Free Iron Axe by Steven Harper

makes my life as bad as anything Lady Halza can dream up, and Alfgeir adds to my bonding every chance he gets. I’ll never be free.”
    â€œHuh.” Talfi rubbed his nose. “Still, he can’t really keep you forever. Even Alfgeir has to die one day. Or maybe you’ll just walk away.”
    Danr was still trying to imagine what it would be like to walk away and was coming up empty. You couldn’t just walk away from what you owed. The Nine would get you for it, in the end. But he didn’t say that aloud.
    They talked more. Danr wished the night could go on forever. In the end, however, fatigue forced both of them to roll themselves up in the ragged old blankets Danr had scavenged over the years. Danr, however, dozed only restlessly. In dreams, he was looking for both Talfi and his motherthrough muddy village streets. The mud pulled at his feet, and darkness lay thick around him. Even his trollish eyes could barely make out shapes. His mother’s voice echoed somewhere ahead.
    â€œDon’t be a monster!”
she cried.
“See the truth instead.”
    A hand landed on Danr’s shoulder and he jerked awake. In the dim light of the dying fire, he saw a hooded figure in a ragged scarf leaning over him. Aisa.
    â€œWhat—?” Danr gasped. On the other side of the fire, Talfi sat up, his brown hair mussed from sleep.
    â€œYou must hurry,” Aisa said. “Quickly!”
    Danr came fully awake. “What’s wrong?”
    â€œThe villagers are coming,” she hissed. “They want yourblood.”

C HAPTER F OUR
    D anr scrambled to his feet, heart already pounding, and flung his ragged cloak over his shoulders. Talfi did the same, though his cloak was new and unpatched. Cattle shifted nervously in the stalls. Aisa crept to the stable door and pushed it open a crack.
    â€œI see torches coming up the road,” she reported. “They are nearly here. A very efficient mob.”
    Danr peered outside. A half-moon shed plenty of light, and to Danr’s eyes, the farmyard was nearly bright as day. A line of yellow lights bobbed toward the main gate. Alfgeir’s house was between the road and the stable, and Danr wondered if the villagers would stop there first or come straight for him. Fear pushed bile up the back of his tongue.
    â€œDo they really want to kill?” Talfi whispered.
    Aisa spread her hands. “My mistress, Frida, sounded very angry, and she was the one who laid blame. The other men gathered to listen, and they were happy to become angry as well. Now they come with pitchforks and scythes and whips.”
    The blood drained from Danr’s face. His mind raced in little circles, seeking a solution. He could run for the mountains. But they were inhabited by monsters even worse thanthe wyrm he and Talfi had killed. He could sneak away and head south, farther into Balsia. But everywhere he went, people would recognize a half-troll monster.
    He could stay and fight.
    Danr swallowed, remembering Norbert and the way bone had grated against flesh under his hand.
Don’t show the monster,
Mother’s voice murmured inside his head. Monsters were evil, terrors, and whenever he thought about fighting, he saw his mother’s disappointed, fear-filled eyes. But if he ran away, what would happen to Talfi? He had given Talfi hospitality, and that made it Danr’s duty to defend him from harm.
    â€œWe should run from this place,” Aisa murmured behind her veil of scarves, and Danr very much wanted to follow her advice. He wanted to run with Aisa somewhere safe, where just the two of them could spend time together, without worrying that his master or her owner would make demands or threats. Where the world was peaceful, and they might share an actual meal and have a conversation like normal people. He wanted to be normal with
her.
    Instead he sighed. “I don’t see how we can run.” With a deep breath, he shoved the stable door