Free Fargoer by Petteri Hannila Page B

bruises covering his face. Oder was from somewhere far away, where the sun scorched the people’s skin dark.
    Sensitivity to omens was in Vierra’s blood. The day before, the sky had darkened suddenly and the brightest day had turned to a dusk similar to evening. Chilly wind had carried whispers, the message of which Vierra didn’t want to hear any more than to understand. A chill went down her spine. The future looked like a darkness unknown. It was like black water that had stayed still for a long time, but suddenly stirred.
    From underneath a bundle of cloth that Vierra used as a pillow, she heard a familiar voice. These days it spoke to her every morning.
    “Take me out.”
    Vierra obeyed. From underneath her sleeping underlay she pulled a long, badly rusted blade.
    “Try me.”
    Vierra tried. She had kept the blade in as good condition as it was possible. With her thumb she felt the hard, unforgiving edge.
    “Shall we do it today?” the blade asked. Its voice had a waiting, anxious tone. “How easily would I cut flesh, draw blood. Set free.”
    Vierra didn’t say or do anything. When the blade had presented the same question for the first time, she had thrown the weapon away and forgotten it for a few days. Finally she had set it back under her mattress, though. From that day on the decision had been harder and harder to make.
    “Tomorrow,” she finally sighed and put the knife back under her berth. She had said so yesterday and the day before, actually for as long as she remembered. Her hand was trembling.
    Suddenly the latch of the summer hut slammed open. With unimaginable speed, the two sleeping denizens of the hut woke up and got on their feet, readying themselves for what their minds, torn away from the freedom of sleep, knew was about to happen.
    The door flew open and the light of the autumn dawn squeezed into the hut together with the one who had opened the door. This large man was living his autumn years. His pitch black hair was streaked with gray stripes that reached his tangled beard. He was handsomely clothed. The darkness of the man’s hair and beard were also in his eyes, the true color of which was perhaps only known by gods -and could possibly have been known by Vierra, had she wanted to look into them. It was impossible to tell the old man’s age, but his eyes gave away that he was even older than he seemed.
    The man grabbed Oder, who was standing by the door, with both hands and threw him out of the hut. He was immensely strong and the slave, much scrawnier than him, rolled far away before stopping. Arduously Oder got up as the blackbeard yelled:
    “Up, dogs, and get to work!”
    The master is in a good mood , Vierra thought. He didn’t even kick Oder after he fell.
     
    Vierra’s family wouldn’t probably have recognized her, had she been led into their hut in her present condition. Her already slim figure had wasted so that she was thin as a rake, and the clear gaze of her green eyes had waned to a feverish glow, which blazed amid a messy, black bush of hair. She was as quiet and unpredictable as a wolf that has been chained and subdued to do a dog’s work,
    Almost three years had passed since violence and murder had torn her from her previous life. Vikings had not killed her, even though she had slain many men with her bow that day. They revered prowess and courage in combat. The Norsemen had sold her to slavery for a good price in their homeland after she had recovered, against the odds, from her self-inflicted stomach wound.
    That had been the beginning of a nightmare in which one day after another passed in a purple-gray haze of violence. Anyone who had lived Vierra’s life would have soon released themselves from that merciless torment. There were more than enough opportunities for one who eagerly searched for the final escape. Only Vierra’s primal willpower and the memory of the discussion with the Seita still kept her clinging on to life. She wouldn’t give up, at least