Winter Song Read Free Page B

silent.
        Finally, the needles grew too fierce, and she prised her bloodied breast away from the seeking mouth. Rocking her furry cargo, humming an almost soundless lullaby, she crept across the farmyard to the back door.
        Looking up again, she saw a faint glow to the northwest between the hills.
        It's not any of the suns, she thought, and if that's a fire, then someone's farmstead is burning.
        But she couldn't think of any farmhouses in that direction. Too many trolls likely to midnight-raid the settlements, if the old records were true. And if it were a fire, then Hilda and the others would already be spilling into the courtyard to answer the distress calls.
        She lifted the latch carefully, and ducking to step down into the lobby shut the door behind her.
        A light snapping on blinded her, though it was only dim. Her vision cleared to reveal Thorir standing with sword in hand and an evil grin on his face at his cleverness in sneaking down from the watch-tower.
        Behind him, his wife Hilda stood with folded arms and bulging eyes: "Bera Sigurdsdottir! What on Isheimur are you doing? Have you lost your wits?"
        Nothing Bera could say would spare her from a scolding, so she just slumped.
        Hilda said, "Go back on watch, darling, while I sort this out." She snapped off the light. There were the noises of Thorir leaving, then Hilda hissed, "Stupid girl!"
        "Sorry," Bera said quietly.
        "Pappi took you in when his old friend died – you repay us by disturbing our sleep while he's away?"
        Even after six years, you haven't forgiven me? Bera thought. I don't want his attention!
        As self-appointed surrogate mother, Hilda didn't hesitate to "correct" Bera whenever Hilda felt it necessary, which was frequently. "We thought you were an outlaw – or worse."
        "Did you hear the sound?" Bera said, in a desperate attempt to distract her foster-sister. "Like muffled thunder."
        "Never mind that," Hilda said. Although she hadn't distracted Hilda, Bera's trick had at least robbed her rant of momentum. "Go back to bed. Try not to fall over the others on the way through."
        Bera wondered how much of Hilda's anger was that Bera had shown her husband, and therefore Hilda, for the fool he was. If Bera could slip out without him noticing, then raiders could do the same in the opposite direction.
        Or whether Hilda thought he hadn't been sleeping, but that Bera had paid him in kind to look away. Bera couldn't tell Hilda that she'd sooner drink acid than go with Thorin. Hilda wouldn't believe her, would instead point to the cairn as proof that Bera would go with anyone.

    Next day in the kitchen no one spoke to Bera over breakfast, but that wasn't unusual. She had managed not to bump into the cots of the sleeping children and farm hands, so no one was angry with her – at least, no more than usual.
        All ten of Ragnar's grandchildren, from the youngest toddler to eight year-old Toti, Hilda's eldest, sat around the vast table, assembled by nanobots centuries earlier to resemble oak, now stained and pitted with age.
        Bera and the other women shuttled pots and plates to and from the vast stove, while the men were out checking the flocks as always.
        Except Yngi, of course. Bera had seen him at first sunrise, as Gamasol stained the horizon with its searchlight glare. She had snuck out again and clipped Brynja back to the water-tap, where a few shards of ice had half-melted in the direct sunlight, staining Brynja's white fur with muddy streaks. The puppy yapped as Bera walked away, but she hurried and was back indoors before anyone noticed… she hoped.
        Now she waited her turn for the porridge bowl, and when the others had taken their fill, scraped out the dregs of the weak, watery liquid. She got the last few bits when Thorbjorg said, "Why don't you lick the pattern off the plate?"
        Her face