She smiled and drew in a deep breath, catching whiffs of fresh-baked bread and hot sugar on the breeze. Briefly, she recalled the vision of the future Odin had shown her. The town had been a hollow shell, devoid of life and light. It was a future she couldn’t allow to come to pass.
“Come. We can barter for a room tonight and then continue our journey tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
Taking the lead, Bryn guided Freki along the edge of the field and around it until they reached the hard-packed road that crossed into the town. A pair of children played ahead with wooden swords and round bucklers. Bryn grinned. She loved to see a young shield maiden in training.
“Hail, Oran and Gita!” she called out, dismounting to approach them. When the children looked up from their game, their eyes widened. The boy froze as a frightened doe would moments before flight as his older sister moved defensively between them.
“Oran, run!”
The girl took the other child’s hand and jerked him away. Together, they dashed down the lane toward the settlement, shrieking and crying out for someone to help them.
“Friends of yours?” Sigurd cocked a brow.
“I don’t understand,” Bryn said. “I know those children and have played with them often during my travels. I don’t understand why they would run from me.”
“Well, as far as the people know, you did die.”
“I suppose…” Bryn pursed her lips and followed the children with her gaze as they rounded a corner and turned out of sight.
“Come on. Once we’re in town we can explain.”
“I hope so.”
Wary, they made slow progress toward Steinnvik down an eerily empty and silent road, the town ahead of them appearing deserted by the time they arrived.
“We should go back,” she said in a low voice. “Something is not right.”
“I agree.”
Bryn turned to mount her horse, but intuition tickled across the nape of her neck. She whirled, shield at the ready as the twang of a bowstring announced the incoming projectile. It struck the wood, and more arrows followed in short order, each one thudding against the barrier. A split second was all they gave her to estimate the positions of their assailants, a pair of armored guards leaning from posts with bows and arrows.
“Stop this!” Bryn shouted to them. “I am your queen!”
“Bryn, we need to leave!”
“But—”
“They have arrows and the advantage of numbers, Bryn. Come!”
But the men were already racing toward her, most of them villagers with little more than brooms, hoes, and tools. She recognized Gita and Oran’s father among them, a mallet in his hands.
“You will not have my children, fiend!”
“Fiend? Felman, you know me!”
“Ignore it!” bellowed another man as he rushed toward Sigurd. “Do not listen to its lies! It will only seek to deceive you.”
Easily, Sigurd parried the swing from a shovel. He disarmed the man on the next stroke then slammed his shoulder into the fellow’s chest. These were not warriors. They were merely the first to answer the pleas for help.
Soon, the true warriors would come.
“Deceive you?” Bryn was stunned. She ducked beneath a rake swinging toward her head. “Do not harm them, Sigurd! Please, do not harm them! They don’t—they don’t understand!”
Something must have happened. Perhaps it was more Liangese trickery, or an act of sorcery turning the once-pleasant town against her. She fought them off, smashing her shield into the chest of one man with enough force to carry him into three others. They tumbled to the ground, groaning in pain.
“I won’t.” Punctuating his promise, he swept a man’s feet out from beneath him with the flat of his blade. Afterward, he ran toward the pair of archers. Both were town watchmen, adorned in the garb of the local guard. Bryn’s instinct was to join Sigurd—to be his shield—but he did not need her. The next arrow struck his blade, as did the one that followed. Then he was upon them and one swing cut their bowstrings.
The crowd thickened. More had come to fight them. Peasants and townsfolk intermingled with the town guard. Soldiers and shield maidens who knew how to fight, who knew her, raised their weapons against Bryn. As she fended off a pair of farmers with axes and pitchforks, a shield maiden arrived. The girl’s eyes blazed with fury.
Bryn’s opponent couldn’t be more then thirteen. A child barely old enough to enter war.
“Stop this! I do not want to hurt any of you!”
But these men were not inclined to talk. Despite their evident fury, a desire to protect their children was evident in their faces. Their hands trembled. The girl shook with fear as she dashed in with her shield.
If she wanted, Bryn could have slaughtered them all within minutes, but in each face, she saw someone who had looked up to her.
Sigurd was right.
Sooner or later, someone would die, and it would be neither her nor him. It would be an innocent, someone deceived by Gunnar’s Liangese allies.
Freki didn’t need any encouragement to flee from the danger once Bryn jumped into the saddle. More archers arrived on the scene and fired from a safe distance away. She leaned down and maintained the height of her shield, cutting her worried gaze toward Sigurd as they escaped the next volley of arrows. They fell against the sides of a building in a noisy clatter, inches from striking their targets.
Once they reached the safety of the tree line, Bryn turned her mare around and searched Sigurd, as well as both beasts, for injuries.
“I’m fine,” Sigurd said before she could ask. He yanked an arrow from his stallion’s saddle and tossed it aside. “We’re both fine. Are you?”
“Surprisingly.”
“What the hell was that all about? Why would they attack you?”
Bryn glanced over her shoulder. Her arms tingled, and the hairs on her nape rose. Her sense for danger told her they weren’t out of the proverbial woods yet, and more was soon to come. “I…I don’t know.”
“Well, I suppose they do think you’re dead.”
“Perhaps. They must believe me an imposter, or a ghost.” Even as she made the suggestion, she doubted her own words. Who would waste an arrow on a ghost?
“Still, it doesn’t—”
Hoofbeats and raised voices cut Sigurd off. Through the trees, she watched the rest of the town guard mobilize. They rushed to the stables and jumped into the saddles of their horses, at least a dozen men all armed to the teeth. Bryn swore and held her finger to her lips, then she led the way through the woods. They moved as fast as they dared without injuring the horses, heading deeper, away from the most direct path to Jotunheim. That realization made her frown, but the greater, more immediate threat behind them took priority for the moment.
Using her knowledge of the area to their advantage, she brought them to a narrow ravine, wide enough to lead the horses through on foot. Ferns concealed them from above, but she still cautioned Sigurd to remain silent. Once they moved far enough inside, she waited. It didn’t take long. Voices drew closer and a few pebbles and clumps of dirt skittered down over them. Freki tossed her head but remained silent.
“We’ve lost them.”
“Send word to the king that the necromancer was spotted,” a man said above them. “Double the guard on the town. We won’t let him bring his evil down on us.”