SNAFU: Hunters

“By Odin, woman!” Inglar thumped a fist against his chest, as if to correct his heart in its cadence. “Are you trying to shock us to death?”

She turned her gaze upon him, and judging by the way he blanched, whatever Olla’s man saw in her mismatched eyes made him regret his choice of words.

“Stanvaettir,” she said.

“What?” he asked, scowling at her.

Egil’s own eyes widened beneath his scar-creased brow. “Creatures of the deep earth.”

“Breath-stealers,” Hreyth said. “They draw out the life of men, transform them, and leave only stones in their place.”

Another silence fell, this one filled with dread and understanding. Even Inglar, hand still held over his heart, showed a reluctant, dawning comprehension.

“Are you telling us,” Anbjorn began at last, his voice low but shaking, “that these… these stones all around us… are… my earl, my war-brothers, my friends?”

Before she could reply, a whirring rain of arrows smote into their midst.

One struck Thrunn in the shoulder, piercing through his mail-coat. He shouted with mingled pain and surprise. Another nailed Inglar’s wrist to his torso; he fell back, uttering a strangled cry. A third grazed Valhild’s leg, slicing the leather and the skin beneath.

“Shields!” the big woman bellowed.

Egil raised his, stepping in front of Hreyth as another volley flew. Arrows thunked into heavy limewood or buried their iron heads in the grass.

Atli and Anbjorn raised their shields as well, overlapping their rounded edges, forming a line to either side of Valhild and Egil. Thrunn, swearing ferociously, ripped the arrow from his shoulder and joined them. Blood gushed from his wound, coursing over and dulling the shine of his mail and his bright silver arm-ring.

Blades sang from their scabbards. The nearest horses, no longer placid, whinnied and ran, stirring whorls and eddies in the low, rising ground-mist.

“Inglar?” called Valhild.

“Down but living,” Osig said, crouching beside the wounded man, then seizing his other wrist as he reached for the protruding arrow-shaft. “Don’t pull it! You’ll just die all the sooner.”

Inglar coughed. Red bubbles burst on his lips. He fumbled at an awkward angle with his left hand for a spear, unwilling to face death without a weapon in his grasp.

“Gunnleif’s yellow-dog bastards!” Atli peered through a gap in their small shield-wall. “Behind the ridge by that broken boulder… fifteen, maybe twenty.”

“Outnumbered and they have archers,” said Valhild. “The gods must have thought we needed more of a challenge.” She eyed Thrunn’s blood-soaked mail. “How’s your arm?”

He grimaced. “Still attached, and it’s only my left.” In his right hand he held a short-handled ax with a wide, sharp double-blade.

“They’ll be coming for us,” she said, after another flurry of arrows struck their shields.

“Let them come.”

“Then why aren’t they?” asked Anbjorn. “They’ve stopped shooting.”

“No sense wasting arrows on limewood,” Osig said.

“Come on, you ass-sniffing curs!” Atli shouted at their foes. “Fatherless bitch-whelps! Come and fight! Come and die!”

“They’re afraid,” Egil said.

“They should be,” said Thrunn.

“Not of us.”

“They should be!” he repeated.

“They suspect something,” Hreyth said. “They know something is wrong here.”

From behind the ridge came a man’s voice. “Drop your swords and surrender!”

“Fuck your sister!” Atli retorted.

“We want to talk!”

“We want to fight!”

Anbjorn nudged Atli with an elbow. “They might know what happened.”

“They might shit amber, too, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Enough,” Valhild told them. She lowered her shield enough to poke her helmed head up over it. “Talk, then!”

“We’re looking for some missing men.”

“As are we, but there’s no one, only horses.”

“Do you take Ulfvir Sneasson for a fool? We know Earl Kjarstan was coming this way.”

“We’ve not found him, either.”

A pause followed, no doubt marked by hasty conference behind the ridge. Then the man – Ulfvir – spoke again. “But we have found you.”

More bowstrings twanged, more arrows flew. So did a hurled spear, which struck, shaft quivering, in Valhild’s shield.

“So,” said Atli as they hunched behind their limewood wall. “We talked.”

“You didn’t tell them about the stones,” Hreyth said.

“You didn’t finish telling us about the stones,” Anbjorn said. “What about the stones?”

“Forget the god-fucked stones!” Valhild ducked a second spear then hefted her great sword, its long blade sheened silver in the fog-dimmed sunlight. “Stand ready!”

Gunnleif’s men charged with their yellow-and-black shields held high, weapons drawn, uttering full-throated war-cries. As they came, Egil and Atli stepped forward and met the first two with a tremendous crack of wood and iron.

Then the battle was upon them.

Thrunn reared back and flung his ax; it spun whickering through the air and caught a brown-haired man squarely between the collarbones. Valhild’s sword swept in a deadly arc. Her foe shield-turned the blow, leaving his body exposed, and Anbjorn sank his blade deep into the man’s belly.