“I can always throw you back in,” Freya offered as she sat down beside the young vala.
“Maybe another time.” Wren leaned against the huntress and sighed, rubbing her hands. “Thanks for saving me, all the same.” Then she hopped up and hugged Erik. “And thanks for not eating me, you know, when you were a reaver.” She pulled back and glanced down at the rough blanket around the man’s waist and his bare chest behind Freya’s white and gray leather coat. “I think you need some clothes.”
“This is how all recovering reavers dress,” he signed with a smile.
Freya interpreted for him, and Wren laughed and hugged him again. Then she handed him his spear. “Sorry. Looks like I scraped it up a little.”
Erik rolled his eyes and took back his weapon with a mocking glare. He marched over to Freya with an open hand and she gave him the small whetstone from the pouch on her belt, and he went to sit on a rock to try to fix his spear with a very serious pout on his lip.
Freya stood and tussled the girl’s hair and plucked gently at the little tufts of hair on top of her fox ears. “I see that Omar’s bloodflies found you in time.”
“Just barely. Someone up there must like me after all,” she said with a sidelong glance at the gray sky.
“Mm hm. He liked you enough to dangle you over a ravine. Are you going to explain that any time soon?”
The young vala straightened her jacket and made a show of brushing the dust from her black sleeves and skirts. “I really don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“Oh really?” Freya smiled. “Then I guess I don’t need to let you ride Arfast back to the city.”
“Oh please let me! My arms are killing me!” Wren pleaded. “I’ll tell you. I got to the mill and I heard reavers in the hills, so I took the spear to protect Erik, and I wound up here, and there was one reaver, and I, sort of, well, tripped.”
Freya laughed and she saw Erik’s shoulders shaking silently out of the corner of her eye. “You tripped into the ravine?”
Wren pouted haughtily as she walked over to Arfast. “Well, what do I know about fighting with a spear? I’ll stick to my sling, thank you very much.”
Erik tapped his spear to get their attention, and signed, “What happened to the reaver?” There was worry in his golden eyes.
“It tried to grab me, and missed.” Wren hopped up onto the white elk’s back. “And it fell a lot farther than I did. Now let’s please get going. I’m hungry. I didn’t bring any food because I really didn’t expect to live this long today.”
They returned to Rekavik in no particular hurry. Freya and Erik walked side by side, occasionally catching each others’ hands or slipping an arm around the other’s waist or neck. They didn’t speak, each lost in their own thoughts and their own strange new sensations, each one exploring the world again for the first time, hearing it again for the first time in all its tiny, living details. They heard the crickets in the grass and the rabbits in their burrows, and when a rock broke free and tumbled down a distant hillside, all three of them turned to look. The sun glared through the overcast sky, and they all shaded their eyes with their hands or kept their gazes on the ground.
It was late in the afternoon when they finally reached the iron door in the south wall of the city, and the guards let them enter without any questions or searches. Freya started to explain their ears, but then saw that a third of the warriors had them as well, in various states of growth. So after leaving Arfast in the stabler’s care, they continued toward the castle. The streets were quiet except for the handful of children running about. Freya saw the housewives through the open doorways making their suppers, and the fishermen cleaning their catches, and the crones knitting their scarves. And on nearly half of the heads she saw small or large furry ears, and bright golden eyes.
“You have to admit, this is very strange,” Wren said.
“The ears or the fact that everyone seems fine with them?” asked Freya.
“Both,” Erik signed.
The sun was setting as they approached the castle walls and the closed iron door. Freya banged on the door and called out, and after a moment of silence, the locks clicked and clanged and the door squealed inward. Freya stepped inside and found Halfdan and his guards standing around a crackling fire in an iron brazier. The bearded captain waved them over. “You’re all alive?” He grunted mirthlessly. “I suppose someone was bound to have a better day than us.”
“What do you mean?” Wren asked.
“What do I…?” Halfdan pulled the steel helmet from his head, letting his tall ears flop upward. “First the bloodflies started biting, but word came through that we’re not allowed to swat the damned buggers. So we sat at our posts while we were eaten alive. Then we started growing these damn fool ears. I know I should be grateful that we’re all safe from the plague, but why did it have to be our ears!?”
The big man’s face was equally pale and red, and Freya wondered just how embarrassing he really thought the ears were.
Is Erik embarrassed? He hasn’t seemed bothered at all since we left the mill.
“And then we had to spend the day breaking up fights and keeping folk calm after Omar went around telling everyone that this was the cure. I suppose he thought he was helping, and I suppose he was after a fashion, but no sooner did he leave a group in the road then a new fight would start and who had to break it up? We did.”
“That’s not so awful,” Freya said. “People are scared. A little brawl here and there is only natural.”
“Natural!” Halfdan huffed. “Don’t talk to me about what’s natural. Not today!” He slammed his helmet back onto his head, and winced sharply. “But that’s not even the worst bit. We’d only come back here for supper a little bit ago and found Skadi dead. Killed. Her head sliced open.”
Freya stared at him. “Sliced open?”
“Aye, brains and pus all over the floor. I’ve never seen anything like it. Well, not with a woman, anyway.” Halfdan shrugged. “And then the lads caught Leif and Thora trying to slip out one of the eastern doors. Looks like the boy killed the queen to make off with the girl.”
“I told you, Omar killed the queen! And I wasn’t trying to slip out!” The shout came from around the corner, and Freya took a few steps to the side to see Leif sitting shackled in the snow against the side of the castle. His one hand was bound to his ankle.
“Omar spent the whole day out talking to the people bitten by the flies. Everyone saw him,” Halfdan shouted. “And you have a lot more to gain by killing the queen than him. Everyone knows about you and Thora.”
“Then everyone is a damn idiot! That cow hasn’t let me ride her once!” With a quick roll and a little tottering, the young warrior got to his feet and hobbled forward, bent over to hold his hand near his foot, but when he approached the brazier he straightened up, standing on one leg so he could raise his arm and back properly. “I was at the wall checking our defenses. The reavers attacked us last night, if you recall, and we were barely ready for them, barely able to keep them out. And now we have swarms of bloodflies in the city and every man is hiding his damn ears like a scolded child instead of seeing to his duties.”
“So what if they do?” Freya asked. “Do you have some reason to think the reavers will attack again tonight?”
Leif licked his lips. “I don’t know.”
“Oh yes, he does.” This voice came from the main door of the castle, which opened sharply, thrusting back the snow on the ground. Out stepped Omar in his finely tailored coat and blue sunglasses, with his hand resting lightly on his sword. “He knows they’re going to attack again, just as he knew they would attack yesterday, didn’t you?” Omar slapped the youth in the back of the head, sending him sprawling into the snow.