Sköll and Hati

The rein tightened around Sól’s wrist, and the left-hand horse turned its head.

“Straight,” she said. “Stay straight.”

Árvakr fought the pull. Beside him, Alsviðr lengthened his stride, dragging the yoke crooked between them. The chariot lurched. Sól struck her hip against the rail and heard, beneath the wheels, the steady closing of another rhythm.

Four feet. A pause. Four feet again.

She did not look back. She knew how much sky Sköll crossed in that pause.

The loose end of Árvakr’s rein had slipped through a split in the side rail. Each jolt worked it deeper. Now it was wedged beneath the wood, hauling at his mouth whenever the chariot swayed. Sól braced one foot against the front board and pulled. The leather stretched. The split held.

Below her, a strip of sea shone between dark headlands. She fixed her eyes on it, keeping the team along their course while her other hand searched beneath the rail. Her fingers found the leather. She hooked two of them around it.

Something breathed against the back of her hand.

Sól snatched her arm inside.

Sköll’s muzzle rose beside the wheel. His lips lay flat against his teeth; there was no snarl, no waste of breath. His eye passed level with hers, fixed on the brightness she carried. One forepaw reached, missed the chariot, and fell away. For a moment he vanished beneath the rim.

She felt the next landing through her feet.

“Árvakr.” Her voice came out thin. She tried again. “With him. Run with him.”

The horse obeyed as far as the trapped rein allowed. Foam shook from his bit. His neck bent left again.

Ahead, pale against the blue, the moon was still visible.

Máni was close enough to hear her.

She had spent the morning hoping he would be.

The Distance Between Them

“Sól?”

Her brother’s voice reached her before she called. He had seen the chariot skew. His pale light moved nearer as their courses drew together.

“Keep going,” she said.

“What broke?”

“The rein is caught.”

He glanced past her. Sól watched his face change when he saw how close Sköll had come.

“Give it to me.”

“I cannot give it to you. That is the difficulty.”

Usually he would have smiled. Instead he brought himself alongside the front of the team and stretched out a hand. For several strides they were almost level. Sól could see the old crease at the corner of his mouth, the one she remembered from before the sky had become the only place they met.

“Hold them steady,” he said.

He reached across Alsviðr’s shoulder. The horse shied from the unfamiliar hand, and the yoke knocked against Árvakr’s neck. Sól hauled on the sound rein. The team straightened, but the chariot swung outward.

Behind her, wood cracked.

Sköll’s teeth had closed on the rear rail. He pulled once. The chariot jerked so hard that Sól lost her footing, dropping to one knee. A piece of wood snapped free. The wolf fell back with it between his jaws.

Máni caught the front board.

For an instant his hand and hers lay side by side.

“Let me hold them,” he said.

“You cannot keep pace from here.”

“Long enough for you to free it.”

The sun burned behind her. She looked at the horses, one straining against the other, and at the sea far below. Máni’s hand closed over hers.

Then a grey shape rose beyond his shoulder.

It was not Sköll. Sköll was behind her, already spitting out the broken wood.

This wolf ran ahead of Sól’s team, beyond the point where the two lights had drawn together. His head was lowered. Every leap carried him closer to Máni.

“Hati,” she said.

Her brother turned.

The second wolf’s jaws opened in the place his light had occupied a heartbeat earlier.

Máni let go of the board and surged forward. Hati followed. Sól saw the distance between them stretch, then shrink again as her brother looked back.

“Do not wait!”

“I can come round.”

“No.”

Another jolt dragged Árvakr’s head sideways. His foreleg struck his partner’s. The horses stumbled together, recovered, and ran with their flanks knocking. Sól’s wrist was numb. In a few more strides the trapped rein would bring them down.

Máni was still looking at her.

She wanted to tell him something that would send him on. That the split had opened. That she had found a way. Her free hand went to the small knife at her belt, and she discovered that she had found one, though not one she wanted.

“Run,” she said. “I need room in front of them.”

He looked at the knife.

“You will lose the horse.”

“I will lose both if you stay there.”

For a moment he seemed about to argue. Then Hati’s forefeet struck the sky behind him, and Máni ran.

The moon drew away. Sól watched until her brother faced forward.

Then she put the knife against the rein.

The Cut

The first stroke barely marked the leather.

She had sharpened the blade with a care that seemed ridiculous now. She had imagined using it at rest, with both hands free. The chariot threw her against the rail. She caught herself on the same wood that held the rein and almost dropped the knife.

Sköll’s breath came warm across her shoulder.

She sawed again.

Árvakr tossed his head against the tension. The leather parted with a sound like a small whip cracking, and the hand that had held it struck her own breast.

The horse leapt forward.

For three strides the team ran straight. The chariot flew beneath her. Air filled the space between her shoulder and the wolf’s teeth.

Then Árvakr veered away from his partner.

Sól hauled on Alsviðr’s rein, trying to bring the horses together. The yoke tilted. Árvakr fought it, free of the pressure at his mouth but still dragging the chariot sideways. She could no longer reach him from the floor.

She thrust the knife into its sheath and knotted the sound rein around the front rail. Keeping the cut length of leather in her fist, she climbed onto the board.

There was scarcely room for one foot on the pole between the horses.

She set it there.

The team plunged. Her knee hit the wood. For a moment she hung with her arms locked around the pole and the turning world beneath her. Salt water glittered between her feet. She dragged one leg up, straddled the narrow timber, and inched forward.

Behind her came a sharp, wet crack.

She looked.

Sköll had caught the remaining rear rail. Splinters stood between his teeth. His forelegs stretched on either side of the chariot, and for the length of a stride his weight dragged against the horses.

Sól’s hands slipped. She clasped the pole with her knees.

“Pull!”

The horses’ shoulders lowered. Árvakr, whose mouth no longer hurt him, lunged hardest. The wolf’s grip tore through the wood. The chariot sprang free, pitching Sól forward against the yoke.

She clung to it. Her cut rein dangled from one wrist.

Árvakr’s neck was within reach.

“Here,” she whispered, because shouting had used the breath she needed. “Here with me.”

She laid her hand against him. Sweat darkened the roots of his mane. His skin jumped beneath her fingers, but his head turned toward the touch.

The severed rein still hung from Árvakr’s bit. Sól gathered its trailing end and laid it across the cut length wrapped around her wrist. Joined together, they would reach the chariot.

She pulled gently on the part attached to the bit. Árvakr turned toward her, bringing his shoulder level with Alsviðr’s. With both ends held taut, she began to tie them together. The horses tossed their heads. The short overlap slid between her fingers, and she pressed her cheek against the yoke to steady herself.

Behind her the wheels hammered. Sköll landed. Leapt.

The end slipped out.

She caught it between her teeth.

Leather, salt, the copper taste of her bitten lip. She held one end while she crossed the other over it again. This time she pushed her whole finger through with the leather, then withdrew it slowly, feeling the knot close around the two joined lengths instead of her skin.

She pulled.

The knot held.

Through the joined rein, she felt the pressure of Árvakr’s mouth. She eased it until his shoulder settled beside his partner’s. Their strides matched. The pole ceased kicking beneath her.

Sól stayed where she was, bent over the yoke, until she could breathe without swallowing blood. Then she looked past the horses.

Far ahead, Máni’s pale light cleared the last reach of Hati’s jaws.

The wolf landed and ran on.

Still Running

Sól crawled back to the chariot. There was no rear rail left. She brought the repaired rein with her, kept one hand on the front board as she stood, and unwound the sound rein with the other.

Sköll was farther behind now. She could see all of him between the broken sides of the chariot: the lowered head, the gathering hindquarters, the feet reaching for the place she had just left.

She watched one leap. Then she faced her horses.

The little knot in the rein rose and fell between her hand and Árvakr’s mouth.

Ahead, the moon had grown faint. Her brother was passing beyond the distance at which she could read his face.

“Máni!”

He turned his head. Only that; he did not slow.

She raised her hand, the cut leather still wrapped around her wrist.

Across the widening sky, he raised his.

Sól took up the reins before the next leap landed behind her.