Written for Elleth for the 2019 Every Woman fic exchange on AO3

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She wasn't even sure how it had happened. She'd just looked up and found the rest of her party gone, not even the sound of their footsteps disturbing the late afternoon quiet. Sigrun stood very still, listening and looking and hearing nothing but the wind in the branches, rustling the dried and browning leaves. Oh, she'd catch it when she caught up—her first time on rear guard and she'd gone and lost the group. She huffed a sigh, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.

Home wasn't that far, right? She hadn't been paying much attention when the maps were out, and now she regretted that very much. It had been pouring rain when they'd gone out on the hunt, and now, coming back, the skies were clear and clean and blue, and everything looked different.

"Great," she muttered, shifting her rucksack from one shoulder to the other. "Wonderful."

Fortunately, there was a tree nearby with branches low enough that she could reach them if she jumped. Sigrun took a running leap and scrambled up into the tree, bits of dust and bark raining down as her boots scrabbled for purchase.

Then the next branch she reached for broke in her hand, and Sigrun let out a very undignified squeaking noise that she was very glad no one else was around to hear as she panicked and grabbed at the next nearest branch. She caught it with one hand, wrenching her shoulder in the process. Once she got her feet on a limb she stood for a minute hugging the trunk and catching her breath.

That was when she heard the snuffling. Sigrun froze, and, very slowly, turned her head to look down.

A creature emerged from some underbrush, head down and sniffing as it shuffled through the damp leaf mould. It was very big, much bigger than the sheepdogs she'd seen last time she went to Iceland with her father, and far bulkier; from in the tree she had a very good view, and she could see the rash rot streaked down its legs, fluid oozing from a tear in its thick hide.

It was a garm, of course, and she was so, so lucky to have decided to try to climb a tree.

Sigrun did not move as it passed beneath her, still sniffing. Sniffing for her.

Then it sat down and looked up, right at her. Sigrun sucked in a breath, looking into its dark dead eyes. It just stared, without making a sound. She couldn't even tell if it was breathing.

She climbed higher. It was a pine, and before long her clothing and hands were sticky with the sap, but she kept going, ignoring the needles that got stuck in her hair, and spitting out the ones that fell into her mouth. Overhead the sky was starting to cloud over—and it was getting late.

Meanwhile, every time she looked down, the dog-beast was still there. Just watching. She had to come down some time, and it seemed to know it. Sigrun made faces at it, and wondered if it would be worth pulling out her gun when she really did need to get down. It would solve the garm problem, but it might attract worse things.

At last, she reached a high enough point in the tree that she could get the lay of the land around her. She spotted clear signs of a troll nest near a rocky outcropping in a clearing a few hundred yards away, but she also saw the walls of home in the distance, and smoke rising from chimneys and bonfires.

So that was easy.

She climbed back down, stopping several branches above the lowest. The garm was still there. "Go away," she hissed. "Shoo! Bad dog!" It still didn't move, except for a brief twitch of its ears at the sound of her voice.

For several minutes they stared at each other, Sigrun trying to decide what to do. She had several knives on her person, but she was not yet very good at throwing them—at least, she had not risen to Trond's standards—and she didn't want to lose them if she missed the garm—or if they just failed to pierce its hide. She also had a gun, but it was getting dark, and the last thing she wanted to do was attract more beasts. Or that troll that wasn't so far away. It was getting late in the year, but not late enough that trolls would not come out of their nests at the promise of a meal.

Slowly, she drew her biggest hunting knife out of its sheath. The rasp of metal on leather was loud in the silence, and she saw the garm tense. Maybe she could jump down and land on its back, and if she stabbed it in the spine it would go down immediately… But before she could make any other move, both she and the garm were distracted by another noise. A bigger noise, something moving through the underbrush, making grunting and moaning noises. Sigrun bit the inside of her cheek to keep from cursing out loud as the troll emerged. It had several heads, and two of them turned to look at the garm, which apparently decided that Sigrun wasn't worth a tangle with a troll, and turned and loped away out of sight. It was heading in the direction Sigrun wanted to go, but that was a problem for later.

Sigrun did not move. She hardly dared to breathe. Stand still, stay silent. Stand still, stay silent. It was the mantra of anyone who found themselves alone outside of the safe zones. It was not normally Sigrun's—she preferred to move fast and strike first. But normally she wasn't alone. And this was a big troll. Not a giant, but not far from it either. Worst of all, it did not seem to be in much of a hurry, though Sigrun did not think it had seen her. Apparently she was going to have to spend the night in the tree, and hope that trolls couldn't climb.

Oh, gods. She'd never thought about climbing trolls before. The thought made her feel almost ill.

Once the troll was looking away, she sheathed her knife again and hoisted herself, as slowly and as carefully as she could, higher into the tree, until she found a fork in the trunk where she could sit without risk of falling. When she was settled she looked down and had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream because the troll was right there, and it was looking at her.

Where had it even come from? Erling had called their hunt a great success just that morning, and now there was a garm and a troll almost within sight of Dalsnes! Maybe it was a test from the gods. Or a punishment. She tried to think if she'd done anything recently to warrant punishment, but thinking was difficult with four or five pairs of deadened eyes looking up at you.

Did staying still and silent work when the troll knew you were there? Sigrun had never heard. Or if she had she hadn't listened.

Then the troll just kind of…slumped down onto the ground, against the tree, like it was going to rest there for a while.

Wonderful.

Sigrun sighed and leaned back. She'd feel it if the thing started to climb, but she didn't think it would. Thank all of the gods.

The night passed slowly. The forest was quiet, except for the trees moving in the wind, which had sprung up and not died down. Sigrun's legs went to sleep in turns, as she shifted to relieve them. The nub of a branch dug into her back; she was sticky with pine sap all over, and itched with needles that had fallen into her clothing. She dozed on and off in brief snatches, always waking to the terrible fear that the troll had moved to come get her. It never had, though. In fact, she wasn't sure it moved at all throughout the night.

Sometime in the night clouds moved in, obscuring the stars and blocking the half-moon. By the morning the sky was completely overcast, and the air smelled of coming rain. Sigrun peered down the tree at the troll; it had moved slightly, but was not looking at her. From what she had seen last night, it was a lumbering sort of thing, and this morning it appeared sluggish. Sigrun herself was cold and stiff, and her left foot was all pins and needles. But she thought she was still faster than the troll. And she knew where to go. The hardest part would be getting won the tree. Sigrun carefully swung herself back up a few meters to make extra sure she knew where to go. Then she descended to the fork again, and looked at the troll. It almost looked like it was still asleep. All the better.

She managed to get almost all the way to the ground without making a noise. But the last branch she stepped on broke with a loud crack! that sounded like a gunshot in the dawn stillness. Sigrun fell to the ground, only barely managing to avoid breaking an ankle, and ran. She did not look back; the troll was up and moving, but she was faster. She darted between trees and jumped over fallen logs and exposed roots; she spotted a healthy-looking fox as it slipped out of her way, and she ran up a hill and half-ran, half-slid down the other side. Her breath was loud and harsh in her ears, making it difficult to listen for other more dangerous sounds.

It was when she risked a glance over her shoulder that Sigrun hit trouble. She did not see the sudden dip in the earth, and her feet slipped in mud and sent her tumbling and rolling down. She could not suppress the yell of surprise, and then of pain when a sharp rock cut through her pants and into her leg, leaving a long and angry cut that bled freely. She landed at the bottom of the hill on her stomach, her rucksack weighing heavily onto her back and her various weapons digging uncomfortably into her bones. With a groan, Sigrun pushed herself onto her hands and knees. She unsheathed a knife, to have it handy as she examined the damage. The cut was deep, and painful. She could run if she had to, but it would be hard, Sigrun thought. She dug through her rucksack for some bandages, using one to wipe as much dirt and blood away as she could before winding the rest around her leg. Bloodstains peeped through after just a few moments.

While she worked she glanced up and around every few seconds, and listened hard for any sound of pursuit. She heard nothing, except once something in the distance that might have been the very faint grunting noises of a troll as it lumbered along. In a tree somewhere a bird called out harshly.

It was an instinct that she couldn't explain that saved Sigrun from the garm. It had crept up behind her, and she spun around with her knife up just as it lunged with a snarl. She yelled as it knocked her back, its teeth sinking deep into her arm. She stabbed at it frantically, and at last her knife sank deep into its side. It jerked away with a yelp before lunging in again, and again, always aiming for her throat. It caught her shoulder, and she stabbed it between two ribs, and when it draw back after that it was breathing hard, bleeding heavily. Sigrun scrambled back, her right arm useless, her left shaking as she struggled to pull out her pistol. It caught on a strap, and she resorted to grabbing the nearest rock, as big as her hand, and throwing it at the garm as it turned to attack her again. She caught it on the shoulder, and that gave her just enough time to get the pistol out and up and the safety off. She pulled the trigger just as it lunged again. The recoil caught her and sent her falling back, but the bullet struck the beast-dog squarely in the chest, and that was what was needed to finish it off, apparently, because it did not get up again.

Sigrun lay on her back, breathing hard, staring up at the clouds. Everything hurt, and there were dark spots dancing in front of her eyes, but she refused to close them. If she did, she might not open them again.

Eventually, she forced herself to sit up again, and to crawl over to where her rucksack lay, battered but intact. She had more bandages, but not quite enough to deal with all of the bites, and she didn't have anything to clean them properly with anyway. There was no risk of rash infection, but regular infections could be just as deadly. She stripped off her coat and did her best to wrap up the worst of the bites, muttering curses the whole time.

Her ears had been ringing from the gunshot; as that faded, she heard voices—regular human voices, familiar and so welcome that she could have cried. "Sigrun! Sigrun, where are you!"

"Here, Erling!" she shouted, and after a few minutes a handful of heads peered out over the steeper slope she had been dreading having to climb.

"What the hell happened, Sigrun?" Erling asked once they had made the careful climb down, which had involved ropes and a few slips and a lot of cursing. "Rear guard doesn't mean going off on your own!"

"I looked up and you were all gone," said Sigrun, as Nadia, their medic, poked at her arm and shoulder. "I'm fine, I just tripped. Also there's a troll we missed somehow somewhere back there." She gestured in the general direction with her good hand.

"We'll send someone else to take care of it," said Erling. "Come on, let's get you home. Congratulations on surviving your first night out alone."

"And on the battle scars," said Nadia. "You'll have some nasty ones."

"And that's how I got these," Sigrun finished, pointing to the old scars on her shoulder and on her forearm, faded with time and slightly obscured by other scars, but still there. "I wanted to go back after the troll, but they wouldn't let me. Something about ripping stitches." She leaned back in her seat; ignoring the ominous creak, and stretched her arms over her head. Tuuri sat on the floor with Kitty in her lap, petting her absently as she listened with wide eyes. It was nice to have an appreciative audience. Tuuri always had a hundred thousand questions, but Sigrun was happy to answer, and to ignore Mikkel's comments from where he sat near the doorway of the tank sorting through that day's book haul.

It had been a good day, with plenty of books recovered from an old school library. The tank felt cozy rather than crowded this evening, and even dinner hadn't been that bad, with Lalli having brought back some kind of meat to add to it. He'd be waking up soon to scout out tomorrow's route. And before long they'd be turning back homeward.

And as fun as this was, she was looking forward to going back to Dalsnes. The stories she was telling Tuuri weren't anything compared to what she had to tell everyone at home!