Free Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby

on the wooden rafter.
     
    I smile and look up. He shuffles his little rear end out over the beam. And he squats. His droppings fall right in my hair. I let out a little yelp; everyone laughs. Raudi looks like he’s trying not to laugh, and covers his mouth with his hands. He is distracted when the hall doors open. A blast of frozen wind pushes into the room and sends Muninn flapping and cawing. He staggers into the air and flies straight for the opening, that strip of free sky.
     
    “Raudi!” I shout.
     
    He slams the doors just as Muninn reaches them, and my bird thumps against the wood. Then he turns in the air to find a new perch, frantic wings beating, unable to keep him aloft.
     
    He slowly descends to the floor, where I’m able to scoop him up and drop him back into his cage. I close the side and slide the sticks back in place. Muninn hops and screeches, as if I’m trapping him for the first time.
     
    “I’m so sorry,” Raudi says.
     
    He’s still holding the doors shut, but now lets them go. In walks Per. He glares at Raudi, confused. Then he sees me at the cage.
     
    “You had him out?” he asks me.
     
    I nod. “I think he almost came to my shoulder.”
     
    Harald laughs. “And then he pooped on her head!”
     
    I grimace and raise my hand to hide my hair. I’ll have to brush the droppings out later, after they’ve dried.
     
    Per grins. “He must still be trying to figure if he can trust you.”
     
    “That’s not it,” Ole says. The old man is still sitting in his corner, the net spread over his lap and around his feet. He looks up at me. “You’re the one trying to figure if you can trust
him
. It’s you that needs the cage, not that bird.”
     
    “What do you mean?” I ask.
     
    “Once you’ve trapped a wild animal, he’ll always want out. So you always have to keep him locked up, or else wonder every time you open those bars if this’ll be the day he turns on you and flies away.”
     
    “He’ll come to me,” I say. “I trust him.” But even as I say it, I know I won’t let Muninn go flying around again anytime soon. Perhaps in the hall, but not outside.
     
    Ole looks at the cage, and then goes back to the rope in his hands.
     
    The rest of the afternoon and evening pass uneventfully. We eat our night meal. Alric recites a few stories to make us feel something bigger than the hall we’re trapped in, and then it is time for bed.
     
    I am standing at the cliff, and it all happens as before. The
drekars
, bearing evil. The berserker corpses, open-eyed and pale. The wolf-cloud, snarling destruction. The burning hall and our doom under the glacier’s heel. There is nothing I can do to stop it. I wake with a gasp and lie panting in the darkness. I have had the dream twice now, which means it must be a portent. And then I think of Hake’s suspicions about a spy, watching me from the woods.
     
    Something is coming. The enemy will find us, and maybe already has. I hug myself, feel my own heart beating in my chest, and find it hard to fall back asleep.
     

 
    It was only last Midsummer, Asa, when you tried on one of Mother’s finest dresses for the first time. Father said you were a woman now, and so it was time. I remember you standing there before the fire and how amazed I was at the deep colors in the fabric, the softness of its weave.
     
    “Oh, Asa, you look so beautiful,” I said.
     
    You smiled. For a moment. And then you began to cry. You fell to your knees and wept into your hands, and I looked around confused, not knowing what I had said or done.
     
    “It’s all right,” I said, and tried to hug you, but you pushed me away.
     
    But then you came over, Bera.
     
    “There, there,” you said, and rubbed your hand across Asa’s back. “She’d be happy to see you wearing it.”
     
    And, Asa, through your tears you said, “I miss her.” And then I realized that you were talking about our mother. The mother you remembered, but I could not. But now I