A Shiver of Snow and Sky Read online

  After all, my presence in the village would hardly be missed. Not by my father, anyway, and not by Anneka.

  My mouth felt dry and coarse. “I need water,” I said, without responding to his previous statement. I didn’t need to tell him he was right; he already knew. I reached into my pack as we stopped walking.

  Footsteps, not our own, continued on after our halt, then stopped.

  We froze.

  An echo? Unlikely. The trees were too open here, too far apart to offer such a response. With nearly identical timing, we both kneeled and unstrapped our snowshoes – they could help with walking distances but hindered our agility – ready for whatever came next. Under the semi-shade of the trees, the snow wasn’t nearly as deep as it was in the open air. I began walking forward again and Ivar did the same. We took perhaps another five paces, then stopped.

  Again, footsteps echoed behind us, and then ceased.

  Our knives were in our hands in a flash. We stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing back through the trees. I tried to separate the trunks from the shadows and the snowdrifts, searching for anything moving. The forest just sat there, still and calm and seemingly empty, save for our own presence, our shallow breaths of rising panic.

  A feeling crept over me. It seeped through my skin, into my bones. The same one I’d felt at the cliff. The same one I felt during hide-and-seek.

  Eyes.

  Slowly, I turned to my right, staring into the forest. A form, standing between two trees, and a second one, not far behind it.

  “Ivar.”

  He turned, and froze.

  They were tall, taller than either of us, and so, so skinny. Their bones protruded sickeningly from under their skin, which was visible beneath the leather armour covering their midsections. Yet, despite their slenderness, I could sense their strength from the ten metres between us. Flaps of the leather hung down to their knees, where their gaunt legs showed until they disappeared into the snow. Around their necks were slight ropes, dripping with what looked horrifyingly like bones.

  Teeth.

  And their faces. So narrow and angular, their own teeth large and broken, ragged, wispy hair growing only from the backs of their heads, near their necks. Their bald heads were a map of scars, lines crossing this way and that. In their hands were long knives, carved from what looked like stone. Eyes white as snow. Pupils black as charred wood.

  I’d never seen anything like them before, but somehow I knew. I knew what they were.

  They stood perfectly still, unblinking, staring at us, as we stared at them.

  Then they screamed.

  As if they were in one another’s heads, they erupted in a piercing screech that I was certain would reach the Kall Mountains themselves and lunged towards us. Those long, powerful legs carried them across the distance in seconds, barely giving us time to blink. The world fell away into blinding white light until all I could see were those forms coming towards us, until all I could feel was every hidden store of energy bursting to the surface in a reckless bid for survival.

  Ivar growled as he braced his feet in the snow against the onslaught, and I gripped my knife so tightly my knuckles began to ache. Already, it was slick with sweat as my body surged to life.

  Now I knew why we’d always been told not to venture so far from the village. No one would hear us out here. They would only find us – what remained of us – perhaps days from now, perhaps weeks from now.

  Ivar’s knife clashed with stone. I had seconds to take it in before my own attacker was upon me. We’d all learned how to use knives, but only to fend off a wolf, or even a bear, on the hunt. We’d never been prepared for this. Never been trained in hand-to-hand combat.

  And these … creatures. Fighting wasn’t an art form for them, that much was clear. They held knives, but they bore down in a way that made it obvious they most often relied on their own brute strength to disable a victim. If they got their hands on our bodies, we would break like a twig on a dead tree.

  My own knife met stone, and the force sent a wave of pain through my body. I wouldn’t be able to keep this up. I could perhaps withstand one or two more of those before the air left my lungs. I’d have to find another way to defend myself.

  They kept screeching as they attacked, as if the noise somehow gave them strength. Thinking as quickly and as clearly as I could in the brief snatch of time before the next blow, I took in my opponent. It was large. Skinny, but tall and bulky. Agile in its own way, though not like me. I could move faster than the monster. Spinning to my right just in time to avoid the next blow – its knife crashed into the snow where I’d been standing a second before – I ducked and lashed out, my blade barely nicking its exposed leg. A wound opened up instantly and dark blood ran into the snow. Its scream changed then, but whether it was from pain or anger, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t have enough time to decide. It spun, the arm with the knife slashing out in a wild arc, ready to sever me in two. I jumped back, losing my footing and falling into the snow.

  At the same moment I realized any breath could be my last – would be my last – Ivar’s attacker released a deafening howl and it momentarily distracted my own. I used the second of interruption to roll away and leap to my feet, blinking the snow out of my eyes. Ivar was latched on to the back of his own opponent, whose knife had become deeply lodged in the trunk of a tree. The sight of just how deep into it he’d cut, knowing the power it would take to get it that far, turned my stomach.

  My opponent, seeing I’d got away, screamed again and held the knife high over its head with both hands. On a sudden impulse, I ran directly towards it. As I’d faintly hoped, I surprised it, and I stuck my knife into the first exposed skin I could find. It was that place just below the neck, before the chest bone. There were many veins there, ones I knew could kill it if cut.

  I didn’t have the chance to wait and see. The monster grabbed me by my hair and flung me away from it into the snow, as if I was one of those rag dolls mothers made for their children. Blood poured from its neck as I struggled to find my footing. In the background of my senses, I became aware that now only my attacker screamed. Had Ivar killed his opponent, or had his opponent killed Ivar?

  I couldn’t stop to think about it, no matter how much I wanted to. Not in this moment, anyway. My attacker was still coming for me, and my arsenal of ideas was all but empty.

  Suddenly, the creature lunging for me stopped advancing, and its head jerked unnaturally. Behind it, I could just barely make out Ivar, hanging on to its hair with all his body strength. I knew what to do. Gripping my knife as tightly as I could, I ran forward and put all of my force into burying the knife in the creature’s exposed neck. It gargled, still trying to emit that piercing scream. Its arms flailed, searching for any purchase it could find. Finding none, it wobbled a little bit, then fell. Its body thudded into the snow.

  Absolute silence followed.

  My hands shook violently. Dark blood stained the snow around us. The creature Ivar had engaged lay slumped against a tree, bleeding from its neck as well. They were so, so awful. Large and fierce and grotesque.

  I half-sat, half-fell into the snow, my right hand still tightened into a fist where I’d stuck the knife into the creature’s neck. Wrapping my arms around myself, I met Ivar’s tired eyes. His chest rose and fell with ragged breaths. So much passed between us in that look. So much knowing and thankfulness and exhaustion. This journey to the caves, this fight against the monsters, it meant a great deal. It meant a beginning, and an end. It meant life in Skane would never be the same again.

  It meant the Ør had finally found us.

  Chapter 8

  The shadows were long by the time we returned to the village. Never before had I been so relieved to see the modest little place we called home. Those few souls milling about outdoors stared at us as we passed through, and I looked down at my body. Bruised. Covered in blood that wasn’t mine. Bearing the weight of dark news.

  “What happened?” My father waited outside ou
r home, his arms crossed. Beside him stood Albrekt, and Sigvard, Ivar’s father, approached as well.

  “We will need a village meeting,” Ivar replied, catching his breath from our long trek. “We bring news.”

  The three men exchanged a glance, then my father said, “Tell us.”

  “Not out here in the open.” I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  I entered our home, the others following behind me. My sister sat by the fire, a pile of knitting on her knees. “Oh, you’ve returned,” she said, dropping her hands into her lap. But her annoyance was short-lived when she saw the others entering behind me. “What’s this?”

  I didn’t reply. My energy had been drained and I needed to conserve what little I had left for our long explanation. I let my cloak fall to the floor.

  I sat before the fire, across from everyone else. Ivar remained standing by his father, his arms crossed, holding his elbows. It was hard to feel joy at being back safely, knowing our safety now had an all but imminent end. I closed my eyes and drank in the warmth of the fire.

  “Tell us,” my father said again.

  Ivar’s eyes met my own. We were both so tired, yet one of us had to speak. I offered my voice.

  “We went to the caves at the lake,” I began, staring into the fire. Anneka let out a light humph from beside me. “We went seeking runes, hoping for something that might guide us after the red lights appeared.” I knew how foolish it sounded, and the dubious looks from the men across from me did nothing to quell that. I cut to the point. “But we were followed.” In the ensuing pause, the only sound was the snapping of the fire as it consumed the wood. “We found tracks outside the cave that weren’t our own. They disappeared at the cliffs. When we made to return to the village…” Though I willed it to continue, my voice trailed off. It was a struggle to even think the words, let alone speak them. “Ør.”

  Silence.

  After a heartbeat, my sister’s hand moved to cover her mouth, as tears welled in her eyes. For a moment, I found myself pitying her, the picture of fear. My father, though his face was pale, wasn’t so quick to believe.

  “Surely you are mistaken. No one alive today has seen one. How would you know?”

  “The runes,” Ivar whispered, then found his voice. “They are exactly as the runes said. The leathers, the jewellery, all of it.” He cleared his throat and shook his head, as if it would erase the memory. “We left the bodies in the woods near the lake. They were too large, too heavy to bring. But we know where they are, should you want to see them for yourself.” His words were terse, challenging.

  “They were scouts, we think,” I continued. “Their armour bore crude badges, resembling some sort of ranking. I … I think they came in the ship I saw yesterday.” I stared at my father, and he stared back. Unspoken words hung in the air between us. There was so much I wanted to say, but this was neither the time nor the place.

  Another moment of silence passed. I could understand it. I’d seen the Ør face to face, heard their screams and felt the force of their blows, but even still I could hardly make sense of it. All of us, everyone in this village, had been born into a life of peace. It wasn’t an easy life. The winters were harsh, sometimes we went hungry, sometimes we lost lives to the sea, but in our generations, we’d never been under attack. The very notion of danger, danger from a land not our own, was unfathomable.

  “They must know,” Sigvard hissed. “They must have seen the lights and know what’s upon us. It would give them the advantage, when we are at our weakest.”

  “Eldór and I,” Albrekt said. “We’ll go and examine the bodies at daybreak. It’s too far to go and return by sunset.”

  “Agreed,” my father said. “For now, spread the word. We’ll call a meeting in the village centre tonight.”

  Everyone left, Ivar touching my hand briefly as he passed. My father motioned for Anneka to follow them. She did so, a flash of hatred and triumph in her eyes. She had witnessed the full force of my father’s temper unleashed on me before.

  “I raised you better than to travel so far from the village without a very good reason,” my father hissed the moment we were alone.

  My skin flashed hot and my tongue cracked like a whip. “You hardly raised me at all,” I replied, my voice deadly low. After the events of the day, the monsters and the fight in the woods, I was in no mood to entertain his cruelty.

  His eyes gleamed in a way that was just sinister enough to make me almost regret my words. “I have given you a home and food on an island where you would struggle for either without me. I could have turned you over to another family when your mother died, but I kept you, against my better judgement.”

  Against my better judgement.

  The words nearly flayed the skin from my bones. I took a step closer to him, gazing into every dark speck of his eyes. “Then why did you keep me when I could have been happier elsewhere?”

  “I feared guilt.”

  Some ruthless part of me wanted to laugh at him, at the very notion of him fearing guilt when every minute of every day of my entire life had been wracked by it, consumed by, driven by it. The only reason he kept me as a part of his family was to avoid feeling guilty. It wasn’t from love or duty or tenderness, it was from his fear of how it would make him feel, and that was far from a good enough reason.

  “Then that was your gravest mistake,” I said finally. “Because guilty or not, you robbed this house of every ounce of love and light and left us to drown in your bitterness. You leave the village every day in your boat, and I revel in the wake you leave behind. I couldn’t save Mother’s life, but neither could you, and you’ve let me fall on your sword over it for seventeen years.”

  They were evil words and I regretted them the moment they’d escaped into the air, but a part of me had awoken that was vying for control of my mouth. After everything that had happened today and since the red lights had appeared, the calm veneer I’d built over the course of my life disappeared like melting snow. All of the hurt and anger he’d caused me boiled to the surface, until there was so much of it that I lost control. I took a step back to give him some space, to gauge his reaction. He simply stared at me, eyes boring into mine as he considered his next words, but they never came.

  The stars winked from above, as though mocking my insignificance in the universe. I lay on a rock by the sea; it was a favourite spot of mine, big enough to lie on and watch the stars, and surrounded by the sounds of the crashing waves. Here, two of the most powerful forces in the world seemed to collide: the sea and the sky. While it made me feel small and sometimes helpless, it was also a reminder that there were forces out there much bigger than the Ør.

  The meeting was starting without me. My presence wasn’t required, and no one would think to look for me here. Ivar would be there to fill in the story and answer questions as needed. I couldn’t stomach hearing it again. After my fight with my father, the thought of seeing him again sent pain shooting through my heart. He’d hurt me and I’d hurt him. There were bigger things to worry about now, but the guilt about what I’d said grew heavier by the minute.

  Besides, as far as I was concerned, talking about the Ør and the plague again would get us nowhere. I wanted to act. Between Ivar and I, I’d always been the more impulsive one, the one who spent less time thinking and more time doing. Sometimes it was a blessing and sometimes it was a curse. Right now, I was inclined to believe it was the former. Time was running out, we needed to act fast.

  Overhead, I focused on one particular shape in the sky. It was a woman, a crown resting on her head and a cloak on her shoulders. The Goddess. Unlike the other constellations, She never moved. No matter the time of day or month or year, She remained stationary, watching over us. That set of bright, well-placed stars symbolized so much, including the only being who knew why the red lights existed. Why the plague haunted us.

  The more I gazed at the stars, the hotter my blood became, boiling beneath my skin. Why should I have to travel all the way to the mounta
ins to speak to Her? There She was, directly above, so close, and yet so infinitely far. Nothing I could say or do would bring Her any closer. If I wished to seek Her counsel, to find out what could be done to save those whom I loved, I would have to meet Her on Her terms. Back in the village, they’d all be planning how to defend themselves, and discussing how to train us to use knives and bows and arrows, pretending that enough of them would still be alive to fight the approaching Ør. Pretending that the plague wouldn’t sneak in and destroy us long before the Ør ever reached our shores. If Skane was to have even the smallest of chances, persuading Her to hold off the plague – and the Ør – would be our only real hope.

  I thought then, as I stared at the sky, of a conversation with Ymir.

  “These constellations,” he said, sweeping a hand up to the sparkling night sky, “they are like pictures. They are artwork on a grand scale, there for us to love and admire from below. When we look up, we don’t just see darkness, emptiness. We see light.”

  “Who painted them?” I asked, letting my eyes drift from one bright star to another.

  Ymir was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know who exactly,” he answered softly. “Someone from the past, long, long ago. It’s like those cave wall writings your friend Ivar can read. Someone had to write those for us to read now, someone who wanted us to know their story. I think the stars are much like that. They’re a story about the universe, but so much time has passed that we have no hope of translating it properly. We can just enjoy the pictures and invent our own stories.”