Filed to story: A Fate Inked In Blood Free
“So be it.” The jarl’s answer blew over me, strands of hair whipping around my face. Yet I swore he smiled as he added, “As long as it be on the terms of the living. Which means, Bjorn Firehand, you must fight using a mortal weapon.”
My stomach dropped. Was that true?
I had my answer when Bjorn went deathly still. “You cannot be killed by steel.”
The jarl’s laugh was echoed by his followers. “That is true, Bjorn Firehand. So now your choice is whether to die with honor. Or without. Either way, you will join my ranks.”
“That’s not fair,” I shouted, unable to contain my voice. “The cursed dead do not deserve terms set for mortals.”
The jarl laughed again. “Perhaps so, child of Hlin, but Bjorn Firehand issued the challenge.” His teeth clacked together, flakes of black falling from them. “Now we shall see what his reputation is worth to him.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Bjorn cut me off. “I agree.” He turned on his heel, striding toward me. “I need your shield, Freya. Theirs are all half rotten.”
“No,” I said. “We fight. There’s a chance we can get through them.”
Bjorn shook his head. “I’ll not die a coward.”
“Who cares?” The words tore from my throat. “They are the cursed dead-what does it matter what they think?”
“It doesn’t.” His voice was clipped. “Do what you need to do to survive, Born-in-Fire. You aren’t bound by my word.”
He set his flaming axe on the ground near me, then reached for my shield. My magic disappeared the moment the wood was out of my grip. “Trust Hlin’s power, Freya.”
I ground my teeth. What good was my magic with no shield in my hand?
“Leave the woman be during the fight,” the jarl ordered his followers, and the other draug retreated, their bony feet scratching the ground. “After he’s dead, do what you will to her, but the Firehand is mine.”
Horror soured my stomach as I pressed my back to the wall, helplessness twisting my guts into ropes as Bjorn squared off against the jarl. One of the other draug approached. It looked to have once been a woman, rags of a dress hanging from its skeletal frame. It handed Bjorn an axe, then it caught hold of both combatants’ wrists and lifted them high. From all around, the draug screamed in delight, and I dropped my sword to press my hands against my ears, the sound agony. But I saw the creature’s fleshless jaw move as it spoke. “Begin.”
Preternaturally fast, the jarl swung his weapon.
Bjorn was ready.
His borrowed weapon was up in a flash, the axe catching the jarl’s sword even as he wrenched it sideways. A less experienced fighter would have lost his blade, but the jarl moved with Bjorn, extracting his sword and swinging again.
Bjorn caught the blow with my shield, grunting from the strength of the impact and staggering back. The jarl grinned, revealing his blackened teeth, then struck again. Bjorn parried, but the jarl’s sword cleaved the haft of his borrowed axe and sent the blade flying.
Bjorn cursed, barely managing to block another blow with the shield. Then another and another, the wood cracking and splintering under the onslaught.
Lifting my sword, I shouted, “Bjorn, take mine!” and held it out, hilt first.
He reacted instantly, blocking a blow, and then twisting away. He snatched my weapon from my grip, rotating in time to block another blow.
It went on, Bjorn defending but never going on the offensive because there was no point. My sword would pass right through the draug’s body without doing any harm. The jarl could not be killed except with the power of a god, which Bjorn was stubbornly resisting despite his axe being right there.
All for fucking honor.
My breath came in painful little gasps as I envisioned him dying, yet another to fall because of me and everything I supposedly represented. Tears flowed down my cheeks, because instead of going to Valhalla as he deserved, Bjorn would rise as one of the draug. And I’d have to leave him here. Would have to figure out a way to fight past these creatures so that I might survive, for dying seemed the greatest insult I could possibly give to Bjorn’s sacrifice.
Which meant I needed to find a way to get out.
Bjorn’s shield shattered under one of the jarl’s blows, broken pieces flying everywhere. My eyes skipped over the chunks of wood, all too small to be the slightest bit effective. Nothing within reach was large enough to use, which meant I’d need to try to wrest a shield from one of the draug.
“Fuck,” I breathed, seeing that Bjorn’s strength was fading and I’d found no solution. He’d said to trust Hlin, but what did that mean?
Bjorn stumbled beneath a heavy blow, the reopened cut on his brow splattering the ground with blood, droplets sizzling as they struck his axe where it still rested near my feet.
The axe.
I stared at the weapon, understanding of what I needed to do sending beads of sweat running down my back.
Could I do it again? Could I pick it up? And if I did, what would I be able to do, given my hand would be incinerated in a matter of moments? What had Bjorn believed I could accomplish?
Think, Freya, I silently screamed.
What had been his original plan? What had he hoped to achieve by drawing them here and challenging the jarl, because I didn’t believe for a heartbeat that these vermin would honor the terms agreed to by their vanquished leader.
Unless they had to?
Made to bear the burden of their master’s curse. Bjorn’s voice filled my head, and I abruptly understood what I needed to do.
Pick it up, I ordered myself. End this.