Joseph Lewis - Freya the Huntress

“Nine hells,” the old fisherman beside her muttered. And then he shouted, “It’s Prince Magnus!”

Freya spun to face the slingers on the roofs. “Run to the other door, and get Omar. We need his sword here, now! RUN! ”

Three of the boys dashed off their perches, crashed to the snowy street, and took off at a dead sprint for the other door in the eastern seawall where the bright light of the rinegold sword was still clearly visible through the falling snow.

Freya stared at the huge creature coming toward her.

What was it Ivar said? He wanted to bite me again and again, until I was a god like him. This is what he meant. How many times did he bite his son? How much of the fox’s soul did he give to Magnus to change him into this monster?

The reavers at the foot of the wall stopped snarling and beating on the door, and they turned, whimpering and whining, toward the monstrous prince. The huge fox demon waded up out of the water and came straight toward the wall and Freya realized that the top of its head was only a few hairs shorter than the wall itself.

“Back, back, back!” she cried and the warriors all moved to the back edge of the wall, spears and harpoons raised in a bristling array of bloody steel.

The feral behemoth strode up to the seawall and swept one huge claw along the beach, smashing two of the small reavers aside and sending them flying down the strand. The other two bolted in the opposite direction, but the demon prince caught one around the legs and hurled it back into the bay. And then it turned its enormous golden eyes to Freya and the men on the top of the wall, and parted its fiendish jaws in a hideous grin.

“Slingers!” she cried, and the rocks flew thick and fast, but the beast only flinched and growled as they pelted its head and chest. She glanced north along the dim line of the wall to the crowd of defenders at the next door, but she couldn’t see the light of Omar’s sword.

The huge reaver slammed its shoulder into the seawall, and the ancient stones crackled and crunched and shuddered. The fishermen stabbed with their harpoons at the beast’s head and shoulders, and it drew back sharply, snapping its fangs as trickles of blood ran down its face, glistening in the torch light. And then the hulking monster stepped back and locked eyes with Freya, and growled, “You. Murderer. I come for you, girl. You die now.”

The men on the wall all looked at Freya.

“It speaks!?”

“It wants the girl!”

“Slingers!”

But the boys on the roof were at half their number since the others had gone in search of Omar, and those who remained were running out of stones to hurl. The rocks still flying across the wall were fewer and slower, and the beast ignored them entirely. And the men went on murmuring, “It wants revenge for Fenrir! It wants the huntress!”

But the salty old man at Freya’s side shouted, “Woden shits on what it wants. It’s not getting her or anything else. It’s getting killed, is what it’s getting, and we’re the ones killing it! We’ll bleed it dry and break its bones! And we’ll eat its black heart before midnight comes!”

A dark and bloody humor settled on the men. They all began muttering curses and threats and boasts and promises of the depraved and vicious things they were planning to do to the beast’s corpse when it laid steaming and rotting under their boots. Freya almost reminded them that the beast was their own prince, their own Magnus, just another man who fell victim to the plague. But she couldn’t imagine how many of Omar’s bloodflies would have to bite this creature to bring back his humanity, or how long the change would take.

Too long.

The demon charged at the wall again and threw one long, clawing arm at the warriors standing just above its head. Freya jumped left and Erik jumped right and the powerful limb crashed down between them, cracking the stones of the wall. They both lunged, driving their spears into thick fleshy muscles of that arm, and the beast whipped it back again with a bestial snarl.

It pulled the spear right out of Erik’s hands, but he had his steel knife out in a flash. The claws crashed down on the wall again, with the beast snapping its sword-like fangs right at the lip of the wall, right at their boots. The men leapt back again, and attacked the arm again with harpoons and stones and hammers. The arm ripped away from the wall again, but a single hooked claw caught Freya’s foot and yanked her leg out from under her.

She fell down flat on the stone wall, but kicked hard two times, and her boot came free of the claw before it could drag her off the wall entirely. She rolled onto her stomach with her spear under her, and pushed herself back up.

Erik felt naked. His borrowed shirt and trousers were too thin for the wind and the snow and the night air. The armored warriors and fishermen looked like iron gods beside him, heavy and solid, and most of all, warm. Erik was freezing. Even with his blood roaring and muscles burning, he was freezing.

Somewhere down below on the dark pebbled beach was his spear.

Gone. Useless.

The knife in his hand felt tiny and just as useless as he stared into the huge stinking maw of the beast below him. It was impossibly big. Twice as tall as a tall man, at least. And probably four times as heavy.

Is this what I turned into?

Did Wren see me like this?

Did Freya?

The monster pulled its arm back, yanking Freya’s foot out from under her. Erik darted forward, but she kicked free before he could take a second step, and she started to get back up. He held his knife at the ready, though every instinct in him was screaming to rip the harpoon away from the man next to him so he could do more than wait for something to stab with his little blade.

Freya stood up, her back to the beach.

The huge reaver shot its claws forward, not swinging them down onto the wall as before, but driving them straight on as a hunter drives a spear into a boar.

Freya!

He felt his lips and jaw moving, instinctively forming her name, screaming at her to run, to jump, to get down, and his free hand was waving, fingers signing as fast as he ever had signed in his life. But he made no screams and no one heard him. He beckoned madly with his hands, but she was looking at the old fisherman on her other side, and not at him.

The claws rushed forward.

Erik dashed across the wall, grabbed his wife with both hands, and spun her off toward the surprised fisherman.

The claws slammed into Erik’s back, four curving blades thrusting into his flesh, cracking his ribs, and snapping his spine. He felt his insides moving downward as his skin stretched and split. His arms snapped out to his sides all on their own, as though they hoped to reach back and take the claws out of his body, but just couldn’t reach. His legs kicked wildly, also beyond his control. The pain was everywhere, shrieking up and down his spine, and his jaw locked open as his neck strained to hold his head up.

He couldn’t think.

He couldn’t even feel.

He was the pain and the pain was him, and he stared up at the dark sky, at the thick clouds obscuring half the stars, at the tiny flakes of snow tumbling down toward him, and he didn’t understand what he saw.

As his head fell forward, he saw Freya. Her beautiful face, framed in white-golden hair and crowned with fox ears, her beautiful face turned toward him, her beautiful face red and white with rage and shock and sorrow. Her mouth was opening, her lips moving slowly.

Dimly, he knew she was screaming, but he couldn’t hear her.

He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t move his hands, and he couldn’t think of anything to say, and he couldn’t feel his…