I didn’t finish my aim because whoever was on the other side of the door gave up on the padlock and thrust an axe straight through the wood panelling.I took in a breath so sharp my throat burned, and then I rushed—as fast as someone wearing a metal-weighted dress could rush—to my goldkeeper’s kit.I tripped as the cart shook with another chop from an axe.My kit rolled off the bench onto the floor, and I crawled after it, looking for my sting stones.I grasped them and turned, just in time to see giant hands prying apart the door which had cracked clean down the middle.
A man took one step onto the cart, and I struck stone against stone.My first strike was poor, but my second gave life to the bright flash of the vault’s sting; it leapt into the gold thread which I’d left unspooled on the floor and travelled to what I could only imagine was a thief.He stood on the end of my gold thread.The jolt hit him, tensing all his muscles for a moment before he fell back against the wall of the cart.
He looked up at me in astonishment, and that was the first proper glance I had of him.
He was tall and broad, tunic-less and covered in tattoos, with a beard that was… well, on other days it was almost white, not from old age, but rather from the fairness of his hair.But on this day, it was splattered in so much blood that some parts were deep red, but most was pink from the combination of the paleness and the blood.
He laughed at me, and it wasn’t a laugh you would expect from an attacker.It was a laugh of awe, a giddy childishhuzzah!And then he lowered his shield, which drew my mind away from the pinkness of his beard to the shield itself.
It was round and smaller than those used by my father’s knights, but I’d seen depictions of shields like this before.
Sea dog.
It was a sea dog shield.
He looked nothing like a sea creature and nothing like a dog.He appeared to be a man with sharp cheekbones and bright blue eyes so pale they almost glowed in the dimness of morning.The hair on the sides of his head was shorn short, but the top and back were longer than I’d ever seen on anyone, braided into a single strand.
He spoke to me.
He waved at me with his axe hand, nodded at the destroyed door behind him, and said something in deep words that came from the back of his throat.I understood none of them, and my momentary shock that came from a pink-bearded sea dog that looked nothing like a sea dog breaking down the door of my marriage cart, laughing at the pain of the vault’s sting, and then speaking to me, faded.I lifted my sting stones to strike them again.
“Tssk!”he said, laughing with wide eyes.And then he said more in his strange, throaty language, waving me to him with urgency.
I was horrified, but I was also deeply confused.He was attacking, almost certainly looking to steal gold, but he wasn’t acting like a thief—there was no hiding or sneaking.He wasn’t swinging his bloody axe; it hung limp in his hand.But by nature of the blood coating it, and splattered on his face, I knew it was a thing hecoulduse.He’d spoken to me twice.And he’d laughed several times.
My brow ached from how intensely I was furrowing it, and my chest burned with how hard my heart was pounding.I struck my sting stones, and he leapt forward, grabbing one of my wrists with his axe hand, the slick handle pressed against my forearm.
“Tssk!”he said again, sticking his tongue out and back in quickly.
I’d never seen someone do that and decided he was some sort of animal even if he looked man enough.
I struck the stones again—though with not nearly as much force because he held one of my wrists.The jolt caught on some of the gold in my dress, and I felt the buzz of it travelling through me without the bite.He dropped his axe, pulling his hand back and shaking the dead feeling from it.It was a sensation I knew well as I’d studied it for years.
He slapped my hand, and I wish I could say I held onto the stone, but I didn’t.It bounced onto the floor and rolled toward the door as the cart was on somewhat of an angle.
We looked at each other for a moment that felt like ages, my chest rising and falling with the labour of fearful breaths, my mind whirling in empty terror.I became aware of how close he was to me, how focused his eyes were and how confused.I’d never been stared at like that, like I was chaotic and fervent.Like I might do anything.
“Please,”I said with almost no sound in my voice, like in a terrible dream, the horror of the moment was draining me.My body was trying to shake, but the weight of my dress was too great, and I hadn’t taken it off for the past several evenings as I did when I slept at home, so I was particularly exhausted by it.My stomach churned from the smell of blood coating him.
He spoke to me again, his voice low and serious in tone.
Tears pressed into the back of my eyes as I shook my head.“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I said, overcome by the torture of the confusion.Here was a blood-soaked, attacking thief, and he didn’t seem to be taking the attacking part or the thieving part seriously, and my mind couldn’t contain that.I’d always been told thieves were tricky, but this felt like non-sense to me, like madness itself.
Someone else entered the cart.Another sea dog judging by his shield and the gurgle of words I couldn’t understand that came out of his mouth.He saw me and smiled, revealing sharp teeth that had been filed to spear points.
Panic ripped through me as the pink-bearded one whispered, “Koffe.Koffe.” He retrieved his axe and pointed the weapon at what was left of the door.He nodded, holding my gaze.Was he trying to soothe me?Before they ate me?
My eyes fluttered, and I thought for a moment I would faint—I was trained to defend a vault from thieves.I had no training for the agonizing pain that would come from being eaten alive by sea dogs.That was grainkeeper work, not mine.
“Koffe!” The spear-toothed one took two strides forward, grabbed my upper arm and pulled.I think I was far heavier than he was expecting.This added to my fear because it became clear very quickly that he didn’t know my gown was full of gold, which probably meant he wasn’t a thief.Or at least, not a very good one.
His brow furrowed as he tugged, and I pulled back without thinking.“Koffe!” he said again, followed by a stream of words I couldn’t begin to sound out.
When I resisted his pull a third time, he took a rag from his belt and pressed it against my face.I gripped his wrist in a pathetic attempt to slow him, took in one sharp breath, and then the world dissolved.
Eight
The ground tilted to my right, and my head felt like it was filled with swarming bees, and then I remembered that I’d been in grave danger only moments before.My eyes shot open, and my heart beat twice before I realized some time must have passed, and whatever fear I’d felt before was nothing in comparison to what I now faced.
