Joseph Lewis - Freya the Huntress

Freya wrapped her arms around his head, trapping his mouth against her own for a moment, and then she pushed him back and saw the disappointment and understanding mingled in his eyes as he leaned back and let her sit up. She leaned over to bite his ear, and then stood up, fetched her spear, and went to sit by the open doorway. A soft breeze sighed through the empty streets and the sound of the grassy plains rustling filled the night with a chorus of distant whispers.

Her bones were tired but her mind was not, and the cold air kept her eyes feeling sharp. Wrapped in her heavy wool blanket with her arms and legs curled around her spear, she sat in the doorway and stared up at the stars, at the thousand cold eyes staring back down at her. When she looked down at the empty road beyond the door, it was covered in a thick white mist.

Aether. Damn.

Freya glared at the fog. It flowed past the doorway like a river of clouds and sea foam, swirling and rippling and rolling upon itself. She stood up and stepped outside, checking the road in both directions, but there was nothing to see.

Not yet, anyway.

With the speed and grace of a mountain lion she leapt up the side of their earthen house to stand on its grassy roof and look out across the town with her spear planted beside her. The mist lay thick and white upon the ground, blanketing the gravel roads and lapping silently at the empty doorways of the abandoned homes. And to her left, toward the western end of the town, Freya saw the shadowy figure of a man walking slowly down the center of the road toward her. The huntress frowned.

Ghosts. I hate ghosts.

It took the man several minutes to come down the road to the house where Freya stood exposed on the roof, and when he arrived the ghost paused and looked up at her. “Have you seen a fair-haired girl come by this way?” he asked. He held his hand by his waist. “About this tall?”

Freya blinked and tightened her grip on her spear. The steel felt cold and clammy. “No,” she said softly.

The ghost nodded and continued on his way down the street and around a corner out of sight.

Then a shadowy woman emerged from a house across the street and wandered off to the south without sparing Freya a glance. And then the shade of an old crone shuffled by. And two solemn children. And a husband and wife. And on and on they came by the dozens, drifting silently through the streets, occasionally pausing to look at something or someone, even exchanging a few quiet words with each other, and then continuing on their starlit strolls through the streets of Hengavik.

After several minutes of watching the aethereal dead wandering the town, Freya jumped down from the roof and stepped back into the open doorway of their shelter. Sometimes a ghost would appear in the road in mid-stride, and sometimes one would vanish just as suddenly. Their quiet voices murmured through the streets as they spoke to each other, offering bland greetings and asking simple questions, usually about whether the other person had seen a certain lost soul lately.

An hour passed and Freya came to realize that there were no more than a dozen faces among the ghosts, but because they kept wandering in circles, appearing and disappearing suddenly and randomly, it seemed that there were more.

The aether at her feet began to thin, revealing patches of the road, and the ghosts appeared less and less often around her, staring into empty houses and asking each other if they had seen this little girl or that old man. Freya watched them with an anxious gnawing in her belly, wondering how they died, and when, and why. And why were they wandering the empty lanes of Hengavik at all, instead of sleeping in the cold earth? Ghosts were common enough in Ysland, but never so many in one place, and never wandering for hour upon hour.

Leaving her spear leaning against the wall, Freya stepped out into the street into the path of a shadowy woman, her features drawn in wisps of aether that fluttered in ragged lines in the weak breeze.

“My name is Freya,” the huntress said.

The ghost paused and glanced away. “I’m Dalla,” she whispered.

“What happened here? What happened to this town? Where are the people?”

“Dead.” The ghost lowered her gaze to her feet. “All dead.”

“How did they die? War? Famine? Or was it the reavers?” Freya resisted the urge to reach out and take hold of the dead woman, to force her to look her in the eye.

“The fox plague…” The ghost of Dalla wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as the breeze stiffened and threatened to tear apart her fragile form of mist. “The fox plague took some away, and left others dead.”

Freya nodded. “When?”

Dalla shook her head. “I don’t know. A day, a year? I can’t tell one night from the next.”

“Oh.” Freya pushed her hair back over her head. “Can you tell me about the giant? The creature with the metal bones on the south side of town. Was it a frost giant? Or a whale from the sea?”

“It was like a whale.” Dalla looked up sharply, a wide-eyed look of wonder splashed across her face. “Yes, like a whale. It fell from the sky in the night, streaming fire across the heavens. It came from the southeast, plummeting like a wingless bird. I stood in the lane and watched it grow larger and larger, bigger than anything I had ever seen before. The beast smashed down into the ground, crushing the houses. Its skin was on fire, sweeping from nose to tail, shredding its flesh to the bones.” The ghost’s mouth hung open, moving slightly as though she had more to say but couldn’t find the words.

Freya squinted through the gloom in the direction of the skeleton. “Was that before or after the reavers came?”

“Before.” Dalla nodded. “I was alive then. I saw it fall. The reavers came later, and then I wasn’t alive anymore.”

The huntress winced and nodded and stepped back into the doorway of her shelter. “Thank you. Farewell, Dalla.”

“And to you.” The dead woman took two steps and vanished, leaving Freya alone with her spear and her thoughts, though neither gave her much comfort.

Freya woke to the sound of Wren waking Erik beside her. Night had faded into day once more, and a weak light fell through the doorway to illuminate the cold stones and earth of their beds. The aether had drifted away, taking the shapes and faces of the ghosts with it, leaving only the empty homes behind.

They ate nothing because they had nothing to eat, so they wrestled Arfast out into the street and stood staring at the distant hill crests as their breath steamed in the morning air.

“What now?” Wren nodded at Katja. “She’s getting worse. Gudrun tells me that your sister will be waking up soon, crazed and feral, mad with hunger. When that happens…”

Freya looked at her poor beautiful sister and saw limbs stretched too long and thin, fingernails stained yellow and narrowing into claws, and everywhere her skin wore more and more hair in blood-red and snow-white that hid the pinks of her cheeks and neck and chest. Katja’s ears were taller and sharper, and the bottom of her nose had grown black and rough to the touch.

“Should we go back east?” Erik signed. “If the reavers have killed everyone in the west, then maybe we can still find another vala somewhere to the east of Logarven where the reavers haven’t been yet.”

“No.” Freya banged the butt of her spear on the gravel of the road to feel the steel hum and shiver in her hand. “In the east, the reavers are still just stories from the old wars. No. The plague came from the west. If there are any answers to find, if there’s any cure for Katja, it’s in the west.” She rested her spear on her shoulder and nudged Arfast to follow her. “Let’s go.”