The Dark Horse Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mouse by the hand.
    “Come, daughter,” he said. “It’s time we were abed.”
    I think that was the first time Olaf called Mouse that.
    At the time I couldn’t understand why people were so scared of Mouse, or rather, of what she could do. After all, wasn’t what Gudrun did just the same thing? She was supposed to make magic at the Spell-making—magic to keep us safe, bring us food, and so on and so on. Perhaps it was just that Gudrun’s magic was a little less dramatic than Mouse’s.
    Mouse’s magic was harder to believe and easier to fear.

12

    Sigurd hadn’t meant to run away, but now he had. He’d spent the night shivering in the lee of the goat shed, too humiliated to return to his own broch. Olaf and Freya had not been concerned enough to look for him, believing he would return once he’d calmed down. But as the first light stole into the village, he still hurt too badly to want to see anyone. Knowing people would soon be awake, he left.
    He started by heading south down the coast. His father and mother would be snoring in their end of the broch. He didn’t know where Mouse was, and he was glad of that. He didn’t want to have to face her. He’d let
her
down, too, and he cared most about her.
    So he walked in the cool dawn. It was a still, clear morning at the end of Lamb-month; the short summer would soon be upon them. It was going to be a warm day.
    He didn’t actually mean to run away, but before he’d turned a mile or two under his boots, it came to him that he didn’t want to go back. There was nothing for him with the Storn. He didn’t want to watch as Horn tormented his father more and more every day.
    They’d fought once, years before, when the last Lawspeaker died, and Olaf, Sigurd’s father, had lost. That was about six years ago, a summer or two before they found Mouse. And though Horn had won the fight, and though he was Lawspeaker, he was not well liked. He had gathered a group of loyal men around him to secure his position. Olaf said his rule was harsh and stupid; that he was thoughtless and wasteful. There were those who agreed with him, though not openly.
    Horn never let Olaf forget that fight, and now that times were difficult, Olaf had become the daily object of his mockery.
    Sigurd knew there were other places. Places to the south, large settlements, towns even. He knew this because of the occasional ships that would make their way up the coast in the good weather, bartering with the likes of Horn for whatever good there was to be had. The merchants would sit for a while, telling tales of life in faraway places. Places that sounded so strange it was hard to believe they were real.
    Sigurd didn’t know if all these stories were true, but he was curious. The villagers of Storn would sit and be still for an hour or so and lap it all up, their eyes widening here and narrowing there as the traders told stories of unimaginable things. Sometimes, very rarely these days, a ship would return past Storn, having ventured into the Northlands. The merchants would say little about these trips but muttered into their beer about fearsome tribesmen with strange ways of living. Strange gods, bizarre religion, and berserkers—battle-crazed warriors who could never be defeated or even hurt.
    And horses, there was often mention of horses, and fearsome warriors who rode them.
    The Dark Horse.
    The merchants would leave, pitching their takings into the hulls of their ships, and the villagers would marvel at their travels and adventures for an hour or so. All except Sigurd, who would yearn a little while longer than the rest.
    So Sigurd left his family, and he left his sister, who was not really his sister at all, but who meant something more.
    After a while Sigurd recognized where he was. It was about here that he and Mouse had found the box.
    He stopped and sat on a rock. For a moment the thought of Mouse hurt him. It was better this way, he decided. She was too timid, too fragile, to go with him,