Beautiful Wreck (38 page)

We both turned to view the long slope on which we stood, the black rock face stretching forever, straight into the ocean. Shallow caves dipped into the rock everywhere, but none deep enough for me to really hide. Pain crossed his features like a breeze, there and gone, and he seemed to clear his face of all emotion. So I wouldn’t be scared, I thought. He looked down at my red dress. “Cover yourself,” he said. With those words, he took off fast, Vakr spraying my skirts with sand.

I stumbled back to the place where we’d just held each other, an abandoned bower full of furs and love. His gauntlet sprawled there, his hair tie, his mother’s fur, and time seemed to slow almost to a halt, while I noted these things one by one. I’d pulled his hair loose to bury my hands in it, ripped the leather away from his wrist to get inside his shirts. Now he would fight with his hair in his eyes and one hand tangled in linen.

I covered myself entirely with my cloak, like a child hiding, and my breath was hot and ragged inside my little fur tent. Hoofbeats fell right outside, and I heard Heirik shout, “Ageirr!” And then the fight came nearer, bellowed oaths and warnings clear now, horses screaming. I thought of Drifa with alarm and almost jumped up to search for her. But the din of men and beasts mingled with the pounding and roaring of the sea and the sounds came closer and closer and pinned me, shaking, to this rock. I melted into it, a thin slime under my cheek.

Heirik had ridden out to meet them, but somehow the fight had come right back here. Right to me.

The clang of iron and grunts of men were no more than two house-lengths away. A horse squealed above the din, more urgent than the rest, a man cried out and the ground shook with a thud that resounded even among the downpour of hoofbeats. There were more strangled cries, and angry words slashing. None were Heirik’s. I would know his injured voice from the others.

Would he, maybe, call for me if he fell? What if a spear ran through him, or an ax cleaved his head? I thought of his enigmatic smile, his golden eyes going blank and dead, lost to me before I’d ever truly known and had him. I didn’t want to cower with my eyes shut and cheek pressed to the wall while my love was torn up and wasted. I wanted to be present, wanted him to know I was here. I heard Hildur’s words about his brother Brosa—
tall as the chief and just as fierce.
I willed it to be true, that Heirik was fierce. I pulled the cloak down from my head and opened my eyes.

My blood ran cold when I saw him. He’d pulled Vakr back from the fight, skirting the outside at an unbelievable speed, and his hair flew out behind him like in an epic poem or a painting from history. Savage and intent, his face smeared with sweat and blood and misted with the spray of the sea. He was the raven, the last sight before Valhalla.

Rearing back on Vakr, he swung his ax above his head in a splendid arc and connected with the wrist of one of Ageirr’s men. It was his brother! Eiðr’s hand fell to the ground, neatly severed. I retched and doubled over, forehead on the sand, grit in my nose, in my mouth, choking, whimpering. Violence too hard, too near, my body was screaming to run.

Drifa’s scent came strong and near. I looked up to find her pressed against the rock wall beside me, crying, a sound like nothing I’d ever heard. She was in danger. I needed to reach her. And she was a way out. On her back, I could get away. All I wanted was distance, to be far from knives, axes, horses fighting with a demented will. I staggered to my feet, lurching for her, and climbed up on her back. I turned to find my way past, and found Ageirr looking at me.

Ageirr’s eyes were lost in the trance of fighting, but I watched as they cleared. He came at me, and I turned Drifa and tried to run away, but there was only rock face in both directions. I didn’t know how to get past him, nor did she, just a baby, shaking with fear underneath my thighs. Ageirr was upon us in a second. And in the next second, he’d torn me off of Drifa’s back and had me in front of him on his own horse. The animal reared savagely, and I screamed. I fought with fingernails, arms, feet, but Ageirr was immovable.

And then there was silence. Time slowed down again, in its odd way of changing and stretching in moments of fear and flight, and I could see the scene laid out before me. The fight was over. Heirk, Hár and Magnus were there, alive, bloody. Ageirr’s family had fled. None but he remained.

I stopped struggling and watched as Heirik’s head turned toward my cry. A terrible focus moved over his face like a cloud covering the sun. He spoke with an even cadence and low, soothing voice.

“Ageirr,” he said.

His voice made me feel secure. Ageirr’s horse settled, too, Heirik charming us all.

“Ageirr, what are you doing?”

Ageirr didn’t answer, though I felt him shake his head. His horse tripped backwards over driftwood, making it skittish again, wary. It came to me plainly, Ageirr had no plan. He’d grabbed me on impulse, and now he was the only one left. Aggressive, wounded, full of rage and jealousy and grief. His arm tightened around my waist. He smelled like blood and metal and sickness.

Heirik continued to talk to him from a distance. He didn’t come forward to save me. I wished for him, remembered his strong hands on me and wanted them now, willed him to come. But he did not meet my eyes, only Ageirr’s.

“What do you want, Ageirr?” He kept saying his name. Lulling him, making him feel drowsy and safe. Hár was on the ground, moving slowly to retrieve a dropped spear. Heirik held Ageirr’s eyes, so my captor didn’t notice when Hár handed the spear to Heirik.

Dreadful realization came. I saw Heirik’s plan. He would throw a weapon right at us.

I cast my eyes around, wanting bravery, wanting a way out, and all I saw were discarded blades and a severed hand reddening the foam at the water’s edge. I drew my eyes away, my thoughts inward, searching for strength, or at least ignorance. What I found were sims, and I almost barked a sick laugh. I thought I’d seen men fight in the cage, punch and kick and dislocate and wound. I’d seen nothing. Useless memories passed by, of cheering at things I didn’t understand.

And then a memory of an elbow to an opponent’s head, two, three, four times, and there was cringing and howling from the crowd.

Heirik held the spear loosely, hanging by his side, casually waiting for his chance. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to do something. And so I curled up and then struck out with my elbow, up at Ageirr’s chin, harder than I had ever done anything. He grunted and loosened his grip so that I hung from his arm. Far enough away.

In the slowness, I watched Heirik. His face was cold resolution. His throw smooth and easy. A breeze lifted loose strands of my hair as the spear went by. It was that close. Then I hit the ground, my head bounced hard off a piece of driftwood and I was free.

Gray washed all over and above me, from the greenest, moistest clay to blackest iron. The colors of the sky swirled together, purple and dark blue, twisting and crossing. I was lifted from the ground, and things shimmered silver all around, enchanting. There were faces, too, beloved ones. Hár held me on his horse.

Byr picked his way through a sea of knee-high plants, green against the black sand and gray wood, and I let my hand drop to skim them with my fingers. I almost fell off until Hár grasped me. I leaned back into the old man and smiled. This was the second time he would carry me, drowsy with pain and cold, home from this beach.

Heirik rode before us, just like on the first day I arrived, when he was still the chief and I was Jen. He led Drifa beside him. His hand rested lightly on her saddle, mottled fingers closing over the leather where I’d sat, stroking with his thumb.

The peace of wading through driftwood and greens exploded with force as soon as we were clear, and the horses took off on flat ground. Hár crushed me to him, and we flew.

They drove the horses hard, and the wind scoured my face. I felt Hár’s long beard on my cheek, reassuring and ticklish, and I thought of my friend kissing him, touching him. My head fell to the side and I watched his thighs hanging on to Byr, his muscles like iron. A thick, red mess was flowering on the brown wool on his leg.

I’d been held by Betta’s lover far more often than my own.

It was a single wistful thought, lost to the darkening sky that yawned above and sucked all air out of me. The temperature seemed to drop a dozen degrees in the space of a breath. The weather gathered itself, and the sky stretched out above us, endlessly churning. And in the next instant, it turned to steel and closed over us like a vault. Soon, the stark stone sisters rose to meet the blackening sky, and water ran into my eyes, blurring their terrifying forms. Like condemned spirits, they made their endless way, the shortest first this time. Leading us home.

I dozed off, and when I woke the winter had risen all around us. Hard whipping gusts of wind drove it into us, freezing and raw. The horses—even with wills and bodies like the gods themselves—were driven off course. They bore down, every person, every horse, focused now only on the promise of shelter. I believed in the idea of warmth, I had to.

The notion of going somewhere safe seemed important. But where?

Anywhere but this time and place, with its iron and steel and blood that ran as freely as the men felt necessary. Not here, where hands were shorn and spears thrown. Here where I rode on a gorgeous horse, at the confluence of violence and clear beauty. I sputtered as ice cold rain flowed over my face. Water filled my nose and I pursed my lips and blew against the spray so I could breathe.

A sense of white and glass came to me, big skylights, interiors brilliant with sunshine. The clean lines of a stainless steel coffee table. The smell of coffee itself. A quilt warm from the dryer. It smelled like detergent. The sensation of someone’s arms around me. I imagined the feeling of a bearded chin against the bridge of my nose. That was safety. I imagined lying my forehead against a warm chest, the feel of skin and metal and leather. The smell of smoke was safety.

I was sleepy. I kept falling asleep.

I didn’t know if Heirik had killed him. I wondered if Ageirr had fallen dead with me in his arms and let me go with his last breath. Heirik would kill someone to save me, I knew.