“Dagmar!” Ghost screamed.
“Run!” he roared. “Go!” His forearms were slick with blood, his legs planted between the pillars as though he needed them to stand. Almost immediately the walls of the temple began to tremble and shake, a monster within the mount, fighting to break free. The warriors in the courtyard stumbled back, the quaking beneath their feet causing some of them to fall and others to cease fighting, frightened more of the quaking earth than the swords in their enemies’ hands.
Gudrun bellowed, cursing the gods, his voice echoing out through the entrance door, and Alba and Ghost ran, keeping each other upright as the temple continued to rumble and roil. Northmen began fleeing the mount, racing for the gates as the cobbles beneath them bucked and writhed, tossing the dead into the air and the living to their knees.
Ghost looked back, willing Dagmar to follow. The pillars where he braced his hands were shivering like stone snakes, brought alive by the blood runes painted on the rock surface. A groaning arose, inhuman and earsplitting, and the roof of the temple crashed down, abandoning the walls that had once supported it, a cloud of dust and debris mushrooming into the sky and coating the mount in white powder.
And then the world went still.
31
Bayr didn’t know how many men he’d killed or how many friends he’d lost. He didn’t know if Alba was safe or where she’d gone. He only knew he had to keep fighting, for if he fell, Saylok too would fall. Hundreds had been hewn down beneath the blades of the Northmen—villagers, clansmen, warriors, keepers—and they kept coming, mowing down the innocent and the unsuspecting with almost no resistance.
When the earth began to shake, he thought he’d taken a blow or sustained a wound that he couldn’t yet feel, and still he fought, determined to battle until he could no longer stand. From the corner of his eye he saw Dred fall and Dakin stumble, and he roared in loss and outrage, tossing one man and burying his axe in the skull of another before he realized he was not wounded and his men were not lost. The Northmen reeled back, arms wheeling and legs buckling as though they walked the decks on a turbulent sea. Bayr staggered behind them, afraid they would gather and regroup, pursuing them with the single-minded focus of the last man standing.
He thought he heard Alba scream, but it was drowned out by a deafening groan, and he turned back to the temple just in time to watch it crumble, its dome disappearing behind a wall of white, the earth grinding in terrible torment.
And then the mount fell silent.
He could not see the living, if any living remained. Only the dead at his feet. The cloud of dust and powdered debris coated his skin, clinging to the blood on his clothes and the gore in his hair. The silence was almost worse than the screams.
Then Alba called his name.
“Bayr?”
Her voice came from his left, and he made his way toward the sound, tripping over splayed limbs and stepping on the slain.
“Bayr?” she called again, and he realized he’d failed to answer.
“Alba,” he said, and the word rasped between his lips, so soft she shouldn’t have heard. But she did. Through the whirling white, she appeared, Ghost beside her, and he staggered the final steps, sweeping her up against him, arms locked around her. Ghost immediately turned away, melding back into the fog as though she’d never been there.
“Chief?” Dred called. The air was beginning to clear, shapes and shadows shifting in the haze.
“I’m here,” Bayr bellowed. “Dakin?”
“Aye, Dolphys. But Dystel is down.”
“I’m down. Not dead,” Dystel cried, strain making his voice sharp.
“Adyar?” Bayr called.
“I’m here,” Aidan grunted. “Logan of Leok and Chief Josef too. Lothgar was slain on the hill.”
“Dagmar,” Bayr shouted. “Dagmar!” he called again, knowing it was futile but unable to help himself.
“Bayr,” Ghost called, her voice thready in the murky light. “Bayr, help me.”
Bayr ran toward her voice, Alba at his side, and found Ghost crouched in the rubble, attempting to shove the stones aside, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“He’s here. I know he’s here. I saw him fall when the pillars collapsed,” she wept.
The temple pillars had split and toppled over each other, their jagged pieces creating a web of teetering stone. To move one could cause the others to come crashing down.
“Dagmar!” Bayr called, desperate.
“He is here!” Ghost insisted, pushing futilely at the massive pillar that rested atop the pile. Bayr pulled her down, wincing as she thrashed and resisted. His arms tightened around her, and he whispered assurance in her ear.
“I w-will find him,” he promised. “I will f-find him. Now take Alba and m-move back.”
“I thought I heard him, Bayr. I thought I heard him call out. He’s there,” she pled.
Voices began calling out from the cobbles and the corners, people emerging from their hiding places, gathering together and searching among the dead for those that yet lived. Bayr planted his feet and braced his legs, and with a plea to Odin and an appeal to Thor, he shoved the uppermost section from the top of the pile, freeing the columns below it. One by one, pushing the pillars this way and that, he cleared an opening in the intersecting beams.
He saw Dagmar’s hand first, the scarred palm and the curled fingers tinged in blood. He reached down and grasped it, inching Dagmar toward him until he could get his arms beneath his shoulders and pull him free.
Dagmar was limp in his embrace, but his eyes fluttered, and Bayr felt a whisper of breath against his cheek as he lifted him in his arms and turned toward the silent onlookers.
“He is alive,” Bayr said, but his voice cracked. Dagmar was alive, but his body was badly broken.
Ghost rushed forward and took Dagmar’s dangling hand. Bayr searched, frantic, for a place to lay him down. Everywhere he looked, the earth was upturned, the soil dark against the worn cobbles, the blood of the dead seeping between the cracks.
“Lay him here, Chief,” Dred demanded, hastily clearing a small patch of ground, moving the rocks and tamping the soil, his anguish streaming from his eyes and settling in the grooves that lined his trembling lips. Bayr knelt and laid Dagmar down. Dred shrugged off his tunic and folded it, inside out, to put beneath his son’s head. His chest was as scarred as Dagmar’s palms, the paths they’d each taken written on their skin.
“There is no pain. No pain at all,” Dagmar murmured, his whisper faint. His eyes were open and his gaze aware, and Ghost knelt near his head, smoothing his brow, her tears dripping from her chin and spotting the dusty folds of her robe. For a moment, Dagmar gazed up at her, memorizing her face, but then his eyes sought Bayr.
“Help me draw the rune, Bayr.”
Bayr shook his head, not understanding. He did not know the runes to promote healing.
“I can’t feel my legs. I can’t move my arms. You’re going to have to help me,” Dagmar continued, pleading weakly. “I tried to reverse it before, to draw a rune to change her curse, but I was never willing to die for it. And a blood rune demands lifeblood. Ivo tried, but he did not finish. And he did not understand. Not entirely. Ivo’s blood would not break the curse. That is why he needed you.”