Daughter of Fire and Ice Read Online Free Page A

brown of anguish. He was a peaceful man, deeply distressed, I thought.
    There was no time to wonder about it. Svanson urged his horse forwards into a trot and we were forced to run. My legs were shaking and my breath coming in painful gasps, and still the pull of the rope was relentless. Svanson dragged us on beyond endurance, beyond mercy, laughing as he kicked his horse faster and faster. I thought over and over again that I couldn’t take another step. But the alternative was to fall in the stones and dirt of the road and be dragged along. So I kept finding more reserves of strength deep within me, to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Once I missed my footing and fell, the hard ground knocking the breath painfully from my body, tearing my tunic, grazing my skin. But the slave beside me managed to grasp my arm and heave me back onto my feet.
    ‘Thank you,’ I croaked, my voice hoarse. He had no breath spare to reply.
    We kept moving, sometimes at a walk, more often at a run. At last I could smell the sea in the air, and I thought we must be close to our destination. The path reached a cliff top and curved to the left to follow it. Svanson paused. We bent over, gasping, dragging the air noisily down into our overworked lungs. There was a dizzying drop at our feet where the cliffs fell away to the water below. But this wasn’t the open sea. There were steep cliffs across the water from us too. This was a fjord that stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. Though there was a stiff breeze here on the cliff top, there was barely a wave on the water so far below our feet.
    ‘I could throw you both over here and be done with it,’ said Svanson. He gave a crack of laughter at the thought. I felt the hairs rise on the nape of my neck. ‘But I need you in the new land,’ he continued. ‘So I think I’ll spare you for now. But any disobedience, any disloyalty, and that will be your fate. Do you understand?’
    His voice was a cruel sneer. The slave beside me, who had been so silent and so contained throughout our long journey, suddenly fell to his knees and groaned aloud. I was surprised. From what little I’d seen of him, I hadn’t thought he’d show such weakness.
    ‘You’re my new master now,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I beg you to cast me over the cliff if that’s your will.’
    I saw Svanson look down into the man’s face and read the bleak despair that was written there. He smiled unpleasantly. I looked from one to the other of them, aware that there was a tension between them that went far deeper than master and slave.
    ‘Afraid?’ Svanson taunted softly. ‘You should be. To your sister, I was more merciful than I will be to you. This is nothing to how hard you will be driven when we reach Iceland,’ he promised. ‘So you’d better accustom yourself.’ He looked gloatingly at his slave, enjoying his misery, then he turned and glanced out at the fjord.
    In the few seconds that his back was turned, the slave reached a hand down to his ankle and pulled his legging up a little. I wondered what he could be doing; how he had the energy to do anything other than simply breathe. He withdrew his hand, clutching something in it. I couldn’t see what, but I was suddenly afraid. Svanson hadn’t seen the movement.
    Svanson was still smirking to himself, obviously enjoying the memory of whatever had happened earlier. I wondered that he had the leisure to sit around taunting us like this. Didn’t he know he had an army marching towards him as he spoke?
    Svanson quite suddenly wheeled his horse round, riding it between us, forcing the slave to the other side of his horse, nearest the cliff edge. He doubled back and rode on. Once more I had to force my stiff, weary legs to run. But at least I was on the inside. The slave was running between the horse and the cliff edge. Svanson kept laughing and pushing him right out to the edge as he rode. Any moment, I thought. Any moment now, and he will