Iron Axe Read Online Free

many reasons he kept to himself as much as possible.
    They crested a slight rise, and the outer ring of village houses came into view. They were similar to Alfgeir’s—long, rounded structures half-buried in the ground as if huddling for warmth, their wattle-and-daub walls covered in a blanket of whitewash. Every door had a tree carved or painted on it, some expertly, some crudely. The village was too small to have a name. Ordinary gossip got around quick, while bad gossip rushed fast enough to break its own neck. If Aisa knew about the troll tracks in the Nosses’ flattened house, everyone knew. More tension tightened Danr’s stomach and his breathing came faster. Aisa gave his arm another soft squeeze and left the road. He knew why. Being seen with him would give Frida another excuse to reach for her birch rod, and there was no reason for both of them to suffer. The road felt empty with her gone.
    He held his head high as he took the steer through the outer ring of houses. The road widened and dropped into ankle-deep mud that sucked cold at his feet. The usual chickens and pigs rooted in the byways between the houses, and dogs barked at each other over fences about whatever it was dogs barked about. All the doors stood open to the fresh air and sunshine. A hammer clanked steadily against metal in Hagbart’s smithy, creating a little echo against the throb of the sunshine ache in Danr’s head, and the heavy smell of wood smoke hung beneath the painfully bright sky. Kinderlings, too young to work yet, chased each other up and down the main street, laughing as they ran. Adults walked, scurried, or bustled about their daily chores—until they sawDanr, anyway. Wherever he and the steer went, everything stopped. Bearded men in tunics and careworn women in dresses gathered in clumps, openly staring and whispering behind their hands. Danr knew all of them by name, but they acted as if he were a stranger. His face grew hot, but he walked on as if he hadn’t noticed all those staring eyes. Elsa Haug, a thin woman wrapped in a blue shawl, snatched up her baby daughter and slammed her door.
    Dozens of eyes followed him, and dozens of voices whispered about him. He caught words and phrases here and there.
    â€œ. . . monster . . .”
    â€œ. . . Noss brothers . . .”
    â€œ. . . filthy slut of a mother couldn’t keep her legs together, even for a . . .”
    â€œ. . . his fault the trolls attacked . . .”
    â€œ. . . half-blood . . .”
    â€œ. . . the earl should just run him out of . . .”
    He felt exposed and naked, and his skin shriveled against his body. The steer squelched through the muddy street behind him with unhappy hooves. Like Danr, it sensed tension in the air, and its eyes rolled. More than once it balked. If Danr had been human, with a human’s strength, he wouldn’t have been able to move it, but he forged ahead with a half troll’s strength, and the steer had no choice but to follow.
    Something cold and soft splattered the back of his head beneath his hat. Reflexively he spun. Several knots of people stood at a safe distance behind him with grim faces. Danr smelled cow manure, felt it ooze around his ears. Anger boiled away his fear, and his fingernails plowed furrows into his palms.
    â€œWho threw that?” he shouted without thinking.
    The people stared back. Then a young man—Egil Carlsson—spat in his direction.
    â€œA piece of shit for a piece of shit,” he growled.
    Danr’s muscles bunched and rolled like boulders beneath his patchwork tunic. Manure dripped a slimy trail down his back. The monster inside pushed him to make a step toward Egil Carlsson. Egil stiffened, and the villagers around him came quietly alert. That was when Danr noticed several of them carried axes, pitchforks, and carving knives. He wondered how many of them