“I’ve only heard the one about you being a common thief, but by all means, if there is more to tell, I am happy to listen.”
The draug jarl opened its jaw and let out a scream of wrath, the noise like knives to my eardrums.
Bjorn didn’t so much as flinch, only waited for the echoes to silence. “It explains why none recall your name, Jarl. You have no battle fame.”
“I shall win great fame and honor for your death, Firehand,” the creature hissed. “A song sung by skalds for generations to come.”
“Seems unlikely, given none shall hear of it.”
How he could be so brazen, I did not know, for my chest felt bound and my tongue dry as sand.
“It will be sung,” the draug repeated, teeth baring in a grin.
Bjorn shrugged. “Then I suppose we ought to make it a song worth hearing. I challenge you to single combat. I win, you let us pass. I lose, well…I’ll have to spend an eternity listening to songs of your prowess.”
My breath caught. Perhaps his plan wasn’t as idiotic as I’d first believed.
The draug tilted its skull, seeming to consider Bjorn’s proposal, though there wasn’t a warrior present, living or dead, who didn’t know what he’d have to say. To decline would only prove Bjorn’s accusation that he was a coward. He’d lose the respect of all those who followed him, and if his cares were the same in death as they were in life, the loss of reputation would matter to him.
“So be it.” The jarl’s answer blew over me, strands of hair whipping around my face. Yet I swore he smiled as he added, “As long as it be on the terms of the living. Which means, Bjorn Firehand, you must fight using a mortal weapon.”
My stomach dropped. Was that true?
I had my answer when Bjorn went deathly still. “You cannot be killed by steel.”
The jarl’s laugh was echoed by his followers. “That is true, Bjorn Firehand. So now your choice is whether to die with honor. Or without. Either way, you will join my ranks.”
“That’s not fair,” I shouted, unable to contain my voice. “The cursed dead do not deserve terms set for mortals.”
The jarl laughed again. “Perhaps so, child of Hlin, but Bjorn Firehand issued the challenge.” His teeth clacked together, flakes of black falling from them. “Now we shall see what his reputation is worth to him.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Bjorn cut me off. “I agree.” He turned on his heel, striding toward me. “I need your shield, Freya. Theirs are all half rotten.”
“No,” I said. “We fight. There’s a chance we can get through them.”
Bjorn shook his head. “I’ll not die a coward.”
“Who cares?” The words tore from my throat. “They are the cursed dead—what does it matter what they think?”
“It doesn’t.” His voice was clipped. “Do what you need to do to survive, Born-in-Fire. You aren’t bound by my word.”
He set his flaming axe on the ground near me, then reached for my shield. My magic disappeared the moment the wood was out of my grip. “Trust Hlin’s power, Freya.”
I ground my teeth. What good was my magic with no shield in my hand?
“Leave the woman be during the fight,” the jarl ordered his followers, and the other draug retreated, their bony feet scratching the ground. “After he’s dead, do what you will to her, but the Firehand is mine.”
Horror soured my stomach as I pressed my back to the wall, helplessness twisting my guts into ropes as Bjorn squared off against the jarl. One of the other draug approached. It looked to have once been a woman, rags of a dress hanging from its skeletal frame. It handed Bjorn an axe, then it caught hold of both combatants’ wrists and lifted them high. From all around, the draug screamed in delight, and I dropped my sword to press my hands against my ears, the sound agony. But I saw the creature’s fleshless jaw move as it spoke. “Begin.”
Preternaturally fast, the jarl swung his weapon.
Bjorn was ready.
His borrowed weapon was up in a flash, the axe catching the jarl’s sword even as he wrenched it sideways. A less experienced fighter would have lost his blade, but the jarl moved with Bjorn, extracting his sword and swinging again.
Bjorn caught the blow with my shield, grunting from the strength of the impact and staggering back. The jarl grinned, revealing his blackened teeth, then struck again. Bjorn parried, but the jarl’s sword cleaved the haft of his borrowed axe and sent the blade flying.