Touch of Iron (The Living Blade #1) (9 page)

N
ora waited another few minutes.
Then, not finding any conveniently placed barrels or ladders, she ran at the door of the stable, grabbed the top of the door frame, put one foot on the handle, and scrambled onto the thatched roof. All that shoveling and carting the charcoal had been good for a few things at least: building muscles, sleeping light, being out on moonlit nights. If she lived to see the morning, she’d be able to make a passable living as a thief. Nora chuckled to herself and scrambled up the wet thatch. She really needed food, though.

The two buildings, the stable and the inn, were adjoined. The inn’s guestrooms on the first floor were higher than the stable, but now that she was on the roof, it would be simple getting into one of the rooms through a window. Nora crept to the ridge of the roof and lay down in the thatch for a breather. The moon was slowly setting into the pitch black of night. It was late. Or early. She crawled across the top to the inn wall. Here were two small windows, left and right. Becca said the chief had taken the suite to the right, the tax suite. The empire’s tax collector, who made his rounds in the late autumn, always stayed a few days in the best room of the inn. Looked like he wasn’t coming this year. Nora grinned despite herself and stepped closer. It was dark within. Quiet, too. She couldn’t see anything.

Nora crept down the street side of the roof and crouched low, looking over the edge to the inn’s main door. The smoker still leaned against the wall. His mate had not returned. She crept to the other side and peered into the backyard of the inn. There was no one to be seen. Maybe the other guard had gone inside? She bit her lip. But the odds were against her, however she calculated.

She crawled back to the window and slid the blade of her knife under the frame, lifting it a notch so that her fingers could reach under and push it open. She swung noiselessly over the windowsill and closed the window behind her.

Nora stepped into a dark corner and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. It was warm inside, and she could make out a huge shape under the blankets. The chief was asleep. She stepped up to make sure his eyes were closed before she searched the room for Ethelwyn. He must be a big man, a fat man, filling the whole of the double bed. One arm lay beside his square, bearded face, and the size of his hand was such that she could easily imagine it grappling with a bear or grasping her entire head and crushing it. In the orange light that shone through the windows from the torches lit outside, she saw his armor leaning against the chair. The sword in its scabbard was nearly as long as her legs. Her knife seemed like a toy next to it. She crept even closer to the bed to check if Ethelwyn was smothered under the blankets next to the mountain of a man. No.

A gold gleam in the half-light caught her eye. Curiosity piqued, she slowly, slowly pulled out a dagger from under the snoring chief’s pillow. The blade itself was about as long as her forearm and curved. The gilded hilt was heavy, making the dagger ill balanced. Pretty piece of crap. She half expected it to be blunt, but someone had sharpened the edge with care. The chief moved in his sleep, rolling his large body over to the side. She held her breath. But he slept on. His long black hair fell into his face, and his lips were fat and protruded out of his black beard like those of a sullen child. Here and there little trinkets had been tied into the hair: a pebble with a hole, warrior rings made out of the spear tips of his enemies, red prayer ribbons like those at the shrines all over the northern wastelands, pearls and glass beads, and a little bone that seemed tipped with gold. It all jingled as his barrel chest rose and fell.

Nora wiped the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her tunic and held the two knives loose. She licked her lips and swallowed dry. The thirst made her head feel light, and the hunger made her giddy. She stepped away from the bed.

“Ethelwyn?” She breathed the name into the darkness. No response.

Nora searched the room, careful not to make any noise, watching the mountain sleep with one eye.

“Ethelwyn? It’s me. Nora.”

Nothing. Maybe Ethelwyn had been sent back downstairs again. Maybe they were all still alive. There were a few hours left until daybreak. If her luck held and all the men were asleep, she could unbolt the kitchen door from within and the women could sneak out into the dark, safe if not sound. There was a cave hidden in the woods close to the spot Owen and Nora had often used to burn charcoal. They could hide there until help came tomorrow. If her luck held.

The chief stirred and opened his eyes, only to close them again and snore. Nora froze before the pale light of the window. Had he seen her silhouette?

“Ubba?” she spoke in a low voice, testing whether he was still asleep. For a moment, she was unsure whether she had remembered the right name. The man’s ragged breathing was all she heard. What had Becca said his name was?

“Ubba,” Nora said once more, a little louder, gripping the daggers tight.

His eyes opened and darted around the dark room. His large hand slid under the pillow and, finding his dagger gone, his body jolted awake. He half rose and then he saw her. Nora nearly stepped back. She was tired to the bone but stood as tall as she could.

“Who are you? Are you—my queen, is it you?” His voice was soft and carried the lilt of the northern coast. “My dagger is gone, Prophetess.”

Nora hesitated.
Play along.
She held up the gold dagger in her right hand and kept her own blade hidden in her left. The gold gleamed in the torchlight from the window.

“I took your dagger from you, Ubba.”

He rolled out of the bed and landed on his knees, bowing low before her feet, blubbering. “No, I am worthy, Prophetess. I am worthy. Give me, please, your favor. Please.”

It took all of Nora’s self-control not to run away or scream. She held her breath until the urge subsided.

“Ubba, tell me what you have done here.”

He peered up at her, squinting. His eyes were small and piggish compared to his large mouth. The lower part of his face seemed consumed by hair. He wrung his large hands together in anguish.

“I made them dead, Prophetess. I’m a good deadmaker.” His voice broke. “I did as you told me. I did. I went to your shrine. The pilgrim master there, he was suspicious. But I lost your girl. And I thought—I thought you’d be angry. Because your pretty one was lost. There was some trouble in the big city. Men were raiding the countryside. I joined them and so I came here. Don’t be angry, my queen.”

“Where is Ethelwyn?” Nora asked.

“Ethelwyn? Was that the true name of your pretty one? Is she not with you, my queen? I—”

Waking realization was slowly creeping into his large black head. Nora had been lucky so far. She gagged in panic, swallowed. Her knuckles whitened on the hilt of the dagger as she turned it in the ray of pale light.

“I see a soul standing at the far shore. It is lingering. I have a message for you from the girl, Ubba,” she heard herself say from far away. Her voice was cool and emotionless. Ubba Bearkiller leaned closer on his knees, his hands clasped in front of his chest, his eyes lit up with delight.

“Yes, yes?”

Nora thrust his golden dagger into his large belly. She stabbed hard into the softness and the handle kept going in after the blade, the fat closing in over it. She pulled her hand away in horror and watched Ubba paw his flabby flesh, trying to grasp the hilt but failing to find it. She stepped back as blood and black fecal matter spattered to the floor. The stench of his spilling intestines filled the air. Ubba groaned and fell forward. His hand reached for her ankle. She kicked it aside.

“Hnnnuhhhh,” he groaned, holding his belly.

His breath was labored now. She stepped to the right, nearing the door. His eyes followed her movement. His body held a lot of blood, oozing out of the folds of fat. It seemed to take him hours to die. He reached out a bloody hand to her, dragging it weakly over the wooden floor, unable to draw his body up.

He made the noise one more time, a pleading sound. Nora felt the cold creep up her spine. He still thought she was the prophetess. She approached him then with her own knife, crouched low, and passed her hand under his wiry beard to slit his throat. Blood gushed out of the cut and washed into the hair, soaking the prayer ribbons black in the dim light. He died under her hand, eyes open, staring at some vision he’d perhaps had all his life.

She wiped her blade on his nightshirt and stepped away, listening hard. The stillness in the room made her own rushing heartbeat sound stronger, louder. It was stifling. The stench of shit overpowered the thick, salty scent of blood. Her stomach heaved suddenly, and a patter of spilled fluid broke the silence. Nora wiped the bitter taste of bile from her lips. She moved away from the large felled man and her heels knocked against a wooden chest at the foot of the bed. Her head snapped up, listening for the sound of running feet coming her way. But there was nothing.

And suddenly she knew where Ethelwyn was. She shouldn’t open the chest. She knew she shouldn’t. But just as she had stared at the maggots wriggling out of the headless body in the forge, something moved her cold fingers over the lid and pulled it open.

It took a moment for her to make out anything in the jumble of hastily stashed cloaks in the trunk. Her heart leaped. They were only cloaks. Ethelwyn wasn’t in here after all. She was still alive, then. Nora was about to close the lid when her mind translated what her eyes had been seeing all along. The high round shape under the cloak was a shoulder, the flat fold to the front the knee and shin of a bent leg. Nora followed the folds and saw the body underneath them. The fold of the cloak in the corner…her hand felt the roughness of the spun wool as she tugged it gently. Her heart sank.

There was no blood. No sign of violence Nora could see. On the contrary, Ethel looked as though she were merely sleeping on her side. A bit uncomfortable in the trunk, maybe. Knees bent high, nearly touching her chest. But still, she could have been sleeping. Her hands lay folded under her cheek, her fingers curled by those long brown eyelashes. One of the fingernails was chipped and broken. Dark shadows lay under Ethelwyn’s eyes as though she hadn’t slept in a long time. Her golden bangs shone in the light, combed neatly to form a parting on the wrong side of her face.

Nora stretched out her hand to correct the hair but then let the girl rest. She closed the lid with the knowledge she’d done the right thing killing Ubba. Even if she’d join Ethelwyn tonight, she had done the right thing. The lid clicked shut.

N
ora stepped up to the
door. It was locked on the inside by a wooden latch. She listened, one ear pressed to the wood, straining to hear a sound where there was none to be heard. The other men must be sleeping now, surely. The corridor behind the door led down into the common room of the inn. Perhaps she
could
get to the root cellar to see if the other girls were still there and alive. They
could
all be hidden in the woods before the men woke in the morning and found their chief dead in his room. She pushed the wooden latch to the side and heard a faint click as the lock opened. She pulled the door wide and froze.

Before the door a man sat on the threshold, asleep. A young man. His head had been resting against the door, and when she opened it, the jolt woke him. The youth at her feet blinked up at her. He had gray eyes. His hair was sleep-ruffled and there was a red patch on his forehead. He looked only a few months older than Owen and herself. Any second now, he’d realize a strange girl had stepped out of his chieftain’s room and call for aid. With a thrill of terror, Nora plunged her dagger into his eye. The tip of her blade jarred her hand and scraped the inside of his skull. The young man gasped and shuddered, and she quickly put her hand over his mouth and nose, pulling her knife out of his head and plunging it into his throat instead. He spasmed and fell back, drowning in his own blood, unable to scream.

Against the opposite wall another guard slept, an older man with a similar jawline and straight nose, legs crossed, head leaning against the wood, mouth slack. Father and son. Crap. As the son died, Nora looked to the other man. He closed his open mouth in his sleep and swallowed, moving his head into a more comfortable position against the opposite door. Nora held a bloodied hand over his mouth and felt him stir as she slit his throat.