Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Michael, where is your brother?”

Fourteen-year-old Michael Madsen had three brothers, but that question from his father, in that tone, could refer only to his twin brother, Mikkel. “I don't know. I haven't seen him for days. I've been out here. What's he done this time?” Obviously Mikkel was in trouble again; he managed to get in more trouble than all five of their other siblings put together.

“He's chopped off Pettar's leg.”

Michael's mouth fell open in shock. “But — but —” Pettar was their cousin and Mikkel's best friend. Mikkel would never harm him.

“They were chopping firewood. He brought Pettar back to us half-dead, and he was babbling about grosslings and quarantines, and you know good and well there are no grosslings on Bornholm, and I had to take Pettar to Axel, and when I came back he'd run away.” Morten Madsen ran his hands through his hair in distress. “I thought he might have run to you.”

“No, no, he wouldn't — he couldn't —”

“He did. He's gone too far this time. And I've got to find him.”

Michael pulled his scattered thoughts together. “If Mikkel saw a grossling —”

“If! There haven't been any grosslings on the island since before you were born. Who knows what he saw! You know how he is!”

And Michael did know. There was nothing wrong with Mikkel's eyes; their parents had tried every test they knew, confirming that he could see near and far with either eye and that he had normal color vision, yet somehow he seemed to have difficulty grasping what he saw. He might think something was near when it was far or far when it was near, or confuse two things that were close together. Still … what could he have possibly confused for a grossling?

“If Mikkel thought he saw a grossling, he would take Pettar to safety and then go back to deal with it. That's where he's gone.” That was so obvious that he couldn't understand how his father had missed it. Unlike Mikkel and Michael, and for that matter Morten, Pettar was not immune and Mikkel had had to see to his safety, and then of course Mikkel had gone back. Only — what could have possessed him to chop off Pettar's leg?

“Are you wearing your dagger? Good, come along then. Help me find him.”

They stopped by the house and Michael watched in increasing distress as his father strapped on his dagger and pistol and slung his rifle over his shoulder. If his father didn't believe there were any grosslings …

“Dad, Mikkel wouldn't hurt us —”

“Michael, an hour ago I would have said Mikkel wouldn't hurt Pettar. Look, you love your brother and I love my son. But he's done this thing and he's still out there. And he still has that axe.”

Michael could think of nothing to say to that. It was impossible! Mikkel couldn't have attacked Pettar! And Mikkel would never harm them!

Morten quietly drew his pistol and checked it before leading the way. They followed a trail of bits of string tied to twigs: Mikkel's work, because he tended to get lost. A few hundred meters from the farm, they found the blood where Mikkel had stopped to apply a tourniquet, and from there they could follow the trail of spattered blood. Then there was a clearing ahead and they could see a pile of firewood.

They stopped in shock. Scattered around in the middle of the clearing were an unbloodied axe; the severed lower leg, savagely torn just above the boot; Magnus, the oldest of the farm's cats, mangled and clearly dead; and a thoroughly smashed long thin thing which was undeniably a grossling.

But Mikkel was not there.

Michael recovered first. “Mikkel! Mikkel! Where are you?” After a moment his father joined him.

There was no answer.

Still calling, Michael began to prowl around the clearing, peering into the forest for any hint of where Mikkel had gone. Surely he would have marked a trail!

“Look there,” his father said suddenly. “There's something on the ground.” It was another grossling, with yet another beyond it. These seemed to have started their existence as squirrels and had also been thoroughly crushed. Beyond these, they found another clearing and in it several more dead grosslings, vermin beasts, no threat to immunes like themselves but deadly to non-immunes like Pettar, and …

“Mikkel!” Michael fell to his knees beside his brother and put an arm around his shoulders. Mikkel was sitting against a tree on one side of the clearing, his arms wrapped around his legs and his face hidden against his knees. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Mikkel's voice was muffled since he had not raised his head from his knees.

“Mikkel,” Michael chided softly, looking at Mikkel's torn trousers, smeared with grossling slime and spattered with so much of Pettar's blood that Mikkel's own blood could not be distinguished.

“Is Pettar …?”

“He's with Axel,” Morten put in, holstering his pistol and gently stroking Mikkel's bowed head for a moment. Axel was the local healer, the closest thing they had to a doctor. “Your mother's arranging the quarantine.” Michael looked up in surprise and, glancing over at him, his father added in an apologetic tone, “We couldn't take any risk even though, well … But where did these come from? There haven't been grosslings on the island in so long!”

“Maybe one got stuck somewhere, all these years, and then the rains these past weeks freed it, washed it down here …” Michael suggested, waving at the rain-swollen creek that bordered the clearing.

“Maybe. This could have built up to real danger. If they hadn't come down here for firewood …” He frowned down at Mikkel for a moment as there was no reason for the two young men to have come so far from the farm for firewood. They had obviously taken advantage of their assigned task to explore for a while.

“Get up, son,” their father ordered. “Both of you. We've got to get back to the farm, call in the Hunters, and” — he looked around sadly — “bring in the Cleansers to burn the forest.”

Mikkel hunched his shoulders and didn't otherwise move.

“Dad, go on. We'll follow you soon.” Their father looked over at Michael, seemed to consider answering him or saying something to Mikkel, then sighed and left.

Michael shifted to a sitting position, his movements awkward since he would not remove his arm from his brother's shoulders. “Tell me.”

“Too slow. Too clumsy.” Mikkel shook his head without lifting it from his knees.

Michael leaned his head against his brother's. It was so unfair! They were identical twins, so identical that when they were babies, their mother had tied a string around his wrist so she knew which was which. But somehow he'd gotten all the speed and grace and Mikkel had gotten … nothing. By the time they were old enough to try to fool their mother, she could tell them apart just by the way they moved. Michael would have given anything to be able to share his gifts with his twin.

“It was going to bite … I couldn't reach it. I could reach Pettar … but I think I was too late, even though I did … that. ”

“You did what you could. And you don't know. We don't know.”

“Mette hates me.”

“No —”

“She said so.” And that had to hurt terribly, Michael knew, for their littlest sister had idolized Mikkel.

“She doesn't know, Mikkel. She saw what you'd done” — Mikkel flinched — “but she didn't know why you did it. Dad will tell her. I'll tell her. Pettar will tell her.”

“If he lives.”

“Yeah.” Michael looked around. What were they doing, sitting and talking in a grossling-infested forest? How long had Mikkel been sitting here? “We need to get out of here.”

“All I see is the blood.”

“I know. I wish …” That was the curse of the eidetic memory which they shared. Once seen, an image was difficult to escape. “But we need to get out of here before something bigger shows up.” He stood, pulled his brother unresisting to his feet. He should have expected it with Mikkel sitting with his face against his befouled trousers, but still it surprised a laugh out of him: “Oh, Mikkel, you've got slime all over your face!” And if the flesh about his eyes was red and puffy, that was due to the slime, of course.

Mikkel started to wipe at his face but fortunately saw the state of his gloves in time. Crossing the clearing in a few strides, he fell to his knees by the creek and plunged his head into the water. Michael, a step behind him, started to object, for what might be hiding in that water? — but he was too late and all he could do was stand guard while his brother washed his gloves — the rest of his blood-soaked clothing would have to wait — and scrubbed at his face. To Michael's relief, nothing charged out of the water at them, and when he thought Mikkel's face adequately clean he pulled his twin to his feet again and pushed him back towards the farm.

In the farther clearing, the leg, the axe, and Magnus were all gone and the grossling had been kicked aside. It occurred to Michael that they had not seen Mikkel's axe.

“Where's the axe?”

“I threw it away. Over there somewhere.”

All tools were valuable. Michael went to retrieve it, pausing to wipe it clean of blood as best he could, and when he returned, Mikkel was collecting firewood. Michael opened his mouth to tell him to forget the firewood, then closed it again. Suddenly he felt much older than his twin: the kid was terribly shaken, and if gathering firewood made him feel better, well, let him gather firewood. It didn't take that long for him to gather all that he could carry, and they went on.

They walked in silence until the farmhouse was in sight, and then Mikkel said suddenly, “I want to take over as cowherd.” The cowherd job was one of the least popular with the gregarious Madsen family, for it meant staying alone in a hut out by the pasture, watching over their immune herd. Michael had been assigned to do it for the next couple of weeks, but trading jobs was an established family tradition, so if Mikkel wanted the job, no one would object if he took it.

“Sure.” And then Mikkel was carefully stacking the firewood, watched wide-eyed by several young cousins who dared not approach: word had gotten around that Mikkel was dangerous and Michael couldn't deny that he looked dangerous, covered in blood as he was. Michael knew that their fear hurt his twin, who loved his cousins; he wanted to do something about it, but what? Before he could speak, his brother was running away to the pasture and solitude.

Two weeks later Pettar came out of quarantine; he had not been infected with the Rash. In the split second he had had to act, Mikkel had indeed saved Pettar's life.

Chapter Text

“I don't need another job, Dad. This one's fine, and no one else wants it anyway.”

The worst of it was that Mikkel was right. No one else did want the job as cowherd. His father looked at him with a mixture of frustration, worry, and — hopefully concealed — shame.

The frustration was for the boy's sheer stubbornness. No, not the boy, for in this the seventh decade of the Rash, resources were too scarce to indulge the luxury of a long adolescence. At fourteen, almost fifteen now, Mikkel was a man and Morten had no authority over him except the moral authority of a father and, as the official owner of the Madsen farm, the authority of an employer. Neither of these seemed to be very effective against Mikkel at the moment, but he had somehow to get his son back among the family!

Mikkel's twin, Michael, had been assigned the cowherd job for three weeks, but Mikkel had taken over after he'd served only a week. When Mikkel had been out here for two weeks, Morten had sent his nephew Nils out to take the job. Mikkel had convinced Nils to trade jobs, and had remained. After three more weeks, Morten had sent another nephew, Filip, and Mikkel had likewise traded jobs with him, and had remained. It didn't help that both of his young cousins were too frightened to argue with Mikkel.

And that was the most worrisome part of all this. When Mikkel staggered in carrying the wounded Pettar, gasped out the news of grosslings in the forest, and then ran off while Morten carried Pettar to the healer, several of his siblings and cousins saw the whole thing. In the hours between Mikkel's blood-soaked appearance and Morten's return reporting that there really were grosslings in the forest, the whole family had buzzed with speculation.

Since no one had believed there were any grosslings, there had been two theories: Mikkel was lying to avoid punishment for a prank gone disastrously wrong, or Mikkel had gone mad and brutally attacked his cousin. Either way, Mikkel was dangerous. Despite Morten's efforts, and Michael's, and even Pettar's, the perception among many of their extended family members remained that, even though there were grosslings in the forest, Mikkel had grievously and perhaps unnecessarily harmed his cousin, and therefore Mikkel was dangerous.

But Mikkel loved his brothers and sisters and cousins, had always loved them. That his littlest sister had screamed that she hated him, that his cousins flinched away when they had to talk to him, those were daggers in his heart, and he had stayed out here to watch the cattle alone and escape them. That was the wrong thing to do, Morten knew, and so he'd come out personally to talk to his son after Mikkel had stubbornly held onto the cowherd job for six weeks.

Morten had terribly misjudged his son. He had been one of those who thought — or at least feared — that Mikkel had gone mad and he had searched for his son with a pistol in his hand. Only he and Michael knew that, and Michael would never tell because it would devastate his twin to learn. Just knowing it himself filled Morten with shame and had kept him from approaching his troubled son for all these weeks.

“Mikkel, this is the wrong way. You can't stay hiding out here. You have to come back.”

“I'm not hiding! I've done a lot out here. Come and see.” And then Mikkel was striding away and Morten was looking at his back and blinking in surprise. Why — his son was a man! Mikkel had inherited the family height as Morten himself had not, already topped his father by several centimeters, and was still growing. But six weeks ago he'd still had the look of a boy shooting up too fast, and now his shoulders had broadened and his biceps thickened: this was a powerful man who strode before his father.

The cowherd's hut stood on the far side of the pasture. It kept the rain off and not much more could be said for it. But beside it …

Beside the hut, Mikkel was building a log cabin, about six meters square. The walls were not very high yet, not even waist-high, but there were logs lined up beside it in various stages of preparation: branches removed, bark removed, hollows carved, in some cases even holes drilled. Piled beside the logs were rough-hewn square pegs and several good stainless steel pipes.

“Mikkel,” his father asked in astonishment, “where did you get all this? I mean, not the logs —” Another look at Mikkel's muscular physique told him exactly where the logs had come from. “But these pipes and … you must have tools …” Tools. Tools and Mikkel had never played well together.

“The pipes and most of the tools came from that farmhouse over there.” That ruined farmhouse, Morten knew, was over a kilometer away. “The, the … axe … was here. Michael brought me the drill. And took it back, too.” Michael had volunteered to bring Mikkel supplies every week. Morten had not known he was bringing other things too.

“I'm impressed,” Morten said honestly. “I never imagined …!” But the tools … he had to ask. “Mikkel, let me see your hands.”

Mikkel immediately put his hands behind him, reminding his father painfully of the little boy he had been. He caught himself, reluctantly held out his hands for his father's examination. He was wearing gloves, as his father was, even in the summer sun. In this age of the Rash, it had become rigid custom to wear gloves at all times outside, even when alone. Morten pulled off the patched, stained, gloves carefully and found what he'd expected: both hands were crudely bandaged.

“Let's go in the hut. Let me take care of this.” Mikkel obeyed silently.

“Which is worse?” Mikkel hesitated, lifted his left hand. Of course it would be his left; Mikkel was left-handed and it was harder for him to treat injuries to that hand. Morten unwrapped the bandage, put it in his pocket. Boiled, it would be reused, for they were not so prosperous as to be able to discard anything usable.

It was a wonder that his clumsy son had never managed to lose a finger — Morten stopped himself from thinking about pieces being chopped off. Mikkel had cut himself in several places, but the worst was a gash across the heel of his hand. He had taped that back together but “This needs stitches. Stay there.”

The first aid kit had a curved needle and thread, and after Morten had poked up the fire, got some water boiling, dropped everything in to sterilize, and fished everything out again, he sat back down to address his son. Mikkel had not spoken while his father worked, but sat staring off into the distance. Starting the first stitch, Morten searched for a neutral topic. “You need a new shirt. That one's about to split.” His shirt was really too small for him, stretched across those broad shoulders.

“I take it off when I work.”

“Hmm. Do I understand then that this has already happened once?”

“Uh.” Mikkel was caught.

“That's what I thought. You need two new shirts then.”

“Michael —”

“Is not a good model for you right now. You've put on a lot more muscle than he has. You'll have to come in so your mother can measure — do not suggest that, Mikkel. She will not humor you by coming out here.” Mikkel closed his mouth. That was of course exactly the request he had intended to make.

“You have to come in. If nothing else, when you drive the cattle in this fall …” His voice trailed off as he thought of the snug log cabin-to-be. “No. No, Mikkel. I will not allow this. Michael will not allow this. We'll tie you up and drag you back bodily if it comes to that.”

“No one wants me there. They're afraid of me.”

“I … won't deny that some of your cousins are afraid. Once they see you, once you're around them again and you're just as you always were, they'll get over it. And anyway your mother and I, and your brothers and sisters —”

“Mette —”

“Yes, I heard. Mikkel, she's four years old. She saw you, she saw Pettar, she saw all the blood, she didn't understand any of it, and she didn't mean it. Let it go, son. Come back, and she'll throw herself in your arms because she's so happy to see you. Please come back. Please. We miss you.” And you need us, but that's the wrong thing to say right now.

Mikkel stared at his hands, unspeaking. Morten finished stitching and bandaging, took his right hand and rebandaged that too, waited silently. Eventually his son would have to answer.

“Two weeks,” Mikkel said huskily.

“Of course. You must finish the job. It's your duty. But I'll send someone to take over, and you will let him.”

Mikkel nodded without looking at his father.

Two weeks later Mikkel skulked back to the farmhouse. Mette threw herself into his arms with squeals of joy.

Chapter Text

“Hop on, Mikkel,” his father invited. Mikkel, just turned fifteen, pushed his sweaty hair out of his face and looked up. His father had scooted over to leave space for him on the oxcart.

“Uh … no. I've got to fix the floor of the loft.” Morten regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment and then nodded and tsked at the oxen to get them moving. The other carts fell in line and they all went off to market. Mikkel had loaded his father's cart with twenty-kilo sacks and then moved on to help his cousin Filip load his while his father supervised loading of the other carts. Filip had stepped uneasily away and let him finish alone. That had hurt, but Mikkel kept his face impassive and just did the work. The loading itself had been easy for him; he was still growing taller, still filling out, and still getting stronger.

“Mikkel! You need to change clothes! You can't go to the harvest festival like that!”

Mikkel did not turn around, instead carefully removing the nails and the eyescrew he'd been holding between his lips and telling Michael, “I'm not going. I need to finish this.”

“It's a chicken coop. It doesn't matter if you finish it today or next week. Come on, you're slowing us down!”

“I'm not going.”

Mikkel could feel his brother glaring at his back for a long moment, then the other sighed. “Okay, have it your way. Have fun working while I get to meet girls!” At the previous harvest festival they'd been fourteen and much too shy to talk to girls. Well, not girls outside the family anyway. They had three sisters and lots of girl cousins, but that was different.

Mikkel finally looked over his shoulder, saw that Michael was gone, and heaved a sigh of his own. His father had ordered him to come back from the cowherd job, and he'd done it, but the past few months at home hadn't been any fun at all. At least his cousins had mostly stopped flinching from him.

Pettar was in town. Once he'd recovered, he'd gone in and gotten an apprenticeship with a weaver, the kind of job he could do with a wooden leg. They weren't best friends anymore. It wasn't that Pettar blamed him; in fact Pettar had strongly defended him against the whispers that he was dangerous. But it was hard for Pettar to face the man who'd chopped off his leg and it was even harder for Mikkel to face the man whose leg he'd chopped off. It didn't matter that he'd done the only thing he could; it was still a terrible thing.

With Pettar in town, the word had undoubtedly spread: Mikkel Madsen was dangerous. If his own cousins had believed it, strangers would believe it even more strongly. It had been bad enough to face it here, among relatives who'd actually cared about him … once … and he wasn't ready to face it among strangers.

He put the nails and eyescrew back between his lips, pushed one nail into the hole he'd prepared for it, and pounded it in. Retrieving the eyescrew, he screwed it carefully into the wood at the next location and then twisted it back out. The eyescrews were the very best thing he'd salvaged from the ruined farmhouse a kilometer from the cow pasture. They'd been in a plastic package that had never even been opened! The people of the Old World had been so wealthy that they'd had treasures like that and hadn't even used them!

There'd been several different sizes of eyescrews in the package, and one size was just the right diameter for these nails. He could screw one in, unscrew it, push a nail in the hole, hammer the nail in the rest of the way without risking his fingers. He hadn't hit his thumb in weeks! Of course, this was a secret. He didn't want even Michael to know how he had to work around his clumsiness.

He struck the latest nail but the hammer hit a little crooked and despite the prepared hole the nail bent, flew out, hit him in the cheekbone, and drew blood. It had hit below the protective goggles that he wore, plastic lenses of the kind that could no longer be made, a little age-clouded but usable, mounted in a small wooden frame that was tied on to his head with string.

Mikkel cursed, not because the nail had cut him, but because it had bent. He would straighten it, of course; nails were valuable. But when you straightened them, they were never quite as good as if they had never been bent. They were like relationships that way, his thoughts ran on, and he rested his forehead against the wall, closing his eyes. Pettar would never be his best friend again. He would never have the same relationships with his family members as he had had before. Before he did … that. But there had been no choice, and if he could go back, he would have to do it again.

Life was unfair. Mikkel picked up the bent nail, put it on a board so it would not get lost, pushed another nail into the prepared hole, pounded it in.

Sixteen-year-old Mikkel had spent the morning of market day in a pleasant haze of exertion, loading heavy sacks into his wheelbarrow and taking them out to the carts. As he brought out the last load, he heard his father asking on the other side of a cart, “Where's Mikkel?”

His father would invite him, again, and he would have to make an excuse, again … Mikkel dropped the handles and ran, sprinted past the barn, doubled back to the other door, and swarmed up into the loft. Anyone who'd seen him pass the barn would suppose he'd kept running.

Mikkel lay in the fresh hay and listened while the laden oxcarts trundled away. He just … couldn't … force himself to see strangers. Things were a lot better on the family farm after over a year, almost as if it had never happened, but the axe and the blood featured nightly in his nightmares.

And no one ever gathered firewood with him. Not ever.

Mikkel climbed down from the loft. There was surely a fence or something to be repaired.

“Mikkel, come on! You missed last harvest festival, don't miss this one! The barn will wait!”

Mikkel hated to see Michael's disappointment, but he couldn't. He shook his head, turned back to the pulley he was repairing.

“But there's a girl. I want you to meet her. Her name's Alma, isn't that a pretty name? And I'm going to marry her!”

The screwdriver slipped, just missed impaling his hand. “You're … getting married?” Of course young people married, but Michael! His own twin! “You didn't — you didn't tell me —”

“Well, she doesn't know yet. I mean, we met at last year's festival, and her family has an inn in town, and I stop in whenever I run into town, and she's so sweet and so beautiful, and she's the third child so she won't mind moving out here, right?”

After the Great Dying, what remained of Denmark had reinstituted primogeniture: the first child inherited and the later children did not. It was meant to keep the farms and businesses that supported the population from being subdivided to the point of being economically infeasible. The first child was supposed to provide for his or her younger siblings, and they were in turn supposed to break new ground or start new businesses. Or a younger sibling would remain forever as second-in-command. That was the role to which Mikkel was born and he embraced it, but marrying the first child of the Madsen family might appeal to this Alma.

“Does she know you're, um, courting her?”

“Not exactly. I mean, probably not. I've never said anything.” Mikkel thought Michael's emotions were written on his face in large and glowing letters and couldn't imagine how anyone could miss them. But then, he could read his twin brother better than anyone else. “I'm going to talk to her at the festival and, and, I'd really like you to meet her.”

Mikkel closed his eyes and rested his head against the ladder to the loft. “Please don't, Michael. Please just go. I have to work.”

“Mikkel …” There was a long silence before Michael clumped out of the barn.

The wedding was in the early winter, and it was held at the Madsen farm because the bride was moving there. Her family was small by the standards of the Madsens, so the barn, which had been thoroughly cleaned out for the occasion, sufficed for the entire wedding party. Alma really was beautiful and very sweet and kind to her groom's many siblings. Michael's sisters loved her. Mikkel put on his best impassive face and attended the wedding and celebratory supper for several hours before fleeing to the log cabin by the pasture.

Mikkel had not completed the cabin. Others had completed it with his salvaged tools and his logs, but it was very nearly his, and it was warm once he'd built the fire. He sat outside late into the night watching surprisingly bright Lights dance across the sky.

“Mikkel, tomorrow is market day. You are going into town with me.”

“No, I have work —”

“There is always work, and you do far more than your share. You're going.” Mikkel started to turn away and Morten clapped hands on his shoulders. Finally full-grown at seventeen, Mikkel was taller and far stronger than his father; he could easily knock aside his father's hands, but he was a good son and would never do so. He was trapped.

Listen to me, Mikkel. I wouldn't let you build a cage for yourself by the pasture, and I'm not going to let you turn the farm into a cage either. Now stop turning away and look at me.

That's better. Now listen. When it happened, yes, we were all talking about you and worrying about — will you stop that! Hold your head up, you've done nothing to be ashamed of!

Agghh, you're hard to talk to. Yes, we were worrying about you because you're ours. You're part of us. We care about you. You matter to us.

When Pettar went to town, word got out. There was no way to prevent it. Yes, people talked about you. Maybe it's better that you stayed away that year.

Didn't I tell you to hold your head up?

Mikkel, what I'm trying to say is that there's close to a thousand people in town. They heard the story, maybe, but it's more than two years ago now. They've heard so many other rumors of so many things since. They don't remember your name. At most they remember that there was something about Pettar's cousin, but he has lots of cousins and they don't know it's you. You're not one of them, you're not part of them, they don't care about you, and you don't matter to them.

They've forgotten, if they ever knew. There's no reason for you to be afraid of them.

Don't shake your head. Do you think I don't understand? Do you think I made you face your cousins because I didn't care? You did a terrible thing — don't hang your head! Do you want me to get Michael in here to talk to you? Or your mother?

Didn't think so.

You did a terrible thing because you had no choice. No one condemns you for it except you. You are letting it wreck your life. You are making it wreck your life.

And I'm not going to let you do it. I've been very patient, but I'm not going to allow you to do this any longer. You cannot use my farm as your cage. You will go to town with me tomorrow. You will go to the harvest festival. You will go out into the world and have a happy life.

Is that very clearly understood?

Mikkel swallowed, nodded, felt very small before his father.

Mikkel drove an oxcart to town the next day. Under his father's stern eye, he held his head up and kept his face impassive. No one flinched from him, no one treated him any differently from the rest of the Madsen family.

His father was right. He really didn't matter. It was a liberating feeling.

Chapter Text

Michael stood in the doorway, scarcely breathing in his effort to keep quiet. Mikkel was cradling the baby — two-month old Mila — in his arms as he rocked back and forth in the rocking chair and softly sang a lullaby. How long had it been since Michael had heard his brother sing?

Something — perhaps the pressure of Michael's gaze — caught Mikkel's attention and he fell instantly silent, getting to his feet with unwonted grace. “So, you're back.”

“So I am. How'd you end up babysitting?” Mikkel passed his niece to her father with practiced ease. As the oldest members of their generation, they had cared for quite a few young cousins and even their own youngest sister.

“I came to tell Dad the old sow's not looking good and I don't think we should feed her for the winter. But he's escaped and gone into hiding somewhere, and Alma tapped me to babysit so she and Mom can go talk Maja down again.” The twins rolled their eyes identically at the thought of their oldest sister, who would be married in three days and was panicky at the thought of the marriage ceremony. “We ought to adopt one of those really ancient customs and just have them jump over a fire together or something.”

The baby made a noise and both brothers sniffed. “Perfect timing,” Mikkel said with a grin as his brother started for the changing table.

Mikkel was headed for the door when his brother said suddenly, “Mikkel, I want you to have what I have.”

Mikkel assumed an expression compounded of greed and extreme stupidity. “Really?” He pointed at the baby. “Well, I'm not taking that until you finish changing her.”

Michael laughed as his twin had intended. “You idiot!” If Mikkel had been within reach he would have mock-punched him. Sobering, “I mean, I want you to have a family.”

Mikkel's expression transformed instantly into the impassive mask that he adopted with strangers and, more and more, even with Michael. “I have a family.” He turned away.

“You know what I mean! Why aren't you seeing Astrid anymore?” Michael was changing the diaper with, again, practiced ease.

“She slapped me and told me she never wanted to see me again.”

“Well, that's impressive. What did you do to cause that?”

“I told her she was ignorant and insular and sounded like something that crawled out of some stupid romance novel about the pre-Rash world.”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“She said … she said we're safe here on Bornholm and we should just try to forget about the outside world, keep to ourselves, have lots of kids, and tell them they should never, ever, leave.”

If he hadn't been busy pinning up a fresh diaper Michael would have buried his face in his hands. “Oh, Mikkel, you realize she all but proposed to you, right?” Picking up his daughter and turning around, he was not really surprised to find that Mikkel was gone.

Mikkel walked through the farm looking around for tasks. The harvest was in, the livestock were driven into their winter quarters, the barns and other outbuildings were as weather-tight as he'd been able to make them. Reaching the cow path leading to the pasture, he started along it and was halfway up before he stopped. His father had demanded and received his word that he would not retreat to the log cabin. If his father had only ordered him to stay away, his rebellious nature might have led him to go anyway, but he had given his word. He stood on the path for a long moment and then turned away.

Well, there was one task he could always perform.

Though his bits of string were years gone, he didn't need them. The Cleansers had burned the forest, but trees are evolved to survive forest fires, and they still stood, gold and red and brown with the remains of their autumn raiment, or broodingly dark with their evergreen needles.

Mikkel stopped in the clearing and looked around. It had happened over there, and he had returned, kicked the grossling off of Magnus and stomped it to death … right here. But he'd been too late for the old tomcat. He'd still been stomping on the dead grossling when he spotted the others, vermin beasts, no threat to him.

He walked on to the second clearing. Half a dozen more vermin beasts had rushed him here, and he'd kicked and stomped until nothing at all moved. The scars from their teeth and claws were hardly visible anymore.

He should gather firewood, and he would. He just meant to sit for a little bit.

Mikkel sat with his back against a tree, wrapped his arms around his legs, and stared off across the clearing.

Oh, Mikkel, you realize she all but proposed to you, right?

Yes, of course he realized that. He'd realized it when she said it. That's why he'd answered as he had. What she offered was an illusion, a seductive life of pretense. He didn't know what he wanted, but he knew it wasn't that. The world was out there, the Rash was out there, and it could reach into their comfortable lives at any time and rip them away. Nothing could ever let him forget that. He hid his face against his knees.

The clearing was full of moonlight when Michael knelt and put his arm around his brother's shoulders. “Mikkel, let's go home.”

Chapter Text

Michael Madsen was rocking his two-month-old daughter, Mila, in her cradle when his wife, Alma, bounced in.

“And how did we do today?”

“Well,” she said judiciously, “I prevented your esteemed mother from strangling your beloved sister — twice — and we've agreed to drown her tomorrow. Would you like to join us for the festivities? You can throw her in and we'll hold her head under.”

“Mikkel said we should reinstitute one of the really ancient marriage traditions and just have them jump over a fire together.”

“I imagine that would work well with her gown.” Alma pulled him to his feet and pushed him over to their large chair.

“The gown probably isn't part of that tradition. We should have them do it … what's the word? … skyclad.”

With him comfortably seated, she sat in his lap, right arm around his shoulders and her legs over one arm of the chair. “Oh, Maja'd love that. Hilmar too.” Hilmar was Maja's Icelandic husband-to-be. “How big a fire? I think your mother would go for a bonfire.” They were both chuckling now. “But it's all right, dear heart. She's just so anxious that we not look like country bumpkins to the inlaws-to-be.”

“And running into the unfortunate truth that we are in fact country bumpkins.”

“Perhaps we can hide it long enough to get the young man into our clutches. Um … has Mikkel managed not to call him 'insular' so far?”

“Not him, no.”

“Oh, dear. Who…? Ah, I see. We've learned why he's not seeing Astrid anymore. What happened this time?”

“He called her ignorant and insular and something about trashy pre-Rash romance novels, and she slapped him and told him never to darken her door again.”

Alma buried her face against his shoulder and slowly shook her head. “Your brother has a remarkable way with women.”

“To be fair, she's the first one to slap him.”

“Kerith threw a drink in his face.”

“But only the drink and not the mug, so it doesn't count.”

“I think I'm out of girlfriends to introduce him to.”

“Just as well. The next one would probably stick a dagger in his ribs.” Michael sighed. “I'm sorry you have to deal with my siblings.”

“Not at all! I told you, I didn't just marry you, I married your whole family! Your over-dramatic sister is my over-dramatic sister! Your messed-up brother is my messed-up brother! Sweet Mille — how'd she get into this family anyway? — is my sweet sister! Your obnoxious little brothers are my obnoxious little brothers! Your wild child baby sister is … hmm.”

“That's Mikkel's influence. Mette's always adored him. I can't imagine why she adores him rather than me.”

“He's better looking,” Alma informed Mikkel's identical twin brother, and pulled his hair. “What is it with him and 'insular' anyway? He knows we live on an island, right?”

“I'm pretty sure he knows. I mean, he reads everything he can get his hands on and he's pretty smart.” He gently pulled her hair in retaliation. “I think he means that we're … cut off from the real world. That we can ignore it. That we do ignore it.” He sighed again, thinking of his brother. “And he can't.”

“Yeah.” She sobered. “When I was coming back I saw him wandering around the farm looking lost.”

“He's looking for something to work on. The slow season is always hard on him. I guess I'll talk to Dad, see if he'll let him build another chicken coop, maybe.”

“How many do we have so far?”

“Four, at last count.”

“Do we need five?”

“Not as such, no.”

Alma looked away and then looked back at him with an expression of delighted inspiration. “I know! I'll burn one down! And then he can rebuild it, and I'll burn down another one. We can keep it up all winter!”

“Bit hard on the chickens though. And Mikkel's pretty smart; he'd figure out what you were doing after you burned down three or four.”

“Details,” she answered airily. “Though I do prefer my chickens properly cleaned before they're roasted.”

“Also dead.”

“Ideally.” She pulled his hair again, drawing him in for a kiss. Sitting back with a fond smile, she abruptly looked away as if someone had called her. Michael followed her gaze, saw nothing, and watched her with both patience and concern. “Michael, I … about him … he needs to get a job. In Rønne.”

Michael straightened in alarm. “You can't mean —”

“What? Oh! No, no, no! I'd never say to send him away! No! That would kill him! No! It's just —”

She was so honestly distressed that Michael had to pull her close for a reassuring hug. “I'm sorry. Of course you didn't mean to send him away. But, uh, then what did you mean?”

“You remember that I told you my great-grandmother in the female line was an Irish woman who got trapped here when the borders closed?”

“Uh, yes.” This seemed like quite a random conversation but her loving husband was willing to follow it.

“I'm a good Dane, myself, so not superstitious at all but you know, the Irish, and especially Irish women, were supposed to have, um, powers.”

“Okayyy … and you being in the female line …”

“I might have inherited something … extra. Sometimes I have, well, premonitions. Like when I first laid eyes on you I knew you were my husband.”

“What?”

“At the harvest festival. You'd just gotten off the cart with your dad and you turned around and … and I knew. Just like that. And I was right, wasn't I?” She pulled his hair again.

“Okay, um, that's good to hear. I'm slow; it took me a whole half hour of talking to you to know —”

“Dear heart! But I just wanted you to understand … that it's real. I don't want you to laugh at me.” She bit her lip and the rest came out in a rush. “Michael, just now, just when I thought about Mikkel, I had the strongest premonition I've ever had. Mikkel is important —”

“Well, yes.”

“Not just to us. Mikkel is important, but his destiny does not lie here. Not on this farm. Not on Bornholm. Mikkel's destiny lies over the sea. He can't stay here.”

“Alma, it's his home. We'll never —”

“You'll never send him away. I know. I don't mean that. I mean … I mean his destiny will force him to leave us. And … I don't think it's good for him to stay here. Destiny has a way of making you act if you won't act on your own.” Her eyes widened. “Sort of like a grossling getting stuck somewhere and then just happening to get loose years later just in time to attack a young man who might otherwise have been … insular.”

“Your premonitions tell you that was his 'destiny' trying to push him along?” He tried with limited success to keep skepticism out of his voice.

“No, they're not that informative.” He could see her consciously tamping down her annoyance. But what did she expect? Of course he was skeptical. “Okay, let's put aside this premonition. You said he's looking for work to do. You can't — you shouldn't — try to fob him off on make-work. He can get a job, maybe in Rønne, just for the slow season, just so he isn't so … lost, and then he'll come back, if he wants, in the Spring. All I'm asking you to do is suggest it to him. That's reasonable, isn't it?”

Michael considered. It really was reasonable. Mikkel would have work, real work, and even some money in his pocket. He'd never really had any money; none of them had as long as they stayed on the farm. But away from his stern father and his, to be honest, over-protective brother …

“I don't know,” he said slowly. “Mikkel's never been away from the family. He's never slept a night away from the farm. All alone in Rønne —”

“You have to let him go, Michael. He has to make his own way. And his way is not here.”

Michael sighed. “I'll suggest it. If he says no, that's the end of it. And don't breathe a word of this to Dad. Or anyone. Dad might decide that he needs to be … pushed again. And if he thinks he is being sent away, if he thinks he is being exiled …”

“Understood. I'll keep quiet. But do you know, I think he'll say yes.”

The baby cried and required changing and nursing, and then there was supper and all the details of a household, and so to bed.

Michael woke with moonlight in his eyes and the knowledge that he had forgotten. He slipped out of bed carefully, dressed quietly so as not to wake his wife or daughter, carried his boots outside before putting them on. He stopped by the bunkhouse first because after all he didn't know, but of course Mikkel's bunk, the one which he had chosen when he was twelve years old, was quite empty.

Michael turned and strode away. He did not even glance up the cow path to the log cabin which Mikkel had started and others had finished, for he knew Mikkel had given his word to stay away.

Premonitions or no, Alma is right. Mikkel shouldn't be here. It's too easy for him to be … caught … again. Maybe a job in town, close enough for us to … protect him? But no, Pettar's there, he can't go there. Rønne really would be better, but Mikkel, all alone … Still, I said I'd ask. Tomorrow. Or I guess it's today now.

There was no path; Mikkel didn't go down there often enough to make a path. Still, Michael knew the way. He did not hesitate in the first clearing nor hasten, keeping the same even stride, but he stopped when he reached the second clearing.

His memory showed him grosslings, crushed, dead, and Mikkel sitting against a tree hiding his face against his knees. The burnt forest and Mikkel in the ashes, against the same tree. The undergrowth returning in the bright summer sun, and Mikkel … He pushed the images away.

The clearing was full of moonlight when Michael knelt and put his arm around his brother's shoulders. “Mikkel, let's go home.”

Chapter Text

There wasn't really any place from which you could get a good look at the farm, though this hill was the best he'd ever found. In Spring or Summer, with the trees in full leaf, it was no better than anywhere else, but now, with the deciduous trees having only remnants of their Fall foliage, Mikkel could see the original Madsen farm, off to the west.

That farm had belonged to Kirsten Madsen, and her brother, the first Michael Madsen, had found sanctuary there when the borders closed. He'd been followed soon after by Signe Sørensen, whom he'd met on the ferry, who'd also been trapped on Bornholm, and who'd known no one else on the island. They two had married but, Madsen personalities being as they were, and Signe's personality being as it was, in the fullness of time Michael, Signe, and their infant son Magnus, had relocated to the adjacent Andersen farm, it being undeniable by that point that the Andersens would not return from their visit to Copenhagen on the occasion of the birth of their daughter's first child.

Mikkel gazed for a moment at the distant original farmhouse, then turned back to what had been the Andersen farm, trying to see it not as his home, but as a new place seen by a stranger.

There were the fields and pastures and barns and chicken coops, of course; there was the farmhouse where Mikkel had been born, enlarged several times over the generations; around the farmhouse was a scatter of cottages and the bunkhouse. It was … not really a farm anymore. It was, in fact, a small village, a village of Mikkel's cousins.

There a cousin brought a horse to their blacksmith — another cousin — to be shod; beyond, a cousin was slopping pigs; over there several little cousins were playing tag; everywhere his cousins were at work or play. Mikkel had close to a hundred cousins: first cousins, second cousins, even third cousins. If he wanted to, he could pull up the family tree which his mother kept up to date and work out how he was related to each of them, but it didn't matter. They were all cousins, all Madsens.

In the first terrible decades after the Great Dying, over three-quarters of the population of Bornholm died. Famine stalked the island as fishermen died or refused to go to the monster-haunted sea and farmers struggled to relearn farming without modern equipment or chemicals; Madsens went hungry, but they did not starve. Diseases — dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis, and more — decimated cities and towns much too densely populated for sanitation systems cast abruptly back to the Eighteenth Century; Madsens drilled their wells, sited their outhouses carefully, and suffered no such disease. Many survivors ran mad from grief and terror; Madsens with their sharp tongues and sharper wits kept each other relatively sane.

The Madsen farm was safe, and generation after generation, most Madsens remained on the farm. They married, and their spouses came to live on the farm and became Madsens as well. As adjacent farms were found to be empty for one reason or another, Madsens moved in and joined them to the family farm. When the national government was re-established and had the resources to check on the rural areas, the Madsen farm was found to sprawl over half a dozen former farms, but possession is nine points of the law, and there was, after all, no one to dispute their ownership.

And Michael had proposed that Mikkel leave the farm.

“No!” Mikkel's first reaction was a violent denial and his second was fear. “Is Dad — am I —”

“No!” Michael's answer was almost as violent as Mikkel's. “It's not Dad's idea, I haven't suggested it to him, and I won't. It's just a thought, just a job for the winter. If you don't want to go, that's your decision and I won't bring it up again.”

Mikkel shook his head, intending in that moment never to leave the farm. His brother clapped him on the shoulder and repeated, “Just a thought. Don't worry about it.” And then Alma was calling and Michael ran to her assistance and Mikkel ran the other way, up to the cow pasture and beyond to the hill overlooking the farm.

Maja went to Rønne and came back. She was gone almost a year and she came back with her Icelander … I should talk to him and welcome him to the family or something, with the wedding in two days. She doesn't really want me to though. Doesn't want her crazy brother to scare him off. Mikkel rubbed his face, finger-combed his hair for a moment. He's come all the way from Iceland, though, over the seas. He knows. Even if he's an Icelander.

What am I, after all? A Dane. Another islander. Of course I know, how not, when I've seen the Rash reach for us … but I'm still living here, on the farm, on Bornholm. I've never been five kilometers from the house I was born in. How insular is that?

And Rønne has started a library.

The Madsens had few books inherited from their ancestors from the time of the Great Dying, just some well-used cookbooks that often called for ingredients no longer obtainable. They had some pre-Rash devices called ebooks, and family legend said that Signe's ebook had held over a thousand books. Mikkel doubted that, supposing that the number might have grown somewhat over the generations, but it didn't matter anyway. The things had died when the power died, their batteries had corroded and ruined their circuitry, and whatever books had been contained in them were lost forever.

Those long-ago Madsens had had plenty of paper, reams of the stuff for some reason, so much that their descendants still had some left, and the adults had tried to write down everything they could recall from their pre-Rash educations. Mikkel had learned to read from the cookbooks and those handwritten notes. The family had acquired more books over the generations, though not many; so many had been burned either as fuel or in a kind of revulsion against the world that had given birth to the Rash. The thought of a library — dozens or maybe even hundreds of books — was a potent lure for Mikkel.

But … going away. Being alone. No family to help me … or guide me … or … or smother me with their protection.

Where did that thought come from? I don't feel smothered … exactly. Dad or Michael is always with me when I have to go into town; they don't hover over me, but they're there in case things go wrong. I've always thought that was a good thing, but is it? How will I learn to deal with people outside of family if they're always there to keep me out of trouble?

I've never even found my own girlfriends! Alma's so kind to introduce me to her friends, but how well has that worked out? She isn't me. Michael isn't even me. They don't know exactly who would fit … not that I do either. But in Rønne … there are lots of young women in Rønne. I could … maybe I could … there might be one …

Mikkel was seventeen and, despite his so-far unhappy relationships with young women, he really would have liked to have a girlfriend or even … but to have a wife was just a dream. He needed to start with a girlfriend.

Mikkel looked out over the farm that had become a village. He didn't know exactly when he'd made the decision, but it was there, bright and hard-edged before him.

Mikkel Madsen was going to Rønne.

Chapter Text

“No, baby sister, you can't come with me.”

Mikkel swept her up and held her tight, carrying her to his workbench and setting her on his knee. His clothes were packed in a duffel bag by the door. Since Dad hadn't given her a duffel bag, she'd packed her clothes in a clean flour sack, now leaning against his bag.

“Why not?” Mette asked reasonably. “You're going, Maja went. Why can't I?”

“Because I am seventeen and you” — he bounced her on his knee as he hadn't in years — “are seven. And I'll have to work in Rønne.”

“I'll help you!” She always helped him whenever he was building something or fixing something. For as long as she could remember, she'd followed him, carrying a sack of nails or his screwdrivers or the other hammer or anything else he might need, always wearing the goggles he'd made for her just like his own, slightly age-clouded plastic in a wooden frame that she tied on by herself now. He'd only yelled at her once, when she'd come too close to his elbow, and then he'd hugged her tight and told her never, never, never to approach him when he was working because it was too dangerous. She'd been careful ever after, because there was something, some vague memory of blood and screaming, that his words seemed to conjure up.

“You can't help me there,” he said gently. “They won't let you. They're not family.”

“Then why are you going?” It came out as more of a wail than she'd intended.

“I've fixed everything I can fix here. There's nothing to work on and, and — O Best Beloved, remember I'll be back in the Spring!” He'd gotten that term of endearment from one of those books he'd bought from a traveller in town.

“Spring is so far away,” she said miserably. “I'll miss you so much.”

“You have your lessons, and Hilmar can teach you Icelandic. My Icelandic is terrible, he assures me, but you, you, my clever baby sister, will be teaching me Icelandic by the time I get back. And think of all the awful things you'll teach me to say because I won't know what they mean!”

They laughed together, because Mikkel had once gotten hold of a book of jokes. Jokes of a sort, anyway, and he'd taught his six-year-old sister some of the … tamer … ones, which she had innocently repeated for their new sister-in-law, Alma. Mikkel had been sent to sleep in the barn for a week after that, and she had been forbidden ever to repeat them again. She now understood that there were jokes which meant one thing to a little girl and something entirely different to the grown-ups.

“Pranks won't be any fun without you,” she said mournfully.

Their latest prank had been Mikkel's demonstration of the principles of the pulley; this had involved his carrying off Mille's dresser and Mette's using the pulley to raise it into the loft of the barn. Mille had, of course, known exactly who was the culprit and had charged into the barn shouting furiously at him. Mikkel had cringed away in pretended terror, shielding his head, while Mette jumped in front of him to protect him. Not even Mille could keep a straight face for long and soon they were all laughing and Mette had demonstrated raising and lowering the dresser several times. Mikkel had —yet again— been sent to sleep in the barn for a week and Mette had been sent to bed without supper for the same week. Every night Mikkel had climbed up the tree outside her window and passed half his supper to her.

“You're my clever baby sister and you'll think of your own pranks,” he assured her. “And then you can tell me all about them when I come back. You won't forget me, will you?” He looked so anxious that she had to hug him in reassurance.

Mikkel set his little sister back on her feet and handed her the sack of clothes. “One day you'll go to Rønne, sweetling, but not tomorrow.” She took the sack and went back to her own little bedroom so she could cry all night without his seeing her.

“Be very careful, Mikkel, and come home safe!” Freja hugged him with all her strength, her little boy who'd somehow grown into this large and powerful man, and he hugged her back, careful not to crush her.

Freja was a Madsen by both birth and marriage, the great-granddaughter of Kirsten Madsen, second cousin once removed of her husband, Morten. She had lived her whole life on the Madsen farm, never going so far as five kilometers from home. Since the birth of her first child, Michael, and minutes later Mikkel, she had not left the farm at all. The farm was safe and the outside world was strange and dangerous. Only look what it had done to Mikkel when he'd ventured just a kilometer into the woods south of the farm! And now he was going away to far distant Rønne, the second of her children to do so.

Freja stepped away, letting Mille say her goodbyes, and only wiped her eyes when she was sure Mikkel was looking the other way.

“Your destiny awaits!” Alma told him cheerfully, and then hugged him goodbye. He gave her a puzzled look followed by one of his rare smiles and then Malthe was punching his shoulder and he had to turn to defend himself against his little brothers.

Alma stepped away, hoping she'd done the right thing. She hadn't had another premonition, not about Mikkel, or Michael, or even herself, to reassure her.

Alma and Michael had never had a fight; they'd argued and been annoyed with each other at times, of course, for it was impossible for two people to live together full time and never argue, but they'd never fought. It was her idea to persuade Mikkel to go, and quite possibly none of these oblivious Madsens would have thought of it. It was best for him, she thought, even putting aside the premonition, but if anything happened to him in Rønne … if Michael's twin brother was hurt, or worse, because of her …

It didn't bear thinking of. She hugged to herself an old family saying: if you are born to be hanged, you will not drown in a hundred shipwrecks. Mikkel couldn't die in Rønne because his destiny lay over the seas. He was safe. As long as he stayed in Rønne. As long as he didn't take it into his head to travel further.

Mikkel swung his duffel bag up onto the carriage and boarded with a final wave at his family. The carriage took him away to his destiny.

Chapter Text

The journey to far distant Rønne was a matter of a couple of hours at the carriage-horse's easy trot. Mikkel could have walked it; indeed, he intended to sling his duffel bag over his shoulder and walk back in the Spring. His father had insisted on sending him in the carriage, arguing that he shouldn't arrive tired on his first day in the city, though Mikkel rightly suspected that his father wanted to make sure he did arrive in the city without getting lost along the way.

The driver, Alfred, was a cousin about a decade older than Mikkel, shorter, dark-haired, and taciturn. He lived in one of the other farmhouses and cared for the horses, and though Mikkel knew him, as he knew all his cousins, he didn't know him well. Alfred was unmarried, an oddity in their family, and kept to himself and his horses, making the trip to Rønne once or twice a month in his hand-built carriage to pick up sundries for the family. The carriage was a patchwork, the frame mostly wood but also metal pipes, and the sides parts of old vehicles, cut down and reshaped to fit. The seats were also from an old vehicle, re-covered over the decades with leather from their own cattle, and quite comfortable, but Mikkel preferred to sit on the box beside the driver.

Alfred's company was pleasant. He'd greeted Mikkel politely enough but otherwise left him to his thoughts. Mikkel meant to learn the route so well that he could walk back without hesitation, so he concentrated on landmarks: those hills, that ruin, this pile of rocks. He needed only to regard each for a second or even less, giving his eyes time to deduce the distances from him to each object.

I'm so tired of being worried over. Okay, I have handicaps, but only slight handicaps. I'm slow and clumsy and my vision … but there's nothing wrong with my eyes, nothing wrong with my vision, nothing wrong with me. I just need to take a little extra time and care about things. On the other hand, I'm strong and I'm smart, and I do have this ability to remember images. I will use these advantages.

The old world was full of maps, and if I can just get a look at one, I should be able to get around without getting lost. Especially if I can get hold of a compass. A compass, and one look at a map, and I'll be able to navigate as well as anyone else. Better!

Such thoughts cheered him as Socks, the big glossy black horse with white feet, trotted along. Mikkel had thought — even feared — that he would find himself forced to turn back, that like his mother he would be unable to face the strangeness of the world away from the farm, but instead he found himself exhilarated. There were new places to see, new jobs to do, and new people, people who knew nothing of him or what he'd done, people who knew nothing of the Madsens and expected nothing of a Madsen son.

In Rønne I will become myself.

Rønne was a new city. The city itself was old, of course, dating back centuries before the coming of the Rash, but much of it was rebuilt, having been burned down by Cleansers just under twenty years earlier in the last — or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the latest — Rash outbreak on Bornholm. At that time the city had been the main port for Bornholm and had had a quarantine center, and there had been a breach after one of the expeditions returned from the mainland. The outbreak had been stopped before it spread beyond the city — or so it had been believed.

Despite the fires, despite the cordon, despite the Hunters and their cats desperately searching, something had escaped. Something — some small infected animal — had escaped from Rønne and made its way almost to the Madsen farm before becoming trapped somewhere and remaining so for over fifteen years. And then it had gotten loose.

Mikkel shook his head. Would everything remind him of that? Could he never escape it?

“Beer?” Alfred's question broke into his thoughts.

“Sure.” They jumped lightly down and Alfred passed the reins to a stableboy. Mikkel watched the way they nodded at each other, realizing that these two were long acquainted. Entering the inn, Alfred received nods of recognition from those within, led the way to an empty table, and waved at the young woman server. “Two, Carryn,” he requested with a smile, and, “This one's mine,” he added to Mikkel.

“Then the next one's mine,” Mikkel replied. His father had given him a wallet of kroner and a list of reasonable prices for various things, trying to ensure that his unworldly son was not cheated nor overcharged. Mikkel understood that he was inexperienced and needed guidance, but all the same it was annoying to be worried over. A couple of beers would not materially reduce his funds and, after all, he intended to find work within a day.

The two young men clinked their mugs together, more of a clunk, really, for the mugs were thick old plastic, and drank in companionable silence while Mikkel looked around. The inn was new construction, of course, mostly timber with whitewashed brick. The bar and shelves behind it looked to have been built by someone with real skill, as did the half-dozen tables and the chairs around them. An open wooden stairwell to their right led up to the rooms for let. At this hour, mid-morning, there were few in the inn, just blonde Carryn the server; a tall brunette leaning against the bar and chatting with the older, balding innkeeper; three large older men and two older women, all workers by their worn and sturdy clothing, sitting together at a table, drinking and chatting.

“So, I'll be back in three weeks, unless something else comes up,” Alfred said. “You want to see me, come here about this time of day. You can leave word, too, if you want. These people know me. That's Arne behind the bar, and his daughter Saffi.” Mikkel nodded silently. “Doubt you'll need anything, but if you do, they'll help you. Good people.” Mikkel nodded again. They finished their beers, Mikkel waved to Carryn for another for each of them, and they finished those too.

Alfred rose, tossed a coin on the table. Mikkel examined it, pulled a like coin from his wallet and threw it in too, drawing a smile from his cousin. They walked out together and Mikkel stepped aside, careful not to block the door, and blinked in the bright sun for a few seconds. Another man might have waited those few seconds to allow his eyes to adjust after being inside; Mikkel was doing that, but he was also giving his eyes time to sort out near and far, to show him single-story or two-story wood and brick buildings across the road, carts with the patient horses standing in their traces before the buildings, people hurrying to and fro between carts and buildings, a child darting out into the street to sweep away horse droppings.

“Going to the docks then?” Alfred asked.

“Right. I reckon they'll have work for a strong back.”

“Reckon they will. Follow this street west. It'll take you there. Good luck.” They shook hands, Alfred turned away to run his errands and collect sundries for the farm, and Mikkel strode off to the west.

It was an easy walk to the port itself — it had become a local port since the outbreak, all international traffic now going to an offshore quarantine island — but it was still a very busy port, as most shipping to and from Bornholm passed through Rønne. There was indeed work for a strong back; in fact Mikkel found himself employed as a dockworker by the first foreman he approached, at a wage which, according to his father's notes, was entirely acceptable. Bjorn Jensen was a very reasonable man and Mikkel thought they would get along well.

As evening shadows grew long, Bjorn pointed him to the Griffin Inn, built on the ruins of the old Griffen Spa Hotel. Maja had stayed in the Griffin Inn during her almost-year in Rønne and the innkeeper, Mariela Jensen (no relation to Bjorn, she explained with a grin), well remembered her, welcomed her brother, showed him to the same room which she had had, and offered him the same terms, which he accepted.

Sitting on a strange bed, in a strange room, listening to the noises of a strange city, Mikkel allowed himself to wonder, just for a moment, what he'd gotten himself into. But he had a job and a place to stay, and he was hungry. He trotted downstairs to seek his first meal in Rønne.

After working hard moving crates for six days, Mikkel had a day off and decided to use it visiting Hilmar's friends whose names he'd been given as people who would be happy to improve his Icelandic. Mikkel had learned Icelandic from notes written by his great-grandmother Signe, who'd done a remarkably good job of writing out grammar and vocabulary lessons, but since he'd never heard a native speaker before meeting Hilmar, his accent was terrible.

Margrét Haraldsdóttir was delighted at the chance to talk to him and correct his pronunciation. Indeed, she was so enthusiastic that after several hours he pled that his brain was full, and fled. After a couple of beers he conceded to himself that she really had improved his accent. It helped that, though he could read and write Icelandic quite well thanks to Signe's excellent lessons, he'd never actually tried to speak the language to anyone before meeting Hilmar and consequently had not ingrained his incorrect pronunciations in his memory. Listening to Hilmar and now Margrét was also training his ear about the sounds to expect.

In short, with intensive lessons for a few hours once a week for several months, he thought he should be able to become quite fluent in the language though he would never sound like a native; he was too old to completely shed his Danish accent. He was satisfied with this plan.

Margrét's a nice girl, really. Smart. And she has that long red hair and beautiful green eyes … but she's really enthusiastic about correcting me. Not just my accent but … everything about me. My clothes, even, like I have anything better to wear. Hmm. I'd like a girlfriend but … I think … not Margrét.

His job as a dockworker filled Mikkel's days. Mostly he moved crates, but Bjorn quickly realized that he could be trusted to make deliveries as well, and so he began to be sent around the city pushing a wheelbarrow with some important item aboard. He had asked for and gotten a look at the old map of the city in Bjorn's office; though the city had burned, the rebuilt city had largely used the old streets. Mikkel had not obtained a compass yet, but within the city he didn't really need it; he paid careful attention to landmarks and soon was able to travel anywhere in the city without hesitation. By the end of each workday he had tired himself out so thoroughly that he wished only to eat and crawl into bed.

Once a week, without fail, Mikkel visited Margrét or another of Hilmar's friends, Gunnar. Gunnar was less helpful than Margrét in some ways and more so in others, for he preferred talking to listening and had a great fund of stories, none of which Mikkel thought would be appropriate to repeat back at the farm. Still, listening to Gunnar trained his ear well.

And so the weeks passed, and then the months, and quite suddenly Mikkel realized that it was Spring. He had told Bjorn that he would leave in the Spring and so it was no surprise that he did, though Bjorn assured him that he would be welcome to return anytime. Mariela, too, let him know that he'd be welcomed back. Margrét and Gunnar were sorry to say goodbye, but they did both assure him that his Icelandic was much improved and that he would not embarrass himself in speaking to his brother-in-law.

Mikkel slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and set forth in the morning, carefully comparing what he saw around him to the landmarks he'd memorized, and by afternoon he was walking up the lane to the Madsen farm, with all the familiar sights and sounds and smells around him. Mette had been watching for him every day for two weeks, and she all but bowled him over as she charged down the lane and threw herself into his arms.

It was good to be home.

Chapter Text

It was good to be home.

Mikkel's mother, Freja, welcomed him home as if from the jaws of death, and the whole family had a picnic the next day, with strict instructions to all parties that there would be no pranks and no food-fights, and indeed there were none. The bunk which Mikkel had chosen when he moved into the bunkhouse at age twelve was still waiting for him, and there were fields to plow and sow, baby animals to tend, and storm damage to be repaired, plenty of work for him to throw himself into. Much as she loved him, Mette seldom followed him about these days, for she now had her own vegetable and herb garden to tend, but they did find time to visit her favorite frog pond now and then through the Spring and Summer, and the occasional frog rather mysteriously made it into Mille's bedroom.

Hilmar agreed that Mikkel's accent was much improved, but also that he needed more practice, so Mikkel arranged to spend an afternoon with Maja and Hilmar once or twice a week, speaking Icelandic. Mette joined him, of course, expressing great regret that Hilmar had refused to teach her any unfortunate stories to pass on to her innocent big brother. Mikkel chuckled at that, remembering all the stories that Gunnar had taught him, none of which he would repeat to his baby sister.

Malthe and Martin, Mikkel's little brothers, now fourteen and eleven, had declined to learn Icelandic over the winter, troubling Mikkel. Three quarters of the human race spoke Icelandic and most of those could not understand Danish at all. The long isolation of Madsen farm was coming to an end, Mikkel thought, and his generation needed to learn to communicate with the majority of the human population.

Mikkel's suggestion to his little brothers that they should join him and Mette in learning Icelandic was met about as he should have expected: Martin kicked his feet out from under him and the two of them pounced on him, trying to wrestle him into submission. He was taller and heavier than they were, years more experienced, and stronger than both brothers put together, but he was already tired from working all morning and the battle was two to one, so they were all three panting by the time he managed to pin their legs with his body and grip a pair of wrists with each big hand.

“Yield! I yield!” they cried together, while Mette, smaller than any of them and wise enough to stay back, cheered shrilly for her champion. Mikkel stood up with a brother under each arm, carried them still struggling breathlessly to Maja's cottage, deposited them unceremoniously in front of their sister and brother-in-law, and announced straight-faced that they had decided to learn Icelandic. An attempted escape ended with Mikkel pinning their wrists again, and they concluded that learning was the better part of valor.

The next attempt at educating his little brothers worked out similarly, and it quickly became a regular event, and occasionally the boys even won. The penalty then was that Mikkel was required to read “Just So Stories” to them all afternoon. As they began to gather an audience of young Madsens, Mikkel insisted that, if he won, they all had to go learn Icelandic, and if he lost, then he would read to them all. Shortly Hilmar found himself running classes once or twice a week for half a dozen young people and, of course, Mikkel.

It was good to be home.

For about six months.

Chapter Text

Leaning against a tree, Mikkel watched the falling stars above the cow pasture. The fixed stars glittered in the clear, moonless sky of late Summer, the Great Bear spread out before him. A trace of the Lights shimmered off to his left.

A star fell.

Mikkel shifted a little. He'd been sitting there for hours watching the sunset and then the falling stars, and his left leg was starting to go numb.

I shouldn't have lost my temper.

“Alfred's got a line on an immune colt, and if we get it, he says in a decade or so the whole herd can be immune.”

“And how much is this colt? How likely is he to grow up healthy? And what kind of problems are we going to run into with inbreeding?” Michael's voice was deeply dubious.

“Well, uh, … Alfred thinks —”

“Mikkel, what would we do with an immune herd?”

“We could sell them to Norway or Sweden, just as we do the cattle.” In the early weeks after the borders were closed, government agents had dropped by the Madsen farm to test for immunity. It turned out that Michael and Kirsten had both been immune and, surprisingly, so had one of Kirsten's heifers. The family had immediately set to work breeding from that heifer to produce their immune herd, which was highly valued for export to the continental nations.

“Horses don't travel as well as cattle. Sending them overseas probably wouldn't work.”

“Okay, yeah, so we can keep them here, sell them on the island …”

“We don't need immune horses on the island. The island is safe —” Michael broke off, realizing he'd said exactly the wrong thing to his brother.

“It's not safe! What if there's another one out there?”

“There isn't. We burned the forest, and the Scouts —”

“They say there aren't any! They said there weren't any before! What if we hadn't stumbled across it? There are vermin all over the place! What if vermin beasts had gotten in with the livestock?” Mikkel's voice had risen to a shout. “What if the horses — or the pigs — or, or the dogs — what if they get infected? How can we protect the non-immunes when we're surrounded by non-immune animals? How many more —”

“Stop it!” Michael was shouting too now. “It's over! Let it go! It was a fluke and —”

Freja ran between them. “Don't fight, please don't fight! Michael, don't shout at him!”

Mikkel looked down at his mother, her head not even reaching his shoulder, and then back at Michael, betrayed. He'd thought Michael — at least Michael — understood. He spun away and ran.

Leaning against a tree, Mikkel watched the falling stars above the cow pasture. He hadn't broken his word to his father, for he'd only given his word that he wouldn't retreat to the log cabin and it was — he looked to his left — a good thirty meters away.

Another star fell.

Mikkel liked to watch the skies, day or night. His eyes needn't struggle with distances or shapes, and could just see.

There was a glow to his right, someone coming up the cowpath. Michael would be looking for him, of course. Mikkel turned his head away, closed his eyes to protect his night vision. Footsteps beside him, the clink of the lamp being opened, the candle blown out.

Mette sat down and leaned companionably against him. “Why do stars always fall on your birthday?” He'd turned eighteen just three days before.

“I don't know. Grandma Anne says they always fell in mid-August, even before I was born.” He put his arm around her shoulders.

“Do they ever fall around here? I'd like a falling star all my very own.”

“If I ever find one, I'll bring it to you.”

Another star fell.

“Michael's mad at you, you know.”

“He has every right to be. I shouted at him.”

“Well, he shouted at you too. And Mom's mad at Michael. And Dad's mad at both of you.”

“They shouldn't be mad at Michael.”

“What did you mean? About vermin beasts?”

Mikkel closed his eyes in the starlight. So far as he'd been able to tell, she really didn't remember anything about it. “Well. When you were just a tiny little thing, there were some vermin beasts deep in the forest, very far from the farm. I found them when I was exploring and … and I killed them all. They're all dead. And then the Cleansers burned the forest to make sure, and the Scouts come out in Spring and Fall to make even more sure. So there aren't any vermin beasts.”

“But you said —”

“Dear heart, maybe I don't always think too clearly about vermin beasts.”

She leaned over to throw her arms around his neck and hug him with all her eight-year-old strength. “Did they hurt you?”

“No.” There was so much more to say; there was Pettar, and there were the nightmares, but — no.

She sat back. “I'm immune too.”

“I know.”

Another star fell.

They watched together quietly, Mette leaning her head against his shoulder and occasionally murmuring comments on the Lights or the falling stars. After a while he saw that she'd fallen asleep.

I should take her back to the farmhouse. You never know … but I'm here to protect her. He lifted her into his lap and wrapped his strong arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head.

Another star fell.

When Michael came searching for them in the morning they were asleep, Mette still in Mikkel's lap, wrapped in his arms, and Mikkel's cheek atop her head. He gazed at them with mixed annoyance and affection, but affection had the upper hand when he turned away to return to the farmhouse and report to his parents that Mikkel and Mette were safe and had spent the night stargazing.

Mikkel stopped hammering immediately when the light in the chicken coop was reduced. He turned to find Maja standing in the doorway.

“Mikkel —” Her face crumpled in grief and she began to sob.

“Maja!” He dropped the hammer on his foot, kicked it aside, and hastened to her, drawing her into his arms. And now she was crying against his shoulder while he peered past her, looking for problems, listening for alarms. But all seemed quiet so … “Maja, what — who?”

“It's, it's … Margrét. And Gunnar. They tried —”

“To go home,” Mikkel finished for her softly. She nodded miserably, sobbing harder.

In the first decades after the Great Dying, nothing ventured out to sea but warships, and they went in convoys, but the oceans are wide and deep, and sharks are always hungry. There had been many poisoned sharks, but there were also few surviving leviathans. Even still, though, a ship might be lost every year or two out in the deep ocean.

It's happened again. The monsters reached out and attacked innocents again. And I'm here fixing chicken coops when I could be … could be …

He hugged Maja gently. “Does Hilmar know?”

She shook her head, tried to pull herself together. “He's … he's up at the cow pasture. Alfred came back from Rønne and told me …”

“Do you want me to tell him? I'll go if you want.”

“No.” She sniffed, pulled away, wiped her eyes. “I'll tell him. She —” Maja had to stop for a moment. “She introduced us.”

“I'm sorry, Maja. They were really good people. They were my friends too.”

“I know.” And then she was gone, running away, still wiping her eyes.

Mikkel slowly picked up the hammer and began to pound in the nails. He would finish the task.

“I'm going away again.”

Mette looked at him sadly. “And you won't take me with you.”

“No, I can't. I'm sorry, baby sister.”

“Will you come back?”

Mikkel winced. She hadn't asked when he would come back, but whether he would come back at all. So she felt the same thing he'd come to feel, that he didn't belong to the farm anymore.

“I'll come back when I can. For a while. I don't know when that will be. I'll send word to you …” He didn't know when he'd be back, what he'd be doing, or even where he'd be going, but he had to do something.

He had to find a way to hit back at the monsters.

Chapter Text

Mikkel owned very little, just his clothing, the books he'd acquired over the years, and his salvaged tools. The clothing he crammed into his duffel bag; the books and tools he left with Michael to be lent to anyone who wanted or needed them, all but his precious eyescrews which he carefully divided, taking half with him and leaving the rest with Mette to keep safe. She of course knew how he used them to compensate for his clumsiness, having followed him around for years as he worked, but she would keep the secret.

To keep goodbyes from becoming too painful, Mikkel explained to all, truthfully if perhaps not completely, that he was going to Rønne for an indefinite time but would try to come back to help with the Spring planting, four months away. To his cousins in the bunkhouse, he added that he was giving up his bunk. If that surprised anyone, they said nothing.

His close family felt his separation from the life of the farm more keenly, hugging him as if for the last time. Mette had done her crying during the night and got through the goodbyes with mostly dry eyes, and it was his mother, Freja, who cried that morning, holding him tight until his father gently pulled her away into his own embrace and told Mikkel, “Just go now, son.” And so Mikkel went, riding with Alfred in the carriage on one of his regular journeys to the city, in unusually warm and pleasant early winter weather.

Alfred and Mikkel were quiet people and neither felt the need to fill the silence of the journey with idle chatter. After the initial greetings, they scarcely spoke until they reached the Old Soldier Inn and Alfred, swinging down off the carriage, suggested, “Beer?” and Mikkel agreed, “Sure.”

Once they were settled with their beer at the same table they had used before, Alfred took a deep draught and sighed with pleasure. “Need any help?” he enquired.

“No. Thank you.” Mikkel sipped his beer more slowly.

“Planning to stay for a while?”

“Yes.”

They drank together in silence, and Mikkel signalled for a second round.

“Be careful, cousin,” Alfred said after a while, his second beer half gone. “This city is not our home and these are not our people.” Mikkel nodded his understanding, there being nothing to say about that. After a minute or two, the older man continued, “The women … the women will steal your heart and laugh at your pain.” Jumping to his feet, he threw a coin on the table for his round. “Work to do. Good luck, Mikkel.” Before Mikkel, also on his feet, had fumbled out his own coin, Alfred was out the door.

Mikkel slowly sat back down and began to sip his beer again. Between his undeniable trauma, his isolated and sheltered upbringing, and the natural self-absorption of youth, he had not before considered that other people might have suffered traumas as devastating to them as his own was to him. He wondered, now, what had happened to Alfred in this city and, selfishly, what he himself might suffer.

He thought about Michael, who had lost his heart to Alma the day he met her, and what might have happened to him had she rejected him and laughed at his pain. He thought about the young women to whom Alma had introduced him, especially Kerith and Astrid. They had not stolen his heart, nor had he given it to either of them, and yet he had cared for them. Astrid had slapped him and he accepted that, for he had deliberately insulted her for reasons which had seemed good at at the time. Kerith had thrown a drink in his face and that had hurt and humiliated him. It still hurt him, for he hadn't meant to insult her; he'd been trying to explain how he felt, how he was. And the women here, in Rønne? Would they too hurt him?

As he sipped his beer, Mikkel built another wall around his soul.

Finishing his beer, Mikkel waved off the server, Carryn, and approached the inn-keeper, Arne. “I'd like a room for the night, and maybe more nights; I'm not sure. Lunch and supper today, breakfast tomorrow.”

“Going to work at the docks again?” Evidently Alfred had told the man about Mikkel.

“I hope not. I hope to join the Guard.”

“Ah.” Arne patted a well-worn truncheon that lay on the bar. “I can deal with a few ruffians myself, but the City Guard is good for picking up the pieces when I'm done.”

“Not the City Guard. The Rash Guard.”

“Oh!” The inn-keeper looked him over. “Yes, you're a likely-looking young man; they could use you. Not enough volunteers for that job, I fear, for all it's essential. If I were twenty years younger … but then, I'm not. So, room and board for tonight, and we'll see about later.” The price was less even than Morten had specified, and Mikkel was glad to take the room and gladder still, when Carryn brought him his lunch, to find that Saffi's cooking was superb.

With his duffel bag safely stowed in his small rented room, after lunch Mikkel left the inn, oriented himself by visible landmarks, and set forth confidently to the Guard headquarters.

“Mikkel Madsen,” the Guard Commander said thoughtfully. “There was the Madsen Farm Outbreak three or four years ago. Your family?”

“Yes, sir.” The Madsen name was common enough that a random individual with that surname might not have belonged to Mikkel's family.

The Commander examined him narrowly. “You were the immune on the spot,” he concluded.

“Yes, sir.” Mikkel did not allow his gaze to waver as he answered.

The Commander stood, extended his hand to shake as Mikkel hastily stood as well. “Welcome to the Rash Guard, Mikkel Madsen. We can use a man who thinks on his feet and does what has to be done.”

Just that quickly, Mikkel was a member of the Rash Guard, one of those who protected the island of Bornholm, the last redoubt of Denmark, against the grosslings that might make their way across the seas. Of course, he couldn't just set to work; there was training to be done.

After a week of shouting invective at him, the marksmanship trainer concluded that since his stance and positioning were correct yet he still couldn't hit anything he aimed at, it was impossible for her to train him further, and she gave up. Mikkel did have some useful skills, however; years of searching for strayed cattle and pigs had made him a good tracker, and so he was assigned to the Shore Guard, those who patrolled on-shore for any incursions, while the Coast Guard sailed off-shore to try to prevent any grosslings from getting as far as the shore.

After staying two weeks at the Old Soldier Inn, Mikkel bade a reluctant farewell to Saffi's cooking and departed to receive his duty assignment.

Chapter Text

Checking in at the Guards headquarters in the morning, Mikkel was assigned to a squad of eight, two women and six men including him, responsible for a stretch of the southern beaches. Issued a knapsack, good hiking boots, a warm heavy coat, and two uniforms of sturdy black trousers and gray shirts, he returned to the Old Soldier Inn to ask Arne if he might store his duffel bag at the inn. “Of course, a small favor for Alfred's cousin,” the other said at once, surprising Mikkel, who had not known how good a friend his older cousin was to the inn-keeper. “Good luck in the Guard.” And with that Mikkel picked up his weapons, a shotgun, pistol, and flare gun, in addition to his own dagger, and departed for the southern beaches in his new uniform.

Arriving at the squad's bunkhouse around noon, Mikkel stepped inside quietly to find a modest room with four sets of bunks along the walls, a large wooden table in the middle with half a dozen chairs, and at the back a pot-bellied stove which kept the room pleasantly warm, a counter, various cooking gear, sacks of supplies, and a floor-to-ceiling cabinet. The room was lit by high narrow windows above the bunks.

Four bunks were occupied; to his left as he entered, the top bunk was occupied by a woman, average height, short-haired, dark blonde or light brunette, curled on her side with only her face showing from under the blankets; the bunk below held a large man who was curled up turned away from Mikkel, so that all that could be seen of him was his roughly-cut black hair. To Mikkel's right the two bunks were empty but made up; beyond them was another empty pair, of which the upper bunk lacked any bedclothes. Presuming that was his, Mikkel quietly placed his knapsack on it and turned to regard the last pair, which were occupied by two men, both much smaller than Mikkel with short dark hair. Little else could be seen through the blankets.

There being nothing else to do inside, Mikkel went back out and slowly circled the bunkhouse, the outhouse some twenty meters away, and a second outbuilding which proved to be a washroom, looking for loose or damaged planks or anything else he might repair, but concluding sadly that given a hammer and some nails, he could fix every problem he saw in little more than an hour or two.

Studying the snowy forest beyond the beach, he was interrupted by the crunch of footsteps from his left and turned to greet the newcomers, a tall blond man, taller even than Mikkel himself though much lighter in build, and a red-headed woman slightly above average height and slender, both wearing uniforms similar to Mikkel's own and bearing rifles slung over their shoulders and pistols and daggers at their hips. Both were right-handed based on the positions of the pistols. The man wore a ginger cat draped across his shoulders.

The two introduced themselves as Noah Jensen and Sara Thomsen, and the cat as Dusk. “We're the west-daylight team,” Sara explained. “We patrol for about eight kilometers to the west of the bunkhouse from six in the morning to six in the evening. You'll be on the east-daylight team with Mathias Møller; he's patrolling alone right now so you need to catch up with him over there.

“And — Mikkel, did you say? — Noah and I are partners, in every sense of the word. So are Lucas and Rikke. Is that clear? Don't even think of trying anything.”

Mikkel blinked in surprise. His romantic life had veered from unhappy to non-existent, but he didn't think any part of it justified that sort of response from a woman. Still, “Understood,” he assured her. “I, um, guess I'll go find, ah, Mathias now.” He hurried away from the two, passed the bunkhouse, and headed along the beach, following the footprints of the other Guard. Within perhaps fifteen minutes, he saw the man ahead of him, striding along studying the sands, a large tabby cat draped across his shoulders.

Calling “Hi!” Mikkel jogged through the fine sand, being careful to stay in the churned-up path so as not to obliterate any suspicious prints. “I'm Mikkel Madsen,” he explained hastily as he caught up with the man. “I'm supposed to join your team.” He watched the man uncertainly, worried that this man would exhibit the same hostility as the previous team.

“Mathias Møller. This is Dawn. We're very pleased to meet you. Really need two sets of eyes for this job.” They shook hands, Mathias having a stronger grip than Mikkel had expected from this slender man a head shorter than him. Mathias was another dark blond, with blue eyes, a faint scatter of freckles across his tanned cheeks, and a nose slightly crooked as if broken once upon a time. The cat, Dawn, deigned to sniff at Mikkel's fingers before yawning widely and closing her eyes again. “Come along, then. We'll go slow for a couple of circuits so you can learn the landmarks. You want to watch the shore there, just above the waves; look for any kind of tracks coming up.

“We haven't had a grossling come ashore in the two years I've served — well, almost two years. The Coast Guard is good about getting them before they reach us but those boats can't be everywhere. I'm told that sea-grosslings are going to be slow on land. Hope so, anyway, so they can't make it to the trees before we get them. Hate to think of grosslings up there in the forest.” He paused, looking up at the secondary growth that lined the limit of the sand.

Mikkel looked up at the trees and bushes as well, thinking of grosslings in the forest. That was nothing he wanted to remember so he pushed away the images, studied the trees only long enough to pick out landmarks: an oddly-shaped branch here, a fallen tree there. They moved on.

“Is there some reason that Sara Thomsen … doesn't like me?” Mikkel asked after they had walked in silence for some time.

“Oh!” The other actually laughed. “Did she tell you not to try anything?”

“Yes, in just those words.”

“Ha! She said she would! It's not you though. As soon as she heard the replacement was another man, she said she was going to tell him that. And she did!”

“But why?”

“Nobody told you about Bjorn? Bjorn Hansen?”

Mikkel searched his memory. “I don't think I know that name.”

“Well, you're replacing him. You're replacing him because he quit. Because he was asked to quit. Asked quite forcefully, in fact. He got the idea that Sara needed a new partner, and he didn't want to take no for an answer. We don't need any more of that.”

“Oh, there won't be any more of that,” Mikkel assured him fervently. Given prior experiences, he had no intention of approaching any woman who came equipped with dagger and firearms.

Mathias laughed again, punched him lightly on the shoulder, and told him, “I think we'll make a good team, Mikkel Madsen. Welcome!”

“The other four?” Mikkel asked after a bit.

“Frederik Larsen is the squad leader. He and Malthe Petersen are the west-night team. Both been in the Guards a while, four years and almost four, I think. Lucas Nielsen and Rikke Frandsen are the east-night team, both in the Guards three years. You don't get the night watch till you have some real experience. Lucas and Rikke are partners; I'm sure Sara made that clear.”

“Oh, yes. Very clear.”

“They're all good people. Good Guards. Tidy. I hope you're tidy?” He glanced at Mikkel sidelong.

“I'm very tidy,” Mikkel assured him. Mikkel wanted nothing so much as a place for everything and everything in its place, properly cleaned up and in good repair. Falling in with a squad of equally tidy people would be a genuine pleasure for him.

Mathias's early chatter was merely a nervous reaction to a new teammate, Mikkel supposed. Once they'd walked their assigned patrol from one end to the other, they fell into a comfortable silence as they began another patrol.

They were on their way back from their last patrol of the day when they encountered Lucas and Rikke heading out for their first patrol. The two teams stopped so that Mikkel could meet the night team, with Lucas, the large, dark-haired man Mikkel had seen before, doing his unsuccessful best to crush the new man's hand while dark-blonde Rikke smirked at the two men, clearly enjoying the silent contest but having no desire to join any hazing. The teams parted with casual waves, Mathias passing Dawn over to ride on Rikke's shoulders, and Mikkel and Mathias returned to the bunkhouse, having a few hours of free time before taking to their bunks.

Frederik and Malthe were gone as expected, but Sara and Noah were not there. Mathias waved a casual hand toward the forest to their north. “Those two are often late coming in,” he half-explained. “Take a look in here.” He gestured at the cabinet at the back of the room.

Spare bedclothes for all bunks were in the cabinet, one shelf of which was assigned to each squad-member. Mikkel was pleased to see that they all kept their spare clothes neatly folded and organized on their shelves, just as he liked his own clothes. He was also pleased to find a hammer, goggles, and a small box of nails, all of which he appropriated as soon as he'd stowed his clothes and made up his bunk.

“What do you want with the hammer?” Mathias asked.

“Loose boards. Repairs to be made.” Mikkel was impatient to get to work during the brief hours when everyone was awake and he could hammer without disturbing anyone.

“Okayyy. You're not really obliged to take care of that your first day, you know.”

Mikkel shrugged on his way out the door. It wasn't a matter of obligation.

Mikkel fit well into the squad. They were all quiet people who walked their patrols diligently even though none of them had ever actually spotted a sea-grossling, and they generally played cards in their free time. They taught Mikkel a variety of card games including poker, though they never played for money, instead playing for sea shells so as to avoid the risk of bad blood if anyone lost heavily, as Mikkel did at first.

When, a week after his arrival, Mikkel found his bunk short-sheeted upon his return from patrol, he was pleased rather then annoyed, for it indicated both that he was accepted as part of the team and that pranks were permitted. As the juniormost team member, however, he didn't feel he should engage in any major pranks. Not yet, at least.

Three weeks passed in a pleasant fashion and then they had a week's vacation when they were required to leave and make room for the “stand-in squad”, as they were called, a squad of highly experienced Guards who moved from bunkhouse to bunkhouse, relieving the regular squads. A duty cycle was five weeks patrolling and one week off, but Mikkel's first duty cycle was short since he had joined two weeks in, replacing Bjorn Hansen after his sudden departure.

Hiking back to Rønne with Mathias, Lucas, and Rikke, Mikkel considered what to do for a week. He could return to the farm, of course, but to return after only five weeks, in the middle of Winter … no, he didn't think he would do that. There was the library in Rønne, but after three weeks of spending his free hours sitting around playing cards, he didn't think he could sit still and read for a week.

Reaching the Old Soldier Inn, Mikkel paused outside, regarding the building narrowly. The problem with his vision was that objects didn't naturally form gestalts for him and he often had to concentrate to force them to do so. A side-effect of this was that he tended to see details quite well and a crooked or discolored board stood out prominently for him. He walked slowly around the Inn and its stables, noting every problem, and then went inside to talk to Arne.

“There's several days' worth of repairs that the inn could use,” he began. “Since I have a week's vacation, I would really like to work on that.”

The innkeeper frowned at him. “Have those sharks been teaching you to play poker?”

“Well, yes, they — oh! It's not that I'm out of money; we played for seashells. It's just that I, I don't want to sit around idle for a week. And there is that work to be done.”

“Hmm. All right. Go ahead if you wish. When you finish, we'll talk about your pay.”

“No, I, I don't mean to push you to pay for repairs that you didn't mean to make —”

“As you say, the work does need to be done. Go ahead. We'll talk about it later.”

And so Mikkel spent a happy four days carefully straightening boards and replacing those that were damaged, and was rehanging a shutter when he heard Arne say, “You see?”

“He does have that reputation.” That was Alfred's voice, amused, and Mikkel just missed stabbing his hand with the screwdriver in his surprise. Looking over, he called, “Just a moment, Alfred.”

“Don't hurry on my account, cousin. There'll be a beer waiting for you when you finish.”

Mikkel didn't hurry. Haste always made his clumsiness worse and tended to cause injury. With the shutter properly rehung, he climbed carefully down from the ladder and carried it and all his tools to the proper storage in the stables before joining Alfred inside the inn.

“How's the Shore Guard?”

“Quiet.” Mikkel took a deep draught of his beer. “My partner says there hasn't been an incursion in years. We still have to patrol though. If one got through …”

“Understood.” After a contemplative sip, Alfred went on, “Partner?”

“Teammate. Nothing more. There are women in the squad but they have found partners — in all senses — already.”

Alfred nodded. “Just as well, really. Wouldn't want jealousy in a squad like that.”

“No. That's how my predecessor on the team got himself asked to quit.”

Alfred nodded again, took another sip, and they finished their beer in silence.

Signalling for another round, Mikkel asked, “How are things on the farm?”

“Quiet. Waiting out the Winter. I lost a good mare. She stepped in a hole somehow, broke her leg. Nothing I could do.” He sighed in genuine grief, downed a third of his beer.

“Sorry.” After a moment Mikkel went on, “What about that immune colt? I've earned some money; maybe we could — you and I could — get him anyway?”

“No, not him. Already sold to someone else. But if his sire and dam threw one immune, they may throw another. And even a mare would help. She'd be less expensive, too.”

“Any luck on other animals? Pigs? Dogs?”

“Not on the island, not that I've found. We'd have to send to Norway, probably. And even together we don't have the money for that.”

Mikkel sighed. “No, I suppose not. But we need them!” He didn't know if Alfred was immune; he had never asked. At least the older cousin understood the need to surround non-immunes with immune livestock, even if he himself was immune and therefore safe.

“I know. Morten and Michael don't see it that way, though.”

They finished their beer in silence and then it was time for Alfred to go back to the farm while Mikkel took a sponge bath, scrubbed his work clothes, had an excellent supper, and prowled around the inn some more, looking for anything that he might repair.

Having repaired everything he could, Mikkel accepted Arne's offer to forgive him the fee for room and board for the week in exchange for his work, and spent the remainder of his vacation at the town's library. The library was not a lending library; books were now so rare that such institutions no longer existed. Mikkel was permitted to take a single book to a desk within the library and read it, returning it for inspection by the librarian before he was permitted another. If the book proved to have been damaged by his hands, he would be banished from the library. He was, therefore, extremely careful with the books.

After a week, Mikkel returned to the bunkhouse on the beach and took up his duties once more.

Chapter Text

Three weeks of spending his evenings playing cards had been more than enough for Mikkel; five weeks would be unendurable. Approaching the squad leader, Frederik Larsen, he asked hesitantly if he might be permitted to join the west-night patrol for a few hours each night, so as to become familiar with the terrain and the process.

Frederik favored him with an amused smile. “You just can't sit still, can you? Well, I do understand. Sure, come along with us. Three sets of eyes are better than two, after all.”

They spent several days patrolling in comfortable silence before Frederik asked, “So, Mikkel, why did you join the Guards?”

Mikkel gave him a surprised look, thinking the answer obvious.

“Well, yes, of course you wish to protect the island,” Frederik answered his unspoken thought. “But most Guards are from the coastal cities, not from the interior like you. So how did you find your way to the Guards?”

Mikkel looked off into the darkling sea beyond the reach of their lanterns. “My sister married an Icelander. Two of their friends — my friends — died when their ship was lost to a leviathan last summer.”

“I heard of that,” Frederik said somberly. “It was an Icelandic ship with an Icelandic naval vessel as escort so we didn't get the full story, but what I heard was that it was an equipment failure. The sonar failed.”

“It's a wonder any of them still work at all,” Mikkel observed. “And one day they won't work any more.” The surviving population was simply too small to produce new electronics in addition to everything else required for survival, and so all their electronics were relics from before the Great Dying, eight decades old, maintained by cannibalizing some to repair others as they failed.

“There's a scientist in Sweden,” Malthe put in, “who says the victory of the Rash was so complete in the Great Dying that there are no non-immune mammals left anywhere in the world except where we humans protect them. And since grosslings don't — can't — breed, the grosslings that are out there now are all the grosslings there will ever be. So every one we kill now is one step towards the ultimate conquest over the Rash.”

“Yeah, it's a race between the rate at which we kill the leviathans and the rate at which the sonar devices fail,” Frederik answered.

“We'll lose,” Mikkel replied bleakly, thinking of the vastness of the oceans and all the life within them.

“It's not completely hopeless,” Malthe told him sharply. “You don't have to use electronics to detect grosslings in the sea.”

“Cats don't have the range,” Mikkel objected. Cats had a strange sense for grosslings, not understood but known not to be based on sight, sound, or scent. Still, their sense had a limited range.

“I don't mean cats. There are supposed to be mechanical devices that will work. I'm not a mechanic, but that's what I heard. Scientists are trying to find solutions that our population can produce and maintain instead of relying on what's left from the Old World.”

Mikkel looked over at him respectfully. Malthe didn't talk much but when he did, he was always informed and interesting.

There being nothing more to say, they continued to patrol in silence.

For five weeks Mikkel spent twelve hours patrolling with Mathias and several more hours patrolling with Frederik and Malthe before scrubbing his uniform and hanging it on the end of his bunk to dry, playing a few hands of cards with the other three members of the day teams, and then falling satisfied into bed.

Returning to Rønne for a week, Mikkel moved back into the Old Soldier Inn and went to the port to check with Bjorn Jensen to see if he had any work. As indeed he did, Mikkel worked for him for that week, spending his free time at the library.

The Guards had a policy of moving squads around so that each Guard could become familiar with each area and thus could be reassigned as needed, so Mikkel's squad was reassigned to western cliffs for the next tour of duty. As he had come to be a bit bored with the beaches, this was a great pleasure for Mikkel. The days were getting longer, but were still shorter than the nights; he looked forward to the equinox, after which he would be able to actually explore alone by daylight.

For the one week break, he simply walked home to the farm and set to work. There were fields to prepare and livestock to care for, keeping him happily as busy as he desired. Despite the efforts of his sisters Maja and Mille to find him a girlfriend, he remained unattached. His tact had improved and he managed not to insult any of the young women he spent time with, but somehow he seemed unable to form any emotional connection to them, and at the end of the week he trotted back to his duty station, still alone.

That was the pattern of Mikkel's life for the year 75 of the Rash, and into the year 76: he served in a new location every few months, working in Rønne during his winter breaks, and on the farm during the breaks in the rest of the year, and remaining forever alone.

Chapter Text

In July of the Year 76 of the Rash, Mikkel was back on the beaches, still teamed with Mathias, but now as the west-daylight team. Dusk preferred his shoulders to Mathias's rather narrower shoulders, and so she was riding on him in the late morning when the teammates stopped in their tracks, staring at churned-up sand.

“That's — that's —” Mathias began.

“Something came out of the water and went up to the forest,” Mikkel stated grimly. He pulled out his flare gun, loaded it with a red flare, and fired. The flare produced a flash of red light and a cloud of red smoke, indicating a grossling on land. He also had yellow flares, indicating a probable grossling, and green flares for all-clear.

“It's not that sure …” Mathias said hesitantly.

“Nothing else in these waters would go straight up the beach into the forest.” Mikkel had his shotgun ready and was following the trail across the beach. “It's got a bunch of legs, or maybe there's more than one. Or both.” Behind him, Mathias fired his own red flare and then hurried to catch up. Mikkel paused to set Dusk down, and his teammate moved ahead, being the senior by almost two years.

There are grosslings in the forest. It was the nightmare brought back to reality, and Mikkel all but vibrated with tension.

It all happened very fast. Dusk screeched suddenly and charged into the bushes, Mikkel spun toward the sound, Mathias was focused ahead and was slow turning back. Mikkel's involuntary cry of “Dusk! Stop!” saved Mathias's life, for the troll charging out of the bushes lunged towards Mikkel and so slammed sideways into the other man, throwing him aside.

Mikkel's shotgun spoke, the troll fell dead just meters in front of him, another movement caught his eye, and the shotgun came up and spoke again without conscious thought on his part. The two trolls were relatively small, perhaps fifty kilograms, each with six multijointed legs and a long tentacle that stretched forward like an elephant's trunk above a powerful beaked mouth. They had multiple eyes scattered about their misshapen skulls.

Mikkel turned in place, reloading his shotgun without looking at it, scanning bushes and trees for motion. The birds, silenced by the shots, began to twitter once more; Mathias lay in a crumpled heap, unmoving. Mikkel knelt beside him, gently felt his head and along his spine; he had hit his head against a tree and was knocked out but apparently otherwise uninjured.

There are grosslings in the forest. I've got to find them … but … but he's hurt. I've got to take him to safety. I can't leave him here unconscious or they will find him and kill him … but I can't let them escape …

The decision was made for him by the sound of whistles off to his left. Someone had responded to the flares and smoke; someone was on the beach. Mikkel scooped up Mathias, laying the smaller man over his shoulder, and ran.

He had just reached the beach, two men there ahead of him, when something grabbed his right foot with a grip of agony and yanked backwards. Flinging Mathias away so as not to fall on him, he crashed face first into the sand and found himself being dragged towards the forest. Voices were shouting at him: “Stay down! Stay down!” Twisting around without sitting up, he brought the shotgun to bear on the massive troll that was reeling him in and fired twice while rifles cracked behind him. Though the troll was similar to the first two, it was much larger, close to two hundred kilograms, and its beaked mouth was big enough to take off his leg with one bite.

The terrible pull stopped as the troll fell forward, its beak a bare meter from his foot, but its tentacle, wrapped around his right leg from ankle to knee, did not release its grasp. As the troll wasn't moving, he tried to pull the tentacle away, was rewarded with a stab of sickening pain as his flesh tore. Feet were running towards him; a voice he did not recognize asked “Are you all right?”

“I'm okay. See to …” For a moment he couldn't think of the name of the injured man; it wasn't Pettar, no, it was … “See to Mathias. He hit his head.”

“The tentacle?” Mikkel had his dagger out and was sawing through the thing at his ankle.

“Barbed spines. I'll deal with it later. See to Mathias.” On his feet now, he glanced over at the young men who had responded to the flares. They were not the east-daylight team from his squad as he had expected; rather, they must be from the next duty station. His own squad should arrive soon, he thought, and then the Hunters, but with them watching Mathias he was free to pursue the grosslings. He limped into the forest, utterly focused on the trail and his surroundings, not even hearing the questions and objections that the two called after him.

Mikkel was actually quite a good tracker, partly because of his peculiarities of vision. A broken twig, a crushed leaf, anything out of place, stood out prominently to his eyes. He moved methodically, scanning the trail, the ground on both sides, the bushes and trees around. Finding the point where one of the trolls had veered off, he followed its trail carefully until he found the place where it had hidden and then charged at them. Ahead lay the first troll; to his right lay Dusk, her body crushed and torn. He paused to regard her sadly, then turned to follow the trail back to where the others had moved on.

Somehow there was blood and sand in his mouth; absently swiping at his face, he banged his nose, broken and bleeding. Feeling it for a moment, he understood the problem and dismissed it. He could breathe; he could track; nothing else mattered. His eyes were blackening and his eyelids were beginning to swell, making it difficult to keep his eyes open, but that too was irrelevant. He went on.

Here the second troll had turned back; he followed its track until he reached its body. Again he turned back to the main trail and continued. The trail veered to the left but perhaps thirty meters on he stopped to study the ground to the right of the trail. His gaze tracked disturbed litter that led to a larger tree and not beyond. After a moment he limped carefully towards that tree, his shotgun raised and his finger on the trigger. Not to his surprise, once he got close to the tree, a troll dropped from it, attempting to land on him. Leaping back, he stumbled over his injured right leg and fell, still getting off a shot that hit the troll off-center. Wounded, it lunged at him and met another shot that struck it squarely; it fell dead before him.

Mikkel pulled himself painfully to his feet, looking around warily. The birds had fallen silent at the sound of the shotgun but were beginning to cheep tentatively. After a careful study of the forest floor he turned back to the first trail, following it until he found the dead troll with the beach beyond it. The two Guards were sitting with Mathias, who was now awake and sitting up, and all three were keeping watch, mostly on the forest but checking the beach and the ocean itself at intervals, occasionally blowing their whistles, their firearms ready.

Mikkel stood for a long moment, torn between an irrational but powerful urge to go back into the forest and wait for the grosslings to find him, and the understanding that his duty was to join the three on the beach. He had not seen any trace of additional trolls or grosslings and yet, and yet … He rubbed his forehead as he tried to think.

What decided him was Mathias's act of blowing his whistle again. They're acting as bait! They understand! They know that there are grosslings in the forest and that we must be bait to lure them out! He limped out to join them, more falling than sitting down. Allowing his abused eyelids to close, he settled back to wait for the grosslings. Behind his eyes, images flickered of the grossling attacking Pettar, of the axe and the blood, but he pushed them aside, focusing on images of Mathias rescued, sitting up, alive.

Chapter Text

A strange rattling noise behind him seized Mikkel's attention as he sat on the beach, making him twist around to see what might be creeping up on them. The two Guards from the next station had left when Frederik and Malthe arrived with Noah and Sara; the latter two had taken over the patrol while the former two remained to guard — that is, to act as bait — with Mikkel and Mathias. The other three looked around just as Mikkel did but all four immediately turned their attention back to the trees lest something charge at them while they were distracted. The rattling noise had come from a sailing ship dropping anchor: the Hunters had come at last.

The adrenaline that had sustained Mikkel for over an hour drained away leaving him suddenly exhausted. He didn't raise his head as a dozen Hunters ran past accompanied by several dogs and a Class A cat, looking up only when a woman shook his shoulder.

“What's your name?” she asked, studying his battered face.

“Mikkel Madsen,” he answered automatically, studying her in turn and seeing an older woman with short blonde hair going gray and faded blue eyes, a uniform like his own but with a white band around each sleeve bearing an embroidered red cross. A medic, then.

“What year is it?”

He had the lunatic impulse to answer “I don't know” or “Fifty-six” (the year of his birth) or “Blue and white flowers”, but he forced it away and answered correctly, “Seventy-six.” She was obviously evaluating him for a head injury and he probably shouldn't make things difficult for her.

“Where are we?”

“West beach of station four.” He let his abused eyelids close.

“All right. Do you have a headache?”

“No.”

“Look at me.” He opened his eyes as far as he could. “Do you have double vision?”

He looked at her and then over her shoulder at the forest. “No.”

“Look to the left. Double vision? Pain?”

“No.”

“And to the right?”

“No.”

“I'd ask you to look up and down but that's not going to work with that swelling. Okay, I guess that's good enough for now. What is this — is this a tentacle?”

“It's just … it's got barbed spines. It has to be cut out.” If he'd had to, he'd have torn it away along with whatever flesh the barbs took with them, but he hadn't had to and a surgeon could free him with less permanent damage.

“Can you stand? Can you walk? Do you need a stretcher?”

“No, no stretcher. I can walk.”

They stood together, she led him limping to the rowboat that had brought the Hunters, and the two sailors who had rowed it in helped him to board and then pushed off, the medic remaining behind as they rowed him out to the ship. Being hauled up onto the ship in the rowboat, swinging back and forth with the waves, the still intense pain from the tentacle, and the taste of blood in his mouth, were all too much for him. He just made it to the rail of the ship before losing his lunch.

He was hanging over the rail giving some consideration to simply falling in when a hand tapped his arm and a young voice urged him, “Here, rinse your mouth with this.” A very young sailor, surely no older than fourteen, with straw-blond hair raggedly cut, his blue eyes focused earnestly on Mikkel's face, stood beside him holding out a mug half full of water. Accepting and using it, he returned the mug and the younger man held out a small ball of wilted vegetable matter. “This is good for seasickness. It's kind of bitter but just chew it up and swallow it. Oh, and focus on the horizon. That's supposed to help.”

“Thank you.” Mikkel obeyed, shuddering a little at the taste of the herbs, which were far more than just “kind of” bitter, and forcing his eyes to stay open and look at the horizon. “Are you a medic?” The kid seemed young but maybe …

The sailor laughed. “No, I'm a very junior sailor and I get to scrub the deck, so I really appreciate your leaning over the rail before spewing. It's my job to keep our guests from going over the rail, too. The captain says that nobody dies of seasickness, even though you probably want to, so, you know, it really will get better.”

“What's going on?” Mikkel asked, startled, as there was a rattling sound off to his left. “Is that the anchor again, or what?”

“They're pulling up the anchor. We're setting sail to take you to Rønne.”

“But what about the Hunters?”

“Oh, they'll be busy for hours, and Maria's there, she's the medic. You've met her. Anyway, this is what we were ordered to do: bring the Hunters, collect the injured and take them back, go back to support the Hunters. Since you're the only injured, we're taking you. Um, would you like to sit down? Your leg looks kind of bad.” It was still bleeding slowly into his boot.

“Yes, thank you.” Raised always to be polite, he offered a hand to shake. “Mikkel Madsen. Am I keeping you from your duties?”

“Alberte Holm.” They shook, and the young sailor grinned widely. “My duties are whatever someone senior orders me to do, but as long as I'm taking care of you, no one will order me to do anything else.”

Miserable as he was, Mikkel chuckled. He had been a fourteen-year-old boy once, some subjective decades ago, and so allowed Alberte to lead him to some crates lashed down to the deck and settle him where he could still see the horizon. There were shouts and rattles and other noises around him, but he tuned everything out and just focused on the horizon for the endless time until the ship entered the bay of Rønne.

The anchor rattled down and Alberte showed up to assist him. “We radioed ahead and there's a carriage waiting for you,” he explained, leading Mikkel limping to the gangplank. The promised carriage was indeed there, practically on the end of the gangplank, and Mikkel climbed in painfully as the young sailor wished him good luck. The carriage was soon on its way, taking its passenger through the streets of Rønne to the Guards headquarters and their clinic — it could hardly be termed a hospital.

The driver, a man as big as Mikkel himself, with close-clipped dark hair and dark eyes, wearing a Guards uniform, offered his aid in climbing out and Mikkel regretfully accepted it as getting out was more difficult than getting in. A stern older man in white jacket and trousers stood by the door of the clinic, watching disapprovingly. “Okay, inside,” he ordered Mikkel, who obeyed with a sigh, not liking being ordered around. Inside, he was guided through a small waiting room and into a back room. “Sit on that gurney,” the man directed before poking around in a cabinet and coming up with a bottle of blue liquid from which he filled a shot glass which he held out to Mikkel, who accepted it and regarded it dubiously.

“Yes, yes, I know,” the man said irritably. “You're a rough and tough Guard. But I'm not into torture, so I'll fix your nose without anesthesia if that's what you want, but I won't tackle that troll-thing without it. So you can sit there and finish bleeding to death, or you can take your medicine like a sensible young man, have a nice nap, and let me clean up the mess you've made of yourself.”

“I didn't make this mess,” Mikkel answered with dignity before swigging down the blue stuff and stretching out on the gurney to wait. It was not long before he was fast asleep.

Chapter Text

Mikkel awoke and opened his eyes as best he could, finding something white at close range between them. Lifting his left hand to touch and investigate it, he was stopped by a small hand on his wrist and a girl's voice: “Don't touch that.”

For a moment he thought it was Mette, but no, turning his head he saw it was a girl of about her age with hazel eyes and chestnut-brown hair in a long pony tail, wearing a white shirt and gray trousers. “Okay,” he mumbled indistinctly, then tried again more clearly. “Okay. I won't.” Now that he was fully awake, it was obvious what the thing was: a splint for his nose, taped to his face.

“Good! I'll go get Dad. I mean, the doctor.” She was out the door immediately, and he took advantage of the opportunity to sit up and dangle his feet over the edge of the gurney, finding himself to be wearing a white smock and nothing else. After gathering together his sheet to allow himself some modesty, he studied his bare right foot, turning it, extending and flexing his ankle, wiggling his toes. His leg hurt still, though not so badly as before, and everything seemed to be working normally. He hesitated to count the number of small, stitched, lacerations that wound around it from knee to ankle.

“Stop that,” the doctor ordered as he entered the room. “To answer the question you haven't asked, your tendons and ligaments are undamaged and, as I am quite a competent surgeon, all the cuts I made to extract that thing are with the grain of the muscles and will heal cleanly.” He looked Mikkel over with some admiration. “I wish all my patients were as well-muscled as you are. It would make things easier for me.

“However. I've stitched up the wounds, and if you use those excellent muscles of yours very much, you're likely to tear the stitches out. You need to stay off that leg for at least three weeks if you want it to heal properly. You do want it to heal properly, don't you?”

“Yes, sir,” Mikkel agreed.

“Right. I did think you were a sensible young man.”

“May I have my clothes?” Mikkel asked with some urgency.

“Oh, yes, certainly. Your trousers were beyond repair, of course, and you have no idea how difficult it is to come up with trousers for a man of your size on short notice, but we've managed and we've also managed to get the rest of your gear cleaned. There are some stains that won't come out though.”

Not wanting to interrupt, but very much wanting some clothing, Mikkel waited until the man stopped speaking and asked again, “May I have my clothes, sir?”

“Yes, yes. Anna! Fetch the lad his clothes!”

The girl — Anna — must have been waiting just outside the door, for she darted in at once with an armload of clothing which she deposited on the bed before giving him an encouraging smile and darting out again.

“Do you need help dressing?”

“No, I, I can manage. I'll be very careful of my leg.” He hadn't needed help dressing since he was a small child, and didn't really want this severe doctor — or worse, the daughter! — to assist him.

“Good. Dress. Here are your crutches.” The doctor brought over a pair of crutches which had been leaning in a corner and Mikkel regarded them with some dismay. Three weeks on crutches! He did not complain; his condition could have been much worse. They might have had to amputate. He shuddered a little.

The doctor looked him over once more, seemed satisfied, and left him alone to dress in a clean uniform and boots. The process was slow and awkward, but he managed it without tearing any stitches and was soon crutching across to the door. Carefully opening the door and edging through it, he was so intent on his actions that he did not at first realize that there was someone in the room.

Turning to see who was there, Mikkel was shocked to find that it was the Guard Commander in person, leaning against what appeared to be the doctor's desk. “Sir!”

The Commander regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “Mikkel Madsen,” he said, and slowly shook his head. “Tell me, Mikkel Madsen, what is the role of the Shore Guard when an incursion is detected?”

“They — we — use flares to give notice and then stand watch until the Hunters arrive to deal with it,” Mikkel replied, remembering his initial training. This will not be a pleasant discussion.

“Whose idea was it for you and Møller to run off into the woods instead of standing watch?”

“Mine, sir.” It was true and, given what he'd done afterward, he could hardly damage his position further but might be able to help Mathias by taking as much blame as possible on himself.

“Møller says he went first.”

“He did, sir. When he saw I was going into the forest, he took point because he was senior.”

“Why did you go in at all?”

“Because —” there were grosslings in the forest “— because it might take hours for the Hunters to arrive and the trolls could go a long way in that time if they didn't notice us on the beach. We were on the spot and I thought we could kill at least some of them before they could spread the infection. Sir.”

“So you went in, with him leading. And then the troll knocked him out.”

“Yes, sir, and killed Dusk. That was our cat.”

“I knew Dusk. You shot two trolls. Why did you run?”

“Mathias — that is, Møller — was unconscious. I couldn't leave him unguarded, I couldn't fight while carrying him, and … if I just stayed with him the trolls might get away. The other team was on the beach, so I took him to them so they could protect him.”

“And then you were attacked but you went back into the forest anyway, alone and injured.”

“Yes, sir. I could still track and I could still fight. And I thought there were more trolls in there. There was at least one.”

“So far as the Hunters have been able to determine, there was only one, the one that climbed a tree, the one you shot. The Cleansers are burning the forest right now, and we'll have Scouts and Hunters assigned there for years, but it does seem that you stopped the incursion.”

Some of the tension went out of Mikkel. Whatever happened to him, at least he had stopped the incursion and Mathias was all right.

“If you go out on patrol again and you find tracks again, will you pursue the trolls? Or will you stay on guard on the beach?”

Mikkel kept his face impassive, looked the man directly in the eye. The word “if” troubled him — would he be dismissed for this incident? — but he would not lie, not about that question. “I will pursue the trolls.”

“I thought so.” Did Mikkel imagine that the Commander smiled, ever so slightly? “You do realize, Madsen, that, informal though we are, the Guards are a military organization.”

“Yes, sir.” Mikkel straightened as best he could, standing on one leg and his crutches, and still regarding the Commander steadily despite his badly swollen eyelids.

“We rather disapprove of disobedience to orders.” Mikkel said nothing. “It's an interesting point, however, that it doesn't seem that anyone ever ordered you — or any other Shore Guard — not to track a grossling incursion if you could.”

Mikkel blinked, thinking back on his training. It was true that he hadn't been ordered not to track grosslings.

“That being the case,” the Commander went on, “what we have here is a Guard — a pair of Guards — who exercised initiative and stopped an incursion. You did lose a good cat though.”

“Yes, sir,” Mikkel agreed regretfully. Dusk had been a very good cat.

“Unfortunately, few battles are bloodless. And, of course, you yourself are injured. According to Doctor Norgaard you need at least three weeks to recover. You will have six weeks' leave.” Seeing Mikkel's dismay he added, “With pay, of course.” That wasn't Mikkel's concern but he didn't argue with the Commander. “Now then, as I said, we are a military organization. As such, we have medals.”

The Commander picked up something from the desk, held it up for Mikkel to see: a gold-trimmed ribbon horizontally striped with red, white, red. Within the white stripe were four stars: gold to the left, two silver in the middle, a bronze at the right end. A small gold disk hung beneath it; Mikkel could not make out the writing on the disk. Mikkel looked at the medal, then back at the Commander in surprise.

“Yes, Madsen, you get a medal for killing trolls. A gold star for the unassisted kill; silver stars for those when Møller was with you since we consider those assisted kills; the bronze star for the assist on the one on the beach. Andersen and Sørensen — the two from the other squad — argued that you should be credited with an assisted kill for that one, but the thing was so shot up that it's impossible to tell who really killed it.” He pinned the medal to Mikkel's jacket as he spoke. “You're not required to wear the medal,” he added, rightly suspecting that Mikkel would not do so, “but it's yours. Good work, Madsen.” The Commander shook his hand formally. “Now, I have other duties. Your cousin is waiting outside to collect you.”

With that, the Commander left and Mikkel was alone.

Chapter Text

Mikkel unpinned the medal, staring at it for a long moment before tucking it into the inner pocket of his jacket and making his way across to the outside door. He expected to find Alfred waiting for him outside and was most surprised to find Arne instead. The innkeeper looked him up and down with a slight smile and observed, “You don't look as bad as I expected. Wait here; the cart's down the street.”

As the older man strode away, Mikkel visualized his mother's diagram of the family tree and tried to figure out where Arne Larsen could fit in. He was still puzzling over this when the other returned on the inn's cart, swung down, lowered the back of the cart, and began arranging crates to form shallow stairs for Mikkel to navigate on his crutches.

“Wondering how we're related?” he asked, gesturing for Mikkel to climb the makeshift stairs into the cart.

“Yes. I don't see how —”

“We aren't. I'm not your cousin; I'm Alfred's cousin. Second cousin on our mothers' sides, to be exact. But Alfred isn't here, so I'm taking care of his duties. Up you get now.”

Mikkel obeyed, mounting carefully into the cart and finding that Arne had laid out a blanket atop piled hay so that he could lie down. He glanced back at the innkeeper and said, “I really feel okay. I'd rather sit up on the box with you.”

“As you wish.” The older man loaded the crates, swung up onto the box, and watched narrowly as Mikkel made his careful way across the cart and managed to settle himself on the box without banging his injured leg. “Your face is a mess, by the way.” Mikkel looked at him in surprise. “Besides the nose, you have two rather glorious shiners. Scrapes and scratches too.” He smiled. “You look like you've been in a brawl.”

Mikkel sighed. “I should've realized that, as hard as it is to open my eyes. Can't be helped, I suppose. How did you know to come look for me?”

“The story's all over the city that there was an incursion and the Shore Guard shut it down. You haven't been named, but when I heard about it, I just assumed you'd be in the middle of it. I have my sources in the Guards, so I checked and found out you were wounded.” He shrugged. “I haven't sent word to your family, not even Alfred; I thought that should be your decision. Still, other people do travel and the story may reach them soon.”

“You have sources in the Guards?” Mikkel frowned. “Are you, yourself, the 'old soldier'?” It was a question he'd wondered about before.

“No, that was my grandfather. He really was an old soldier — he was a soldier of the Danish Army at the time of the Great Dying, and already old at that time. I was a sailor in the Coast Guard, like my father. That's how I have sources.”

Curiosity satisfied, Mikkel went on, “So what's the plan now?”

“Up to you. If you want to stay in the inn while you recover, we'll be happy to have you. We'll put you in the boy's room.” The “boy” was Arne's seventeen-year-old son, Poul, and his room was a storeroom with a cot, but it was downstairs, unlike the guest rooms which were upstairs. “He'll sleep in the stables; they're nice and weather-tight these days. Or I'll take you to your family. Up to you,” he repeated.

Mikkel considered, though there was really no option. There was little he could do at the inn, but at home on the farm there would always be something he could do. If nothing else, he could babysit the youngest children while parents and older siblings worked at the endless jobs of summer. “I'll go home but I can't ask you —”

“You aren't asking. In fact, you aren't being given a choice. You want to go home; very well, we'll go by the inn to get your duffel and then I'm taking you to your family.” He gave Mikkel a thin smile. “I haven't been out to visit Alfred in years.”

There obviously being no point arguing, Mikkel nodded acquiescence and settled back for the ride.

Mikkel's homecoming was the subject of delighted stories in the Madsen family for years.

When the cart reached the Old Soldier Inn to pick up his duffel, Mikkel was flagging from a combination of stress, blood loss, and drugs so, with some urging from Arne, he consented to lie down in the back of the cart and sleep. As a result, when Mette ran out to greet the cart in the farm yard, she found her beloved big brother appearing to have been beaten unconscious. Protective as always, she meant to punish whoever was responsible, starting with Arne, and was joined in this determination by her brothers Malthe and Martin, who rushed to her assistance.

The shouting both awakened Mikkel and brought out the heavily pregnant Alma who, seeing Mikkel injured, sent the nearest child running to find Michael. As Alma and a somewhat befuddled Mikkel settled things down, Morten rushed up prepared to defend his family against whatever marauders were causing the commotion, quickly followed by Freja, who was distraught at the damage to Mikkel's “beautiful face” (only his mother could have ever regarded Mikkel's face as beautiful) and only slightly reassured by Mikkel's repeated insistence that “everything will heal”.

As more Madsens came to investigate the uproar, Mikkel's efforts to explain while downplaying the events that had led to his injuries were gleefully undercut by Arne, who insisted loudly that Mikkel was a hero who had risked his life to save his partner and had personally stopped a troll incursion. That all this was in fact true made it difficult for said hero to argue.

No sooner had Morten and Freja managed to get their wounded son comfortably placed in a large chair in the old farmhouse with the various overwrought family members quieted down enough to hear his story, than Michael arrived at a dead run, ready to lead an assault on the murderous population of Rønne, again starting with Arne.

By the time Michael was calmed down and order restored, Arne had escaped and driven to Alfred's cottage where the cousins spent the rest of the long summer evening drinking beer and laughing, Arne sleeping that night in the back of his cart on the bed he'd made for Mikkel.

Mikkel moved into the unfinished cottage that would be Mille's since he wasn't permitted to climb the stairs in the farmhouse, his argument that he would be quite comfortable sleeping in the barn being summarily dismissed. For three weeks he dutifully used crutches and cleaned the stitches twice a day with alcohol from the family still. As he had expected, he was assigned babysitting duties and kept young Madsens quiet by reciting fairy tales, Icelandic myths, and Just So Stories, firmly declining to tell them anything about his experiences other than “A troll tripped me and my friends killed it.”

Despite the forced idleness, the inconvenience of crutches, and the embarrassment of family members who wanted to regard him as a hero, Mikkel was happier than he had been in years. He slept better, was less troubled by nightmares, and felt less driven to fill every waking hour with work.

And yet …

And yet he felt a restlessness, a urge to do something, but he didn't know what. In the late afternoon just days before his twentieth birthday, when the three weeks were finally over and he had pulled out all the sutures and put aside the crutches, he thought he understood. He knew he should not, knew it would distress his twin, but he nevertheless made his way through the forest to the first clearing.

He gazed around silently, the images clear behind his eyes: Pettar dropping the firewood he'd gathered; Magnus, the old tom cat, racing in from the left; the grossling racing in from the right; the axe in his hand; the blood; his father's horrified face and Mette's terrified face … He walked on. In the second clearing the other grosslings had attacked him and he had not even drawn his dagger, killing them with his hands and feet, accepting their bites and scratches. There was the tree where he had waited for the rest of the grosslings, grosslings which would never come.

But this was the wrong place.

Mikkel turned away and made his way back to the farm.

He stood for a while at the edge of the forest, watching the activity of the farm, but his attention wandered to the lane which led away, down to the town. He had never in his life been to their town alone, though he had lived alone in Rønne for months. There. I need to go there. He walked down the lane. Reaching the town, he drifted slowly down the main street, not consciously knowing what he was looking for, until he came to the weaver's shop and stopped.

Mikkel stood for a long time before the shop, finally taking a deep breath and entering. The man working at the loom off to his left glanced around, saying, “Oh, hi, Michael, long time — Mikkel! You are Mikkel, aren't you?”

Mikkel nodded uncertainly. “Pettar.”

“Mikkel, I — Josefin! Mikkel is here!” Pettar leapt to his feet with such ease that, had Mikkel not known otherwise, he would have believed the man to have two good legs. They were close in height though Mikkel was much more powerfully built, and now they stood face to face, unsure of what else to say.

“No, Pettar,” came a woman's voice from the back, “What are you —” She stopped in the doorway from the back of the shop, a short and slender woman with green eyes and golden blonde hair in a pony-tail, a little boy of perhaps two riding on her hip. “Oh! Pettar, is this — is this Mikkel?”

The child was looking back and forth between his parents in confusion and his mother patted his head absently as she came forward to greet their guest. “Mikkel, I'm so glad to finally meet you. Welcome, welcome to our home! Please, come back and have a beer with us.”

Pettar hurried to close the front door and follow his wife and a hesitant Mikkel into the back. Once they were comfortably seated in the family's little kitchen, and the adults all had their mugs of beer, Pettar lifted his son into his lap and said, with an expression that wavered between proud and nervous, “Mikkel, this is my son, Mikkel Lars Madsen.”

Mikkel nearly dropped his mug in his lap. “You — you — you named him after me? But I — but —”

“Mikkel? (No, not you, son.) Don't you understand? All my life, everything I've done or felt since then, is because you did what you had to do. My beloved Josefin, my little boy, the new one on the way: all because of you.

“This —” he waved about the shop “— this is not what I intended before that day, but now that I have it, I would never give it up. If I could go back in time, and tell those two boys not to go exploring, Mikkel, I wouldn't do it.

“Except for what it's done to you. That is what I regret, that is all I regret.”

“I — I didn't — I —”

“It was hard at first to see you, I won't deny that. It was all hard. But you see I've adjusted, I've practiced; if people don't know, they don't even suspect. My life is good, Mikkel. I should have spoken to you before but … I didn't know how to start.” He set his son on the floor and pushed him gently forward. “Go, little Mikkel. Say hi to your cousin, big Mikkel.” The boy toddled timidly forward, looking up into the man's face, and when Mikkel offered his hands, the child allowed himself to be lifted up.

Mikkel closed his eyes, bounced his namesake on his knee, let go the haunting burden of guilt, and was healed.