They’ll go away, or they won’t. But I’m still me.
She leaned over the stream, trying to see her reflection clearly in the rippling waters, and she saw that her eyes were far more gold than green.
That’s hardly even a change, is it?
A low shuffling sound rose in the mill behind her, and she turned to look at the blank stone wall. Then she went to the door and held the leather curtain open, letting the light fall on the furry form hunched in the far corner.
It must be him. He hasn’t growled or barked or anything. He can’t make a sound, even like this.
“I’m sorry, Erik. But Freya is all right. She made it back. And she said she found another man called Omar. Did you meet him? I think he might be able to help. They were supposed to find a cure, you know. And just look at me. I’m getting better all on my own. Look.” She held out her bare arm. And gradually, as she stood there looking down at Erik, she remembered the bloodfly that bit her as she crept out of the city in the morning gloom.
A bloodfly. In winter?
Her jaw dropped and a fresh tear came to her eye.
Is that possible? Well, for a god, most certainly. It really was Woden. He sent me the cure in a bloodfly!
She smiled at the reaver. “There is a cure.” She touched one of her tall, hairy ears. “Well, sort of. But it’s going to be all right. I’ll stay with you until Freya comes. Then we’ll find the cure for you too, and then it’ll all be like it was before.” She knelt down and picked up the spear on the floor and dragged it out into the light, and then she washed it as best she could in the cold stream and scrubbed the blood away with a fistful of dead grass.
And then Wren sat back down at the door of the mill with the spear standing between her legs, leaning against her shoulder. “Well, Woden, it seems you managed to redeem yourself again, this time. And thank you again for that. But I just want to know why I can’t have a simple, normal friend? I mean, really, Gudrun and that woman in the cellar and poor Erik here. Am I really such bad company? I know I shouldn’t complain. I’m alive and well, and free, with the hearing of a fox, no less. But it’s hard not to feel sorry for myself when all I want is a sane person to talk to, like Freya, for example. I know you understand, Allfather. After all, you made me this way. So really, it’s your own fault you have to listen to me now. So I don’t want to hear any complaints from you about it.”
Wren rested her chin on her knee and closed her eyes. From the distant north came a cold and lonely howl, and she tightened her grip on the spear.
Chapter 26. Riuza
Freya stood in the cold morning light staring at the rusted door of the cell half-buried in the earth under the castle’s south wall. She could hear Katja shuffling about inside, the noises echoing in the confined space. And she heard a pair of boots crunching toward her across the trampled, icy snow.
“Good morning, fair lady.”
“Morning. Is there any sign of Wren yet?”
“I’m afraid not. Is your sister down in there?” Omar asked.
Freya nodded. “I slipped her some meat this morning. I hope it was enough.” She hesitated. “That was you shouting over the water last night, wasn’t it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know who that was. I heard it just as I was coming inside the south wall.”
“Any idea who it was?”
“I do not. Perhaps some poor fisherman was out on the water, fighting with a reaver in the middle of the bay,” he said. “Did you sleep last night?”
“Like a corpse,” she said. “Thank you for keeping watch by my room all night.”
“It was the least I could do,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device of shiny brass and blue-tinted glass, which he unfolded and then placed on his face, with the two brass hooks wrapped around his ears and the two blue lenses resting in front of his eyes to shade them. He smiled at her. “I got them in Tingis, a lovely little seaside town in Marrakesh. Do you like them?”
She smiled. “You look ridiculous.”
He smiled back. “You know, I brought that nest here to use on your sister, to test my vaccine on a fully-turned reaver and to prove to everyone that it would work as a cure, to some extent. I wanted to meet the sister of the fearless Freya.”
“I’m sorry that you won’t get to. She’d like you.”
“Ah, she likes handsome men?”
“She likes funny men,” Freya said. “But the only ones bitten with the vaccine were me and Leif. Small good that will do. I’m sorry I lost all of your hard work.”
“Lost?” Omar grinned. “Those bloodflies are out in the city somewhere right now, nipping away at people one by one.”
“Maybe. But how much good can half a dozen flies do before they’re all swatted to death?”
“Half a dozen?” Omar glanced toward the courtyard where the guards were standing beside a burning brazier, and then he leaned in closer to the huntress. “That nest I brought to the castle was just a sample, as I said, to test on your sister. Skadi was right to search the city as she did, she knows me too well. I scattered the other nests everywhere, and I doubt the guards will find them before they hatch today.”
“You made more nests? With more bloodflies?” Freya grabbed his arm. “How many?”
Omar glanced up at the sky and the sunlight glanced off his blue glasses. “I believe I made thirty-one nests, and they will probably all have between one and two hundred vaccine-laden flies when they hatch. Most of them are inside the city walls, but I left a few outside in the hills as well, just in case any reavers wander too close to the city.”
“But that’s… that’s thousands of flies!” Freya smiled and threw her arms around him. “In just a few hours, everyone in the city will be safe from the reavers’ venom, and in a few days or weeks, all the reavers will be cured, too!”
Omar held up his hands. “Let’s not be hasty. As I said, I had no chance to test the flies on people or on reavers. I have no idea what exactly will happen, or when.”
“But what about me and Leif? We were battered and exhausted when the flies bit us, and within a few moments we were both as healthy as mountain goats. After watching his leg heal, I wouldn’t be surprised if Leif’s arm grew back!”
Omar snorted. “Let’s hope not. He’s dangerous enough with just the one. Although, growing a new arm would be extremely painful for him, and I would enjoy that a great deal.”
“Right, you mentioned that you grew an arm back once.” Freya paused, unsure of what else to say. She didn’t have much experience with lost limbs, except for the time when she watched Katja remove a man’s shattered finger that had become infected, and that hadn’t seemed very dramatic to anyone at the time. “You said you lost it when the skyship crashed-Nine hells, I forgot!” Freya’s eyes went wide. “The woman in the cellar, the pilot from your skyship, she’s in the cellar!”
“Wait, who’s in the-Riuza!” Omar grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the front of the castle. “Take me to her, now!”
They dashed through the dining hall and down the corridor, and stumbled down into the dark cellar. Freya was about to lead the way across the room, groping through the blackness, when a blinding white light filled the chamber, illuminating the sacks of potatoes, the salted seal meat, the blueberry preserves, and endless other bags and jars and piles of stored food. Omar held his bright blade over his head as he scanned the room, and then he charged past Freya to the far wall where he planted his sword in the dirt floor and wrapped his arms gingerly around the emaciated woman folded up in the corner.
Freya came to stand just behind him. “I’m sorry. I just found out about her yesterday. Wren found her. Skadi put her here for stealing parts from the drill and trying to build a ship out of metal.”
Omar ignored her as he gently rocked the frail woman in his arms and whispered quietly into her hair.