“Wake up!”

Hanna blinked. Cashier-guy was screaming. Why was he screaming?

A boot in her side brought the sleep out of Hanna. She needed to get her shit together. Lucky for her she hadn’t undressed before she went to bed. But her boots were off. Where were her boots?

“We are under attack!”

Her boots were under the blanket. You can’t fight without your boots. The army had taught her that. Where was her sword?

An arrow buried itself in the ground next to her. Someone screamed in pain.

“Archers!” Birgitta screamed. “Take cover!”

Hanna found her sword and dived behind the cart, hoping that she ended up on the side that wasn’t exposed to the enemy. Birgitta came a second later, dragging Rune with her. He had an arrow in his thigh.

Someone shot back from their side, possibly Bucky.

“I think I got him”, she said tentatively. No more arrows landed among them. She was probably right.

Hanna stuck her head out of cover. It was dark as hell. A bunch of guys were running towards them, maybe ten or so. Bucky or whoever it was fired another arrow, dropping one of the approaching figures. Birgitta gave Rune a reassuring pat on the shoulder before she darted around the cart. “On me guys!” Birgitta order. “Eva, keep shooting”. Who the fuck was Eva?

“They have no archers left.” Birgitta observed. “Let them come to us”.

Hanna didn’t answer. It was not as if they had much choice anyway, they’d be upon them any second. Hanna counted eight people running towards them. All of them had shields, which they used diligently now. Bucky hadn’t managed to score any more kills. Eight people. With Rune out of the fight, that meant there were two of them for every member of the Regulars. That was some shitty odds. And this was Hanna’s first fight.

Their attackers seemed to have done the same kind of math, at least their commander had. A few shouts from the tallest of them and they neatly paired up against each of the Regulars. Hanna wished she had a shield. Fighting two people at once was going to be a pain. It wasn’t anything she had practiced… Wait, yes she had, just not since before the valley. What did her close-combat instructor say in the army? The more aggressive party is the one who wins. Oh, and also: if fighting against many, try to keep one of them between the rest as defence. Okay.

Hanna tried to channel her inner Hulk. Her share of the opponents was here now. Two guys, one in the late teens with a sword, and another in his twenties with an axe. Hanna circled them, putting the teen between her and the other guy. He seemed the easier target. The two of them couldn’t have practiced together a lot. The older one got annoyed and tried to reposition himself. Hanna kept circling, praying that no-one struck her from behind. Now or never, Hanna thought and rushed the young guy.

She thrust with her sword, not really expecting it to connect. The teenager looked startled and only barely blocked. Hanna grinned as her boot connected with his ribcage, her real goal once his sword was out of the way. She kicked as hard as she could, and she felt something give. Probably his ribs. It felt disgusting, but it did the job. The teenager flew back, straight into his older friend.

Hanna regained her balance as fast as she could. The older guy had fallen to the ground, the teenager laying nearby. If she hurried, she could finish the older guy before he got up. But was she the kind of person who stabbed people who currently couldn’t harm her? She’d be a moron if she didn’t. He would be up in an instant, ready to harm her or the others. The seconds ticked by and he was trying to stand up. Hanna cursed her indecisiveness and kicked him in the head. She was careful to hold back. The blow brought the man back to the ground. He looked unconscious.

With her opponents dealt with, Hanna spun around, trying to get a read on the battle. Coral was down. Two more of the opponents were on the ground. Given their proximity to Birgitta, Hanna guessed that the two that Birgitta was fighting at the moment were the ones that had fought Coral. Cashier-guy was struggling against his two enemies. One of them had an arrow in his arm. The other was their leader, the tall one. Hanna used her moment of respite to untangle a shield from one of her opponents. It was triangular, a bit larger and heavier than the shield she had trained with. Hanna didn’t mind the weight.

Emboldened by her new equipment and her success in the recent fight, Hanna jumped in to help Cashier-guy. Leif, Hanna reminded herself. She swung her sword toward the leader’s neck. He must have seen her coming, because he effortlessly turned around and dodged her strike. Their eyes met. He was just as shocked as she was.

Gissa!

Hanna felt lightheaded. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Josef Gissa. He’d been a team leader like her, in the platoon next to hers. He had been there the night when everything changed, probably just a couple of hundred meters away. He was a fucking bastard, Hanna had loathed him since day one. And now she desperately wanted to talk to him. Funny how things can change just because the world ended. Josef seemed to be in a similar conundrum, studying her with furrowed brows.

Someone screamed. A quick glance told Hanna that Birgitta had taken another one down. That left three more, Josef included. He noticed as well and must have realized that their numbers were dwindling. Before Hanna could intervene, he tackled Cashier-guy, grabbed his opponent and called for the last guy to join them. They fled the scene, chased by a few arrows from Bucky.

Hanna set after them but Birgitta reined her in. Several of the Regulars were wounded, even Birgitta had a few cuts on her.

“Everyone okay?” Birgitta asked.

Cashier-guy was bleeding heavily from his side. Rune limped out from behind the cart, supported by Bucky. He looked pale but far from death. Hanna checked on Coral, remembering that he had fallen to the ground. He was dead, a deep cut in his throat the obvious reason.

“Karl is dead”, Hanna reported, relieved that she had at least used his proper name.

“Gudrun too”, Cashier-guy said with a voice full of grief. Hanna was shocked. She hadn’t noticed during the fight. Gudrun was laying in the remnants of their camp, an arrow sticking out of her chest.

“I woke up by her falling on me. She was probably awake when they came”, Cashier-guy said, trying to sort the events out. Bucky came over and hugged him.

“Well, this fucking sucks” Birgitta concluded. “Patch each other up, then we return to the village and try to sort this mess out.” She had a tired voice.

Bucky ripped strips of clothing from the dead and used that to cover up cashier-guys wound. Hanna set out to do the same with Rune, but then she remembered that he had an arrow lodged in his leg. It was probably best to leave that to someone else. Instead she ransacked the enemies for anything useful. She was quite happy with the shield she had pilfered earlier. It had a good size for her and seemed solid enough. It was made of wood but had a metal frame, a definite step up from the shields she had used during practice. It was utterly bizarre to search the pockets of the recently dead. Prior to this, Hanna’s only experience with dead people was the open caskets of dead relatives. But they didn’t need their stuff and Hanna wasn’t exactly flush with cash.

Hanna’s rummaging netted her a few coins, but nothing particularly interesting. All of the weapons were poorly maintained and in no way an improvement to her current gear. One of the guys that Birgitta fought had a helmet that might be of use, but it was uncomfortable to wear with her hair tied up. She couldn’t very well let it hang loose, that was bound to be a problem during fights. Either she cut her hair, or she entered fights without headwear just for vanity. Neither option appealed to her. Pushing the decision for later, she bagged the helmet and moved on to the remaining bodies. The only ones left were those she had fought.

When she bent down to loot them she was startled by the ragged breathing of the one she had kicked. Right, I was to squeamish to finish this, Hanna recalled.

“Uh, Birgitta. What do we do if they are still alive?”

Birgitta hurried over with an interested look. She briskly examined the two that Hanna had fought.

“Did you kick this one?” She asked and pointed towards the teenager.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“Your fucking boot-print is visible on his chest. It’s a miracle that he is still breathing.” Birgitta scratched the back of her head for a moment.

“Alright. Tie their hands and load them on the cart”

Hanna fired off a salute and did as she was told. She didn’t have any rope on hand, but it turned out that rope was what most of their enemies used as belts, so that was easily sorted. When she got to the cart with the first guy hoisted over her shoulder, she found that Gudrun and Karl had been carefully laid there. Someone had put a blanket under them. It was a gesture that was utterly useless since they would hardly be bothered by a lack of cushioning, but it was still a nice thing to do. It felt wrong and macabre to see them laying on top of the cart. Just a day ago they had placed a dead bull there. That had been a small thing, something you forgot after it was done. And now two people lay dead there. Hanna wasn’t too bothered by their death, she wasn’t sentimental enough for it. But intellectually she recognised the tragedy of it, and there were probably quite a few in the village who would be devasted by the news.

Hanna put the teenager on the cart, trying to be as respectful as possible. The cart wasn’t that big, so no matter how much she tried, their captives would still be more or less stacked upon the bodies.

“What do we do with the rest?” Hanna asked and gestured towards their dead enemies. “Do we burry them?”

Birgitta seemed confused. “What, in the ground?”

Hanna was getting tired of the cultural differences. One day she would have to make a list of things they didn’t do here.

“Leave them. Let the crows feast”.

Hanna smiled. Sometimes Birgitta sounded like she came straight from an episode of Vikings.

The trip back to the village was a sombre affair. No-one spoke much. If Coral was alive, he would have been bragging about his performance in the fight. But he wasn’t, and the silence rang in Hanna’s ears. Cashier-guy was sobbing quietly. He had tried walking at first, but the wound got irritated by his movements, so he soon joined Rune on the little space of the cart that wasn’t covered by bodies. Hanna felt like a god-damned school bus as she pulled the cart. At least the weather was nice.

When they got back to the village they were first met with the same cheers that had followed them as they left. Once people noticed the pile of bodies, that quickly died down. They were still closely followed, but it was with worried murmuring and morbid curiosity rather than joyful pride. Their procession came to a halt outside a house that Hanna needed a moment to recognize. She had been here before. It was the house where she had first met Karin and Gunnar.

Figuring they wouldn’t be traveling any further, Hanna gently lowered the handles of the cart. She stretched. The lack of mud had been an improvement, but the villager’s attempt at a cobblestone road was a far cry from the smooth roads she was used to. Wheels were meant to roll, not bump. Bucky helped Rune and Cashier-guy down from the cart. Both were rather stiff and had trouble getting off. Hopefully it was from sitting still too long and not from blood loss.

“Oi!” Birgitta called. She was classy as always.

Karin exited the building. It was easy to follow her journey as her eyes darted all over them, taking in every detail.

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. First I need my guys patched up properly”.

Karin looked them over once again, her eyes lingering on the dead bodies. “Of course”, she said and then turned towards the onlookers. “Could someone help them over to the healer?” She didn’t have to wait for a response, many eager hands came over and more or less carried Rune and Cashier-guy away.

“Now, I need you to tell me what has happened”, Karin said with a stern voice. Birgitta looked like she for once wasn’t in charge. She cleared her throat and began, starting from their arrival at Elsa’s place and ending with a summary of their casualties. Karin seemed very much affected by the deaths of her villagers. It had a peculiar way of showing. She didn’t look sad or hurt, just deeply furious, almost shaking with anger.

“Who was it that attacked you?” Karin said, sounding like the parent of a bullied child, just ridiculously blown out of proportion.

Birgitta shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough. As I said: Hanna was to spineless to finish things, so we have two of them bound in the cart. One of them might still be unconscious, but the other have been playing possum for a while. If he’s smart enough to do that, he probably isn’t dumb enough to refuse me answers”

Hanna winced at Birgitta’s logic and was a bit worried by the hinted possibility of torture. It probably made sense, asking nicely could only get you so far. In an uncivilized world like this one, the right answer might affect a lot of people. Hanna still wasn’t too keen on indirectly subjecting someone to torture. She was happy with the way she viewed herself. She wasn’t overly emphatic, sure. But in the large of things she did more good than bad. If she began assisting Birgitta with ripping out finger nails, she wasn’t sure if she could keep thinking of herself as a force of good.

“Hanna!” Hanna turned absentmindedly towards Birgitta, who looked like she had been left waiting for a while.

“What?”

“Stop zoning out and fucking bring us the guy whose ribs you ruined.”

Geez. Hanna complied and returned a minute later with the teenager in her arms. She had first put him on her shoulder like before, but that just made him scream like a two-year old the first time they met Santa. At least now they knew he wasn’t unconscious.

“Take him inside”, Karin instructed. “This might not be pretty”.

Hanna joined Karin and went inside. Birgitta lingered for a while, making sure that the crowd dispersed and that the cart was taken care of. Since Bucky was the only non-injured member left outside, she ended up pulling the cart over to Björn’s place. She didn’t find the load quite as easy to pull as Hanna did.

Once done, Birgitta slammed the door shut and joined Hanna and Karin in the dimly lit interior of the house. At Karins instruction, Hanna had placed the teenager in a chair, where he sat looking glum. Karin gave Birgitta a short nod, giving her the lead.

“I’m sure you know how this goes, kid.” Birgitta said, lifting his chin up so that she could look him in the eyes. They were broken and defeated, as if he didn’t have much left that she could take away.

The boy snorted. “Don’t worry. I’ll talk”, he said. His voice was slow and apathetic. It sounded to Hanna as if he talked not out of fear for torture, he just didn’t care anymore.

“How about we start with some names?”

The boy chuckled humourlessly. “My name is Tor. I’m with the Wolves.”