Bracelet of Bones Read Online Free PDF

wounds.
    Otherwise, she thought, my journey would be over already. Before it had really begun. But if the ooze grows into a leak, I’ll have to start bailing. That man on the waterside, he was warning me.
    First the wind fell away to nothing; then the tide turned and began to push the skiff downstream.
    It’s a good thing the tide takes much longer to drag back to the sea than to fill up the fjord, thought Solveig. The same amount of water ebbs as comes in, I know that, but it feels as if Ægir is helping me on my way.
    Solveig drifted. She yawned again. She felt quite warm inside her reindeer skin.
    When the wind and water are as soft as this, she thought, sailing’s as easy as deep breathing. If I close my eyes, it feels as if I’m sliding south, all the way to Miklagard. I know! Sailing’s never easy, not for long. The sea’s a shining trickster and often dangerous. I must be watchful.
    Solveig reached for her little water keg and held it up to her mouth and turned the tap. Much as she would have liked to drink deep and then splash fresh water over her salt-sticky face and hair, she took no more than a few sips.
    If you’re crossing a mountain or sailing down a fjord, she thought, always be sure to take enough food and water. That’s what Odin says.
    Then Solveig untied the neck cord of her leather bag, pulled out a lump of dried mutton, and cautiously sucked it.
    Early April. The day’s small store of light was soon drained. The Lodestar and the dragon, the hunting dogs, the great bear and the little bear began to glitter, and the moon wore a silvery-white halo.
    Was it really only now that Solveig realized she wouldn’t reach Trondheim before dark and not even by midnight?
    She gazed at the water around her, and in the almost-dark it was shining.
    Things, she thought. Things I can’t see. Sea serpents, sea snorters. Wild men. Things without names.
    All at once, the night sky thronged with black wings and wailing and shrieking. Skuas, terns, and cormorants circled Solveig as if her skiff were a bright beacon, and she buried her head in her arms. They peck your eyes out, she thought. Theydo if you’re dead, and they drill into the soft spot in your skull even when you’re alive.
    But when Solveig opened her eyes again, the night birds had all gone. As if they had never been.
    They were flying from world to world, she thought. Wild and wailing.
    The darker the night sky, the more the water shone. The little skipping wavelets were luminous.
    Then Solveig saw the ghosts of Stiklestad swimming through the water, white faces up. And all around her she began to hear voices, insistent, soft as a snowfall:
    Cut me
    Carve me
    Tell me
    Sing me
    I laughed
    I was young
    I sang
    I loved
    Say my death
    Say I’m life
    Sing now, Solveig
    Now and forever.
    “I will!” cried Solveig in the darkness. And then she thought, I’ll carve runes for you on your shoulder blade. I must sing life, otherwise I’m half dead myself.
    Brighter and brighter, the Morning Star gazed at Solveig.
    I know about you, she thought. You’re Aurvandil’s big toe—the one that froze because it was sticking out of the basket strapped to Thor’s back when he rescued Aurvandil from the giant world. So Thor snapped you off and threw you into the sky.
    But I’m all right, she thought sleepily. I’m warm enough inside Tangl’s skin and my shawl.
    All at once, Solveig’s sail began to flap as wildly as an imprisoned seagull.
    Solveig stretched, she yawned, she shook her head. I fell asleep, she thought. Where am I?
    And at once she sat bolt upright.
    Around Solveig were waves, nothing but waves, the sides of waves, gray-green and glassy, sinuous, the tops of waves, bristling, baring their teeth, the troughs of waves, death-dark and bottomless.
    Solveig’s skiff was light as thistledown. One moment, she was deep in a shadowless grave, the next whisked and lifted onto a sunlit peak. Up, down, down again, up.
    Solveig’s stomach lurched. She felt