Stay with your mistress and help Thrand perform the ritual to free her other half. I will find you again when I can.
You must not—Kritka replied in her mind. But Hekla was already drawing a deep breath. Readying to launch herself into the woods—
The cries of Turned ravens left Hekla momentarily stunned. Eyvind, evidently having the same idea as Hekla, had broken off from their shield wall and now rushed into the woods. The spider’s fangs gnashed together as Eyvind paused. Turned. Waved his sword about.
“What is he doing?” demanded Thrand Long Sword.
“Trying to lure it away,” Hekla said, her heart in her throat.
Gjalla took one step off the trail, his gleaming red eyes darting from Eyvind to the huddle of warriors. But as Eyvind shouted at the spider, Gjalla’s choice was made. The enormous spider crashed through the underbrush in pursuit of Eyvind. For a moment, Hekla simply stared. And then, shemoved.
Going after him wasn’t a question in her mind. It was instinct. It was fate.
“Cut through the web!” she shouted at Gunnar, launching into the brush. “And whatever else happens, protect the Forest Maiden!”
Grip tightening on her sword, Hekla didn’t wait for Gunnar’s inevitable protest. She moved with as much stealth as she could through the underbrush, never taking her eyes off Hakonsson. They’d reached the stream, Eyvind now waist-deep. Gjalla launched into the waters and threw himself at Eyvind with a loud, screech that sent goosebumps up Hekla’s arms.
As Gjalla’s lethal fangs stabbed into the frothing, swirling waters, Eyvind vanished from view. Horror built in Hekla’s chest as the spider jabbed downward again and again. A scream tore from her throat as she leaped between dead bracken and dried moss, sword raised in hand.
Eyvind’s head broke the surface of the waters just downstream of the spider, but Gjalla surged at him with impossible speed, chitinous fangs clashing against Eyvind’s steel blade.
But the current was too strong, the river rocks too slick, and Eyvind’s feet slipped out from under him. His head vanished beneath the seething waters once more, and again Gjalla became a flurry of limbs and fangs. The water bloomed red, and Hekla was sprinting—wasscreaming—but Gjalla was relentless in his assault on Eyvind.
There was no time to think. No time for revulsion or fear to grip her. Hekla threw herself from the stream’s edge onto the spider’s turned back. Momentum sent her careening along Gjalla’s tough, slick thorax, and just before she tumbled off the other side, Hekla’s hands folded around a thatch of coarse hairs.
Gjalla reared back with an ear-piercing shriek that rattled Hekla’s skull. But she did not relent—she held on tight as the spider thrashed about. And while no one would call her pious, in that moment she prayed to the Sun God Himself.
“Sunnvald, keep Eyvind bloody Hakonsson safe,” she gritted out. “So I can wring his neck myself.” Hekla unsheathed her prosthetic’s claws and slammed them through the spider’s thick carapace. With her grip more sure, she climbed toward the spider’s wriggling feelers.
Gjalla writhed about, trying to knock Hekla free from his back, but her claws held firm. Slowly, she climbed higher on the spider’s thorax. At last, she reached the top. Her gaze slid from Gjalla’s thrashing feelers to the glowing red eyes just beyond. With the claws of her right hand embedded in the spider’s thick cuticle, she unsheathed her hevrít with her left, then brought it down over and over—as many times as she could manage before Gjalla finallyknocked her free. Hekla flew through the air, then plunged into the frigid waters, her head colliding with a rock and knocking her momentarily senseless.
But as Gjalla’s fangs struck through the waters and clipped the edge of her thigh, Hekla’s wits surged back. Pain speared from her leg as she floundered on slick river stones, her gaze searching frantically for Eyvind all the while.
Hekla’s heart gave a panicked lurch as she saw him just downstream—floating face down.
“Eyvind—” Her shout quickly turned to a gargle as she dove underwater to avoid Gjalla’s lashing fangs. Bubbles gushed from her nose as she kicked and clawed her way along the riverbed. Her lungs ached, her thigh throbbing as though it had a heartbeat, yet her only thought was of Eyvind—shehadto get to him.
When her chest felt as though it might burst, she finally broke the water’s surface, gasping and choking. Hekla cried out as she saw Eyvind, mere paces away. Desperately, she crashed through the waters and flipped him onto his back. Her gaze roamed over his face for any sign of life.
But a shadow crossed the sun, and Hekla was dimly aware that the crash of the waterfall was now near deafening. She looped a loose arm around Eyvind’s neck, holding him face up, then gazed up at the wolfspider. Gjalla chittered angrily, black blood seeping from at least half his eyes.
You foul, bothersome creature,the monster screeched.Gjalla does not care that Mother wants to keep you. We will relish your death.
“Unfortunately, you wretched beast,” Hekla shouted, barely able to hear her own voice above the crashing water, “you’ll have to wait for another day.”
Her hold on Eyvind tightened as the stream beneath her vanished. And then they plunged over the waterfall’s edge.
Part 3
Elders
A rotten branch will be found in every tree.
—The Saga of Olaf Haraldsson
Chapter 48
Sunnavík, Íseldur
