dangerously far that night, searching for a man trailing after them or for their mysterious enemy, but he found only grosslings and woodland creatures. He both wished and feared to confront the enemy; while he was the best of all scouts, he was only a man, and the enemy was … not a man.
Day after day, as they worked their way south, Lalli cursed the ancients with words that Onni had tried to keep from his tender ears. Why hadn’t the ancients built this road just a little way west, under the ley line where it belonged? Day after day, when he chose a campsite, he glared westwards into the forest, where he sometimes caught glimpses of the ley line. He sought a path that the tank could follow if it had to, though so far the nightly swarms had been small and the Icelander’s glyphs had deflected the trolls.
The moon waned, its crescent thinner and thinner with each passing day. At night, Lalli visited his haven, the water still littered with burned and broken branches from the ghost attack, though the trees were growing back and leafing out. There, dragons still patrolled the skies, while storms raged on the horizon. None of that had changed in weeks, but the air had grown cold.
On the seventh day, Lalli led the tank through the forest to the ley line, maneuvering between trees, splashing through a broad stream, and crushing undergrowth as it went. Tuuri asked through the speakers why they’d left the road, but he only gestured her to follow, having no answer but that he feared what might come in the dark of the moon.
The rain started as Emil was halfway through setting the first ring of traps. He cursed, adjusted his rifle to keep the rain out of the barrel, and kept working with raindrops pattering on his hood, which was already raised, of course. Not that he was embarrassed about his hair. Or not very embarrassed. Trimmed to the perfect length and brushed until it shone, it had been his best feature. Now, it had grown out to about three centimeters, as best as he could measure it, and he washed it with soap instead of his precious, hoarded shampoo.
Emil finished setting a trap and stood to tie a scrap of red cloth to a dripping twig, reminding him and warning the others of the trap’s position. Sigrun stood as well, moving to the next location that he pointed out. Since they’d camped in a clearing, not an old parking lot, there were no concrete slabs on which to lay his traps.
Kneeling in wet dead leaves at the spot she’d just cleared of loose twigs and ferns, Emil took out another trap. His fingers, cold, wet, and clumsy, forced him to work more slowly than was his wont. Several meters away, Lalli shifted to stay close, on guard.
Back beside the tank, Mikkel washed bedding despite the rain. He worked alone, since Reynir had renewed the protective galdrastafur inside the tank and was now napping. Emil appreciated Mikkel’s efforts; clean clothes and bedding were among the few luxuries of this endless journey. But the rain meant Mikkel would hang everything inside to dry, and Emil would have to push his way through drying sheets all evening.
The work went on in the chilly rain. Emil finished both outer and middle rings and was partway through the inner ring when Tuuri called for Lalli. Sigrun jumped to her feet at Tuuri’s call, hand on rifle, with Emil half a beat behind her. But Lalli, unalarmed, turned and called back. After a brief Finnish discussion, he raced back to the tank, splashing heedlessly through puddles, while Mikkel questioned Tuuri, then joined Sigrun and Emil.
Hand still on her rifle, Sigrun asked, “What’s going on?”
Mikkel gave Emil a searching look. “Do you know Håkan is a mage?”
“Håkan? You mean, my cousin?” It was a stupid question and Emil didn’t wait for an answer. “No, of course not. He’s a Swede, so —”
Mikkel’s lips turned up a bit at the corners. “As are you. But it seems Håkan went looking for Reynir in mage-space. He needs Reynir and Lalli to go with him and help Onni.”
Emil stared at him. “Mage-space? Onni? What —?”
“Tuuri’s brother. That’s all I know.” Mikkel looked around. “Let’s get this ring done. The local grosslings may be on the prowl already.”
“The magic’s supposed to keep them away,” Emil muttered as he turned back to his work.
“Onni’s gone to fight the Kade,” Tuuri said, wringing her hands, “and Lalli and Reynir are going to help him.” She sat sideways in her driver’s seat, while Emil and Sigrun took the passengers’ seat and Mikkel stood by the monitors, on watch. All four avoided loud noises or movement that might disturb Reynir and Lalli as they slept in the main compartment.
“What’s a Kade?” Sigrun and Mikkel asked together.
“It’s a … a kind of Rash monster —”
“But then why —” Emil began.
“Not like a grossling. Not physical. It’s a spirit, and it corrupts mages. All it has to do is look a mage in the eyes to corrupt them. When I was a kid, it … it killed four villages of non-immunes.” When no one spoke, she sighed and continued. “It corrupted some non-immune mages and made them sneak grosslings through quarantine. Then they infected themselves and everyone around them. Onni and I weren’t infected because we were on the livestock island when … when it all happened. So then we went to Keuruu. But the Kade is still out there. And now Onni’s gone after it.”
“What does Håkan have to do with all this? How could he —?” Emil waved towards the main compartment. For all he’d seen of magic, he still hesitated to believe that his cousin in distant Mora had talked to Reynir. “Does this mean the Kade is in Mora now?” The enormity of the threat struck him. “We don’t have any way to fight a spirit. And we have non-immunes. Like Håkan.”
“I–I don’t know. Reynir didn’t say anything about Mora. Just that Håkan came to talk to him and Onni needed him and Lalli to help.”
Emil stared out the window at the rain. He didn’t have a lot of friends in Mora. He didn’t have a lot of friends at all, if he had to admit it. But the thought of an outbreak in the city … With no radio contact, he’d never know if the city was destroyed and his cousins killed. Unless Reynir or Lalli could tell him. Unless they and this Onni survived long enough to report back.
“This thing corrupts mages?” Sigrun asked. “And our mages are going after it?”
Something else to worry about. What if they do make it back, but they aren’t … them?
Tuuri twisted her hands together so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Y–yes. But Onni’s powerful. He’s the most powerful mage in Finland. He won’t — he won’t let it hurt them.”
But he needs help. He needs it so badly he’s somehow got my eleven-year-old cousin rounding up mages to help him.
Emil said nothing. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t Tuuri’s fault, and she couldn’t stop it.
And neither could Emil.
The conversation had continued without Emil, but they had learned nothing more. Tuuri didn’t know where the Kade was, what it could do, and whether three mages (four, Emil thought, counting Håkan) could defeat it. Nor did she or anyone else know how long Onni’s attempt would take. All they could do was sit, watch the rain, and wait.
“Guys?”
There was a traffic jam as all four tried to run into the main compartment at once at Reynir’s word. Since Mikkel had a head start and was the largest and strongest, he reached the Icelander first, pushing the drying sheets to the side. Tuuri darted around him to kneel by Lalli’s den, alternately scolding and questioning in Finnish.
“I’ll translate for him,” Mikkel said, once Sigrun and Emil reached him. “His Swedish isn’t quite good enough for this.”
Reynir’s story could wait. “Is Håkan all right?”
Reynir answered. “Håkan is well. He’s good and …” His Swedish seemed to fail him, and he turned to Mikkel to continue in Icelandic. After much too long a discussion, in Emil’s opinion, Mikkel addressed the others.
“The Kade is dead and Onni and Håkan are alive and well. The Kade wasn’t in Mora, Emil; I know you were worried about that. It was in Silent Finland. So is Onni.” He took a breath, glanced at Reynir, and continued. “And so are your cousins.”
“What!” Emil and Sigrun exclaimed together.
“Reynir didn’t get all the details — it was a bit of a crisis — but your cousins ran away from home and somehow ended up with Onni.”
Emil gave Reynir an undeserved accusing look. “He took them to Silent Finland? Why? Håkan isn’t immune!”
“I’m not either,” Tuuri said from where she knelt by Lalli.
“Yeah, but you have a tank to protect you.”
“Speaking of the tank,” Mikkel said, “nobody’s on the monitors.”
Sigrun hurried to take the watch, dividing her attention between the monitors and the conversation.
“Onni’s not immune,” Tuuri said, “and he doesn’t have a —”
“How do you know he’s not infected? How do you know Håkan’s not infected?”
“Or corrupted?” Sigrun asked. She narrowed her eyes at Reynir and Lalli. “How safe are we?”
Urgent questions by Mikkel in Icelandic and Tuuri in Finnish. “Reynir says —” and “Lalli says —”, they began together, before Mikkel gestured for Tuuri to speak.
“Lalli says the Kade couldn’t corrupt anyone because Onni slashed her, uh, corrupting eye days before. He doesn’t know how that happened, but Onni was sure they were safe. And anyway, Onni killed her before the others saw her.”
Her? The spirit monster was a, a female?
“So … I guess we’re safe enough,” Sigrun said before Emil could ask any questions. “No other mages here anyway. Unless …” She gave Emil a half-smile. “Yeah, I don’t know if you count as a mage.”
Emil shrugged, not caring much about his exact magical status. “But what happened? Why did Onni rope Håkan into helping?”
Mikkel launched into the story with occasional interjections and corrections from Tuuri and Reynir, describing Håkan’s run to Reynir; his hawk fylgja that outflew and distracted dragons so the three mages could reach Onni; the Kade’s haven with its dead trees and massive castle; Reynir’s dog-fylgja that found the way in; the stealthy invasion; Onni’s capture; his rescue by the combined efforts of the others; and the revelation that the Kade had been a teenage girl.
“Onni killed the Kade,” Tuuri finished, “while Lalli had her pinned. Then the castle disappeared, so Reynir and Håkan came in. And then, uh, then he, he killed our grandmother. He stabbed her in the back …”
“He what now?” Sigrun said.
“He had to. Grandma was corrupted. Her body died back when, when it happened, but her itse was still bound by the Kade, by the corruption.”
Lalli said something. After a Finnish back and forth, Tuuri said, “Afterwards, Grandma thanked them for freeing her. And the Swan of Tuonela came in person to lead her and all the other spirits to rest in Tuonela.”
With the story finished, Emil wanted to know why Onni had taken his cousins into the Silent World, why “the most powerful mage in Finland” had gotten a child involved in fighting a monstrous spirit that had killed four villages, and most especially, whether he intended to take the children to safety now. But Reynir and Lalli couldn’t tell him. They hadn’t asked the questions that he most desperately wanted answers to.
Reynir and Lalli yawned as the other four pressed for more about the nature of the Kade and the details of the battle. When Sigrun asked any possible connection between the Kade and their own enemy, Reynir shrugged helplessly, and Lalli shook his head. “Worth a try,” Sigrun said with a shrug. “If it was a Kade, maybe Onni’d come help us.”
Once it seemed they’d learned everything they could, Sigrun allowed the weary mages to take to their beds for a proper sleep this time. Reynir had the first watch, which Sigrun took, then Tuuri had the second watch, and Emil the third.
The swarm arrived late in Tuuri’s watch. As the swarm was larger than usual, she awakened the others, even Lalli and Reynir. For now, they remained inside, armed and alert, while the trolls wandered around the rainy forest in magic-induced confusion.
Emil straightened as a thought occurred to him. “Sigrun? Maybe I should call the fire spirit now, while it’s raining and all. Reynir’s dog and Håkan’s hawk understand instructions; why couldn’t my fire spirit? If you just tell him he’d hurt me if he touched me, he might leave me alone even if you weren’t there. And we won’t waste any explosives if the trolls break through the magic.”
Sigrun smiled. “Clever boy! That’s a super idea. Let’s go.” And before the others could even comment one way or the other, the two of them were outside in the rain with the trolls.
Emil took a deep breath, held out a hand, and thought of fire. Called the fire. The spark burned in his hand … he flung it … and it was gone.
“What happened?” Sigrun asked. “Did the rain put it out?” They seemed to realize what had happened at the same time. “You didn’t faint,” Sigrun said.
“It didn’t work.” Again, Emil held out his hand and called the fire. This time, there was not even a spark. He looked at Sigrun in dismay.
“Let’s go inside,” she said. “No sense getting wet.”
“But why didn’t it work?”
No one could answer Emil’s question.
As the night wore on and the defensive magic wavered before the swarm, Reynir renewed one of his galdrastafur, staggering with exhaustion when he climbed down from his stepladder. Afterwards, the team watched in silence until the last trolls had taken shelter or disappeared into the forest. Though Tuuri’s watch wasn’t quite finished, she allowed Emil to take over, as he saw no point in trying to sleep through the end of her watch.
After the rain, which stopped during Emil’s watch, collecting the untouched traps was a muddy process. Lalli stood guard by the tank, talking with Tuuri, while Sigrun and Mikkel followed Emil as his guards, and Reynir fixed breakfast in the tank.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Emil muttered, more to himself than to the others, as he finished up. “I should be in Sweden. Then the kids would never have run away. Or if they did, they’d’ve come to me. I’d’ve helped them. I’d’ve —” He looked back at Sigrun. “I was so stupid, agreeing to join this expedition.”
Sigrun crossed her arms, scanning the dripping forest without speaking. He’d put his foot in his mouth again. “I–I mean, you’ve been great, and I’ve learned so much, but I should have stayed with my cousins —”
“You wanted them to be rich,” Mikkel said quietly. “You were trying to help them. It didn’t work out but —”
“No, that wasn’t — I didn’t know about the books until after I agreed. Torbjörn said it would be an adventure, just a few weeks, and maybe it would even help me in the Cleansers. And he said he really needed me to go because his guy got arrested at the last minute.”
Mikkel took a step towards him. “What?”
“He said it would be an adven—”
“No, his guy. What guy?”
“Some guy who owed him money. He was supposed to be on the expedition, but he got arrested, so Torbjörn — What’s the matter?”
Mikkel’s face had gone blank. “You — you weren’t supposed to be on the expedition.”
“I — no. What’s —?”
“But why the order, if he wasn’t supposed to be here?”
Emil got to his feet, exchanging a nervous glance with Sigrun. Lalli and Tuuri had fallen silent by the tank.
“Mikkel,” Sigrun said, her voice cautious, “what are you talking about?”
Emil knew what Mikkel was talking about. A strange dread grew within him.
Mikkel’s face was still blank. “I was wrong. So, so wrong.”
“About what?” Sigrun asked sharply.
Mikkel didn’t look at her, looked at Emil instead. “You weren’t supposed to be here. He didn’t plan anything against you. But my mission was paramount. You couldn’t be allowed to interfere. That’s why —”
Emil’s mind had already raced ahead. Trond didn’t want me dead. I could have been rescued. I could have gone home. The kids would be safe. But I’m here and they’re in Silent Finland. And it’s all because of him! The ember of anger that had smoldered within him ever since Mikkel admitted to accepting an order to kill him now flared to life.
Emil backhanded Mikkel across the face.
The big Dane closed his eyes and shifted a foot to keep his balance, not raising a hand in defense. Mud spattered his reddening cheek.
Sigrun caught Emil’s wrist before he could strike again. “What are —”
“Get out of my sight!” Emil hissed.
Mikkel turned and strode away into the forest.
Left, right. Left, right.
Mikkel strode away with the cadence he’d learned in the army half a lifetime ago. His cheek throbbed and he tasted blood.
Behind him …
“He ruined my life! And my cousins’!”
“I know. Let’s go.”
Branches cracked and bushes crunched as the tank drove away.
Left, right. Left, right.
The first time Mikkel tripped, he picked himself up and strode on. The second time, he sat on a fallen tree and buried his head in his hands.
Emil’s face: confused, betrayed, furious.
Sigrun’s face: concerned, alarmed.
How did I make such a terrible mistake?
Mikkel had an excellent memory for what he’d seen. His memory for what he’d heard was less precise, but still better than average. Now, he searched his memory for the meeting with General Trond on Öresund base. There had been four dossiers: Tuuri, Lalli, Sigrun, and Emil. Tuuri and Lalli’s had been brief, basic personal histories. Sigrun’s had included a list of completed hunts. And Emil’s had contained several pages of field notes from an agent who had observed him in the Cleansers.
What had Trond said?
Mikkel pressed his fists against his skull as if he could squeeze out the memories by main force. Onni backed out, so Tuuri and Lalli would come instead of Onni and Eero. Something about Sigrun. Something disturbing. Emil was untrained, dangerous. There had to be more to the memory …
All Mikkel saw was Trond's cold eyes, and all he heard was “He may become a threat. If he exhibits signs of instability, he must not return from the Silent World.”
I disobeyed his order about Emil. He lost control on that first foray, and I refused to act. And now I don’t remember what happened when the order was given. Is that why? Because I disobeyed?
Almost without his notice, Mikkel’s hands brushed the drying mud from his face and sideburns.
“General Trond is a viper. He's poisoned your mind, Mikkel. You must know that.”
The bull, his fylgja, seemed to know more about Trond than he did. Or maybe the bull knew more about him than he did. That was an unsettling thought.
Mikkel lowered his hands and looked around, hoping the bull had returned. Birds that had fallen silent while he walked had grown bold, chirping and flitting from tree to tree. A squirrel stopped head-down on the trunk of an oak tree, watching him. Morning sunlight sparkled on water droplets caught by leaf buds. The bull did not appear.
I’ve never disobeyed his orders before. Have I? Would I remember if I had?
The squirrel scampered down the tree and dug about in wet dead leaves around the roots.
What else have I forgotten?
The squirrel moved closer to Mikkel to dig again, searching for acorns that it had hidden but couldn’t find. When he looked around for threats — or perhaps for memories — the squirrel froze, its beady black eyes focused on him.
Sigrun said the Mother of Squirrels likes me.
Mikkel and the squirrel stared at each other for several beats before it returned to pawing at the leaves and he looked north. To Kastrup.
He’d never make it to Kastrup. Though his shotgun and pistol were fully loaded, he had no spare ammunition, no food, not even a dagger.
Not that it matters. My bones don’t deserve to lie among theirs.
Dropping his gaze to the squirrel, careful not to move, he watched as the squirrel crept closer, tense, ready to bolt. It stopped, looked up at the giant towering over it, and risked a few more steps towards him.
A small creature in a big world that wants to kill it. Frightened, but still determined to do its job.
Like Tuuri. Like Reynir. Even like Emil.
The squirrel scraped away wet leaves and mud beside his foot. Something round in the mud. The squirrel pounced, seized its prize in its jaws, and darted across to its oak tree, skittering up into the branches.
Mikkel knelt and brushed away leaves and mud, revealing four more acorns in a tight little cluster. Standing, he saw the squirrel halfway down the tree trunk. “I won’t take your acorns,” he said, as the squirrel retreated a few steps up the trunk.
I’m large and clumsy and dangerous.
With a sigh, he turned and walked away through the forest.
The team had not covered the latrine to his satisfaction. After several minutes of searching for a tool, any tool, to shovel mud and dirt and dead leaves, he gave up and used his hands. With the job done, he looked north.
Kastrup. Copenhagen. The book.
Birds chirped around him and the breeze rustled ferns growing through dead grasses.
I’m a medic — the medic — and my team needs me.
If Emil still wanted to beat him, well, he’d been beaten before, many times and much less justly. Mikkel turned and strode down the trail of the tank.
Left, right. Left, right.
“Emil is second in command.” After her announcement, Sigrun checked the mirror again almost against her will. No sign of Mikkel.
Emil, sitting beside her with his hooded head bowed, straightened. “I didn’t — That’s not why. He ruined my life!”
“I know. You had good reason to be angry. And you only hit him once.”
Ducking to let the hood hide his face, Emil mumbled, “I might’ve hit him again if you hadn’t stopped me.”
Sigrun shook her head and answered quietly, for this was between them. “You didn’t try very hard.”
“I–I guess.”
“And you didn’t summon your fire spirit.”
Emil raised his head, eyes wide. “No, I wouldn’t! Even though he betrayed me again.”
“I know,” Sigrun said again. “But you can … put up with him if he comes back. You have to. There’s just six of us, and he’s our medic.”
He sighed and ducked his head again. “Yeah, okay. I’ll put up with him. Even though he ruined my life.” After a moment of stroking his hood, he added more loudly, “But … but still, the triplets are in Silent Finland. Why would that Onni take them there?”
“I don’t know!” Tuuri said, her voice choked. “But he wouldn’t put them in danger unless he had to. I know he’d never put children in danger. Not if there was any other way.”
“Then why —”
“Stop.” Sigrun didn’t raise her voice. “No fighting on my team. Everyone chooses his own path. Nobody here chose for Onni.” She turned to Reynir, standing behind Tuuri with one hand gripping the back of the seat and the other resting on her shoulder. At Sigrun’s glance, he snatched his hand away as if burned. Even in this situation, she almost laughed. “Braidy will talk to Onni. Or that Håkan. He’ll find out what’s going on up there.”
“I will try,” Reynir said, not waiting for a translation. His Swedish got better every day.
They had reached the road, and as Tuuri turned south, Sigrun glanced at the mirror again.
Change the watch schedule. Have to gather fuel along with hunting. Lake up ahead. Might reach it after lunch. Ducks, maybe. And so Sigrun’s thoughts ran along the easy tracks of logistics, though she still checked the mirrors again and again.
Lalli waited in the road, pointing to the west as the tank approached. When Tuuri followed him into the forest, wood cracked overhead, and broken branches slid down the sides and back of the tank.
Sigrun got to her feet. “Let’s go, Blondy. Time for firewood.”
Outside, they worked together in silence for half an hour, tossing wood into the back compartment, while the tank turned south again and picked its way through the forest to a ford across a wide, slow river. Though the current was slow and carried fallen twigs in languid circles in backwaters, tumbled boulders and tangles of waterlogged logs showed it could run fast and violent when it wished.
With a grin, Sigrun ran to the ladder. She took one side, Emil the other, and they rode in style as the tank splashed and rocked across the river. The spray was cool on their faces, welcome on this warm, cloudless day. Dropping off on the other side, they exchanged grins before returning to gathering wood as the tank forced its way up the bank.
The tank had reached the road once more and Lalli had sprinted away before Emil cleared his throat. Sigrun tensed, anticipating his questions: “Do you blame me?” or “Will we go back for him?”
Emil surprised her. “I’ve been thinking about making gunpowder. Don’t worry, we still have lots of explosives and incendiaries; we’re okay.” Sigrun smiled at his hasty reassurance. “But we’ll need more after a while,” he continued. “And the thing is, we can’t make it in the tank.”
“No?”
“We can’t grind the ingredients inside — the dust is really bad for you — but we can do that outside in the evenings. They’re safe to keep if we don’t mix them. Even the gunpowder’s safe if it’s wet. We have to dry it, though, and if you bump it around … well, it’ll blow up.”
“So we can’t make it until we have a castle.” Sigrun told her shoulders not to slump. The kid was at least thinking ahead.
“No, no. See, we don’t have to watch it dry. Don’t have to be there at all. All we have to do is find a good place — I’m thinking a chimney in a house that’s still kind of there. It’ll keep the rain off and block the wind, so we can just lay out the pans and leave. Come back in a couple days —”
Sigrun nodded. “Like we did for the cat.”
“Y–yeah. The cat.”
Stupid. Why’d you say that? Now he’s thinking about why we went back for the cat, but not — She sneaked a peek at their back trail. “So we come back for it, and then what?”
“Then it’s done. I can put together incendiaries and explosives from it.”
“Great idea. What do you need?”
As Emil warmed to the topic of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter, Sigrun checked behind them again before taking up another branch and tossing it.
“So getting the saltpeter from the droppings is —”
Boom!
Sigrun’s rifle was in her hand without thought; Emil froze for a moment before readying his own. Before the tank could even grind to a halt, Sigrun jumped in, kicked firewood out of the way, dropped two boxes of rifle ammo in her pockets, and jumped out again.
“You’re in charge. Tell her to go back, half speed. I’ll go ahead, find out why — what’s going on. He’s not far away, not even as far as the river. Watch for me. Don’t take risks.”
While Emil ran for the tank, Sigrun ran north along their track. Why had Mikkel fired? A signal? Defense? She scanned the forest for any movement, any threat, and her rifle was ready as she ran.
“Don’t shoot! It’s me!” Their track curved into the trees, and if Mikkel was back there on high alert, he might well fire at the first movement.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t —” As Sigrun rounded the curve, she stumbled to a shocked halt before her brain caught up with her eyes. No man could lose that much blood and still be breathing, much less walking.
And Mikkel was walking, slowly and stiffly, though his chest was splashed with blood, so much that it had run down his legs. He leaned to the right as he walked, shotgun ready, and he barely lifted his head as he watched his path. As she ran to him, he lowered his shotgun and waited amid the crushed bushes of the tank’s wake.
“Injuries? What happened?” she asked, stopping a couple of meters from him. She spared him a single raking look before returning to scanning the forest. The smell of all that blood might attract … anything.
“Cracked ribs.” He stopped for a shallow breath. “I shot a boar. It was too close, too fast.” Another breath. “The body knocked me down.”
Sigrun shook her head. A rookie mistake, but then Mikkel had terrible aim. He’d have to let a boar get close before he could be sure of hitting it. “Okay. At least you’ll live. The tank’s coming.” Indeed, it was crunching behind her, about to turn at the curve. “You get inside and do the medic thing. Me and Blondy’ll butcher the boar. Good work. We can use the meat.” There was no way around the rest of it. “Emil is second in command.”
Mikkel nodded without looking at her. “He’ll do well.”
Sigrun searched for the next words. “Thank you for coming back” would tell him she’d feared he wouldn’t.
Before she could speak, Mikkel said, “I can't remember … what Trond said about Emil. And —”
“His orders?” Could everything be Mikkel’s mistake?
In short bursts between shallow breaths, Mikkel answered, “No. I remember his orders about Emil. Very clearly. Or, or I think so. I can’t trust my memory anymore. Not about Trond.” He looked at her now. “He said something about you. It disturbed me. I remember that. I don’t remember what he said.”
Sigrun tensed, forgetting for a moment to watch for threats. “Orders?”
“Maybe. I don’t know what they were. Before the outpost, I thought about Emil.” He looked away. “Whether I should act, do what Trond ordered. I won’t. I never will. And I don’t think about it anymore. But I never thought about you. I don’t mean I never — I mean about orders. About —”
Even standing in the forest with a man dripping blood, the absurdity of his stumbling words overcame her, and Sigrun laughed. “Got it, got it. Nah, he wouldn’t tell you to kill me.” She grinned at him. “Hey, I’m his favorite niece. Great-niece. Whatever.” She sobered. “If you start thinking about his orders again, tell me. He doesn’t give orders here. Not ever again.”
Mikkel nodded, and they waited in silence as the tank came towards them. Watching, Sigrun thought Tuuri had more confidence in her driving than she should. If she came too close, Mikkel was in no shape to dodge.
Tuuri brought the tank to a neat stop beside Mikkel, and Reynir threw open the door, his mask in place. “What —”
“Hang on.” Sigrun uncoiled the hose and rinsed the blood off Mikkel’s uniform. When Emil climbed out, she gave instructions without interrupting her work. “We’re going to butcher a boar. Fetch the knives and the buckets.” While Emil ran to the back compartment to collect their gear, she put away the hose and scanned around for lurking threats. Nothing so far.
Reynir offered a hand to Mikkel as he climbed into the tank, dripping. With that settled, Sigrun and Emil trotted down the track and around the curve towards the river.
The boar lay on the left side of the road in a great splash of blood. Mikkel had caught some of it, but there was plenty more raising its sweet, coppery smell. Ravens that had already found the carcass rose in a cawing crowd as the humans approached.
With a respectful bow to the nearest birds, Sigrun said, “We need meat, but we’ll leave plenty for you.” Examining their surroundings as Emil waved away buzzing flies and set to work hacking through the boar’s thick hide, she spotted a gray wolf skulking towards him. “And you,” she added.
The wolf stopped, watching her.
“We’ll leave meat for you, too. But I’ll protect my pack. So you back off, or I’ll have to shoot you.”
The wolf retreated but stayed within sight, and behind it were more flickers of gray in the undergrowth. Sigrun nodded to them. The pack would feed when they were gone.
If the tank would hurry up and join them, that is.
By the time Emil had carved off the hams and loins, four wolves lurked in the shadows under the trees. Sigrun reminded them several times that she didn’t want to shoot them, but she would if they threatened her pack. Perhaps they understood, for they only lay and watched Emil work.
When the tank at last ground its way to park beside them, Sigrun stood guard while Emil carried buckets to the hose, filled them with water, and hauled them into the back compartment. Since he hadn’t participated in the previous brinings — Mikkel and Reynir took care of that — once all the buckets were inside, Sigrun called out Reynir and escorted him to the back to help.
Since Tuuri couldn’t move the tank until the men finished brining the meat and sealed the buckets to prevent spills, Sigrun stayed outside. Ostensibly, she was waiting for Reynir. In truth, she just wanted some time to herself before dealing with the team.
We’ve got our medic back, but he needs doctoring himself. The nons can take care of him, I guess. We’ll have to hunt and collect fuel both, and stand extra watches, since he can’t. At least he got us a week’s food. But he’ll want us to have green stuff, and who knows what to gather? The scout, maybe.
Well, I’ll work it out. Somehow.
Inevitably, and too soon, the men came out, and the three returned to the main compartment. Mikkel was on his bunk, propped up in a half-sitting position, with Tuuri sitting in a folding chair beside him, talking. As Tuuri ran to the driver’s seat, Sigrun nodded to him and led Emil and Reynir forward. They were on the way again.
Everything was back to normal. Except, of course, it wasn’t.
As soon as the outer door closed, the questions began: Tuuri (“Are you all right?”) and Reynir (“What happened to you?”).
Mikkel had made his decision when he pushed away the boar’s corpse and picked himself up. The team didn’t need an invalid, but that couldn’t be avoided; they needed a medic. They needed him. And so, much as he wished to work through the pain, he wouldn’t, for overexertion risked complications that would almost certainly be fatal in these conditions. He would be the sort of invalid that medics dream of.
With a suppressed sigh, Mikkel said, “Please help me out of these clothes.”
As the two attacked his dripping clothes with great enthusiasm and occasional collisions with each other, he explained — again — how he’d managed to be wounded by a dead boar. He didn’t explain what had happened with Emil, and they didn’t ask. Perhaps they already knew, or perhaps they knew better than to pry. In either case, he appreciated their silence.
Once they’d stripped off his clothes, Reynir ran for a change of clothing, and Tuuri stepped back to regard with dismay the darkening bruise across his chest. After a moment, she looked up at his face with the same troubled expression.
My face? Oh. My cheek is bruised, too. I wonder if Emil’s hand … no, it must just be bruised as well. He’s going to butcher the boar. Couldn’t do that if he broke anything.
He looked away from her to Reynir, now running back with a dark blue tracksuit. Mikkel nodded to him. A good choice, warm and comfortable, sturdy enough to wear outside at need. And he would not suffer the indignity of wearing pajamas while everyone else was in their dayclothes.
“Now you just lie down,” Tuuri said as soon as they’d helped him into the tracksuit. “We’ll clean up. And —”
“Better if I sit up. That makes breathing easier.”
“I’ll fetch the painkillers —”
“No. Thank you, but save them for someone who needs them more.”
“Oh … okay.” She looked around the main compartment, wringing her hands. Then she straightened and turned back to him. “Yeah, okay. You sit up front and we’ll take care of everything.”
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes — she was trying to be helpful, and he was a patient — Mikkel started forwards. He had assisted others with broken ribs; he knew what to do, much as he didn’t want to.
“Reynir, I’ll need your help.” The Icelander rushed to his side as he reached the passengers’ seat and Tuuri retreated into the main compartment. “Put your hands here and here. Now, help me sit down slowly and gently.”
Reynir made a good nurse, lowering him to the seat with hardly a bump. The man was surprisingly strong. As soon as Mikkel had thanked him, he darted away to the back, but soon ran back and held out a piece of paper. “Here. This might help with the pain. I mean, maybe?”
Mikkel accepted the paper and looked it over. At the top, in the Icelander’s sprawling handwriting, it read, “Mikkel pain”. A galdrastafur took up the rest of the paper.
“Thank you,” he said, resigning himself to the idea of magic. Again.
“Put against your side. You know, where it hurts.”
Mikkel nodded, lifted his elbow to slip the paper under it, and clamped his elbow against his ribs again. With a broad smile and a nod, Reynir ran back to join Tuuri in whatever she was doing. Mikkel couldn’t turn to watch them; twisting would put too much strain on his ribs.
He recognized the galdrastafur as the one incised on the glass bottles of analgesics in the first aid kit. He could have drawn it himself from memory, though he couldn't make it work. There was something significant about that thought … he frowned, narrowing his eyes and staring down at the paper under his arm as if the answer were there. But the thought had escaped and, giving up, he gazed out at the forest.
The branches were no longer bare. Tiny leaves, fresh and brilliant green, unfurled themselves as far as he could see. If there was another freeze, these hopeful shoots would blacken and die, but the trees would try again. And again.
Will there be another freeze? I don’t know the weather here. But the trees do. They live here.
Birds flitted from tree to tree. Squirrels raced along branches. A fox passed in a flash of red. Fallen leaves danced across the road.
“I need to drive now,” Tuuri said, startling him from his reverie. “We’ve got everything ready. You can move back there now, so …” Her hands crept together as if trying to wring themselves without her willing it. “So you won’t have to move when they come in.” It was her only acknowledgment that there would be awkwardness with Emil.
“I’ll help,” Reynir said, reaching for Mikkel, who allowed himself to be helped up and led to the main compartment. To his surprise, the two had piled something at the head of his bunk and draped Reynir’s long coat over them. With Reynir’s help, he settled in a comfortable, semi-reclining position on his bunk, propped against the pile.
From that position, he could see what they’d done; they’d stripped the bedrolls from his bunk and their own to roll up and pile on his bunk. Although the weather had warmed enough that their blankets were enough for warmth, everyone used the bedrolls as extra padding, but they could without. Emil’s bunk was still folded, so they hadn’t taken his bedrolls. That was good.
As soon as Mikkel was settled, Reynir adjusted the paper under his elbow, patted his shoulder, and ran to tell Tuuri. Every movement had sent a flash of pain through his side. Yet now, the pain was not what he’d expected.
The magic is working.
No, I’m sitting comfortably, my ribs are supported, and I don’t have to move anymore. This is natural.
Despite all he’d seen, the voice of disbelief still spoke up when he thought about magic. So much that was claimed to be magic could be coincidence, wishful thinking, even the placebo effect. Mikkel closed his eyes and tried to ignore the doubts and worries that crowded into his resting mind.
When Reynir had run out to brine the meat, Tuuri brought a folding chair and sat down by Mikkel. “How are you, really?”
“Well enough.” He shrugged with his right shoulder only. “Cracked ribs heal if you’re careful with them. And I’ll try to be careful.”
“We haven’t washed your clothes yet. We’ll do that this evening. And we mopped up the mess.”
Nodding, he looked past her at the floor by the door. She turned to follow his gaze, hunched her shoulders, and added, “It’s not to your standards, but we didn’t have time —”
He chuckled. Winced.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean — I —”
“No, no. Not your fault.” He glanced at the clock, noted the time. “I need to breathe deeply every so often anyway.”
She wrung her hands. “But it hurt. I saw —”
“It’s necessary to ward off pneumonia. Not your fault at all.” He shook his head. “And my standards are … unreasonable. I’m aware of that. You did fine, cleaning the floor.” He had to find another topic. “I’m impressed that Reynir drew this galdrastafur so fast.”
She brightened at once, and her hands separated, relaxed. “He didn’t. He made that one and a bunch of others after that big fight, the one when I got stuck on the roof.” With a hesitant smile, she added, “There’s another one for when that one runs out. He made double for you, because you’re accident-prone.”
Mikkel blinked at her for a moment before returning her smile. “Accident-prone. I suppose that’s —”
The door opened. While Sigrun, Emil, and Reynir climbed in, Tuuri ran for the front. Sigrun gave Mikkel a nod, and Reynir gave him a broad smile. Emil didn’t look his way as the three followed Tuuri. The long journey began again.
Left alone, Mikkel gazed at the galdrastafur on the roof above him. Reynir would have to renew it soon.
How can I doubt magic? That thing works to keep the trolls away. Emil’s fire spirit burned up a giant.
He didn’t want to think about Emil.
“Accident-prone.” Not entirely fair. Four months here, and I’ve been hurt … four … times. But still. The rat-beast bite was nothing. A few stitches. No worse than the bite Sigrun suffered. And the scratches didn’t even need stitches. The frostbite … that wasn’t an accident. Not my accident, anyway. Sigrun fell into the canal, not me. I did what I had to do. Intentionally.
He considered his feet in their thick gray socks. Calloused and scarred they were, yes, but pain-free and without a trace of the raw, weeping blisters of frostbite.
I know frostbite’s course of healing. If they’d healed normally, they should finally be fully healed right about now, not two months ago.
After a moment, his gaze drifted to his legs. Straight. Strong.
The doctor had had a good bedside manner, kind but straightforward. They would do what they could, but the giant had done a lot of damage, and Mikkel should prepare himself … Then the Icelandic healer, Elin Þórsdóttir, had stepped in. She’d removed all the splints and bandages and rewrapped his legs with her own bandages, wide and white with a repeated black symbol, before restoring the splints. His legs had healed better and faster than anyone had expected.
Except Elin.
Mikkel stared at his legs, picturing the symbol. A galdrastafur. Of course it was.
I thought Elin was just an excellent doctor. We didn’t believe — I didn’t believe. But now … of course it was magic.
He looked forward. He couldn’t safely stand unaided, couldn’t walk in the rocking, jolting tank. Nothing to do but wait until they stopped for lunch. Closing his eyes, he let his head fall back and tried to sleep through the pain.
“Tuuri, may I use your clipboard? I need to … try something.”
Tuuri finished setting up the table and folding chairs for lunch, gave Mikkel a quick smile, and hurried to her little office. Reynir stirred his stew, while Sigrun and Emil sat on Emil’s bunk, cleaned their rifles, and discussed hunting techniques in low tones.
Returning, Tuuri turned a chair to face Mikkel, took her seat, and passed him the clipboard, already loaded with paper. She opened an ink bottle, dipped a quill, and passed it to him with an eager and expectant expression.
Mikkel was no artist. He drew so slowly and laboriously that the quill dried out more than once, and Tuuri had to hold the ink bottle for him to dip it. In the end, he managed to create a somewhat lopsided version of the galdrastafur Elin had used, with every line and curve present if, perhaps, not quite the right lengths.
By that time, lunch was ready, and Reynir brought him a mug of stew, while the others gathered around the table for Reynir to ladle stew into their bowls. After a quiet meal, Tuuri, Sigrun, and Emil went forward, and the tank trundled down the road as Reynir washed dishes.
When all the chores were done, Mikkel called Reynir over to look at his drawing. Kneeling beside the bed, shifting against the jolting tank like a sailor on a troubled sea, the Icelander examined it with his usual cheerful smile fading into concentration.
“I guess it’s a galdrastafur,” he said at last, “but what for?”
“I think it helps knit bones together. It might heal lacerations, too. I’m not certain. Do you think you can make it work?”
Reynir ran a finger along the perimeter of the drawing. “It’s a little …”
“Irregular. I know. But I know what it looks like. If you can rough it out, I can correct it.”
The Icelander’s expression brightened. “I’ll do that, yes.” As the tank tilted left and dropped back to the right, he added, “After supper? Is that okay?”
“Yes, of course. Thank you.”
Reynir went forward, leaving Mikkel alone again. But only briefly, for the kitten leapt into his lap, walked up his chest with a fine disregard of his injured ribs, and wrapped herself around the back of his neck. He dozed to the sound of her purrs.
Sloppy though his handwriting was, Reynir’s drawings were neat and precise. With an hour’s work and the use of two precious sheets of Tuuri’s paper, the galdrastafur was …
“Perfect,” Mikkel said, offering the clipboard to him. “Exactly as I remember it.”
Reynir’s anxious expression melted into beaming joy as he accepted the clipboard and sat back in his folding chair, holding it like a fragile treasure in his big hands. Tuuri, sitting on the other side of table, looked up from the paper galdrastafur spread before her. “Knew you could do it,” she said with a smile that bordered on proud.
“Good job, Braidy,” Sigrun said from her position by the monitors, and Reynir’s smile grew so wide as to threaten to escape his face.
The four of them were alone, if you didn’t count Lalli asleep in his den, for Emil had retreated to the back compartment as soon as he finished supper. Knowing how Emil felt — agreeing with the man — Mikkel couldn’t quite feel the triumph the moment deserved. Still, he smiled back at the Icelander.
“I’ll make one now,” Reynir said. Setting the clipboard on the table with a final pat as if to reassure it that he would return, he rose and fetched the first aid kit. Face intent, he disinfected his finger and jabbed it with a lancet.
As Reynir dripped blood into the ink bottle, Mikkel asked, “Do you need our blood, too?”
“N–no? I think it works with just mine.” Reynir caught up his braid and wrapped it around his arm. “Is the painkiller … is it working?”
To his surprise, Mikkel realized that he’d forgotten the pain while directing Reynir in his drawings. Now, his ribs radiated a mild ache, and earlier, when Reynir helped him outside for a rest stop, the pain had subsided to sharp but not stabbing. “Yes, it’s very effective.”
Is it? It could be just the placebo effect.
This isn’t placebo. You know that. This is magic.
Releasing his braid, Reynir gave Mikkel another bright smile and turned back to his quill and paper.
Mikkel watched for a moment before asking Tuuri, “Do you see any pattern to them?”
“I think so. All these healing ones have the same center figure, and the ghost —” The kitten, a half-grown cat now, chose that moment to leap onto the table, scattering Tuuri’s papers. “No, no, kitty! Don’t bother Reynir. It’s really important.”
“I’ll take her.”
Edging around Reynir, careful not to jog his elbow, Tuuri carried the cat over and deposited her in Mikkel’s lap. “There, you naughty girl,” she crooned. “You stay with him so Reynir can work.”
The cat stretched out and purred as Mikkel stroked her. “You and me, Missekat, we’ll just laze around while everyone else takes care of things for us.”
Tuuri paused, hand on her chair. “Is that her name? Missekat?”
“No, it’s just — well, yes. She needs a name.” Mikkel tilted the cat’s chin up so she looked at him. “Is your name Missekat?” She gave him a slow blink. “Missekat it is, then.”
Pain has a smell. As does anger. As does fear. The body shows what the mind would hide.
Pain. That was Mikkel. Anger. That was Emil. Fear, oh so faint. Tuuri, always Tuuri.
Lalli had seen Emil strike Mikkel, had seen the Dane walk away. But Mikkel was in the tank when Lalli waved Tuuri to the night’s campsite and climbed in for supper. Lalli didn’t ask what had happened between the men. People didn’t make sense, and he didn’t much care anyway.
After supper, Emil had gone to the back compartment, taking his anger with him, and the pain smell had faded, almost lost within the odors of too many people in too small a space. Lalli had crawled into his den for some sleep, but now …
Now power pulsed above him, warm and welcoming.
Little in Lalli’s life had been warm and welcoming, and he regarded this intrusion with suspicion. Rolling out of his den, he scooted into his favorite corner and studied the bunk above.
His outer eyes saw the big Dane propped up in a half-sitting position, sleeping, with the cat curled up in his lap and two sheets of paper safety-pinned to the shirt of his tracksuit. But his inner eyes … his inner eyes saw the power that embraced both man and cat, power that pulsed green and blue — life's colors — with tendrils reaching up to the bunk above and down into Lalli’s den.
To his left, Tuuri bent over the washtub, lifted a jacket, wrung out the water, and hung it over the clothesline that stretched across the tank. Tendrils reached for her, not quite long enough, and green and blue reflected faintly from her wet arms. Lalli wouldn’t tell her of the beauty of magic that she could never, ever see. He looked up at Reynir, asleep in his bunk, and nodded. A spell like that took a great effort, and the mage needed rest.
With a last glance at his cousin, Lalli rolled back into his den to sleep. Tendrils of power laid themselves across him like gossamer.
Lalli stands on his raft to survey his haven. Around him rises a grove of birch trees growing out of the water, their leaves green and lush and trembling in a light breeze. But burned and broken branches still litter the water more than three months after ghosts devastated his haven. Dragons patrol the skies beyond his borders, and storms rage along the distant horizon.
Holding out cupped hands, Lalli calls for power. And power comes, filling his hands, filling his self, more than ever before. He extends his will, pulls the drifting branches together, lifts them in a dripping mass. Hurls them at the nearest dragon.
With a tearing shriek of rage, the dragon shakes its head, black blood dripping to the sea far below, and stoops on Lalli. As he glares at it, unmoving, it arrows for him … and veers off just outside his grove. It circles, tries again, fails again. Lalli gives the dragon an obscene gesture, turns his back, and stretches out on his raft.
In both realms, Lalli sleeps.
In the late afternoon of the following day, Lalli stood in a ruined parking lot. Good sight lines, flat enough for the tank to park level. A clean, swift-flowing stream burbled not far away, chickweed grew on one side, and dandelions poked their green leaves through every crack. A perfect campsite. He nodded in satisfaction and looked north along the overgrown road. No sign of the tank yet.
After several minutes of bird calls, insect hums, and the wind whispering among the young leaves, a new sound reached his sharp ears. Grunting, snorting, and squealing, a long way downwind. Safe enough for now. Still, though Lalli was the best, he knew better than to tangle with a sounder. Fast as he was for a human, he couldn’t outrun boars, and while he could climb out of reach, what would Tuuri think if she drove up only to find him treed like a kitten?
Lalli trotted north, alert to every sound, movement, and smell. The sounder was moving his way. Why were they moving? Where were they going? He picked up the pace.
The road was convenient for him, for the tank … and for the boars. Crunching and grinding ahead, around a curve. Lalli sprinted for the tank.
As the tank came into his sight, it stopped and pivoted to turn its door-side towards him. Lalli slowed. He wasn’t fleeing, after all. The door flew open, revealing Sigrun and Emil standing together, rifles in hand. Lalli ignored them as he climbed in and turned to Tuuri, who stood by the monitors with her own rifle slung.
“Boars,” he said. “A sounder coming this way.”
When she translated, Sigrun closed the door with a disgusted mutter, and Tuuri giggled. Lalli glared at her. “We can shoot them here and not have to carry the meat,” he said. There was nothing funny about his returning to the tank early.
Tuuri giggled again. “No, no, we can’t. That’s what she said. We already have all the meat we can eat before it goes bad. All that meat on the hoof, and she can’t shoot any of it.”
Emil opened the side window and its protective metal shutter, admitting the grunting and snorting and the click of hooves on surviving bits of concrete. Emil, Sigrun, and Reynir crowded together to watch the sounder pass, while the cousins remained by the monitors.
Lalli didn’t keep track of food. That wasn’t his job. “The campsite is a little over a kilometer ahead,” he said and went forward to stand behind the driver’s seat. Soon the others came forward as well, and Tuuri drove them to the new campsite. Mikkel, of course, remained in his bunk with the cat in his lap and that astonishing magic wrapped around him.
Other people’s behavior was largely a mystery to Lalli, but that is not to say that he was unobservant. So, several days after the sighting of the sounder, he became certain that the others were watching him covertly. He knew he was different, and he was used to people watching him when they first met him. But these people had travelled with him for more than four months, and they’d gotten accustomed to him. What had changed to make them watch him again?
He could ask Tuuri, but …
But she would explain, words and words and more words describing people’s weird and pointless behavior. Lalli didn’t ask.
And he was busier than usual in those days. Mikkel could get around by himself now, but, as Tuuri told Lalli privately, he couldn’t safely bend over or twist. Mikkel couldn’t forage, Sigrun and Emil didn’t know the plants and were likely to forage something poisonous, and Tuuri and Reynir couldn’t go far from the tank. Thus, foraging fell on Lalli, and he stayed outside far into the evenings, away from all the eyes.
A week after Mikkel’s injury, the morning atmosphere had changed. Emil’s smoldering anger and Mikkel’s pain still tainted the air, but over them was another scent. Not quite fear; Lalli thought it was anticipation. Something was happening. Or would happen. He shrugged as he pulled on his gear and slipped out of the tank after breakfast. Tuuri would deal with it.
The campsite he found that drizzly evening had burned, recently enough that only saplings had grown up, no obstacle for the tank. Waiting for the others, he investigated the slow stream flowing by, harvesting the watercress that grew in abundance.
When sunset stained the clouds to the west, Lalli straightened in alarm. Where was the tank? What had happened to them? Were they lost? He tossed the watercress on a broken wall and ran for the cracked and overgrown road. The campsite was hardly out of sight before he slowed, hearing the tank grinding its way towards him. As he jogged towards it, it stopped, Emil dropped out, and it moved on.
At first, Lalli thought Emil’s gabble was Swedish, but when the man repeated the words, he recognized them as heavily accented Finnish. “Fetch garlic?” Lalli tried, and Emil nodded vigorously. So Tuuri had instructed the Swede to talk to him. Odd. The man already smelled of garlic. But if Tuuri wanted more garlic, Tuuri would have more garlic. “Okay,” Lalli said, and strode into the dripping forest.
By the time Lalli reached the campsite with half a dozen garlic bulbs, the tank was parked with its hose stretching into the stream, and his watercress was gone. As he approached, the door flew open, releasing a medley of odors: sharp, pungent scent of garlic; meaty smells of pork, venison, and tallow; sweet scent of honey; fresh, faintly earthy aroma of mint. He breathed deep before climbing in.
“Happy birthday, Lalli!” Tuuri said, accepting the garlic as she stood beside the doorway. The Icelander, leaning against the wall and watching the monitors, said something cheerful that included “Lalli”. Farther in, Mikkel stood by the stove, while Sigrun and Emil sat at the table, their smiling faces turned towards Lalli.
It was his birthday. Tuuri and Onni always celebrated his birthday, as if he had done something clever by staying alive to this specific day. Like most things people did, it didn’t make much sense. Still, if celebrating his birthday got him the food he smelled right now, he was happy to celebrate.
Once he’d thrown his outer clothing into the decontamination closet and taken his seat in his usual corner, Tuuri brought him a bowl of fried balls of minced meat and greens on a bed of watercress, covered with a sweet sauce of honey, mint, and a few rose hips. While he dug into that, she set beside him a mug of mint tea with plenty of honey.
As soon as Lalli cleared his bowl, Tuuri hurried to take it from him and return it, full. She, Sigrun, and Emil conversed quietly as they ate at the table, while Reynir ate standing up by the monitors, and Mikkel continued to cook more and ever more food. When Tuuri tried to take his bowl for a third helping, Lalli was tempted to let her, but he was stuffed already. “No more.”
Tuuri straightened and addressed Mikkel and Reynir. As usual, Lalli didn’t understand, but he recognized a few words that she’d taught him: “Thank you.” He approved; that might mean more good food tomorrow. He finished his mint tea and rolled into his den.
Tuuri nudged him with a foot. “Come out of there,” she said, an edge of annoyance in her voice. “We have presents.”
Presents? He didn’t need anything. If he needed anything, he’d find it for himself. Except home. He needed home, but they couldn’t give him that. Lalli sighed, but crawled out and got to his feet to accept whatever they’d come up with.
Sigrun passed something across the table, and Tuuri handed it to Lalli, saying, “This is from me.”
Lalli found a slider closure on the side of the thick plastic bag and slid it open without damaging the plastic. Dropping the bag to the floor, he unfolded the cloth within, a heavy white woolen blanket with a black geometric pattern. He studied the straight lines, the right angles, the perfection of the shapes.
“Thank you,” he said, and meant it.
Smiling, Tuuri accepted another package from Sigrun and passed it to Lalli, who dropped his new blanket on Mikkel’s bunk (and the cat) to accept it. “And this is from Sigrun,” Tuuri said.
Another thick plastic bag with a slider closure. Lalli pulled out the cloth within, which proved to be white cotton sheets, yellowed in a few places, with the same enthralling black pattern. “Say ‘thank you’,” Tuuri prompted as he stared at it.
“Thank you,” Lalli said without looking away. Then, in his bad Swedish, “Sigrun thank you.”
Tuuri beamed at him and got out of the way as Emil approached, holding out an odd cube decorated with squares of faded colors. “This is called a Rubik’s Cube,” Tuuri explained. “It’s a kind of toy, no, a puzzle that he found for you.” A puzzle? Lalli did like puzzles. He dropped the sheets on top of the blanket and accepted the cube. “You can turn parts of it,” Tuuri said. “And you’re supposed to get each face to be one color.”
Lalli gave one side of the cube an experimental twist. Hmm. Now most of the squares on one face were blue. To get that square to be blue, wouldn’t he have to turn this side? He sank to the floor in his corner, his gaze fixed on the cube. “Thank you,” Tuuri said in Swedish, followed by many more words. Emil chuckled, and Sigrun laughed.
Lalli would take his new blanket and sheets into his den in a minute. Just a minute. Just after he got this face entirely blue.
He turned another side of the cube.
“You feed that cat too much,” Sigrun said, but Tuuri heard the smile in her voice.
“We have plenty of pork. This will just go to waste if somebody doesn’t eat it.” Tuuri tore several more shreds off the salt pork she was cutting up for stew and dropped them in Missekat’s bowl. The little cat ate without looking up at the source of the new food.
“She’s getting fat.”
“She’s just very fluffy,” Mikkel put in from his bunk.
“Nah, she’s fat.” Sigrun set her rifle on the bunk beside Emil, knelt behind Missekat, and ran her hands down the cat’s sides to flatten the fur. “Look at that belly.”
Mikkel got up, stepped carefully between the table and Emil, who didn’t look up from cleaning his rifle, and lowered himself to the floor with a grimace. As he adjusted the two galdrastafur pinned to his shirt, Tuuri wondered if they were still effective, or if Reynir should renew them. For now, the Icelander was watching the monitors, out of sight from where she sat. She had offered to fix supper today, and, as always, he had cheerfully agreed to let her do it.
Giving up all pretense of work, Tuuri laid her knife on the table, turned sideways in her chair, and watched Mikkel. His ribs were healing rapidly — unnaturally rapidly, magically rapidly — but still, it had been only ten days since the injury. Though she and Reynir had taken on all the duties they could, it seemed he could not bear to be idle. As soon as he could comfortably stand, he had taken over the two late-night watches, arguing that he would lie on his bunk while they travelled, so he might as well sleep during the day.
Mikkel stroked the cat’s sides, frowning. “There are parasites and nutritional deficiencies that can produce an enlarged abdomen in humans. Other diseases …” His frown deepened as he lifted his head and stared at the cabinets. Tuuri followed his gaze before shaking her head. She’d seen that expression before. There was nothing there; he was just trying to remember something.
“Could it be?” Mikkel murmured. He lifted Missekat away from the bowl, laid her on her back on the floor, and ran a hand over her underside. Where most cats would bite or scratch, Missekat lay still, her trusting eyes fixed on him.
“Could what be?” Sigrun asked.
“Pregnancy.”
“You think she found a tom? Really?”
“I can assure you I have never fathered a single kitten in my entire life, and I don't believe any of the other men have either.”
As Sigrun guffawed, Tuuri stared for a moment at his straight face before joining in. She abandoned the stew meat and joined the other two on the floor. “You clever kitty, you’re going to have a kitten.”
Sigrun grinned at her. “Maybe more. Her mama had five, remember.”
Five kittens in one litter. Tuuri was so enchanted by the thought that for a few seconds she didn’t register Mikkel’s concerned expression. “What is it?”
“We’re having enough trouble keeping one cat out of trouble. Maybe as many as five kittens …” He shook his head and folded his arms. “Well, we have some time. I’m not sure how long a cat’s gestation is, but we should have at least a month, maybe longer.”
Released, Missekat rolled over, stretched out, and purred, looking from one to another as if wondering why no one was petting her. Tuuri obeyed the silent request and stroked her thick fur with a clean hand, allowing her to lick grease off the other. Motion caught Tuuri’s eye: Reynir peering around the corner at them with an expression both cheerful and puzzled. She would have to explain the situation to him later. He would be as thrilled as she was about the kitten. Or kittens.
Through all of this, Emil had kept his head down, cleaning his rifle again.
The expected kittens were almost the sole topic of conversation for the next couple of days. Sigrun insisted there would be five (“or more!”), and Emil loyally agreed, though Tuuri thought his smile meant he didn’t entirely believe it. While Tuuri wanted five (or more!), she thought they’d get a more modest three, which was still better than most Known World cats could manage. When asked, Mikkel launched into a discourse about the effects of diet and climate, which discouraged further questions to him.
In the early afternoon of the second day, Lalli waved Tuuri to a halt at an intersection. Since it was too early to camp, there was a scramble to grab weapons as he trotted to the door, but he didn’t seem worried to Tuuri as he climbed into the tank.
“There’s a castle west of here,” Lalli said. When she clasped her hands together, already imagining their new home, he shook his head. “Lots of trolls. There were people there, but now there aren’t.”
Sigrun nudged Tuuri. “What’s he saying?”
“There’s — I think he’s saying there’s a, a dead lost village. In a castle, but it’s full of trolls, lots of trolls and no people anymore.” She watched Sigrun’s face, hoping against hope. It was a castle; it could be a home at last.
Sigrun took a step back, frowning. “A castle.”
“But if it’s full of trolls —” Emil began.
“We can handle that,” Sigrun said, brows drawn together as she gazed out the door. “Set traps, ambushes. Lure out a few at a time. It’s how we clear villages. Takes a while, but …” Her voice trailed off as she looked around at the team. After a moment, she cursed, glaring outside as if she could see the trolls in the castle. “We can’t do it. Not enough people. Takes too long, and we can’t hang around with the enemy after us.” With a shrug and a grimace, she added, “We’ll have to go on.”
Tuuri went forward and dropped into the driver’s seat without a word. Lalli took his place behind her and said, “Turn left. I found a campsite.”
Tuuri didn’t want to talk about the dead village, didn’t even want to think about it, but when Mikkel asked her to translate that evening, she couldn’t refuse. She knelt beside Lalli in his den while Mikkel sat on the bunk above.
Annoyed as Lalli was by Mikkel’s questioning, he nevertheless gave a clear description of the castle. It had seemed intact, though the left leaf of the front gate hung crookedly from its hinges. Lalli had perceived many live trolls — at least several dozen — and some dead ones near the front gate, both inside and outside the castle wall. Lalli thought the dead trolls were partly decayed, but at Mikkel’s insistent questions, he rolled over and pulled the covers up to his ears, muttering, “Dead trolls don’t do anything. I look at live trolls.”
“I, uh, don’t think he wants to talk anymore.”
Mikkel nodded. “I think that’s clear enough. Short of going over there and looking for ourselves, I don’t think we can learn much more.”
“Do you think we can take the castle?” She didn’t think he could have a better idea than Sigrun, and yet he was clever …
“No, I don’t. I’m just thinking the dead trolls were partially decayed. Even trolls will decay, lying out in the weather like that. That means this happened years ago, but not more than a couple of decades.” Mikkel looked past her as if he could see through the walls of the tank and the forest around them. “But look. We’ve found two lost villages already. They can’t be the only two in all of Germany. There must be more, many more. We have only to find them.”
Tuuri sat back on her heels. He was trying to encourage her, but still … two villages, where one was hostile and the other had been dead for years. After a minute of silence between them, she got up and set to work helping Reynir fix supper.
After a quiet supper where no one mentioned the dead village, Tuuri retreated to her small office to record the day’s events for what Sigrun called their “saga”. As she nodded to Mikkel, already on watch, she remembered his words. The village had died just years ago. The villagers had survived for decades, alone in that castle with grosslings all around them, but they had survived. And then they had died.
She’d written only a few lines the day before, and the day before that. There was no need to write on a new page. Tears blurred her vision as she reached for the top sheet of her records, stacked near the corner of her narrow desk.
The papers had shifted while she drove. Only a little, and with her tear-blinded eyes, she knocked them only slightly. It was enough. The entire stack toppled over the edge and fell to the floor, sheets flying in all directions.
Tuuri wanted to wail, to scream, to throw things, but everyone else was already on edge. She couldn’t make things worse. Gritting her teeth, she dashed the tears from her eyes and knelt to gather up the papers.
Since each page had a date at the top, she could have put them in order just by looking at the dates. But reading always calmed her, so she settled herself in her chair and scanned the entries. Mostly notes about weather, vegetation, birds she’d spotted, and swarm attacks. Something about the notes bothered her as she sorted them. How many attacks had there really been? And when?
The world went away, hours passed, as she focused on the task, a sheet of paper beside her on which she noted the date and size of each attack.
There’s a pattern here.
Of course there is. Mikkel described it.
Tuuri ran a finger down the side of the list, smearing the date of the last attack. She tapped her finger on the page for several seconds, then turned over the stack of papers so she could examine them again from the beginning. A little over three months from her driving across the bridge to the amazing night when Onni and Reynir (and Rosli, mustn’t forget Rosli) had saved her from the Rash.
There had been attacks in those three months, especially, of course, the attack by trolls and ghosts together. They were few and far between. After she was cured of the Rash, the attacks had begun. Again and again and again. Small at first, but then, they’d been far from cities or even towns. There hadn’t been many trolls around them.
Mikkel was wrong.
Tuuri laid down the plume and wrung her hands together. She should talk to Mikkel. Lalli would be no help … She wanted Reynir. After several seconds of thinking about him, another thought struck her, and she searched through the papers again. Had she written it down?
February 19. “Reynir says the dragons have been around for a couple of weeks.”
A couple of weeks … at least since February 5. And I was cured January 29. At most a week earlier. Is there a link?
Tuuri pressed her hands to her temples.
Wait. All this could be a coincidence. Dragons just breeding or something. Warmer weather waking up the trolls.
Where did we camp each night? Didn’t we ever camp in the same place two nights?
Another trip through the papers. They had camped for two nights on the bridge north of the canal. They’d been attacked the first night, but not the second. What was more, they’d camped on the bridge on the south side and had been attacked.
Breaks in the pattern. Mikkel said the breaks were important. If the enemy was already after us, why didn’t it call a swarm on top of us on the bridge?
Tuuri leaned back, staring at the opposite wall as she pictured their campsite on the bridge with the city to the west. Plenty of trolls there. All they had to do was run up the bridge like the others had the night before.
All they had to do …
Tuuri got to her feet. Mikkel was just outside, watching the monitors. She could ask him, but if she was wrong, if it was all a coincidence … no. She would check first.
“Lalli,” she whispered in the darkened silence of the main compartment. “Lalli, wake up.” She didn’t poke him; Lalli hated to be touched, and anyway, he was a light sleeper.
He didn’t turn over to face her. “What?”
“Remember when we camped on the bridge? Before we crossed the canal?”
“Yeah.”
“Were there any trolls? Not the first night, I know about them. Were there any trolls the second night?”
“Yeah.”
Tuuri pressed her forehead against Mikkel’s bunk. “They were under the bridge, weren’t they? A swarm under the bridge, but they weren’t smart enough to find the ramp. And you didn’t tell us.”
Lalli rolled over. “They weren’t a threat.”
“No. No, they weren’t. Of course not.” Tuuri got to her feet and padded back to her office, not wanting to wake anyone else. She sank into her chair and stared at the papers.
We camped on the bridge on the other side. And trolls from the city around the bridge charged up the bridge. We thought they were after us, but they were trying to reach our campsite on the other side. And … and we hit a drowned troll in the canal. The night before, some must have tried to reach us and run right off the bridge.
The enemy has been chasing us since I was cured.
The enemy has been chasing us because I was cured.
While Tuuri considered the enemy that pursued her, in distant Mikkeli, Håkan Västerström considered the enemy that did not pursue him. Sitting on the balcony of the Inn and Restaurant in the moonlight, Håkan Västerström considered his father.
Unlike Sune, who met his parents' indifference with furious resentment, and unlike Anna, who still yearned for her parents’ love, Håkan had long since resigned himself to the fact that his parents did not and never would love him. Like teachers, they were just authority figures to be obeyed when necessary and otherwise avoided. Their indifference was just one of the many injustices of Håkan’s young life, beginning with the great injustice of being born non-immune.
A burst of laughter from the restaurant below. A couple stumbled out, leaning on each other and laughing as they staggered across the village square to the long steep path up the central hill to their home.
Håkan didn’t know them. Mikkeli was small compared to Mora, but there were still far too many villagers for him to have met them all in a couple of weeks. They all knew the Swedish children, though. Every Finn in the Known World must know by now that Onni had destroyed the Kade with the help of three Swedish children.
Torbjörn Västerström did not associate with Finns. No rumor would reach him directly. Yet though Finns were largely close-mouthed with strangers, Finnish sailors would chat with Swedish dockworkers. Dockworkers would gossip to their families, and so the story of the Swedish children would spread.
Håkan had once knocked over a mug of tea on his father’s desk. The tea had flowed, unstoppable, across the desk. Rumors now flooded, slow and implacable as tea, across Sweden. And to the ears of Torbjörn Västerström.
And what would Torbjörn Västerström do? How had he accounted for his children’s disappearance, and how would his children’s reappearance in Mikkeli affect his story? Would he want them back, his own possessions again, now that they were heroes?
How long before their father heard the rumors?
Even in late April, evenings in Mikkeli were chilly. Håkan shivered as he looked west across the port to the full moon that hung a hands-breadth above the great wooden water gate, now closed to shield them from the night’s terrors. But in the morning, when it opened? When the ferry came up from Viipuri Port? What could shield them then?
Despite their time with Onni as their babysitter, the children had shared the common Swedish belief that Finland was a wild and disorganized place. Though they’d known their weak disguises as Finnish or Icelandic boys wouldn’t hold for long, they’d expected that, once they found Onni, they would disappear into the crowds and be forgotten like pebbles thrown into a pond.
They hadn’t expected to be heroes.
Håkan shivered again as he looked east, his gaze following the path up to the houses. To Alisa’s house, where a candle shone in one window. Not Onni’s window; he would be asleep, slowly recovering his strength.
There was nowhere to hide in Finland. The triplets’ only hope to escape their father was to go with Onni to the Silent World and find Emil. If Onni recovered soon enough. Everything depended on Onni.
The door creaked open behind Håkan, and Anna joined him on the hard wooden bench left of the door.
“Cold out here,” Anna said after a while, with a theatrical shiver.
“I guess.”
Anna gazed eastwards, and Håkan knew she was looking at Alisa’s house. At Onni.
Cold …
Håkan sat up at the thought, and Anna turned to him. “What?”
“I’ll bet Onni’s cold, too,” Håkan said. “Let’s give him back the blankets.”
Anna knew him too well. “Alisa makes sure he’s warm. And you said there’s no magic —”
“I don’t feel any magic. And yeah, Alisa didn’t either.” Håkan kept talking even as Anna opened her mouth to object again. “But nobody knows everything about magic, and you said Onni looked better when he had the blankets. So let’s give him the blankets anyway.”
Anna smiled at that before turning to look back to the east. “Tomorrow,” she said. “Tomorrow we’ll give him the blankets.” She shivered again. “I’m freezing. You’re an idiot, sitting out here in the cold.” With that, she went back inside.
After a moment, Håkan got up and made his way back to the room he shared with Sune. He wouldn’t share his thoughts about rumors, for speaking might make them come true. For now, he would watch and wait and worry.
Lalli handed his Rubik’s Cube up to Tuuri and looked away as she twisted it a dozen times in different directions. By a few days after his birthday, he’d learned to solve it. For the past week, he’d solved once or twice each morning before breakfast, with Tuuri randomizing it for him afterwards, since if he randomized it himself, he would just reverse the steps. Looking down at her cousin as he sat on the floor in his favorite corner, she wondered who would mess it up for him, if not her.
As she returned it, she bit her lip, considering. Lalli often knew things that he didn’t say. Witness the swarm under the bridge, for instance. And so, while he studied the cube, his strange mind identifying the moves, she asked, “Do you know what the enemy is?”
Without looking away from the cube, he muttered, “A demon.”
But “demon” was just a word. “Do you know why it’s chasing us? I mean, why us, why now?”
He gave her the stare that meant he thought the question was foolish. “Demons hate people.” He turned back to the cube and made the first turn.
Though her face heated a little, Tuuri was relieved. If he’d known all along and just hadn’t said … she didn’t know what she’d have thought. It was better not to speculate, so she turned to check on the progress of breakfast: Reynir was still focused on the frying pan, a small smile on his face.
The outer door opened, and Sigrun climbed in, returning from a latrine run, and glanced around for Missekat. Although the cat had made no efforts to escape after her return, and was now sleeping on Mikkel’s empty bunk, they’d all developed the habit of checking to be sure she didn’t sneak out the door. Sigrun slipped into the chair across the folding table from Tuuri, yawned, and stretched her arms before giving Tuuri a grin.
Almost on Sigrun’s heels, Emil returned from his night in the back compartment, checked for Missekat, and nodded to Tuuri and Sigrun, but not to Mikkel, who stood near the door, watching the monitors. Much as Tuuri wished for harmony in their little group, she had to stay out of that conflict. Though she’d seen Emil strike Mikkel two weeks before, she hadn’t heard the cause, and no one chose to explain.
Taking the folding chair beside Sigrun, Emil gave Tuuri a keen look. “Hey, you okay?”
Flustered, Tuuri shrugged. “Yeah. Didn’t sleep well last night.” She was delaying, and she knew it, but the answer was also true. She’d lain awake for hours, peeking now and then through half-closed eyes at Mikkel, standing watch against the night’s swarm. The swarm that was searching for her.
Tuuri’s mind had run in tight circles, seeking another answer, seeking another way out, until her thoughts merged with dreams. She’d hoped to visit Rosli, to talk to the woman who had advised her so well before, but it was not to be. Morning had come, and she still had only one answer.
Reynir transferred venison bacon onto the first plate, and Tuuri hurried to his side to hand out one plate after another. Mikkel’s plate stayed beside the stove; he would eat alone once they got going, since he was on watch while they ate. At least, that was the story.
Tuuri picked at her breakfast, able to force just a few bites past the lump in her throat before setting her plate down for Missekat. Wait for Lalli to go scouting. That wasn’t an excuse, not really. It would be easier if she didn’t have to translate for him, and she already knew his answer: he would stay with her wherever she went. It was wrong; he didn’t even deserve to be here in the first place. She’d just assumed he’d go with her on the expedition, and he had. And now he was exiled along with the rest of them. One more thing for her to feel guilty about.
Since no trolls had appeared during the night, and Mikkel at the monitors, Lalli, and Missekat all agreed there was no threat, Tuuri and Reynir were allowed out for almost an hour after Emil collected his traps. This was the pattern so long as they travelled far enough during the day that there were no trolls around the campsite, or few enough that Sigrun, Lalli, and Emil disposed of them with ease. On this day, Emil took Missekat’s leash and let her lead him around, while Sigrun climbed onto the tank to examine their surroundings and, Tuuri supposed, to watch for something to hunt.
Most mornings, Tuuri found something of interest to sketch or perhaps some greens to forage. This morning, she could think of nothing but the enemy, touching her slung rifle frequently though there were no threats around. Reynir was concerned, asking how she was and if he could do anything, and it was an effort not to snap at him. “Just thinking about things,” she said, and perhaps he heard the truth in her words, for he stepped away with a smile and left her to think.
All too soon, Lalli trotted away to scout ahead, and everyone climbed into the tank. Mikkel gave Tuuri a nod as he left the monitors and headed for his bunk, collecting his plate on the way. She took a deep breath. It was time; she could put it off no longer.
“I, uh, I need to talk to you.” All the words Tuuri had come up with during the long night had gone out of her head, and she was already wringing her hands. She clutched her rifle strap with both hands to keep them still.
“What’s up?” Sigrun asked, stowing her rifle and moving aside for Emil to do the same. Reynir finished raising and latching the table and looked around, puzzled, while Mikkel paused in eating. All eyes were on her now.
“I know why the enemy keeps attacking us. It wants me.” There, she’d said it.
“What!” That was Sigrun and Emil together. Reynir didn’t speak, but caught his long braid and twisted it around his arm as he watched her.
Mikkel set his plate in his lap and narrowed his eyes at her. “How do you figure that?”
“The swarms started right after I, I was cured —”
Sigrun shook her head. “No, no, they didn’t. We weren’t getting swarmed until we crossed the canal.”
“We were, though. I’ve, I’ve made a list of all the attacks. From my notes; they’re all there. There weren’t many attacks until I was cured. Then the early ones were small, but it was the dead of winter, so there weren’t many trolls on the move. Even the enemy, this demon, couldn’t get big swarms going in the cold.” Tuuri swallowed hard. “Now it can. The weather’s getting warmer and —”
“We were attacked before, back in Copenhagen,” Sigrun said, frowning. She looked down at Emil beside her. “And there were the trolls hiding inside.”
Mikkel was staring at some point on the wall beside Tuuri, and it took an effort for her not to follow his gaze. “But she’s right,” he said. “Attacks became much more frequent after the cure, even though it was still cold.”
Tuuri shivered at his words. Deep inside, she’d hoped that Mikkel, with his precise mind, would tell her she was wrong. Would find another answer. “So you see,” she said, her voice sounding weak even to herself, “the demon is after me. All of this is because —”
“That doesn’t follow,” Mikkel said. “It could —”
“Shut up, Mikkel,” Sigrun said, with more heat than Tuuri had heard from her before. “Let the girl explain before you argue.”
Tuuri turned to Reynir, who by now had his braid wrapped three times around his arm and was looking anywhere but at her. “When you and Onni and Rosli came to my haven, you killed off all the Rash spirits.” He gave a jerky nod. “What if one got away?” She addressed Mikkel, who had bowed his head at Sigrun’s words. “You said the enemy might be something from mage-space that comes here when it can. I think it is.”
Tuuri’s right hand crept over to cover her wrist where the villager had grabbed her. “I think it’s like that man. He claimed me, and when we got away, he chased us. He had to turn back, and we could have fought him if we had to. But this thing — it claimed me because I was infected. I got away and now it’s chasing me. And it doesn’t have to turn back. Not ever.” She swallowed. “And we can’t fight it. We can’t even see it.”
“You can’t mean you — that you —” Emil’s near-whisper broke off and there was a silence so complete that Tuuri heard Missekat eating Mikkel’s neglected breakfast.
“Hold everything,” Sigrun said at length, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. “We’ve dodged this thing for months, and we’re going to keep on dodging it. All of us.”
Tuuri licked her lips, wanting to hope but unable to shake the fear. “We’ve been lucky. Sooner or later our luck will run out. The tank —”
“Not today.” Sigrun’s voice was firm. “Today, we’ll keep going. So, Driver, get to work. We’ve got a ways to go.”
While Tuuri drove, Reynir kept one hand on her shoulder, and once or twice, she pressed her cheek against it.
When Tuuri made the first rest stop of the day, Mikkel was still awake, reclining on his bunk with the cat purring in his lap as he studied some invisible clue on the wall. He gave her a quick smile when she caught his eye, but the smile was small and meaningless: “Be strong”, not “I have an idea”.
After everyone piled back into the tank, Sigrun stowed her rifle, turned to Tuuri, and said, “I know what we’re going to do.”
A surge of hope. A reminder to herself not to put too much faith in Sigrun.
“We’re going to find a castle,” Sigrun continued. “And our Cleanser here —” she put an arm around Emil’s shoulders, “— will make explosives for us. This demon can call swarms on us every night, and we’ll blow them all up. We’ll kill trolls until the demon runs out of trolls. We’ll clear this whole land!”
Tuuri opened her mouth and closed it again. “Would that really work?” she asked at last.
“If Lalli finds me the stuff to make gunpowder, sure, I can make explosives,” Emil said, eager and hopeful at once.
“The enemy must summon trolls from the immediate area,” Mikkel said thoughtfully. “We saw them heading for it one night. Logically, then, we ought to be able to kill all the trolls it can summon, at least for a while. Perhaps not every troll on the continent, but enough to reduce the threat.”
Tuuri looked from Mikkel to Sigrun to Emil and back to Mikkel. The idea was … not insane, even if it was Sigrun’s idea. “If we can find a castle …”
“The castles are out there,” Sigrun said with supreme confidence. “And we’ve got the most best scout to find one for us.”
Mikkel nodded, but he tugged at his sideburns as his eyes turned towards that invisible clue that he sought. So there was still something more. Very well. She would wait for his answer.
It was clear that Emil had held his tongue while Tuuri was driving so as not to distract her, for once they stopped for lunch, he peppered her with questions about what Lalli could find, how much he could carry, and so on. The idea of making explosives to defend a castle had caught fire in his mind, and he seemed determined to collect the ingredients he needed as they travelled.
Once they had their castle, Emil explained, he could start producing explosives in under a week if he had the supplies. It was impossible not to catch his excitement, and by the time lunch was over, Tuuri had a list of ingredients and tools, all translated into Finnish for Lalli’s benefit. The looming danger almost slipped from her mind as they talked.
Mikkel said nothing.
By the mid-afternoon break, Mikkel was asleep, and the team kept quiet as they hurried out to do their business and get back on the road. The sky had clouded over, and Tuuri wanted to find the next campsite before the rain started so she could get out of the tank and enjoy the outdoors for a while. The worries that had consumed her in the morning had faded into the constant background of everyday worries. They had a plan. It would be all right.
“I’ve been thinking,” Mikkel said as Reynir pulled down the table for Sigrun and Emil, who stood by with bowls of salt pork and rather wilted greens. Sigrun rolled her eyes at Tuuri, who divided her attention between watching the monitors and watching activities in the tank.
“When we’ve tried to stop the enemy from finding our campsites, it hasn’t worked. Galdrastafur on the latrines haven’t made any difference except to tire out Reynir. So I’d rather given up on the problem. But if it’s after Tuuri specifically, then we really need to know what it is that leads it to her.”
“And you have an answer?” Sigrun asked, setting her bowl of pork on the table in front of Reynir. Emil set the greens beside it and went to the utility cabinet to fetch folding chairs.
“Of sorts, yes.” Mikkel interlaced his fingers on his belly and Tuuri couldn’t help smiling at his resemblance to one of the trainers at Keuruu. “Fundamentally, the question I ask myself is, what’s special about a campsite? Why does it find the previous campsite rather than the current one, why does it find a campsite when we stay a second night, and why doesn’t it find the spots where we take our breaks?”
Tuuri frowned. “Why should it find where we take breaks?”
“And how do you know it doesn’t?” Sigrun added.
“I know because of timing of the swarms. It depends on how far we are from the last campsite, not the last break.” Mikkel raised a hand as if to stop interruptions. “Now, clearly, we must be leaving some kind of — signal, shall we say — that we can’t perceive but the enemy can. Whenever we stop for breaks, we must leave the same signal. Yet the enemy doesn’t find those locations, and it can’t find the current campsite.”
“But it does find the current campsite if we stay too long,” Tuuri objected.
“Presumably Reynir’s galdrastafur that hides the tank also hides the whole campsite as long as the tank is there.” Reynir looked up with a tentative smile before returning to chopping up pork. “But the signal must build up when we stay all day long, and then by the next night, there’s so much that the enemy can find it despite the galdrastafur.”
“It’s like a smell,” Sigrun said, pointing at him. “If we stay too long our smell leaks out past the galdy-thing and the enemy finds us. And it doesn’t find where we take breaks because we don’t stay long enough to stink it up.”
Tuuri bit her tongue so as not to giggle at the image.
“Essentially, yes. But it doesn’t leak past the galdrastafur when we’re in the tank, where the magic is most concentrated.”
Tuuri squinted. “How —? Oh. If it did, the enemy could find the tank.”
“Right. So what’s special about a campsite is that whenever we camp, people spend hours outside the tank. It’s the only time anyone spends hours outside in any one location, and that seems to be what allows our magical signal to build up in that location.” He looked directly at Tuuri now, and his eyes were sad. “If it’s really just looking for Tuuri, then we only have to hide her signal.”
Tuuri saw the implication at once. “By staying in the tank. If I never get to —” She couldn’t finish. She’d accepted exile rather than live in quarantine forever. Must she now accept imprisonment in this metal box?
Sigrun looked from her to Mikkel and back again. “Wait, wait. You don’t have to do that. We’ve done just fine for months with you going outside when we camp. You can go right on doing that.”
“That can’t be right,” Emil said from his seat at the table, back to Mikkel. He folded his arms. “There’s got to be a better way.”
Mikkel didn’t answer. Neither did Tuuri.
“Mikkel asked, ‘What’s special about a campsite?’,” Tuuri said that evening, sounding exactly like Emil’s least favorite teacher from the Mora school. “He pointed out that we spend hours outside the tank at campsites and nowhere else. His hypothesis has two parts: I create a signal the enemy is searching for, and if I stay in the tank, the galdrastafur will destroy that signal.”
The Dane nodded. Emil looked away from him.
“Except,” Tuuri went on, “that’s not the only thing that’s special about a campsite. We also camp there all night. It’s possible the galdrastafur doesn’t destroy the signal, it builds up even when we’re inside the tank, and it gets left behind when we move.”
Emil’s anger had burned down to embers, smoldering but ready to flare up whenever the Dane did something infuriating, like telling Tuuri she had to stay in the tank forever. Hearing Tuuri attack the Dane’s reasoning was deeply satisfying, and he shot the man a quick, mocking look before turning his head aside.
Tuuri didn’t look triumphant, only intent. “So, we’ll test that part of the hypothesis today. We’re not going to test whether the enemy is looking for me, not today. Instead, everyone stays in the tank this evening and in the morning, except for latrine breaks. The enemy doesn’t find our rest stops, so latrine breaks are probably safe. Okay?”
Reynir gave a bright smile to her and then to the others. Emil wondered if he’d even understood the discussion.
Sigrun nodded. “Yeah. And tomorrow we move on, but stop early. Maybe … ten kilometers? Yeah. Then if we get a swarm, we can handle it, no problem. And if we don’t, we’ll know.”
“It’ll be just like being snowed in. Except warmer,” Tuuri said with a smile that would have fooled someone who hadn’t travelled with her for almost half a year. “It’ll be fun.”
The evening was, indeed, like one of the evenings they’d spent with a blizzard raging about the tank. Sigrun told troll-hunting stories, of which she seemed to have an inexhaustible supply, and occasionally asked Emil and Tuuri to tell a story. Once, she even asked Reynir to tell one, but he begged off, saying he was only a shepherd and nothing exciting had ever happened to him until he joined them. If the question of what the enemy would do hadn’t lurked in the back of Emil’s mind, it might, indeed, have been fun.
Soon after nightfall, Tuuri took Missekat and, escorted by Sigrun, made her way to the back compartment for the night. Emil turned in as well, wanting to get the night over with as quickly as possible, since Sigrun had promised they would go hunting in the morning. Hunting meant staying away from the campsite, and according to Tuuri, that shouldn’t attract the enemy. Especially since Tuuri wouldn’t be part of the hunting party.
Sigrun could sleep anytime, anywhere, and she’d just changed clothes and climbed into her bunk with a casual wave to Emil. Surely she was asleep already. Reynir had refreshed all the galdrastafur, just in case, and had taken to his bunk as soon as Tuuri left, while Lalli had rolled into his den right after supper. So it was only Emil lying awake with the Dane standing watch.
Emil snored. He knew it and did his best to lie in the right position to minimize it. Since he always snored as he slept, and he wasn’t snoring now, the Dane would know he was awake. Maddening. He rolled over, his back to the room, and pulled up the covers.
The worst thing, the thought that he didn’t want anyone to see on his face, was that if Tuuri was right that the enemy was after her, and if there was no way to hide the signal she gave off for the enemy … then she was a deadly danger to everyone around her. Far more dangerous than she would have been if she’d become a troll.
And that meant the reasonable response would be to leave her for the enemy.
Emil didn’t want to think that, but the thought kept coming back, tangled up with his anger at the Dane for trapping him here and at Tuuri’s brother for taking the triplets off to Silent Finland. He focused his mind on the hunting and the gear he needed to take, and at last his eyes closed in sleep.
“I'm sorry, Emil,” Nanny says, “but your father won't make it home in time for supper tonight either. He has far too much work in need of his attention. And you know how important his work is.” She sets a slice of chocolate cake before him. He hasn’t had cake in almost a year, not since his last birthday, and that was a cupcake, the only cake he could afford. He raises his fork.
Stops.
How often has he eaten cake at this table?
“Fairy cake,” he says.
“What’s that, sweetie?”
He lays down the fork. “If you eat fairy cake, you forget the world. You forget what’s important to you.”
“That’s so, sweetie. Do you not like your cake? I have cookies, if you’d rather.”
He is tempted. “No, not right now.” He gets to his feet with a regretful look at the cake. “I’m going to walk in the garden.”
Nanny smiles. “Of course, dear. Don’t step on the veggies, or Viveka will be angry.”
Bees hum and a breeze whispers through the leaves as Emil wanders through the garden. Savoring the mingled scents of roses, violets, lavender, and green growing things, he follows the path, careful not to tread on any of the plants. The rosebushes look untidy; he’ll have to tell Viveka before Father notices.
Emil shakes his head. The house burned down six years ago, along with the gardens. Viveka has another job. And he’s in Germany anyway.
He looks around the garden again, at the flowers and the busy bees, at the high garden wall and the forest beyond. The forest was never allowed so close to the wall.
As he approaches the wall, he hears a strange, distant, rhythmic hissing, and a briny odor competes with the floral scents of the garden. There is a door in the wall, a door that was never there before the house burned. Emil opens the door and passes through.
The hissing is louder now, and he recognizes it: waves upon the shore. The house is in the mountains, and Emil never saw the sea before joining the expedition. He closes the door and walks down a narrow path to the sea. Over the briny smell of the sea are the earthy smell of mud and vegetation, the sweet fragrance of blooming wildflowers, and the musky aroma of nearby trees. Leaves rustle in the wind. Skylarks and blackbirds sing from the treetops, and a squirrel runs along a branch, keeping pace with him, until the branch runs out.
Soon Emil stands at the edge of the forest, looking across a sandy beach to the misty sea. He knows where he is now, and he is not surprised when he sees a shadowy dragon circling high offshore. From what Tuuri has told him, these dragons cannot enter a haven. He should be safe.
Emil walks out onto the beach, stepping around one of many rounded black boulders that jut from the sand. When the dragon stoops on him, he runs for the trees. Much as he trusts Tuuri, he doesn’t quite have the nerve to stand before a dragon.
The dragon veers off as he catches onto a tree trunk and swings himself around to watch. The creature doesn’t cross the invisible line separating sea and shore. After several seconds to catch his breath, Emil walks back out onto the beach, watching the dragon. When it dives again, his muscles quiver as he holds himself in place.
It’s a dream. I’ll just wake up. It won’t hurt me …
The dragon veers away with a roar like a bonfire, and Emil sinks to the ground, momentarily overcome. A deep breath — or perhaps three — and he gets to his feet and sets out along the beach, flinching each time the dragon tries for him.
Forest to his right, misty sea to his left, and sandy beach with boulders, all seem to stretch on endlessly. And yet, after striding along the beach for a while, he spots something in the mist. A dragon? Something worse, surfacing from beneath the waves?
The mist clears to show him an island with a narrow sandy beach beneath a low cliff. Grass grows atop the cliff, and all else is hidden.
Emil stops, gazing at the island. He cannot investigate. Even if he could swim, the dragon would get him before he could reach it. And now a second dragon has taken an interest in him, circling above with its blazing eyes glaring down at him.
He retreats into the forest, finding a path that leads inward. Perhaps he can find his way back to the house. And the cake.
Something moves in the forest, glowing red and yellow. He backs away, picks up a stick. Useless, he knows, but he must defend himself somehow.
The creature bounds onto the path before him: a dog of flame. His dog of flame, he knows. “Ah — ah — good boy,” Emil says. “Good boy. Sit. No? Play fetch?” He hurls the stick, and the dog bolts after it, trailing sparks.
The dog has the form of a standard poodle, much like the poodle Viveka once had. Emil yearned for such a dog, but Father put a stop to that. No filthy dogs in his house!
If only Emil could play with this dog … or could he? This is his haven, this is surely his fylgja; would his fylgja hurt him here?
The dog trots back with the stick already burning in his mouth and drops it in front of him. Emil laughs. “That stick’s not much use now, is it? Sit, sit.”
This time the dog sits, tail wagging, and Emil reaches for him, hesitating, ready to snatch his hand back at the touch of fire. Through harmless flames, he pats the dog’s head, which is solid and hot. “Good dog,” he whispers, running his hands over the animal’s body. “Such a good dog. Do you understand me?”
The tail wags faster.
“Listen, I can pet you here, and I’ll try to come see you whenever I can. But in the real world, the — the other world, where I live, you can’t touch me. You’ll hurt me if you do. Do you understand? Never touch me in the other world.”
The dog licks him, a tongue of flame wrapping around his hand for an instant without harming him.
“Okay, then! Let’s see, there has to be a better stick.” He throws sticks for his dog to fetch, and cake is forgotten.
“Do you think it will work?” Reynir squeezed Tuuri’s shoulder as he asked the question she could not bring herself to ask. She tightened her grip on the controls, hoping for and dreading Mikkel’s answer. It was only the bright morning light that brought the tears she blinked away.
“I don’t know,” Mikkel said. He sat on the passengers’ bench since Sigrun and Emil were out hunting. “I allowed my hopes to affect my reasoning before, and I’m not certain … still, I lean towards thinking it will work.”
Tuuri didn’t answer. Mikkel’s hope, not hers, was that she could hide from the demon by staying in the tank, keeping herself and the others safe. As the tank crushed a small blackthorn bush, she imagined its bitter-almond scent — imagined the scent, since it could not pass the tank’s filtration system. Would she only ever imagine the scents of the world, as she was forced to stay inside this tiny metal box forever?
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Reynir said, his voice tentative. Eyes fixed on the broken road ahead, Tuuri pressed her cheek against his hand to encourage him. Although Mikkel had assured them that Emil wasn’t angry with them, Reynir had admitted to her that the tension in the tank so unnerved him that he feared to talk to anyone but her.
With another squeeze to her shoulder, Reynir went on, “If this works, then maybe the tabards would work so the demon wouldn’t know you’re —”
Tuuri sat up straight, jerking the tank to the left and hastily straightening her course. “The tabards! I should have thought of them!” After more than a month, the tabards she and Reynir had knitted for equinox presents had come to be just part of their uniforms.
Mikkel spoke after several beats. “If the galdrastafur works to destroy the signal, perhaps …”
As he fell silent, Tuuri risked a glance at him. “You don’t think so?”
“The galdrastafur on them are much smaller than those on the tank. It seems size matters, so they may not work as well. Though there’s much less of a signal for them to hide or destroy. That should matter.”
“First we have to figure out if the galdrastafur works like we hope,” Tuuri said, feeling another hope dashed. Silence fell as she maneuvered around a fallen tree.
Late in the morning, Sigrun and Emil returned with two large canvas bags of pork. Tuuri parked for half an hour to give Emil and Reynir a chance to brine the pork. While Sigrun told her thrilling tale of climbing into a tree and shooting a boar as it charged, Tuuri opened the window. At least she could experience the sounds of birdsong and wind and the smells of vegetation crushed by the tank.
As Emil and Reynir returned from the back compartment, Sigrun wound up her story by adding that they’d also accounted for two trolls they’d found in a den, which would improve the hunting in the area if they ever came back. Tuuri agreed, while privately hoping they would never come back this way.
“We need more salt,” Emil said as he climbed in behind Reynir. “We only have enough for one more bucket.”
“There should be a small town a couple of kilometers west,” Sigrun said, not even reaching for their map, and in almost the next breath, the two of them ran off into the forest. Tuuri watched them go with unreasonable jealousy — she would never have been allowed to go scavenging, after all — before going forward to drive on. Mikkel closed the window and retreated to his bunk to catch up on his sleep, while Reynir moved to the passengers’ bench, sitting as close to Tuuri as possible. “We’ll find a way,” he said. “Even if, if the galdrastafur doesn’t work like we want, we’ll keep going. We have for months, and —”
“I’m worried about the tank. You’re right; we’ve been going for months without a break. Rosli can fix some stuff, but if something breaks that she can’t fix, and I can’t spend hours outside working on it, we’re going to be trapped. And then —”
Reynir caught his braid and twisted it between his hands. “Please don’t say that. Don’t even think it. We can’t afford to borrow trouble.”
Tuuri nodded, biting her lip. Dropping the discussion, she steered to the left, watching for Lalli’s marks as she picked their way through the forest. After several minutes of creeping between trees with the tank tilting back and forth as it rode over fallen branches, they reached the bank of a ford across a wide river.
“Maybe we should wait for them,” she said, scanning the ford with its rounded rocks just visible above the shallow rushing water. “They won’t like crossing that. One slip and you’d fall in.”
“Yeah …” Reynir gazed forward, then glanced at her and away. “I could open the window for you.”
She turned sideways in her seat to peer into the main compartment. “No, best not. You’d wake him.” They now faced each other, their knees almost touching, and a charged silence fell between them.
Reynir swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. “I — I tried again to talk to Onni last night. But the dragons are still there.”
“I’m sure he’s okay. Lalli would know if, you know …”
“Yeah.”
Tuuri looked away. A robin landed on the hood of the tank and hopped about for a moment before flying off.
“I almost don’t want it to work,” she said. “If it just hides the signal, then it doesn’t matter if I stay in the tank. That would — I mean — I don’t have to decide — you see?”
“We’ll find another way.” Reynir glanced back into the main compartment. “We’ll find our castle like Sigrun said.” He looked back at her, his eyes glistening. “And a lost village. We won’t be alone forever.”
The tank was so quiet that Tuuri thought she heard Missekat purring on Mikkel’s bunk. The silence pressed on her, expectant. Without giving herself time to think, she took Reynir’s hand. “We aren’t alone,” she said.
He covered her hand with his. “Not alone.” He leaned slowly forward, and their lips met.
They jerked apart, blushing, as the side door opened.
“Hey, we found some more honey,” Sigrun said.
With the salt and honey stowed, Sigrun and Emil in the passengers’ seats, and Reynir standing behind the driver’s seat, Tuuri drove across the ford, water swirling against the tracks. The tank managed the river with ease, but struggled, sliding and straining, to climb the far bank. Tuuri held her breath as she gripped the controls, twitching a little to one side or the other as the tracks caught or slipped.
Once the tank was safe on dry ground, Tuuri stopped, gasped for air, and flexed her cramped hands. “Rosli, did anything break?” she asked. When the indicator light flashed red — no — she leaned back, feeling as if she’d dragged the tank up the bank with her own strength. Part of her wished for Reynir’s hand on her shoulder in that moment; another part wanted time to think about what had happened. What had almost happened.
Tuuri had been kissed before. Before Reynir. There had been a few young men willing to brave the grim disapproval of the most powerful mage in Keuruu to date his sister, but she’d soon realized they were more interested in defying Onni than in getting to know her. Reynir, though …
“Good job, short stuff,” Sigrun said, interrupting her thoughts and pulling them back to the problem at hand. After a few more relieved breaths, Tuuri drove on, following the blazed trees back to the battered road.
Several minutes down the road, they reached a crossroads where Lalli leaned against a tree, waiting. As Tuuri brought the tank to a halt before him, he climbed in, nudged Reynir out of the way, and took his position behind Tuuri. “Go right.” Tuuri obeyed without questions. He would have his reasons and probably wouldn’t answer if she asked for them.
Not long afterwards, as the tank followed a gentle curve through the greening trees, Reynir gasped. Alarmed, but unable to turn her attention from the crumbling road and another crossroads ahead, Tuuri slowed and asked, “What? What is it?”
Reynir’s voice was hushed, almost reverent. “The ley line. That road runs under the ley line. We’ve found it again.”
“Turn south up there,” Lalli said.
The Sun had begun its long slide down to the western horizon when they reached the campsite, an old parking lot with cracked, tilted slabs and volunteer trees growing up here and there, but no stream nearby. No matter; there were plenty of streams in the forest, and they would tank up the next day.
Tuuri thought guiltily that she’d stopped beside the river and never even thought of taking out the hose. But that would have awakened Mikkel, she reminded herself, and he would have insisted on taking care of it or at least guarding them while they did it. And he needed to take it easy, still recuperating, though she’d heard him tell Sigrun he should be able to take back his duties in a few days.
Lalli disappeared into the forest to forage for greens, while Sigrun and Emil ran to the south, planning to scout the way to the town that lay ahead, to search for more salt and anything else useful, and (Tuuri suspected) to escape the confines of the tank.
Just her, Reynir, and Mikkel in the tank again. And once Mikkel was asleep …
But Mikkel had no interest in sleep. “Let’s look at those motifs again,” he said, and Tuuri pulled out the sample galdrastafur Reynir had drawn for her (not made; these had no magic in them) and the drawings she’d made of the few motifs she’d identified.
Tuuri laid out all the galdrastafur, almost filling their table. “All the healing ones have this in the center,” she said, laying down a sheet with her drawing of the design, all curving lines and tiny circles. “So does good-health. The good-luck, anti-ghost, and strengthening ones have this.” Another sheet with another drawing, more angular. “The center of troll-deflecting is different from the rest. No motifs in common that I could find.” A third sheet, curving lines coiling around each other. “This one’s on both antiseptic and antibiotic.”
Mikkel picked up the third sheet and studied it. “Antiseptic and antibiotic both get rid of something that doesn’t belong. I’d think anti-ghost or troll-deflecting would have something in common with them.”
“But they’re not the same,” Reynir said. “Anti-ghost makes a, a shield. Lalli sees it, doesn’t he?” He turned to Tuuri for help.
She screwed up her face, trying to recall something Lalli had said about the galdrastafur … “He said something about that, that it made a shield. Ah! That’s why you could make them inside, and you didn’t have to put them on the doors.”
Reynir gave her a grateful smile. “That, and troll-deflecting just tells them to look away. It doesn’t, uh, get rid of them, exactly.”
Mikkel tugged at his sideburns, then picked up the first sheet, the healing motif. “Seems odd that good-health has this one. It doesn’t really heal so much as, perhaps, deflect illness. But no match between it and troll-deflecting.”
“Those are the only ones I’m sure of. We don’t have enough samples, really.” Tuuri picked up her last sheet, hesitated, laid it out. “But there’s another one. Well, sort of. Look at this.” The motif wasn’t finished, a pattern of short, straight lines connected by curves, with an empty circle in the middle. “That one’s on your bone-knitting and the strengthening galdrastafur. But the middle part’s different.”
Mikkel found the two galdrastafur and laid them beside her drawing. “That’s so.” He looked up at Reynir. “Do you have any idea — any feeling — about why these match like this?”
Reynir traced first one galdrastafur and then the other. As he did it again, Mikkel glanced at Tuuri and gave her a slight smile. She was sure he felt the same thing she did: they had found something significant. She had found something significant.
And maybe there really was a solution to her problem in these galdrastafur.
“This one feels hard,” Reynir said at last, tapping the strengthening galdrastafur. “And that one feels kind of … not hard, but … warm, maybe.”
“Alive,” Tuuri said, and he looked up at her.
“Alive. Maybe.” He traced the bone-knitting drawing again. “Yes.”
Mikkel spread the four motifs out before him. “If we combine these correctly …” After a long silence, while Tuuri and Reynir looked at each other with hope (and maybe a little more), he sighed. “This will take more thought. For now, the others will be hungry when they get back. We need to fix lunch.”
Disappointed yet encouraged, Tuuri put away the drawings while Reynir took out their pots and cooking gear.
“Next, we gather wood,” Sigrun said as Emil dropped the heavy canvas sack to the floor of the back compartment and pulled out the first box of salt.
Emil dropped the box into the near-empty crate of canned tuna and waved at the roughly trimmed logs stacked on and behind the crates in the compartment. “We have enough for days.”
“Sure, but not enough for a bonfire.”
“A bonfire?” Had he misheard? He stowed two more boxes of salt.
“In two days. Walpurgisnacht. Don’t your people celebrate with a bonfire, too?”
Walpurgisnacht. The Cleansers’ favorite holiday, since it marked the end of the cleansing cycle and the start of a month’s vacation before they had to get ready for the next cycle. Teams competed to build the best bonfire, and Emil’s team had won each year he had been with them. Except he wasn’t a Cleanser anymore; he was stuck in the Silent World being chased around by a demon. And it was all the Dane’s fault.
After a hard breath to quench his anger, Emil answered, “That’ll be great. But we’ll be outside for hours, gathering wood; won’t that —”
“Not staying in today. Don’t know if staying in even works. And we’ve dodged that demon just fine without hiding inside like cowards. Nope, we’re going to get firewood this evening.” As he stowed more salt, she added, “Have to move tomorrow anyway. No water here, and I want to get through that town.”
With the last of the salt put away, he joined her outside, already considering issues of tinder and bonfire construction. As he sawed through the first branch, Tuuri and Reynir ventured out of the tank with Lalli and the Dane staying close to guard them. Tuuri wore a knitted tabard far too big for her, so long it almost reached her knees and so wide it bunched up under the rope she used as a belt. The Dane did not wear a tabard.
Will the magic work to hide her?
Of course it will. The magic keeps trolls away from the tank. The magic even healed that man’s cracked ribs.
Though Emil had never suffered a broken bone or even a cracked rib, he’d known Cleansers who had. He knew bones didn’t heal in two weeks. The Dane shouldn’t be able to get around by himself at this point, and he certainly shouldn’t be planning to get back to work in a few days.
Unless he’d been feigning injury, of course, but despite Emil’s feelings against the man, he couldn’t imagine the medic malingering. The injury was real, and the magic had healed it far faster than was natural. How did that work?
Emil’s sudden longing was so strong it hurt. If only we could go back. If only we could stand by the monitors and talk about magic. If only …
But how could he talk to a man who’d betrayed him and ruined his life? Emil snapped twigs off the branch and carried it to the tank.
Voices awakened Emil the next morning.
“Anything?” Sigrun asked.
“All quiet,” the Dane said. “A herd of deer went by a few hours ago; that’s all.”
“So it works.”
“For one night, yes, I’d say it does. We’ll have to experiment more and determine who the demon is really after.”
As Emil sat up in his bunk, yawning and blinking under the overhead light, his shoulders aching from the effort of gathering and sawing wood, Tuuri rolled out of her own bunk. “It’s after me, of course. Who else?”
“Reynir.”
Tuuri looked as startled as Emil was at the Dane’s words. “But why would — you mean because he helped me? He fought the Rash spirits?”
“That, perhaps. Or because he climbed down the waterfall. Crossing from one world to —”
“But Onni did all that, too! If it’s after Reynir, then it’s after him.” She looked around as if searching for Reynir, who’d had the back compartment for the night. “We have to —”
The Dane patted the air in a soothing gesture. “It’s only a possibility I’ve thought of, that I think we should rule out. And Onni must be alive since Lalli hasn’t, ah, perceived any problems, right?” At her hesitant nod, he added, “So the demon isn’t after him, or he can hold it off. And anyway, it might not be just Reynir that the demon’s after. At this point, it might be after all of us, since we’re all defending you.”
Emil wanted to snarl at him for upsetting Tuuri again, but as usual, the man made sense. He spared some frustration for Reynir and Lalli; two mages, and neither could tell him what was happening to his cousins. The dragons had terrified him, no doubt of that, but Håkan had braved the dragons to reach Reynir. Why couldn't one of these two do the same to reach Håkan or Onni?
“So, we need to experiment more,” the Dane continued. “Does it work if only you stay inside? How long —”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sigrun said. “We’re not experimenting today. Next campsite, we’ll stay in, all of us, so there’s no swarm on Walpurgisnacht. Right? Okay. Short stuff, tell the scout we need to get through that town. Big guy, go fetch Braidy. Let’s get moving.”
After clipping the leash to Missekat’s harness and lifting her onto his shoulders, the Dane climbed out to make his way to the back. Once Reynir was safe inside and Lalli was out scouting their way, the Dane took his shaving kit and went back out to deal with the night’s stubble. Emil couldn’t say if he was offended or satisfied that these days the Dane used his battered old shaving kit and not the elegant grooming kit Emil had given him for the equinox.
The journey through the abandoned town was almost nostalgic for Emil. Though there was no snow and ice, though the vines crawling up crumbling buildings were green and leafy, still frequent detours, stunted trees, and vacant windows reminded him of long weeks searching for books in Copenhagen, and he wished he and Sigrun might leap out and search one of those buildings.
Like that one, he thought, with most of its “Library” sign still readable though it had fallen to the ground. But everything had changed. They would never take the books back, and he was second in command, sitting beside Sigrun as Tuuri drove, while Mikkel stayed alone in the main compartment.
Emil shook his head, dismissing the thought, and scanned the street ahead. Though it looked passable to him, Lalli had piled debris to form an arrow pointing west. As Tuuri turned the tank, Emil looked up to check the time. Already mid-afternoon, and they had to get through this town before nightfall brought a swarm of trolls.
The swarm will come through here looking for us. I wonder how many of the trolls in here will be in the swarm. Or will fight the swarm. Maybe we should go through towns more often. That might keep us safe without locking up Tuuri.
Emil sighed. There had to be a solution, but he couldn't think of it.
In the late afternoon, they stopped in a wide spot in the road by a stream outside the town. When the Dane started to drag the hose to the stream, Sigrun ordered him to stop and let Emil do it. As Emil braced the hose so it would stay stable while the pump worked, he couldn't avoid hearing the low-voiced argument behind him.
“I'm well enough to —”
“We don't need you ‘well enough’. We need you well. So you take it easy for a couple more days, and then we'll talk about what you can do.”
“At least I can forage, then, right now.”
“Yeah, I guess. Stay close, though. There are boars and wolves in these woods. Maybe bears, too.”
Emil made no comment, searching around the road for dry wood for the bonfire. His bonfire. He was the best fire-builder in the Cleansers, and he would not do less than his best for this Walpurgisnacht.
When the water tank was full, they crossed the stream at a ford and followed a road so decayed Emil wasn’t entirely sure it was a road and not a game track. Still, it led them back to the road under the ley line, as Reynir confirmed with audible relief.
As red streaked the western sky, Lalli waved them to a halt in an overgrown parking beside a large tumbledown building. Though Sigrun eyed it with suspicion, neither the scout nor the cat raised any alarm, so they settled in for the night. No one went outside that evening except for necessities, and though it was Sigrun’s turn to enjoy the back compartment, she stayed late with the rest of the team, telling troll-hunter stories and encouraging Emil to tell Cleanser stories.
The Dane stood watch; this was his last all-night watch before they went back to their normal rotation. His bruised face had healed in days, his cracked ribs in little more than two weeks, while Emil’s right hand was still yellow-brown with the fading bruise he’d suffered in backhanding the man.
Lying in his bunk as Sigrun turned down the lights and climbed out to make her way to the back, Emil regarded that bruise. If he hadn’t struck the man — if he hadn’t told him to go away — the Dane wouldn’t have been on foot, alone in the forest, when the boar charged him. He’d been lucky to get away with only cracked ribs; he might have been killed. Emil felt he should apologize, but didn’t the man deserve that and worse for what he’d done?
Emil rolled over, back to the others, and pulled the covers up to his ears. Tomorrow was Walpurgisnacht, and they would have a bonfire.
The swarm arrived on schedule, early in the third watch. What would have been a third watch, that is. Sigrun dashed from the back to the main compartment — Rosli had flashed the lights to alert her — and all the immunes, plus Tuuri, readied themselves for battle, while Reynir twisted his braid until Emil wondered if the thing would break off.
But they were camped under the ley line, so the galdrastafur held. Only a handful of trolls lingered near the tank, and the rest wandered off into the forest. After a half hour’s wait to see if more were coming, Sigrun sent everyone to bed, taking her own bunk in the main compartment instead of returning to the back.
When the morning of Walpurgisnacht came, bright and almost cloudless, they moved again along the road under the ley line until they reached a good spot beside a river. As soon as Tuuri parked, everyone piled out to build the bonfire under Emil’s supervision. Tinder here, smaller branches there, good logs ready to burn all night. What his old team could have built in a couple of hours took most of the day for this team.
At length, to the relief of all, Emil declared the bonfire structure complete. Sigrun decreed a holiday, and Reynir produced a “ball” made of old socks stuffed into an old sock. All the socks were clean, with a faint minty smell; the Dane would never tolerate stinking socks in the tank, even if no one wanted to wear them.
The game of catch became a game of keep-away, which in turn gave way to a game of tag. Declining Sigrun’s invitation to join in, the Dane kept watch on the monitors for anything that might come sniffing for fresh meat, while Lalli disappeared into the forest, presumably for peace and quiet.
And so the day passed, and Emil could almost forget the situation. At suppertime, he built a campfire well away from the bonfire, standing by as Reynir fried pork and wilted greens. Even Lalli came back for his supper, while Tuuri carried a plate into the tank for the Dane.
When night fell at last, Emil knelt to press a firebrand into the tinder under the bonfire, here and there until small blazes caught and grew in the dry wood. As he stood back with the others to watch, the fire that bloomed across the pile twined into four flames dancing upwards and one whipping horizontally. The fire drew together until its shape was unmistakable: a giant poodle rolling on his back with his tail wagging and his paws kicking with joy. Mouth open, tongue of flame lolling, the fire spirit looked back at Emil.
Murmurs rose behind Emil, who stood enchanted, paying no attention to the others. As the fire and smoke rose higher, at last hiding the fire spirit, he heard Sigrun’s question: “Did you summon it?”
“No,” he said without looking away from the bonfire. “He just came to the fire.”
As the bonfire blazed late into the night, the others returned to the tank while Emil stayed watching until Tuuri, who had first watch, called him in for second watch. When Sigrun took over for third watch, he rolled into his bunk in his smoke-scented clothes and dreamed of his fire spirit.
May Day dawned overcast and drizzling. The bonfire had burned down to ashes, not even embers left behind. Still, the Dane insisted on watering it with the hose, which caused a further delay as he refilled the water tank. Emil prowled around outside the tank, watching for threats and biting his tongue so as not to complain.
By mid-morning, they set off along the road paralleling the river. Since the river had undercut the road in several places, they spent much of the day maneuvering through the forest to avoid washouts. Both road and river wound through the forest while the ley line ran straight, so they were often far from the line, setting the whole team on edge.
And it rained. It rained all day, and after they camped in the rain, it rained all night. Even the few trolls that arrived late in the third watch — Emil’s watch — seemed dispirited and wandered away, none remaining to shelter near the tank.
The next three days were chilly and dreary, alternating overcast and raining, and no one minded staying in the tank when they camped, so, as expected, there were no swarms at night. They kept moving, a dozen kilometers or so a day, still hoping for a castle or a lost village, anything to keep out the rain.
When the weather broke on the fourth day, with the team tired of salt pork, Sigrun and Emil set out to hunt deer. Or geese. Or anything but boars. Trees dripped on them and mud squelched under their feet as they slogged forward, stopping often to listen for movement. At first, all they heard was the twitter of birds and, far off, the tank creeping along the remains of the road.
Sigrun confessed to Emil later that the quiet of animals after the long rain had deceived her, and she’d missed that specific silence that meant a grossling lay in ambush nearby. Still, she stopped, holding up a hand to stop and silence him.
“Something’s —” she began, just before the giant lunged out of its burrow and charged at them, squealing as sunlight struck it through the foliage. “This way!” She turned and raced back the way they’d come, Emil close behind her. The eight-legged giant looked like an overgrown spider with a wolf-like head that drooled at the sight of them.
Wet fallen leaves and mud covered the ground. When Emil’s foot slid on that slippery mess, it went into a hollow between roots. He was running too fast; his foot was too tightly caught between the roots.
Crack! Agony!
With a strangled cry, Emil fell into the mud.
Sigrun glanced back at him once and swerved left. As she sprinted away, she shouted, “For Eide! For Eide! Come and get me, wolf-droppings!”
The giant roared and chased her. Two of its multi-jointed legs almost stepped on Emil as it passed.
When Emil tried to untangle his foot, he fell forward again, consciousness wavering. By the time his head cleared, Sigrun was scrambling up a massive oak tree that they’d seen on the way in. She still shouted threats and war cries at the giant, which crouched below, shrieking as several of its legs yanked at branches.
As Emil watched, blinking away tears of pain, Sigrun settled on a broad branch, high above the giant, and fired down. The monster screamed. She fired again. A branch broke off in the creature’s talons. It hammered the branch against the tree. Sigrun fired once more. With a final, near-human scream, the giant staggered back and collapsed.
Sigrun climbed down, stopping every meter or two to study the giant again. As she did so, Emil worked his rifle off his shoulder and into his hands, gasping at each movement. At least now he had some defense if something wandered over to investigate.
Once Sigrun reached the ground, and the giant remained motionless, she sprinted back to Emil’s side. “How bad?”
“I think my leg’s broken. It’s — it hurts. A lot. I can’t get up.”
Sigrun bit her lip, an uncertain action he’d never seen before on her face. “I might be able to drag you out of there and haul you back, but what that would do to your leg …” She looked around. “Most things aren’t going to come near when a giant’s been hunting. They won’t know it’s dead. Not yet.” She gripped the strap of her rifle with both hands. “The tank’s not far away. I can run get the medic.” Now she looked down at him. “Or I can try to move you myself. It’s risky either way.”
Emil closed his eyes for a moment. It was hard to think through the pain. But there’d been that one Cleanser who’d lost a leg to rough field treatment. “Get the medic,” he said, and didn’t open his eyes as she raced away.
With tiny movements and infinite pains, Emil crept sideways until his foot was freed from the roots. The world went black as the foot shifted. When vision returned, he pushed himself up on his elbows so he could look around for enemies.
Emil waited. Water dripped on his head, for his hood had slipped back. Birds that had fallen silent during the battle began tentative calls. Something rustled through the bushes, but it was moving away.
When the birds fell silent again and feet pounded through the wet leaves towards him, he let his eyes close and his head hang. They would have to deal with things from now on.
“Emil,” the medic said. “Do you hear me?”
He gave a weak nod.
“I’m going to have to knock you out so —”
“No.”
“So we can carry you without hurt—”
“No.”
“Please listen to me. I can’t — no one can — set a bone safely when the patient is conscious. Your own muscles will fight me, and I can’t get the bone in the right position. And it will hurt, Emil. It will hurt far more than what you feel now. So I can knock you out now, or I can do it later. But I must do it.”
Emil lifted his head with an effort and looked for Sigrun. To his surprise, Reynir stood close by the medic, holding their stretcher that had never been needed before. Sigrun stood a little away, her head turning without pause as she scanned for enemies. “Sigrun?”
“Let him, kid,” she said quietly. “It’s the best way.”
Emil let his head hang again. “Okay.”
The medic cut his sleeve with shears from his medical kit, swiped his forearm with something cold, and pressed the needle in.
The world went away.
He doesn’t trust me.
After three weeks, that still stung. Yet, how could Mikkel blame Emil? For distrusting him, for despising him, for even fearing him? Emil had every reason.
Mikkel waited for an answer. Tempted though he was to press Emil to consent to the sedative, he held back.
“Let him, kid,” Sigrun said. “It’s the best way.”
Emil hung his head with a sigh. “Okay.”
Mikkel cut his sleeve with shears, swiped his forearm with alcohol, and pressed the needle in. When Emil went limp, Mikkel ran a gentle hand down his lower leg to the boot. The tibia was broken, no doubt of it, but there was no blood. Good. He knew how to handle a compound fracture, but a simple fracture was easier on the patient.
Taking up the splint and bandages he’d brought, Mikkel immobilized Emil's broken leg as he’d been taught, then carefully shifted Emil onto the stretcher Reynir set out beside him. The two men lifted the stretcher and headed for the tank, Mikkel walking backwards and Reynir forwards, while Sigrun stayed close, rifle ready. But nothing troubled them, and soon they slid the stretcher into the tank and climbed in after it.
Tuuri hovered near the monitors, wringing her hands as the men moved Emil to his bunk, head towards the back so they could work on his left leg. “What do I do?”
“Stand by,” Mikkel said, kneeling by Emil’s bunk. “I need the tank to be stable for now.” He removed the splints and cut off Emil’s trousers, ignoring Reynir’s gasp as the younger man saw the broken bone jutting against the skin. “Reynir, put your hands here and here. Don’t let the bones move against each other. I’ve got to look at his ankle.”
The shears could not cut through Emil’s hiking boot, but they dealt with the laces in one snip. Mikkel eased the boot off with as little strain on the leg as he could manage. With one large hand wrapped lightly around the ankle joint, he moved Emil’s foot through its range of motion.
No sharp edges, no grinding, no obstructions or unnatural looseness. The boot had done its work: the ankle was uninjured. Mikkel gave a sigh of relief. A broken leg would heal. A broken ankle would never recover.
He put aside that thought. “All right. Tuuri, get a towel. We’ll use that for padding. And get those splints and bandages. I’ll need you to splint it when it’s ready. Reynir, hold here. Both hands. Hold tight; I’m going to pull hard.” After Tuuri readied the materials, he extended Emil’s foot towards him and pulled with one hand, slowly increasing the tension, while the other hand gently stroked the break.
A sharp ridge under skin and muscle. Nudge it in. Pull harder. Nudge again. And again.
Thunk
Mikkel’s sensitive fingers felt the bone end slip into its natural position. Still keeping tension on the leg, he slid his hand up and down the bone. Smooth. Continuous. And now the muscles slackened, no longer clenching themselves around the break.
“Now, Tuuri,” Mikkel said, and she hurried forward to pad the leg and splint it from above the knee all the way to the foot without waiting for instructions. “You’ve done this before?”
“No, no. It’s just people get hurt. I saw it, you know, back in Keuruu.”
“Let me check the circulation.” Mikkel felt Emil’s toes (warm), squeezed his foot and watched the skin whiten, then redden as blood rushed back in. “Good job. Good job, both of you. You can let go now, Reynir.”
All three released the patient and stepped back. Mikkel gave another sigh of relief, echoed by the other two. The bone was straight. Emil would walk again, in time. Reynir hurried to his cabinet and returned with two galdrastafur, one marked “Emil pain” and the other “Emil bone”. Mikkel allowed himself a small smile. “Do you have two of those for me?”
Reynir’s blush was answer enough as he pinned the papers to the towel.
“Right, then,” Sigrun said. Mikkel had almost forgotten she was there, so intent was he on reducing the fracture properly. “Let’s get moving before the scout comes back to see if we got lost.” She and Tuuri hurried forward, leaving the men together with their unconscious patient.
Mikkel swallowed. If only … But there was no help for it. “Emil is not happy with me.”
Reynir caught his braid and wound it around his arm. He knew already, then.
“That means he won’t want me to nurse him. And he’ll need nursing. Even with your magic, I expect it’ll be days before it’s safe even to let him get up.” How easily he spoke of magic these days.
“I’ll help! I’ll take care of him. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
The Icelander nodded, undeterred, as Mikkel told him exactly how to care for a bedbound patient.
Mikkel sat at Tuuri’s small desk, swaying without noticing as the tank pitched back and forth, left and right, on the rough road.
Too many variables. We still haven’t established the demon is after Tuuri alone. Maybe tonight she’ll stay inside with Emil.
I should have argued more about the tabard. Now we only know that her wearing my tabard didn’t work to prevent a swarm. Because the demon isn’t after her? Or because my tabard was made for me, not her? Or because tabards won’t work at all?
After his thoughts had run in this unproductive circle for more than an hour, there was a tap on the doorway.
“He’s awake,” Reynir said. “And his leg hurts a lot.” He tugged at his braid. “The magic isn’t working.”
“He’s not screaming in pain, so I think it is. It’s just not strong enough.” Mikkel got to his feet, reluctant to face his patient, yet determined to do his duty. Taking out the bottle of analgesic, he measured out a half-dose, poured it into a mug, added water, and offered it to Emil, now sitting propped up against the back wall. Mikkel supposed Reynir had helped him up.
Emil looked away from the offered mug. “I’m okay.”
“You’re in pain. Pain slows healing. This will —”
“How long?”
“How long before your leg heals? Under normal conditions, I would expect you to be bedfast for a couple of months, and take more months to fully recover.” Emil took a hard breath, and Mikkel continued. “But Reynir’s magic clearly works. At a guess, based on how fast my ribs healed, you’ll be bedfast for perhaps three weeks. Maybe less, if we can stay under the ley line, and if it improves the healing magic.” He offered the mug again. “Please take it.”
Without looking at him, Emil accepted the mug and drank. “Can you make two of these … galdrastafur?”
Reynir gulped and clutched at his braid. “I can, but it, it won’t work any better. I think. I have two galdrastafur to direct the trolls, you know, but they come just as close. It’s just the magic doesn’t break as fast. I think they — uh — they share the work?”
Emil handed the mug to Reynir. “Yeah, okay. Then who’s going to set the traps for when the magic breaks?”
I should have thought of that. Too busy worrying about … other things. Well. I’m too clumsy. Sigrun’s too slapdash. And Lalli … who knows what Lalli would do?
“Tuuri’s the mechanic,” Mikkel said. “You’ll have to teach her. Can you do it safely in here?”
“Of course! You think I’d set off a trap by accident?”
“No, no, of course not.” But whatever fragile link they’d formed had broken. Emil closed his eyes and folded his arms, wincing as that small movement transmitted itself to the wounded leg. With a resigned nod, Mikkel went forward to tell Tuuri her new duties.
Sigrun rearranged the watch schedule again to leave out Emil. Mikkel still had the back compartment, and she ordered him to enjoy it. Though he didn’t enjoy it, he did take it.
Lying awake in the darkened compartment, staring up at the roof, Mikkel said, “Rosli?”
A light flickered.
“Is Emil all right?”
yes
“Please wake me if he’s in pain. I think I gave him enough to keep him comfortable all night, but with the magic —”
ok
There was no need to explain the problems he had treating Emil as a patient. During one long night’s watch, he’d told her about Emil. About how his mistake, his confusion, had trapped the man in the Silent World. She had said, “Sorry.” And there was nothing more to say, was there? He wished he could visit her, talk to her face to face.
Mikkel’s eyes slid closed.
Mikkel stands in a wintry forest. Trackless snow blankets all around him and lies deep on fir trees, while icicles hang from leafless branches. A chill wind bites at his nose and cheeks, though his old winter uniform otherwise protects him from the worst of the cold. For a moment, he believes this is a nightmare of Kastrup. Yet nothing moves in this strange forest.
“Rosli?” he ventures. Surely this can’t be her haven, where it is summer, and where he always appears inside the tank. But if it is not her haven …
“I’ve seen this before,” he says, and the forest swallows his words. His boots crunch the icy crust atop the ankle-deep snow as he turns in place. Where is the tank and the dog? More than that, where is the bull?
Thump
Mikkel jerks around at the sound. Snow falling from an overloaded branch. “Bull?” He turns in place once more and sees a path through the snow. Beaten by his feet? By the bull’s hooves? Or by something else?
With another look around, he strides to the path and follows it. When he hears a rhythmic booming ahead, the sound of waves crashing against rocks, he breaks into a trot. Soon, he finds himself at a low, rocky cliff overlooking the misty sea. Salt spray erupts with each wave. He looks up and, as expected, a dragon soars high above. Though it has not seen him yet, he retreats to walk along the edge of the trees.
The land slants down to form a broad, sloping, sandy beach over which waves sweep and return. He pauses and squints into the mist. Out there, just visible, is an island with a narrow sandy beach beneath a low cliff topped by grass.
Mikkel studies the island. Not Rosli’s, he thinks, as hers is wooded. Can he reach it? He can’t swim, and even if he could, he remembers the tentacle that reached out of the waves to snatch a dragon.
Whuffle.
Mikkel jumps, turns to face the bull. Too many thoughts pass through his mind; he can’t articulate any of them.
The bull regards him in silence.
“Do you remember?” Mikkel asks at last.
“I do not remember what you have forgotten.”
Mikkel’s shoulders slump. “So you are just part of me.”
“Not so. I am myself and you are yourself. But I know your world through you.”
Mikkel looks away, back at the island. “What is that? Someone else’s haven?”
“I do not know. I have never seen it before.”
“Islands just appear here?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you know about the demon? The one that’s chasing us. Is there anything we can do about it?”
“It is old. It is evil. And it is powerful. It must have a weakness; all demons do. But I do not know it.” The bull looks at him with deep, ageless eyes. “Go south, Mikkel. Something is there. I smell it.”
“Go south, Mikkel.”
Mikkel gazed at the forest jerking past them as the tank worked its way south, regardless of the bull’s advice or Mikkel’s desires. When he had stood behind the passengers’ bench, Sigrun had ordered him to sit beside her since, regardless of his current status, there were just three of them riding in front.
I’d rather go north. Find our way across the canal somehow — the north bank must have collapsed somewhere — go north, flag down a ship somehow, and send Emil home. Except Tuuri can’t go home; she’d face lifelong quarantine.
He looked past Sigrun to Tuuri.
Half a year ago, this would have been her dream, travelling south into lands no human has seen since the Catastrophe. But now, with everything that’s gone wrong, it’s turned into a nightmare for all of us.
“Mikkel?” Reynir said from behind him. “He says the pain is back. It’s not as bad as yesterday, though.”
“Give him a quarter-dose. If the pain is still severe in an hour, give him another quarter-dose.”
That morning, Mikkel had shown Reynir how to measure and mix the analgesic, not a challenging task that would require a medic’s attention. Checking the splint, tightening it where the swelling had gone down, feeling Emil’s foot and toes for proper circulation: Mikkel had carried out those tasks while Emil lay with his eyes closed and his jaw tight.
“You still think three weeks?” Sigrun asked.
“I can’t guarantee it, but that seems a reasonable estimate. The ley line might strengthen the healing magic. Or not.” He shrugged. He didn’t say that the pain and swelling were improving even faster than he’d expected. No sense getting anyone’s hopes up.
Silence fell in the tank again.
“Something is there.”
They’d parked by a stream so Mikkel could fix lunch outside, giving Reynir and Emil privacy to deal with necessities. As he stirred pork and greens, Mikkel scanned the endless forest. Looking for enemies, of course, though Sigrun, prowling around with her hand on her dagger, and Missekat, whom Tuuri held on her leash, would spot them sooner.
Would they spot “something”? What is it? Something beneficial, surely, or the bull wouldn’t have told me to go that way. But what if he doesn’t know? He didn’t know about the island, after all.
The stream chuckled past him and the wind whispered among young leaves. They had no answers for Mikkel.
Reynir was cheerful as ever as he came to claim two plates. “He’s feeling better,” he reported. “I didn’t have to give him another dose.”
“Good. Your magic is working well, and the ley line must be helping.”
As Reynir took his and Emil’s lunch to the tank, Tuuri came to stand by Mikkel. She still wore his tabard, though they both doubted its usefulness.
“Do you think the ley line might be the problem? For me, I mean?”
“How so?”
“You said I give off a, a signal. Maybe the ley line strengthens it, and that’s why the tabard doesn’t work.”
Mikkel ladled pork and greens into a plate for her. “Maybe. There are too many variables. Time spent outside, the tabard, the ley line … The demon might not even be after you. We haven’t proved that yet.”
She dropped a bit of pork on the ground for Missekat. “I’m sure of it. And I know Sigrun thinks we can stand off the demon if we have a castle, but I don’t think so …”
“We don’t have to decide anything right now. Keep thinking about the galdrastafur. Maybe there’s some way to use them that we haven’t thought of yet.”
“Yeah.” She and Missekat moved to a fallen log to eat.
“I smell it.”
The tank filtered the air; no scent from outside could reach him. Or could it? Months before, Emil had smelled smoke from an accidental fire outside the tank. Mikkel breathed deep through his nose. Nothing new, just the usual odors of cooking, cleaning, people, a cat.
What does a demon smell like to a spirit bull? What does a demon’s weakness smell like to a spirit bull? Would I smell it even without the filters? How can I hope to find this “something”?
Mikkel looked out the side window, avoiding Sigrun’s attention.
Ask Tuuri to ask Lalli to watch for … for what? He must already be watching for anything that might protect her from the demon.
Mikkel sighed. All he could do was wait and hope the bull gave him a little more guidance.
That evening, once Mikkel had checked Emil’s splint and the circulation of his foot, he took the first watch early, eating his supper standing up. It was Sigrun’s night in the back compartment, and on her way out, she gave Emil an awkward pat on the head rather than her usual thump on the shoulder. Mikkel smiled a little at that, turning his head so his reluctant patient would not see.
After Tuuri and Reynir cleared the table and washed the dishes, they spread out Reynir’s sample galdrastafur drawings and Tuuri’s motifs. While he watched the monitors, Mikkel listened to their conversation.
“You really don’t remember any others?”
“No, I, I didn’t pay much attention, you know? There were a few carvings, and then I saw the one for frostbite. I remember that especially, but —”
“How do your people come up with them?” Tuuri waved at the papers. “I mean, I feel like there’s a kind of language here. Those center motifs must mean something. And there’s — Hold it. Your people have a galdrastafur for deflecting trolls? But you don’t have trolls.”
“Oh, no, we don’t.” Reynir fumbled through the papers and pulled out one. “I just … there’s supposed to be a curve here, but that didn’t feel right. That’s why I put that jagged line for trolls. I didn’t know if it would work.”
Tuuri sat back and glanced at Mikkel. “So you can make new ones with new effects,” she said.
“Yes? I tried before.” Reynir gave Emil a guilty look. “I wanted to make one for cooling, in case, uh, someone got burned again. I tried to reverse the frostbite one, but it didn’t work.”
“How do you know?” Emil asked, lying on his bunk with his eyes closed.
“It felt like, uh, just paper. The ones that work feel different. Warm, sort of.”
Mikkel scanned the monitors before turning to join the discussion. “How scared were you when you tried that?”
“Oh …” Reynir blushed. “Yeah. I didn’t know about that then. And I hadn’t thought of it since.” He returned the troll-deflecting paper to the table without looking at anyone. “I guess it’s good nobody’s gotten burned.”
“If someone had, I’m sure you would make one in a hurry,” Mikkel said.
“I’ll try this evening. I’ve got second watch. The swarm probably won’t come until … until …”
“What?” asked the other three together.
Reynir picked up the paper he’d just set down and stared at it. “This deflects trolls.”
No one answered. Tuuri crossed her fingers.
“If you reversed it, it would attract them.”
“Yes,” Mikkel said when the silence hung too long.
“Why would you want to?” Emil asked.
Tuuri sat up straight, eyes shining. “Because it would be a decoy. Even a lure, to lead them into a trap. Wouldn’t it?”
Reynir set down the paper, and faced her alone. “Yes.” He gulped audibly. “I don’t think I’d better try it tonight. I mean, what if it drew them in? But maybe tomorrow, if there’s a good rock or, or a ruin or something …”
Tuuri reached across to squeeze his forearm, and the monitors required Mikkel’s complete attention.
The usual swarm arrived early in Tuuri’s watch, she reported in the morning, but Reynir’s troll-deflecting magic kept most of them away. Only three remained sheltering nearby, and Sigrun and Lalli dealt with them at dawn. While Mikkel cooked venison bacon, Reynir crawled out of his bunk and fetched a small sheaf of papers from Tuuri’s office.
“I made some for cooling,” he said with shy glances at the others, including Sigrun and Lalli. “Double for Emil.”
Mikkel gave him a small smile. For once, Reynir hadn’t made extra for him. Despite his accident-prone nature, he hadn’t suffered any burns, while Emil had been burned twice.
“Good man,” Sigrun said, but she was more interested in holding her plate out for bacon.
Once they set forth, Mikkel sat in the front as before, this time watching for any smooth, clear piece of asphalt that Reynir could draw on. Two hours passed before he straightened up. “Stop here, Tuuri. This looks good for our … experiment.”
“Good time for a break, too,” Sigrun said as Tuuri brought the tank to a halt. Lalli was off scouting and Emil bedbound, leaving the other four to climb out and look around. “Short stuff, get back in and watch the monitors,” Sigrun ordered. “I don’t like all these bushes. Braidy, get your stuff and do your magic. Fast. Before something turns up.”
Tuuri and Reynir climbed in together, and Reynir returned alone with his brush and crude paint, and with Missekat on her leash.
“Big guy, you stay close to him. Be ready to take him back if I yell. Or our girl does.” Sigrun placed herself between the nearest bushes and Reynir as he knelt and began drawing on the tilted, faded slab with trembling hands.
“We’ll run for the tank as soon as you finish,” Mikkel said. “In case it works, and there are trolls nearby for it to lure.” He smiled down at Reynir’s bowed head for a moment before scanning around. Though he didn’t believe there was any threat, he wouldn’t take risks with a non-immune.
Hiss!
Mikkel moved without hesitation, catching Reynir’s wrist and running for the open door of the tank, Missekat racing alongside them. Reynir threw himself in, Mikkel tossed Missekat in after him before scrambling in as well, and Sigrun followed, yanking the door shut.
“What?” Sigrun asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything on the monitors.”
Reynir stared at the cat with wide eyes. “I didn’t finish.”
“We can try again later,” Sigrun said. “Short stuff, let’s get moving. Something’s out there, and there’s just three of us to deal with it.”
Tuuri darted to the driver’s seat and pushed the tank to its best speed while Sigrun, Mikkel, and Reynir crowded close to the monitors.
“Do you see anything?” Emil called, thumping his fists on his bunk.
Sigrun pointed. “There. See it?”
“It’s big,” Mikkel said. “A giant out in broad daylight?” He watched it move. “No, not big enough for a giant. But … odd.”
Reynir rubbed his wrist where Mikkel had grabbed him. “How — how odd?”
Mikkel touched the controls to direct the video feed. “It looks like a bull.” Is he here? Are we running from the one being that might help us?
“Never saw a bull that big before,” Sigrun said. “Not with horns like that either.”
Reynir leaned close to the monitor. “There’s another one behind it. See it through the trees?”
“Beasts, I guess,” Sigrun said. “Too bad. If they were real cattle, we could have beef.” She licked her lips as if remembering the taste.
Some of the tension went out of Mikkel as the creatures were left behind. “Your galdrastafur. Will it do any harm, unfinished like that?”
“No, I, I don’t think so. It’s just a drawing.”
“Okay. I’ll watch for another spot.”
But Mikkel didn’t see another good spot all that day, and a swarm turned up that night as usual.
Near noon of the next day, Lalli waved the tank to a stop in a parking lot, frost-heaved and overgrown, beside a half-collapsed warehouse. Mikkel glanced at Tuuri, wondering at this unusual behavior. She seemed unsurprised, following her cousin’s gestures to park near the ruins. Once the tank was stationary and almost level, she turned to the others with a smile.
“I asked him to find some steel doors in good shape. They must be in there.”
Mikkel looked at Sigrun. Sigrun looked at Mikkel. “Why do we want steel doors?” the captain asked.
“I’m going to make a ramp for Emil. Or anybody that gets hurt.” Tuuri’s hands outlined the ramp as she talked. “We’ll fasten two doors end to end with a simple bracket, so we can take them apart and put them in the back compartment. They’ll slide right in. And two people can walk down, you know, so Reynir can help Emil. Or anybody.”
Mikkel turned to regard the ruin. Much of the roof seemed intact in back, though the front had collapsed into heaps of brick and glass shards. Painted steel doors in the back, protected from the weather, could be in good shape. He sighed. He would be the one to carry each door out of that mess; Sigrun would guard him, and Reynir couldn’t be risked. They allowed him to help move Emil, but that had been a matter of life and death. This wasn’t.
“Right,” he said. “I suppose Lalli found a safe way in. I’ll fetch a couple of doors.” He stared at the ruin. “If I can, I’ll get some extras. Reynir can draw his decoys on them.”
“Great!” Mikkel hid a smile at Tuuri’s enthusiasm. The decoys were Reynir’s idea, but Tuuri had prompted it, and she seemed quite proprietary about it. And quite proprietary about Reynir, come to that.
Leaving Tuuri and Reynir to fix lunch and care for Emil, Mikkel carried Tuuri’s toolkit, and he and Sigrun headed for the ruin. Lalli stood watching until they came within a few meters, then led them through and over the debris. Despite Mikkel’s worries for their feet, the trail stayed on fallen brickwork, avoiding the abundant glass shards.
Soon, they were within what had been a store in the front of the warehouse. Bushes had taken root where they could, and vines crept up collapsing walls. Small creatures scurried through the debris, but Lalli ignored them. Mikkel did the same, though his skin crawled at their presence. The scout threaded his way around collapsed racks and fallen roof beams to a dimly lit, less ruined section that had once featured offices. There, he stopped and waved at the doors, some hanging half open on rusty hinges, and others fallen to the floor.
Mikkel looked over the doors, choosing one that had already fallen but looked to be in good shape. Leaving the toolkit on the floor, he lifted one end of the door and worked his hands down until he could grip the sides at their midpoints. It was heavy; most men would have struggled with it. Mikkel did not. With Lalli leading and Sigrun trailing, he edged his way sideways through the wreckage of the warehouse. The edges dug into his hands, though they weren’t sharp enough to cut through his gloves.
At length, with a gasp of relief, he found himself in the parking lot. Footing was treacherous there, too, but at least there was nothing overhead that the door might catch on. He leaned the door against the tank, flexed his hands, and gestured to Lalli to lead the way back.
The second door caught on a lintel he’d avoided the first time, and he staggered, dropping the door to fall against the doorframe with a disturbingly loud crack.
“Okay?” Sigrun asked, her voice hushed.
“Yes.” He got a grip on the door, angled it carefully, and followed Lalli out of the warehouse and back to the tank. Setting the door beside the first, he turned back to the warehouse.
“Whoa. Two’s enough.”
“I can carry —”
“Yeah, I know. But it’d be too easy to get hurt in there, carrying those doors, and we can’t have you and Blondy both laid up.”
“I have to go back. I left Tuuri’s toolkit, and she’ll kill me if I don’t retrieve it.” He started for the warehouse and stopped. “Lalli.” He beckoned the scout to follow as he climbed into the tank, with the welcoming smells of pork and garlic. “Tuuri, please ask him to find cabinet doors for me.”
After a brief Finnish conversation, Lalli led the way back to the warehouse with Mikkel and Sigrun trailing after him. This time, the toolkit was needed as they entered one of the small, windowless offices with its missing door and its desk covered with mildewed papers. The three ignored that sight, focused as they were on the four cabinets along one wall. Mikkel unscrewed the hinges of the steel doors, stacked them, and carried them out. As the doors were not large, perhaps a meter by a half-meter, and not heavy, he had no difficulty with them. Sigrun scooped up the toolkit as Lalli led the way back to the tank.
“Lunch first,” Sigrun said as she climbed in and handed the toolkit to Tuuri. The mechanic gave an exaggerated sigh, set the toolkit by the door, and took a seat by the table.
Reluctant though he was to force interaction, Mikkel turned to Emil. “You may try to sit up, if you like. Don’t let that foot touch the floor. Just slide it over and let it stick straight out while you push yourself up.” As Emil complied without answering, Mikkel unfolded the stepladder and slipped it under the splinted leg. Reynir hurried to hand Emil a plate and utensils to hold in his lap, while Mikkel took a seat at the table. No one spoke as the others ate quickly with their heads down.
After lunch, Emil worked his way back to a lying position, and Mikkel stowed the stepladder. Much as he was tempted to place the pillow for Emil and straighten his rumpled blankets, he backed off and joined Sigrun, Tuuri, and Lalli outside. Reynir could help Emil; Mikkel could not.
Tuuri hummed a jaunty tune in between directing Mikkel to move the doors around and drill “here, here, and right there. No, there.” By mid-afternoon, she had attached brackets and handles to the doors, and called Reynir out to help Mikkel load the doors into the back compartment. With everything stowed, she wiped her hands with great satisfaction and led the way inside. Soon, they were on the road again.
The tank jolted around too much for Reynir to paint, so the cabinet doors lay untouched into the evening. And when they stopped, having put as much space as possible between their campsite and the warehouse, he unfolded the stepladder and renewed his galdrastafur on the roofs of the main and back compartments. Exhausted, he skipped supper, stretching up on the bedrolls in the back compartment for the night, while Mikkel returned to the front compartment.
Mikkel had the third watch. The swarm was larger than usual, but the renewed galdrastafur deflected all but a half-dozen that lurked near the tank.
In the morning, after Lalli and Sigrun dealt with the lurking trolls and Tuuri disarmed and collected the traps, Mikkel went for Reynir in the back compartment. “We had a lot of trolls last night,” he observed as Reynir yawned and stretched.
“Did — did you have to fight?” The younger man reached up, his hand almost touching the design painted in tallow and ash on the roof. “But the magic didn’t break.” He gave Mikkel a puzzled look.
“No, it held. We had a crowd sheltering around us this morning, though. Sigrun and Lalli had a lot to do before Tuuri could come out. Maybe just because of that long stop at the warehouse.” He left a calculated pause. “Or maybe because this area was more populated, so the demon summons more.”
Reynir bit his lip. “I, I thought about the decoys last night. The galdrastafur are just drawings until I —” He waved a hand helplessly. “Until I make them.”
“And that happens when you finish them?”
“Yes! And so, I think I can start them, you know, inside, since you got those doors. I could even finish one inside, and you could take it out and leave it somewhere. Right?”
Mikkel allowed a smile. “Right. Let’s go, then.” As they made their way around the tank to the front, he added, “You can help Emil stand a couple of times today. Stand on one foot, that is; don’t let the broken leg bear any weight. He can hop a little with your help, if that doesn’t cause too much pain.”
As Reynir enthusiastically agreed, Mikkel thought the medics at Öresund base would be horrified that he was allowing the patient out of bed just four days after the injury. But the swelling and pain had decreased far faster than those medics had ever seen. And, if he were very honest with himself, Mikkel didn’t want Emil to feel he was under Mikkel’s care a moment longer than was truly necessary.
When they stopped for lunch, Mikkel and Tuuri cooked, leaving Reynir free to paint on the cabinet doors. Mikkel glanced at him now and then, trying not to be obvious about it. The four galdrastafur were incomplete when Reynir leaned the doors against the cabinets and went to work setting the table. Emil sat up on his bunk for the meal, his foot propped on the stepladder.
After lunch, Reynir pulled out one door, completed the galdrastafur, and picked up the door as if it were one of Emil’s explosives. “Mikkel.” He swallowed. “Here it is. Take it away.” As Mikkel accepted the door, careful not to smudge the paint, Reynir helped Emil to lie down on his bunk.
Mikkel carried the door a few meters into the woods and laid it on ferns and wildflowers. After a moment, he reconsidered, picked it up, and propped it against a tree, hoping to protect the paint from rain. That done, he scanned the shadowy forest, where nothing moved, and trotted back to the tank. Tuuri drove away as soon as he dropped onto the passengers’ seat.
“Think it’ll work?” Sigrun asked.
Mikkel shrugged. “The normal version certainly deflects trolls. Whether the reversed version works … I suppose we’ll find out tonight.”
“It’ll work,” Tuuri said, and Mikkel allowed himself a smile at her confidence.
Silence fell but for the cracking of branches and grinding of remnant asphalt under the treads.
They camped for the night in the usual sort of campsite: an old parking lot by a small ruin. If there had been grosslings in that ruin, there were none still alive by the time the tank arrived. Lalli was always thorough. As Tuuri left to lay out traps with her three immune guards, Reynir invited Emil to hop around a little. Mikkel hoped that would help Emil’s mood. Lying around wounded and helpless while others worked preyed on a man’s mind, making him wonder if he had any value at all.
And that led to another thought. The sponsors had provided a stretcher, but not crutches. The decision had made sense, of course, for a three-week expedition. If anyone was injured, the others would carry him or her back to the tank on the stretcher and make a beeline for Öresund base, where proper medical care, including crutches, would be available. But now Öresund base was more than five months behind them.
Mikkel sighed and added “Find materials for crutches” to his mental list. Escorting Tuuri back to the tank with Sigrun, however, he reconsidered. “Isn’t there a town near here? Off to the west a few kilometers?”
Tuuri tilted her head back as if the answer might be written in the sky. “Yeah, pretty sure.”
“Big enough for a hospital, or at least a clinic? We need crutches. In fact, I’d like to raid a clinic for anything we can find. Bandages, splints … anything.”
“Good idea,” Sigrun said, and so after supper, the plan was made to leave the ley line and venture west if Lalli could find a clinic.
“Rosli?” Mikkel said that night as he lay in the darkness of the back compartment.
A light flickered.
“Please wake me if a swarm comes.”
others?
“They won’t wake me for a small swarm. I won’t know until morning.”
ok
“Is it still summer in your haven?”
yes
“I went … somewhere … last time I was here.” That didn’t make sense, but she would understand. “It was winter there.”
yours
“That’s my guess, too.” What did a haven’s weather mean? “My bull was there. And an island close enough to see. It looked grassy, so I don’t think it was yours. Are there any islands near yours?”
will look
Mikkel closed his eyes against the darkness, hoping the bull would give him a few more hints.
Mikkel’s sleep was troubled. Several times, he woke and stared into the darkness until his eyes burned. Was Rosli still walking around her haven, looking for stray islands? How big was her haven, anyway? Had a swarm arrived while she was busy?
He joined the others in the main compartment before dawn, so early that Tuuri and Reynir were still asleep. Or so he thought.
“Anything?” he asked Sigrun, who still stood watch.
“Nothing. No swarm at all.”
“It worked,” Reynir whispered, sitting up in his bunk. “It really did.”
Mikkel turned, meaning to explain that they couldn’t be sure with only one demonstration. But was it better to discourage him, or to wait, test again, and confirm? Mikkel gave the young man a quick smile, probably lost in the dimness of the tank. “We’ll try again today,” he murmured. “And I’ll try to find some more pieces for you to draw on.”
When Tuuri woke up and heard the news, she went into her little office and closed the door. When she came out for breakfast, her eyes were suspiciously red, but she beamed at everyone. Especially Reynir. Mikkel expressed no doubts to her, either. She was almost as scientifically minded as he was, and she’d soon realize on her own the risk that this result was a fluke. No need to spoil these moments of relief.
And, after all, it might not be a fluke.
After breakfast, leaving the safety of the ley line was unnerving. Mikkel didn’t feel any effects from it, but he’d known it was there, known it was boosting the effects of Reynir’s magic, for days. And they weren’t going south. Did it matter? How far south was he supposed to go?
The bull’s advice was both troubling and useless to the point that he took Reynir aside after breakfast and asked him to try to reach his haven overnight and ask his dog if he had any idea where they should go. Enthusiastic as always, the Icelander promised to try.
The clinic must have been in a bad neighborhood. The brick building, only a few blocks off the main road, had heavy glass windows protected by steel shutters. Even after most of a century, it had withstood the elements with little damage. Its door did not withstand Mikkel and his crowbar for long.
There were vermin inside, of course. There always were, no matter how well the place was sealed. Still, only natural odors assailed Mikkel and Sigrun’s sensitive noses, not the stench of vermin beasts. Small feet pattered away as Mikkel made a methodical search of a clinic where everything had been stowed and tidied up as the world ended. He approved of the long-dead staff.
Though all of the medications had congealed, crystallized, or rotted away, he discovered bandages, syringes, three sets of aluminum crutches in three sizes, other useful odds and ends, and even tongue depressors. In a little over an hour, he’d gathered everything he could use, including several buckets, a wide broom, and a mop. Sigrun snickered at the cleaning supplies. He ignored her.
After delivering his booty, Mikkel borrowed Tuuri’s toolkit and returned to take half a dozen cabinet doors off their hinges and carry them to the tank for Reynir. If the decoys worked … well, they’d still have to move, since the magic would wear off as it attracted trolls. But the dangers of their journey would be markedly reduced without Tuuri having to confine herself to the tank. Or worse.
Tuuri and Reynir had fixed lunch while Mikkel and Sigrun worked. After a good — and celebratory — meal, Reynir took out one of his almost-finished decoys, painted a few more strokes, and passed it to Mikkel as if it might bite one of them. Mikkel left it in the middle of the ransacked clinic and slammed his shoulder into the door until it was jammed shut as tightly as he could manage. As soon as he returned to the tank, Tuuri swung it around and headed back to the ley line.
Lalli had run ahead, as always, leaving signs to guide Tuuri through detours. The sight of him sprinting back to the tank, therefore, brought everyone to their feet, snatching up weapons. Tuuri swiveled the tank to put the door before him; Mikkel threw open the door as he approached and leapt back out of the way. The scout was already talking as he climbed in.
“Another one,” Tuuri whispered. “He found another lost village. They’re alive. And they’re right on the ley line.”
“Onni! Onni! What are you doing? You're supposed to be resting.” At the shrill shouts, Onni and Birna turned from the railing to see the children racing down the hill, their faces anxious.
“These are my keepers,” Onni said with a sigh when the triplets skidded to a halt before him. Staying in Icelandic for Birna’s sake, he gestured to them one by one. “Anna, Sune, and Håkan. And this is Birna. She's going to travel with us.”
Anna stared at him, silent, but with betrayal written across her face.
Håkan likewise stared for a moment, then shrugged and looked out at the port. “Yeah,” he said, resigned.
Sune glared at Onni. “This isn't the plan.” He bit off the last word.
Onni looked from one child to the next. “She’s not — I don’t —”
“I'm Birna Embludóttir. I’m a seer,” Birna said. “Not one of the great seers, but I do get visions.” She waved a hand to the south. “There's something there that I need to find. And you need to find —” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “You need to find the expedition. We can combine —”
“We’re going with Onni,” Sune said harshly. “A seer told us where to find him, and we did. And we’re going south with him.”
Birna nodded. “I don’t mean to get in your way.”
Onni looked past the triplets, up the hill to the inn. They were right; he should be resting, not coping with wandering seers and hurt and angry children. Pushing himself off the railing behind him, he trudged forward, his knees already shaky, and the hill and staircase still before him.
“Håkan! Sune!” Anna said. “Help him.”
Onni had made it three more steps before the boys came to his sides. For the past month, ever since they’d begun that terrible trek from Joensuu to Väinö Väänänen’s base, the children had rushed to help him when he struggled, but now they hesitated. For a moment, he thought he should endure their anger, leave them here in safety, and go on to search for his family with this seer.
And yet.
And yet these children had risked their lives for him and had saved his life. Twice. All they asked in exchange was to join him in searching for his family so they could find their cousin. If it came down to cases, he owed them, and he did not owe this stranger.
“We’ll go on,” Onni said, as his abused lungs struggled for breath. “Find a ship. Find Emil. Nothing’s changed. In the plan.”
They were halfway up the hill when Sune said sullenly, “We found a ship.”
“The only people who’d even talk about the Silent World,” Anna said.
“And they wouldn’t let us hire them because we’re children,” Håkan said from Onni’s other side.
“You found a ship? Already?” Onni had thought the children were exploring the city of Rønne while he rested. Or while he was supposed to rest, at least.
“If there’s only one ship,” Birna said quietly from where she walked a little apart from them, “then you must have it. Your need is greater than mine.”
Onni glanced at her. She was a seer, and she thought their chance meeting was important. But if the children refused to have her along …
No one spoke further as they climbed the hill. At the top, the boys helped Onni to a weathered wooden bench while Anna ran into the inn for water. Birna entered the inn behind her and did not return when the girl ran out with a stoneware mug. The healer had warned that Onni would be thirsty for weeks as he recovered from pneumonia, and the children had taken the warning to heart. Wherever Onni was, a mug of water would soon appear at his elbow.
“Tell me about the ship,” Onni said, once he’d caught his breath and drunk half the water.
“It’s an old yacht,” Sune answered with less than his usual enthusiasm. “Pretty big. Thirteen meters, they said. They’re fisherfolk, but if we pay upfront, they’ll clean up the hold and put in some beds for us.”
“Do they know we don’t know where we’re going?”
Håkan kicked at a pebble, not looking at Onni. “We said we wanted to explore.”
“And that it could be months?”
Sune shrugged. “Yeah, we said that. They said it was okay as long as we made it back before winter.”
Onni finished the water. “It’s strange they’re willing to sail off with strangers for months. It may be all right, but there could be something … bad about them.” He could think of a lot of “bad” things about the crew, none of which he wanted to discuss with the eleven-year-old triplets.
“They want to explore too,” Anna said, taking the mug and holding it on her knee. “The woman —”
“Gerda,” Håkan said.
“Gerda said they heard all about the expedition —”
“Did you tell them we were going to look for the expedition?” Onni asked, alarmed.
“’Course not,” Sune said. “She just started talking about it, and they wished they could have gone, and going with us would be like that.”
Anna bounced the mug on her knee. “The ship’s big enough for all of us. I mean, us and Emil and all. We could fit in the seer, couldn’t we?”
Onni kept eagerness out of his voice. “She may be useful. And if a seer thinks she should come with us, she probably should.”
Sune shot a glance across Onni at Håkan. “Maybe she can tell us where Emil is.”
“Maybe,” Håkan answered, but there was no conviction in his voice.
Anna jumped to her feet. “I’ll get you some more water.” She darted away into the inn. Onni was not surprised that Birna followed Anna as she returned with a mug of water. Accepting the mug, he turned to watch Sune, who grimaced and looked at his feet.
“There’s room for you on the ship,” Sune said at length.
The seer smiled at him. “Thank you. I’ll do what I can to help. If you’ll take me to the ship, perhaps I can make arrangements so we can get going.”
“Go on, Sune,” Anna said. “We’ll take care of Onni.” She gave Onni a stern look. “We’ll make him rest.”
The boy regarded Birna with narrowed eyes, glanced at Onni, shrugged, and trotted away. Birna gave Onni a quick grin before following.
Onni leaned back and closed his eyes, already considering supplies and maps and the vagaries of late spring weather. But they had a ship, and soon, as soon as it could be cleaned and supplied, he would finally be on his way.
Tuuri was far away in the Silent World, facing unknown dangers, but Onni would find her and bring her back safe.
“The village is inside a castle,” Tuuri continued, wringing her hands as she spoke. “It’s on a hill, right under the ley line, and there’s a dead town below it. The road doesn’t run right to the castle. It veers off and goes around the hill.”
There was none of the mixture of relief and joy that had greeted news of the first lost village. Mikkel noted the reactions while he considered their next move. After translating for Lalli, Tuuri ducked her head and murmured to him, not looking at the others. Sigrun slung her rifle as she looked from one team member to another, while Reynir watched Tuuri with anxious eyes. Mikkel didn’t turn to look at Emil.
Sigrun spoke first. “We don’t want to end up shooting them.” Though Mikkel approved of that attitude, he was surprised to hear it from her. Her gaze swept the team still standing close to the door. “Our girl had the right instinct: lead them into the trolls hanging around the campsite. We’ll do that again. Camp out of sight of the village. Be ready to run for it.”
“Good thought,” Mikkel said. “But we have a problem.”
“The decoy,” Tuuri said, looking up at him.
“Exactly.” Mikkel gave her a small smile. “If it works, it’ll draw away tonight’s swarm, and we may not get any trolls at the campsite.” He looked at Sigrun. “I’ll go get it. Lalli can guard me.”
Sigrun opened her mouth, looked around, closed it again. “No. You’re not fast enough. It might be dark before you get back. And you’d have to find the campsite.”
“Lalli can fetch it alone,” Tuuri said.
Mikkel shook his head. “He’s not strong enough to open the door. Nor are you, Sigrun. I forced it shut to make the trolls work for it.” Tuuri shot a glance at Lalli but didn’t translate Mikkel’s words.
Sigrun crossed her arms. “So, we all go back for the thing, or we leave it be, and wait another day to hit the village.”
Since he’d raised the objection, it seemed she expected him to answer. “I don’t think we should all go back. If we backtrack, we won’t get far enough today. That’s all right if the decoy draws the trolls off, but if not …” He shrugged.
Sigrun looked from him to Tuuri and past him to Emil. “Right, then.” Her expression was intent, as always when she made plans. “So here’s what we’ll do. Short stuff, tell your cousin to find a good campsite around here. We’ll stop early. Cook outside, all that stuff. You, too. Show the demon where we are. Tomorrow, we have a rest day while the scout finds another campsite and a place to leave a decoy. Near enough to the village we can run for it if they attack. Not too close to our campsite. Can he do all that?”
After almost half a year of travelling with Lalli, Mikkel had learned to read his body language. As Tuuri explained the plan to him, the scout squared his shoulders, radiating confidence, so when Tuuri reported that he would have no trouble scouting as ordered, Mikkel wasn’t surprised at all.
Lalli found a campsite kilometers northwest of the village, far enough away that the villagers should not smell smoke. By building a campfire behind the tank and using some of the remaining well-aged wood from the outpost, Mikkel hoped to conceal the flame and minimize the smoke. The campsite was off the ley line, since they would move a short distance the next day, thus needing the line to boost their magical defenses if the decoy didn’t work.
Since they’d stopped early, Sigrun took Lalli with her to hunt for deer or rabbits with bows and arrows, leaving Mikkel and Tuuri to protect the tank. On his own initiative, Reynir helped Emil into a chair near the door. With his foot propped on the stepladder, the leashed cat in his lap, and the door open, Emil could both enjoy the outdoors and watch the monitors, and with his rifle leaning against his chair, he was also ready to shoot anything that might approach the tank from that side.
“Are you making notes of his recovery?” Mikkel asked Tuuri in a low voice as he stirred pork in the frying pan.
“Sure. People ought to know how well this magic works.” Tuuri grinned. “Your people. They can’t deny magic is real, can they, when you get over cracked ribs in two weeks and him — how should he be right now?”
“Ordinarily, I would be weaning him off the heavy painkillers about now. But he never had a full dose, and we quit giving him any after two days. All he’s had since is Reynir’s magic.” Mikkel glanced back at Emil in his chair. “The break is beginning to knit, much earlier than anyone would expect.” Every morning and evening, he adopted his medic persona to check the splint and feel the leg for signs of healing while the patient answered his brief questions and comments with monosyllables.
“Good.” Tuuri gave a satisfied smile. “I’ll write that.” She scanned the surroundings as she absently stroked Mikkel’s tabard which she wore. “I’ve been thinking about the motifs.”
“Hmm?” He transferred pork to a plate and added more to the pan.
“That center motif on the healing galdrastafur is also on the good-health one.”
“So it’s related to health?”
“Well, maybe. But I’ve started to wonder …” She ran her fingers over the knitted anti-ghost pattern on the front of the tabard. “This motif is used for anti-ghost and troll-deflecting and strengthening the roof. They’re not much alike. But Reynir says they’re carved on buildings, and he painted them on the tank. So if this is like a, a language, what if this motif means something like ‘structure’?”
Mikkel turned strips of pork in the pan. “That makes sense. And the healing motif?”
“What if it really means ‘person’?”
He stared past her, mentally comparing galdrastafur. “Bone-knitting and roof-strengthening have different centers. But that common motif has a difference also.”
“Maybe ‘growing together’ instead of ‘holding together’. I’m not sure about that. But I wonder if this tabard would work better if I had an anti-ghost galdrastafur with the ‘person’ motif in the center.”
Mikkel laid the spatula on the plate and regarded her. “Have you talked to Reynir about this?”
“Not yet. I wanted to know what you thought.”
“I think you may be onto something. Do you have any yarn to try it out?”
“No, we used just about all of it already.”
“It’s a good enough idea that you should ask Lalli to find some yarn. There’s that abandoned town up ahead. He can — Oh. If the villagers have been there since the Catastrophe, they’ll have emptied the town.”
Tuuri grimaced and nodded. “Maybe we could unravel one of these,” she said, but without eagerness.
“Perhaps we should wait on that,” Mikkel said, removing the pork before it burned. “Try to figure out another way to test. Or we might be able to trade for yarn.”
That brought a hesitant smile to her face. “They might be friendly.”
“Rosli said so. Let’s enjoy our day off tomorrow, and worry about the village later.”
They both turned, hands on firearms, at the sound of something moving through pine needles and shed leaves. But it was Sigrun and Lalli, carrying a field-dressed deer between them. There would be fresh venison on their day off.
While standing the first watch, Mikkel quietly asked Rosli if she’d seen any islands around her haven. He didn’t ask when the others might hear, for he would have to explain why he asked, and that would mean discussing the bull. Though he couldn’t say why he didn’t want to speak of his fylgja, he held his tongue around the others. Rosli hadn’t seen any islands, and couldn’t guess if the lost village was the “something” the bull had spoken of.
When Reynir joined Mikkel to take the second watch, he reported that his fylgja, the sheepdog, didn’t know what lay to the south or how far. Still baffled by the situation, Mikkel turned in for the night.
At dawn, Sigrun climbed into the tank, having slept in the back compartment. “Well?” she asked. “You didn’t wake me.”
Tuuri, finishing up the third watch, gave her a broad smile that Mikkel saw from his bunk even in the dim light of the monitors. “Nothing. All quiet.”
Sigrun thumped the smaller woman on the shoulder, almost knocking her off her feet. When Reynir rolled out of his bunk, she thumped him, too, and even Mikkel, who’d done nothing more than carry the decoy.
Mikkel and Reynir cooked outside again, enjoying the cool morning air, scented with the earthy odor of pine needles and the elusive scent of flowers. After their breakfast of venison bacon, a welcome change from pork, Lalli led the way back to the ley line and up the road. When Reynir reported they were back on the ley line, some of the tension went out of Mikkel. He had more confidence in the decoys now, but he had more experience with troll-deflecting galdrastafur under the line.
In mid-morning, they camped in a decaying parking lot close to the village on the back slope of a low hill, hidden only by leafy branches overhanging the road. Reynir prepared another decoy, which Lalli took with an unusual expression of distaste before racing off into the forest, his footfalls all but silent.
Now that the tank was stable, Mikkel knelt by Emil’s bunk, loosened the splint, and felt the injured leg. No abnormal heat or swelling, but he couldn’t feel the hard callus that meant the broken ends had fused. “Any pain here?”
“No.”
Mikkel tugged at his sideburns for a moment. “The bone is knitting together very quickly. It’s not ready to bear weight, though. Still, I believe you can get around on crutches, with Reynir to help you, but you must not put weight on this leg at all. Do you want to try it?”
“Yes.”
After Mikkel fetched the crutches from the back, he looked around the main compartment for anything that might trip Emil and at last propped the crutches beside the bunk. “I think this area may be too rugged for you to move around outside. Try it inside for a while, and then we’ll talk about it.”
Emil swung his leg off the bunk, took the crutches, and pushed himself to his good foot. Though Mikkel’s hands itched to reach out, to help, he backed away, gesturing Reynir to take over while he climbed out of the tank, leaving the door open. At least Emil’s hostility to him had prompted a thaw in Emil’s relationship with Reynir.
After crutching around the tank for a while, Emil took his seat by the monitors as he had the day before, and the other four went outside to play catch again. About noon, when the game had changed to tag, Lalli sprinted down the road to Tuuri’s side. Sigrun and Mikkel looked at each other, and Reynir retreated towards the tank.
After a Finnish conversation with tones of astonishment, Tuuri turned to the others. “There’s another ley line. He found it when he was placing the decoy. It runs northeast to southwest, and the castle is sitting right on the intersection. He didn’t see it before because, uh, he was under our line, and it was in the way.”
“An intersection? What would that do?” Mikkel asked. The question was rhetorical, but Reynir looked around as if searching for the second line. After turning in place twice, he shrugged without comment.
Mikkel jogged over to the tank and climbed in. “Rosli? This lost village is sitting on an intersection of two ley lines. Does that mean we’ve found a place of power?”
don’t know
“Okay. Thank you.” Mikkel translated the Morse code for the others. He hadn’t really expected her to know, but the little she knew of ley lines was more than the rest of them did.
“That’s got to be why the castle was built there,” Tuuri said. “I mean, it’s not the end of the line, but two lines coming together have to, uh, boost magic a lot more than one.”
“If they’ve got a mage in there, and if they’re hostile,” Sigrun said, “they could mess us up a lot.”
Mikkel frowned, remembering the thunderstorm a weather mage had summoned on top of them. “We can drop off a couple of decoys to keep them busy.”
“Or we could skip the village,” Emil said.
There was a silence. “We could,” Mikkel said at last. “We’ve already found two live villages. There have to be more, a lot more. We can skip this one and find one that isn’t so … risky.” But the bull said there was “something” to the south. What if this is it? Do we dare bypass it?
The silence returned. Reynir twisted his braid around his arm, Tuuri wrung her hands, and Sigrun rubbed her temples.
“No,” Sigrun said, straightening, the image of the arrogant troll-hunter captain. “We won’t run. We’ll talk to them. And if they want to throw magic around, we’ll throw some trolls at them.” She looked around, and so did Mikkel. The others nodded, not in submission, but in resolution.
With the decision made, they dropped the subject. Mikkel and Reynir fixed lunch inside, so as not to produce visible smoke or flame. Afterwards, Emil remained at the monitors, and Lalli stood guard, while everyone else went back to playing catch and other games until suppertime.
“Tomorrow,” Tuuri said as she left with Sigrun as escort for the back compartment. “Tomorrow we’ll meet them.”
Mikkel had second watch and Reynir third, but Mikkel stayed up with Reynir, just in case. The night was quiet, and the swarm that should have come from the previous campsite failed to appear. The decoy had done its work.
In the morning, Lalli stayed in the tank with the others. The road, he reported, was passable all the way to the low hill on which the castle stood.
Though the road curved around the hill, a well-worn track led up to the heavy main gate, which was closed. Though the tan sandstone castle walls still stood strong, the surface had eroded in places, leaving giant pockmarks and gullies with green moss creeping up them. Here and there, lichens added splotches of color, gray, green, even orange or yellow. The vegetation had been burned off around the castle, recently enough that Mikkel smelled a hint of smoke as Tuuri stopped the tank at the edge of the cleared area and let him out with a couple of sheets of paper with writing in German and a bucket of canned cod.
Mikkel walked out, uncomfortably conscious of the heads popping up to peer at him over the parapet. The same reasoning that had kept Sigrun, Reynir, and Lalli behind at the first village still applied, but now Emil was wounded and no one would send Tuuri into danger again. Mikkel had to go alone. Behind the closed tank door, he knew, Emil sat in his chair with his rifle in his lap, and everyone else, even Reynir, was armed and ready to defend him.
But things could go very wrong very fast.
Mikkel stopped at what he estimated was the edge of arrow range and waited, watching for archers to appear. If these people had firearms, they could kill him before he could move, but if they only had bows, he had a chance of fleeing to safety.
Minutes passed, and heads appeared and disappeared above the parapet. Soon the defenders stood up, watching, making no threatening moves. The team had discussed whether Tuuri should make an announcement over the speakers, but Sigrun had vetoed that since it would reveal the presence of a woman in the tank. Given prior experience, it seemed safer to show only men. But now, it seemed they needed to do something to get things moving.
Mikkel looked back at the tank for a moment, squared his shoulders, and walked forwards until he was roughly halfway between the tank and the castle. Now, well within arrow range, he stopped again and waited. Sheep baaed somewhere inside, and the west wind whispered across ashes and charred twigs.
More minutes passed before the heavy wooden gate swung open and half a dozen men walked out. Like those in the prior village, they stood roughly average height and wore undyed, felted wool clothes. Their hair ranged from blond to black, and most appeared to be Mikkel’s age or a little younger. One, who hung back a little, was balding and perhaps a couple of decades older than the others. Most importantly, like Mikkel himself, they appeared unarmed.
When the men stopped before him, looking uncertainly past him at the tank, he handed them the paper Tuuri had written, saying the team was friendly and wanted to trade. After passing the paper around, the largest of the men, solidly built with rich brown hair that hung to his shoulders, smiled and nodded. Mikkel took out a can of cod, opened it, and poured it onto a plate he’d brought in the bucket. Pulling several spoons from his pocket, he passed them around before using his own to take a bite of the cod. Having shown the cod was edible, he held the plate out for the men.
The largest man — the leader — accepted the plate, took a small bite, and passed the plate on. It travelled from man to man until everyone had tasted the cod and the plate was empty. Mikkel took out the second sheet, which asked the reader to write down what they might be willing to trade for cod. The leader read it, passed it on, and said something to Mikkel in a questioning tone. Mikkel showed his palms in a helpless gesture. The man tried again, and Mikkel shook his head. “I'm sorry,” he said in Danish. “I don't understand your language.”
A stir went through the group, and Mikkel wondered if they were simply bewildered by the discovery that some people couldn’t speak their language. The men stepped aside with deferential nods, giving way to the balding man, who squinted at Mikkel for several seconds before asking, “You speak Danish?”
“You speak Danish?”
Terrible accent, but clear words. Mikkel stared at the man for a beat before finding an answer. “Yes! Yes, I do. I never expected to find a Danish-speaker here. This will simplify our —”
The man waved his hands for attention. “Slowly, slowly. I am not good. My mother is much better. You must talk to her.”
Mikkel scanned the assembled crowd. All men. “I will wait for her.”
“No, no. She cannot come out. It is too far, too …” He made an up-and-down gesture, and Mikkel nodded. “You will come in?”
“This changes things. I must speak to the others.” Leaving the bucket of canned cod with the villagers, one of whom darted away to the castle, Mikkel hurried back to the tank. The door opened partway, with no one visible in the darkened interior.
“That bald man speaks Danish,” Mikkel began.
“A Dane? What’s a Dane doing down here?” Sigrun asked from the shadows left of the door.
As Mikkel kept his face straight, only raising an eyebrow, Tuuri giggled from behind the door, and Sigrun gave a smothered chuckle. “Okay, yeah, we know why you’re down here.”
Mikkel assumed his most mysterious expression. “Do you?” His significant pause was rather spoiled by another giggle from Tuuri. “In any case, he isn’t a Dane. As old as he is, he could have learned from one of the Stranded. He wants me to go into the castle and meet his mother, since her Danish is better.”
“Oh, no,” Sigrun said. “We’re not giving them a hostage.”
“Of course not. I think they’re friendly, but I’ll ask him and —”
“He could lie.”
“And Lalli would know.” There was a stir within at his statement. Lalli had demonstrated his truth-detecting ability when Reynir first turned up, but they’d had no reason to call on it since. “Does he need to be close to them, or can he tell from here?”
After a murmur of Finnish, Tuuri said, “He has to be close. And, look, he shouldn’t just say ‘lie’ or ‘truth’. That’d upset them if they lied. So you look at him if you want to know, and he’ll say ‘pysy poissa’ if they’re lying.”
“If they lie,” Sigrun said, “make an excuse and come back. We’re ready if they try to stop you.”
There was little more to say. Mikkel went back to the villagers, and Lalli followed him. As they approached, a woman about Mikkel’s age ran up to the bald man, carrying a sheet of paper.
“This is Lalli. He’s a Finn, and he doesn’t speak Danish or German, but he wants to see your castle.” That was the best Mikkel could do to explain the man, but the others seemed satisfied. “I am Mikkel, and you are?”
“Gottfried Zimmermann.” The man offered his hand and Mikkel shook it.
“I appreciate your invitation to enter the castle —” Mikkel stopped. Gottfried was visibly struggling to parse his words. “Thank you for asking me to go to your castle.” That appeared less challenging. “But we met another village up north.”
Gottfried looked north, eyes wide. “There is another? Nearby?” The woman and some of the other men reacted with excitement as well.
“Not nearby. Six weeks’ travel for us. But they attacked us, unprovoked. That is, without warning and without reason. They tried to take one of us hostage. So I am not sure I should go to your castle.”
Gottfried shook his head, brows knitted in concern. “We do not attack. I do not know what this ‘hostage’ is, but we mean you no harm. You will come in and you will be safe.”
Mikkel turned to Lalli, who stood half turned away, studying the surrounding forest. The scout said nothing, which Mikkel took as indicating truth.
“Thank you for your assurance — for friendship. Then we —”
The woman offered him the paper: an unmistakable galdrastafur drawn in black on a sheet brown with age. “This do no harm. But we know if you say not true.”
Before accepting the paper, Mikkel glanced at Lalli, who stared at it for several seconds before shrugging.
“Very well,” Mikkel said, examining the paper with interest. “We mean you no harm. We only want to trade with you and talk to you.”
The woman stepped back with a smile as Gottfried said something in German. The other men smiled as well, and Gottfried gestured courteously for Mikkel and Lalli to pass.
Gottfried walked beside the visitors, shooting them quick peeks as they approached the heavy wooden gate. A long-haired gray cat strolled out to meet and return with them. Mikkel gave it an approving nod. These folk must all be immune, but they still took precautions against the Rash.
Chickens clucked somewhere inside, and voices murmured from the many people peering down from atop the wall. Now Mikkel saw there was a second gate within, also open. This castle was well-defended. As they walked through the long gateway, he flared his nostrils, taking in the scents of the castle: smoke, manure, the acrid smell of chicken coops, and a fugitive whiff of flowers.
The bailey of the castle opened out before them, revealing beds of vegetables and flowers. Bees flew in and out of a metal drum with holes punched in it sitting on top of a brick platform in the middle of the beds. Another gray cat peeked out from behind a bed of lettuce to watch the visitors. Ahead stood the massive, blocky keep, crumbled in places but still a formidable defense. Faces peeped at Mikkel from the narrow windows. Near the keep, stone steps led down from the walkway atop the wall, and the bravest villagers already made their way down, their eyes fixed on the visitors.
Thump
Mikkel glanced back to see that two young men had slipped in behind them, had closed the outer gate, and were pulling the inner gate closed. As alarm shot through him, he told himself to be calm; Gottfried had said they’d be safe, and Lalli had not called him out for a liar. Now that they were inside the castle, their best option was to behave as if they believed all was well.
And hope that all really was well.
Mikkel scanned his surroundings. Against the west wall to his right were chicken coops with a pen enclosed by pre-Rash chicken wire, in which chickens scratched and pecked, while against the south wall was a long, low, whitewashed stone building with multiple boarded-up entrances that showed it to be a former stables. Each boarded-up entrance bore a large glass-paned window, while a single entrance remained, provided with a wooden door. To his left were hutches and another pen where rabbits grazed. Beyond the hutches, against the north wall, was a line of greenhouses, with glass panels in wooden frames built atop a waist-high whitewashed brick wall.
Mikkel stopped at the sight of that wall. Another galdrastafur was painted repeatedly the length of the wall. Though the central motif was similar to what Tuuri called the “structure” motif, the surrounding patterns were unfamiliar. Beside him, Lalli stopped as well, staring at the wall with an expression that a stranger might find impassive, but which Mikkel identified as fascinated.
“You feel magic?” the woman asked from behind them. She, Gottfried, and the men had all stopped to wait for their guests.
“I don’t. Lalli does.” Mikkel turned to look at her. “Do you know that this castle is at an intersection — ah, that is, this castle is where two ley lines cross?” His hands described the crossing.
“ ‘Ley lines’,” she repeated, testing the words. “Lines cross here. Yes.”
Gottfried gestured at the former stables. “My mother waits there.”
“Of course.” Mikkel followed him, and Lalli trailed along behind.
Light from the windows in the north wall illuminated the large room within. The walls were whitewashed as well, and the flagstone floor well-swept. Handmade wooden tables stood against the walls, woodworking tools and half-done projects laid out on top of some. Chairs, some handmade wooden and others pre-Rash steel with their chipped white paint, were pushed up to the tables. Half a dozen men and women stood by those tables, wide eyes focused on the strangers. In the center of the room, against the back wall, sat an elderly woman in a heavy wooden chair. A battered pre-Rash aluminum walker stood beside the chair.
Mikkel judged Gottfried’s mother, introduced as Karla Zimmermann, to be in her seventies or early eighties, too young to have lived through the Catastrophe, but old enough that her parents had. A middle-aged man, similar in appearance to Gottfried, hurried to help her to her feet as the strangers approached. She was frail, with hands gnarled by arthritis and thinning white hair in a small bun.
“Please have a seat, Fru Zimmermann,” Mikkel urged. “No need to stand on our account.”
A smile brought beauty to her wrinkled face as she sank into her chair with Gottfried’s help. “You’re a Dane, aren’t you? A real Dane.” Even in those few words, her accent was noticeably better than her son’s.
“I am.”
“My mother thought she might be the last Dane left in the world. She would have been so grateful to meet you.” She wiped away tears.
“There are thousands of us,” Mikkel said with a smile of his own. “We live on the island of Bornholm.”
“And you came all the way down here to find us.”
Mikkel sobered. “We’ve been exploring, hoping to find a village like this. As I told Gottfried, we found one about six weeks ago, but they attacked us. We’re relieved to find a friendly village. We’d like to trade with you if we could. We have canned cod — that’s an ocean fish — that we’ll trade for fresh vegetables and herbs.” He scanned around at the villagers who had filtered in around them. “Perhaps we can trade knowledge as well.”
Karla looked up at Gottfried. “We must think on this. We have little enough to trade but food. Food, we have.” She turned back to Mikkel. “My granddaughter can show you around while we talk. Anneliese.” The woman who had brought the paper to Mikkel stepped forward as Karla gave instructions in German.
“Wait,” Mikkel said. “It would be best if we went back to our vehicle. The others will be worried if we’re inside too long.”
“Oh, yes, I understand. Very well. But —” Karla looked up at Gottfried again. “We should have a feast for the strangers.”
“Of course.” Gottfried addressed Mikkel. “How many are you?”
Mikkel hesitated. These people had been friendly. They declared they meant no harm, and Lalli had signalled no lies. He took the risk. “We are six, but we won’t all come to the feast. We never leave the vehicle alone. Lalli will stay with it. So, just five of us.”
“Five. We will have a good feast for you.”
“One of us is wounded. He can’t walk up the hill, so we’ll have to drive the vehicle close to the gate, at least long enough for him to get out.” He waited as the villagers murmured among themselves. Anneliese pointed at the “truth” paper he still held, raising her voice a little.
“That is good,” Gottfried said with a commanding look around the room. “You will leave the vehicle before the gate.” He took a step towards the door, and the other villagers moved aside. With a final expression of thanks to Karla, Mikkel followed with Lalli trailing behind.
“’Bout time,” Sigrun said from her position before the monitors. “I was about ready to go in after you.”
“I had assumed that to be the case.”
As always, Sigrun grimaced, then grinned at his formal speech. “Yeah, so what happened?”
While Mikkel described what he’d seen, Lalli reported to Tuuri, who sat at the folding table, whittling on a piece of wood. Indeed, Reynir sat beside her, also whittling, and even Emil on his bunk worked industriously on a similar object.
“A feast.” Sigrun licked her lips. “Can we trust them?”
Tuuri looked up from her work. “Lalli says they all told the truth about everything.”
“A feast,” Sigrun repeated. “Sounds really good.”
Curiosity overcame Mikkel. “What are you all doing?”
“Making drop-spindles,” Tuuri said, holding up the tapered cylinder she held. “They’re roughing out the forms, and I’m making the spindles. You saw those guys had felt clothes? So they’ve got wool, but they don’t know how to spin it. I read about that happening in some lost villages.” She gave a satisfied smile. “But I know how to spin it, and I’ll teach them.”
“Good idea. They’ve got some knowledge we could use. There’s that ‘truth’ galdrastafur, and whatever is painted on the greenhouses might help us. And their mage, Anneliese, might know some more, too.”
Reynir lowered his whittling, his eyes wide. “Another mage? Someone I can talk to?”
“Her Danish is … different. I think she understands quite a bit of my speech, but I’m not sure how much she’ll understand you. Or how much you’ll understand her.” Mikkel held back a smile at the thought of the two mages trying to discuss magic in their poor Danish.
Tuuri lowered her head and sliced at the spindle in her hand. “I can’t stay long, though. You — you guys can stay and I’ll camp somewhere with Lalli, come back in —”
“Nah,” said Sigrun at the same moment that Mikkel, Reynir, and Emil chorused, “No.”
Mikkel looked at Sigrun, who waved a hand towards Tuuri. He nodded and addressed the younger woman. “We don’t know yet that the demon is just after you. We haven’t tested that properly. For all we know at the moment, if the rest of us stay and you leave, we may still draw the demon down on the village. So, we’ll all leave after the feast. After we talk a little with them about trading. And we’ll come back tomorrow, talk some more … maybe they’ll even give us another feast.”
“They won’t keep feasting us, and we’ll have to keep moving —”
“I know. But now we’ve got a second mage to talk to, two ley lines, and people with local knowledge. Let’s keep visiting for a while and see if we can figure something out. A better tabard for you, perhaps.”
“I talked to Reynir about that. We can’t make a good tabard out of felt.”
“We’ll trade for wool for you to spin —”
But Tuuri was already shaking her head. “Spinning enough yarn to knit a tabard would take weeks, even with all of us working at it.”
“Still, we’ll think of something. I didn’t mention the demon, you know. It didn’t come up. But they may know about it. They may have a way to defeat it, or at least drive it off.”
Tuuri gave him a hesitant smile before ducking her head and working on her carving again.
“Here comes your buddy,” Sigrun said, nodding at the monitors with a grin.
Leaving the “truth” galdrastafur he and Reynir were trying to recreate, Mikkel joined her at the monitors to see Gottfried leaving the castle. “Should we let him in the tank?” he asked.
She looked around at bunks and cabinets and firearms sitting out. “No. I know, we trust them, but this thing’s a huge prize.”
“Indeed. Better not to test their goodwill by tempting them.” Mikkel slipped out without fully opening the door and went to meet Gottfried.
“The feast is not ready,” the man said. “We will talk about trade before.” He smiled. “Then the feast is good.”
“We can all talk with you. We have things to show you.”
Gottfried waved at the gate, which stood open once more. “You will take the vehicle there.” He turned and trotted back up the hill with Mikkel behind him. Fewer faces than before peered down from above, and one of the gray cats came out to watch them.
Behind him, the tank backed up and made a wide curve to approach the gate. Mikkel hid a smile at Tuuri’s caution. Over the months, she’d grown skilled at pivoting the tank in place, but it might look less useful as a clumsy vehicle that needed plenty of space to maneuver.
As soon as Tuuri brought the tank to a halt, after moving back and forth several times as if she struggled to align it, the door opened, and Sigrun and Reynir hopped out, followed by Tuuri with Missekat on her leash. The non-immunes didn’t wear their masks, which jolted Mikkel for a moment. But, after all, there were two cats ready to alert them, and they were about to enter a castle with more cats.
Shaking off his alarm and beckoning Reynir to follow, Mikkel led the way to the back compartment and worked the catch with his body blocking the view from the castle. From the compartment, they pulled out the two steel doors. Within minutes, they’d assembled the ramp and set it in the doorway, allowing Emil to crutch down it with Reynir at his side and Mikkel walking alongside on the ground. Sigrun and Tuuri, who had waited near the tank, joined Emil and Gottfried while Mikkel and Reynir moved the ramp out of the way and closed the door.
As the group entered the castle, tantalizing cooking odors mingled with smoke from an outbuilding down the south wall from the longhouse. Beef, Mikkel thought, such as he hadn’t smelled in half a year, the pungent scent of garlic, and other aromas he couldn’t place. After a deep, appreciative breath, he introduced the others to Gottfried: “Sigrun Eide, our captain. Emil Västerström, second in command. Tuuri Hotakainen, driver and mechanic. Reynir Árnason, our mage.” By his feet, a gray cat touched noses with Missekat, then strolled away. Missekat was accepted.
Once everyone had expressed polite greetings, Tuuri asked, “Do you have a carpenter?”
Gottfried squinted at her. “I am a carpenter. Why?”
Smiling broadly, Tuuri pulled a spindle from her pocket. “Can you make one of these?”
He examined it, holding it close to his eyes and turning it around several times. “Yes. Why?”
“You have wool.” She pointed at his felt shirt. “This is a spindle. You can spin wool into thread. Yarn. You can weave it into cloth.”
His brows drew together. “These words …”
Tuuri switched to stumbling German, and after several back-and-forths, his eyes went wide. “This? This will do that?”
“I’ll show you how. I’ll show everyone.”
As the gates thudded shut behind them, Gottfried all but ran to the longhouse, the visitors hurrying behind him. He was already talking to Karla when the team caught up, with half a dozen villagers crowding around the discussion.
Karla held up the spindle. “This is all we need to make yarn? My mother thought we needed a wheel. She called it a ‘spinning wheel’. But she didn’t know how to make one. If we’d had these all these years …” Shaking her head, she ran a hand over her felt shirt.
“A spinning wheel is better, faster, but I don’t know how to make one. You can make these easily, though.” Pulling two more spindles from her pockets, Tuuri held them out to Gottfried. “We didn’t have time to polish these, so the wool will catch on them. That one too, probably. You’ll need to polish them all. But I’ll show you how to use them, if you have some wool to work on.”
Accepting the spindles with the air of a man given an unlooked-for treasure, Gottfried issued instructions in German. Several young people raced from the longhouse. He turned back to the team. “Thank you,” he said, his voice husky. “What will we give —?”
“Your guards have crossbows,” Sigrun said. “Can we have a crossbow?”
Gottfried turned to Karla, who answered with a spate of German. When she finished, he said, “Yes. Crossbows.” Smiling, he gave an order and a young man ran out.
As Sigrun folded her arms with a triumphant smile at Emil, Tuuri gave Reynir a quick smile and said, “Our mage wants to talk to your mage. Anneliese, right?”
“Mage. Anneliese. Yes.” Gottfried turned to a young woman, but before he could issue an order, she said “Anneliese!” and dashed out the door. He chuckled and returned his attention to Mikkel and Karla.
Karla continued to turn the spindle with fingers twisted by arthritis. Mikkel tried not to wince at the sight, for he had nothing to offer to relieve the pain. Or did he?
He tapped Reynir on the shoulder and asked quietly in Icelandic, “Would your painkilling galdrastafur do anything for arthritis? Or could you do something with the bone-knitter?”
Reynir twisted his braid. “Maybe? I can make a painkiller. My ink is in the tank, though.”
“Perhaps you can teach Anneliese. She must have paper and ink.”
The Icelander nodded vigorously, but he pulled at his braid as he looked around at the villagers.
Moments later, several villagers rushed back into the room. Anneliese, at the front of the group, stopped, stepped aside, and looked at Gottfried, who pointed to Reynir. Behind her, three young people presented hide sacks of wool to Tuuri, who took the spindle back from Karla, showed it around, and lectured in what sounded to Mikkel like broken German supplemented by Swedish.
Approaching Reynir with a nervous smile, Anneliese asked, “You are a mage?”
“Yes, but I don’t have any training so I only know a few galdrastafur, but I’d love to learn from you and I’ll teach you everything I know.”
She stared at him for a few beats before turning a dismayed face to Gottfried, blinking as if near tears. He looked at Mikkel, showing his hands in a helpless gesture.
“Speak slowly and use simple words and grammar,” Mikkel advised. “Your Swedish has a strong accent and her Danish isn’t fluent.”
Reynir licked his lips and tried again, speaking slowly. “Sorry, sorry. I am a mage. I want to learn from you and I will teach what I know.”
He gave her a hopeful look, and after several seconds’ thought, she smiled. “I will draw? You will draw?”
“Yes! You have paper?” The two mages, tall young red-headed Icelander and short brunette German, retreated to a table, where Anneliese pulled a clay pot, a plume, a small sheaf of age-browned paper from a satchel that hung from her belt. Bending over the paper, they alternated drawing symbols and struggling to discuss them.
More young villagers entered and shyly approached Sigrun and Emil, who stood together, watching everyone with sharp eyes. Two of the villagers held crossbows and quivers of bolts, which they held out to Sigrun, who accepted crossbow and quiver, examining them with a broad smile, and to Emil, who clumsily leaned on his crutches and hung his crossbow over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” Mikkel told Gottfried, who beamed at him before hustling over to talk to one of the older villagers.
“Who are you?” one villager asked in fair Danish after Sigrun had vocally admired the crossbow for a while.
“I’m Sigrun; he’s Emil. We’re troll-hunters. We kill trolls.”
Mikkel stepped to her side to give a short course on trolls, beasts, and giants as varieties of grosslings or monsters. The Danish-speaker nodded and translated for the others, who looked at Sigrun, awestruck.
“Tell us?” the Danish-speaker asked, and Sigrun launched into a thrilling story of troll-hunting, which they perhaps did not fully understand, but the excited tone and broad gestures appeared to carry the meaning.
As she spoke, Gottfried tapped Mikkel’s arm and led the way to another table, where an old driving map of Germany and a page from an atlas, showing northern Europe, were laid out. “We are here. Where will we go?”
Mikkel studied the maps, starting at the place where Gottfried’s thick, scarred finger pointed and moving up to the north. “Can anyone other than Anneliese see the ley lines?”
Gottfried looked blank. From behind him, Karla said, “Yes. There is another, my sister’s grandson.”
Mikkel addressed her and Gottfried together. “We followed the ley line as much as we could after we found it. The road leading north stays under the ley line for about a month’s travel. Before that, we moved south, but the road wasn’t always under the ley line. If someone can see it, and if you’re on foot, you should be able to stay under it.”
He traced their approximate path up the map. “The problem is here, the Kiel Canal. We have to get across the water somehow, but we think every bridge has been blown up. Our vehicle floats well enough to get over, but we’re not sure it can get back up the north side. We might have to abandon it, build a raft, and hike up through here.” He stared at the map, realizing he’d started to think of turning back to take the villagers north, and even of disloyally abandoning the tank. The tank and Rosli.
Once more, Mikkel traced the path from the village north, across the canal, and into Jutland. He tapped the map and Gottfried leaned in to look. “Up here, where the strait is very narrow, you’d need to signal. A passing ship would see a smoky fire. They likely wouldn’t stop, but they’d raise the alarm that someone is there, and the Nordic Council would send a ship for you.”
Gottfried muttered, “‘Nordic Council’.”
“Ah, the Known World is all these lands here. There are many thousands of people, so the Nordic Council is …” Explaining the intricacies of Known World politics was pointless. “They take care of things like where the ships go.”
Gottfried nodded, though his expression remained puzzled, and he addressed a question to Karla in German. While they discussed his words, Mikkel looked around the room. Sigrun and Emil told stories in the center of a crowd of fascinated villagers, Tuuri encouraged a young man spinning wool into a thin thread, and Anneliese drew as Reynir peered closely.
Even if we have to move on and get nothing out of this but a feast or two, just talking to someone new after half a year makes everyone feel better. Even me. We’ve helped them with the spindles, and maybe Anneliese can help us with the demon. And we still need to trade for food.
Mikkel turned to speak to Karla just as a boy ran in to speak to her and Gottfried.
“The feast is ready,” Karla translated. “We will go to the great hall.” Gottfried helped her to her feet and gave her the walker. Everyone remaining in the longhouse moved to the door and along a stone-slab path between beds of vegetables and flowers as bees buzzed around them.
Karla lifted a hand from the walker and waved at the vegetables. “We have these greens. Potatoes. Herbs. More vegetables in the greenhouses. Smoked beef and mutton.”
“Blankets,” Gottfried added. “Chairs and tables. Tools.”
“Just tell us what you need,” Karla finished.
Mikkel raised an eyebrow at Sigrun, who shook her head. “Up to you. What do we need?”
“Greens don’t keep, but we could use a few meals’ worth. Potatoes are better; we could take plenty of those. Smoked beef and mutton will keep well, so several kilos of those. I’ll have a look at the herbs, fresh or dried. We have enough blankets and no room for furniture. What about tools for you?” Mikkel was already considering how much cod they should trade for potatoes and meat even as he directed his question to Tuuri.
She started and turned her attention from Reynir, who walked beside Anneliese, the two mages supplementing their conversation with gestures. After several steps in silence, she said, “I’d have to look at the tools. Maybe I could trade. I have a few extras …”
Gottfried smiled down at her. “I will show you our workshop.”
They reached the keep, where the massive wooden door stood open and a buzz of voices sounded from within the great hall. Narrow windows in the whitewashed, walls well above head-level, admitted ample light, but the high ceiling remained shadowy. Ranked along either side of the hall were large wooden tables with chairs beside them, some wooden, other steel with chipped paint, and a few even faded colored plastic. At the far end of the hall, under a row of large mounted horned skulls, was a low dais with a table, behind which were four high-backed chairs, facing the hall.
Silence fell as the visitors entered, and most of the dozens of villagers, men, women, and children, retreated a little to safety among the tables, staring wide-eyed as they saw strangers for the first time in their lives. Mikkel tried to imagine their feelings, but could not. Though he’d spent his early years on a remote family farm, surrounded by relatives of various degrees of distance, there had always been the occasional trader, traveller, or even a new spouse brought home.
Gottfried surveyed the team with a proprietary air, then said, “Captain and second will come with us.” Leaving the walker by the door, Karla took his arm, and limped forward to the dais, Sigrun and Emil following.
Anneliese beckoned Tuuri and Reynir, leading them to a table where some adults ventured to join them. No one sat yet, standing behind their chairs. Several of the young people, as they passed behind Tuuri and Reynir, daringly touched their sleeves or even Reynir’s long hair. Indeed, as Mikkel hesitated, wondering where he should sit, he felt gentle touches on his own arms.
“I am Joachim. You will sit with me,” a man said beside him. Mikkel looked down at him: a man about Gottfried’s age with a strong resemblance to the other villager. With a slight smile, Mikkel gave a “lead on” gesture, and they went together to a table on the right side, near the center of the hall.
“Are you Gottfried’s brother?” Mikkel asked as they took their places behind chairs. Mismatched stainless steel knives, forks, and spoons were already set out before them, but no dishes or glasses.
“Brother, yes. I am a carpenter with Gottfried.”
In the back of the hall, Gottfried helped Karla up onto the dais, while Sigrun steadied Emil on his crutches. Sigrun and Karla took their seats at the right side of the table, while Gottfried pulled out Emil’s chair, took the crutches once Emil was seated, and leaned them against the wall. When Gottfried sat down, there was a great scraping of wood on stone and the screech of metal on stone as the assembly pulled out their chairs and sat.
A woman of Joachim’s generation took a seat on Mikkel’s other side, regarding him with open interest before saying something like a greeting. “Pleased to meet you,” Mikkel said, and she smiled. Before the conversation, such as it was, could continue, ten or so young villagers trotted in bearing steaming bowls. They glanced around and hurried to the strangers first, putting a bowl in front of each before they continued to Karla and Gottfried and several others.
Chunks of potato and bits of bacon in a creamy base, with chopped chives sprinkled on top: the soup gave off an aroma that was savory, buttery, and earthy all at once. Mikkel looked around the hall. No one was eating as they waited for the servers to run back in with more bowls, and more, and more. He swallowed, hungry for this treat, and focused on the dishes to distract himself.
Stoneware dishes. Pre-Rash, of course. His bowl was a sandy color with a dark brown geometric pattern around the rim. The bowls before Tuuri and Reynir were off-white, Sigrun’s was blue, and Emil’s was sandy like Mikkel’s. More bowls were carried in; everyone had a bowl now, and Gottfried lifted his spoon. With that signal, everyone dug in.
The soup was as tasty as it smelled. The cream base was sweeter than Mikkel expected, and there were bits of garlic along with the chives. As he ate, the servers brought hard plastic cups and set them before the diners. Each person received a clear cup and a colored cup, most red, like Mikkel’s, but some blue or white, and a few green. Joachim tapped Mikkel’s clear cup. “Water.” The red cup. “Strong. Drink slow.”
With that warning, Mikkel took a sip of the clear liquid in the red cup. It stung slightly as he swallowed, and a familiar warmth flowed into his chest. He took another sip, feeling certain if he downed the alcohol, the attentive servers would refill it. As often as he wished. He set the cup down and looked around, feeling all eyes on him, waiting to see what he would do.
Many of the villagers did sneak peeks at him and the other strangers as they ate, but no one gave him focused attention. Mikkel sipped from the clear cup and took up his spoon. As soon as he finished his soup, a young man hurried to take the bowl, shooting him a shy glance as he did so. A young woman returned with salad on a plate, blushing as she did so. The salad was delicious: mixed greens with tiny tomatoes and chopped cucumbers, all with a creamy dressing. Mikkel savored each bite.
So proceeded the meal. After the salad, the servers brought out plates of warmed smoked beef, mashed potatoes, and peas. The villagers murmured among themselves, while on the dais, Sigrun chatted with Karla and Gottfried talked to Emil. Across the hall, Anneliese, Tuuri, and Reynir bent their heads together, intent. Mikkel ate in silence; the woman to his left seemed to speak no Danish, and Joachim said nothing.
Scanning around the hall as he ate, Mikkel focused on the horned skulls mounted on the wall. Horns as long as his arm curved out and then in again to aim lethal points at the enemy straight ahead. Hadn’t he seen horns like that before? “What animal is that?” he asked Joachim.
“A bull.” Of course, his tone implied. “Gregor shot it. But I carved his crossbow.”
Now Mikkel remembered. The bulls, the creatures they’d taken for beasts, had had horns like that. And a villager shot it? “You hunt cattle? You don’t keep them?”
“Keep cattle? How?”
Mikkel started to answer that many people kept cattle in the Known World before realizing the villagers might use the same word for a different animal. “How big are these cattle?”
“The bull is tall as you. The cow is tall as me.” Joachim was not a small man, taller than Emil.
Mikkel nodded and addressed himself to the beef on his plate. Sigrun would be happy to know that she could hunt “cattle” with her fine new crossbow.
At last, a server presented Mikkel with a bowl of something creamy and pale pink. This was another young woman that he had not seen before; in fact, a different person had served him every time. When Mikkel gave her a quick smile, she blushed and hurried away. He imagined that she would tell the story of the stranger who smiled at her to her grandchildren. And that saddened him.
The dessert tasted of strawberries and honey in the cream. Mikkel lingered over the strawberries, remembering treats from before this nightmarish journey. After several bites, he noted that Joachim’s bowl and those of everyone around him bore only white cream. He hesitated, realizing the villagers had only enough strawberries for their guests. And yet, they had chosen to treat him, and he was grateful. He took another small bite and let the taste fill his senses.
While the servers cleared the dessert bowls, Sigrun stood. “Thank you for all this great food. We haven’t had anything so good in forever.” Beside her, Karla translated, still sitting, and the villagers looked around with smiles. “We have to leave now.” There was a stir at the translation, and the smiles faded into confusion.
“There’s a demon chasing us.” Sigrun shrugged. “We can’t stay too long, ‘cause the demon will call a bunch of trolls to attack you.” She waited for the explanation and for a chatter of surprise to die down. “So we’ll camp somewhere and come back tomorrow. Not going away, just leaving for the night.”
Joachim turned to Mikkel. “A demon is behind you?”
“Yes.” Mikkel tugged at his sideburns. “That’s what we call it. It’s been chasing us for months.”
The older man’s brows drew together. “A demon.” He looked towards the dais, where Sigrun and Gottfried were already helping Emil down. Tuuri and Reynir hurried to their side, and Mikkel rose to join them, offering good wishes for everyone.
The feast was over.
Tuuri hummed to herself as she drove along the south ley line, her eyes searching for Lalli’s marks, her hands working the controls with practiced ease, and her mind busy with plans. Picturing her Aunt Tuulikki’s loom, she imagined drawing the design, explaining it to the carpenters. She couldn’t build one herself — she didn’t have the materials — and she wouldn’t have time to work with them through the whole process, but they could work on it while she was away … The humming died.
I can’t stay in the village. A couple of hours per day, and then I have to leave, drive away, find a campsite. All because of the demon. Somehow we have to escape that demon!
The tank bucked as Tuuri guided it into the forest to maneuver around a fallen tree.
And yet … I don’t want to live inside those castle walls forever anyway. If the demon is only after me, the others can live there, but we can drive around, scavenge, and bring back treasures for the village.
Tuuri hummed again. It would be all right.
Beside her, Sigrun punched Mikkel’s shoulder and Tuuri gave them a brief glance. Those two were discussing the cattle that roamed the area: giant animals as tall at the shoulder as Mikkel himself, with horns as long as his arm. And Sigrun wanted to hunt them with her new crossbow. Tuuri shook her head, smiling. Sigrun was crazy. But if she did take such an animal, the new food-preserving galdrastafur Reynir had learned would keep the beef fresh for a week, so they’d only have to salt some of it.
Beef.
That feast had reminded her of all the foods they hadn’t had for half a year. Though Mikkel did his best, rabbit and venison, and lately pork, varied with the rare goose or swan, had palled long ago. But if they scavenged and traded with the village, they could enjoy cream and vegetables and fresh herbs every day.
Lalli stood ahead in the usual ruined parking lot. Parking the tank where he pointed, Tuuri smiled and flexed her hands. Sunshine poured through the windshield, with brief shadows as clouds scudded across the sky. For once, the team wanted to attract the demon’s attention so it wouldn’t settle on the castle, meaning she and Reynir could go outside and enjoy their freedom all afternoon.
With the pavement too overgrown and broken-up to be safe for Emil, he moved into a seat by the open door, where he could both watch the monitors and enjoy the outside. Reynir climbed down with his paint and brush, while Mikkel carried a cabinet door with its partial galdrastafur. As soon as Reynir completed the symbols and stretched out with his back against the tank and his eyes closed, Lalli snatched up the decoy and ran eastward.
“There’s a town over there,” Emil commented from inside. “I wonder what happens when the swarm runs into a town. Do they fight with the local trolls?”
“That would be good, but they don’t fight among themselves when they come after us,” Mikkel said.
Tuuri leaned against the tank beside Reynir while Sigrun prowled around, her new crossbow and quiver on her shoulders, and Mikkel knelt to pluck greenery and drop it in the canvas sack he carried. As silence fell among the humans, the voices of the forest filled in. Even with Emil on watch, Tuuri remained alert for the snap of a twig, but there came only the rustle of wind in fresh green leaves, birds calling for their mates, and insects buzzing among the trees. A curious squirrel ran out on a branch to peer at them before dashing away.
“Did you tell them about the new galdrastafur?” Reynir asked after a while without opening his eyes.
“I left that for you.”
Reynir sat up, his weary face transformed by his smile. Sigrun came to sit by them, while Mikkel sat back on his heels, adding more foraged greens to his sack.
“Anneliese knows a whole bunch of farm magic. Things to make the plants grow; that’s what she painted on the greenhouses. Things to make the sheep peaceful in the sheepfold at night so they don’t make a lot of noise. Things like that. And then there’s one to keep food fresh for a week. Greens, meat, all that.” Mikkel gave him a brief, approving smile. “But —”
Reynir glanced at Tuuri as if asking permission, and she mock-punched his shoulder.
“But you just said that the trolls don’t fight when they’re after us. So, uh, what if they did? If I turned the ‘peaceful’ galdrastafur around?”
“Oho!” Sigrun punched him in the other shoulder. “Clever boy!” She turned to Mikkel. “So where do we put it?”
Mikkel wiped his hands on a cloth and pulled at his sideburns. “If we put it near the decoy, they may wipe each other other. Or the local trolls may do it. Pest control. But if they’re near the decoy, they’re not a problem for us anyway. Near the tank? But we don’t want to make them more aggressive near us.”
“Leave it at the last campsite,” Emil said.
Tuuri looked around, impressed. “That’s a great idea.” As the other three joined her praise, Reynir closed his eyes and leaned back again, still smiling.
Not a single twig cracked as Lalli returned several minutes later, though Emil announced his approach so no one was surprised. “I left the decoy on top of a bell tower,” Lalli said, smugness creeping into his voice.
“Thanks, that’s great —” Before Tuuri could finish, Lalli darted off into the forest. Reynir opened his eyes long enough to give her a sympathetic look and a huff of laughter.
Tuuri had idled long enough. Climbing inside, she collected her clipboard, quill, and ink, and returned to sit by Reynir and diagram a small loom. Side view, front view, breakdown of individual parts … Tuuri sketched until evening drew on and everyone retreated to the tank for the night.
After a quiet night, Reynir painted a cabinet door with his troll-fight galdrastafur and set it outside with his own hands, earning a thumbs-up from Sigrun. Since Lalli didn’t need to scout, he retreated to his den under Mikkel’s bunk, while Emil remained on his own bunk with Missekat in her bed of blankets underneath. As Tuuri drove, Reynir stood behind her and Sigrun and Mikkel sat together. Almost like the old days.
“Can’t he walk around yet?” Sigrun asked.
“It’s been eight days. Even with Reynir’s magic, it’s far too soon to risk that. Haven’t you ever broken a bone? You must know how long it takes to heal.”
Sigrun answered with a loud sigh. “You and Braidy are supposed to fix him up fast.”
Tuuri suppressed a grin as Mikkel didn’t dignify that with an answer.
As they had the day before, the villagers opened the gate as the tank approached. Tuuri parked before it, Mikkel and Reynir set up the ramp to get Emil out, and Gottfried welcomed the team within. Only Lalli remained behind in the tank.
On the previous day, the visitors had stayed together. This time, Gottfried took Mikkel to negotiate over supplies, a man named Armin invited Sigrun and Emil in his halting Danish to discuss hunting, while Tuuri and Reynir asked to speak to Joachim. At Gottfried’s order, a boy whose name Tuuri didn’t catch escorted them to an outbuilding beyond the kitchens. From this building drifted the sound of a hand-saw.
“Ah!” Joachim exclaimed, looking up from a battered plank he was sawing. Behind him, several pre-teens paused in polishing drop-spindles with strips of leather to stare at the strangers. “Back to work, lazy children,” Joachim told them in a fond tone that clashed with his words. “Why have you come?” he asked in Danish.
Tuuri decided to practice her German. “When you have yarn, you will need to make cloth.” She held out her blueprints. “This is a loom for weaving cloth. It is small, but you can make bigger.” Joachim hesitated, looking up as if seeking the translation in a corner of the ceiling, then smiled and accepted the papers. “A loom. Yes, we’ll need that. I asked some of the children to look for books about cloth, but I don’t know if we have any.”
As Joachim spoke, Reynir wandered to the young people to ask, “I help?”
“They look for knitting and crocheting,” Tuuri said. “I can teach, but that is slow. Will you make a loom?”
Joachim led the way to a worktable, pushed tools, sawdust, and scraps of wood aside, and laid out the blueprints. Soon they were engrossed in discussing the construction and use of the loom in a mixture of languages, while behind them, the young people showed Reynir how to polish with powder, oil, and leather.
Tuuri and Joachim were putting together the frame of a loom when a boy ran in to tell them it was time for lunch. Straightening with a groan of relief, Joachim led the way to the longhouse, where Karla, Gottfried, and the other visitors waited for them. Although it wasn’t another feast, a salad of greens with fresh and pickled cucumbers, followed by a hearty beef stew, was more than satisfying.
As they ate, Tuuri asked, “Why was your mother here, so far from home?”
Karla leaned back with a reminiscent smile. “My mother — Ditte was her name — came to stay in the town with her new husband, thinking to start their life together with good luck from the magic.”
“She saw the ley lines? And Anneliese inherited the ability?” No one knew the inheritance pattern of magic ability. It had skipped a generation in Tuuri’s family, perhaps it had skipped two in this case,
“No, she couldn’t. Her aunt Margrethe could see the lines; she told Ditte about them. Ditte was fascinated by magic and she wanted to learn about it, but she wasn’t a mage herself. Anyway, Ditte came here with her husband, uh —”
“Jesper, I think,” Gottfried put in.
“Jesper, then. He fell sick and she tended him. She was immune, of course. By the time he died, Denmark had closed its borders and she couldn’t go back. Germany closed its borders later, so her aunt Margrethe was able to come down here and ask her to go along. But Ditte chose to stay here. She moved into the castle with the other survivors, and here we still are.” She gave both a smile and a shrug. “Margrethe was the last Dane Ditte ever saw. She promised to come back if she could, but she never did.”
“That’s so sad.” Tuuri shook her head, thinking of how the poor woman must have felt, trapped forever in a foreign country. And yet, was her own situation so different?
“Stranded,” Emil said with a heavy sigh.
Mikkel stared down at his bowl. “A lot of people never got to go home back then.”
After a moment in which everyone ate in somber silence, Tuuri asked, “But if Ditte wasn’t a mage, where did you get the galdrastafur — the symbols?” She nearly dropped her spoon as the thought hit her. “Do you have a book of them?”
“No, no. We don’t. I said Ditte was interested in magic. She had books about it, and she’d studied those symbols. But she’d left all the books behind in Copenhagen. Not the sort of thing you take on your honeymoon.”
As Tuuri dug into her stew once more, Joachim leaned forward. “Tell about Margrethe and demons.”
All the visitors sat up at that, while Karla gave Joachim an indulgent smile. “That was just a story Ditte told you grandchildren.”
Sigrun cocked her head. “Margrethe fought demons?”
Karla shook her head but answered. “She didn’t fight them, no. Margrethe was a mage, or said she was. She said she was clairvoyant; she saw things that happened far away and a long time ago. And mostly, she saw magic rituals, like calling up and putting down demons. She wrote a book about it, and she really believed it.”
“She said she knew ritual to defeat the disease,” Joachim said eagerly.
Karla nodded. “That’s why she came here, because the ritual had to happen on the right magic line, the one that goes southwest. And she wanted Ditte to help her, but Ditte thought it was too dangerous. She wanted Margrethe to stay with her, but she wouldn’t.”
Mikkel didn’t say a word, though this seemed like his sort of discussion. Tuuri looked up at him, and froze.
Mikkel — calm, composed Mikkel, who could set a broken leg or interpret a demon’s motives — was staring at Karla as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Mikkel?” Sigrun’s voice was cautious. And suspicious?
In a flash, Tuuri realized what Mikkel must think. She clutched her hands together under the table. She had to act. If Sigrun questioned him here, in front of these strangers …
Mikkel reacted first. His eyes closed, the tension went out of his face, and when he opened his eyes, his impassive mask was back. But his face was pale and his voice tense as he said, “My apologies. I am suffering a headache. I regret missing the end of this excellent meal, but I must go lie down.” He stood, gave a shallow bow to Karla, and strode out, leaving his bowl half full. The villagers watched him go, shocked and concerned.
“Mikkel gets migraines,” Tuuri blurted out. “They’re really bad, come on fast like that.”
Emil stared at Tuuri, and Sigrun narrowed her eyes. After a beat, she agreed, “Yeah, really bad headaches.”
“A shame,” Karla said, pushing her bowl aside. “There are some here who get migraines. Always unfortunate.”
“I’m sure he’ll be okay in a few hours.” Tuuri stopped herself from babbling further. There was one point she had to confirm. “So, you were telling about Margrethe and her book. Is it here? Or did she leave it in Copenhagen?” She didn’t want to prompt them for the answer, though she thought she already knew. And thought that Mikkel also knew.
Karla shook her head. “It’s not here. Yesterday evening, Anneliese looked for books that might mention demons, but she didn’t find any.” She addressed Joachim. “Did Ditte say where the book is?”
Joachim looked up as if the answer might be written on the ceiling. “The book …” He switched to German. “I remember Grandmother said Margrethe showed her the book, all handwritten with drawings. She must have taken it with her.”
Sigrun turned to Tuuri, who swallowed and made her tone light as she translated. “Margrethe took the book with her down the ley line. I thought it might be here, but I suppose it’s lost now.”
Sigrun cursed under her breath. “Would have been nice to find out how to put down that demon.”
“I wish we could help you,” Karla said.
“I know. We’re grateful.” Tuuri scraped up the last of her stew. “I guess we’ll need to go soon anyway.” She gave Sigrun a silent plea for help.
“Yeah,” Sigrun said. “We better finish up.”
There was no dessert, so once everyone finished their stew, the visitors stood, offered sincere thanks, and made their way back to the tank, accompanied by Gottfried. Tuuri hadn’t heard any title for him, but then in a village of around a hundred people, perhaps the leader didn’t need a title.
“I hope the food didn’t disagree with him,” Gottfried said as they waited for a couple of men to open the heavy doors.
“Nah,” Sigrun said. “He can eat anything.”
“Even his own cooking,” Tuuri added.
Gottfried chuckled and gestured for the visitors to precede him. Without being asked, he joined Reynir in lifting the ramp, waited while Emil climbed it, and helped put it away. As he stepped back with a smile, the team gave thanks and said farewell as if all were normal.
As soon as the outer door closed behind Sigrun, she turned to Mikkel, who lay on his bunk with an arm over his eyes. “Okay, Mikkel, what’s wrong with you? What’s going on?”
For a moment, Tuuri wondered if he wasn’t feigning and actually had a headache, but he sat up and answered mildly, “I was surprised.”
“Yeah, I got that. Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid. You know something about that Margrethe. What? And why haven’t you told us before?”
“I want to know too,” Emil said, his voice cold.
Mikkel got to his feet, took the crutches Emil had leaned against his bunk, and stowed them properly. Standing by the cabinets, head bowed, he said, “I didn’t know about Margrethe, not by name. What I did know, what Trond told me, was that there was a woman in Copenhagen who wrote a book that held the key to defeating the Rash.”
As he took a deep, steadying breath, Tuuri nodded. She was right.
“I looked for that book,” Mikkel continued, “but it had been taken away long ago. It was lost. It could be anywhere. I … failed.”
Tuuri glanced at Sigrun. Once, Mikkel had run away into the darkness when Trond pressed him about his mission. About that book. Sigrun had brought him back, that time. And now his mission had found him again.
“But I went on. And just now, I heard it was right here.” His voice rose on the last few words.
“It’s not here now, though,” Tuuri said hesitantly. “She took it with her.”
A slight nod. Mikkel’s voice returned to its normal volume. “Yes, of course. She wouldn’t leave it behind. I knew it couldn’t be here. Only — it was a shock to hear that I missed it again. I handled that poorly. That’s all.”
Sigrun looked around at Emil sitting with his arms folded, Reynir twisting his braid, and Tuuri clutching her hands together so as not to wring them. “Okay, then. That’s all. Now we need to go camp somewhere. Scout!”
Lalli darted out the door to lead the way, while Emil lay back on his bunk and the others went forward. Sigrun and Mikkel sat together as usual, though Sigrun fidgeted, checking windows and mirrors, while Mikkel sat rigid, back straight, staring straight ahead. As Tuuri drove away, Sigrun turned to Mikkel. “You could have told me about the book before.”
“Trond ordered me not to tell anyone unless I had to. And afterwards, there seemed no reason.”
Sigrun glanced over at Tuuri. “Sometimes I really hate Trond.”
Tuuri agreed, and silence fell within the tank.
Lalli led the way down the southwest ley line, since they’d camped on the south ley line the previous night. As before, he only led them about five kilometers, so it would be a short drive back to the village. The crossroads he chose as their campsite was a mass of frost-heaved asphalt, weeds, and low bushes, with a stream running through it that had once been a drainage pipe.
Despite the rough surroundings, Emil demanded to be allowed out of the tank and, after Sigrun and Reynir promised to help him around, Mikkel allowed it. “You may touch your foot to the ground, but don’t put weight on it. If you start to fall —” Mikkel gave Sigrun a hard look, and she grinned back. “If you start to fall, these two have to catch you.”
Emil nodded, resting on his crutches while Mikkel and Reynir set up the ramp. Once he was on the ground, he crutched about with great care while his helpers hovered nearby. Lalli seated himself on an upturned slab on the edge of the road, back to the others. Tuuri leaned against the tank next to Mikkel as he cooked. Though he appeared quite focused on his work, his spoon stopped stirring whenever Emil swayed and the other two steadied him.
Tuuri tried not to stare at Emil, instead watching butterflies dance and leaves flutter in the breeze. Missekat lounged at her feet, sniffing occasionally at odors of beef stew from the pot and the earthy green scent of the forest. Now and then, Mikkel tossed a bit of beef to the cat.
“She looks like she’s ready to pop,” Tuuri said after a while.
“Indeed. I think we will have several kittens to contend with.”
“I bet five.”
When Mikkel looked up, a faint smile touched his face for the first time since the disastrous lunch. “Do you. How much do you bet?”
“A million kronor! I win if we get five kittens. Or more.”
Mikkel ran a hand over Missekat’s side. “I’m not sure I want to take that bet. A million kronor is a lot for a poor medic like myself. How about half a million?”
Tuuri laughed. “Done!” As he turned back to his cooking, her humor faded. Neither of them was likely to see another krona. Ever.
Mikkel was not a terrible cook. Compared to the cooks at the lost village, he was, at best, average. But beef, fresh carrots, new potatoes, and green peas went a long way towards improving his work. After savoring their supper in the cool, clean, late afternoon air, the team sat back, sated.
Sigrun wiped her mouth and addressed Mikkel as he collected bowls. “What’s on your mind, big guy?”
“My mind is entirely blank.”
“Nah, you’re thinking about that gods-rotted book.”
Tuuri looked at Reynir, who looked back. By silent consent, they shifted a little closer together and watched their superiors in silence. Emil cleaned his rifle, his crutches propped against the tank beside him. Lalli gazed off into the forest.
“Perhaps,” Mikkel said, taking the bowls and trotting up the ramp into the tank.
Sigrun rolled her eyes at Tuuri. “He’s not getting out of it that easy.” They waited in a silence broken only by the hiss of water in the little stream, the flutter of leaves, and birdsong all around them.
When Mikkel returned from washing the dishes, Sigrun pointed to the spot next to herself and said, “Sit. Tell me what you’re thinking about that book.”
“If you insist.” Mikkel sighed and took his seat beside her. “I’m thinking I need to go down the ley line and find it.”
“And you think that book is just lying along the ley line somewhere for you to scoop up?” Emil asked scornfully.
“Emil!” Tuuri glared at him, and he glared back.
“You two shut up,” Sigrun said. “No fighting on my team. But, big guy, he’s right. That woman carried it off during the Catastrophe. Yeah, maybe it’s still on the ley line somewhere. But there’s a million cars and houses and stuff it could be inside of. Or she could’ve been eaten and it too. Or she could’ve turned and eaten it herself. Anything could’ve happened to it. We can’t find it.”
Mikkel gazed off into the forest. “I didn’t say I —”
“Magic books don’t just go away,” Reynir interrupted, then put his hand to his mouth as if to stop the escape of words. “Uh, the stories say the magic protects them,” he finished in a near-whisper. Tuuri almost elbowed him to keep quiet, but was she pleased or dismayed that he was encouraging the man? She wrung her hands, wishing she’d never asked about Ditte.
“I hope so,” Mikkel said. “But —”
“But you don’t know if it even is magic,” Sigrun said. “Margrethe said it was, that’s all. So it could’ve gotten eaten. Or just rotted away.”
Mikkel squared his shoulders without looking away from the forest. “That’s true. But if the book is still out there, if I can find it, if it really does contain a ritual to put down a demon, then Tuuri, then all of you, will be free to live in the lost village.”
Tuuri stared at him. Finding a specific fish in Lake Saimaa would be trivial compared to this. “Mikkel, I can manage. I don’t even want to live behind walls forever.” Beside her, Reynir said nothing but twisted his braid around his arm, loop after loop.
Mikkel turned to address her. “You should have the choice. You should be able to stay for a week and repair the tank.” He dropped his gaze and tugged at his sideburns. “And I wouldn’t have to rely on my own … perceptions. Reynir’s dog found the pastor for him once we got close. I talked to my fylgja a few nights ago, and I think he could find the book for me if I got close enough.”
“You talked to your fylgja?” Sigrun shook her head. “That’s — Okay, you’re talking like you’re going alone. That’s crazy. You’ll be dead the first night.” When Mikkel showed his palms in a helpless gesture, she turned to the others. “Anybody else feeling crazy?”
Tuuri took a breath, separated her hands, and shoved them in her pockets. “I’ll go with him. At least we’ll have the tank.”
“Wait,” Mikkel said. “I just said I thought of looking for it. I didn’t say we should. This — this isn’t the time to have this discussion.”
Stroking his hood with one hand, Emil squinted at Mikkel, then at Tuuri. When she squinted back, he ducked his head, as his shoulders twitched up and down.
Pulling at the braid already wrapped around his arm, Reynir whispered to Tuuri, “My dog’s really smart. I — I think you need us too.”
To Tuuri’s surprise, Sigrun gave a reckless grin. “I heard that! Well, the scout goes with the driver, so that’s done.”
“Wait, wait, no —” Mikkel began, but Sigrun overrode him.
“You’re going off on a doomed quest to find a magic tome that’s probably already been eaten? And you think you’re going to leave me behind? Ha!” More soberly, but with lips still twitching, she turned to Emil. “No reason you have to come. That village needs help, and they’d love you and your fire dog.”
As Emil tugged his hood to hide his downturned face, Mikkel patted the air as if quieting dogs. “No one needs to decide now. No one should decide now. Let’s drop it for the night. If we have to, we can talk in the morning.”
Sigrun folded her arms and winked at Tuuri. Somehow, Tuuri thought, the question had already been decided.
Evening shadows were long as Tuuri finished setting the traps for the night. Even with decoys and deflectors, no one felt safe without a circle of traps in case trolls broke through the magic. Her three immune guards were on edge, touching their weapons and studying the darkening woods, until she stood, announced, “Done!” and ran for the tank.
Inside, as she stowed her boots and mask, Reynir squeezed past Mikkel and Sigrun to tell her, “Emil wants to talk. He’s in the front.”
For a moment, she wanted to refuse. He’d been nasty to Mikkel for no reason, and why would he want to talk to her, anyway? He mostly talked to Sigrun, treating Tuuri like a nuisancy child. But … “No fighting on my team.”
Tuuri went forward to find Emil sitting on the passengers’ bench with his left leg stretching into the aisle, his crutches leaning against his hip, and his hood up. Edging past him, she dropped into her driver’s seat, facing him. “What’s up?”
“Can you …” He stopped and shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. “Please close the door. I–I’d like to talk.”
With some annoyance, Tuuri worked her way to the door and back again. “So, what do you want to talk about?”
He waved at the windshield. “I was watching you arm the traps. You’re very careful.”
By which he meant slow, of course. Her annoyance increased. “They’re dangerous!”
“Yeah, I know. In the Cleansers, we practiced with fake explosives. If you made a mistake, they blew up and splattered you with red paint. And then everybody laughed at you until you could get it off. It took days.”
“I wish I could practice with one of those.”
“I wish you could, too.” He tapped the splint. “I wish I could take care of all that myself. You shouldn’t have to.” He looked up, his face suddenly defenseless. “You’ve done really well, though. I just don’t want you in that danger.”
“I’m … doing what I can.” Tuuri wondered why he’d wanted to talk about this privately. Perhaps he thought Sigrun would argue about the traps.
“Everyone is. Except me.” Emil tapped the splint again. “I was running and I stepped in a hole, you know. Stupid move. Nearly got me and Sigrun killed.”
“It was just an accident.”
“Yeah. A lot of accidents on this expedition.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “I’m a Swede, and we’re skeptics. I’m a skeptic. But I’m living in a haunted tank, I've summoned a fire spirit, my leg is being healed by magic paper, and we're being chased by a demon. So, I have to think, why can't Reynir's invisible dog spot a magic book for us so we can put down the demon?” He drummed his fingers on the splint. “But you. Do you think we can find that book? That it’s any use if we do?”
“That’s … a really hard question. Maybe Reynir’s right and the magic kept it safe all these years. But also … I’m kind of selfish. I can’t stay in the village or the demon will wipe them out. I have to keep moving anyway, so why not look for that book? If we never find it, well, I’ve looked at the map. Go straight southwest and after a while — a month or so, I think — you’ll run into the ocean. If we don’t find the book by then, we can turn around and come back. Try to think of something else.”
“I guess that’s fair. What’s a couple more months of travel? And — I really want to go home. But since I can’t, I don’t want to be left behind with a bunch of strangers.” He shot her a quick glance before ducking his head and letting his hood fall forward to hide his face. “If you all are going after the book, I want to go with you.” His shoulders hunched as if expecting rejection. “Even though I’m not much use.”
Tuuri gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder. “Well, sure. I’d hate to leave you behind. And Sigrun would throw a fit. Anyway, you’ll heal up and take care of the traps. It’ll be fine.”
“What about —” He stroked his hood with one hand. “You know, Mikkel. What if he doesn’t want me?”
“Oh, Emil.” Her eyes felt damp as she spoke. “I don’t speak for him, but I think I know him well enough. He wouldn’t try to leave you. He doesn’t hate you, you know.”
Emil tugged at his hood as if it didn’t hide his face enough. “I–I think I hated him. He got me trapped here, and my cousins are … lost somewhere.” Tuuri opened her mouth to argue, but stopped as he continued with an effort. “But if he’ll let me, I want to come with you.”
“He’ll let you. It’ll be fine. Right? Find the book, get rid of the demon, and then who knows?”
He took another deep breath and sighed. “Right. I guess I should tell the others. Can you get the door? My leg gets in the way of everything.”
Tuuri laughed in relief, hurried to the door, and pushed it open. Beyond, in the main compartment, the others were ostentatiously not paying attention to her. But when Emil came out on his crutches to say, “I’m coming too,” Sigrun jumped up grinning broadly. For an instant, Tuuri thought she would thump his shoulder and knock him over, but the captain settled for patting his shoulder before getting out of the way.
“Knew you would!” Sigrun crowed, and behind her, Mikkel gave Emil a slight smile while Reynir gave him a broad grin.
“We just have to say goodbye to the villagers tomorrow,” Mikkel said, “and then we’re off on our doomed mission.”
One more step.
One step onto the gangplank, and Onni would make his way onto the ship that would, at long last, take him away from Rønne and all the Known World and into darkness and silence to search for Tuuri and Lalli.
Take him … and the triplets.
The boys were already on the ship, questioning the crew about each piece of gear. Anna had stayed behind with Onni, ready to help him get up the gangplank safely to the ship.
The ship.
It was hardly bigger than the large trading boats that plied the placid waters of Lake Saimaa. It didn’t look capable of withstanding the rigors of the open ocean, though the sailors claimed they had sailed it to Norway and back. Yet, what choice did he have? No other ship would be available for weeks. And with every passing day, his family moved farther into peril.
One more step.
Onni had chosen to go into peril for his family. But to take three children with him? How could he justify that, even to himself?
“We’re sticking to you like burrs,” Anna had said. “You owe us,” Sune had declared. And “I can help you,” Håkan had added.
They refused to stay behind in safety. The only way to keep them safe was to stay in safety himself. To give up the search for his family. To leave his sister and his cousin to their fates in the Silent World. To leave the triplets’ cousin to his fate.
One more step.
Onni’s vision narrowed to the gangplank. Ship, dancing waves, Anna herself: all gone. Voices, footsteps, splash of waves, creak of timbers, cries of gulls overhead: all gone. There was only the gangplank as the world held its breath.
Onni took one more step.
It was perhaps selfish to want to join the others in bidding farewell to the village, Emil thought, as Sigrun escorted him down the ramp the other men had set up. By the time he was leaning on his crutches, safe on the ground, Gottfried and several other villagers had brought out buckets of supplies and carried back buckets full of cans of cod.
Tuuri, waiting beside Emil, waved at the line of villagers atop the wall. More villagers than the day before, and all waving back. One man lifted a small child to look down at the strangers.
Do they already know? Is he showing the strangers to his child because he knows this is the last chance? Emil leaned on a crutch and waved at the child. And is this my last chance to see strangers?
They could still stay around a little longer. The Dane had even suggested it that morning: delay a few days, camping somewhere different every night … Emil had wanted to agree, even with him. But Sigrun’s answer had been blunt. “Shut up, Mikkel. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be done.” And that had been the end of that.
With the trading complete, Reynir and the Dane came to join Sigrun, Tuuri, and Emil, forming a curved line facing Gottfried.
“We’re moving on,” Sigrun said as soon as they were all together.
Gottfried nodded without surprise. “You will talk to Mother?”
“Sure.” As he turned to lead the way, Sigrun followed and the rest fell in behind her. Reynir walked beside Emil, as usual, not invading his personal space — much — but ready to catch him if he tripped or slipped. Emil gritted his teeth, as usual, not wanting Reynir or anyone else hovering over him. Yet, it had been only nine days since his injury. He was lucky to be able to get around at all, even if he had to use crutches and have the humiliation of an attendant.
To Emil’s surprise, Gottfried didn’t lead them to the longhouse, as before, but through the great hall of the castle and into a small stone room to the side. There, Karla sat in a pre-Rash wooden rocking chair beside a small bed neatly made-up with felt blankets.
“They will go,” Gottfried said without preamble.
Still sitting, Karla nodded and tilted her head back to regard the Dane. “What do you know about Margrethe's book?”
“I knew less of the book than you do.”
“But you did know about the book, and you did come here.”
“I knew of a book that was supposed to be the key to defeating the disease,” the Dane said, his voice controlled and even. “A man in Oslo wrote of it before dying. His papers were recently rediscovered. He said the book was in Copenhagen, but it was not. It seemed lost forever.”
“And yet you came here.”
“We didn’t come here for the book; we only found this village because we followed the ley line for protection. It was a shock to me to realize that Margrethe was the writer and her book was that book, so it was carried through here.”
As he spoke, Emil looked around, wanting to stay in this castle, to have his own little stone room with a real bed. While they might not need a Cleanser, he could at least work in the greenhouses. His fingers twitched on the crutches as if digging into rich loam.
Karla gazed at the Dane for a long moment. “You believe the book really can defeat the disease?”
“I don’t see how it could. The disease didn’t even exist when she wrote the book. But perhaps she did know how to put down a demon, and that is our immediate problem.”
Karla glanced at Gottfried, who asked, “You will follow Margrethe?”
“Yes,” Sigrun replied.
Tuuri wrung her hands. “But we'll come back when we can.”
Karla and Gottfried exchanged another glance, and Emil knew what they must be thinking. That was what Margrethe had said.
“The Lord brought you here,” Karla said, and her voice was steady as she said it. “And perhaps He will lead you to safety. Go with the Lord.”
With that, Gottfried led them out. The villagers had indeed known, or guessed, for they had drifted in from wherever they had been and stood in loose groups along the walls and near the gate. No one spoke. They watched the team cross the bailey, and they were still watching when Gottfried stood aside at the gate to let the strangers leave.
“You sure fooled them,” Sigrun commented behind Emil, and he heard the grin in her voice. “That Karla saw right through you.”
“I handled the situation poorly,” the Dane said. “I have admitted that.”
Sigrun and Tuuri laughed, and Emil clenched his jaws. It was all very well for them; the Dane hadn’t trapped them in the Silent World. As he leaned on his crutches, ignoring the pain in his armpits, the women trotted past him and climbed into the tank. Once they were inside, the Dane and Reynir lifted the ramp, and Reynir stood beside it, smiling and waiting for Emil to make his painful way over to be escorted up the ramp.
I am so tired of being a problem to be solved. Being so useless. If I could even just manage the traps so Tuuri didn’t have to risk it … but I can’t even kneel.
Emil climbed the ramp with Reynir beside him. As soon as they were inside, the Icelander gave him a grin and a thumbs-up, then ran down the ramp to help put it away.
I can’t believe that man is still so friendly after all he’s had to do for me.
“Hey, Sigrun, if you’ll sit by the window, I can sit up front with you.” He’d tried it out the night before; it would be awkward, since he’d have to extend his splinted leg almost into the driver’s footwell, but it would work.
After Sigrun agreed with her usual enthusiasm, Emil worked his way forward to where Tuuri already sat ready to drive. By the time he eased himself onto the passengers’ bench, the other men had put the ramp away and climbed into the tank. The Dane stayed in the main compartment, a relief to Emil. The medic checked the splint and felt the bone every morning, and Emil was quite sure that Reynir reported his every move. Just having both of them focused on something else — anything else — improved his mood.
At the moment, Reynir stood behind Tuuri’s seat, holding on with his right hand and with his left resting on her shoulder. When had that started? They’d been subtle about it (or perhaps thought they were) before he was injured, but it seemed that, while he’d been stuck in his bunk for more than a week, they’d given up the pretense. And that reminded him of the village and the castle now dwindling in the side mirrors. There had been young women who watched the visitors — watched him — with fascination.
I could have stayed there. I could have had a little stone room, worked in the greenhouses, met a girl … but they don’t know Håkan or Onni. Even if that mage, Anneliese, can walk on water in mage-space, how could she find them? How could I ever learn what happened to my cousins? Only Reynir can do that for me.
As the castle disappeared behind the trees, Emil looked ahead at the battered road, refusing to allow himself to hope that, if they put down the demon, they could go north and somehow return to the Known World. The tank was very quiet as they drove away into the unknown.
Because they’d camped on the new line the night before, they camped that evening worryingly close to their prior campsite. As shadows lengthened, Lalli carried a “troll-war” galdrastafur to their prior campsite and left a decoy a couple of kilometers north of the tank, returning in near darkness, for the new moon had not yet risen. Though no one raised alarms during the night, in the morning, Reynir reported that trolls had wandered by during the second watch, and two were sheltering outside the deflecting range.
While Sigrun and Lalli dashed out to deal with the lurking trolls so Tuuri could collect the traps, the medic checked Emil’s splint and felt the location of the break. Emil could hold his tongue no longer. “Real doctors don’t poke at broken bones every day.”
The medic didn’t turn from looking down at the splint. “I am not a doctor, Emil,” he said quietly. “Nor am I an Icelandic healer. I was just an army medic. My training was limited to triage and immediate wound care, and it did not include this.” He touched the paper of the galdrastafur, just visible between bandages.
Before Emil could speak — and what would he say? — the medic continued, “I want you to be free of this splint as soon as it is safe to remove it, but when is that? Perhaps a healer would know how long the fracture would take to heal with magical healing under a ley line, but I do not. All I can do is examine the point of the fracture and try to determine if the hard callus has formed.”
Emil said nothing. The medic nodded as if he’d had an answer and got to his feet. Taking out the broom, he swept the floor until Reynir announced that breakfast was ready.
Though the day had dawned cool and sunny, the team ate breakfast inside, Reynir cooking, Emil sitting on his bunk with his plate in his lap, Lalli on the floor in his favorite corner, and the other three at the table. When Sigrun finished her breakfast and leaned back, she said, “Okay, big guy, you talked to your fylgja. Are you going to tell us what it said? And why you didn’t tell us before?”
The Dane laid down his fork. “I didn’t tell you because he said nothing we could act on. He said to go south — which we were doing anyway — and there was ‘something’ to the south. Then —”
“‘Something’? That’s all he said?” Tuuri asked.
“Yes, that’s all about that. I suppose he meant the village. He also said every demon has a weakness, but he doesn’t know what ours’ is.”
Sigrun stared at him as the others watched her. “So the demon has some kind of weakness. That’s nice. Real helpful.” He shrugged, and she shook her head with a rueful grin. “Yeah, no point telling us.” She stood. “Okay, time to move on.”
Though clouds moved in by noon, the team ate outside, enjoying what sunshine and fresh air they could get. Emil ate inside, holding the plate in his lap as he sat by the open door and watched the monitors, even though Lalli would probably notice approaching enemies before the devices did. But maybe not. Sometimes Lalli’s senses seemed to work better and sometimes worse. At least Emil was contributing something to the team, even if nothing appeared.
Emil sat up straight. “Hey! There’s something out there. Coming up from the south. Big things. Four … five that I can see. No, there’s more farther back.”
Even as he spoke, Reynir half-lifted Tuuri into the tank and clambered in after her, followed by the Dane. Outside, Sigrun and Lalli raced to the back ladder, with Lalli climbing up first. Emil directed the video feed to the south, watching as the creatures came close enough to identify.
“Cattle,” the Dane murmured, watching over Emil’s shoulder. “The cattle the villagers hunt. No wonder they don’t try to keep them.”
Emil couldn’t help nodding. The cattle were huge, bigger than any cattle he’d ever seen, with bulky, muscular shoulders. The cows were smaller — if an animal taller at the shoulder than himself could be called “smaller” — and were reddish-brown, while the large bull that led them was black. All had lethal-looking horns.
One shot, and a smaller cow dropped. Though Sigrun’s voice was unclear in the monitors, Emil knew she was complaining to Lalli about stealing her shot. The cattle looked around, nudged the dead cow, looked around again, and thundered away. Footsteps overhead, and Sigrun was down the ladder and rushing to the door, calling even before the door was fully open. “Let’s go, big guy! Fresh beef!”
Emil watched the two senior members rush to gather butchering tools from the back and run to the carcass. Butchering should have been his job. Resting his clenched fists on the splint, he glared at the monitors. Nothing would creep up on anyone while he was watching.
It took over an hour for the Dane to remove the best parts of the carcass and stow some in galdrastafur-marked buckets that the villagers had given them, brining the rest. Sigrun stood guard over him while Lalli guarded the tank, and the other three waited impatiently inside. The clouds darkened, and the rain had begun by the time the Dane finished and washed up.
Sigrun climbed into the tank with a broad grin. “Did you see that thing? Have you ever seen cattle like that?” To everyone’s surprise, the green light under the monitors flickered: Rosli calling for attention. “Huh, what?” As Mikkel climbed in, the light spelled out a word.
aurochs
“Aurochs?” Sigrun asked. “Tuuri-girl, do you know what an auroch is? Is that German?”
“No, German for cattle is ‘Rinder’. I never heard of ‘auroch’.” Tuuri turned to the Dane. “Have you?”
“No, never. Is it —”
old extinct
The Dane twisted his shoulders as if to work out tension. “They did not appear extinct to me.”
revived
Rain drumming on the tank was loud in the astonished silence. “You mean the ancients … they … they raised the dead?” Emil asked before the others found their tongues.
no no hard to explain
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Sigrun muttered. She glanced towards the back. “I guess we can eat it. The villagers do.”
“They served it to us at the feast,” the medic said. “It tasted a little different from our beef, but I supposed that to be due to its diet. It didn’t sicken us, though.”
Emil stared at the light, now dark. If they didn’t raise the dead, where did these cattle come from? Why are they still around? “Are they real animals, then? Not, you know, undying things like trolls?”
real real
The troll-hunter captain waved a hand dismissing the mystery. “Okay, real animals, so we’ve got fresh beef for supper, and we need to get moving.” Tuuri said something in Finnish, Lalli pulled up his hood and set out into the rain, and everyone but the Dane went forward. Once Emil was settled and Reynir had laid his crutches on the floor out of the way, the tank crunched and splashed forward after the scout.
As the afternoon dragged on, the rain got heavier and runoff flowed across the remains of the road. Well before evening, Lalli stepped out of the half-roofed remains of a small building in a ruined parking lot and waved the tank to a halt. Dripping, he climbed into the tank and spoke a sentence or so to Tuuri, who parked the tank and leaned back to flex her fingers and smile at Emil. With the crutches returned by Reynir, Emil struggled to his foot and made his way back to his bunk.
The team spent a quiet evening inside, since no one wanted to go out in the rain. After Reynir and the Dane served a tasty supper of steak and potatoes, the Dane took the watch. Reynir and Tuuri played with Missekat, while Lalli slept and Sigrun and Emil cleaned their rifles, even though Emil hadn’t fired his rifle for ten days and had cleaned it three times in those ten days. He didn’t quite believe that his rifle would serve him better if it liked him, but with all the strangeness around him, he didn’t quite disbelieve either. And cleaning his rifle gave him something to do with his hands.
The only interesting part of the evening was listening to the Dane’s low-voiced efforts to understand how the ancients had revived the aurochs without raising the dead. Even from Emil’s position across the compartment, he could hear frustration creep into the Dane’s voice at Rosli’s brief answers. After several minutes, the man apologized for tiring her and fell silent. Emil gave a brief and private smile. That man seemed to know everything, and it was satisfying to see that he knew no more of this than the rest of them.
The following morning, one troll lurked near the tank. After Sigrun disposed of it, she and the other immunes escorted Tuuri to collect the traps while Emil alternated glaring at the splint and watching the monitors, expecting at any moment to see a massive flare erupt. Though Tuuri succeeded without setting off a trap, he decided that, much as he didn’t want to talk to the medic, he had to ask questions.
“Can you cut the splint off below my knee so I can kneel?”
The medic continued to regard the splint. “No, I can’t allow that. If you kneel, or even move your knee, you’ll put strain on the fracture which is still unhealed. That will set the healing back or even do permanent damage.” As Emil clenched his fists in frustration, the man went on, “You want to handle the traps, don’t you?”
“Yes!” Emil made an effort to calm himself. “It’s dangerous, and I don’t want Tuuri taking the risk.”
“Agreed. I would take the risk myself if I could. But she’s very careful, and —” He stopped and sighed, glancing towards Emil’s body, though not his face. “There is a way, if you’re willing.”
“What?”
“Someone could help you to the ground beside each trap and help you up again after you set it or disable it.”
“Reynir —” But even as he said it, he knew the Icelander couldn't lower him and lift him again dozens of times. Only one person on the team could do that.
The medic didn’t answer.
Emil stared at his own hands. He didn’t want to owe the man any more than he already did. Just being around him was uncomfortable. And yet … would he endanger Tuuri because he didn’t want to deal with the Dane?
“This evening. We can try that,” Emil said heavily.
The medic got to his feet. “Very well.” And he was gone, joining Reynir in fixing breakfast.
After a rainy day in which Emil waited tense and silent for evening, Tuuri parked the tank in a wide spot in the road, as Lalli hadn’t found a good parking lot. Before she could leave her driving seat, Emil took a deep breath and addressed her.
“I’m going to set the traps today.”
“What? You don’t think I —”
“You’re doing really well, but it’s dangerous. It’s my job, and I’ve done it so many —”
“But your leg — you can’t kneel —”
“Mikkel will help me. As long as I can sit beside a trap, I can handle it.”
As he watched her face, she bit her lip, glanced back to the main compartment, where Mikkel had remained as she drove. “Yeah … yeah. Okay.” She looked back at Emil. “I can still help, you know. If it gets hard.” A hesitant smile. “It is pretty scary.”
Emil returned her smile and got to his foot to wait for supper and then do his job.
After the men set up the ramp, Sigrun escorted Emil down, and the other two immunes closed in to join them. Turning in place, Emil studied the remains of the road, picking out easy routes that a troll would want to follow. When he had the positions of two circles of traps in mind, he leaned on his crutches and pointed to the first spot. While Sigrun and Lalli spread out to stand guard, the medic accompanied him to the spot. Standing behind him, the medic took the crutches, letting him stand on one foot for a moment. Two large, strong hands gripped his torso and supported him as he held his left leg straight out and lowered himself on his right leg.
By the time Emil had finished setting dozens of traps on the first circle, his right leg shook with the strain of lifting his weight over and over, and his left hip ached from the effort of holding his leg straight out. Much as he hated to do it, he allowed the medic to take more and more of his weight, both lowering and lifting him. Still, as the medic returned his crutches each time, he made his own way over frost-heaved pavement to the next spot.
By the time the last trap was set, Emil’s armpits had joined the chorus of pain. Gritting his teeth, he climbed the ramp, made it the last few meters to his bunk, and collapsed. He didn’t even notice as Reynir rushed to pick up and stow the crutches he’d allowed to clatter to the floor. But he’d done his job and kept Tuuri away from the dangers of explosives.
As he closed his eyes and drifted away that night, Emil thought, “They really need me.”
“Are we really all doomed?” Tuuri asked the next morning, her voice very small.
“Of course.” Sigrun said absently, not taking her eyes off the forest. Something had moved out there, and she didn’t mean to let the little Finn be harmed on her way to the crude latrine. The footsteps beside her stopped, and Sigrun whipped around, hand on rifle, scanning trees she’d already checked. “You see something?”
“N–no, but —”
“Oh. Oh. Yeah, we’re all doomed. Everybody’s doomed, Tuuri-girl. We all die in the end.”
Much of the tension went out of Tuuri. “But what you said —”
“The doomed mission? You’ve been stewing over that?” Sigrun shook her head. “Don’t you worry about it. I’m pretty sure the mission’s doomed, yeah. Looking for a book that got lost in the middle of the Catastrophe somewhere out here?” She waved a hand at the forest, the ruined road, the abandoned towns and cities. “Maybe it’s magic and the magic protected it. And maybe the gods sent us here to look for it. Don’t think so, though. Nah, I think we’ll follow this line to the end, and we won’t find it, and then we’ll do something else.”
Movement caught Sigrun’s eye and she turned, ready. Just a raven landing on a branch to watch them. She gave it a respectful nod, surveyed the surrounding forest, and gave Tuuri a nudge. “Come on, do your business, and let’s get back. This forest is too green. It bothers me.”
Nothing troubled them as they took care of business and returned to the tank, Tuuri running the last dozen steps. Even Sigrun felt better inside where she could see the monitors. Nothing crept up on them through the luxuriant bushes that bordered and partially invaded the broken pavement, and the raven had flown away.
They never talked much on the road these days. Tuuri was so focused on her driving that she often didn’t seem to hear voices, and they’d long since run out of safe topics of conversation. Behind them lay the castle and lost village they’d sought so long and so hard, while before them lay only mystery. Road and forest stretched on endlessly the same, and discussion of the trees or the flowers might remind someone of the trees or flowers at home.
Sigrun planned attacks. How do you organize four immunes and maybe two nons to clear a village, given an unarmed tank and a supply of explosives and incendiaries? Magic, too, of course. She lost herself in designing killing zones with decoys surrounded by deflectors to funnel trolls together on top of a troll-fight galdrastafur.
After a satisfying lunch of steak and fried potatoes, Tuuri drove forward again while Mikkel left to follow the tank, throwing broken branches into the back to dry out so he could use them as fuel. And so the afternoon passed. When they stopped for the evening, Mikkel disappeared into the back compartment after a supper of steak and fried potatoes.
Trolls wandered up late in the third watch, Sigrun’s watch. Not enough to break the magic; not enough to require her to wake everyone up. But there were trolls, despite the usual decoy and a troll-fight galdrastafur at their previous campsite. Sigrun watched them, wondering what might be going wrong. In the morning, she and Lalli dealt with two strays before Emil, with Mikkel’s help, retrieved the traps.
Sigrun said nothing of her concerns. After all, the trolls might just have come from a nearby town, and there was no need to worry the others.
The day went well until mid-afternoon, when the tank bucked and stopped. A strange, metallic smell filled the tank, Tuuri cursed, and multiple status lights turned red. While several flickered, only one, Rosli’s usual light, flashed in a pattern. Sigrun quickly gave up reading the Morse code as Tuuri asked rapid technical questions and got brief answers back.
Mikkel, who had been sitting in the main compartment, hurried forward. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. Wait,” Tuuri said, without looking around. She continued to ask questions about wires and relays and other things that might as well have been magic to Sigrun.
Finally, Tuuri sat back, silent, head down. Sigrun glanced at Mikkel, who stood, one hand clutching his sideburns, watching the little Finn. “Okay,” Tuuri said at last. “I don’t have all the parts, but I should be able to find them in an electronics store.”
“You?” Sigrun asked.
“It has to be me. Lalli can’t just sniff out things like that, and I, I don’t think I can describe them well enough for anyone else.”
“There’s a city near enough for —” Mikkel began.
“But she can’t go into a city without the tank!” Emil burst out.
Tuuri shook her head without looking at anyone. “I don’t have a choice. We can’t get this tank going without those parts.” Her hands had crept together, gripping each other until her knuckles turned white.
Sigrun looked through the windshield, calculating. Four days’ travel back to the village. The tank is slow. Probably three days’ travel on foot. Two, even, if we push hard. Laying out decoys, carrying deflectors … but the trolls are getting close. And once we get there, then what? “How far to the city? The place we could find parts?”
Mikkel had both hands on his sideburns now. “Most of a day. We’d have to leave in the morning, hike, find what we need. Camp somewhere.”
“In the city,” Sigrun finished for him. “Camp somewhere in the city, you mean.”
When Mikkel nodded, Emil made a sound of objection, not even a word. Just objection.
“Maybe —” Reynir ventured. He gulped when everyone looked at him, but continued. “Maybe if she — if you — have a good tabard, you’ll be safe.” Sigrun frowned and looked outside. “I know we still don’t have the yarn, but, but we could unravel one and knit a new one.”
“Unravel mine,” Mikkel said without hesitating. “It’ll give you the most yarn.”
“No,” Emil said. “Mine. It’s smaller but I’m not going with you.”
Sigrun gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder. “Right. You’ll be in charge of the tank. You’ll guard Braidy for a couple of days while we go get the stuff.” She looked up at Reynir. “Get to work now. We need that tabard tomorrow morning.”
Reynir rushed away to the main compartment.
Though Reynir had the second watch that night and it was Sigrun’s turn in the back, she ordered him to keep knitting while she stood watch. She’d done plenty of marches after watching all night; it wasn’t fun, but she could do it. She couldn’t knit a magic tabard for Tuuri.
By morning, a yawning Reynir personally pulled the new tabard on over Tuuri’s head and tied the short strings on the sides. Perhaps he lingered longer than necessary, looking into her eyes, before he turned away, swiping at his face with a sleeve, while she busied herself with harnessing the cat. As Emil leaned on his crutches, watching the immunes don their uniforms and gather their weapons, Sigrun could feel his yearning to join them. “You’re in charge,” she reminded him. “Take care of Braidy. We’ll come back as quick as we can.” Though he nodded and gave her a good salute, his yearning expression remained as Sigrun and Mikkel closed in on either side of Tuuri, Missekat rode on her shoulders, and Lalli led the way towards the ruined city to the north. The door clanked shut behind them.
The three immunes wore their tabards. Though the magic wouldn’t hide them from the demon, the enemy didn’t seem to be looking for them, and the tabards might deflect trolls to some degree. The four were well-armed; all wore pistols at their belts, Mikkel bore his shotgun, and the others bore their rifles. Mikkel also wore a large backpack with first aid kit, three days’ food, rain gear, ammunition, and other useful odds and ends. They all had canvas bags tucked under their belts, as they never knew what treasures might turn up.
Lalli was an excellent scout, to no one’s surprise. Several times over the course of the day, he waved them to a halt and darted away, returning a minute later without comment. So careful was he to keep them away from threats that Missekat never reacted to grosslings. Squirrels racing along oak branches paused their little errands to watch the humans pass, rabbits hopped from their path to hide under blossoming bushes, and once a hawk dropped onto a lichen-encrusted rock to study the little group for a time before flying off into the cloudless sky. The wind turned from south to west, stirring the leaves, and the day wore on. Nothing offered a threat. Sigrun found the hike very boring.
That is, until they reached the city in mid-afternoon. So many grosslings surrounded them that even Lalli couldn’t thread a path to keep far from all of them.
Here, the forest was on the march, swaying pines and sturdy oaks stretching through tumbled heaps of broken bricks and rotting timber, flowering bushes perching precariously on leaning walls, and everywhere vines climbing up to pull away at what still stood. Green and gold moss reached long fingers down crevices carved by flowing water. Fresh leaves whispered in the west wind, birds sang from nests on windowsills, and now and then something fell with a crash and a slither in the distance. Odors of wet earth and mildew warred with scents of flowers and growing things. Sigrun regarded all with suspicion, for trolls might lurk in ruins even beneath a carpet of flowers.
While Sigrun and Lalli spread out, alert, daggers in hand, Mikkel stepped aside to pick up a straight piece of rebar with a chunk of concrete on the end, before placing himself at Tuuri’s side. Missekat stood on her shoulders, eyes wide and fur standing on end. The girl kept moving, though her face was white and her breath came in short gasps.
Lalli stopped at each intersection, swaying slightly, with his eyes closed and mage-light playing across his face, visible even in sunlight. Twice, he guided them around areas that Missekat stared at, hissing, as they passed. And still Sigrun had not killed a single grossling.
Something moved in an oak tree as Sigrun passed under its leafy branches. Though the cat and the scout hadn’t alerted to it, she looked up, dagger ready, to find an inquisitive squirrel looking down from a branch. Lowering her dagger, she started to turn away, and stopped. The Mother of Squirrels likes the big guy. Warned him once. Probably doesn’t care about me, but …
“See that girl?” she asked. Did the squirrel’s black eyes glance at Tuuri for a moment? “She’s your kind of girl. Smart, curious, quick … kind of small, too, but brave. Watch over her. Please,” she added. It never hurt to be polite to the Mothers. “She’s your kind of girl.” The squirrel ran to the trunk and clung to it, peering from Sigrun to Lalli, to Tuuri and Mikkel walking together. Giving it a polite nod, Sigrun moved on.
Collapsed buildings on either side. Rattle of debris knocked aside. Cat’s hiss. Troll’s snarl.
Lalli whirled, ran past Tuuri towards the troll charging from inside a ruin. Sigrun darted in front of it, leapt aside. Kicked one of its three legs out from under it. Mikkel swept Tuuri behind him. Raised his crude club.
Lalli pounced, stabbed. The troll shrieked, snapped at Lalli’s leg … but Lalli was already out of reach as Sigrun stabbed from the other side.
Silence, but for Tuuri’s gasping words as she clung to Mikkel’s jacket. “The tabards. They didn’t work. The trolls …”
Mikkel’s voice was even and only a little faster than normal. “Not necessarily.”
Sigrun wiped her dagger on the troll and took up her guard position once more as Lalli raced back to guard on the other side, and they all moved on. “That troll charged us, big guy,” she said. “Pretty sure they didn’t work.”
“We were moving. Reynir said his sheep would pass the symbol if they saw a treat.” He waved a hand around to encompass them all. “It seems the troll saw a treat.”
Sigrun frowned, mulling the implications. “Right,” she said after several steps. “Here’s what we’ll do. You two stay still in that open place up ahead. Good sight lines there. Me and the scout fan out, look for the stuff you need. The kind of stuff you need,” she corrected, as Tuuri opened her mouth. “If the magic works like he says, you’ll be safe. Maybe the trolls will spot us walking around like treats, but …” Sigrun couldn’t help grinning at the thought. “Yell if you need us,” she finished.
The open place turned out to be a paved plaza, now broken up, overgrown, and overshadowed by the branches of a massive ancient oak tree in the center. A crumbling concrete bench encircled the tree, thick roots of which surfaced here and there amidst upturned chunks of pavement, like dolphins in a troubled sea. Squirrels peered down as the team approached the central bench, and Missekat, well-fed and well-bred as she was, peered back without hostility.
After Tuuri gave brief instructions to Lalli, he trotted away to the west, and with a quick wave to the others, Sigrun trotted off to the east. Wires. Black things with metal pieces sticking out. Small black boxes with holes in this pattern. Sigrun sighed. What did she know of “electronics”? At least she knew approximately what they should look like, and Tuuri had showed her the words to look for on signs. If there were any readable signs.
After an hour of searching and two possibilities that didn’t pan out, a troll attacked, hurling itself from a dark doorway into the wrecked street. Its rotten reek and the scrape of its claws preceded it, and Sigrun was ready. Dodging its first charge, she circled it, studying its form. A scaly oval body carried on four short limbs with human-like hands ending in heavy talons. A broad head with no ears and a long muzzle with long fangs in the wide-open maw.
The troll lunged again, and Sigrun stabbed its neck as she dodged. The dagger went partway in before it was ripped from her hand. Whipping around, the monster glared at her with burning hatred in its small red eyes. Sigrun backed towards a shop she knew to be free of trolls. Though she watched the creature’s every move, her eyes flicked to the sides and her ears were alert for any movement around her. All too many troll-hunters had died by fixing on one enemy and failing to note another.
In exploring the area, Sigrun had routinely noted obstacles and defensible points. Now, when she darted behind a pile of shattered glass and split beams, the troll charged straight over the pile, its feet slipping and catching on sharp-edged debris, as it gave an almost-human wail. Sigrun waited, giving it a clear target, then leapt aside, jumped forward, and slammed both hands on the dagger. With a final, piteous whimper, the monster collapsed and lay unmoving.
Yanking the dagger from the corpse, Sigrun cleaned it and sheathed it as she scanned around for anything that might have been awakened by the creature’s cries. For several seconds, nothing moved, nothing sounded. Birdsong began again, and Sigrun moved on. She still hadn’t found anything that looked like an electronics store.
Shadows lay long across the weeds and bushes of the street when Sigrun returned to the plaza to find Tuuri lying on a branch some ten meters up the oak tree. Mikkel sat on the remains of the circular bench with the cat in his lap and shotgun and rebar close to hand. Soon Lalli returned as well, and Tuuri translated his report that he hadn’t found anything.
They had known they’d have to camp in the city, but they’d hoped to have the electronics they needed before camping. Without discussing their disappointment, Mikkel set up a tent, they had a cold supper of salt pork, and they settled for the night as the ruins around them came subtly awake.
“Sigrun,” Mikkel whispered, just loud enough to be heard as he leaned next to her ear. She eased herself up, making no sound, avoiding bumping into him. Faint rustling to her left told her Tuuri and Lalli were moving as well in the darkest hours of the night.
A hand touched her back. She turned to catch it and draw Tuuri in close. “What?”
“They’re moving. I have to climb the tree.”
Sigrun gave a useless look around in the darkness. They couldn’t fight in this. “Can Lalli make light for us?”
Faintest whispers, hardly louder than her own breathing. “Yes,” Tuuri whispered at last, “but it’ll wear him out.”
“Okay, last resort. We’ll hope the magic works. If they get too close, I’ll yell ‘Light’ and he’ll do it. Right?”
“Right.” A few scrabbling noises, rising above her head. Then silence.
Mikkel edged closer to stand at Sigrun’s left. “Away from the tent,” she murmured. He didn’t answer, but his feet scraped across the rocks. She shifted after him. Four steps. Five. Sigrun stopped. With luck, attacking trolls would tangle themselves in the tent, but the team would not.
Lalli moved in on her right. So keenly focused were her senses that she felt the body heat on either side, heard Mikkel’s breathing. Into the silence under the oak came sounds of movement, far away at first, and then …
Clatter
Rattle
Thump
Slither
Clatter
The creatures were in the plaza, making their way across the fractured pavement. Sigrun’s hand slid the dagger from its sheath almost without her noticing. One part of her mind hoped Tuuri had taken the cat up the tree with her. If the cat charged the trolls, or even just hissed …
Slither
Thump
Rattle
They were closer now. What was the range of these knitted deflectors? Would they work at all? A scuff to her left and Mikkel’s warmth faded. He had given himself room to swing that absurd club.
The trolls were almost within arm’s reach, their reek making her throat threaten to close up. She didn’t hold her breath; that was a rookie mistake. Breathe, breathe evenly and silently. No sound from the other humans or the cat.
Clatter
Clatter
Rattle
Something tapped Sigrun’s ankle, and the dagger stabbed downwards before her mind caught up and stopped it. A small rock. Nothing more. She froze, waiting, listening. Had they heard?
Thump
Slither
Thump
They were moving away to the south. Sigrun closed her eyes in relief, not that this made any difference in the darkness. After a moment, her eyes snapped open. The trolls were moving south. All the noises within and around the plaza were those of trolls moving south.
The demon was calling the trolls to the previous campsite. And Emil and Reynir were alone in the tank.
Sigrun gripped her dagger, longing to dash after the departing trolls and strike them down. But there must be dozens of trolls within earshot, she had just two people at her side, and they would be fighting in pitch darkness. Or the little scout could make light for her — and then she might have only Mikkel at her side. She ground her teeth and stood motionless, listening.
As the sounds of motion faded to the south, Mikkel felt his way towards her. “The demon —” he began.
“Yeah, I know. But we can’t do anything about it.”
“We’re too far away.”
Sigrun wanted to shout at him. Of course they were too far away. But then she caught his meaning. “They can’t reach the tank before dawn.”
“Right. So —”
She gave a soft sigh of relief. “So the kids are safe.”
“They’re safe from these. But now the trolls will be between us and the tank.”
Sigrun closed her eyes again. “Okay, we’ll deal with that after we find the stuff. For now … are there any trolls still around?”
No one answered, but somewhere to her right, a songbird trilled in the darkness, followed by scrambling and slithering sounds. A soft thump proved Tuuri was back on the ground. Taking that as confirmation that the danger was over, Sigrun tapped Mikkel’s arm and ordered him to get some sleep, as it was her watch.
It was only after the others were asleep that it occurred to Sigrun that the trolls from the city couldn’t make it to the tank before dawn. But what about other trolls?
Morning came at last. Mikkel offered breakfast — more salt pork — but no one wanted it, not even him. As he put it away and packed up the tent and bedding, Sigrun straightened her shoulders and spoke. “Same plan as yesterday. You two stay. Me and the scout look for stuff. We’ll come back at lunchtime.”
“What if —”
Sigrun cut Tuuri off before she could draw down bad luck by asking. “We’ll look. You stay.” Taking up her rifle, she strode away to the northeast.
The morning passed in frustration. There were no mobile trolls, though she spotted two in ruins that tried and failed to reach for her. She found nothing that looked like electronics, but she did find an entire shop devoted to yarn. “Finally,” she muttered in disgust, but she took out her canvas sack and crammed in as many skeins as she could, then filled her pockets and stuffed more down her shirt. Bulging with yarn, she strode on.
When the Sun was high in the sky and she was turning back, Mikkel’s piercing whistle echoed through the ruins. Breaking into a trot, Sigrun skirted around heaps of debris and ducked under low branches. She trembled with the urge to run, but the risk of a broken bone or even a twisted ankle was too great. With Emil already unable to fight, the last thing they needed was her injured as well.
The other three were together, Mikkel already wearing his backpack and Missekat on Tuuri’s shoulders. As Sigrun came within earshot, Tuuri pointed northwest. “Lalli found a place. He thinks it’s what I need.” They strode away, not waiting. Sigrun caught up and took her position beside Tuuri. Perhaps all the trolls were gone. Perhaps not.
Half an hour later, Lalli led them to climb through what had once been a display window into a small store. For a moment, Sigrun thought he’d made a mistake, as there was little on the collapsed shelves. Yet the scout’s small footprints led through dead leaves and dirt to a door. It was only open a crack, but once Mikkel heaved it fully open, Tuuri gasped at the sight. Light from the window behind them fell on rack after rack after rack loaded with dusty boxes.
Tuuri ran in to inspect the boxes, running her hands through dust, reading yellowing labels, pulling some boxes out to examine the contents, ignoring Missekat’s frequent sneezes. Some she put back, others she placed in her canvas sack. When she began to drag the sack along the floor, Mikkel stepped in, took it, and gave her his sack.
By the time Tuuri had finished going through the boxes, her sack and Mikkel’s were full, and Lalli’s was half full. Mikkel carried the two full sacks, while Sigrun had Lalli’s as well as her own sack of yarn. Tuuri turned to Sigrun with a broad grin. “I can fix it with these, and I’ve even got a bunch of spares in case it happens again.” As she started out the door, she stopped, and her cheer turned to dismay. “Look how late it is.” She pressed her knuckles to her mouth and spoke around her hand. “We can’t —”
Sigrun nudged her forward. “Tell your cousin to get moving. Get us as far as he can before dark, but find us a place to camp.” She hated to say it, but she did. “The boys are on their own tonight. Let’s go.”
A few Finnish instructions, and Lalli ran to lead from a block or so ahead. The team followed at a fast walk, alternating between watching their feet and checking the surrounding ruins. As sunset painted the western sky, they reached the forest. Now Lalli led them in wide curves at times, and Missekat stood on Tuuri’s shoulders and stared into the forest, her fur ruffling, smoothing, standing on end, and smoothing again.
At length, Lalli waved them to wait, then disappeared among the trees. Evening shadows were long, and Sigrun was high in an oak tree, looking around for a break in the woods that might do for shelter, when the scout returned and gestured them to follow. He had found a small cabin, almost weather-tight, with a fireplace. Some experimentation proved, however, that the chimney was blocked somewhere, so they had another cold supper and huddled together in their bedrolls.
No one speculated on what was happening back at the tank.
Emil leaned on his crutches, watching the monitors with Reynir as Sigrun’s group hiked into the forest. When all trace of them was lost, he turned to look around the tank. He was in charge for at least the next day and a half.
All right. No one left the tank much after it broke down. Especially not Tuuri. So the demon won’t find the tank. It’ll call trolls to the past campsite … if the tabard works to hide her. If it doesn’t …
The image flashed into his mind: Sigrun fighting to protect Tuuri from a swarm that grew and grew and grew. She would fight to the death. But not even Sigrun could defeat a city’s worth of trolls.
Emil shook his head to dispel the image. That won’t happen. The magic will work. It’s worked all along. They’ll be fine. Focus! The demon will call trolls to the past campsite. The troll-fight there is used up. So is the decoy off to the south. And all the trolls that wandered by last night are still around.
“Reynir!” The Icelander started. He’d been watching the monitors even though there was nothing to see. “Big swarm tonight. Fix your galdrastafur.” Emil pointed at the symbol drawn overhead. “Make that strong, okay? And the one in the back, too. We’ll need them.”
Reynir gulped, nodded, and hurried to his cabinet for paint and paintbrush.
Emil studied the monitors. He had to defend the tank if the swarm broke through, but how? He was all too conscious of the light armor of the tank; it wouldn’t hold up to a troll swarm for very long. Although Sigrun had given Reynir some rifle training, he was far from a sharpshooter. Emil was, but they could hardly count on trolls running at the door so he could shoot them from inside.
While Reynir stood on the stepladder and painted, Emil turned the problem over in his mind. When Reynir finished, they checked the monitors together and, with a qualm, Emil allowed the Icelander to run alone to the back compartment to repaint the symbols back there. However wrong it felt to let him go outside without an immune guard, Emil was incapable of guarding him, and there was nothing nearby to threaten him.
The back compartment. The explosives and incendiaries were back there. Food, too. Maybe Reynir would remember to bring some food back with him. Or maybe he wouldn’t, and he’d just lie down to recover from doing magic.
Emil hit the splint with his fist. Lightly, lightly; the medic wasn’t there to fix it. How much had it healed? Could the medic be wrong? With another glance at the monitors, Emil set his left foot on the floor. Leaned, just a little. Just a little more. A hot bolt of pain shot up his leg, and he shifted his weight back to his right leg, gasping. His hands clenched on the crutches, the hated crutches, the symbol of his helplessness. After several seconds, he took a deep breath and returned to watching the monitors. At least he could do that.
While he waited for Reynir to return — or not — Emil brooded over his assets.
Two rings of traps that I set last night and nothing touched. One Cleanser who can’t walk. One fire spirit. Maybe. One non-immune who can’t shoot. One ghost. One tank that can’t move and can’t stand up to a troll swarm.
Or can it? He’s got that strengthening thing that kept the tree from crushing us. When he recovers, he can make another one of those. How long will it last against a swarm, though?
Emil considered the incompletely painted cabinet doors propped against the wall in Tuuri’s little office. We could use a decoy. But no, we can’t carry it far enough from the tank. If something’s out there, if it runs for the decoy … he’s doomed. Or I’m doomed, and then he’s doomed. Emil leaned on his crutches and stroked the hood that hid his regrowing hair. There had to be a way. Sigrun had left him in charge. In command. There had to be a way to defend the tank.
If only he could think of it.
In the late afternoon, after Reynir had renewed all the galdrastafur and largely recovered from his exhaustion, they had a lunch of cold roast beef.
“All right,” Emil said once Reynir had washed their shared plate. “We have to defend the tank. Here’s how we’ll do it.”
The ladder was heavy and well-stowed. By the time Reynir extracted it and dragged it forward, Emil had bitten three fingernails to the quick. At last, however, the Icelander raised the ladder beside the door and held it steady. Emil gave a final look around at the compartment. Two rifles lay ready alongside several boxes of ammunition, a bucket of incendiaries, two bedrolls, two full canteens. He took a deep breath, let his crutches fall, stood on one foot, reached for the ladder.
Everything depended on the ladder. At least initially. After that, everything depended on the magic. And his rifle. And the incendiaries.
How had he ever thought this would work?
Emil pulled himself to the ladder, twisting, scrabbling with his good leg while the splinted leg dangled and bumped. The ladder tilted, Reynir swore … and Emil’s foot was on a rung. The ladder shifted under him, straightening, as Reynir put his weight on one side. Giving himself only a moment of relief, Emil climbed. Pull up. Stand on a rung. Pull up again.
Emil crawled on hands and knee onto the roof of the tank. Behind him, Reynir scrambled into the tank, grabbed the rifles, and climbed up after him. Trip after trip, the Icelander brought up the supplies. With everything at hand, he closed the door, climbed up one more time, and heaved at the ladder. It took him two tries, but he got it up. Though Emil wasn’t sure what Tuuri had intended with the brackets she’d welded on the roof, they worked well for securing the ladder out of the way.
All was ready. They wrapped themselves in their bedrolls and waited for the attack.
If only Emil could walk. Then they could have waited in the tank, watched to see if the magic would break, scrambled to the roof if it did. But Emil couldn’t walk.
The two men sat silent on the roof, watching the forest. A herd of deer passed, giving the tank wary side-eyes.
The Moon rose. Waxing gibbous, bright when the slow clouds didn’t obscure it. If the swarm attacked in moonlight … but they wouldn’t, of course. Between moonset and sunrise would be hours of complete darkness. That was when they’d attack. Emil shivered, not entirely from the chill air. So much could still go wrong.
Darkness crept over them as the Moon sank behind the trees and then the horizon. Dead leaves rustled and branches cracked around them. Nauseating, rotting stench rose, and Emil forced himself to breathe it, let his nose get used to it, force it into the background where it would not distract him.
Nothing touched the traps. The men waited. Maybe the trolls would keep moving. Maybe all his precautions were unnecessary. Maybe …
The tank’s perimeter lights flickered. Emil closed his eyes, threw off his bedroll, and snatched up the rifle beside him. The perimeter lights came on, blindingly bright. As trolls shrieked, stumbled, covered their eyes, Emil squinted, twisted where he sat, and shot the closest troll. Reynir was on his feet now, the bucket of incendiaries in hand.
Trolls surged forward, howling. Dozens of bizarre bodies, mismatched limbs, scaly skin in these, long hair in those, slimy hide in others. Emil fired with care, remembering Sigrun’s orders. Take out the strays. Make them bunch up. Make the shots count. One shot, one troll.
The first trolls hit a trap. Fire flared. Shrieks joined the snarls and howls. The stench grew worse than Emil had imagined it could. He kept firing, but the trolls kept closing in, setting off traps, burning. Standing beside him, Reynir grabbed an incendiary and flung it into the largest group. For a moment, Emil thought he’d failed to pull the pin. Fire bloomed, and already Reynir had the next incendiary in hand.
The rifle clicked. Dropping the empty magazine in his lap, Emil grabbed for another. In his twisting around to shoot in every direction, he’d knocked the box away. Cursing, he raked at the box with the rifle. He cursed again as he realized his error. Heat radiated from the barrel; what would it do if it touched the cartridges? Dropping the rifle, he crawled to the box as Reynir threw another incendiary. What if he ran out? How many had he used? Emil snatched a magazine from the box, pulled the rifle to him by the strap, and went back to work. Three trolls had made it past the traps. He shot two before the third was too close; he couldn’t reach the edge to shoot down.
“Reynir, no!” But the non-immune was already moving, had dropped an incendiary over the side and leapt back as a tentacle reached for him. Fire and choking smoke rose, but with them a misshapen head, slavering to infect, to kill, before it died. Emil fired into that hideous, four-eyed face, and it fell back, dragging the tentacle behind it. No time to worry about that; Emil swiveled to his left to fire again. And again.
Several times in those long hours, Emil thought of calling the fire spirit. Too many trolls, too close … an incendiary landed in the middle of the group, and he shot the few that evaded the flames.
The sky was growing light. Emil wiped a damp brow and swiveled where he sat. Where was the next troll? Where were any trolls? The forest smoldered around them, flames rising here and there. Stinking smoke blew across the tank and away.
And there were no trolls.
Reynir sat down beside Emil. They watched the sunrise together.
Climbing down was worse than climbing up. And once Emil was back in the tank, there was nothing he could do to help. Too many trolls lay around the tank for him to feel safe letting Reynir go to the back, so the Icelander carried everything down the ladder and into the tank before laying the ladder on the ground and climbing inside with relief.
They were both covered with stinking soot. When Reynir pulled off his filthy mask, Emil laughed at his clean face in the middle of black smudges. As the laughter grew and grew within him, Reynir smiled back in confusion. That expression on that clean face was even funnier, and Emil laughed until the tears came.
Stop that, stop that. Stop. It isn’t over yet. You know it isn’t over yet.
Emil pulled himself together and swallowed hard. It wasn’t over and it wasn’t funny. “Did it touch you?” he asked, not wanting the answer.
“I, I don’t think so.” Reynir looked down at his blackened jeans.
“It didn’t reach up very high. We can check. If your boots and trousers are okay …”
Reynir was already stripping off his clothes, handling trousers and boots as if they might bite. Or as if they might infect him. He started to lay them on the bunk beside Emil, caught himself, and dropped them on the floor before returning with a white towel to lay them on. That done, he stepped back and watched, twisting his braid around his arm and dripping ash on the floor, as Emil examined the trousers. It was impossible to see cuts or punctures through the stains on the outside, but the inside was clean. And also undamaged. Emil gave the Icelander an encouraging smile and turned to the boots, running his hands through the interior, then the exterior. After two long inspections, he wiped his hands on the towel and gave a sigh of relief. “No damage. No tears or … anything.”
Reynir sank to the floor as if strings had held him up and were now cut. “It … it … I’m all right.” He covered his face for a moment, smearing soot where the mask had protected him. “I didn’t think … it was so close.”
“Yeah, I know.” Emil slumped back on his bunk and closed his eyes. “I wish I hadn’t had you up there, but I couldn’t do it alone. Thank you. And you, Rosli.” A light flickered.
We saved the tank! I made a plan. It was my plan, and it worked, and he isn’t infected, and we saved the tank!
Reynir was still playing with his braid. “Do you think Tuuri … and Sigrun and Mikkel … do you think the trolls —”
“The trolls came here along our back trail. Not from the north. The demon called them to the campsite, just like it was supposed to. Don’t worry. It can’t see Tuuri.” Emil was sure of that. Almost entirely sure of that.
After a while, Reynir put drops of the hearing remedy in Emil’s ears and Emil did the same for Reynir. The men washed up as best they could and took to their bunks, leaving Rosli on watch. Not the best solution, since she could only turn the lights on, but it was daylight, they’d both been up since the previous morning, and they had to be back on their feet by evening. Though the others would be back soon, Tuuri couldn’t fix the tank before dark, so they’d be sitting ducks for another night.
Nothing disturbed their rest, and in the afternoon, while Reynir refreshed the galdrastafur, picking his way cautiously past the remains of trolls to reach the back, Emil fumed at the splint and considered what else they could do. Time passed, and still there was no sign of the others. Reynir planted himself before the monitors and glared at them as if he could force the others to appear by sheer willpower.
After several hours, Reynir was wiping his eyes and Emil had to speak. “They’re just delayed. They have a whole city to search, and it’s slow. They’re just delayed.” He hoped he was right. How long would they, could they, wait in an immobile tank before they had no choice but to run for the lost village? “So we’re going to do it again. We know what we’re doing this time, right?”
“Right, yes.” Reynir took a deep breath and turned reddened eyes to him. “I will fix the galdrastafur. And I need more … fire. Fire-things.”
“Incendiaries. Yes, fill the bucket.” As Reynir checked the monitors — again — Emil scanned the compartment while he filled his pockets with magazines. Wasn’t there anything else? No, just some incomplete decoys that they couldn’t use.
Or can we? Not as decoys, no, but he only drew on one side. What can he draw on the other side? Troll-fights? Might just make them fight us harder. Deflectors? But we already have the big ones. He sighed and changed the magazine in his rifle. Reynir hadn’t even fired his. That’s not fair. He was throwing incendiaries. No time to shoot, and he’s a bad shot anyway. Waste of ammo. Emil glared at the splint. If this weren’t in the way. If I didn’t have to keep twisting around. If —
He stopped with the rifle in his hand. I need the trolls to attack from one direction so I can shoot them. A decoy to pull them that way? No, that would counter the deflectors. Don’t want that. Wait. Could we add deflectors?
As Reynir climbed in with his bucket of incendiaries, he started at the look on Emil’s face. “You have another plan?” he ventured.
The smile felt wrong on Emil’s face, but he couldn’t help it. “Yeah. Come here. Here’s what we’ll do.”
Though the small deflectors didn’t exhaust the mage as much as the large ones, he drooped a little after painting three. Nevertheless, he gamely carried them out and set them before and on the sides of the tank while Emil fidgeted, nibbling his fingernails as he watched the monitors. Placed within the radius of the deflectors painted inside the tank, the small deflectors should still be active when the larger magic failed. If the idea worked.
By the light of the setting sun, the two made their difficult way to the roof for another night. Reynir wore two pairs of trousers: his own jeans with the Dane’s on top, held up with a belt. The effect didn’t look comfortable, but he didn’t argue.
The Moon was nearing full, and the dark hours would be shorter. While Reynir paced around the roof in the moonlight, Emil sat watching their back trail, rifle across his lap. Every time his mind turned to the fate of the other four, he yanked it back to speculating about how many trolls were left in the area. Sigrun had said they could keep killing trolls until there were no more for the demon to call. But had they killed enough the night before? What was the demon’s range, anyway?
The trolls arrived before moonset, crawling and slithering and striding through silver and shadow. Though most followed the road, they veered left and right into the forest as they reached the edge of the deflectors’ range. Emil counted dozens of deformed, distorted forms. Were there fewer this night? They’d come in darkness on the previous night, so he couldn’t be sure, but he thought so. Hoped so, since there were few traps left, and he’d had no way to replace them. As troll after troll wandered away, Emil began to hope that this night, the deflectors would hold. That this night, the swarm would move on and leave them in peace.
Moonset. Darkness.
The perimeter lights flickered. Closing his eyes, Emil lifted his rifle. With pockets full of magazines, he wouldn’t crawl to find them while trolls moved in on Reynir. That is, if the secondary deflectors drove them to the back of the tank.
When the perimeter lights came on full, Emil began his grim work. Reynir was on his feet, bucket in hand, watching the three sides that Emil couldn’t see. He threw incendiaries at several larger groups that formed behind the tank but only a few on the other sides. Trolls that had wandered off returned, were deflected into Emil’s kill zone, and fell to his precise shots or Reynir’s incendiaries. And the night and the battle wore on.
“The magic broke!” Reynir’s shout cut through Emil’s haze of concentration. “In front!”
Of course the magic had broken in front. If it had broken on a side, Emil could have covered both side and back.
Yellow light flared behind Emil, raising a chorus of shrieks and howls. As he shot another troll and scooted backwards, Reynir hurled another incendiary at a small group of trolls in back before seizing Emil’s collar and dragging him to the center of the tank. Even as Reynir released him, a grotesque parody of a human head appeared over the front edge. Emil fired; the head vanished. As Reynir threw again, Emil wanted to tell him not to waste their weapons, but he held his tongue, changed magazines, and kept shooting. Reynir knew what he had left in the bucket and how long until dawn. Another troll approached. Emil fired. The battle continued.
Dawn broke over a devastated clearing. Bushes, even trees, had burned along with trolls for over twenty meters in every direction. The road, already frost-heaved, was torn up by troll-claws and explosives. Black, stinking smoke still rose in many places. The men sat staring at their handiwork for a long time before Reynir got to his feet and slid the ladder down.
Once they were back inside and cleaner if not clean, with their ears treated, Reynir sat slumped on the floor and Emil on his bunk.
Reynir pulled his braid around and made a face at the filth. “What now?”
“We wait.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know! You’re the mage; can’t you go look for Lalli and find out?”
Reynir’s shoulders slumped further. “There are dragons.”
“Oh. Right.” Emil remembered the dragon stooping on him. He couldn’t ask Reynir to face them just for news. At least, not yet. “Then we need to get some sleep. Whatever happens, there’ll be another fight tonight.”
Emil lies in the darkened Cleanser barracks. Recruits run in and out, opening and closing the door, sunlight and shadow.
Light. Flashing light. Rosli.
Emil sat up as Reynir rolled out of the medic’s bunk, where he’d collapsed. “What?” the Icelander asked, his voice rough with sleep.
them
Even as Emil grabbed his crutches and struggled to his feet, Reynir reached the monitors. “It is them. All of them. They’re alive. They’re back.”
Emil crowded him to the side, ignoring his babbling, which now continued in Icelandic. Outside, picking their way through the mess of ashes and corpses, burned branches and upturned asphalt, were the other four team members. Sigrun and the Dane each carried two full canvas sacks. As the determination that had sustained him drained out of Emil, he crutched back to his bunk to wait.
Reynir opened the door as the others approached, reached down, and lifted Tuuri into the tank. Arms tight around her, he carried her to the middle of the main compartment before setting her on her feet. Behind them, the other three climbed in. Perhaps the seniors chuckled a little at Reynir, who still stared at Tuuri.
But the distraction was brief. “You’ve been busy,” Sigrun said, grinning at Emil. “And your dog’s been a good boy.”
Emil’s mind was still stumbling, still trying to grasp that the others had returned, that they were all alive, that he didn’t have to lead anymore. “Dog? What — oh, no, it wasn’t my fire spirit.” He cocked a thumb at Reynir. “Him. Me and him. We did it all. Two swarms. Two big swarms.” Maybe he shouldn’t have had a non-immune in the battle, but he’d thought they had no choice, and Reynir had fought and fought well. Please tell me that I did right.
“You?” Tuuri asked, not looking at Emil as she pulled off her tabard and handed it to Reynir.
Spreading the tabard on the Danes’s bunk, Reynir ran a finger along the pattern. His voice was distracted as he said, “We had to. There were so many trolls.”
Sigrun shook her head with a rueful smile. “Did I call Emil a troll-hunter? Nah, my little Viking is a troll-hunter captain. I knew he’d hold for one night. Knew it! But I don’t know of another troll-hunter who ever held off two swarms with just a non to help him.”
“He’s not just a non.” Had he really corrected Sigrun herself? Somehow Emil now resented names like “non” and “baggage”. “He’s a mage, a strong mage. Without his magic, we’d both be dead.” Reynir gave Emil a grateful glance before returning to the tabard. Did a faint glow follow his finger?
As the senior members set their sacks on the floor, Tuuri squeezed Reynir’s arm and hurried to unpack box after box. “The tabard worked,” she said without looking up, “so I can go outside and work on the tank all afternoon and evening. But I can’t fix everything before dark. We’re stuck here another night.” She accepted the tabard from Reynir and donned it almost mechanically, her attention still on the parts she laid out.
Since it was already noon, the Dane insisted on lunch for everyone. He served cold salt pork so as not to waste time cooking. It was fuel and everyone was hungry, so they ate it without enthusiasm but without complaint.
Things moved fast after lunch. With Lalli and Sigrun guarding her, Tuuri worked on the tank while the other men set up the ramp. Emil rigged two new rings of traps. That was more exhausting than fighting all night, and Emil needed Reynir’s help to get up the ramp and into the tank. Reynir’s own face was drawn with weariness; after Tuuri’s tabard, he’d remade the big deflectors again.
No argument from Emil or Reynir when Sigrun sent them to bed. Once Emil lay in his bunk with the medic checking his leg, the memory came back as if from long ago. “Yesterday … no, maybe the day before … I tried to stand.” The medic drew in a breath that hissed between his teeth. “Not all my weight. Just a little. It hurt and I stopped.”
The medic ran a hand over the fracture. As always, these days, his face was turned away from Emil. “Does this hurt? What about this?” After several rounds of poking and prodding, he nodded. “I don’t think you did any harm. But that’s dangerous. Please don’t do it again.” With a final pat to the splint, he stood and started forward.
“Mikkel.” The man stopped, his back still turned. The name had slipped out, surprising even Emil himself, and he didn’t know what he’d meant to say. Not that he forgave the man, because he didn’t, but … “Thank you.”
Silence.
Finally, Mikkel answered, his voice husky and his accent as thick as Emil had ever heard. “You will go home, Emil. Somehow, you will go home.”
“We have a radio,” Bjørn said, seating himself on a crate across from Onni and watching him narrowly. Onni didn’t look at the sailor, preferring to stare at the porthole behind him that showed blue sky and a fluffy white cloud that bounced up and down with the rough waves of the North Sea. It was more interesting than the small galley crammed with crates and barrels, leaving one bench clear and just enough room to walk to the head and the even smaller cabins in the stern.
“And we picked up a message on relay from Öresund base,” Bjørn continued, raising his voice a little as the small ship creaked. “Do you know what that message was?”
Onni tore his gaze from the porthole and stared at him, mystified. “No, how could I?” Had the children been exaggerating his abilities as a mage?
“Word is that Mora is looking for Onni Hotakainen, who kidnapped triplets named Västerström. And here we have one Onni Hotakainen and three —”
“I didn’t kidnap them!” Onni ran a hand through his hair. “They ran away. They tracked me down. And then they — they saved my life. I tried to leave them behind, and they wouldn’t stay.”
Bjørn folded his arms and gave Onni a skeptical look.
“You’ve seen them. And you’ve seen me.” Onni gestured from himself, huddled in four wool blankets on the hard bench that served as his bed, to the galley that he hadn’t left since boarding the ship a week earlier. “I can’t make them do anything. And —” He let his head fall back against the wall with a thump. “And I know how their parents —”
“Did not!” Both men turned at the child’s shout from outside. “Did not!”
With a thunder of footsteps and the crash of the opening door, three children burst in with Gerda and Birna close behind them. “Onni didn’t kidnap us!” Sune declared in outraged tones. Onni wondered if the outrage was at the accusation against him, or at the insult to the children. “The seer told us where to find him, and I had to stop the bear beasts —”
“Väinö sent the gulls to help us,” Anna said at the same time, glaring at Gerda, “and Artemis —”
Håkan darted to Onni’s side as if to stand guard. “Onni needed me to find —”
Bjørn waved his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He glanced at Onni with sudden, surprising sympathy before his face hardened again. “Okay, we're not turning back this moment. We'll listen to your story first and decide what to do.” His gaze swept from Onni, across the children, to Birna, standing just inside the doorway. Gerda edged past the others to stand at her husband’s side, and he spoke looking up at her. “But you know if we keep going, they could charge us with kidnapping, too. Even if the children want to be here, we have a duty to send them home.”
“No!” All three children objected, Sune shouting loudest. “We’ll run away again,” he said, folding his arms. “We know how. They can’t make us stay.”
Gerda regarded the triplets, troubled. “But why did you run away? Why run away again?”
“They don't care about us,” Anna mumbled, head bowed.
Håkan shifted closer to his siblings in the crowded galley. “They're mean.”
“They hate us!” That was Sune, fists clenched and back stiff.
Bjørn opened his mouth, closed it again, finally asked Onni, “But you. What do you have to do with this?”
“Their parents hired me as babysitter,” Onni said. “Room and board and access to the radio so I could hear the news from my family. I saw how cold and in my view, cruel, their parents were. Not physically cruel, but … but I would not treat children as they did. Still, I am a Finn. What do I know of Swedish families?”
The sailors shrugged. They were Danes; what would they know?
Onni shook his head, schooling his face not to show his regrets. “And then I went to Iceland and returned to Finland. The children ran away to find me.” Håkan, still close by, straightened with a proud grin. The effect was spoiled when the ship rolled more than usual, so that Sune had to catch Håkan’s shoulder to stop him from falling on Onni.
Onni kept his gaze on the sailors so as not to embarrass the boy. “I didn’t know anything about it until I found them beside a river in the Silent World more than a month ago. Word of their disappearance should have gotten to Rønne by then. But it didn’t, because no one reported it. Because the children are right. Their parents don’t care. Their parents don’t want them.”
Bjørn gave the triplets a searching look; the children scowled back. With a slight headshake, he asked, “Then why report them kidnapped now?”
Onni sighed. “I expect the rumor got back to them of what the children did in Finland.”
“We helped him kill the Kade,” Håkan broke in, excited. “Me and my hawk found the others, and we all helped him get into the castle and kill her.”
“What?” Onni thought even Birna had joined the sailors in that exclamation.
“It's a long story,” Onni said wearily.
“Then tell it,” Bjørn said.
Before Onni could speak, Sune broke in. “Onni went to Iceland and they went with him. We had to go to school and the bullies broke Anna’s finger.” Anna held up the finger with its deformed joint. “So we didn’t go back to school. When they found out, he knocked us down and locked us in our rooms.”
“Onni wasn’t coming back,” Anna said, “so we ran away to Finland to find him.” She gave him a nervous look as she passed over the fact that they’d intended from the beginning that he would take them to the Silent World to find Emil.
“We asked a seer where to find —” Håkan began.
“A seer? In Sweden?” Bjørn asked in disbelief.
“There are seers in Sweden,” Birna said, overriding Håkan’s reply. Though she had told Onni and the triplets she was a minor seer herself, they hadn’t mentioned it to the sailors. “There are some in the Icelandic embassy, and there are a few actual Swedish seers.”
Håkan nodded. “Yeah, we went to the embassy, and the seer told us Onni would be at Joensuu.”
Sune took up the story. “So that’s where we went. We got Väinö — he’s the gull mage — to send some of his gulls with us to help us.”
“And Artemis,” Anna put in. “Tapsa’s own cat. She came with us, too.”
Onni thought it was time for adult input. “They made it safely into Joensuu in Silent Finland, and Väinö’s gull alerted me to pick them up by the river. That was the first I knew they were anywhere but Mora.”
“But what were you doing in Silent Finland?” Gerda asked, fascinated.
“There was a spirit enemy, the Kade, that killed many people. It was a threat to me and … and others. I knew I could find it and maybe defeat it. So I went to find it.” He looked at the children, still hardly able to believe what had happened. “The triplets wouldn’t let me take them back to safety. They insisted on coming with me and protecting me while I was … busy doing magic.” This would sound like nonsense to the Danes. He stared at the porthole and the clouds bouncing around in the blue sky.
“But he couldn’t do it alone,” Håkan said eagerly. “So I went to mage-space, and me and my hawk found Lalli and Reynir so we could help —”
“Wait, wait,” Bjørn said. “Lalli and Reynir? From the Silent World Expedition? And this was a month ago?”
Onni’s gaze snapped to the sailor. His tone wasn’t disbelieving. Danes were skeptics by reputation, and yet these two … “Closer to five weeks,” Onni said carefully.
The man addressed him directly. “So those two were alive then. What about the others?”
This was the last reaction Onni had expected. His expression must have shown his astonishment, as Gerda laughed. “We Danes aren’t all alike, you know. Some of us have a little experience with magic. And we heard what was reported about the expedition. All dead just before rescue arrived. And yet, a Finn named Hotakainen shows up in Rønne with Swedish children named Västerström. Very memorable names, you know.”
Her expression turned more sober, though a grin played about her mouth. “And this Finn is said to be a mage, and there’s an Icelandic woman with him who’s rumored to be a seer. The sort of people who might know more than others. They want to go on a long voyage to the Silent World. What are these people doing? What could they be doing, but looking for their kin in the lost expedition? So they — you — must have reason to think your kin are alive.”
Bjørn leaned forward. “You must understand, though, that this journey is not a secret. We didn’t talk, but people gossip. By now, everybody in Rønne knows you're on this ship, and most of them have figured out you're looking for the Silent World Expedition just as easily we did.”
Onni and the triplets looked at each other, wordless.
“Now,” Bjørn said, “tell us what you know. Where are they? Who's alive and who … isn't?”
Rubbing his forehead, Onni looked at the children, and over their heads at Birna. Their only hope was to convince these people to help, but how? “I don't know for sure. Tuuri and Lalli — my sister and my cousin — are alive. As of about five weeks ago, all the others were alive as well. I don't know what may have happened since. And they're far southwest of us. Too far to still be in Denmark, I think. We have to find them. My sister is … she’s not immune.”
Bjørn and Gerda exchanged a look. “Still, if we keep going, they could charge us with kidnapping, too,” he said.
“If you take them back, you’ll put them in the hands of people who didn’t bother to report them missing for weeks,” Onni said. Even Danes had to understand how wrong that was.
“What proof is there,” Gerda said, watching Onni with concern, “besides your word — which we believe; don’t doubt that — that the children ran away and weren’t kidnapped?”
“We went to Mikkeli to look for him,” Sune said before Onni could answer.
“Noora the teacher knows,” Anna put in. “She translated after, uh, after Teemu got mad because we didn’t know how to say things in Finnish. And the innkeeper. Aleksi? We stayed there that first night, and then when we came back with Onni.”
“Jimi took us to Väinö’s,” Sune continued. “That took a whole week.”
“Teemu Huhtala is commander of defenses in Mikkeli,” Onni said, pressing his temples. “Väinö Väänänen is Saimaa’s north sentinel. They and those others, they are well-known and respected. All can say that the children were there when I was not. That was weeks ago.”
“Five witnesses, I think,” Birna said.
Bjørn rubbed his chin. “All Finns, though. The Swedes might think they’re defending their man —”
That accusation gave Onni enough energy to object. “We do not lie!”
“No, no, of course not,” Bjørn said. “But this is going to be a mess, and it’s going to end up in front of the Nordic Council if we go on.”
Gerda narrowed her eyes, seeming to look at the porthole past Onni’s head. “We don’t have to defend ourselves to Swedes anyway. We’ll go to our government when we get back, and they won’t bend the knee to Swedes. And Onni will go to his government, such as it is, and they’ll believe his witnesses.”
Onni would have taken offense at the slight to his government, such as it was, but for her words: “when we get back”.
Birna gave a slow smile. “My family knows some diplomats in Iceland. They can tie all this up in the Nordic Council until the kids turn fourteen. That’s just three years.” There was a chuckle from the sailors. The Council had a well-deserved reputation for being slow. “Then they’ll be adults in Sweden, so they can’t be forced back to their parents, and there’s no point fighting over any of us.”
“And if we find the expedition and bring them back,” Bjørn said, “we’ll be heroes. They won’t go after a crew of heroes.”
Gerda smiled back at Birna. “You know we agreed to this journey because we want to find them, right?”
Nods all around, and the children were grinning. The sailors meant to go on. Onni closed his eyes in relief. It was safe to relax for a moment.
“Hey, everybody get out of here,” Anna said, her voice higher-pitched than usual. “He needs to rest. He’s still sick —”
“We should go topside anyway,” Bjørn agreed. “I don’t want to leave our ship in Heimo’s hands too long.” As he followed the children out, he added, “I still want to hear about you and that hawk.”
A clatter of feet, a slamming door, and Onni was alone. The clouds bobbed outside the porthole.
“What are you thinking?” Sigrun asked Mikkel over a supper of steak and greens.
Mikkel shrugged.
“You think we shouldn’t have left the boys alone.”
Tuuri straightened and looked at Emil, who narrowed his eyes at their seniors.
“What?” Laying down his fork, Mikkel shook his head. “No, not at all. No, we need the tank, and we needed material from the city to fix it. We had to either carry Emil with us or leave him here.”
Emil grimaced and pressed a fist against the splint.
“I didn’t expect — and I’m sure you didn’t expect — attacks like that while we were gone. I thought we’d see another small swarm that the deflectors would hold off. Until the trolls passed us in the city, I didn’t imagine the demon had that range. I did worry about the second night …” Mikkel sighed and looked down at his hands resting on the table. “It’s now obvious that the demon’s range is far wider than I supposed. Both of those swarms must have been called down from the city, starting before the tank even broke down.”
Sigrun gave Emil a proud smile. “But our boys were ready for them.”
“They did an astonishing job.” With a nod, Mikkel picked up his fork and resumed eating.
Tuuri looked around at Emil on his bunk, Sigrun and Mikkel at the table across from her, Reynir eating standing before the monitors, and Lalli in his favorite corner. “Last night’s swarm came up our back trail, not from where we camped in the city. My tabard worked.” She glanced at Reynir and found him watching her. He hastily returned his attention to the monitors. “Reynir had to restore it once we got back, but it did work. That means I can hide from the demon.” She looked at Mikkel, who had stopped eating and didn’t raise his head. “We don’t have to put down the demon. We can just go back to the village.”
A brief, startled silence met her announcement, until Sigrun cocked her head. “Big guy? You have something to say?”
Mikkel cleared his throat. “Tuuri is right, of course. She can hide as long as Reynir can power that tabard.”
“But?” Sigrun prompted.
“But the solstice is coming in a month.”
Sigrun and Tuuri shrugged at each other across the table.
“So what?” Emil asked, pushing himself into a more comfortable position. “It comes every year.”
“It does. But this year, the full moon falls exactly on the solstice. That won’t happen again for a couple of decades.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tuuri said, “I remember Onni saying that was going to happen. The mages at home — at Keuruu — are going to have a ceremony.”
“The solstice and full moon are both said to be magically powerful,” Mikkel continued. “If we can find the book, wouldn’t the solstice, the full moon, and the ley line together boost our chances of getting rid of that demon forever?” He raised his head to sweep a challenging gaze around the team before addressing Tuuri directly. “Not hide, but fight back.”
The tabard works. We can go back to the castle. No more swarms, no more battles, no more people getting hurt. Because Reynir can keep powering the tabard. The image swept through her mind: a comfortable room in the castle, walls all around, and Reynir casting his magic on her tabard every morning. A princess in a tower with my prince defending me every day. Or …
“Fight back,” Tuuri whispered.
Sigrun’s war whoop echoed off the metal walls as if an entire army of troll-hunters had joined them.
Of course, they couldn’t just ride out to find the book and put down the demon. The tank was still crippled, and they still expected a swarm during the night. As the evening wore on, the immunes found the three cabinet doors Emil had used to funnel trolls. After some debate, Sigrun declared that, with three sharpshooters, they didn’t need another funnel. But getting the trolls to kill each other … that would help much more. Within an hour, Reynir lay exhausted in his bunk while Lalli sprinted back to their prior campsite. One troll-fight galdrastafur there and two more to the north, intercepting trolls on their way to the campsite. When he returned at a dead run, Lalli reported trolls had charged out of their shelters, attacking each other once he was out of reach.
As darkness fell, Emil pushed himself to his foot and crutches. “My watch,” he announced.
Mikkel, already at the monitors, answered mildly, “The rotation shows it is mine.”
“Yeah, but you’ll be fighting tonight, and I won’t.”
Already in her bunk, Tuuri watched the discussion with a grin. From the bunk above her, Sigrun said, “He’s right, you know. Let him take over while you get some sleep.”
“I’ll take second watch, too,” Emil said, “and Reynir can take third. He’s got to be up anyway so he can fix the deflectors.”
Mikkel regarded Emil on his crutches, shook his head slightly, and brought over a folding chair and the stepladder. After waiting for Emil to settle, he gave a final nod and rolled into his bunk below Tuuri. Soon the tank fell silent but for the breathing of six people and somewhere the purr of a cat.
“Troll-fights are great,” Sigrun whispered as she crouched on the roof with Tuuri and Mikkel, watching trolls skulk through the forest in the predawn moonlight. “Better than decoys. Look at those things. All chewed up. And they’re the ones that got away.”
“In this case, we know where the trolls are coming from,” Mikkel whispered back. “When we don’t know, decoys may work better.”
“We could leave them along our back trail,” Tuuri offered, although she wondered how dangerous that would be for Lalli. He’d shrugged while describing the trolls charging at him, and he seemed at ease now, watching the swarm wander around. Still, even Lalli could trip when chased by a troll.
“There’s a limit to how many galdrastafur Reynir can make in a day, though,” Mikkel said. “I don’t like seeing him so exhausted.”
“Hist!” Lalli said. The three jumped to their feet and spread out as distorted heads turned to stare at the tank. Tuuri covered the north side while Sigrun covered the south side, and both of them kept an eye on the front, where few trolls were expected. Meanwhile, Lalli guarded the back, and Mikkel stood by with a bucket of incendiaries to throw at any groups that broke through the traps and the gunfire.
In the bright moonlight, wounded trolls crept into the deployers’ radius, stumbling and falling even before being shot. Though there were dozens, they moved so slowly that at first, the sharpshooters held them off with ease. Inevitably, however, those that had been deflected before returned. Soon, as Mikkel flung incendiaries into groups and trolls tripped over traps, flames rose around the tank. Breathing filtered air as the others coughed in stinking smoke, Tuuri was for once grateful for her mask.
As the Moon sank in the west and the eastern sky brightened, fewer and fewer trolls lunged from the forest, until there were none. After Sigrun prowled about the roof, peering down at heaped corpses, for several minutes, Lalli declared, “Dead.” He slung his rifle, folded his arms, and watched the others with an expression that might look bored, but that Tuuri recognized as impatient. No trolls had gotten within several meters of the tank, so she followed Sigrun down the back ladder and into the tank with Mikkel and Lalli close behind.
“Catch some sleep after breakfast,” Sigrun advised Tuuri as Mikkel and Reynir, both yawning, passed out cold pork for breakfast.
“No, I’ve got to get the tank running.” Smothering the yawn which tried to answer the men’s yawns, Tuuri gulped down her breakfast, leashed Missekat, and laid the purring cat across her shoulders like a stole. The toolkit Sigrun had given her at the equinox was well-equipped but heavy, so Mikkel carried it for her as she hurried out with a box of relays, wires, and other small electronics. Sigrun and Lalli took their positions as guards while Mikkel returned to the tank.
After lifting Emil out instead of raising the ramp, Mikkel escorted him around the devastated landscape to gather the surviving traps. That done, they returned together to the tank, and Mikkel lifted him in before rejoining the others at the hood, standing close by Tuuri to provide muscle.
By the time Reynir brought out bowls of beef stew, Tuuri was half inside the motor, wrapping new wire around contacts and screwing down a plate to keep it in place. Mikkel lifted her by the belt as she struggled to back out: embarrassing but efficient, and she thanked him. After wolfing down her stew, she went to work. “Just another few minutes,” she muttered as she removed each burned part. “Just another few minutes.”
And then, somehow, it was done. Numb, groggy, Tuuri stowed her tools, pushed leftover parts into her box, and stumbled to the tank. Behind her, Mikkel and Sigrun collected toolbox, parts box, and cat, and followed her in, leaving Lalli outside.
“Sleep, sleep,” Reynir told her as she turned towards the front. “I will drive.” He gave her a timid smile. “I will be very careful. I will not break anything.”
With a weak chuckle, Tuuri crawled into her bunk, dozing off as the tank ground slowly westward towards the end of the ley line, the solstice, and the full moon.
I told the truth. The full moon will fall on the solstice, and that is particularly magically significant from everything I’ve heard and learned about magic.
Mikkel watched a herd of deer trot across the cracked and buckled road in the moonlight.
But it wasn’t the whole truth, was it? No. Above all, I want that book.
For months, he’d tried not to think of his failed mission lest the dark waters of despair rise up to drown him. And there was so much else to do, anyway: gathering and drying fuel for the tank; foraging for greens, since man cannot live by meat alone, and he couldn’t trust anyone but Lalli to forage safely; fighting and preparing to fight; tending the wounded (including himself); dealing with the filthy tank because everyone tracked in mud, leaves, twigs, blood, muck … and he couldn’t clean it all up even with Reynir and sometimes Tuuri helping him.
The book is out there, waiting for me. I have not failed. If I can just find it.
A rabbit hopped up to a trap, sniffed at it, and recoiled, hopping away as fast as it could. Mikkel stopped the video feed to watch until the rabbit disappeared into the undergrowth, then restarted it.
Does the book really contain a ritual to put down the demon? Seems ridiculous, but so does the demon itself. Even if there’s no ritual, though, Tuuri and Reynir have a way to hide her from the demon, and perhaps if it can’t find her for weeks, it may conclude she’s dead and give up. Who can say?
Mikkel focused on the radar and tapped the video feed to point at a moving creature east of the tank. Its movements were halting and irregular, the hallmark of a grossling, but it was moving south, not closing on the tank. Watching as it lurched away, he kept an eye on the other monitors for approaching enemies, but none came. At length, he tapped the video feed to restart its slow scan of the surroundings.
Does the full moon only affect magic at the moment it reaches its fullest? Then we’d have to do the ritual — whatever it is — at exactly that moment. I don’t think we can time it that well. Still, in the stories Grandmother Anne told about werewolves, it affected the werewolf for three nights centered on the night it reached its fullest. Maybe its effect builds up to the moment of fullness, then declines, so we’ll get the benefit if we just do it on the right night.
Something moved on the monitors, and Mikkel’s attention snapped to them. The deer were back, or perhaps another herd. He smiled a little as he watched them, always pleased to see real animals in this monster-haunted world.
Of course, first we have to find the book. Can the bull point us in the right direction? Or Reynir’s dog? Twenty-nine days. We have that long to find the book, or we miss the moment.
Mikkel’s watch wore on as he speculated about magic and moon phases. As soon as Reynir took over for the third watch, Mikkel hurried to his bunk, hoping to get some sleep before the Icelander raised the alarm for an approaching swarm. Lying on his back, he regarded Emil and wondered what effect the full moon had on Reynir’s healing magic. But the thought drifted away as his eyes closed.
Mikkel stands in the wintry forest. A chill breeze brushes his face, and somewhere snow falls from a branch with a muffled thump. With a resigned sigh, he follows the trail to the shore, where a dragon patrolling high above stoops on him before veering off, roaring. Even Mikkel’s breath comes fast after standing defiantly before that threat. After a moment, he follows the shore to the beach he saw before and looks out at the strange island.
It is closer.
The omnipresent mist hides less of it; now the rounded top of a massive rectangular granite stone shows beyond the low cliff. Mikkel squints at the island, searching for movement, for any hint of its purpose.
Clop of hooves in snow.
Mikkel turns and waits for the bull to reach him before speaking. “Look, the island’s closer. Can you tell what it is yet? Is it someone’s haven?”
The bull’s nostrils flare and his massive chest expands as he inhales. Exhaling noisily, he shakes his head. “It is not a haven. It is old, very old.”
Alarmed, Mikkel scans the island again for movement. “Does it belong to the demon, then?”
“Belong? No, it does not belong to the demon.” The bull shakes his heavy head. “No,” he repeats, sounding thoughtful. “Not the demon.”
Mikkel opens his mouth to demand answers, but reconsiders. He may not have much more time. “We’re not going south. We’re going southwest now.”
The bull nods. “The trail is well trodden.”
“That’s — good, then. But is it the right trail? Is the book at the end of the ley line?”
The bull is silent for so long that Mikkel wonders if he angered it. “It is right,” the bull says at last. “I do not know what lies at the end.”
Mikkel gives the island another glance and recoils. From the waters between his haven and the island rises a huge, corpse-white, rounded head with two slit-pupilled, incongruously blue eyes. The creature glares at him for a long moment before silently sinking below the waves.
“I wasn’t planning to swim to the island,” Mikkel mutters.
Whuffle
Is the bull laughing at him? Mikkel narrows his eyes at it as the great creature turns and plods away into the forest. Mikkel starts after it.
Mikkel woke to the general chaos of morning and Sigrun’s efforts to get a precise report from Reynir about his watch. Restraining his urge to chuckle at Reynir’s near-fear of the troll-hunter captain, Mikkel stepped up to translate. There was, in fact, little to report. Reynir had seen grosslings, but only four, and they had not come from the tank’s back trail; rather, they had been wandering about in random directions. None had come close enough to be deflected by the tank’s magic, and Reynir had not thought it necessary to wake anyone. Mikkel agreed and, with admirable generosity, so did Sigrun.
Since Sigrun had not been happy that Mikkel hadn’t mentioned his fylgja’s advice, over breakfast, he announced, “I spoke to my fylgja last night. He said we’re on the right trail, but he doesn’t know what is at the end.”
Sigrun leaned back in her folding chair, leaning forward again as it creaked ominously. “That’s all?”
“Also, the trail is well trodden.”
She shook her head with a wry grin. “That helps a lot.”
“I know. There’s something else, though. I’ve only visited my haven twice in dreams. Twice that I recall, that is. Possibly we all visit our havens more often, but we —”
“Mikkel,” Sigrun and Tuuri said together, and Reynir snickered as he collected empty plates.
“Ah, yes. So, twice. Each time, I’ve gone to the sea and I’ve seen an island —”
“What does it look like?” Emil asked.
Mikkel turned to him, surprised. It wasn’t like Emil to interrupt him. Still, he described the narrow beach, the low cliff, the grass, and the gray stone. “But it’s not just that there’s an island.” He took a breath, because this would sound absurd. “The island is moving towards my haven.”
Once expressions of surprise died down, he continued, “My fylgja says it is not a haven and does not belong to the demon. But that’s all he knows.”
Emil ran a hand over his hair before pulling up his hood as if he’d just realized his short, regrowing hair was visible. “I’ve seen that island,” he mumbled as if embarrassed. “And it’s moving in on me, too. I saw it again last night.”
Sigrun looked from one to the other. “So your havens are close to each other?”
“Possibly.” Mikkel showed his palms. “The mist hides everything. There could be havens all around mine, but I only see the island because it’s so close.”
“Yeah,” Emil agreed. “But how can it move in on both of us?”
Tuuri spoke before Mikkel could. “The island isn’t moving. Your havens are.”
Mikkel and Emil exchanged glances. Though much of the tension and hostility had drained from Emil over the weeks, they were hardly friends. Why would they — or their havens — be drawn together? Or drawn to the same strange island, at least.
Sigrun squeezed her temples with one hand. “Right, then. Weird moving havens. I guess everybody needs to watch for that island. Whatever. His fylgja says we’re on the right trail, so let’s get moving.”
As always, Lalli darted out to do the initial scouting. Mikkel passed Emil his crutches and, rather than take time to set up the ramp, lifted the smaller man out of the tank and set him on the ground. With Sigrun close by, the two men worked to collect the traps. Soon, the three were back in the tank with Emil sitting on his bunk rubbing his underarms.
While Tuuri sat with Reynir at the table, giving Lalli a good head start before driving after him, Mikkel knelt by Emil’s bunk to check his broken leg. There was a hardness at the break that he hadn’t felt the day before; was it enough? He pressed on it. “Does this hurt?”
“No.” A single syllable, as before for so many days, but the coldness was gone. Emil sounded almost amused.
“Very good. Well …” No point delaying, was there? “Please get up.” Mikkel passed the crutches to Emil, who grumbled but got to his good foot, letting the other foot rest on the floor without bearing any weight. Behind Mikkel, Tuuri and Reynir murmured in Icelandic while Sigrun watched the monitors.
“Shift some weight to your left foot. Slowly, and get off it if you feel any pain.”
Emil hesitated. “You told me not to just yester— no, just two days ago.”
“I know. But last night was the night of the full moon. Reynir’s magic was already healing your leg very fast, and with the effect of the full moon as well, it’s possible you may be further along in the healing.”
“The full moon. Right.” Emil heaved a resigned sigh, and Mikkel couldn’t suppress a sympathetic smile at a fellow skeptic forced to contend with moon-fueled magic. Tuuri and Reynir had fallen silent.
Straightening to take the weight off his crutches, Emil shifted subtly to the left, his eyes closed and his face intent. After an endless moment, his eyes snapped open. “It doesn’t hurt!” Smiling, he tried to hand the crutches to Mikkel as the others applauded.
“No, keep the crutches for now. I want you to walk over to Sigrun and back. Lean on the crutches if you feel any pain, any strain at all.”
With Sigrun beaming at him and nodding at his every step, Emil walked to her, swinging the splinted leg out awkwardly with each step, turned on his right heel, and walked back to Mikkel. “Can you take off the splint, then?”
“Yes and no.” Disregarding Emil’s inarticulate frustration, Mikkel continued, “Have a seat for now. No, I don’t want to risk too much flexing of the joints above and below.” He turned. “Tuuri, can you rig a knee brace for him that allows enough movement for walking, but no more?”
“Yes, sure. But I have to drive …”
“I can drive,” Reynir volunteered, and Mikkel caught the grin between the two drivers.
“Okay, then, I’ll get to work on it now. I need stuff from the back, though.” As Tuuri sprang to her feet, Sigrun, still beaming, opened the door and hopped down to escort her.
With Emil sitting disgruntled on his bunk, Mikkel moved to the monitors. Not that he expected to see anything, but in the Silent World, what you didn’t expect could kill you. Still, Sigrun and Tuuri returned safely, Tuuri carrying a handful of cloth and metal parts. While Reynir set the tank in motion, Tuuri sat at the floor to construct a brace with the aid of Missekat, who chased pieces of cloth around the compartment. Leaving Tuuri to her labors, Mikkel and Sigrun went forward to watch as Reynir drove.
By lunchtime, Tuuri had completed the brace, and both she and Emil were impatiently waiting for Mikkel to remove the splint. Tempted though he was to tease them by further delay, Mikkel set to work at once, unwinding the bandages that held the splint and leaving in place the bandages that held the paper galdrastafur against the leg.
As he splinted and bandaged Emil’s ankle, the patient objected, “Hey, what’s that for? My ankle’s fine.”
“I know. But you don’t need to flex your ankle to walk, and the less stress on the tibia, the better. Tuuri, your patient.”
Stepping back to give her room, Mikkel watched with interest as Tuuri applied her brace. Given how little time and materials she’d had to work with, she’d constructed quite an elegant little brace. With Mikkel watching intently, Emil flexed his leg as far as the brace permitted: just enough to walk comfortably. “Good work,” Mikkel told her, and she grinned and hugged herself for a moment before hurrying to set up folding chairs. After a hearty lunch of venison stew, Sigrun and Emil went forward together to the passengers’ bench, while Tuuri took the driver’s seat, and Mikkel and Reynir stood in their usual places.
All was well, for the first time in weeks.
Oaks stood black against the full moon rising red-orange above the eastern shore, while the crimson blaze of sunset died behind the trees of the western headland. Anna held tight to the slick metal rail. Although the sailors had assured her that she would soon find her sea legs, after a nine days of sailing, even the gentle waves that rocked the ship as it anchored within this natural bay still made her struggle to keep her balance. The chilly breeze brought her the briny smell of the sea, and above, seagulls gave their last cries as they glided down to the far side of the bay where their flock gathered for the night.
Watching the gulls, Anna wished Talvi were with them. Even though she’d only known him for less than two weeks, he was a friend and she missed him. She rubbed her shoulder where he’d perched, remembering the warmth and the dusty, slightly fishy smell of his wing when he embraced her after Sune accused her of wasting Mormor’s healing magic.
Gerda stood near the front (the “bow”; Heimo had corrected Anna twice on proper terminology), scanning around for anything that might swim towards the ship. To Anna’s left, Sune and Håkan clung to the other rail, disputing whether fishing was better under the full moon. Sune claimed better, and Håkan claimed worse, but just minutes before, they'd each argued the opposite. They argued for the sake of arguing, as Mormor put it.
What does Mormor think happened to us? Does she think Onni kidnapped us? Anna gave a longing sigh. One day we'll go back. One day we’ll see her again and tell her everything.
While the Moon lifted herself above the last branches, the last embers of the day were quenched, and the stars stood out in twinkling glory. The door to the cabin below opened, and Anna looked around. Maybe it was Onni this time. But of course it was not. Bjørn climbed the narrow staircase and waved to her as he passed, needing no support as he strode easily across the deck, swaying each time the ship rocked. Gerda nodded to him and headed for the staircase.
“You kids should go to bed,” she said in passing.
Anna nodded, clinging to the railing as she made her way down the stairs herself with her brothers behind her. In the galley below, Birna sat on a barrel across from the hard, narrow wooden bench on which Onni rested, still wrapped in all his blankets. As Gerda vanished into the sailors’ tiny cabin in the bow, the triplets nodded to Onni and Birna, who paused in their low-voiced discussion, and made their way to their cabins, Anna to the port cabin and the boys to the starboard cabin. Though her brothers hadn’t complained (much) about having to share a bed, every night, their voices sounded through the thin walls as they argued over the blankets.
She, on the other hand, had to share a bed with Birna, so she wrapped herself tightly in a blanket and rolled to her side of the bed. It was almost too narrow for two, but at least it was better than the wooden bench, which was where Onni slept, so she could hardly complain. Anna’s eyes slid closed as the sea rocked her to sleep.
Anna stands in a flower-strewn clearing surrounded by birches, aspens, and great ashes, with their fresh green leaves fluttering in the warm breeze. A lichen-covered granite boulder, rounded and smooth, just the right size for a seat, lies in the center of clearing. Bees and butterflies visit the flowers, and on all sides, birds sing from the branches above.
“Sune? Håkan?”
Silence.
“Onni? Or, or Emil?”
Anna has never been alone in the forest — any forest — before. And wasn’t she just sleeping on the ship?
Motion behind her. Anna jerks around as a cat leaps onto the boulder, settles on its haunches, and wraps its fluffy tail around its forepaws. The cat is a Norwegian Forest Cat, its thick coat soft amber with faint tabby markings and white bib and underside.
Girl and cat stare at each other.
Anna looks away first, scanning for threats, though surely a cat like that would never allow trolls to creep up on her unawares.
“But there are no trolls here,” she says. “Are there?” The cat gives her a slow, welcoming blink. “Because this must be my haven, and you must be my fylgja.” Anna looks around the clearing, listening for sounds behind rustling leaves and birdsong. “Havens are islands, right?” The cat twitches an ear, watching her. “Uh, yeah, so then the sea must be all around. I can just walk in any direction …” She studies the trackless forest, remembering stories of travellers wandering in circles until they died. “Or maybe you could lead me?”
The cat yawns, showing impressive white fangs, leaps off the boulder, and strolls away, tail held high. Anna follows. As she walks, she strokes the bark of the trees she passes, touches leaves, and peers up at songbirds that peer back at her. She can only marvel that all of this is somehow hers, that no one will take it away.
Before long, the briny scent of the sea and the hiss and splash of waves reach Anna. Shortly after, the cat leads her onto a rocky headland and hops onto another boulder, watching her. Anna stops under a tree and peers out, hoping for seagulls. Hoping for Talvi or Syksy, unlikely though it would be for them to find their way to her. But no, high above is a dragon, gliding on its vast sail-like wings as its four legs hang ready to snatch at unwary girls. With a gulp, she pulls her gaze away and surveys the sea.
Håkan and Onni told her the sea stretches far away, featureless under the mist, until it joins the stormy, distant horizon. Yet offshore there is an island, waves lapping on its narrow sandy beach below a low cliff. Above the cliff, tall grasses sway in the breeze. A massive rectangular granite stone stands well back from the cliff, but all beyond is lost in mist. Anna looks from dragon to island to cat.
“Am I supposed to go to that island?” The cat stares at her. With a shrug, Anna climbs down the rocky side of the headland to a broad ledge. The ledge continues towards the nose of the headland, slanting downwards. She regards the waves splashing against the rocks below. She can’t swim, but maybe she can walk on the sea as Håkan did.
The cat bounds down the rocks to stand on the ledge facing her, fur bushed out in warning.
Anna looks from the cat to the dragon, now circling over the island with its burning red eyes focused on her. “No, I guess not.”
The island lies before her in the mist, but she turns back, climbs back up, and returns to the forest with the cat behind her. Strange though that island is, her haven has no shortage of other interesting areas.
Anna awakened to find Birna asleep, back to her, and the ship rolling worse than it had the previous evening. Extricating herself from her blanket without waking the woman, she stepped into her boots, felt for the door handle in the darkness of the cabin, and slipped out. In the galley, dimly lit by red light leaking through the portholes, Onni, too, was asleep, wrapped in the wool blankets they’d found in Finland.
Bracing herself on the crates and barrels lashed to the starboard wall, Anna stopped to watch Onni sleep, running a finger under the thin string she wore around her neck. He was still the most amazing man she’d ever met, and that string was threaded through a ring she’d made of his hair. But somehow in that long, terrible trek to Väinö’s base, her adoration of him had changed into a kind of admiration mixed with worry. He wasn’t perfect; he had made mistakes and nearly died from them. She and her brothers meant to make sure that never happened again. After several seconds, she crept across the galley to the door and climbed to the deck.
Focused as she was on keeping her balance as the ship rocked, Anna didn’t notice the sky until she was on the deck. Seeing Gerda and Bjørn standing together in their heavy cork life jackets, though not even hanging onto anything, she followed their concerned gazes up and up. “What’s happening?” she asked, alarmed, freeing one hand from the rail long enough to wave at the sky, a brooding red from horizon to horizon.
“Storm’s coming,” Bjørn answered. “A bad one. We’re already getting the first waves.”
“We’re staying here until the storm passes,” Gerda added, “We’re not likely to find a better anchorage, and a storm in these seas is dangerous for a small ship.”
“What — what do we —” Anna began.
“You wake everybody up,” Bjørn said. “Everybody wears life jackets, even Onni.” Anna shivered, though the fitful breeze was warm. “Heimo and I have to take the second anchor out, and it’d help if you got Birna up here.”
“Off you go,” Gerda added.
Anna rushed back down the stairs. Onni sat up as she burst back into the galley. “There’s a storm coming,” she said, running to the boys’ door and pounding on it. “We have to wear our life jackets. And, and they said you too, Onni.” With a thump on the other door, she called, “Birna!”
Onni dragged his heavy cork life jacket out from under his bench, shedding his blankets to put it on. Meanwhile, the boys hurried out of their cabin, pushing each other to get through the door first (Håkan won), and grabbing their child-sized life jackets from the same chest Anna took hers from. Birna emerged from the port cabin, took one look at the situation, and knelt to pull her life jacket from under Onni’s bench.
“Birna, they need your help upstairs,” Anna explained as she ran back to the door, unwilling to stay below and miss the excitement. The boys’ feet pounded behind her as the triplets ran up the stairs, followed by Birna.
That terrible red sky was fading to gray, and dark clouds loomed in the west. The sails were tightly furled, and Bjørn and Heimo were already lowering the little dinghy, hardly big enough for two men. A heavy cable ran from something in the dinghy to the bow; as Anna edged closer, clinging to the rail, the object showed itself to be an anchor. The boat banged against the side of the ship as it dropped. Within moments, first Bjørn and then Heimo climbed down a rope ladder to the dinghy.
“Birna,” Gerda said, “up here.” As the triplets huddled together, keeping a tight grip on the railing as the ship rose and plunged, Gerda guided Birna to a lever from a barrel fixed to the side, then pulled a wooden bar from the barrel. The cable that ran from that barrel to the dinghy ran out as Birna leaned on the lever. After a moment, Gerda nodded and turned towards the stern.
To Anna’s surprise, Onni himself climbed the stairs onto the bucking deck. He had folded a blanket, draped it over his shoulders, and put the life jacket on top, the straps holding the blanket in place. Not even he knew what magic was in those blankets, but he’d agreed it was there. Anna hoped a single blanket was enough to shield him from the draining effects of the sea. For now, he seemed able to function.
“Onni.” Gerda hesitated for a moment. “Good, then.” She led him to another barrel fixed to the side in the stern, from which the anchor cable extended. Pulling out another wooden bar, she explained something, pointed to a lever, and left Onni leaning on the lever.
As Gerda made her way back along the deck, checking every rope, Anna raised her voice to ask, “What are you — they — doing?”
“Onni’s paying out the anchor cable so we don’t drag the anchor. Bjørn’s going to drop the second anchor so the ship doesn’t swing all over the place when the wind shifts. You kids can’t help us, and I don’t want you falling overboard. Get below.”
The wind was strengthening and turning chilly. With a shiver, Anna led the way down the staircase to the small galley. The small room was stuffy and, without the wind in her face, a slow nausea began to rise within her as the ship heaved and rolled. Sune pushed her out of the way, pulling a bucket from under Onni’s bench. “Here. Don’t throw up on the floor.”
Anna gulped and sat down hard on the floor, wishing he hadn’t said that. Looking rather green, Håkan sank to the floor beside her. “How long will this go on?” he asked.
Anna shook her head. “They didn’t say.”
“Hours,” Sune said. “Days, maybe. Storms at sea go on forever.” He grinned at the wordless protests from his siblings. Even as Anna tried to kick him, the ship gave an abrupt roll, and he lost his balance, falling beside her. “Ouch!”
Ignoring him, Anna pointed at the three blankets Onni had left behind. “Hey, do you think those would work for us?”
As Sune grabbed one and draped it over himself, Anna did the same, and so did Håkan, more slowly. “I don’t know,” Håkan said. “I never felt any magic in them.”
“They won’t make it worse,” Sune said, ever practical.
Anna ran a hand across the smooth wool blanket. “We’ll have to give them back when he comes down.”
“When he comes down,” Sune agreed.
Whether the blankets worked or not, the triplets managed not to vomit over the next few minutes. After a series of scrapes and bangs told of the dinghy returning and being hauled up, Onni came down the staircase, his face pale. He staggered, bracing himself on the wall, as the sea tossed the ship about. Anna leapt to her feet and draped her blanket over his shoulders. Before he could respond, Håkan added his own blanket, and Sune tossed his over Onni’s head.
Anna pushed her grinning brother away and tried to pull the blanket off Onni without losing her grip on the nearest crate. Since Onni was trying to pull it off one-handed at the same time, all they managed was a brief tug-of-war before she let go and he dragged it off. Håkan, meanwhile, had tripped Sune, the two of them falling together and rolling against the cabin doors.
Shaking his head at the boys, Onni fumbled at a crate, falling against it and muttering something that Anna was certain she should not repeat, though she did make note of it. Finnish curses would surely be useful when she grew up.
Raising the lid and propping it up with his head, Onni reached inside for an incised glass bottle. As he backed away and sank to the floor, the lid came down with a crash that was loud even over the splashing of waves and the ship’s ominous creaks. The boys stopped wrestling and looked around as Onni worked the cork out of the bottle.
Anna expected a liquid that had to measured — and how would he do that with the ship leaping and plunging and wallowing — she gulped and sat down, trying to focus on anything but the ship’s motion. Onni poured pills into his hand, set the bottle between his legs, and pushed in the cork before saying, “Here. Seasickness remedy.”
It was all Anna could do not to grab a pill from him, so desperate was she for relief. But she held out a polite hand, accepted a pill, and tossed it back dry as her brothers scrambled to Onni’s side for their own pills.
As Onni downed his pill, Birna stumbled through the door. “It’s getting worse,” she said, and Anna rolled her eyes. As if we couldn’t tell.
Onni held out a pill. “Good Icelandic seasickness remedy,” he said as Birna accepted it. Anna scooted over to her brothers. What he said was true, of course; the triplets had scoured Rønne for Icelandic seasickness and strengthening remedies, but did he have to tell the Icelander the remedy was Icelandic?
As Birna joined the four on the floor, the first lashings of rain struck the ship.
The remedy worked quickly. The nausea faded, and Anna began to drift off even in her bulky cork jacket, crowded against her brothers, with the ship pitching to and fro and the rain hammering on walls. As her eyes closed, Onni said, “Birna, what is Iceland like?”
Birna’s voice rose over the tumult outside, describing Reykjavík, the vast city where she’d grown up, the lava fields and the volcanoes, but also the shaggy little horses, the sheep, and the forests the Icelanders worked to regrow. Anna wiped away tears with her sleeve. Mormor had told tales like that about Iceland, tales handed down from Mormor’s Icelandic grandmother.
When Birna laughed and said, “There, I think I’ve told you everything I know about Iceland,” Håkan asked, “What is Keuruu like?”
After a moment’s silence, Onni began, “It’s a military fort in the forest. Close to a thousand people, almost a hundred mages. Before the Rash, it was a train depot, so there’s just one small original building inside the walls, and our quarters were in the old trains.”
“That’s cool,” Håkan said, and Anna nodded. She’d never imagined quarters inside an old train, but was sure she’d enjoy them. Since she wasn’t a mage (and wasn’t even Finnish), she wouldn’t really belong there, but Håkan would. And Onni, of course, since he was the most powerful of the Finnish mages. She was game to live anywhere so long as they didn’t have to go back to Sweden until they were fourteen.
More tension drained out of Anna as she slumped against her brothers, eyes closed, and Onni’s voice went on, detailing duties of mages and scouts and soldiers. When he stopped himself, saying, “But I’m no longer a mage of Keuruu,” Sune sat up, jostling Anna, to say, “Did I tell you about the bullies and the pink lace?” The grownups agreed that he had not, and Anna settled herself more comfortably against him as he told of his daring escape from bullies across trees and over rooftops, ending in the lingerie shop, where the proprietor sent the bullies fleeing by offering to measure them for pink lace lingerie.
But Anna had no stories to tell as the ship pitched and the storm raged about them. Or did she? “I went to my haven last night,” she said, when Sune finished his story and the laughter died away. “I saw my fylgja. She’s a cat.”
“Of course she is,” Sune said. “Lazy when she can get out of work, just like you.”
“A cat’s almost as good as a hawk,” Håkan said generously. “But she can’t lure dragons away.”
Anna elbowed both of them as she sat up and addressed Onni. “You said havens are all alone in the mist and the sea that goes on forever, only I saw an island.” She described everything she could remember about it.
“An island? Another haven? I never heard of two havens close enough to see. But then, you’re triplets. Maybe that brings your havens closer —”
“My haven has a forest,” Håkan said. “So it’s not mine.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Onni said. “You’re a mage and she isn’t. But it could be Sune’s haven. Have you seen yours?” he asked Sune.
“No.” For once, Sune had failed at something his brother and sister had done. “Maybe I don’t have one. Or a fylgja.”
“You have a haven. Everyone does.”
“I’ll bet your fylgja’s a squirrel,” Håkan put in, and Anna muttered, “Yeah.”
Sune reached across Anna to push Håkan, who pushed back, and as Anna scooted away from them, the brothers began to wrestle despite the ship heaving under them. Once Anna was away from flailing arms and legs, she gave Onni her best “boys!” look, leaned back, and closed her eyes. The storm would end eventually, they would go on and find Emil, and everything would be all right.
Anna just had to be patient.
The ship was old. Well maintained and still floating, but it creaked and groaned as the waves hurled it up and slammed it down. As the storm raged on and rain hammered on the hull, water seeped in under the door, flooding the already dirty floor. “Children,” Onni said, pushing himself to his feet and clinging to a barrel, “get up and go to your cabins.”
The triplets, sprawled on the floor and almost asleep from the seasickness remedy, roused themselves, blinking in the dim light and occasional lightning that leaked through the portholes. With a minimum of pushing and quarreling, they staggered into their cabins, where the beds were up off the floor and filled the tiny rooms so completely that it was impossible to fall out of bed as the ship heaved and plunged.
As Onni turned to Birna, also on her feet and hanging onto a crate, she gave him a sickly but sympathetic smile. “I guess I’ll go too. Are you all right out here?” At his nod, she worked her way along the row of crates and barrels tied along the wall, stumbled towards the port cabin, caught herself on the door as the ship sought to fling her backwards, and fell onto the bed. The door crashed closed as the vessel tilted, punctuating Anna’s “Hey, watch out!”
Onni lay down and tried to get comfortable on the bench, bracing himself with one foot on the floor. The seasickness remedy wasn’t working on him; he wasn’t sleepy and couldn’t have slept if he were, as nausea surged with each movement of the ship. When it plunged, rose, tilted to starboard, and pivoted, the combination proved too much even for Icelandic remedies. Onni threw himself from the bench, stumbled into a barrel, yanked open the door, and collapsed before the head just in time. At least he’d had nothing to eat since the previous evening.
As Onni braced himself afterwards, drawing a little water from the cask in the compartment, his gaze fell on the polished steel mirror above the sink. He was not a vain man, and looked in mirrors only to shave without cutting himself. With the ship heaving up and down even when the sailors swore the sea was as mild as a fishpond, he hadn’t tried to shave since they set sail. Now he understood why everyone seemed alarmed at the sight of him: face white under a scruffy ash-blond beard, lips pale and chapped, and dark smudges like bruises under red-rimmed eyes. Dropping his gaze, he rinsed his mouth and half stumbled, half fell, across the galley to the bench. All he could do was wait out the storm.
In the late afternoon, hours after Onni had fallen into an exhausted sleep, the outer door thumped open and a chill, wet wind swept the galley. Behind it came Gerda, splashing through puddles of seawater, her rain gear and boots sprinkled with salt and dripping more water on the floor. Onni started awake to find the ship still pitching, but hardly worse than on the open sea. The lashing rain was replaced with a quiet drumming.
“Is it over?”
“Mostly,” Gerda said. “The worst of the storm has blown over us. Any injuries down here?”
“Not that I’ve heard. That remedy knocked everyone out.”
Gerda swiped a wet hand across her wet face and grinned. “Good job. We’ve never had children as passengers before. I was afraid they’d be clowning around and get hurt.”
“They’re good kids.”
“Yeah …” It seemed as if she had something more to say, but she shook her head and went on, “It’s too late to move on, so we’ll stay here. Have an early supper. It’ll be cold, though.” Onni shrugged. Whether the food was hot or cold, he didn’t think he could eat. But the children were growing; they needed to eat.
As the ship no longer seemed at risk of sinking, the five passengers were allowed to shed their heavy cork life jackets as long as they stayed below decks. After a meager supper of pemmican — a staple sold by a family in Rønne who followed the recipe bequeathed to them by a Stranded ancestor — and cold pine-needle tea, Gerda and Bjørn, who had eaten with the passengers, sat back on their barrels and gave each other a significant look.
“Onni,” Gerda began, “we really appreciated your helping with the anchor cable.” She glanced at Bjørn again. “But we’re worried about you and —”
“No need to worry about me.”
Bjørn took over the discussion. “We want to find Mikkel’s team, but we don’t want to kill you doing it. You’re much too sick to be at sea.”
“I’m not —”
“There’s a fishing village a couple of days sailing back up north. We’ll take you there and —”
“No, you will not.” Onni sat up, and in that moment, the strength he’d thought lost returned to him. “I hired this ship, and you will not leave me behind.” He glared at Bjørn, then Gerda, and back to Bjørn. “I’ve been ill. Obviously. But I’m recovering. All I need is rest.” His strength was already fading, but he held his back straight. “And without me, you will never find the team. I can feel where my kin are —”
“Can’t Birna find her kin? She’s a mage, too,” Gerda said.
“I’m not the same kind of mage,” Birna put in. “And even if I could find my kin, none of them are on the expedition.”
Bjørn looked from Onni to Birna. “That Reynir isn’t your kin?”
“Not that I know of,” Birna said. “We Icelanders aren’t all related. So he’s right. Unless you have some way we don’t know about, you need Onni to find the team.”
Bjørn folded his arms. “So how do you plan to find them? If you don’t die along the way, that is.”
Onni took a deep breath and tried to let it out smoothly. “I just need to go ashore for a few hours every few days. Then I can get a rough idea of their distance and direction. Right now, I only know they’re south of us, a long way south. But once we get close enough, I can go into the in-between and talk to Lalli or Reynir, whoever I can find. Then they can head for us.”
“But the dragons!” Håkan objected as Bjørn and Gerda looked thoughtful.
“There are no dragons in the in-between. I’ve been there since the dragons started showing up.”
“Then why not do all that now?” Gerda asked.
Onni slumped back against the wall. “Because they’re a very long way off, and even if I were fully healthy, I don’t know if I could reach them. I know I can’t now. And going too far in the in-between is … dangerous. I could lose my luonto.”
Anna sucked in a breath where she sat beside Birna, reminding Onni that during those weeks he’s been the triplets’ babysitter, he’d told them about luontos and the dangers of losing them. He’d told her that if a mage lost his luonto and it didn’t come back, he would die. Much as he hadn’t intended to alarm the children further, he’d done it again.
Seeking another topic to break the mood, Onni said, “Are you looking for Mikkel Madsen, then? You know him?”
“Not well, but enough to talk to,” Bjørn said as Gerda nodded. “We were pretty young when Kastrup happened and he went away for so long.”
Onni pulled his blankets tighter around him to hide his trembling hands. “My sister knows how to fight, but she is … very small. Against a man like that —”
Bjørn and Gerda stiffened, and Bjørn said coldly, “Mikkel is no threat to your sister.”
Was there hope? “The news —”
“Oh, aye, the news. They talked to the Madsens.” Bjørn’s voice dripped contempt. “They should have talked to us.”
“But you said —”
“I mean us fisherfolk. Look, Mikkel was a dockworker. Us fisherfolk know the dockworkers. We know who gets into drunken brawls, who goes home and beats up his girl. Mikkel wasn’t one of those. Never.”
Birna leaned in. “Then why did his family say he was violent?”
“They aren’t his family,” Gerda answered. “He ran away and they disowned him as soon as they could. If he was violent, they’d’ve held onto him. The Madsens are bad people.”
Onni closed his eyes. “Thank you. I’ve been afraid … but still, I have to find her.”
“We’ll take you to her,” Bjørn said after a brief silence. The thump of feet told Onni the man was going back topside, and the children at once asked if they could go too. Gerda agreed provided they wore their life jackets and, with not too much banging around and not too many complaints, they donned their life jackets. Through half-opened eyes, Onni watched the triplets run out, followed by Gerda and Birna. For a few minutes he was alone, before Heimo came down for his own cold supper. At least the sailor ate quietly and soon disappeared into the sailors’ tiny cabin, leaving Onni to rest.
After a peaceful evening and night — at least, as peaceful as the sea ever seemed to be — morning dawned clear and cool. With everyone else on deck except Gerda, who slept after standing watch all night, Onni was alone.
The warm air of the galley was stuffy and smelled of salt and fish, creaks and groans sounded from all sides, and footsteps ran back and forth overhead. Early in the voyage, the sailors had promised to teach the triplets to sail, and it seemed they were keeping their promise.
Stretched out on his bench and covered with four blankets, Onni gazed across at his chest of remedies, strapped on top of a crate of pemmican. The seasickness remedy had to last the full voyage (and how long would that be?) and on the return voyage, Tuuri and Lalli would need it as much as he did. Being a mage, Lalli would need the strengthening remedy, because Onni would have to share the blankets with him.
The blankets. They had to contain magic, just as Anna insisted, even though no one — not Onni, not Håkan, not any other mage — could detect it. Onni pushed the blankets down to his waist. They protected him against the sea that sought to drain strength from him, but they were hot.
His thoughts returned to the strengthening remedy. What if we do run out on the way back? There’ll be no hurry then. We can anchor and go ashore for days, if we need to. What matters is finding them. And to do that, I need my strength.
Pulling the blankets around him, Onni crossed to the chest and took out a bottle of strengthening remedy. He couldn’t measure out the proper amount while the ship bounced through the waves, so he uncorked it and took a sip. And then another. And put the bottle back before he was tempted to drain it.
Back on the bench, he pulled the blankets into his lap and studied them. They were very hot. Did he really need them all? Draping three over his shoulders, he stood, braced himself, folded one, and laid it on the bench for cushioning. He seated himself and considered his sensations. No strength draining to the sea. He didn’t need four. Did he need three?
Standing, Onni pulled a blanket from his shoulders and folded it. As he spread it on top of the first one, the ship plunged hard, and, suddenly queasy, he staggered and tripped, twisting enough to sprawl on the bench instead of the floor.
Onni sat up. The queasiness was gone as quickly as it had struck, and the sea didn’t pull at his strength. Two blankets was enough. Could one blanket be enough inside the hull? He ran a thumb across his rough beard, thinking, reluctant even to risk it. But if he only needed one blanket, then he and Lalli could easily share the effects. There was no way to know but to try. He pulled off a third blanket, folded it, and laid it on the bench without getting up for more than a second or two. As he sat on the three blankets, one blanket over his shoulders, he felt … well.
When he’d gone topside the day before, with only one blanket, those few minutes had weakened him for hours. Satisfied, relieved, he got to his feet to walk a little in the small galley. He’d spent most of the voyage so far lying exhausted, and he need to rebuild his stamina.
The effect hit him after a few steps. Strength drained from him, more slowly than when he went topside, but still threatening. Pushing himself off the crates lashed on the starboard side, he dropped onto the bench, grabbing at the blankets and …
The sensation was gone.
Straightening up, Onni pulled his blanket more tightly around him. Here inside the hull, one blanket was enough. Is enough. So what happened just now? He rubbed at his scruffy beard again. It was a nuisance and it itched. Getting annoyed at the beard was easier than considering his own weakness.
I stood up and the sea weakened me. It’s stopped now because I’m sitting. Sitting on the blankets.
The answer came clear and fully formed. These puzzlingly magical blankets protected him from the sea. And he needed only sit on them.
He stroked the soft, smooth pre-Rash woolen blanket beside him. It felt like any good woolen blanket.
Who made these blankets, and did they know what they were making? Are there more of them somewhere, or are these the only ones in existence?
But there was no way to know. Giving up on the questions, Onni turned to considering his situation until the triplets and Birna came down to join him for lunch.