and arrogance,” Morn spat. “They think they are superior to all others, that we are just food for worms, insignificant pawns in their grand plans.”
Fritha nodded, Morn’s words stirring a thousand memories.
“What did you do?” Morn asked her.
“I ran. I told my mam and da, and they helped me. They ran with me, fast and far. Away from Drassil and the Ben-Elim, to start a new life.” She closed her eyes, could not stop the flood of memories, or the tears.
“And then?” Morn prompted her.
“For a while it worked,” Fritha sighed. “A new life, and it was good, a hundred leagues from Drassil on the border of Ardain. I had my baby, my beautiful Anja.” She smiled through her tears. “And then one day I returned home from market to see the flames. I ran, but I already knew, in here—” she jabbed a finger at her gut—“that I was too late.” She chewed her lip, not trusting her voice. A deep, shuddering breath.
“Our home had been razed by the Ben-Elim, gone—just the timber frame smouldering when I arrived. I found my mam’s body was a scorched ruin in the flames. My da I discovered outside, unburned, but a sword had hacked through his ribs and opened a lung. In his arms was Anja, my baby girl, blood on her lips.” She felt her grief like a rock of ice in her belly, turning her veins cold.
“That was where Arn and Elise found me,” she continued. “They were brigands living rough in the Darkwood, victims of Ben-Elim Lore, Arn’s wife hung from a tree for her supposed crimes.” Fritha snorted. “They cared for me, brought me back from the brink, and turned my grief into a cold, relentless hatred.”
“Hatred is not so bad,” Morn said, a twist of her lips. “Hatred keeps you strong.”
“It does,” Fritha agreed.
I hate them, the Ben-Elim. Hate them all, and all those who so blindly follow them. But most of all, I hate him.
She could remember his handsome features, blond hair and a scar through his face that somehow seemed to make him more beautiful, not less.
“Better revenge than grief,” Morn said.
“Yes,” Fritha agreed. “I no longer believe in prayer, Morn, but if I did, there would only ever be one thing I would pray for. That I would be the one to put my sword through Kol of the Ben-Elim’s heart. Oh, how I hate him.”
“That is good, Priestess. I will help you, as you will help me in my vengeance for my brother, Ulfang.” Morn turned her hand over, showed blue veins rigid on her palm. With one sharp-taloned finger she drew a cut across the vein. Held it out to Fritha.
Fritha drew her short-sword from her scabbard and tested the edge with her thumb. It was still sharp, a red line, a droplet of blood. She put the blade to her palm and drew her blade across it, blood welling. The pain felt good, a reminder of the life she had clung to. She stood and let the blood pool in her fist, then reached out and gripped Morn’s offered hand, their blood mingling.
Their mixed blood dripped down onto her cuirass, a red stain upon the white wings.
“O neamhchiontacht bán íon, fola dorcha le haghaidh díoltas,” Fritha muttered, scrubbing their blood into the cracked white leather, seeing the stain spread, seeping through the leather like ink through parchment. The wings that were white became a dark, deep red.
“That is good,” Morn said, a smile cracking the flat plains of her face.
Fritha stood, and Morn helped her buckle the cuirass about her torso, holding the back-plate in place, Fritha buckling the chest-plate to it. Then Fritha wrapped her weapons-belt around her waist, added a sheathed knife and an axe ring. She stood there, then, feeling like the warrior she had once been.
She cuffed the tears from her face and nodded to Morn.
“My thanks,” she said, sweeping up her bearskin cloak from her bed and wrapping it around her shoulders, fastening the brooch-pin.
“Come, then, Priestess, and let us change the world,” Morn said, and together they walked out into the bright sunlight.
Gunil was waiting for her, sitting upon Claw with his war-hammer slung across his back. Behind him Fritha’s Red Right Hand were gathered, all mounted on shaggy-haired horses, winter-hardened for the north. There were close to five hundred men and women before her. They were a mixture of those she had drawn about her since that fateful day when Arn and Elise had