Chapter 41:

Knocking on the door of the narrow hallway above the armorer's shop on the ground floor, I waited for a response. The door opened a crack, and I could see a thin sliver of a cluttered room full of random bits of junk—twine, sticks, papers, and old dishes. The door was only open a few inches, and half of Astrid's face appeared, her eye looking at me.

"Oh, hey, Miles," she said, her voice slightly rough. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't open the door the rest of the way. "I was hoping we could have a talk."

She gave me the slightest nod. "All right, come on, let's grab a drink."

I turned and started walking down the hallway to wait for her. Muffled swearing followed as the door closed, a latch undid, and she came stomping down the hall after me.

"You know, you're not my boss," she said. "Not my master. I don't have to listen to you."

I glanced back at her and headed for the stairs. Maybe I had been a little bit pushy, but that seemed extreme. She continued on without waiting for a response.

"You're a good leader. You are decisive when you need to be and willing to think things through when you can. You listen to us all when we have something to say, and you don't when we're wasting time. But you're not a revolutionary leader. You're not a great leader. You're good. You're decent. You could be good. Maybe with some practice."

Those words hit me harder than I wanted to admit. Had I been getting full of myself? Recently, it didn't feel like it. I didn't respond, and we continued downstairs and across the street to a dingy dive bar where I ordered us a couple of drinks as we sat in a corner booth in the dim light.

"But," she said. I still haven't responded. "You're not amazing. And clearly, it's not enough. We need more from you, Miles. Just making the smart decisions when there are smart decisions to be made isn't going to get us there in time. We have a little less than two weeks, and we haven't made progress in five days," she said, frustrated.

I bit my tongue to avoid saying something stupid.

"You need to—" she started, but I cut her off, my patience wrung dry. I wasn't about to listen to more demands of me as if I was the only problem with our team.

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"No. You and everyone else need to stop acting like little children. You bicker over everything. You can't have reasoned arguments like adults without someone yelling at you half the time. Most of the time, at least two of you, if not three, are either hungover or currently drunk! If, by some miracle, you are not, then you are actively trying to get drunk! Jonas is off chasing women half the time we should be practicing..." I trailed off, my anger cooling off as I continued.

"We aren't a team. I make the decisions not because I want to be a leader but because no one else fucking will. Every time I think one of you is going to step up, it's just some petty insult meant to cut another down." My temper was rising again as I picked up pace. "The only one who's getting anything out of this is Helga, and that's because she's too timid to object to putting up with anyone else's shit. You're all just children."

I finally met Astrid's eyes and realized something was wrong. They weren't angry or frustrated or seething with rage like I expected after my outburst. They were welling up with tears, her face pale and her lower lip quivering slightly. She took a deep gulp of her ale and only half put it down before reaching up to take another one.

I raised my hands, starting to backpedal a little. "Listen, you're not the only problem. I'm not saying you're a problem, but we both have problems, and we need to figure it out. You and Bjorn need to figure out your shit. I need to learn how to be a leader properly and learn actual strategy. Jonas needs to get his head in the game, and Helga needs to learn how to speak her mind."

She wasn't listening to me. But she started to speak anyway. "When I came into Valhalla, I didn't want to. I hate violence. I don't like getting up close and personal," she whispered in a soft voice. "I hate it now. I didn't used to, though. When I was 15, I already had one child. My husband was a fisherman but would go on the summer raids out east. Our village got raided and was burning down. I had a six-month-old baby on my hip, and I was starting to swell from the next on the way. But I held a sword in one hand, and I killed two of our attackers from behind. It wasn't enough. There were too many more of them."

She sniffed and sobbed. "I was cut down with a slash through my swollen stomach. The same cut killed the child I was carrying, the baby inside me, all at once." She was struggling to speak, her chest rocking with sobs and tears running down her face. "I haven't touched a sword the entire time I was here. I've died again here rather than touching another sword."

I reached across the small table and pulled her into my chest, giving her a crushing hug. Unsure of what else to do, I just held her tight as she started sobbing into my shirt.

It was nearly a minute before she muttered something that I could barely make out.

"Bjorn looks just like him-- Just like the man with the sword."

I blinked and froze. Totally unprepared and underqualified to handle this.

"I can't get it out of my head. I've talked with Bjorn. I know he lived hundreds of years after I did, but Bjon could be his son."

I just held her as she cried.