The bishop appeared alarmed as he turned to Riq. “What did they say?”
“That we should be ready to fight,” Riq answered. It was clear he’d meant for no one beyond their small group to hear the words but even so his voice carried into the crowd. Soon there were strained murmurings that transformed quickly into a startled buzzing as the news made it through the throngs packed into the church. The air hummed with the threat of panic.
Sera finally released Dak’s hand, and he grimaced as blood rushed back into his fingertips with a feeling of pins and needles. “What did he just do?” she asked.
Dak stared up at where Riq and the bishop continued to converse. He couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the older boy for taking such a crucial role in changing the course of history. “I’m pretty sure he just started a war.”
He watched as Sera’s expression morphed from startled to alarmed. But it was envy, not the pending war, that occupied Dak’s thoughts. “Riq’s totally going to go down in the history books for this, isn’t he?”
WHEN DAK told Sera there were over thirty thousand Vikings across the river, she hadn’t really understood what that meant. Now that she was standing on top of the Grand Châtelet — the huge wooden tower on the mainland guarding the northern bridge to the island city — reality hit her. Hard.
Armored men spread out as far as the eye could see, covering the ground of the mainland’s north bank more thickly than blades of grass. Even though dusk was falling fast she could see them milling around, setting up camp and sharpening weapons. In the distance, a large band of them hacked at a massive fallen tree with their axes, honing the tip of it to a point. Another group worked to set up what looked to be a complicated catapult.
It wouldn’t be long until they pointed everything they had at the ancient wall ringing the island and let loose with all their might. Sera looked behind her into the city. The wall was old and crumbling, most of it constructed over four hundred years ago by the Romans (according to Dak). She couldn’t imagine it holding up for long. Even worse, she’d counted maybe two hundred armed Parisian men during the day. Compared to the legion outside, their force was minuscule.
“You do realize that we’re outnumbered, right?” she asked.
Riq glanced up briefly as if calculating. “If each man here personally takes down one hundred and fifty Vikings, we should be fine.”
“One hundred and fifty heavily armed, bloodthirsty Vikings,” Dak clarified.
Sera stared at the two of them. Neither seemed to grasp the magnitude of the situation. “Oh, no sweat, then.”
Sera still felt uneasy at the way Riq had so completely twisted history. No matter how much Dak tried to reassure her that his read on their mission here was the right one, she didn’t like how little they knew about what was really going on. She was someone who preferred to amass facts, parse through them, and only then come up with a plan of action that had been considered from every angle.
All of this was happening too fast. The only thing that made Sera less anxious was that at the very least the Parisians now had a fighting chance. Originally, according to Dak, after the bishop handed over the city, the Vikings had waited through the night to lull everyone into a false sense of security before destroying the island in the morning. Now, because of Riq, the Parisians had fair warning and were able to marshal their forces and make a plan for defending themselves.
It was an old plan, actually. A few decades before, King Charles the Bald had ordered that cities along the Seine build low bridges across the river to keep Vikings from being able to sail inland too easily. But the bridges themselves were vulnerable to attack. Towers were supposed to be constructed to protect the bridges.
A lot of cities had started the fortifications but never really finished them. Because of that, there was nothing to keep the agile Viking ships from sailing inland from the sea, and they’d taken advantage of this, sending out raids that had decimated French cities that lay close to the coast.
Paris hadn’t finished its fortifications either, and now that the Vikings were set to attack, everyone was pitching in to hurriedly build another level on the tower guarding the north bridge.
I guess procrastination isn’t a modern invention, Sera thought darkly. She had suggested finding a quiet spot for the three of them to hole up in while they worked on the encoded information on the SQuare. But before they’d had a chance to sneak off, the bishop had asked Riq personally to help out. That’s what he got for jumping in as a translator — he’d become too high profile to fade into the background.
Which meant now Sera was tasked with holding rough-hewn wooden planks while Riq and Dak hammered them into place. It wasn’t enough of a distraction from the intimidating view, and her mind drifted back to the danger lurking way too close for comfort.
“I’m still not convinced this can work,” she said. “Even with the advance warning, I don’t see how so few men will keep the Vikings from taking over.”
Dak didn’t even stop what he was doing as he responded, “Originally, they didn’t. The Vikings creamed the Parisians and pretty much took everything they could get their hands on before claiming the city as their base of power and moving on to conquer more.”
Sera glanced at Riq, wondering if Dak’s answer was as unsettling for him as it was for her. But Riq seemed engrossed in his task and perfectly willing to ignore both of them. “And you think we’ve changed all that?”
Dak paused. “Maybe?” That his answer was in the form of a question didn’t do much to allay Sera’s fears.
“On the plus side,” Dak added, “at least now we get to see how a battering ram works.” He grinned in his familiar way.
“That’s not really something I would put in the plus category,” Sera muttered.
Dak ignored her. “Speaking of how things work,” Dak continued. “As soon as it’s dark I’m going to sneak down to the riverbank so I can check out one of the longships. I want to see firsthand if the re-creation at the Smithsonian was accurate.”
Sera felt her eyes bulge out of her head. “What?” The word came out almost as a squawk and several heads turned her way, causing her to blush. She lowered her voice and gripped Dak’s shoulder. “You’re not leaving this tower, Dak Smyth!”
“It’ll just be for a second,” he argued. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Everyone up here is focused on getting the tower fortified, and all the Vikings are wrapped up in their preparations for tomorrow. No one will notice me, honest.”
Was Dak crazy? He’d done some reckless things in his life, but Sera couldn’t believe he was actually considering leaving the safety of the tower, and alone at that!
“It’s out of the question,” she told him, and for the briefest flash of a moment she felt the dizzy, uneven sensation that preceded a Remnant. She’d had these feelings before — that her life was somehow missing something that she was brushing right up against — but they’d always happened when she was at home near her barn or when she looked in a mirror.
This time there was something about the phrase she’d just said, her tone of voice and inflection, that felt as though it should have been familiar somehow. She pressed a hand against the wall to steady herself, sweat breaking out along her temples. Dak didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did he must have thought she was just upset at his plan to sneak out (which, for the record, she was).
“Listen, Sera,” Dak said, setting down his tools and facing her, “when I snuck you into my parents’ super-secure workshop and you saw all those whiteboards filled with their plans for the Infinity Ring, I didn’t try to stop you from working on it. In fact, if I remember correctly I even brought you a nice ham sandwich.”
Dak knew exactly how to make Sera feel guilty and, since she was already unsteady in the wake of the passing Remnant, it was difficult for her to come up with a good response. So she settled on “That
was different.”
“How?”
“Because there weren’t thirty thousand Vikings nearby ready to kill you!” Once again Sera’s outburst drew the attention of the workers around them, and this time several narrowed their eyes.
Dak stepped forward and put a hand on her arm. Sera knew as soon as he did it that she’d lost the argument.
“I promise I’ll be careful,” he said. His eyes were pleading and his voice earnest. “You know how important this is to me. My entire life I’ve lived and breathed history, and now’s my chance to actually experience it firsthand. Please, Sera.”
Dak was right; he’d let her play around in his parents’ lab even though he knew he’d be in huge trouble if they’d found out. He’d taken the risk because of how much it meant to Sera. She sighed dramatically and Dak flashed her an enormous grin.
“One boat, that’s it,” she told him sternly. “And first, we figure out how to find the Hystorian. That’s most important.”
Dak’s response was a groan. “But those puzzles are so hard! And when we asked about a roofless inn, everyone looked at us like we were crazy!”
She arched an eyebrow, a skill she’d perfected after spending several hours in front of the bathroom mirror. “Then I guess you won’t get to see your boat tonight.”
Dak buried his head in his hands and Riq slapped him on the back. “Get to work,” he said, almost gleeful at Dak’s despair.
As it turned out, while Sera was a whiz at calculations and really complicated machines that required using tiny precise instruments, she wasn’t all that skilled at constructing fortress walls. Finally, after she’d gotten in the way one too many times, the bishop suggested that a better task for her might be running messages back and forth between the two defensive towers guarding the bridges on either side of the island.
She was just crossing through the center of the city on her way back north when someone fell into step next to her. She glanced over to find a teen boy, probably not much older than her, with closely cropped hair and an angular face. Immediately her guard went up — she recognized him as someone who’d been hovering around Riq, Dak, and her for much of the day, never far out of earshot.
“Lovely night,” he said, and she grunted in response. That didn’t keep him from trying to engage her in conversation. “I don’t believe we’ve met before. Have you been in Paris long? Where are you from?”
It was a lot of questions for one stranger to ask another, and Sera waved her hand in the air. “Here and there,” she answered noncommittally as she picked up her pace.
The boy sped up as well. “I was born here, but my family’s from Northumbria in Britain. Lindisfarne, actually. Have you heard of it?”
Sera cut a glare at him. She didn’t really care where he was from and she didn’t know why he kept talking to her.
Nevertheless, he pushed on. “My great-great-great-uncle was a monk there. At Lindisfarne Priory. He’s who I’m named after, actually. Oh, I never did introduce myself properly. I’m Billfrith.” He paused, clearly waiting for her to introduce herself, but she kept quiet — and kept moving. But the boy didn’t take the hint.
“I guess not that many people have heard of Lindisfarne Priory these days, which is really a shame. During its time it was a great place of learning. The monks specialized in history, with a keen interest in Aristotle and his pupil Alexander.”
This got Sera’s attention, and she stopped abruptly. Her mind whirred over the riddle from the SQuare: “Upset the clue within: . . . Find a roofless inn.” She began playing with the letters, “upsetting” their order until she found a new arrangement. Suddenly, “find a roofless inn” morphed into “son of Lindisfarne.”
She sucked in a breath. “Wait, what was that last bit?”
Billfrith had to double back. “My ancestors were monks at Lindisfarne Priory, which was once the greatest library in the world. They’d collected more information about Aristotle than anyone else. The priory was destroyed in a raid by the Danes over a century ago, and my great-great-great-uncle was the only one who survived. He’s passed down everything he knew. Everyone in my family is quite the, ah, historian.” He smiled. “Including me.”
DAK KNEW Sera would be furious, but that didn’t stop him from sneaking from the north tower and slipping into the darkness of the mainland. It had been ages since Sera had gone to deliver a message to the south tower, and Dak had no idea how much longer the darkness would last; they’d had to ditch their watches after their first time warp so they wouldn’t look suspicious. He still hadn’t gotten used to telling time by the movement of the stars or sun, and he wasn’t willing to risk losing the chance to check out the Viking ships firsthand.
Besides, Sera had left the SQuare with him and he had it tucked into a satchel slung across his shoulder, so technically he was still trying to work out the code they’d found earlier. He just wasn’t doing it at that exact moment.
Escaping Riq’s notice was easy once the older boy began nodding off as the night stretched on. And since the tower was situated on the mainland, he didn’t have to risk crossing the bridge and getting noticed. Really, all he needed to do was not appear suspicious. He’d learned a long time ago that if you looked like you belonged, people tended to ignore you. It worked just as well in the ninth century as it had in the twenty-first.
November in Paris turned out to be pretty cold once he was away from the light and warmth of the tower, and the clothes Riq had found weren’t all that warm. Dak shivered as he felt his way across the deep trough ringing the tower. Behind him, in the middle of the river, shadows paced back and forth along the wall around Paris, soldiers keeping an eye on the Viking camps.
Dak scrambled upriver, a long black stretch of water lapping softly along muddy banks to his left. A thin sheet of frost crackled under his feet as he slipped his way through fields and between the few houses and churchyards that had been built across from the island.
Even from here he sensed the fear of the coming morning radiating from the city, and this caused him to pause. He remembered catching a glimpse into one of the houses in Paris as he’d walked by earlier in the evening. He’d seen a father pull a young boy onto his lap, brushing frightened tears from his son’s eyes. At the memory, something tightened inside Dak, making it harder to breathe as he thought about his own father, now lost in time. Sera theorized that his parents were being drawn to the Breaks and that eventually they’d find one another again, but Dak wasn’t so sure.
In one swift moment Dak felt the enormity of the task the Hystorians had given the three of them and how easily it could all go wrong. For his entire life, the two things he’d always been sure of were his parents’ love for him and his knowledge of history.
Now his parents were missing and history was changing.
Dak looked back at the north tower and thought about turning around. Sera would be worried. But then he felt the inescapable tug of the Viking ships moored up the river. It would only take a minute or two for him to scurry down and take a look. With the Vikings themselves encamped farther inland, he would never have a better opportunity.
Firsthand knowledge of Viking artifacts was rare in his time, and the thought of returning home and being able to straighten the record was too tempting an opportunity to pass up.
Dak hoped Sera had nodded off like Riq, but just in case he sent a silent apology over his shoulder and made his way quickly to the ships. They towered over him. The boat they’d seen (and almost been crushed by) during their class trip to the Smithsonian paled in comparison to the real thing. Dak reached out and pressed a hand against one of the hulls. The wood was smooth, painted in bright reds and blues, and without any blemishes or knots. Holes dotted the sides where oars could be set for rowing, and the prow curved into the form of a sinister-looking dragon’s head.
Dak had told himself he’d just take a quick loo
k and leave, but that was impossible. It wasn’t enough to glance at the hull; he had to climb inside and sit on the benches and wrap his hands around a set of oars. Above him sails wound tight around spars attached to a forest of masts and he imagined the color of them all unfurled: red, yellow, white, blue, green.
He was so lost in his daydream that he didn’t hear the crunch of approaching feet across the frosty bank. All Dak knew was that one minute he was standing on the prow of a Viking ship imagining all kinds of seafaring adventures, and the next he was flat on his back.
Pinning him to the deck was the largest beast Dak had seen in his entire life. It had paws the size of cement blocks resting on either side of Dak’s ribs. But all Dak could really focus on was the monster’s head, its mouth a cavern of sharp teeth. The animal panted a hot breath against Dak’s face that stank of something truly horrid. When it growled, the entire boat vibrated.
This wasn’t exactly the way Dak had imagined his life ending, but there was little he could do to defend himself. Instead he tried a little diplomacy.
“Nice doggie,” he cooed. “Who’s a good boy?”
This only caused the beast to draw its tongue over its lips in anticipation.
“Sit?” Dak tried again. The dog tilted its head to the side, as one long string of thick drool slid from its mouth and came within millimeters of Dak’s cheek.
What Dak heard next almost scared him more than the beast pinning him to the deck. It was a low booming that sounded more like thunder than a man’s laughter. The largest human being Dak had seen in his entire life leaned into the boat, causing it to tip precariously.
When the man spoke, Dak’s earpiece immediately switched languages to translate. As soon as he heard the words, Dak thought that perhaps it would have been better if he’d been left in ignorance.
“Well, Vígi,” the giant said, surveying the situation. “It seems like you found your own dinner after all.”