Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

I lurched aside and tried to crawl for the door as a hand made of dripping flesh and too many bones reached down for me.

“Jal!” Snorri leapt in. Snorri would always leap in. He hacked at the arm, sweeping it aside. The unborn clawed at him with its other hand, sickle talons shredding through many layers to the skin and muscle beneath.

I almost made it to the door. What I would have done there if I had reached it I can’t say. Scrabbled at the cold iron in desperation, most likely. The unborn saved me from those broken fingernails by spearing a long and unclean finger through my side and dragging me back. I fought every inch of the way, kicking and screaming. Mostly screaming.

Snorri charged again, soaked with his own blood, and the unborn caught him about the waist, raising him off the ground, talons sinking deep.

“Die, you bastard!” A howl as his eyes darkened. And with the last of his strength Snorri ver Snagason swung his father’s axe, hauling the heavy weapon through the air in a sideways swing, turning in the unborn’s grip, driving its talons deeper still but adding momentum to his blow. The blade cut through lantern light, trailing streaks of darkness. It sheared into the unborn’s head, splitting that unholy skull, and with a roar Snorri yanked the axe clear, splattering grey filth as he cracked the monster wide.

The unborn’s convulsions threw us both clear, scattering grain, salt, pieces of torn sack while it thrashed and diminished. I lay with blood pouring in a river from the dark hole the creature had put through me. Snorri found his feet again, though barely, swaying as he dragged his axe back towards the foe.

By the time the Norseman made it across the room, all that remained amidst a welter of old bones and shed skin, curled and blackened, was a small red thing. It looked almost like a baby. And, falling to his knees before it, Snorri bent double and wept as though his heart had broken.

THIRTY

“We’re fucked up.” I raised my hand to wipe the blood from my mouth. The arm felt like someone else’s, almost too heavy to move. Too much blood to wipe. I must have bitten my tongue.

“We are.” Snorri lay back, the sacks around him stained crimson. His leg looked uncomfortable, folded awkwardly beneath him, but if it bothered him he lacked the strength to move it. It bothered me, seeing him like that, without fight in him. Snorri never gave up. He never would, not with his wife and child so close. I looked at him again, sprawled, bleeding, defeated. And then I knew.

“Tell me.” I lay on sacks every bit as bloody as those beneath him. We would both bleed to death soon enough. I wanted to know if this had ever been a rescue mission—if his wife and child could ever have been saved. “Tell it all.”

Snorri spat blood and opened his hand to let his axe drop. “The Broke-Oar told me, back in the hall, he would have told me back when he had me captive. He told me not to ask, that day when they caught me—and he scared me out of it . . . I hadn’t the courage to ask. He said I shouldn’t ask or he would tell. And I didn’t, and he kept his silence.” Snorri drew a great slow breath. His cheekbone had been shattered; pieces of bone showed through the skin. “But in the hall with Aslaug filling me and his eyes put out, I asked him again . . . and this time he answered.” Snorri drew a shuddering breath and my face grew numb, my cheekbones tingling, eyes hot and full. “Egil and the other children they gave to the necromancers. The lives of children can be fed to unborn and to the lichkin—horrors just as bad.” Another breath, hitched in. “The women were killed and their corpses raised, then used to mine the ice. Only Freja and a handful of others were spared.”

“Why?” Maybe I didn’t want to know after all. My life was pooling crimson on the floor around me. Bright memories called to me, lazy days, sweet moments. Better to spend what time remained with them instead. But Snorri needed to tell me, and I needed to let him.

Dying wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. I’d spent so long afraid, endured so many deaths in my imagination, but here I lay, close to the end, almost at peace. It hurt, yes, but I had a friend close by and a certain calmness enfolded me. “Why?” I asked it again.

“I didn’t tell you.” Snorri gasped at some sudden pain. “I couldn’t. It wasn’t a lie. I just couldn’t say the words . . . too big . . . if you—”

“I understand.” And I did. Some truths you can’t speak. Some truths come barbed; each word would tear you inside out if you forced them from your lips.

“She— Freja, my wife.” A breath hitched in. “Freja was pregnant. She carried our child. That’s why they kept her. To make unborn. She died when they cut the baby from her belly.” A breath burst from him in a crimson spray, hurt escaping in the short wet gasps we men make to keep from crying like children.