Thief Eyes

Chapter 16

The dizziness I felt now had nothing to do with the fire in me. It was panic—pure, burning panic. Gunnar fired his bow. An arrow whooshed through the air, and someone cried out down below. He reached back toward me for another arrow. I forced my panic down and handed it to him. Fire roared in me. Not only my fire. Somehow I knew I held Hallgerd’s fire as well. Too much heat. Any second it would burst through my skin—and my hair. My hands shook, one of them clutching the burning coin I’d thrown.

Gunnar saw their trembling. “My brave Hallgerd,” he said, though I was sure I seemed anything but brave. His eyes turned pleading, yet tender, too. I’d seen Dad look at Mom that way, when I was younger. “Go away from this place. No one will stop you from leaving. Be safe, my love.”

I shook my head—because I wasn’t his love, because I was a thousand years from anything safe—and handed him another arrow, trying not to look at the long drop down where the missing half of the roof should have been.

The air wavered with heat. I cried out at a sudden movement, even as Gunnar shot at the hand that reached over the edge. The hand lost its grip, and the man hit the ground below with a thud. I handed Gunnar another arrow, and another. The roaring in my ears went on. The air grew heavy with the smell of sweat and dirt. There was a long cut along one of Gunnar’s sleeves, and the fabric around it was dark with clotted blood.

“Give me the coin,” Hallgerd hissed in my head. “Let me return to him.” For just a moment, my sight blurred and I saw the path between Hallgerd and me.

She was supposed to hate Gunnar. The story said so. She wasn’t supposed to want to stay by his side.

Sweat made my burning hair cling to my neck. I kept handing Gunnar arrows, clutching the coin tightly in my other hand. I’d returned it, just like the spellbook said. Only the spellbook hadn’t told me what to do after that. If I threw the coin to Hallgerd again would we be back where we’d started, with me holding the coin in my own time?

Another hand reached over the roof, but Gunnar shot it as well. Sweat poured down his face and stained his heavy leather tunic.

“Haley,” Hallgerd said. Her voice was suddenly, eerily calm. “It is a funny thing about berserks. They are so strong in their animal forms, but so weak afterward. And I see you have left me your knife.”

“Ari.” I’d left him with Hallgerd. The fear in me turned up another notch, and the heat in me rose with it.

“Return to me my life, Haley, and I’ll return yours to you.” Once more I saw the path between Hallgerd and me, generations of ancestors between us.

I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I was only supposed to return the coin. Maybe I hadn’t really done that yet. Maybe I needed to throw it to Hallgerd again. I drew my hand back, knowing the spell was still alive between us.

A sharp twang brought me back to where I was. Gunnar dropped his bow—its string had snapped—and grabbed a long-handled axe, swinging it at the man who was climbing into the loft, sword in hand. Gunnar’s blade connected with the man’s neck. Blood spurted everywhere—on Gunnar’s face and clothes, on the wooden planks, on my cloak. The man fell backward off the edge, hands grasping the air even as he died.

I braced my hands against the floor. Fire roared in me, around me. The stench of sweat and blood was everywhere. Through the roaring, I heard Gunnar’s voice. “Hallgerd,” he called. “Give me two locks of your hair. Twist them into a bowstring for me.” There was a hint of strain in his voice now. Another man came over the wall. Gunnar swung at him, and the man fell away.

My hair—this was where Gunnar was supposed to die. This was where Hallgerd killed him.

Hell no. I wasn’t Hallgerd. I didn’t have to follow her script. If Gunnar wanted a few locks of hair, he could have them. I shoved the coin into the pouch at my belt and reached for the small knife. Hang in there a little longer, Ari.

“Yes, Haley,” Hallgerd said. “Whatever Gunnar needs, give it to him. Don’t you dare let him die.”

What? Hallgerd wasn’t supposed to agree with me. I grabbed a lock of long blond hair and drew the knife close.

The hair burned—hot as liquid glass, hot as spun fire. Sparks flew from the strands. I let them go. “Free,” a rough voice whispered in my head. “We will be free.”

“Do not lose courage now,” Hallgerd’s more human voice said. “It will not burn your hands long, that hair into which the giants bound their power long ago. Only so long as it takes to string Gunnar’s bow.”

“Oh God.” A bow strung with fire. That fire lighting arrows and opening molten cracks in the earth as the arrows fell. The fire spirits had bound their magic into my blood, but, for Hallgerd, they’d bound it into her hair. They’d even said so. If I gave that fire to Gunnar’s bow—I felt ill all over again.

I couldn’t do it. Even without my dreams, I knew it down to my bones. The arrow fired from such a bowstring would tear the earth apart. More than Gunnar’s enemies would fall.

“Hallgerd.” Gunnar glanced back at me. He looked suddenly tired, like he’d been fighting way too long. That look, too, reminded me of Dad—not Dad when I was younger, but Dad this past year, after Mom had disappeared. Gunnar reached toward my hair, as if to stroke it. I drew away.

“Is it—is it important?” I asked, stalling for time. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course it was important for Gunnar to restring his bow.

“My life depends on it.” He sounded surprised I even needed to ask, and who could blame him? “They’ll never defeat me, so long as I have my bow.” A cry from below drew him back to the wall, but even as he swung at the next enemy, he gestured toward the bow.

In my head Hallgerd hissed, “If Gunnar dies, your berserk dies, too.”

Maybe she was lying. Anyone who could kill her first two husbands could lie a little, right? Maybe Ari wasn’t even there.

I knew better, though. Of course Ari was there, waiting for me to return. He wouldn’t abandon me.

“Free, free, free!” In my head, the fire spirits roared their laughter.

We’d all die if I set those spirits free. The earth would burn, just like in my dreams, down to its very core. This small island would be torn apart. Maybe the rest of the world would suffer, too, if my dreams spoke true.

“The world will end one day whether we will it or no,” Hallgerd said, as if hearing my thought. “That’s no reason to give up all honor.”

What honor was there in letting the land burn? Yet if Hallgerd hurt Ari—but Ari would die, too, if I set Hallgerd’s fire loose into the world. And I’d be throwing away Freki’s gift, which had gotten me here.

“I—I can’t,” I stammered to Gunnar. My throat tightened. I choked out the words. “I won’t.”

“I’ll kill him, Haley!” Hallgerd yelled.

A man leaped right up beside Gunnar. Gunnar struck at the man, through his shield and the arm that held it. The man toppled to the floor, blood gushing from his arm, jagged bones breaking through his skin. Tired as he was, Gunnar was still strong. Maybe he didn’t need his bow.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. Tears traced hot tracks down my cheeks. “You have no idea.”

The look that came over Gunnar’s face was beyond describing. It was the look of a man who has seen his death. I thought he’d plead, or take my hair by force. It wasn’t like he wasn’t strong enough. But he only let out a breath. “Everyone has their own way of being remembered,” he said. “I will not ask you again.” Gunnar swung at another man, causing him to fall. Then his gaze returned to me, and the strangest expression crossed his face. “What is this, Hallgerd? Your eyes—”

Two men climbed over the edge together. Gunnar whirled away, axe raised, even as I thought, He knows.

Gunnar sliced at one man’s leg, another man’s arm. The men stumbled but kept fighting. A third man came up to fight beside them. I still held my knife, but it was little larger than a steak knife. What use would that be against swords? I sheathed the blade at my belt, stood, and backed away. Splinters from what remained of the roof caught my hair. The wood began to smolder. I quickly ducked away.

I should get out of here, I thought, before they attack me, too, or worse. I could run for it, escape down the ladder … I didn’t. If I couldn’t save Gunnar’s life, the least I could do was stay and watch. Surely he had other family. They’d want to know what had happened.

Like you can tell anyone anything once you’re dead, I thought. But still I waited. I owed him that much.

Gunnar fought for a long time, way longer than I thought possible. Three more men came up into the loft. Gunnar fought them all, spinning from one to another with inhuman speed. His battle cries joined the roar of fire in my ears. Yet in the end he stumbled, and one of them struck a blow to his arm. His axe fell, and another man seized it.

Someone thrust a spear into his chest. Blood bubbled up as that man drew his spear free. Gunnar gave a little gasp and fell. His axe arm twitched, and then he was still, eyes staring at the too-blue sky.

Hallgerd’s keening burst into my head, a terrible sound. She loved him, I thought numbly. The story got it wrong. She really loved him. I fell to my knees and threw up.

I heard footsteps approach me, looked up to see myself surrounded by Gunnar’s killers. Their expressions were grim. There was blood on their clothes, and one of them held his arm to his side. Shit. I unsheathed the little knife, knowing it couldn’t possibly do any good against them all.

One of the men nodded at me, a surprisingly respectful gesture. “Lady,” he said. It was hard to hear him over the fire’s roaring and Hallgerd’s keening. “Will you give us land to bury our dead?”

Was he serious? “Fuck off,” I told him in English. Then, in Icelandic, “No, I have a better idea. Why don’t you dig a hole deep enough to bury you all?”

The men laughed, all but the one who had spoken. “You have reason enough for anger at us,” he said soberly. “You have lost much today.” He turned away, and the others followed him. Together they tossed their fallen friend over the wall, then climbed down after him. Just like that.

Blood still flowed from Gunnar’s chest. I knelt beside him and felt for a pulse, though I knew there was no point. My hands came away sticky with blood.

I hid my face in my burning blond hair, the hair a man had died for, and I wept.

Hallgerd’s cries in my head fell silent at last. “Oh, you have not yet begun to grieve, Haley. I will give you something to weep for. Your knife is sharp enough, I think.”

“No!” I forced myself to my feet and grabbed the coin from the pouch. “Here. You can have it!”

“What use have I for your gifts now? Keep the life you’ve destroyed. I may have given over control of the coin and the spell, but its tools—the bowl and the stone and what remains of the blood—lie with me. Until you gather them all again, you cannot cast the spell, not without my consent. And that I will not give. I will not return!”

The coin flared hotter. “Free,” roared the powers Hallgerd had bargained with—the powers I’d bargained with. Against my will I felt my other hand draw the little knife from its sheath. “Free us,” the fire spirits roared. “Free the doubled power you now hold.”

My tears were fire. My thoughts were fire. Fire surged through my hair, my blood. I touched the wood beneath me, and my fingers left black charred prints behind. “Free,” the fire creatures cried. “We will be free.”

With a sick lurch I knew that refusing Gunnar my hair hadn’t been enough. No one could hold so much power for long and live.

This wasn’t over yet. It would never be over, not until the fire consumed me after all.