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  Vow

  1/2986 - Book 4

  Annelie Wendeberg

  Copyright 2018 by Annelie Wendeberg

  eBook Edition

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and names in this book are products of the author’s imagination. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

  Cover design by Alisha Moore (Damonza.com)

  Interior design by Annelie Wendeberg. Chapter headings depict Alta rock carvings from 4500 to 500 BC.

  Contents

  All you need to know…

  Part I

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Part II

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Part III

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Acknowledgments

  All you need to know…

  Find me and my books here:

  www.anneliewendeberg.com

  to

  those

  who

  resist

  Part One

  The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.

  Thucydides

  One

  Chopping up a human corpse is one thing. Drooling over it is quite another. I try not to think too much about it, but my growling stomach keeps pulling my focus back to axe and meat. A small part of me wonders if it’s even necessary to cook the guy. Why not gather the small scraps of frozen thigh muscle that spatter the snow? Why not stuff them in my mouth and stop the hunger?

  My stomach is a bitch. It’s not even polite enough to send bile up my throat in disgust. Just a flood of saliva. Feed me, feed me, my body screams. There’s no pretence left. I’m famished. We are famished, and the corpse is the only thing standing between life and death.

  Despite the thick furs I’m wearing, warmth is sucked from my body at an alarming rate. A storm pummels my back, and fingers the gaps in my clothes. Throws splinters of ice against the narrow strips of my exposed skin. I pull my scarf higher and my hood lower, but three seconds later the wind has weaselled back in.

  If the sea weren’t covered with ice, it would be a roaring battlefield of grey and white, smashing against this black, flat rock that’s Bear Island. It’s mid-April now, and temperatures are still far below freezing. The ice holds. If I can’t get our machine airborne again, we’ll have to take our sled to the mainland. Both options are near impossible.

  The only other alternative is to give up and die right here. I’m not ready for that.

  It’s four hundred kilometres and then some if we fly. More if we take the sled, because jumbled ice will force detours on us. Lots of them.

  It’s far. Too far for the tiny amount of food we have left. We can’t wait this storm out. We can’t hunt, can’t leave, can’t do a thing. Our food is running out. The man I’m cutting up is the last meat we have. Well…maybe not quite.

  There are the three sled dogs we had to release because we couldn’t feed them. They are running free on the island, catching seabirds. I saw them tear into an arctic fox once. Aside from us, the foxes must be the biggest animals here. I wonder when humans last visited this desolate place. And if they starved to death here.

  I shake my head. No point thinking about that.

  Before the storm rolled in, I took down two fat gulls. Blew their bodies to clouds of bloody feathers. I shouldn’t even have tried, shouldn’t have wasted ammo. My rifle is not for hunting small birds. It’s made to kill people.

  I should have hunted with bow and arrow, but that’s Katvar’s speciality. Problem is, he can barely see straight, let alone aim. And I suck at bow hunting. The even bigger problem is that the blizzard has dropped visibility to near zero, and all the birds have gone into hiding to wait out the storm.

  Still, our dogs manage well enough. I’ve tried to steal what they catch, or at least find out where they’re hunting. But they won’t let me get close enough. They don’t trust me anymore. I’ve cooked most of their pack members.

  I’ve had no luck fishing, either. Wasted hours hacking holes into sea ice, hours waiting and freezing my ass off in this storm. For nothing.

  There’s only one source of calories left — the man I shot in Longyearbyen. Katvar and I have been skirting around the issue for the past two days. I don’t know what it does to a person to eat another person. But we can’t wait any longer.

  I gaze down at the axe in my hand, at the chunk of hairy thigh I’ve severed. Fuck. We are about to eat one of the Sequencer’s best sharpshooters, and I can’t find a shred of regret in me. That’s the biggest problem I have right now — I’m not even disgusted with myself.

  I pull down my scarf and spit in the snow. Or mean to, but the wind smacks the saliva right back at me.

  ‘How is your head?’ I ask as I crawl into our snow hut and secure the entrance.

  Katvar lifts a shoulder in a shrug. It’s only been four days since a bullet grazed the side of his head. The memory of his limp body in the snow, a pink and scarlet cloud spreading around him, makes my throat tighten like a fist.

  I swallow and hide the meat behind my back.

  He lifts a hand to signal he’s feeling better. I ask if he’s hungry. Stupid question. Of course he is, but he pretends not to be.

  He’s set up the burner already. Snow is melting in a blackened pot. I drop the meat next to it, and tuck the bear pelt tighter around Katvar’s frame. It annoys him, my hovering. He’s still too pale, too haggard. We both are.

  ‘Stew is coming up in a bit,’ I say, trying a smile.

  A jaw muscle feathers. He knows what’s on the menu, but neither of us mentions it. I want us to live. Katvar’s undemanding love has sneaked into the cracks of my black heart, and losing him would kill what little empathy I have left. The world could go to fucking hell if it weren’t for him. I’m still breathing because of him. As unfathomable as it is, he loves me. Even my geography of scars, my chasm of darkness.

  That’s why I do what needs doing. For him, I stomp through the whiteout to a frozen corpse in the snow, axe in hand. And I’ll keep doing it until we’ve eaten it all, and get out of this white hell. Until we make it, and dreams of food aren’t mere fantasy. I’d kill for mashed potatoes with butter, string beans, and blood pudding. Or roast duck. The thought makes my legs buckle.

  I crouch down and begin carving slices off the hunk of meat, drop them in the pot, and add a small handful of lichen for flavour. Or rather, to cover the flavour of human flesh. Whatever it tastes like. I haven’t tried it yet.

  I’d thought of cooking inside the airplane because I didn’t want Katvar watching me do this. I don’t want the scents clinging to our bedding long after we eat. I don’t want to be reminded of this meal when I kiss Katvar’s skin. But we can’t afford to waste the heat from cooking with the little fuel we have left.

  He’s watching me. My neck prickles and my hands feel clumsy. I force myself to work fast. Shaving off the hair is the
least I can do. I can’t skin the thigh, because we need what little fat it provides. If I had butter, I would…

  I swallow a mouthful of saliva.

  ‘Did you know that before the Great Pandemic, people thought starving was sexy?’ I say, and cut a sideways glance at him. He looks like he’s waiting for the punch line. ‘I’m not shitting you. They really thought this…’ I wave at my bony frame, ‘…was hot. They starved themselves. Called it dieting.’ Scoffing, I stir meat shavings into the pot.

  Katvar cocks an eyebrow. ‘No wonder they’re all dead.’ A noise draws his attention to the block of compacted snow that serves as the door to our hut. I hear it too. The dogs have caught the scents of our cooking. The wind carries their yapping. I crawl to the entrance and dig a gap in the snow. Ghostly shadows flit through the whiteout. Wind snatches barks from snouts, and hurls them out to sea.

  Yep, I’m stalling. It’s completely irrelevant whether the dogs are right here or farther away. The food isn’t for them. It’s ours.

  The stew comes to a boil, and I switch off the burner and secure the lid, then wrap the pot in layers of reindeer skin. It takes longer to cook that way, but saves a lot of fuel. Tucking my chin against my knees, I shut my eyes and breathe slowly, conserving energy.

  A rustling makes me look up. Katvar is moving on our bed of brush and furs. I ask how he’s feeling.

  He rolls his eyes. That’s when I remember that I’d just asked him the same thing a few minutes before. His injury makes me nervous. It’s not healing, and last night it started bleeding again.

  ‘I want to take a look.’

  ‘You just did this morning,’ he signs.

  ‘And I’ll check it again and again until I’m happy with it.’

  With a soft grunt, he lies back down, and lets me do my thing.

  I undo the bandage around his head and check the sutures. Blood and clear liquid seep from torn skin. Looks exactly like it did a few hours ago. I spray disinfectant on the wound, just to make sure. Then I replace the bandages and gently press the gel pillow of the ultrasound scanner against the side of Katvar’s head. I’m looking for dark spots. I’m terrified he might be haemorrhaging. But there’s nothing.

  He brushes his hand against my wrist and entwines his fingers with mine. ‘Micka,’ he croaks with his terribly damaged voice. ‘Lie with me.’

  Startled, I almost drop the scanner. He rarely ever speaks. His scarred vocal cords make speaking painful and taxing. A leftover from the infection that nearly killed him when he was a small boy.

  ‘Rest for a bit,’ he signs. ‘Put your head on my shoulder.’

  My vision swims. I swallow. ‘Are you giving up?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I just want to hold my wife.’

  His words tip me over the edge. The sharp precipice I’ve been walking for days. No — weeks, months.

  A sob explodes from me, and I drop my head on his chest. He lifts a corner of our bear pelt and I sneak inside, curl a leg over his, wrap my arms tight around his frame that’s painfully sharp from starvation.

  It all pours out then. That I am terrified. That I don’t want him to die. I can’t remember ever wanting to live, but now I do. I want to live with him. I want to cross this stupid, unforgiving sea and find a nice, warm place for us. Eat lots and lots of food. Have kids together. Not worry about injuries, death, war, and the BSA every single moment of my waking hours, and every one of my nightmares.

  Katvar draws soft circles on my temple with one hand, and on the small of my back with the other.

  I wipe snot and tears from my face. ‘So when the hell did we actually marry?’

  He stiffens and draws back to look at me. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—’

  I grab his signing hands. ‘Don’t compare what we have, with what the BSA did to me.’ Did to me makes those two forced marriages sound harmless. I was lucky with one, and not so…lucky with the other. Memories of my dead daughter rise, and I shove them back down.

  Katvar’s lids lower as his gaze slides to my mouth. He tugs me closer and kisses my temple.

  ‘But, really,’ I say. ‘Did I sleep through the ceremony? The elders you picked must have sucked.’

  Katvar snorts and I start to giggle.

  ‘I don’t need anyone to declare us husband and wife.’ His signing is a bit awkward with me in his arms. ‘I’m yours. As long as you want me. And…probably long after that.’

  I shift to look at him. A severe mouth, dark eyes. ‘I want you. But… But there’s one thing I can’t do. I can’t have more than you.’ That’s my cringeworthy way of telling him that I’ll never follow the tradition of his clan — the Lume — where women have several partners to increase the chance of survival for their children.

  Understanding relaxes his features. ‘I know. I would never ask that of you.’

  I almost ask if his clan would demand it. But no, there’s no going back for him. When he came of age, his clan banned him from ever choosing a wife because of what his father did to his mother. Katvar is the product of brother raping sister. To the Lume, he has “bad blood.” That he and I are together violates one of their core values.

  ‘What is it?’ he signs.

  ‘I’m sorry you can’t go home because of me.’

  His lips pull into a smile. He touches my face and curls his hand around the back of my neck. Pulls me in. Kisses me softly. And whispers against my mouth, ‘You are my home.’

  Two

  Heartbeat.

  The word tastes of honey at the back of my tongue. Like a sweet marble, polished and perfectly round. About to slip down my throat as I open my mouth to release its syllables. And as the last hard consonant dies away, the marble bursts open.

  The flavour that bleeds from its core will depend on…many things.

  When I lower my eye to the scope of my rifle and slide the crosshairs over the target, my heartbeat slows. When my index finger squeezes the trigger, and the round is fired, my heart pauses for a beat. And my mouth fills with flavours of tree bark.

  Not just any tree. It’s the constricting bittersweetness of the ancient cypresses of Taiwan that creeps across my palate.

  Then my heartbeat tastes of Basheer — Runner’s name as a boy when the BSA killed his brothers and his father, all his clan, and dragged his sister and mother away. I wonder if he would mind if he knew that every time I stop someone else’s heart, the taste of his childhood fills my mouth. I don’t think he would. It was he who taught me killing.

  Then there’s the flavour I hope never to feel on my tongue again. It’s the taste of a stutter. Of a compacted muscle that wants to give up, as I’m pressed to the floor by my second husband. A furry, scratchy, mouldy taste. I feel his heart beating against my back. His sweat.

  My blood.

  And then his.

  I cut him open and bled him empty, the day after he murdered my newborn daughter.

  I think of her every day. Of the day I was too weak to protect her. When grief digs its claws in too deep, I think of Katvar. His heart has a slow, deep rhythm. I want to wrap myself in it. Around him. Taste him. In a desert of ice and snow, the man with no voice has given me back my words and the flavours each of them carries. The BSA took them from me, and Katvar offered them back with a smile, a soft touch, and blueberries in reindeer milk.

  Since then, his name tastes of exactly that: blueberries and reindeer milk.

  He shifts and I open my eyes. The corners of his mouth curve. He reaches for me and trails his fingers through my hair. We could kiss, maybe even make love if we had the energy. We could forget our dire situation and make ourselves remember who we are. But I clench my teeth and say, ‘Food is ready.’

  The stew is mostly meat, water, and bits of green. The man was lean. I wish he’d been fatter. We need lots of fat to survive the Artic. We’ve been pushed beyond our physical limits. Have been for weeks. Our bodies are beginning to self-consume.

  I unwrap the reindeer skin from the pot and divide the stew i
nto two bowls. Katvar sits up without help. It’s mostly stubbornness on his side. He doesn’t want to look as weak as he feels. I don’t tell him that I see right through him, as I hold out his bowl.

  With trembling fingers, he accepts the food. And suddenly, I am deeply ashamed. I hated killing our dogs and cooking them for us. They were Katvar’s friends and I took them away, one after the other. I told myself we would get over it. You do what you must to survive. You harden yourself. You get the fuck through it.

  But at what point is the cost of survival too high? Can we eat this human and not lose our humanity?

  Katvar and I hold each other’s gaze as we lift the bowls to our mouths. It’s like a silent agreement. If you can do it, I can do it. Each of us wants the other to survive.

  He swallows. His eyes water as he clenches his teeth. Fuck, I know precisely what he feels right now. I stifle a moan. The meat is the opposite of what I expect. It’s delicious. Tender, juicy, and quite similar to young mountain goat. Much, much better than dog.

  ‘I checked for GPS trackers,’ I blurt out for the sake of distraction. ‘Found two and ripped them out. One in the cockpit, and a smaller one in the taillight. The battery is at nine per cent. We need a day of sun. And then…’ I take a measured sip, so Katvar doesn’t think I’m greedy. ‘And then I just need to fix the broken ski. Maybe I’ll salvage parts from the sled.’