Greta Gunnarsdóttir's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Greta followed the vision's thread out of the dark trees and down to a village. A wall of broken wagons and shattered doors ringed the houses. Stacked chairs and barrels filled every gap. She had seen many hard winters, but never a village sealed like a tomb. She pressed forward anyway. The child was inside. A man climbed onto the wagons before she reached them. He was broad and gray-bearded, with a sword at his belt and gold catching the dim light on his armor. He did not greet her. He raised one scarred hand to stop her where she stood. "Turn back, old mother," he said. "No strangers pass. The weeping sickness takes whole houses now. It took my own captain. I bury more every day." His voice was tired, like a man fighting something he could not strike. "You are the Jarl here," Greta said. It was not a question. "Brom Ardson." He nodded, surprised she knew. "Then you know I cannot open the wall for you." "Tell me the sickness," Greta said. "Black tears. Black sores that weep and stink." Brom's jaw tightened. "You have seen it." "I have seen its root." Greta gripped her staff. "The same rot eats the sacred stones in my forest. It is one evil, Jarl. The sickness in your people and the stain on my wards come from the same dark thing. I am the Bjornspeaker. I am looking into how to stop it." Brom studied her a long moment. He wanted to believe her. She saw it in his eyes, the hunger of a man with no other hope. "If that is true," he said slowly, "then help us." "I will. But I need something from you first." Greta stepped closer to the wall. "A child lives in your village. A girl, near ten years. Hair like burnished gold. One shoulder crooked, broken wrong and healed wrong. Have you seen her?" Brom frowned. He scratched his beard. "No child of any house I know." Then his face changed. "But there is a thief. Fire-haired, quick. My people grumble that she steals bread and eggs. Nobody can catch her. She hides somewhere in the empty houses." He shrugged. "That is all I have. I never set eyes on her myself." Greta's heart knocked hard. Fire hair. A hiding child. The vision had shown her a girl outside a shuttered house. "That is enough," she said. "Let me in, and I will search for her and your cure both." Brom stared down at her a long moment. Then he turned and shouted. Men dragged a wagon aside, grinding wood on stone. A narrow gap opened in the wall. "Find your child, witch," Brom said. "And find mine a cure. I am trusting a stranger because I have nothing left to trust." Greta ducked through the gap into the silent village. Somewhere in these boarded houses, a fire-haired thief was hiding. Now she only had to catch her.