The Lost Runes Saga

The icy wind blew through Vidar’s clothes as he carefully made his way up the three steps leading to the thick wooden door. Cursing under his breath, he reached up and banged on it with the back of his fist.

“Hjalmar, you fat bastard, open up!”

Wind whipped around his ears and he shuddered. He repeated the motion, with even more power behind it this time. “I know you’re in there!”

He was about to strike the door a third time when it suddenly flew open. Startled, Vidar slid on the ice, almost losing his balance before finding his footing. Hjalmar filled the opening. Glorious warmth and light spilled out around his thick, tall frame, and the older man’s mustache twitched in irritation.

Hjalmar folded his arms over his chest and took a step forward, crowding the small, raised area. “What are ye doing here, ya little shite?”

“You owe me money! Hand it over or I’ll set the guards on you!”

Vidar’s raised hand and pointed finger didn’t do much to impress Hjalmar with the seriousness of the situation.

“Don’t ye think I know ye’ve been tossed out on yer arse, lad? Even yer own father doesn’t want ya no more. Yer poison to the business! That last book was a nightmare. Ye even changed the ending! What kind of scribe does that?”

Heat rose in Vidar’s face, but he refused to back down. No one ever spoke to him like that. “And whose fault is it I’m out here in the cold? Yours!”

Hjalmar gave a resigned sigh. “Look, lad. I didn’t want ye to get thrown out like that, but ye can’t blame anyone but yerself. Certainly not me for returning yer shoddy work. I’ll give ye a little something just to get ye away from my door. Yes?”

“I don’t need your pity!” Vidar spat, poking the much larger man in the gut.

Hjalmar’s face darkened, and before Vidar knew what was going on, he landed on the snow-covered cobblestones with a painful thud. The back of his head struck something solid.

Vidar groaned and pointed up at Hjalmar. “That’s it! Guards! Guards!”

“Look at ye, ya bastard! Who do ye think the constabulary will listen to?” Hjalmar bellowed, now equally incensed. “They’ll haul ye to jail!”

People stopped to watch what the commotion was about. Vidar’s thin layer of clothing quickly grew damp in the snow. He got his feet under him and stood, brushing sleet off himself with increasingly numb fingers. If he didn’t get out of the cold soon, things would take a turn for the worse. Still, he persisted.

“Don’t make me get physical!”

Hjalmar, that bastard, chuckled just as a trio of guardsmen pushed through the gathering crowd of onlookers. They rushed up to the short set of stairs leading to Hjalmar’s door.

“What is going on here?” the foremost one barked. His bloodshot gaze and purple nose spoke of one with a near and dear relationship with liquor, but the short sword hanging on his hip and the heavy-looking iron medallion fastened to his chain mail tunic gave him all the authority he needed.

“Now you’re in trouble!” Vidar shouted, stamping closer while ignoring the wetness creeping into his boots. “Guards, arrest this man!”

The guard’s tired eyes swiveled to Vidar for the briefest moment before he turned to Hjalmar. “Is this hoodlum bothering you?”

Vidar furrowed his brow and shouted, “What?”

Hjalmar looked past the guard and gave Vidar a disappointed shake of his head. “Ye brought this on yerself, lad.” He then turned to the guard, pointing at Vidar. “The boy is harassing me, trying to get silver for imagined slights.”

“You owe me!” Vidar said, taking a step past one of the guards who had yet to speak. This one didn’t look much better than the one taking the lead.

A fist came out of nowhere and struck Vidar straight in the belly, doubling him over and sending him back down to the ground to roll in the snow. For a brief moment, Vidar thought something inside him broke, because it was impossible to breathe. When he finally managed a ragged breath, what little he’d eaten that day gushed out.

The guard who’d punched him looked down at him in disgust and raised a foot before pressing it down on Vidar’s side. Pain blossomed in Vidar’s midsection, and he wordlessly cried out.

“Now wait a moment,” he heard Hjalmar say.

“Get back inside, citizen!” one of the guards barked, pushing Hjalmar back into his house. “The Crown will deal with this miscreant!”

Click.

That bastard even locked the door behind him. At that moment, Vidar didn’t care. The crunching in his body from that boot muted all other sounds in his mind. Pain surged throughout his body, and his face was still covered in that ever-present snow.

Away. He needed to get away.

He looked up and forward and reached an arm out, attempting to crawl.

“Oh no you don’t.”

The boot pressed down harder. Vidar’s vision spun, and he felt the need to puke again. Someone laughed and then several onlookers jeered. A different sound broke through his daze. Steps. Many fast steps by quick feet getting nearer.

“Urgh,” the one standing above him said. The boot disappeared as the fat man’s leg bent enough for all that weight to come crashing down right next to Vidar. An arrow stuck out of the back of his knee.

A small, cold hand grasped Vidar’s still-outstretched left hand. “Come quick!”

Vidar let himself be pulled to his feet as the other two guards swore, pulled their weapons out of their sheaths, and approached to help their fallen friend.

People were shouting now, but Vidar ignored them. The act of standing up required all the will he could muster, and his first step almost made him give up then and there. Everything hurt. Then someone wrapped an arm around his shoulder to help him along, and Vidar thought he saw double. It’d been a girl who pulled him to his feet. Now there were two of her, looking exactly the same. No, he thought, blinking. The second one wore a thick scarf around her neck.

“Hurry up, dummy!” the one pulling him along urged as she stashed away a small bow by threading it over her head. She looked back then, her large eyes widening even further. “Who are you?”

“What?” Vidar mumbled, too groggy to comprehend what was going on with all these doppelgangers helping him.

The nearest guardsman was closing on their hobbled walk, and Vidar shook his head violently to clear it. He gritted his teeth and managed a little more speed, just enough to stay out of the guard’s outstretched sword. The guard was put off balance and slipped on a patch of ice, going down to the cobblestones. Unfortunately, he did not impale himself on his weapon.

“Hey, Siv, it’s not Bjorn!”

The one half carrying him turned her face to Vidar, then furrowed her brow. She turned back to the one pulling him along, who had to be her sister, and let out a short, guttural noise while giving the first girl a determined look.

“Fine,” the girl up front sighed. “Come along then, stranger. Better hurry, or they’ll catch us!”

Each step was a little easier than the one preceding it, and the small group of three outpaced the larger men, if barely. He was soon able to make do without the two girls propping him up.

“We’re going to sharply turn right soon, stranger,” the scarf-less girl shouted. “Be ready.”

“What?” Vidar asked, looking over his shoulder. He shouldn’t have done that. Something frozen and covered with snow blocked his foot and made him trip, sending him to the cold, hard ground for the third time. His surprised yell abruptly stopped when his face landed in the snow.

Clawing at the ground to get up on his hands and feet, Vidar turned to look behind him once more at the quickly approaching guards.

The two girls ran in place a little further down the street. “Let’s go!”

Vidar glanced at them, then peered back as he got to his feet. He blinked, confused. “Lytir?”

A peculiar vagrant who frequented the street where his family lived. Vidar would often stop and talk to him, and would occasionally bring a bit of food to the man, along with a book or two. He hadn’t been there a second earlier, but now Lytir lounged against the wall of a tanner’s workshop, his legs stretched out before him despite the snow.

Both guardsmen tripped on the vagrant’s outstretched legs; one at a time they all fell again. They shouted and swore, but Vidar didn’t stay to listen.

“Took you long enough!” the girl said once Vidar caught up. “Get in!”

When she’d said sharp turn, the girl had meant it. It wasn’t a street, not even close. A narrow gap between two houses continued on as far as he could see. “You want us to go in there?” he asked.

The guards were up on their feet again and were racing toward them. Instead of answering, the girl shoved Vidar in. He had to go sideways, with his face almost touching the cold stone of the house wall, or he wouldn’t fit at all. Crab-walking like that was slow going, but he soon cleared enough room for one of the girls to follow behind, then the third.

The three of them were breathing hard, but this was not the time to stop. One of the guards showed up in the gap and tried pushing himself between the houses to no avail. He was too big. Instead, he reached in, narrowly missing the last girl’s sleeve with the tip of his fingers. If he’d stabbed with his sword, the cold metal would have reached far enough for a killing thrust.

“Get back here!” the guard yelled.

No one answered him.

The guard swore. “Go around!”

“There’s no way we can get away fast enough through here,” Vidar said through ragged breath.

“Don’t worry,” the girl said.

“I’m worried.”

A hand appeared on his shoulder and squeezed. “Just keep at it. My sister and I don’t get caught. Ever. There are many narrow gaps like this around here. This one goes on and on with plenty of ways out if you’re small enough. Good thing you’re so tiny.”

“I’m not that small,” Vidar grunted.

“Small and looks like an imp.” The girl giggled. “Doesn’t he?”

Vidar felt the question was directed at the girl’s sister, but he answered anyway. “I’m a man. Don’t even know what an imp is.”

He kept walking until the girl tapped him and gestured to the side, where a slightly wider gap opened up. Vidar turned, finally feeling like the buildings weren’t pressing down on his chest anymore, like he could breathe in the cold air properly. “What’s your name, girl?”

The girl pointed at her face. An earnest one, Vidar thought. It was dirty and framed by hair dark enough to look black. Her nose was a little too large for her narrow face, and her eyes were too far apart.

“I’m Ida.”

Ida pointed at the other girl who’d yet to say a single word. “This is Siv, my sister. She doesn’t talk.”

“Vidar,” Vidar said, eyeing Siv. “Why doesn’t she talk?”

“That’s not a polite question.”

The wider gap between buildings made it so the wind constantly blew through, making the sweat on Vidar’s back icy cold. He shuddered and hugged himself, noticing how his fingers were a deep purple. That couldn’t be good.

“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

“I’ve got a shirt on,” Vidar grunted, peering over Ida’s shoulder to make sure the guards weren’t following.

“Outside clothes, dummy. Even a boy like you should know to dress for the weather, no?”

“Told you, I’m a man. Also, I was robbed. A ruffian stole my coat and my silver two days ago.”

Just the mention of losing his money made Vidar’s stomach rumble. Finding food when you didn’t have money was quite the challenge, he’d realized.

“That’s no good,” Ida said, looking at her sister.

Siv shook her head and made another grunting sound, agreeing.

“Do you have any food?” Vidar asked.

“We don’t carry food around with us. How about a thank-you for saving you?”

“At least jail would have been warm,” Vidar complained.

Ida chuckled. “You don’t know much, do you?”

Vidar’s face grew warm despite the cold. “And you do?”

Siv grabbed her sister’s coat sleeve, pulling on it.

“I know we have to go,” Ida said to her sister before turning to Vidar. “Look, we thought you were someone else, or we wouldn’t have helped you. Running from those guards is no biggie, but tussling with them? That we try and steer clear of doing.”

Siv shook her face gravely.

“Thank you,” Vidar said.

“Slow to follow, are you? What I’m saying is, you look and talk and do stuff like you don’t have a clue. Why are you out here looking like this? Did the robber take your map back home or something?”

“No,” Vidar grumbled.

“Then what are you doing?”

“It’s not polite to ask,” Vidar said.

Ida raised an eyebrow in a questioning look that made her appear wise beyond her years. “If you can go home, you should, is all I’m saying.”

Vidar stamped his feet, trying to regain some feeling in his toes. “I can’t.”

She gave him a searching look, then turned to her sister. “What do you think? Do we bring him?”

“Bring?” Vidar asked. He would love to be brought. Anywhere was better than here.

Ida ignored him, giving all attention to her sister. Siv looked from Ida to Vidar, then back again. Vidar felt his whole future hanging in the balance and did his utmost to appear harmless and friendly, giving her a toothy smile. Her large, wet eyes regarded him for the longest time before giving the tiniest of nods.

“Guess you’re coming,” Ida said.

A guard shouted somewhere nearby and Ida’s gaze darted, seemingly in all directions at once. “We better go.”

“Where are we going?” Vidar asked, hurrying after, back into the narrow pathway between houses.

“East.”

He blinked and swallowed to suppress a sudden wave of nausea. “East? You’re not taking me to Andersburg, are you?”

She didn’t even turn around to look at him. “Mhm.”

“R-rat Town?”

That made her chuckle. “Wow, you really are new to this. Where did you think we’d be taking you, the keep? Want to get all snuggly with the prince himself?”

“But that place is dangerous!”

They all stopped to listen for a moment. Hearing nothing, Ida must have felt safe enough to stop and talk. “Look at our clothes and face, then look at yours. Dirty. Rat Town is safe enough if you know your way around. Stick with us and you’ll be fine, boy.”

“I’m nineteen,” Vidar grumbled. “Also, there is no prince in the keep.”

“What do you mean, there’s no prince?” Ida looked shocked.

Vidar shook his head, not understanding her reaction. “This is Halmstadt. No one from the royal family lives here. There’s a steward assigned to our city on behalf of some duke or another.”

Ida looked ready to cry. “How are we supposed to rob a prince if there’s none here?” She looked over Vidar’s shoulder to Siv. “Did you know? You didn’t, did you?”

The gap was barely wide enough for Vidar to be able to turn his head to see Siv shaking her head violently. Frustration warred with disappointment on the mute girl’s face.

Perplexed, Vidar spoke slowly. “If you want to rob a prince, and it’s not something I’d advise, you need to travel to the capital, Stalheim.”

Ida narrowed her eyes. “How far is that?”

“I don’t know,” Vidar admitted. “Weeks? It’s all the way to the east, by the other end of the country somewhere.” He’d seen maps and even helped copy them, but he never cared much about geography.

Ida groaned. “Forget it.”

Then she narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Did you say you’re nineteen years old?”

He nodded.

“But you’re so short.”

“Height has nothing to do with age!”

His anger only made her laugh. “You’re my height and I’m only fourteen!”

Siv giggled behind him.

Vidar spoke slowly through clenched teeth. “Like I said—”

“We’re just messing with you. It’s a good thing you don’t look your age, or we wouldn’t be able to take you with us.”

“No?”

“Embla would never allow it.”

“Who’s Embla? Your mother?”

That set them both off again, and they kept breaking out into giggles for the longest time as they moved along one narrow path after another. Only when they emerged into the open street again did they quiet.

Ida peered left, then right, then left again before waving for Vidar to follow.

Vidar didn’t have the first clue where in the city they were. Not in a part he’d ever frequented, of that much he was sure. It was quickly getting dark, and he spotted several lurking figures on the street. The people hurrying in either direction on the street kept to themselves, and their furtive glances told Vidar it was best to stay away. A pack of four scrawny dogs rushed past, all of them barking and wagging their tails as they chased what looked like a hare.

Even with the cold and the snow, the smell made his nose twitch.

Ida must have caught it, because she patted his back. “Welcome to Rat Town. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to the smell in no time.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Ida and Siv set off, walking side by side, and Vidar followed. She turned and winked at him. “At least the guards rarely come to Andersburg.”

As they walked past a side street, he caught the glint of metal in the corner of his eye. Turning, he saw the flash of a knife flourish that ended right by the eye of what Vidar thought was a beggar in tatters. A few coins exchanged hands and then the assailant was gone, all in the span it took for the three of them to pass by. Hurrying to catch up, Vidar shuddered, and not from the oppressive cold.

“How long until we’re there?”

“Not far now.”

The two girls walked along with almost a skip in their step, holding hands like they hadn’t just entered the most dangerous part of Halmstadt. By the time they turned onto a different street for the third time, Vidar was hopelessly lost. It’d take all night finding his way back if something went amiss. Not that he had anything to find his way back to. Hjalmar had been a long shot, even if it’d felt good to shout at him some. Vidar would get his revenge on the man one of these days. He’d show them all.

“We’re here,” Ida said, gesturing for yet another side street.

By then, it was full dark.

“Where’s here?” Vidar asked, glancing suspiciously into the darkness. This could still be a trap or an ambush or something.

“If this part of town is called Rat Town, then this has to be the Rats’ Nest,” Ida said, smiling. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him into a dark alley with run-down, single-story stone houses. Three thin wooden doors led into the side of each house. They didn’t look like proper entrances, and by the way these parts of the houses protruded, Vidar thought they were shacks of some sort.

“This is you,” Ida said, banging on one of the doors. “It’s me. Open up!”

The sound of shuffling feet rose from inside, heading for the door.

“See you tomorrow,” Ida said, giving him another wink. She headed for one of the other doors where Siv already waited, then stopped and turned back. “If anyone asks, tell them you’re sixteen, yes?”

Vidar shrugged. “Very well.”

The strangeness of the situation, coupled with the eerie silence hanging over the nearby streets, set him on edge. What sort of strange situation had he stumbled into?

That’s when the door flung open and almost struck Vidar’s face. A sullen-looking boy of perhaps nine years peered out. “Who’re you, then?”

“Shut the door!” someone yelled from within the dark room. “You’re letting the cold in!”

“I’m Vidar. Ida invited me.”

The boy glanced around the dark street, but Ida and Siv were already gone. Then he shrugged, stepped aside, and lifted up his coat to show the hilt of a knife stuck down his pants. “Come on, then. Just don’t get any funny ideas, you hear? I’m deadly with the blade.”

“I’m sure,” Vidar murmured.

He stepped inside, and the door closed and locked behind him. The only light was the faint line coming from outside, the moon peeking through the empty lock. A hand pulled him down to the straw-covered dirt floor and then to the side so he touched the stone wall.

Someone shoved a blanket into his hand. “You can use this.”

“Thank you,” Vidar said, wrapping the threadbare cloth around him before leaning against the wall. In the darkness, he couldn’t make out how many people slept all around him, or even how large the room was. In that moment, he didn’t care. It was warm. That was enough. In Vidar’s exhausted state, sleep took him almost straight away.

The door slammed open, startling Vidar awake with a gasp. Cold air rushed in to fill the tiny room in an instant, waking all those who dwelled within. To his surprise, there were twelve boys all in all, sleeping all over the floor of the tiny, unfurnished room. They huddled together in piles under threadbare blankets. Only Vidar sat half-upright against the wall by himself. He’d been dreaming of his old bed, with its thick covers and the heat rune glimmering on the wall. No matter the weather and temperature outside, his room was always perfect. Except it was his room no longer.

He grunted and rubbed at his eyes, half blinded by the light coming from outside. It wasn’t fully light out, not yet, but the difference from the pitch-black darkness of the room was enough to hurt his eyes momentarily.

When they grew used to the change, he pointed and screamed. “You!”

“Shuuuut uuup,” someone complained from one of the piles.

“Just a few more minutes,” a second boy groaned.

The tall, broad young man who’d opened the door gave Vidar an uninterested glance, then shouted into the room. “Whoever isn’t up and ready in five minutes goes without food! Embla’s orders!”

Just the mention of food was almost enough to make Vidar jump into line with the others hurrying outside. Almost.

“You stole my coat! Where is it?”

The lad, a rough-looking teenager with a scar on his left cheek, and a cut on his right that had yet to heal, lowered the hood of his warm-looking, if worn, coat. “Who’re you?”

Vidar gaped. “You don’t remember? You stole all my money and my damn coat two days ago!”

“Oh?” A decidedly unfriendly smile crept across the assailant’s face. “Now I remember. How’s the lip?”

It was still a little swollen. Worse now after taking that beating from the guardsmen.

“Give me back my coat! I don’t care about the silver, just the coat!”

The others stopped to stare, a whole bunch of boys of varying ages. The youngest couldn’t have been more than seven years old. This man, the ruffian, was the oldest one of the bunch.

“It’s a nice coat and the nights are cold. What’ll you give me for it?”

“You’re not even using it!”

Ida and Siv emerged from a door farther down the street, followed by some other girls. None of them were as young as the youngest boy, but Vidar doubted any had seen more than the fourteen years claimed by Ida.

Emboldened by their appearance, Vidar pressed his luck with a bluff, putting one hand in his pocket and taking a threatening stance. “I have a knife.”

The thug drew a long, slightly crooked knife with no handguard from his coat. “So do I.”

Vidar swallowed hard as his gaze fixed on one of the many spots of rust on the dirty blade. He definitely did not want that thing anywhere near him. “Then we’re at a stalemate, aren’t we?”

“You think?” the thug asked, taking a step forward.

“That’s enough, Torbjorn,” Ida said, stepping in between them with Siv at her heel. “You know what Embla thinks of stealing and robbing.”

A wave of relief washed over Vidar, but he did his utmost not to show it as he stepped back. Torbjorn grunted and flicked his wrist, and suddenly the knife was nowhere to be seen.

“Why don’t you just return the coat and keep the coin?” Ida asked. “That way, no one risks taking a blade to the ribs before breakfast.” She stepped up in front of Vidar, and Siv gave him an encouraging nod.

Torbjorn glared over Ida’s shoulder at Vidar, but then finally relented. “Fine.”

He walked around the corner and returned within a minute, holding the coat. Vidar’s teeth were chattering from the intense cold, and he greedily snatched it from the ruffian’s outstretched hand. With it wrapped around him, and with the small sliver of a brighter sky visible between the roofs of the buildings around the narrow alley, things were starting to look up again.

“You’re welcome,” Torbjorn barked, but Vidar refused to thank the man for returning something he’d stolen after giving Vidar his life’s first beatdown.

Ida eyed the coat, a glimmer of jealousy shining in her gaze. “That is a nice coat.”

It really was. Tailored to fit Vidar’s small build and carefully crafted to make sure no heat escaped. Even with the dirt stains covering the gray and brown fabric, and the new blotch of dried blood on one of the sleeves, it was leagues beyond what the others were wrapping around their thin, huddled frames.

“Thank you. It was a present,” Vidar said, his stomach rumbling. “You mentioned something about breakfast?”

Ida awarded him a crooked smile and nodded for him to follow the rest of the group as they trudged together as one out onto the wider thoroughfare, going straight through Andersburg.

Even with the coat on, the cold was almost too much to bear. Icy wind whipped through his hair and the sleet easily bested his boots’ ability to stave off the wet. If not for the shape of the other younger boys and girls, he’d complain. Now, he swallowed those complaints in favor of focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

By the time they’d made it to their destination, his toes were starting to go numb. People of all shapes, sizes, and colors rushed back and forth in the early morning. What they were in such a hurry to get to, he didn’t have a clue. Some surely held on to simple occupations, but most inhabitants in this part of town lived off of the generosity of the Crown, the clergy, or from stealing and begging, he was sure. In this cold, very few would sit on some corner with a sign, pretending to be blind or sick for people to throw them scraps.

The one exception Vidar knew of was Lytir. No matter how cold, he’d lounge on the street somewhere near Vidar’s father’s house, reading a book or ridiculing passersby. How that man kept himself alive was anyone’s guess. Once, when Vidar was much younger, he’d asked the vagrant how he got food when he never begged for it like the others. Lytir just laughed and told Vidar he didn’t get hungry or cold, then started in on some story about bears sleeping in caves.

Vidar walked into someone’s back and snapped back to the moment at hand.

“We’re here,” Ida said as one of the other girls opened a door to what looked like an abandoned barn. The inside was one large, single room. The floor was straw-covered hard mud, but a few benches stood haphazardly near the walls where open flame torches burned merrily, giving some semblance of light. Food waited for them in the middle of the room, a large cauldron with a fire going under it, on a slightly raised platform of stone.

“Don’t you people have any light or warmth runes?” Vidar asked, shuffling into the room behind a pair of young boys with red hair, a rare color in most of Sveland. In this town, Halmstadt, you could occasionally see colors other than brown or black, since they were near the border to Dennerland in the southwest, where many looked like their heads were on fire with that red hair of theirs, and Noriland, where lighter shades were common.

“Runes? Look around you, newcomer,” one of the redheaded boys squeaked. “Does it look like we’re swimming in gold?”

“They’re… expensive?” Vidar asked. He hadn’t really thought about it. Light and warmth runes were common enough in the houses he visited when delivering books and maps for his father, and they certainly weren’t lacking in his father’s house.

The hoodlums just shook their heads at him in disbelief. That confirmed it, runes were expensive. At least to those living under these sorts of conditions. Vidar thought about buying a warmth rune to stick under his coat the very first night he spent away from home, but soon realized it would be like using thick paper and luxurious ink for a children’s tale. They always ended up torn to pieces by small hands, no matter the material. One warmth rune would not last him long before running out of essence, much less the entire winter, even if he bought one from a master rune scribe, and even he knew those would be prohibitively expensive.

“If you’re so rich, why don’t you buy us some of those runes, then?” a girl asked, her voice shrill and loud as she spoke over the sound of people filling their bowls with the contents of the cauldron, a thick gruel.

“What are runes?” a boy asked, peering over the rim of a cup.

Vidar didn’t pay them any mind. He was busy trying to reach for some food himself. After finally snatching up the ladle to dump some of the gray mess that bubbled merrily in the cauldron, and a cup of cold water, Vidar looked around for a free spot on a bench near one of the torches. None were free. He’d been too slow.

Torbjorn’s deep voice sounded over the hubbub. He sat by the torch farthest from the door. “The new boy has not worked. He should not eat.”

“He’ll work today,” Ida said, her mouth full of bread.

“Work?” Vidar asked.

“You don’t eat and sleep for free anymore, newcomer,” someone in the throng said.

“You don’t have anyone to wipe your ass for you anymore,” another added.

A boy near the entrance coughed in his hand to hide another jeer. “Rich boy!”

Talking back after that stupid comment while wearing a coat obviously more luxurious than anything they would be able to afford did not seem like it would be in Vidar’s best interest, so he kept his mouth shut and ate. Despite the meager offerings, it tasted like a feast, and the water soothed his parched throat like the finest of wines.

Without warning, they began shuffling out into the cold again and Vidar hurriedly shoveled the last bit of gruel into his mouth and emptied his cup. Ida walked up front with her ever-present, silent sister at her side. He hurried up to them, buttoning his coat to keep his body heat from escaping. Heavy snow drifted down from the sky. What a terrible time to be without proper warmth.

“What kind of work do you, we, do? How much does it pay?”

Her tousled hair quickly collected flakes of snow. A few fell to her shoulders as she whipped her head back and forth, like a dog trying to dry off after swimming. “We all do different jobs depending on what we’re suited to.”

Siv gave Ida a quick shove and pouted.

“You’re right, Siv. Not all jobs we get are suited to us, but we take what we can get. Embla decides, and if you don’t like it, you don’t eat and you don’t sleep that day.”

“Harsh,” Vidar said.

Ida shrugged. “It is what it is.”

Torbjorn was walking nearby, and he grunted. “We don’t get paid.”

Vidar looked back at him, then to Ida. “Is that true?”

“The work we do only covers the cost of our food and the rooms we sleep in.”

“That can’t be right,” Vidar muttered. “What jobs do you two do?”

“Usually, Embla sends us to a seamstress shop where we help make a bunch of pants and trousers. That’s why our fingers look like this.”

She pulled her glove off and shoved the tips of her fingers in Vidar’s face. They were covered with healed, and not so healed, pinpricks. “It’s not so bad, though. Sometimes she gives us clothes that someone made a mistake on. She even gave us these!” Ida pulled up her pant legs and lifted her foot to show a thick-looking sock.

Siv mimicked her sister, showing a similar wool sock over a skinny, incredibly pale leg.

“Clothes are nice and all, but how do you buy things if you don’t make any money?”

Ida’s face reddened. “Like Torbjorn.”

“You rob people?”

Torbjorn laughed mirthlessly.

“My sister and I aren’t intimidating enough for that, and we’re too big now to pick pockets effectively, so we found someone who agreed to teach us how to pick locks and jimmy open windows.”

“So you’re burglars?” Vidar frowned.

“This one really has no clue, eh?” Torbjorn asked, pushing Vidar aside to take the front of the line before turning onto a new, smaller street.

Ida followed and turned back to shrug her narrow shoulders. “Only when we have to. It’s survival, you know?”

They stopped by a door to a two-story house that wasn’t quite as run-down as the ones surrounding it. The windows on the bottom floor glowed yellow from the light within. By then, the sun was almost up, but the light still gave the place an inviting air, like Vidar and the others were expected. Torbjorn banged on a surprisingly sturdy front door. The dull thuds spoke of a thickness to the wood that’d been severely lacking in the shack the others called home, and in the barn where they ate.

Heavy footsteps approached the door on the inside. Ida pulled on Vidar’s arm and leaned in to whisper into his ear. “Those who don’t follow the law are thrown out by Embla. Don’t tell her anything.”

“She doesn’t know?”

“I think she knows that most of us here have”—she cleared her throat—“interesting activities other than work, but as long as we’re not caught, she doesn’t care. If someone catches you, you’re on your own.”

“I’m not planning on breaking the law,” Vidar said as the door opened on smooth, silent hinges, before following the others inside.

Ida spoke from behind, her voice partially drowned out by the chatter of the young boys and girls excitedly trying to enter the house all at once. “You think any of us planned for this?”

A set of stairs leading up to the second floor faced the front door, but everyone veered left into a large sitting room where rough wooden benches lined the walls.

Fire danced in a fireplace by the right wall, giving plenty of warmth. Lanterns with burning candles hung above the benches, placed high enough that those seated below didn’t need to worry about hitting their heads on the simple metal fixtures.

The main feature of the room was a sizable wooden desk that actually appeared to have been crafted by someone who knew what they were doing. With treated, oil-darkened wood and sanded-down surfaces, it wouldn’t have been out of place in his father’s office.

Behind it sat a thin woman with blond hair in a thick braid resting over her left shoulder, blue eyes with dark rings under them, and a stern expression on her face. The small nose and thin lips did little to liven up her expression, and the way she sat with a very straight back reminded him of a teacher who would accept no nonsense from anyone. He was familiar with the type.

“Embla?” he whispered to the boy to his left, one of the redheaded lads.

The young woman immediately turned to him, her gaze as stiff as her back. “You are new.” Her voice was surprisingly soft. Still, it carried through the room, and everyone immediately fell silent.

“I am,” Vidar confirmed, doing his best to hold eye contact without fidgeting.

Ida raised her hand. “I brought him.”

“Ate our food,” one of the urchins muttered.

“A rich boy,” someone else added.

A few of the younger boys and girls giggled.

Embla silenced the room with a look, then focused back on Vidar with a searching look. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Name?”

“Vidar.”

“You have not been one of us for long, judging by your clothing. What brings you here, Vidar?”

The intense attention from this blond stick and her questions made Vidar’s eye twitch and put some heat into his words.

“Why do you care?”

One of the girls gasped and several others started squirming in their seats. Ida shot him a warning look.

Embla’s expression didn’t change. “I am the organizer here in our little nest. You ate our food, which means you owe me a day’s work. If I don’t know anything about you, then how can I assign you a task for the day? Perhaps you’d enjoy collecting frozen cow dung outside the gate?”

That prospect did not sound thrilling. “I’m a scribe.”

“A scribe would not have any need of my services,” Embla said, raising an eyebrow.

“Not a very good scribe,” Vidar admitted.

He glared at the others in the room, daring them to laugh.

“But you can read?”

“Of course I can read.”

“Aside from me, I suspect you’re the only one in this room who can.”

Vidar looked around, seeing some sullen glares and uncomfortable looks. Only Ida and Siv seemed to think the whole thing amusing, considering the badly suppressed laughs they were trying to hide.

“Oh.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t get many assignments with that requirement, but I do have one.”

Torbjorn suddenly burst out laughing and Embla shot him a look of irritation. “Torbjorn, you know your assignment.”

Torbjorn’s laugh shifted into a giggle as he moved to leave. He said something, but Vidar didn’t quite make it out. He thought it sounded like shit goblin , but that couldn’t be right.

Once the big lout was gone, Embla looked at the others. “Ida, Siv. Seamstress.”

“Yes, Embla,” Ida said, pulling her sister along. She shot a grin Vidar’s way as they left. “See you tonight.”

“Torkel, Johan, Knytt. You’ll be helping Haraldson with cleaning the barracks today. You know where to go?”

“Yes, Embla.”

It continued like that for a few minutes, with Embla reading off a list and assigning tasks. All of them were rather mundane, unskilled labor, but that was to be expected in a place like this. Not much room for specialization.

Most of the room cleared out. Only Vidar and three other boys remained. They all looked to be older, but not quite of an age with Torbjorn.

One of the remaining boys spoke up when Embla let the silence settle. “Are we digging graves again?”

“Yes.”

They started shuffling out of the room, but Embla stopped them. “Hold on a moment, boys.”

“There is a job that keeps landing in my lap that pays a little better than most,” she said, turning to Vidar. “And you won’t be out in the cold doing it.”

That got his attention. “That means I’ll get money, not just stale bread, bean paste, and suspect cheese?”

Embla’s gaze hardened. “No. It means you and your new friends can get a little more food and some thicker blankets. We all work together here.”

“What did you eat this fine morning?” Vidar asked.

Embla kept her face neutral but did not answer. Instead, she asked, “Do you want to hear about this job or not?”

“Fine.”

“It requires navigating using a map and following guided markers underground.”

He frowned. “Underground?”

“The water and offal systems both run underneath our feet. Your job would be to traverse these pathways and clear reported blockages.”

“Our drinking water runs parallel with everyone’s shit?”

“It does. Kept separate, as I understand it, but not by much.”

“You’ve never been down there?” he asked, nodding to the papers before her on the desk. “You are obviously able to read.”

“I’m too big.”

“What?”

“That ‘what’ makes finding someone for this so difficult. The entrances are quite narrow. Whoever takes it upon themselves to go down there must be small, short, and like I said, able to read and follow a map.”

“I’m not that small,” Vidar muttered.

The three boys waiting to leave all chuckled.

Vidar eyed them but didn’t comment. “So what are the downsides? It sounds a simple enough task.”

“You’ll smell like shit!” one of the boys blurted, then he eyed Embla nervously and shut his mouth.

“What?” Vidar asked.

Embla closed her eyes and rubbed at her temple. “The smell down there is reportedly not pleasant, and the odor…” She paused briefly. “Lingers.”

“Torbjorn did say shit goblin!”

“It’s what we called the last boy who went down there. Bjorn the Shit Goblin was foul!” that first boy said. Bjorn. That was the name Ida mentioned.

Another added, “We all hated that boy, made it impossible to sleep. The whole shack smelled like poo!”

“Boys,” Embla said, exasperation dripping from her tone of voice.

“Well, it’s true!”

“Wait,” Vidar said, narrowing his eyes. “Those blockages. Are they made from shit?”

“No.”

“No?”

Embla sighed. “Corpses, mostly.”

“What?”

“The water intakes are all by the sea. Many of our city’s less fortunate cannot afford funerals with the church, so they dump their loved ones. Similarly, the guild, and many others, often dispose of their victims into pits that lead directly to the sewer mains.”

“Great,” Vidar muttered.

“You get to go through their pockets before you remove them,” Embla offered.

“And keep what I find?”

“Half of what you find.”

“And you get the other half?”

She nodded. “That’s right.”

One of the boys snickered. “ Shit goblin. ”

“Stop that,” Embla said, shaking her head in disappointment.

“It does not sound like an opportunity for me,” Vidar said. That was putting it mildly. Very little about that this arrangement made sense. Unpaid labor made all these young boys and girls little better than slaves.

“You ate our food. You owe us a day’s labor. Then you may leave and do whatever suits your fancy, little boy,” Embla said. “If you wish, you may go with these fine young men here and dig graves in the frozen ground for the church of the fallen angels.”

Vidar looked between the stern girl and the three boys. “You mentioned a boy going down there to work. What happened to him?”

“One day, he went down into the system and did not return,” Embla said simply.

“He just vanished?” Vidar asked.

“The shadow men took him,” one of the boys said.

“What’s that?” Vidar asked, eyes widening.

Embla shook her head and suddenly looked very tired. “It’s nothing. Just a legend the older boys use to scare the little ones.”

“Nu-uh,” the boy said. “Haven’t you heard? A bunch of people have seen them! Shadows walking around by themselves!”

“Have you seen one?” Embla asked.

“Well, no.”

She turned to Vidar. “Superstition. At your age, you should know better. The boy simply exited the system somewhere else and decided not to return here with my lantern. Or key.”

“Lantern?”

“It’s dark down there in most places, so you have to bring a runelight. The boy probably sold it while the rune still retained some of its power. Cost us a lot to replace it.”

“Why not a regular lantern, then?” Vidar asked. “You used regular lanterns in the barn thing where you served the slop.”

Embla gave him a sharp look. “It’s what we can afford. Fire is not recommended down there. Something about the air itself catching fire.”

Vidar’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”

“The excrement does something to the air. I didn’t ask for an explanation.” She held out a folded piece of paper to him. “Do you want the job or not?”

He took it and opened what turned out to be a map of the southeastern part of the city. The building they were standing in, Embla’s house, was clearly marked. Arrows pointed to two other points on the map. One was in an alley and the other was in the middle of a street. Instructions were written next to the origin of the arrows.

The letters danced before his eyes, gliding this way and that, some even trading places. Vidar squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. It helped. A little.

“What is this?” he asked.

“A map, clearly. The instructions are where you are to descend and how you should navigate to find the most likely location of the blockages. This is an easy job compared to most. As long as you follow the directions, you won’t get lost down there.”

Vidar cleared his throat and looked away while handing the map back. “No, thank you.”

“No?” Embla asked.

“Disappearing into the dark is not something I’m prepared to risk,” Vidar replied. “Even if everything works as you say, I’ll always smell like shit. I might be down on my luck at the moment, but I’ve not fallen so far as to roll around in the muck with the pigs.”

“Grave digging it is,” Embla said, her face betraying no emotion.

Vidar followed the three boys out into the cold. They were all taller than him despite their young years, and they sped through the falling snow with such speed that he had to run to keep pace and not lose them in the winding streets. The biting chill mercilessly stung his bare hands and face, but at least he had his coat.

“Hey, where are we going?” he shouted at their backs.

One of them turned around briefly to gesture toward a pointy structure rising over the rooftops in the distance. A church.

Smoke rose nearby, and when they drew close, a blazing fire roared near the ancient stone structure.

The tightly packed houses made way for an open space where Vidar figured there’d be grass under the snow. Bare trees dotted the short distance from the street to the entrance of the church, stretching their dead-looking black branches in all directions. A thin layer of snow covered everything.

“I’m Sven,” the boy who’d pointed said once they made it to their destination. The church towered up above them, but Vidar’s eyes were fixed on the flames. Two men with bent backs and gray beards kept fueling the fire with what looked like old pieces of broken furniture.

“Why the fire?” Vidar asked.

A third man exited the church, this one a little younger. He wore a dark gray robe identifying him as a member of the clergy. The priest approached and handed each of the boys, and Vidar, a shovel. This new man was completely bald and his ears were red from the cold. From under the robes, a pair of bare feet pointed outward, the toes buried in the snow. The priest didn’t speak a single word, but the fire in his gaze as he made a gesture, blessing them, made Vidar shiver.

Sven struck the snow-covered ground with the end of his shovel. A metallic clang was the only result. “Ice in the ground. The fire melts it so we can dig a little.”

Vidar leaned in and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “What is with that priest?”

“What do you mean?”

“His eyes. They looked like a madman’s, and his feet were bare!”

The boy shrugged. “They’re all like that. You get used to it. Haven’t you ever seen a priest before?”

“My family was never very religious,” Vidar grunted.

He’d seen priests walking the street before, but never in winter and never this close.

“Don’t say that out loud here or they’ll have the fallen angels smite you!” the second young man said, looking around with wide eyes like a little boy.

Vidar glanced at the priest’s back. He’d walked over to the men tending the fire to speak with them. “What?”

He giggled, and Sven gave him a shove. “Erik is just messing with you. They don’t smite people.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “At least, I’ve never seen them do it.”

“That’s a comfort,” Vidar said. “So, what do we do here?”

“We dig where they tell us to dig. After they put out the fire, that is.”

“And we just stand around until then? It’s freezing here.”

“We’re not allowed to step into the church hall.”

Vidar futilely tried hiding his hands in the sleeves of his coat. They were too short to allow for it. Instead, he started walking. “I’m getting closer to the fire, at least.”

A wind whipped up snow all around them and the three boys looked at each other, then followed. None of them wore anything warmer than what Vidar might have thrown on in late spring. Only Erik wore gloves. The third yet-unnamed boy wore an undyed wool hat pulled down over his ears.

When they made it to the fire, the priest turned to walk off toward the entrance of the church, apparently finished with instructing the old men working for him.

The old men eyed Vidar but said nothing when he approached and put his hands closer to the warmth. Only when the other boys dared approach did one of the old men speak, his voice a low rumble. “It is hallowed ground you tread on, boys. Watch carefully where you step.”

Vidar peered around at the area surrounding the bonfire. Thin wooden poles stuck out of the snow in neat rows all around the church. Some were rotted, while others looked new enough. Graves.

“We’ll be careful,” he promised, looking behind him to see they’d already passed by a few markers.

Vidar stepped even closer, standing as near as he dared. Despite his proximity to the fire, the cold tore at him, leaving his back near enough frozen.

“How long until we can start digging?” he asked. The fire, their only source of heat, would be gone by then. How they were supposed to work all day without freezing to death was anyone’s guess.

To answer his question, the two men began shoveling snow into the fire, making it hiss and bubble. It didn’t take long to put it out.

“Dig,” one of the men said. They then turned and lumbered off to disappear near the main entrance to the church.

Vidar shuddered. “How are we supposed to do this? One hole big enough for a person?”

“No,” Sven said, thrusting the shovel into the ground. It didn’t penetrate far. “We dig one big hole.”

“Then they come with a cart and we dump dead people in there,” Erik added.

The unnamed boy barely got his shovel into the ground at all. Groaning, he added, “Then we put the dirt on them.”

“Just one hole?”

Sven shrugged and stomped on his shovel with the heel of his tattered boot. “A big one.”

The three boys set to digging and Vidar followed along as best he could, hoping to get some warmth into his frozen limbs by moving. It didn’t work very well. With the fire having thawed some of the dirt, the first couple of inches were easy enough, but then it was like trying to shovel your way through solid stone.

Increasingly frustrated, Vidar threw his shovel to the side. “This is impossible!”

The boys snickered. They were slowly, ever so slowly, making their way downward by prying loose bits of frozen ground.

“Why do you think we’re here all day? If anyone else wanted to do this job for as little as us, do you think we’d be here?” Erik said.

“It gets easier in a few hours once we’re past the frozen ground.”

“I’ll be frozen solid myself by then,” Vidar grumbled, hiding his hands in his armpits to try to get some feeling back in them.

“You won’t get food tomorrow if you don’t work,” the unnamed boy said. The little urchin actually grinned at his own comment, like it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever said.

“There has to be a better way of doing this,” Vidar said, looking around and spotting a small wooden door by the side of the church leading into the building. He pointed. “What’s that?”

“It’s where the cart with the dead ones is kept while we work.”

Vidar trudged over, picked up the shovel, and brushed off the snow. “There must be a pickaxe or something in there. Anything to make this ordeal a little more bearable. If the old men return, tell them I went to take a piss somewhere.”

“We’re not allowed in the church!” Sven said, raising his voice.

Vidar turned back and gave a grin of his own. “You only spoke about the church hall. That door, I’m betting, doesn’t lead into the main hall!”

He ignored their protests and walked over to the side of the church. After checking both directions and then glancing back at the boys, who’d resumed their digging, Vidar reached over and pulled on the door, only then noticing a heavy padlock. By all appearances, it’d hung there since the beginning of time.

Vidar drew back and whacked the metal with the flat of his shovel. It didn’t make that sound of metal slamming against metal, and the shovel almost flew out of his hands. Vidar yelped and fell back into the snow, spotting a brief, bluish glimmer around the padlock.

“Dragon’s dung! What was that?” he asked no one, getting back on his feet. The obstacle only made him more determined to get in, and for his second blow, Vidar spun and stepped in to deliver as much force as he could muster, turning the shovel to hit with the side rather than the flat of it.

That blue sheen returned, then flickered as he saw the shovel strike something right in front of the metal, something invisible. Whatever that thing was, it could no longer withstand Vidar’s mighty blows. The third strike broke through and struck the metal with a loud clank. Force transferred from the end of the shovel, up the wooden handle, and then into his hands, arms, and shoulders.

A jolt of pain made him drop the instrument of smashing, but after bending over to pick it back up, he whooped in triumph. The padlock hung open.

“I am unstoppable,” he whispered to himself.