When Sigrun Eide regained consciousness, there was a burlap sack covering her head, and her wrists were bound and pulled above so that she was nearly hanging from them.
Less than two minutes later, Sigrun was chafing her wrists and complaining to herself about the toll her advancing years were taking on her: a dozen years ago, she’d have been out in under one minute, even fighting off grosslings!
Well, even with her encroaching decrepitude, she was still going to rip through whoever was responsible for this like a sword through cobwebs. Of course, she needed to find them first, which meant reconnaissance.
Sigrun was in an open stall in an Old Time stable block, as her abductors apparently had been fool enough to think that binding her as they had would be sufficient to hold her. Regardless, it would be wise to explore the rest of the stalls before moving on.
Sigrun had explored one row of stalls and was just turning down another when she heard a noise. It was hardly necessary to guess whence it had originated: one of the stalls ahead of her was shut, so she slipped up to it and kicked the door open.
The boy looking back at her with wide blue eyes had the most beautiful hair Sigrun had ever seen on anyone, male or female; the perfectly coiffed locks were golden and even seemed to sparkle in the wan and scant sunlight. It almost distracted her from the knife he was shakily holding in a keep-away-from-me-you-crazy-woman way. Sigrun had seen that particular hold a lot in Dalsnes.
Sigrun sighed. “You know, kid, a Hunter captain like me wouldn’t even pause at the way you’re holding your knife, and certainly a grossling wouldn’t either.”
The boy straightened, lowering his knife. “You’re a Norwegian,” he stated in somewhat snooty Swedish.
“And you’re a Swede,” Sigrun replied. “May I presume you woke up wearing one of these--” she brandished the sack she’d brought with her “--too?”
He pulled out his own sack from behind his back, lowering his knife. “Are you really a Hunter captain?”
“Just the most best one in Dalsnes,” Sigrun answered proudly.
This seemed to satisfy the boy, who stiffened to attention. “Cleanser Emil Västerström, Svenstavik Detachment, Fourth Cohort, Northern Front, Ma’am.”
“At ease, Little Viking,” Sigrun said with a grin. “Sigrun Eide, Hunter captain--but call me Sigrun; everyone does.” Then her smile faded. “Have you seen anyone else yet?”
The boy shook his head. “I’d just freed myself when I heard you coming and shut myself in here.”
“Well, searching should go easier with the two of us.” The boy’s eyes widened at something behind her as she said this, so she spun around--
“The three of us?” the big blond Dane said hopefully, holding a sack of his own out like a peace offering.
Sigrun nodded. “The three of us, then.”
“My name is Mikkel Madsen. With whom do I have the honor of collaborating?”
“What did he say?” Emil asked quietly.
“Sigrun Eide,” Sigrun said. “The Swede’s Emil Västerström.”
“Under different circumstances, I would count it a pleasure to meet you both, but as it stands...”
A rather timid voice called out from further along the row of stalls, “Um, hi there?” in faltering Swedish.
The speaker was a short and somewhat chunky girl with a young face and gray-blond hair. She also had a sack in one hand that matched the others. “I’m Tuuri Hotakainen, and I’m a skald from Keuruu, in Finland--”
Tuuri suddenly looked up at the rafters. “Lalli, get down from there! You were the one who said they weren’t going to hurt us!” Of course, she said this in Finnish, so Lalli was the only one who understood her.
The others all looked where Tuuri was looking, but only Emil managed to spot the thin figure with the same color hair as Tuuri lurking among the heavy wooden beams before it leapt out and down into Mikkel’s arms.
“That’s my cousin, Lalli Hotakainen,” Tuuri explained. “He only speaks Finnish. He’s a night scout, so he can be a little... odd at times, and he’s extremely annoyed right now that whoever did this to us managed to get him, too.”
“Tell him to join the club,” Sigrun growled.
An interrogative gargle came from the front of the stables. All their heads turned. “Icelandic?” Mikkel rumbled, and Tuuri nodded.
Mikkel boomed out something, and a moment later, a tall gangly boy with a truly remarkable red braid stepped into their aisle. He was also holding yet another burlap sack.
After a moment, the Icelander gestured for them to follow and began walking out of the stables. With nothing better in the offing, the other five followed him.
The stable had obviously been built by a madman, since no one else would choose to build anything on the rim of a volcanic crater. Not particularly surprisingly, there seemed to be no roads or even tracks from the stable out of the cone.
After a few moments of gaping, the others turned to the Icelander. A lengthy and repetitive conversation ensued, culminating in Sigrun asking, “Iceland? How in the Nine Worlds did we end up in Iceland?”
When the question was asked of him, the red-headed Icelander expressed his own befuddlement in a series of demonstrative shrugs, then spat out another bunch of gobbledygook.
“He says that the only thing that he knows for sure is that the tracks lead deeper into the crater. If we want to find whoever did this to us, that’s our best shot.” Tuuri asked her cousin something, nodding at his reply. “Lalli backs him up.”
“Well, then.” Sigrun squared her shoulders. “Shall we?”
