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  A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE

  Set in Viking times, this exciting novel follows tough and resourceful Ylva on her quest to avenge her mother’s death. Her journey is one of survival, spirit and pure drive – but it’s also a story about learning to trust again, in spite of the wolves and raiders that fate sends against you . . . something that we all have to prepare for!

  Danr Smior is the incredible Dan Smith’s name in Old Norse, so I’ve decided to call him that from now on. Bravo, Danr – more thrilling stories like this, please!

  BARRY CUNNINGHAM

  Publisher

  Chicken House

  Contents

  Ylva

  Chapter 1. The Three-Fingered Man

  Chapter 2. Gods and Tears

  Chapter 3. Niflheim

  Chapter 4. Young Wolf

  Revenge

  Chapter 5. A Long Way from Home

  Chapter 6. Shield-Maiden

  Chapter 7. Hard Earth

  Chapter 8. No Tears

  Trust

  Chapter 9. Thor’s Salvation

  Chapter 10. Smoke on the Mountain

  Chapter 11. Three Brothers

  Chapter 12. Be Careful Who You Trust

  Wilderness

  Chapter 13. Flames and Screams

  Chapter 14. Spears of Moonlight

  Chapter 15. Two Arrows

  Chapter 16. Too Many

  Chapter 17. Wild Music

  Chapter 18. The Giant’s Hand

  Chapter 19. Shelter

  Endless Winter

  Chapter 20. Ulfhednar

  Chapter 21. Fenrir

  Chapter 22. Wolf’s Blood

  Chapter 23. Mercy

  Chapter 24. A Whole Lot of Blood

  Chapter 25. A Promise

  Chapter 26. Monsters in the Dark

  Chapter 27. Freya’s Tears

  Chapter 28. Wolf-Warrior

  Chapter 29. Geri and Freki

  Chapter 30. Don’t Look Back

  Chapter 31. Night Terror

  Alone

  Chapter 32. Nobody

  Chapter 33. Hunted

  Chapter 34. Ghosts in the Storm

  Wolves

  Chapter 35. Friend

  Chapter 36. The Call of the Wild

  Chapter 37. Ragnarök

  Chapter 38. Hate

  The Three-Fingered Man

  Chapter 39. Bound

  Chapter 40. Murderous Thieves

  Chapter 41. Sharp Iron

  Truth

  Chapter 42. Revenge

  Chapter 43. Locket

  Chapter 44. Valhalla

  Chapter 45. One Last Time

  Hope

  Chapter 46. Ylva the Strong

  Chapter 47. Bron

  Chapter 48. The Witch

  Chapter 49. Home

  Glossary

  Did You Know?

  Copyright

  For Anisha and Ashwin.

  Be kind. Be brave. Be strong.

  1

  The Three-Fingered Man

  Ylva flinched when she heard Mother shout. It was unexpected, and the sound was so full of fear and pain, it took her a moment to realize what it was. A second shout told her she hadn’t imagined the first, and when it cut short there was only silence from the hut.

  Crouching in the snow-covered bracken at the edge of the forest, Ylva kept her arm around her dog, Geri, and stared across the track at the lopsided door of the trader’s hut. Her fingers tightened around the leather-bound handle of her axe, hard enough to make her knuckles pop.

  Trees creaked and cried in the wind that flooded the mountainside.

  When the door opened, a bald and bearded giant of a man emerged and stepped down into the deep snow that lay on the track. As tall and wide as two ordinary men, he had blue-tattooed runes arched over each ear, and a history of past battles etched in scars on his face. Rings of black kohl were painted around the palest blue eyes, making them fade into his skull like the eyes of the dead. A Viking raider, Ylva thought, probably from the same shores she had sailed from. Dressed in grey wolf furs, he moved slowly like a beast, walking with his head down, a sword hanging loose in his left hand. The blade was wet with blood.

  The two smallest fingers on the man’s right hand were missing.

  As soon as he was on the track, the man stopped and raised his face to the darkening sky. He sniffed hard and turned his head the way a predator tests the air for the scent of its prey.

  Instinctively, Ylva pulled Geri down so she and the elkhound were lying flat on their bellies, side by side. The snow was perishing and her insides flushed ice-cold as the man on the track opened his mouth and tasted the breeze. There was a flicker in his pale eyes, and his lip curled ever so slightly at one side.

  ‘You smell something?’ A woman appeared from the hut behind him. She was tall and strong, with braided hair the colour of burning winter sunsets.

  ‘Can’t be sure.’ The man’s voice was the rumble of wagon wheels over wood.

  The flame-haired woman twisted a necklace around the knuckles of her right hand; the same necklace Mother had been wearing when she had entered the hut. Nothing more than a leather cord and a small, wooden coin-shaped locket. It was simple. Worthless to anyone other than Ylva.

  ‘I don’t smell anything.’ The woman lifted her nose to the freezing air. ‘You’re just— Wait.’ She put the necklace over her head and stepped down on to the track. She drew a short sword from the folds of her furs and peered into the trees.

  Geri squirmed as if he wanted to make a run at the woman – like a fox pouncing from a tuft of grass to catch a rabbit. But this woman was no startled rabbit, so Ylva pressed him to the ground and wished they could become part of it. She held his mouth closed to stop him from making a noise, and let the deep snow cocoon them. Ylva took tiny sips of air, afraid the steam of her breath would give them away. She dared to lift her head only just enough to see over the top of the icy crust.

  The woman stalked across the track and stopped at the treeline. She scanned left and right, then stared ahead, as if she were looking directly at Ylva and Geri, half-buried in the snow. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I smell it too.’

  She took a step towards the bracken, hair shining in the last of the day’s light, but stopped when a wolf howled in the mountains behind the hut. The haunting cry echoed in the dusk, and the woman paused with her boot mid-step. Her eyes narrowed and she glanced over her shoulder at the man.

  ‘Let’s move,’ he said.

  Her foot pulled back and the woman returned to the track. She stood for a moment, peering into the dark forest.

  ‘The day’s wasting.’ The man flicked his sword hard, sending a spray of red across the crisp snow. He wiped the blade on his breeches, then jammed it into its scabbard and went to where his horse was hitched. Raven-black, with a long mane, and a shaggy coat, the animal’s legs were thick and its back was wide. It must have been the only horse strong enough to carry such a giant of a man. Perhaps the biggest horse in all of Midgard – certainly the biggest Ylva had ever seen. Right then, she believed only Odin’s mighty horse Sleipnir could be bigger.

  The three-fingered man swung up into the saddle and waited for the woman to mount up. When they were both on horseback, they reached into the collars of their furs to pull scarves over their mouths as they looked back at the trees where Ylva and Geri were hiding.

  With their noses and mouths covered, all that was visible of the raiders’ faces was their kohl-lined eyes. But there was a clear white design painted on each black scarf; the bottom half of a skull. Upper and lower jaws. Teeth. And even from beneath the bracken, Ylva saw that the incisors were long, like a wolf’s.

  For a moment, she was watching monsters and she wanted to scream. But she didn’t dare move. Sh
e couldn’t move.

  All she could do was bite the inside of her cheek and lie paralysed beside Geri as the two Vikings finally turned and rode away, the shields on their backs like eyes watching her. And in the centre of each black shield was the same painted design; a wolf skull.

  2

  Gods and Tears

  Ylva stayed in the snow for a long time watching the riders disappear into the dusk. And even then, she waited as the night closed in and more snow settled. It fell in a dream, soft flakes as big as goose down, and she lay with one hand in Geri’s thick black and grey fur, trembling in the cold as the snow began to bury them. Ylva wondered if they should stay there to die. They could disappear and be nothing.

  But that wasn’t what Mother had taught her, so she forced herself to stand and adjust her scarf and cloak. Geri stood beside her, almost tall enough to reach Ylva’s waist. He was strong and well muscled, with a wolf-like coat and a tightly curled tail. When he opened his mouth and looked up at his friend, he displayed a good set of white teeth.

  Ylva placed her hand on his head. ‘We need to get inside.’

  She crept from the trees and headed for the trader’s hut, but halfway across the track, Geri stopped. He clamped his mouth shut and whined.

  Ylva looked back at him. ‘You’re afraid,’ she said.

  Geri flattened his ears and took a step backwards as he stared at the lopsided door in front of them. He whined again, the grief-stricken sound echoing in the emptiness of the mountainside.

  ‘No crying.’ Ylva went to crouch in front of him. ‘I need you now more than ever. Help me be strong.’ She put her hand against one side of his head, and her face against the other. The smell of his fur was the most comforting smell in the world. ‘We’re warriors now.’ Ylva spoke in his ear. ‘Vikings. And we do whatever we must to survive. That’s what Mother would say.’

  Ylva knew Mother would be dead inside the hut, but she didn’t allow herself to cry. Not now.

  ‘Tears aren’t a sign of weakness.’ She made her voice firm when she spoke to Geri. ‘But there’s a right time for tears, and there’s a wrong time. For us, survival always comes first; we do whatever it takes to survive. We have to remember Mother’s words. Survival always comes first.’

  She stood and looked down at him. ‘Follow me.’ She put one boot in front of the other until she reached the lopsided door, and when she pushed it open, she stepped in, with Geri at her heel. They stood for a while as she waited for her eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness, Ylva touching Geri’s fur with the fingertips of one hand, her axe held tight in the other.

  At the far end of the hut was a rough wooden counter. To the right, close to a firepit, two basic square tables stood with chairs tucked underneath. A fire crackled in the pit, providing poor light, and warming the flame-blackened pot that hung over it on a tripod. The smell of soup mingled with the scent of earth and fire and sweat.

  On the wall to the left, all manner of things hung on rusty nails – from horse tack to pots to strange tools and unrecognizable pieces of iron. Nothing that was of use to her. Piles of folded rugs and furs rested on crude shelves of splintered wood, and the dirt floor was crowded with chests of grain and smoked meat and fish.

  For Mother, there was no dignity in death. She was lying face down near the grain chests with her hair splayed like freshly cut straw. Around her, the dirt floor was thick with blood.

  Another body, a man, was lying against the counter at the back of the room.

  Geri crossed the room to where Mother lay. He sniffed her, nuzzling at her neck and whining.

  ‘No crying. Remember what Mother said. There’s a time for tears, but this isn’t it. This isn’t the time.’

  He stopped immediately, and lay down beside Mother. He watched Ylva with sad, dark-brown eyes. The two of them stared at one another for a long while before Geri finally relaxed and rested his chin on his large paws.

  ‘Good.’ Ylva closed the door.

  With a grunt of effort, she lifted the drop-bar into place, checked the door was secure, and shrugged off her satchel. She slipped the axe into her belt and moved deeper into the room, hardening herself for what she had to do. A numbing emptiness filled the hut. It threatened to overwhelm her, but Ylva was strong. She was from a hard land and she had seen hard times. She had sailed across the sea, she had a bearded axe in her belt, and that made her a Viking.

  ‘Survival always comes first,’ she whispered as she pushed her heartache to the darkest place in her soul. She crouched beside Mother and put her hands underneath the motionless body. It took some effort to roll Mother on to her back, then Ylva rested, breathing heavily as she stared at the face she loved.

  Geri watched her with questioning eyes, as if he were asking, Is she really dead?

  ‘Yes.’ There was no point putting an ear to Mother’s chest to listen for a heartbeat. ‘She really is.’ Instead, Ylva arranged Mother’s scarf and tidied her hair. She tried not to think of the times Mother had brushed hers, sitting by the fire, humming a tune. When she was finished brushing, she’d kneel in front of Ylva and tell her, ‘Your hair is winter wheat, and your eyes are deepest summer.’

  But she would never say those words again.

  Ylva chewed her lip and slipped her hands into Mother’s cloak, looking for her knife, but it was missing.

  What about him? Geri glanced over at the man slumped dead against the counter.

  ‘The trader, I suppose; the owner of the hut.’

  Is he dead too?

  ‘Yes, he’s dead too.’

  After a long moment to collect her thoughts, Ylva took her knife from its sheath and cut a lock of Mother’s hair. She carefully tucked it into a pouch tied to her belt before taking a blanket from the shelf and spreading it over Mother. When that was done, she went to the table by the firepit, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

  She clicked her tongue and Geri came to sit by her side. Ylva leant over to hug him. She pressed her face against his fur and breathed his familiar scent of woodsmoke and fresh air. His fur had always smelt like that, and it had always comforted her.

  ‘What have we done to anger the gods?’ she asked. ‘What have we done to make them abandon us?’

  3

  Niflheim

  The logs in the firepit burnt down to nothing and the heat faded.

  The night was as cold as a grave in the ice-world Niflheim, and the hut was the only place Ylva had seen in days. It was possible that the three-fingered man might return for warmth and shelter. Ylva couldn’t waste any more time; she had to make sure they were safe.

  Survival always comes first.

  ‘Stay here.’ She placed fresh wood on the fire, and Geri watched her go to the door. After rattling it several times to be certain it was secure, Ylva crossed the room, avoiding looking in Mother’s direction. She got down on her knees to search the trader but found nothing useful. Behind the counter, though, she saw something lying on the floor in the damp dust.

  She picked up the bow and turned it this way and that. There was strength and power in the wood, and though it was made for an adult, her small hand fit well in the grip. The weapon gave her mixed feelings of comfort and fear. It was an instrument of survival, and an instrument of death. An instrument of revenge. It was no coincidence to find it there.

  ‘The gods put it here for me,’ she told Geri. ‘Maybe even Thor himself left it here as a sign.’ As if to confirm that thought, there was a quiver full of arrows leaning in the corner, each one tipped with a sharp iron point. Arrows like that would pierce anything. Even a coat of mail.

  One. Two. Three. Four . . . Her fingers brushed across the feathered fletchings as she counted the arrows over and over until she was sure how many there were. One. Two. Three. Four. Five . . .

  Nine arrows. Nine sharp iron tips.

  She rubbed the place where her collar chafed her neck as she looked across at the shape that was Mother beneath the blanket. Geri sat patiently by the table.

&nbs
p; ‘I know what I have to do with these,’ Ylva said.

  Ylva placed the bow and the quiver of arrows on the counter and ignored Geri’s questioning looks as she continued to search the hut, checking every corner and scanning every shelf. Anything useful and small enough to carry went in a line on the counter. Among other things, there was a bone-handled knife, and a clay pot containing charcloth and flint. There was salted fish, dried meat, and a small pouch of henbane seeds. She counted and checked everything twice – then once again, just to be sure – and stuffed it into the leather satchel she had taken from the body of a dead man several days ago. He had been one of many lying in the crimson surf beside the smouldering skeleton of a longship.

  Soon, the satchel contained enough food and provisions to last a week, maybe two. The pouch of seeds was fastened for safekeeping beside the water bag on her belt, and the knife was tucked in beside it where it would always be in reach.

  She rolled a blanket into a tight bundle, tied it with twine found on a shelf, and left it by the door along with her satchel. It would be easy to grab if she needed to make a quick escape. But for now, she wasn’t going anywhere; it was warmer and safer in the trader’s hut than it would be out in the forest, and there was the small comfort of hot soup bubbling over the fire.

  The soup smelt bad, and the knots of gristle floating among the potatoes and carrots looked disgusting, but Ylva didn’t know when her next meal might be, so she filled a clay bowl and sat by the fire with hot soup and a chunk of dry bread.

  The powerful bow lay on the table in front of her, one arrow ready beside it, the others in the quiver close by.

  Ylva didn’t feel like eating, but she had to keep warm and strong, so she slurped the soup and watched Geri lying at her feet. He looked up at her, eyebrows twitching, and let out a quiet whine.

  What do we do now? Where do we go?

  ‘There’s only one thing for us to do,’ she told him. ‘At first light, I’ll bury Mother in the forest behind the hut.’

  The ground will be hard. Cremation is a better way to send her to the gods.