The Skrímslaeyjan longship slid away from the dock into the deep waters of the fjord. The traitors manning the oars hailed from Sanda. Huddled in the belly of the boat, Skadi watched them pull expertly at the oars. Last year these had been honorable men, part of the Kingdom of the North.

Now? They sailed at the Archean Empire’s command, happy to ferry prisoners across the Shattered Sea to the slave blocks.

“What happened to your honor?” she wanted to ask. “When did you cease to be men?”

But such words would only provoke needless ire and violence. More importantly, she didn’t want to draw their attention.

At least, not yet.

The sides of the fjord slipped by. Crags and cliffs familiar as the back of her hand. She watched them pass, lips pursed. Stared intently at each curve of the great inlet as it led to the ocean, trying not to hope her father’s ships would hove into view each time.

They never did.

There were ten prisoners seated in the ship. Aurnir was placed with his back to the mask for greatest ballast, with the others seated down the center of the ship leading back to the stern. Glámr, Damian, herself, and then six others from Kalbaek, four older women and two men so grizzled they could no longer stand in the shieldwall.

Expressions were hollowed by shock. Most simply gaped out at the waters and cliffs, shoulders slumped. The sight only spurred Skadi to greater resolve.

They’d none of them reach the Mávri Aktí slave blocks.

“What are you thinking?” asked Glámr, who sat back-to-back with her.

“I need my bonds cut. With my hands loosed I can hold them off long enough for you to free yourself and the others.”

“Is it true you killed six men by yourself?”

Skadi stayed silent.

“And when, pray tell, did you become a drengr so fierce? It’s a wonder your father left you behind.”

Should she tell him about Freyja, the norns? No. Now was not the time.

“My concern is Aurnir,” she said. “When the violence starts, he’ll grow alarmed. He’s big and strong enough to tip the ship over.”

“You have a way with him. Use that. Insist that you be the one to feed him, then whisper your plan into his ears. There is a depthless gulf between simple and stupid, and Aurnir is a creature of the north.”

Skadi considered. Whom to approach? The captain was a hard, wiry man at the prow of the ship, a ruddy red cap perched rakishly on his head. Beside him was the pilot, a cadaverous old man whose jaw bristled with white stubble, his head bald as a skua’s egg. A jovial, round-shouldered man guided the rudder, looking nothing so much as a contented bear cub. The other eighteen men at the oars were hard but lacked the air of true vikings; these were men used to plying the Shattered Sea for trade, not war.

At last, the Kalbaek fjord opened up and they emerged into the Shattered Sea itself. The morning brightness had given way to a gray skies and a driving wind, and as they sliced through the bigger waves, the pilot gave the command for the great, square sail to be raised.

It bellied out before the wind, driving them east along Hregg’s shore. If they kept running before the wind they’d leave the island behind and soon espy the Iron Isle on the horizon - the last place the Skrímslaeyjans would wish to go.

Soon enough the pilot ordered the sail trimmed, and they began to cut to the south, out into the ocean proper. A light rain began to fall, more of a mist that hung in the air, and Skadi watched Hregg fall behind, diminish, and finally disappear.

The sun was dropping toward the horizon when the rain grew heavier. The sailors sat on the great chests that they used as benches, oilskins pulled over their heads, while the captain and pilot retreated with a handful of others into a tent that was pitched in the center of the ship before the prow.

Still Skadi watched. The sky darkened. The ship cut through the waves, rising and falling, the sensation comforting to Skadi who’d spent as much time aboard boats as climbing the cliffs and exploring the forests of Hregg. Soaked, hungry, wary, she felt like a wolf, waiting for her prey to come within reach.

Finally one of the sailors pushed his way past the prisoners to the large chests lashed at the stern, and there kicked Begga, one of the prisoners, into taking a collection of bowls from one that he opened. The old woman dropped the bowls, and the sailor backhanded her.

The growl that came from the bound prisoners wasn’t audible, but still Skadi felt their ire sear the air.

Suddenly wary, the sailor eyed them all, then hauled Begga back to her feet and shoved the bowls into her hands. “Drop them when they’re filled, and you’ll go hungry. Clear?”

Begga spoke not, her gray hair plastered across her face. The sailor levered the lid off a barrel and drew forth chunks of dried meat from the brine and sour whey. Each was dropped into a bowl and passed down the line.

Skadi waited till the bowls were distributed, then stood. “You.”

The man at the barrel startled, then glowered at her. “That’s all you get. Complain and I’ll lash you.”

“The half-giant needs much more than this. If he’s not fed right he’ll go berserk and sink the ship.”

The closest Skrímslaeyjan sailors overheard and exchanged wary glances.

“I’ll feed him,” continued Skadi. “That way he’ll eat and stay quiet.”

Uncertain, the sailor glanced toward the captain’s tent. Clearly he was debating the value of bringing him this question.

“Or try to feed him yourself, get him riled, and then deal with a maddened giant while at sea.”

“No, very well. We brought an extra barrel just for him.” Which he’d clearly been hoping not to broach. “A bucket will have to do.”

The sailor brought the bucket of slimy meat to her. “I’ll be watching your every move.”

Skadi didn’t respond. She took it by the handle and carefully made her way past Glámr and the others to where Aurnir watched with doleful eyes.

“Here,” she said, setting the bucket in his lap. “Eat, Aurnir. You need to keep your strength.”

“Strength,” he said in his great, hollow voice. The rain had plastered his fine flaxen hair so closely to his skin that he appeared bald.

“Skadi is going to fight,” she whispered, leaning in close so that the sound of the falling rain and waves hid her words. “There will be shouting and blood. Aurnir will stay still. Do not get up. Understand?”

His eyes widened in alarm, but then he nodded jerkily.

Did he understand? Or simply recognize the need to agree with her?

“Enough,” barked the sailor. “Get back to your place or I’ll -”

“You’ll what?” she demanded, turning to glare at him once more.

The force of her stare, her presence, checked his threat. For a moment he blinked, taken aback, and then he realized the other sailors were watching with amusement and his face darkened.

“You were warned,” he said, drawing a wooden handled lash from his belt. “Time to bring you to heel.”

Skadi moved toward him, skirting the other seated prisoners. The Skrímslaeyjan sailors hooted and made no move to intervene.

Skadi focused just right, and her two golden threads materialized into view. By the gods she’d need them.

The ship rose, fell. The rain lashed down at them. Dusk was giving way to night. She met Glámr’s eyes, and paused just shy of him, so that the lasher would have to step past the half-troll.

When he did, Glámr kicked out, catching his foot just before he put his weight on it.

The sailor stumbled with a curse, fell forward and right into Skadi’s knee. She slammed it up as hard as she could, surging up so that his nose shattered and was driven into his head.

The other sailors roared with laughter.

Their mistake.

The lasher fell onto Glámr. Skadi fell upon him, grasped the head of his bearded axe, and tore it free of its belt loop.

The laughter was replaced by sudden oaths and curses.

The rain made her grip treacherous. Glámr shoved the dazed sailor off him with surprising strength and reached up with his bound hands. She dropped the axe neatly into his grasp, then knelt so he could slash her ropes apart.

She heard a shout, intuited something cut through the air above her head, then heard the heavy fall of a man crashing down to the floor.

One of her golden threads disappeared.

Her bonds parted before the sharp edge. Skadi snatched the axe from Glámr and spun just in time to see a sailor swing his own at her in a great overhead arc.

Skadi swayed aside. The man buried his axe in the wood at their feet.

Sailors farther down the line were standing, calling out bets.

The ship hit a large wave, buffeted through, and the sailor staggered forward, off balance. Skadi hewed with both hands and buried her axe into his gut, angling it up so that it tore into his chest.

For a moment they stood close, his face vivid in the twilight, eyes wide in alarm, beard soaked, lips pulled back in a silent snarl, but then she turned, let him fall, and glared at the next man.

He blanched.

Three others were bunched up behind him. There wasn’t room for them to all come at her at once. The prisoners formed a long island down the ship’s center, and the sailors on the far side were trying to shove their way through to get at her.

With a scream Skadi hurled her axe at the next man, bringing it behind her head and launching it with all her strength. It flew, spinning through the rain, and buried itself in the sailor’s face. His head snapped back, his feet went out from under him, and he dropped.

The shouts were growing concerned. This wasn’t going as it should. Glámr rose to his feet behind her, the downed lasher’s belt knife in his hand.

Two Skrímslaeyjans down.

Eighteen more to go.

“A bold start,” called Glámr over the storm. “But you should have held onto that axe!”

Was her wyrd up to this fight? Sailors were rising up all along the side of the boat. She had to get to the stern, prevent anybody from coming up behind her -

“If you’ll excuse me,” shouted Glámr, and then with a horrifying snarl he leaped onto a sailor on the other side of the boat.

She needed a weapon, anything, men were edging closer, more cautious now. Salt spray flew into her face as the ship plunged down the far side of a wave, her weight shifting with the fall.

A sailor screamed in shocking agony. He stood beside Aurnir, who had simply reached out and taken hold of his leg with both hands. And squeezed.

The sailors turned as one to stare in horror as Aurnir rose awkwardly to his feet, the screaming man still hanging from his fists like a large sack of barley.

“Aurnir!” cried out Skadi.

The half-giant roared and swung the man. He hit two others and knocked them both over the gunwale. They disappeared into the dark, taken by the sea.

The whole ship was alarmed now, sailors from end-to-end shouting as the captain and the others spilled forth from the tent.

Skadi had to move. Aurnir had given her a chance. She leaped nimbly over Ulfarr’s lap, then darted down the length of the ship, hunched over low. One of the sailors saw her try to pass by and hacked at her with his axe.

His aim was true.

The blade sank deep into her back - but then it didn’t.

The ship shuddered as another wave hit it, and the man staggered back, arms thrown up for balance.

Her second thread of gold disappeared. Skadi, hunched low and better balanced, was able to throw herself into the man, slam her shoulder into his chest, and push him right over the side of the ship.

He screamed, flailed, and was gone.

She dropped to her knees, searched the black bottom of the ship, found the haft of his fallen ax. Took it up and scurried on.

Aurnir roared in fury.

She reached the lashed chests and vaulted over them. The steersman stared at her in shock, the shuddering rudder grasped tight.

To loosen his grip would mean losing control of the ship.

Skadi screamed as she buried her axe in his head. He fell away limply, and the rudder oar began to saw from side to side.

The change in the ship’s course was immediate. The taut tension of their passage through the waves softened, the vibration in the planks changing in timbre, and the next wave knocked them off course.

Heaving for breath, Skadi wrenched the axe free, turned, and saw six sailors coming after her, axes in hand.

Only for the other bound prisoners to grasp their ankles, throwing their shoulders against their knees. The Skrímslaeyjans roared in fury and surprise, even as Aurnir plucked up a man by the head and twisted to hurl him overboard.

Lightning flashed, and in the sudden glare Skadi saw the captain at the far end of the ship by the stern. He’d raised a huge bow and drawn the fletching of the massive bolt to his ear.

The arrow was aimed right at Aurnir, who yet remained on the far side of the mast.

But with a roar the half-giant reached out to swipe at another sailor, missing by inches, but leaning forward as he did so.

The captain loosed.

Skadi couldn’t track the arrow, but Aurnir’s golden thread abruptly winked out of existence.

The half-giant didn’t even notice. He took up instead the sailor who hewed at his arm with his axe, then hurled him overboard.

Three of the Skrímslaeyjans swarmed over the chests, but the ship listed even further out of true, and a huge wave slammed into the prow more from the side, sending the whole ship shuddering and groaning over to its side.

Everybody fell with it, shouting and screaming. Aurnir grabbed hold of the mast and held on with a fearful cry.

The ship righted, but Skadi saw that now they were parallel to the waves.

Some of the chests had broken free of their restraints and crashed against the side of the ship.

One had burst open, revealing a mass of looted axes, swords, knives, and helms. The weapons of Kalbaek.

A blue glow emanated from within the pile. Skadi lunged forward, thrust aside the weapons, and drew forth a slaughter-seax.

Natthrafn.

Eyes wide, she drew the blade from its scabbard. Its runes glowed with power, and immediately three threads of gold blazed forth from her chest.

Grinning, feeling like a wolf cornered by sheep, she turned to where four sailors were approaching her now, axes held at the ready.

“Come, traitors.” She didn’t care if they heard her. “I will send you to Hel!”