Divide and Conquer Read online

  A ribbon of hope began to thread its way through Sera. “So he could have escaped? He could still be alive.”

  Riq hesitated before answering, and the pause buoyed her sense of optimism for a moment before it all came crashing down.

  “Sera, the ones who dove into the Seine were on fire — that’s why they were so desperate for water.” His voice broke as he added, “I saw Dak’s body floating down the river. He was facedown, and he wasn’t moving.”

  DAK FOUGHT his way to the surface of the river, his lungs burning. He’d only recently been tossed overboard from the Santa María, and he hadn’t survived that to end up drowning now.

  Finally, his head broke free and he felt fresh air on his cheeks. His first breath was a choking wheeze that sputtered into coughing. Around him the battle still raged, though the tenor of it had changed. Small flames peppered the ground at the base of the tower, but most of the Vikings who had just been fighting there were gone.

  Dak couldn’t bear looking at any of the nearby bodies. It was too much — too real that the men he’d been working alongside were now dead. His stomach twisted, and he gagged on a mouthful of vile river water.

  It didn’t take Dak long to realize he was a target while treading water in the middle of the river, but his options were severely limited. The wall prevented him from climbing to land on the island side. And men who staggered to shore on the mainland were quickly brought down by arrows and bolts. Those seemed to be the lucky ones — other Vikings fought to pull off their heavy armor even as it dragged them down into the depths of the water.

  Throughout all of this the Franks taunted their enemy, shouting: “Right badly burned, aren’t you! Go jump in the river to save your flowing manes!”

  Dak was really beginning to hate those guys, and not just because they were trying to kill him. Which gave him an idea: If they wanted him dead, so be it.

  He slumped in the water, letting his body go limp. His back bobbed along the surface as his legs dragged below. The current tugged at him, pulling him away from the tower and the bridge to safety.

  Every now and again he lifted his head, just barely, to take in a lungful of air. When they’d taught him the dead man’s float at the pool for PE, he’d thought it was useless (even though it was the only thing he was really good at in that class) and he hadn’t resisted letting his teacher know how he felt.

  As Dak floated to safety he made a mental note to find Mr. Foltz and thank him when he got back to his own time.

  Something cold nudged Dak’s hand. He’d been washed ashore ages ago and even though he was drenched with foul river water and freezing, he wasn’t taking any chances. That’s why he’d spent the last several hours playing dead and didn’t plan on moving until dark. But curiousity got the best of him now. He cracked open an eye and came face-to-face with rows of sharp, gleaming teeth.

  Dak had never been a really great actor, and he completely broke character now — no one was going to believe he was dead once he yelped and started to scrabble backward. He didn’t get far before a very wet and very smelly tongue lapped his face from chin to hair.

  He recognized the stench immediately. “Ew, Vígi,” he grumbled as he wiped the drool from his cheeks. “We need to find you a toothbrush!”

  In response the dog nudged him, her nose prodding at his hand until he relented and tangled his fingers in her ears. She sat with a thud and then slipped to the ground, rolling against him with her four paws in the air.

  “I think she likes you,” a voice barreled. “Though you’d be the first.”

  Dak raised his eyes to find Rollo towering above him. He carried a huge sword in his meaty fist, and Dak couldn’t stop staring at it. The double-edged blade was probably almost as long as he was tall.

  It was just his luck that he’d avoided being crushed, pierced, burned, and drowned only to die under a giant’s sword just when he thought things were beginning to look up.

  At least the blade appeared sharp so his death would be quick.

  Rollo must have sensed the direction of Dak’s thoughts because he glanced at his sword and started to laugh, a sound like thunder. “Sorry,” he said, slipping the weapon into a leather scabbard hanging on his left hip. “I didn’t mean to let Kettlingr scare you.”

  Except that when the device in Dak’s ear translated Kettlingr, Dak couldn’t hold back the snort of laughter. “Wait, you named your sword Kitten? As in ‘meow’?”

  Rollo scowled, which was a pretty terrifying sight that caused Dak to choke on his giggles. “If you’ve ever been on the wrong end of a ticked-off kitten, you know how ferocious they can be.”

  Dak fell into a spasm of coughing to hide his amusement, which only caused Rollo to slam his palm against Dak’s back as if to help, truly knocking the wind out of him. While Dak struggled for air, the Viking hauled him to his feet.

  “Let’s head back to camp,” he said, gesturing down the river in the direction of light on the horizon. “Fighting’s over for the day and it’s time for dinner. I’d already be eating if it weren’t for Vígi and her whining. She wouldn’t shut up until I agreed to let her look for you.”

  The dog in question sat next to Dak, mouth open in a grin as she panted happily away. He tweaked her ears and she leaned against him, almost knocking him over.

  “I really need to, er . . .” He glanced up at the side of a nearby ship, desperate for an excuse. He knew that so long as anyone was watching him, there was no way for him to recover the SQuare and sneak back into the fortified city. “I should really check to make sure none of the shields have splinters. You know how that can be out on the battlefield. Nothing worse, really.”

  This elicited a hearty laugh. “Nonsense,” Rollo boomed. “You’ve distinguished yourself today, held the standard high, and saved many lives. Men back at camp want to honor you and share food.” He then frowned. “Trust me when I say these are not men you want to keep waiting.”

  Dak remembered how ferocious the soldiers had been on the battlefield, and imagining them turning their ire on him was enough to propel him along the riverbank with Rollo.

  Besides, the thought of real, actual Viking warriors wanting to thank Dak for his bravery? That was an experience he didn’t want to miss!

  SERA TRIED to avoid looking at the faces of those she passed as she walked with Riq over the bridge and back to the fortified city. The night was dark, which helped, but she still couldn’t help noticing the hollowness of everyone’s eyes, the slump of their shoulders. Despite all the damage they had done, it was barely a dent in the Viking force. A batch of men was repairing the tower and trying to build onto it, but how long could the city really stand against such an onslaught?

  As depressing as these thoughts were, it was better than thinking about Dak. Sera knew that Riq was convinced something terrible had happened to her best friend — that he might even be dead — but she refused to believe that. If something truly awful had happened to him, she’d have felt it.

  It didn’t make scientific sense and she knew it. Sera was usually the first one to dismiss what she called “mumbo jumbo psychic rubbish.” Once, in third grade, a girl in class had argued that certain lines on a person’spalm revealed how long that person would live, how successful they would be, and even if they would get married. Sera had been the one to explain how such ideas had no scientific basis. Her entire life had been ruled by facts and data rather than emotion.

  But now she was relying purely on emotion — on her belief that Dak was still alive somewhere out in the Viking camp — and it frightened her.

  “Bill told me he suggested we leave Dak and warp away,” Riq said, interrupting her thoughts and breaking the silence. Bill had given them some sort of excuse about finding food and shelter, but really Sera knew he was leaving the two of them alone to figure out what to do next.

  “Dak has the SQuare,”
Sera reminded Riq. “Without that we have no idea what the next Break is.”

  Riq stopped and put a hand on her arm. “But if we knew where to go next, would you warp away?”

  She opened her mouth, but no answer came out.

  “What if it were me out there instead?” he asked.

  That answer came to her immediately: She’d probably leave him behind. Though she didn’t voice it out loud her cheeks colored with embarrassment, which gave Riq his answer.

  He grunted and looked away. “I know what the right answer is,” he finally said. “Fixing the Breaks is more important than any one of us. And if I’m ever the one out there I hope you make the decision to leave me. It’s not like I have much of anything to go back to.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  This surprised Sera. “You have your parents. That’s more than I have.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Ever wonder how I can speak so many languages? Sure, I’m a prodigy.” He flashed the cocky smile she was used to, but it disappeared quickly. “But I also have a lot of time on my own. Both my parents are Hystorians . . . that kind of thing takes over your life if you haven’t noticed.”

  She frowned. “It doesn’t have to.”

  In response Riq laughed. “Says the girl more than a millennium away from home.”

  Just when Sera thought she was getting to see a new side of Riq, one that wasn’t cocky and bristly, he had to go and mess it up. Sera was tired of it. “Why do you always have to be such a pill?” she asked.

  Riq seemed genuinely surprised by the question, which spurred her on.

  “You’re always arguing — bickering, more like it. Why can’t you just get along with people?”

  He opened his mouth to answer and then closed it before turning away. Sera watched how his shoulders tensed. “You experience Remnants, right?” he asked.

  Sera was caught off guard. He knew the answer already, but it still seemed so personal. She usually only talked about the subject with Dak, even though he didn’t really understand what it was like.

  Sera nodded. The events of the past several days caught up to her all at once, and she allowed herself to slide down a wooden fence until she was sitting on hard-packed dirt. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  “They used to be rare,” she explained. “Sometimes I’d go to this old barn that stood on the edge of my uncle’s property, and I’d just know that at any minute the door would be flung open and two people would come strolling out toward me. It felt like they —” She cut herself off, feeling embarrassed. She pressed her finger against the dirt, dragging it in the endless loops of the infinity sign.

  Riq sat next to her, close enough that she could feel a bit of warmth from him. “They were what?” he prodded.

  She shifted and shrugged, feeling uncomfortable sharing something so personal. “It just felt like I should know them,” she said softly. “That they loved me more than anything else in the world.”

  There, she’d said it. The one secret that she’d never even shared with Dak. He had two parents who adored him and supported him, whereas she’d never known her parents. It was an absence her life always tilted around.

  Riq didn’t tell her she was stupid; he simply accepted everything she said as if he understood. “Your Remnants . . . they’ve been getting worse, haven’t they?” he asked.

  Sera sighed. “It started when we were on the Santa María and I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. And now I get Remnants sometimes when I just say something. Usually when I’m bossing Dak around.” She tried to laugh a bit to ease the seriousness of their discussion.

  Riq smiled, but it was halfhearted. He seemed distracted.

  She decided to ask him the question that had been on her mind for days. “When we were on the Santa María, you mentioned that if we fixed the Breaks we wouldn’t have to deal with Remnants anymore. You said that we were saving the world, but we were also saving ourselves.” Sera took a deep breath. “So do you have them, too? Remnants?”

  He nodded slowly, and she waited for him to say more. “Is it okay if . . .” He cleared his throat and shifted as if uncomfortable. “If I don’t talk about it?”

  Sera tried not to feel hurt and disappointed but it must have showed in her expression, because he leaned toward her until his shoulder bumped hers and added, “Yet. I’m just not ready to talk about it yet.”

  She bumped him back. If Riq wasn’t ready yet, then she’d wait.

  “But here’s the thing that really scares me,” he said. “Mine have been getting worse. Much, much worse. I can’t go more than a few hours without experiencing one. I’m worried that something we’re doing here is causing it to happen. That we’ve made a huge mistake.” He turned, finally looking her in the eye. “What if we’ve made the effects of the Break worse rather than better?”

  DAK WASN’T sure how much more he could take. He’d planned to start the day extra early by slipping away from camp while it was still dark, grabbing the SQuare, and finding a way back to Sera and Riq.

  Things hadn’t worked out that way. Apparently what Dak considered “extra early,” the Vikings considered past time to get the day started. He was roused by the clamber of chain mail and armor, and the general hustle and bustle of men preparing for battle.

  He tried to sneak away but only succeeded in joining with a band of soldiers headed toward the Seine. At first he had his hopes up that they’d use the boats to attack the bridge and tower and it would be easy for him to recover the SQuare.

  But of course Dak was never that lucky. Instead he found himself stuck nearly all day with the job of gathering debris from the battlefield: broken siege engines, trampled plants, even the bodies of executed prisoners — anything and everything he could carry. All because someone had come up with the brilliant idea of filling in the shallows of the river so that the Vikings’ infantry could get around the tower.

  It was the most horrific job Dak could ever imagine — much, much worse than scrubbing the deck of the Santa María or sneaking around in the Parisian sewers during the French Revolution — and he was miserable. Time and time again, he looked for an opportunity to sneak away, but nothing ever presented itself.

  Until he overheard a few men discussing their next brilliant plan: lighting a few ships on fire and guiding them down the river toward the bridge. And one of the ships they planned to use was the very one on which he’d hidden the SQuare.

  Dak’s heart sped up. The SQuare was their only lifeline to their own time period. If they lost the SQuare, they might as well give up on fixing any other Breaks.

  They might as well give up on looking for his parents.

  “I’ll help,” Dak volunteered, almost tripping over his own feet as he raced to catch up with the group of soldiers making their way to the ships. He waited for them to brush him off, but then he realized that two of them were men he’d saved the day before. They didn’t turn him away but instead welcomed him with hearty slaps on his back.

  Dak was surprised by how good it felt to be accepted into something so easily. He’d always been more of an outcast at school, made fun of for his habit of spouting random bits of history. That’s one reason he and Sera were such good friends — being outcasts gave them something in common.

  He’d have never guessed that he’d ever feel at home with a band of Viking warriors. As they made their way to the ships, gathering dried grasses and sticks, Dak watched his companions. Many of them weren’t much older than Riq, but they had a look in their eyes that said they’d lived very different lives.

  For them, there was no such thing as school or hanging out at museums or going to lectures given by world-renowned physicists. But the Vikings’ lives also weren’t only about war, as Dak had once thought. Most of these men were simply looking for a place to settle — land to work and women to marry
. But because most of the Viking history was oral rather than written, so much information about them was lost over time. What written details did survive tended to be recorded by those who lost battles against the North Men, which made it easy to see why the portrayals were mostly negative. Sure, some of the Vikings were bloodthirsty, only interested in pillaging and killing, but that wasn’t the majority.

  Dak marveled at how he’d almost describe some of these men as friends. Which was why it was that much more difficult to share their food and camp, and yet also try to figure out ways to thwart their efforts at getting into the city.

  The longer the Vikings were kept at bay, the better chance the Hystorians had of keeping Siegfried from amassing power, and of fixing the Break. Which meant Dak had to sabotage the very people who’d accepted him as one of their own.

  They split into several groups and spread out among the chosen ships to stuff them with the dried debris and prep them to be set on fire. Dak made sure he was assigned to the boat where he’d hidden the SQuare.

  His heart pounded hard. What if someone else had found it first? What if it had somehow slipped free and was now on the bottom of the river, broken beyond repair? He climbed aboard and checked the shield he thought he’d hidden it behind.

  It wasn’t there.

  Had it been moved? Did he just have the wrong spot? As Dak started to search the boat, someone tossed a flaming torch into the aft hull. The fire sparked instantly, eating along the deck and across benches. Overhead the sail roared, its fabric catching quickly.

  Dak was running out of time fast. Heat buffeted him and sweat broke out across his forehead and neck. Twice he shied away from the crackle of the hungry fire, but he couldn’t give up on finding the SQuare.

  The boat started to make its way down the river away from the group of Vikings and toward the bridge. Dak was stuck on board, still frantically searching behind every shield. There were twenty-five along each side and so far he’d only checked out half of them.