The Language of Fire

Chapter Eleven - The Village

As they got closer to the village a wave of stench rolled over them. Asta gagged, holding onto her stomach contents with some effort. Beside her she heard Fridmund losing that battle.

Asta had never smelt so much death, but worse than the smell was the sight that awaited them in the village.

The villagers had obviously tried to fight hard against the raiders, Norgarder and Issgarder bodies littered the pathways between the burnt out buildings. Seulf was right, it had been days. Flies hovered over the discoloured corpses. Many were blackened by fire.

'We should give them a funeral,' Asta said.

'Why?' Fridmund asked, looking nauseous at the prospect.

'She's right, we should give them a proper send off so their spirits do not remain.' Seulf said. His jaw was set grimly and Asta remembered that he had known these people.

Asta got out some cloth and wrapped it over face, covering her nose and mouth.

'You don't have to if you don't want to.' She told Fridmund. 'But I want to do this.' It was the least she could do for these poor people, especially when they had fought so bravely.

She and Seulf set about creating a pyre and carrying the bodies to it. Fridmund reluctantly joined them.

It was sweaty and disgusting work. After a while the smell became less noticeable but Asta's horror and sadness grew no less. At one point she pulled a small body out of a ruined building. From the size it could only be a child but it was so charred that it was impossible to tell if it had been a boy or a girl. Asta gently carried the small body over to the pyre and placed it on top, before standing for a moment to calm herself down. She didn't feel like crying, her eyes were dry, instead she felt angry. Angry at the theft of life. Angry that she lived in a world where the strong could do whatever they wanted simply because of their strength.

When all the bodies had been found and placed on the pyre the three of them gathered. Fridmund and Asta both turned to Seulf. As the only one who had met any of the villagers it seemed right that he was the one who spoke.

Seulf looked solemnly at the tall pyre.

'As winter turns to spring and night into day, forget now the darkness of this life and step peacefully into the next, where your loved and lost wait.'

Asta lit a torch they had prepared and gave it to him. Seulf set the pyre ablaze and they watched as it consumed the villagers' earthly remains.

Asta tossed and turned in her bedroll that night. When she finally slept she fell into a nightmare where she walked through the destroyed village but the villagers' faces had been replaced by the members of her old freehold. When she came to a burnt and slashed corpse with Signy's face she came gasping awake.

Asta sat up and wiped sweaty strands of hair away from her forehead. They had camped further down the fjord from the village, near the sea.

Asta got up from her bedroll and made her way through the bushes to the rocky shore of the fjord. She lowered herself onto a large flat rock and stared at the water lapping the stones in the moonlight. A slight breeze blew off the water and she felt it chilling the sweat on her forehead.

The fear from the dream clung to her like cobwebs. The Issgardian attack filled her with anxiety for Signy. Her old freehold had been even further north than this village and therefore even closer to Issgardian lands. For all she knew they could already have been attacked.

Asta hugged her knees and shivered. Not for the first time she berated herself for not taking Signy with her.

She felt a warm pressure against her side and looked down to see the dog leaning against her. It must have followed her from the camp. Asta accepted the beast's wordless comfort, wrapping her arm around it and resting her head against its furry warmth.

After a while she got up and left the beach, the dog following behind. When she got back to her bedroll the dog settled beside her. Asta snuggled against it, grateful for the warmth.

This time she dreamed not of the village but of walking through a blizzard across a field of ice. A glint of something under the ice caught her eye and she knelt down, wiping away the snow that veiled the surface.

A young man lay beneath the ice, dressed in warrior's clothes. His face was boyishly handsome, with a strong jaw and shoulder-length sandy blonde hair. His eyes were closed but with a dream's certainty Asta knew that he was asleep, not dead.

Asta reached out a hand to the ice that covered him. As soon as her hand touched the ice she drew it back with a pained gasp, the cold from the ice so fierce she could feel it spreading up her bones. She cradled her cold-numbed hand to herself. Where she had touched the ice there was now a hairline crack a foot across.

The snow fell, obscuring the man once again, and the dream faded as Asta awoke.

Beside her the dog was twitching and whimpering slightly in its sleep. Asta smiled down at it and laid a hand on its side. The dog settled again with a sigh.

The travellers followed the coast southwards, stopping at villages and freeholds along the way so that Seulf could trade his goods.

The dog took to sleeping beside Asta at night and she welcomed the warmth it provided. She worried that Seulf might get offended but he told her again that the dog was not his, it simply followed him around.

After another week of traveling they finally reached their destination. The day they arrived at Stigborg it was clear and sunny. As they rounded the headland Asta stopped in her tracks, amazed by the size of the town sprawled before them. The wall that surrounded Stigborg seemed to go on forever, it could have held about twenty of her freehold within it.

Seulf stopped and faced the view. 'Welcome to Stigborg, great town of the South,' he said.

As Asta looked at the town curled around the bay a feeling of hope blossomed in her chest. This was where she would find a way to her people, she was sure of it.