Six

Wilhelm is not like other men in the village. He is dark-eyed and olive-skinned, shorter and more stout than most grown men, and he keeps himself clean shaven, although he allows his black hair to grow almost as long as a woman's. He also bears a brand over his right shoulder, a rune within a circle that betrays him as a man who has not always known freedom. Indeed, when Wilhelm arrived in Forks, he came as a slave of Iza's father, a man taken from his old life and thrust into a Viking settlement to be a laborer. It is only by the virtue of Wilhelm's unmatched blacksmithing skills that Chalisław gave Wilhelm his freedom.

Now, the Chieftain and the former slave are as close as brothers, and as such, Wilhelm has enjoyed a normal life for almost as long as Iza has been alive, as has his young son Jakob who Iza regards as a cousin of sorts. The truth is, Iza is closer to Jakob than any of her blood cousins for the fact that they share one dark commonality – they are both motherless, Jakob's mother dying in childbirth and Iza's disappearing shortly after her birth. She thinks, sometimes, being single fathers tasked with raising infants has made Chalisław and Wilhelm all the closer; after all, very few men in the village have been as hands-on with their offspring as the Chieftain and the blacksmith, as it is generally discouraged that fathers be involved with the rearing of their children.

Sometimes, of course, there is no other choice. Iza and Jakob's shared childhood is proof enough of that.

But it is for this very reason that Iza feels no anxiety as she approaches Wilhelm's hut – so very different from the other longhouses in the village – and the attached ford to ask after the progress he has made in the completion of the elder's rather inane project. Wilhelm understands better than most the importance of playing to expectations.

It has been some days, nearing two weeks, since the raiders departed and since the Chieftain left the village in Mik's – Iza's – hands. The elders are growing impatient, nervous that it has been too long since a dragon attack and fretful that another will come as each night passes. Iza has no such concerns, really. Dragon attacks do not come so close together. She estimates there are many, many more nights before dragonfire again lights up the night sky. Still, despite there being plenty of time, she takes heed of the elder's concerns and has assured Mik that the smiths will be done soon enough. Today, she intends to find out how true her promise has been.

Wilhelm is working at the forge when she lets herself into the humid smithy, hammering away at a long, red-hot length of mixed iron as Jakob feeds the fire with soot-blackened hands. Only the blistering red-orange heat of the forge serves as light inside the cramped space. Iza is hard-pressed not to knock into any half-finished scraps of metal – helms and swords, mostly – as she wades deeper into the space.

Jakob is the first to notice her, nearly dropping the metal prod he uses to poke at the forge as he brightly yells, "Iza! You are here! It has been so long!"

Almost on reflex, Wilhelm barks out a daunting, "Boy!" and Jakob jumps, fumbling for the prod to make the forge flames jump higher. He grins sheepishly at Iza over his father's shoulder.

Iza comes to a stop and waits until Wilhelm has finished hammering the reddened iron into a shape, dipping the metal into blackened water over and over until it has cooled sufficiently. Then she says, "I have come to check your progress of the project. The elders grow impatient."

Wilhelm grunts. "The elders are idiots. You should send them off to Ättestupa for all the good they do."

Iza grins wryly. "I am not sure the elders would agree, but if you would like, I can pass the message along."

"Can I be there to observe?" Jakob asks.

"Boy!" Wilhelm barks again. "Are there any helpful thoughts in that head of yours?"

Jakob frowns. "I thought I was being helpful?"

Wilhelm rolls his eyes. "Show Iza where the elder's request is being kept. I have work to do." He pauses, glances up at Iza, and says gruffly, "Jakob is right. You should visit more often. We have not seen you very much while your father has been away and I have an oath to look after your safety."

Privately, Iza concedes that he is right. Usually, when the Chieftain is raiding, Iza spends most of her free time split between Wilhelm's forge and Alise's enduring company. This time, however, she has kept herself occupied in another way – she had not realized that her absence would draw attention and, since attention isn't good for her egg, she resolves to correct her oversight.

"I will share the evening meal with you soon," Iza promises.

At that, Wilhelm waves both Iza and Jakob away. Dutifully, Jakob shows her out of the forge and around the side of the squat hut where Wilhelm has seen fit to store the elder's project. Leaning against the longest wall of the hut is a selection of several woven screens of metal, as heavy and artless as the purpose they are intended to serve. Iza's lips turn downward as she considers the screens. According to Mik, these screens are to be placed over the animal pens in an effort to protect the livestock from being carried off by the dragons. Indeed, Iza has not closely observed dragon battle, but she is certain that caging the animals will not protect them from dragon fire. If anything, the elders have almost certainly doomed the livestock to being trapped.

Iza sighs, casting her eyes beseechingly to the clouds. Wilhelm was right; with an idea as idiotic as this one, the elders almost deserve the Ättestupa. Jumping off a cliff is a much better idea than this. But, she acknowledges privately, Iza cannot really see Mik suggesting the elders make themselves scarce so that they might unburden the village. She will have to remember to bring it up with her father when he returns.

That still leaves the problem of what to do with this. Since she cannot go against the elders or force Mik to do the same, Iza resigns herself to seeing to the distribution of these asinine screens.

"Jakob," she says.

"Iza."

"I want you to gather all the sons in the village and make sure that everyone with livestock has one of these things," she orders.

"Iza."

She clicks her tongue at the strangeness of his tone. "I know, it seems silly – and it is silly – but sometimes we have to listen to our elders, no matter how dumb they are. So, would you please just do this for me?"

"What? Sure, sure – yes, Iza, I will do as you ask but-" Jakob cuts himself off, gesturing helplessly at her with an expression of extreme confusion on his face.

"But what, Jakob?"

"But maybe you should see a healer?"

Iza narrows her eyes. "Sorry? A healer? For Odin's sake, Jakob, the screens are ridiculous but I am hardly in need of a healer because of them-"

"No!" Jakob says loudly, his eyes wide. He gestures at her again. "No, you do not need a healer for that – just – if you continue scratching, your skin will fall off!"

Iza follows Jakob's dark gaze and watches numbly as her own nails drag along the dry, red, cracked skin of her forearm. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. As if her hand as a mind of its own, she continues to scratch at an itch, a phantom sort of feeling that is quickly spreading through her body now that she is paying attention. Her skin feels too tight, too confining. She has the strange urge to tear at her clothes and hair and –

And the world grinds to a halt.

Because these feelings are not Iza's.

This is the egg that is itching at a cramped confinement. This is the egg that wants the freedom of air across its naked body. This is the egg reaching and stretching and cracking against a too-dry, too-dark, too-small shelter.

But no – not the egg.

The dragon.

Through sheer force of will, Iza curls her fingers into her palm to stop herself from scratching her arm raw. She does her best to ignore the itchiness of the rest of her skin and makes her lips turn into an apologetic smile. Her mouth forms words so false and stale she can almost taste them. "You know, Jakob, I think you are right. I should go see a healer. I am sorry for snapping at you…"

Jakob waves her off with friendly concern. "Sure, sure. You go and I will do as you ask to get these screens where they need to go."

"I owe you," Iza says woodenly, already marching away.

Dimly, she hears Jakob yell at her back, "I want smoked salmon!"

But the sound is distant – far-removed and far-away, a breeze between her ears that she pays no mind to. Iza is already running, hiking up her skirt as she races through the village and toward the cavern, her mind firmly locked on the crackling echo she can feel along her own skin.

The dragon is hatching.

A/N: Literally, I was writing about being itchy and then I was itchy. The brain is a strange thing. As to Viking Stuff In This Chapter, Ättestupa, in case it wasn't clarified in context, is basically ritual senicide wherein the eldest men in a Viking village would honorably jump off a cliff. This is indeed a reference to Netflix's Norsemen. Other Viking Stuff - again with slaves, there are some accounts of Vikings freeing talented slaves and granting them something like citizenship except that these slaves never left the settlements, they just weren't slaves anymore, so it was like a kind of freedom.

As always, be brutally honest. I can take it.

~ Rae