Free Fate's Needle by Jerry Autieri Page A

Tentative steps led her away from the shed, toward a lone pine. She shivered as she scuttled beneath it. The main hall was ten paces away, bathed in pale light from behind shuttered windows. Thin smoke fought the gusts as it rose from the smoke hole.
    Crouching as low as she could manage, Runa hurried toward the hall. She pitched against the darkest shadow of its walls, slumped, and caught her breath. The slave pen squatted in the darkness opposite. It was a low, windowless building, huddled against the night like the slaves within it. The door bore a heavy lock and the key always remained with the guard who herded the slaves in at the end of the night. Just last night, she had been locked in with them.
    When Runa had fled earlier, she had simply seized an opportunity—every girl for herself. But now, she could remedy that. She could free them. The hall was in confusion. Even without the key, there had to be a way to free the slaves.
    Runa’s family had owned but one slave. Her father had treated him well, so well that at times Runa thought he was her father’s friend. Only when she became a slave had she realized the horror of slavery. The Svear raped her, barely kept her alive, and sold her like an animal. Orm had found her at market and treated her marginally better than his livestock. None of Orm’s slaves would be mistaken for his friends.
    She shook her head, scattering the memories. First, she had to get inside the hall. Slipping her fingers beneath the unfastened shutters, she cracked one open enough to see within. She saw no movement. Trusting that Ulfrik’s commotion had drained the hall of occupants, she opened the shutters and hauled herself through the window.
    Runa had always been small, but in slavery she had withered further. She flopped through the window easily, if not gracefully, landing on her rump. The thud of her descent was like a peal of thunder to her, but there was no one to hear it. The hall was empty, but for curling smoke, quavering shadows, and the dead jarl’s corpse. Orm lay stretched out on a table in the center of the hall, lit by amber light from a low fire in the hearth. Runa stood and studied his corpse. He was dressed in mail, with a sword over his chest. She half feared he might rise up as she walked around his body, until her nostrils were met with the rank scent of death and she drew a hand to her face to block it.
    Dripping water across the dirt floor as she moved, she headed for the far end of the hall, where Ulfrik had slept in a side room reserved for honored guests. His sword would be there.
    She had reached the doorway when an old woman stepped out. With a scream, Runa fell back, a myriad thoughts in mind. Should she attack? Should she flee? Should she try to beguile the woman?
    The old woman released a startled croak and Runa recognized her as Orm’s healer, Aud.
    “Oh, you frightened me, child! I wondered who could be in here,” said Aud, putting her palm to her chest. “And look at you, sopping wet!”
    “I … I returned too late,” Runa stuttered, choosing guile.
    Aud had never been Runa’s friend, shouting at her and often striking her for being slow, but at least she was not hostile. She peered at Runa through baggy, squinting eyes, holding the look for a long while before remarking, “Why you would return is a mystery, child.” Aud went to Orm’s corpse and adjusted the pall that covered his face. “With your master dead, you should be burned with him.”
    Runa’s eyes snapped to Aud, but the old woman merely continued to prepare Orm’s corpse, seeming uninterested.
    Runa drew a breath before speaking. “I didn’t know he was dead. When I came back it was raining, and all the guards were running about. I feared raiders.”
    Aud only nodded, and then took another peek beneath the shroud, as if ensuring the corpse was not eavesdropping. Then she sat next to the fire and let her hands collapse in her lap.
    “We should gather at the hall if raiders come,