Joseph Lewis - Freya the Huntress

A heavy stone seawall ran along the water’s edge, as thick as a tall man and half again as high. The outer face of the wall was slimed with weeds and algae, but the top was pale and smooth, and the wall broke only twice that she could see for two iron doors that stood above the ancient stone quays reaching out into the bay. A few men stood on the quays casting fishing lines and nets over the dark, icy waters.

Another, taller wall ran across the south side of the city, cutting the small peninsula off from the rest of Ysland. This wall was three or four times the height of a man, and newer, and clumsier. The stones had been jumbled every which way and mortared in clumps and drips, leaving huge rocky bulges in some places and tiny sky-filled gaps in others. A handful of men stood on top of the wall, each one armed with a spear and sword, and the only breach in the inland wall was a single doorway, barely large enough for a horse to walk through, and that portal was sealed with an iron door as well.

Freya marched down the road to the door with a wary eye on the armed men above her. They watched her approach, slowly clustering together in the center of the wall so they could all get a good look at the newcomers in the deepening shadows below. Wren hurried up to Freya’s side and muttered to her, “Lord Woden is ever a friend to those who tell the truth, but he’s also one to appreciate the art of not getting yourself killed.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning there’s no reason to tell these people more than they need to know about Katja.”

Freya glanced back at the snoring woman on the back of the elk. “I think they’ll notice the hair and the ears, sooner or later.”

“If that’s our choice to make, then I choose later.”

The huntress nodded.

“Who’s there?” called down a huge bear of man with a wild brown beard and naked scalp steaming in the cold sea air.

“I’m Freya Nordasdottir of Logarven,” she answered. “My husband, Erik. Wren of Denveller. And my sister Katja, the vala of Logarven. Who are you?”

The man smiled a broad white-toothed smile. “I’m the fellow on the wall asking the questions. What’s wrong with your sister?”

“She’s hurt, and sick. We need shelter for the night.”

“Oh? Just a night, is it? Planning to move on in the morning?”

“We’re looking for a vala named Skadi, from Hengavik. Or any vala, really. Gudrun of Denveller sent us to speak to her.”

The men on the wall talked among themselves for a moment before the bearded man called down, “What business do you have with the queen?”

“Queen?” Wren frowned at Freya. “The vala is a queen? That’s not good.”

“Valas have been known to marry. I suppose they can marry a king as easily as any other man,” the huntress said. She called up to the warriors, “We’ve come to learn about the reavers, which have destroyed Denveller and reached Logarven in the east. Gudrun said that Skadi could answer our questions.”

“Where is Gudrun now? Still in Denveller?”

“Gudrun’s dead,” Wren yelled. “No on lives in Denveller anymore. It’s as dead as Hengavik.”

“And Logarven will join them soon unless we stop the reavers,” Freya added. “Can we come into the city?”

The bearded man nodded. “Come to the door.” And he disappeared from view.

“Well, that was easy,” Erik signed. “I’ll cover Katja. Maybe we can avoid an argument.” He unfolded a wool blanket and draped it over the sleeping woman, leaving only the dark brown hair at the top of her head uncovered.

They approached the iron door in the great wall and a moment later they heard the bangs and clangs of steel beams being lifted away, and stones being rolled, and men grunting. The door swung inward halfway with a vicious squeal, and then stuck fast in the passage. The man behind it grunted and jerked and shoved until the door banged free and smashed into his toe, and he limped back from the open doorway muttering curses faster than Freya could hear them.

The bearded man paused in the narrow stone passage, shaking his foot and shaking his head, but after a moment he straightened up and gave the newcomers a squinty-eyed look. “So then. I am Halfdan Grimsson, keeper of the gate and captain of the guard. Let’s have a look at you.” He waved them in.

Freya and the others filed past the iron door and through the narrow passage and emerged onto the twilight streets of the city where a dozen men bearing steel spears and swords stood frowning at them.

Halfdan waved them in away from the open door and then hunched down in front of Wren. “Show me your teeth, girl.”

“Why?”

“Just do it,” another man barked.

Wren sighed and opened her mouth. Halfdan nodded. “Good.” He inspected Erik and Freya in the same fashion, and then reached over to pull the blanket off Katja.

“No, leave her alone. She’s sick,” Freya said, stepping in front of him.

Halfdan shook his head. “We check everyone. No exceptions. Even our own hunters, even if they were only out for half an hour. This is a safe place, and it’s damn well going to stay safe. So either I look at her teeth or you can all go right back out the way you came in.”

Freya put her hand on her sister’s covered head. Erik and Wren both shuffled closer to the white elk, but the guards were quick to poke them back again with their swords. Freya nodded. “All right, look. She was bitten. But she isn’t-”

The men erupted in a chorus of shouts, some telling the newcomers to leave, others threatening to slaughter them in the street. Spears and swords flashed with the light of the torches, and the huntress grabbed the handles of her bone knives.

“Shut up!” Halfdan roared, and the men fell quiet, though their faces remained just as cruel and dark. “Now listen here, girl, if your sister’s been bit, then she’s not coming into the city, and that’s the end of it. So either you can take her and leave, or you can kill her yourself, or we can do it for you. No one will blame you for not wanting to kill your own kin. The Allfather knows we’ve all had to do the same and we’d wish it on no one. But the plague doesn’t pass these walls, not for anyone or any reason.”

“The Allfather knows a great deal more than that,” Wren said. “And the valas of Denveller know more than most. Do you know what this is?” She held up her hand with the glint of yellow on her finger.

Halfdan’s eyes widened. “Rinegold?”

“That’s right,” the girl said loudly. “I am the keeper of the souls of all the valas of Denveller, and I’ve brought them here to help Skadi cure the reaver plague and save our people. But I won’t come in unless you let Freya bring her sister.”

Halfdan’s expression fell back into stony resolution. “Then you don’t come in.”

Wren stared. “But… I have the ring… and the souls… and the cure.”

“No exceptions.” Halfdan sniffed and spat in the street. “Maybe you can end the plague and maybe you can’t, but this city stays safe either way. So what’s it going to be?”

Freya counted the men and their swords, wondering if there was any chance of fighting past them, of escaping into the city, of racing to the castle down by the sea.

No, no chance of that at all.

She took her hands off her knives. “You can lock her up.”

Halfdan smirked and shook his head. “No exceptions.”

“You can lock her up in a cell, underground, guarded, in chains.” Freya swallowed. She imagined Katja shackled to a wall, whining and whimpering in the dark, her body mangled and twisted.

“No exceptions.”

Freya lurched forward and shoved the big man back. “If we find a cure, we’ll need someone to test it on, won’t we? And when that time comes, do you want your queen to send you outside your precious walls to capture a fully turned reaver with a whole pack around him, or do you want to go down to a cell where there’s just one reaver, already in chains?”