Page 6 of Sky in the Deep
I crouched down, inspecting the animal carefully. “Turn him around.” Hemming shifted, pulling the goat toward him, and I shook my head. “What about him?” I pointed to a large white goat in the corner.
“He’s fourpenningr.” Hemming struggled to keep his hold on the gray goat.
A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and I looked up to see my father, peering over me into the pen. “What’s this?”
Hemming let go of the animal, standing up straight under my father’s gaze. “He’s fourpenningr.”
“Is he the best?”
“Yes, Aghi.” Hemming nodded. “The best.”
“Then fourpenningrit is.” He pulled another coin free and tossed it to Hemming.
I climbed into the pen to help the boy wrangle the goat to the gate. My father took one horn and I took the other as we led him to the altar in the middle of the meeting tent. The fire was already burning strong, its flames licking up around the wood and warming me through my armor as the cold crept in from outside.
“May I join you?” Espen’s voice came from behind us.
My father turned, his eyes widening a little before he nodded.
The Tala followed, looking at me. “You’ve brought honor to Sigr by destroying his enemies, Eelyn. He’s honored you in return.”
I nodded nervously, biting down hard on my bottom lip. The Tala had never spoken to me before. I’d been afraid of him as a child, hiding behind Iri in the ritual house during sacrifices and ceremonies. I didn’t like the idea of a person who spoke the will of the gods. I was afraid of what he may see in me. What he may see in my future.
Espen found a place beside me and we led the animal forward to the large trough in front of the blazing fire. My father pulled out the small wooden idol of my mother he had tucked into his vest and handed it to me. I pulled the one I had of Iri from my own and set them beside one another on the stone before us. Sacrifices made me think of my mother.She’d tell the story of the Riki god Thora, who erupted from the mountain in fire and the flames that had come down to the fjord. Sigr had risen up from the sea to protect his people and every five years, we went back to battle to defend his honor, bound by the blood feud between us.
There wasn’t much about my mother that I remembered, but the night she died still hung clearly in my mind. I remembered the river of silent Herja that streamed into our village in the dead of night, their swords reflecting moonlight, their skin as pale as the dead against the thick furs they wore upon their shoulders. I remembered the way my mother looked, lying on the beach with the light leaving her eyes. My father, covered in her blood.
I sat, holding my mother’s still-warm body as the Aska followed them into the winter sea, where they disappeared in the dark water like demons. We’d seen raids before, but never like that. They hadn’t come to steal, they’d come only to kill. The ones they took, they sacrificed to their god. And no one knew where they came from or if they were even human. Espen had hung one of the bodies from a tree at the entrance to our village and the bones still hung there, knocking together in the wind. We hadn’t seen the Herja since. Perhaps whatever god had sent them had quenched their anger. Still, our blood ran cold at the mention of their name.
Iri and I had wept over the sacrifice my father made the next morning, thanking Sigr for sparing his children’s lives. Only a few years later, he made another—when Iri died.
“Draw your knife, Eelyn,” my father instructed, taking both horns into his hands.
I stared at him, confused. I’d only ever stood behind my father as he performed a sacrifice.
“This is your sacrifice,sváss. Draw your knife.”
The Tala nodded beside him.
I tugged my knife from my belt, watching the firelight against the letters of my name, forged into the smooth surface of the blade below the spine. It was the knife my father gave to me before my first fighting season five years ago. Since then, it had taken too many lives to count.
I came down beside the goat, taking its body into my arms, and found the pulsing artery at his neck with my fingers. I positioned my knife, taking a breath before I recited the words. “We honor you, Sigr, with this undefiled sacrifice.” They were the words I’d heard my father and fellow clansmen say my whole life. “We thank you for your provision and your favor. We ask that you follow us, protect us, until the day we reachSólbjorgin final rest.”
I dragged the blade swiftly across the goat’s soft flesh, tightening my grip on him with my other arm as he kicked. The stitches in my arm pulled, sending the sting of the wound down to my wrist. His hot blood poured out over my hands, into the trough, and I pressed my face into his white fur until he was still.
We stood in silence, listening to the blood drain into the trough, and my eyes lifted to the idols of my mother and mybrother on the stone. They were lit up in the amber light, shadows dancing over their carved faces.
I’d felt the absence of my mother as soon as she stopped breathing. As if with that last breath, her soul had let go of her body. But with Iri, it had never been that way. I still felt him. Maybe I always would.
FOUR
We woke to the warning whistle in the middle of the night. The horse’s hooves stamped nervously outside our tent and my father was on his feet before my eyes were even open.
“Up, Eelyn.” He was a blur in the dark. “You were right.”
I pulled myself up, reaching for the sword beside my cot and breathing through the pain igniting sharp and angry in my arm. I fought with my boots and pulled my armor vest on, letting my father fasten it for me. He slid my scabbard over my head and across my chest, followed by my axe sheath, and then patted me on the back, letting me know I was ready. I took up the idol of my mother from where it sat beside his cot and quickly pressed it to my lips before I handed it to him. He tucked it into his vest and I tucked the one of Iri into mine.
We slipped out into the night, heading toward the end of the river that wrapped around one side of our camp. The starless sky melted into the night-cloaked land beyond the fires and I could feel them out there.
