Page 14

FOURTEEN

H ekla stood frozen, staring at the two-dozen undead creatures before her.

Between the blue tinge of their skin and the decaying flesh, she immediately knew the name for these monsters: Draugur.

The restless dead , some tales called them, though they were most often seen frightening off gravediggers—not chained up in a gods-damned barn.

Hadn’t Kraki and his book ruled out draugur as the culprit for the mist? Yes, Hekla remembered. They’d thought draugur an unlikely cause for the mist and the missing people. But they had never considered that draugur could be created by the mist.

Long had she sought answers to the fate of the mist’s human victims, and now she had them.

They had indeed died, though they’d found no peace in death.

Her gaze fell upon the long-taloned fingers, then to the deep, gouging wounds in several of the draugur.

A story began to fit itself together—the mist Turned the first of its human victims, and the victims then attacked their own kin with those talons.

It explained the blood, the deep gouge marks in the packed earth floor.

Nausea churned in Hekla’s stomach, and for a moment, she saw what might have been her fate in the Western Woods. She recalled the sense of the mist permeating her senses—as though it had sought the tethers of her life force and free will—before Kritka had come to her rescue.

The people in this barn had had no savior—no one to help them as the mist snapped through their threads and reforged them anew.

Staring at them, it was impossible not to notice the uncanny resemblance between the draugur in this barn with the forest walkers and the red-eyed wolf spiders they’d fought on the Road of Bones.

Putting all this together, it would seem the mist affected all wild things.

“Why?” Hekla muttered. What could be the purpose of creating draugur? Why was the life-force being pulled from the forest plants? Where did the mist come from, and how did the dead Klaernar and the Spiral Staves fit into the story?

The barn’s tense silence broke as several of the creatures lunged forward with ear-splitting shrieks. Hekla hefted her axe but held her ground, hoping those iron fetters held true. As the creatures reached the limits of their chains, the jangle of iron joined their riotous screeches.

Hekla was two paces away from their gnashing teeth, thankfully out of range of flying spittle.

Holding the torch higher, she examined the creatures.

Everywhere she looked were signs of humanity—reminders that these draugur had been people with lives and dreams. There was a tablet weave pattern around the collar of one draugur, and a string of amber and glass beads on a woman’s apron dress.

But when Hekla found a small carved horse nestled in the straw, her stomach churned violently.

Beside the toy horse, she found something altogether unexpected—the hindquarter of a deer, shockingly fresh.

“Someone has come to feed you,” Hekla murmured.

She spotted rumpled blankets. A pile of garments.

“Someone has cared for you.” Her mind whirled.

Who had told her over and over that the human victims had vanished?

Who had barred her from visiting this farm?

It could only be one person. “Loftur did this. ”

Hekla had known Istré’s chieftain was hiding things from her, but the scope of his deception left her aghast. Why would Loftur do this? Why would he hide this from her? But Hekla’s chest clenched tight as Loftur’s words flitted through her mind.

When Sunnvald is restored to his full strength, He will banish the mist and heal both our people and our lands.

Surely the man did not think his gods will save these people.

That throwing a feast would cure them? Gods, but she didn’t want to pity Loftur the Bloody Mutton Head, but Hekla had to admit, were she in his place—if it were her loved ones Turned undead—she might be desperate enough to try such a thing.

Hekla’s gaze slid from draugur to draugur. Torchlight caught on long-taloned fingers as one beast clawed at its chains, trying to reach her. Near the deer carcass, one child-like draugur lunged at another, and they rolled across the ground in a tangle of chains and sharp teeth.

“You’re already gone,” Hekla murmured, sadness welling within her.

“There’s no coming back from this.” The axe was heavy in her hand, and she yearned to grant the draugur the peace of a final death.

But their existence was the proof she needed to convince Eyvind that Istré’s chieftain was not of sound mind. ..

The clamor of chains came to an abrupt stop, every one of the draugur suddenly standing as still as stone. Those red eyes stared vacantly ahead, and a prickle of unease ran down Hekla’s spine.

The head of the nearest draugur snapped to the side then came back up. And as Hekla stared into his glowing red eyes, she had the distinct sensation that a new presence peered out at her. The undead man cocked his head, examining her with unnerving intensity.

“You are not Loftur.” His voice was raw and scraped, as though he had gravel trapped in his throat. Those red eyes slid all over Hekla with quick, jerky movements. “And yet you are familiar. Come closer so we can smell you.”

“I think not.” Hekla stared at the draugur, trying to understand. “Who are you? ”

The undead man’s nostrils flared. “You smell like her wolf.”

The draugur’s chin dipped as he looked at Hekla from under thick brows. “We have tasted you. You have great strength and would be an asset to our cause.” A low hiss vibrated the air. “Come closer so we can finish what we started.”

At the confirmation that she did, indeed, speak with the thing responsible for so much misery, Hekla tried for a smile, but she fell rather short. “Unfortunately for you, mist, you’re chained to the wall.”

“We will have you. We will finish what we started and bind your will to ours.”

“What do you want?” Hekla demanded. “What is your purpose?”

“Purpose?” The thing seemed to consider her question. “What is the word you mortals use?” The mist’s avatar cocked its head to the side, and its voice deepened. “Feast. We will feast .”

A cold pit opened in Hekla’s stomach, but she had no time to consider it.

A low, rhythmic pounding began beneath her feet, and the sound awakened bone-deep memories within her.

It was screaming for help knowing no one would come…

it was the slow drain of her life force as the thick white mist undulated all around her. ..

Those crimson orbs flared brighter. “That’s right, mortal. Step closer and we shall finish the task quickly. Or you can try to run.” The draugur’s mouth widened in a jagged smile. “But it’s already too late.”

Hekla turned and stumbled out of the barn. Kritka leaped into her path, eyes wide.

Protector, take Kritka! pleaded the squirrel. Hekla bent low and let the rodent climb up and settle on her shoulder. And she ran .

“Too late!” came the draugur’s voice, his laughter rattling like dry bones.

The mist’s eerie heartbeat was already too fast, the ground beneath her rumbling with each pulsating beat. Hekla sprinted past the longhouse, but the black form of her horse was still too far away.

Protector won’t make it, Hekla heard inside her skull.

“Can’t you blast it away?” she asked, thinking of the grimwolf who’d saved her the last time.

Kritka used all our magic to get you here. Protector must use the fire!

Hekla looked down at the torch clasped in her metal hand; she’d forgotten that she still held it.

The heartbeat was now a staccato, coming from deep within the woods.

Hekla lifted the torch, casting light upon the border of the woods, and recoiled in horror.

The mist blasted through the trees like an angry squall.

Frightened, Kritka burrowed his face into her neck.

Before, when she’d faced certain death, Hekla had felt a sense of peace and acceptance.

Now, she felt only anger. She finally had answers—finally had proof that Loftur was out of his bloody mind—and now those answers would die with her.

But Hekla hadn’t the time to dwell on any of it, because the mist was suddenly all around her.

Kritka trembled on her shoulder, and Hekla drew a deep breath, bracing herself for the world of chaos she’d barely survived in the woods.

It never came.

The mist recoiled with an angry hiss as it neared her flaming torch. Hekla blinked, then gave the torch an experimental thrust forward. Again, the mist retreated.

Was she dreaming? The thick white mist had closed in on all sides, yet she and Kritka stood in a pocket of sorts.

She looked up at the star-filled skies and realized that the mist could not pass above the flame.

But she could sense its displeasure—could sense it probing for weakness as it swirled around them.

Hekla held herself still and tried to trust that the torch would protect them.

But the feel of this poison all around her—to be so near to a fate worse than death—was utterly unsettling.

Then everything happened in the span of the heartbeat .

The mist’s attention withdrew, and it peeled away from Hekla and Kritka. Then, it charged away like a cloud of angry wasps.

“What?” murmured Hekla, disoriented. Kritka clung to her, trembling like a leaf in rough autumn winds.

An equine scream split the air, and the blood drained from her face. Then, she was running, feet pounding the packed earth road, as Kritka’s claws gripped the flesh of her neck.

“No no no no no,” she muttered, hoping, praying , she was wrong. The mist was now well beyond a hundred paces from the woods, yet it showed no signs of losing strength. It should have dissipated by now. Clearly, it was growing stronger.