They turned down one cobbled side street, then another, following a route that, in his estimation, was not the fastest, most direct route for two runaways to take. Once Odin’s palace disappeared behind them, and Heimdall felt a little relief, he and Sif allowed their reluctant mounts to slow lest a full-out gallop suggest to onlookers that they were fugitives in flight. The slower pace also made it easier to converse.
“They’ll chase us soon enough,” said Sif.
“I know,” Heimdall said. “We aren’t on the most obvious escape route, but there is a way out of the city up ahead. We just have to get there.”
They rode on through a square with a pale marble centerpiece – a statue of a stalwart Tyr putting his hand in the jaws of the Fenris wolf – then skirted an open-air gathering where, in seeming defiance of the peril hanging over the Realm Eternal, people were dancing or singing along to the music of a bone flute, a goat horn, a lyre, and a skin-headed drum. They then headed down a street of smiths where the air smelled of smoke and burning, forges glowed red, and hammered metal rang as the artisans labored into the night to fill their orders. Low doorways and squat buildings indicated that many of the smiths were dwarves, they or their ancestors having immigrated to Asgard from Nidavellir.
Now that the need for immediate desperate action had come and gone, all that had gone wrong weighed more and more heavily on Heimdall. He’d killed a brother-in-arms and in all likelihood would never even have the chance to tell Frigga of his discovery. He’d allowed Sif to join him in his reckless scheme with the result that she was now a hunted outlaw too.
Sif guided her horse up beside his own. “Do you hear that?” she asked.
Lost to despondency, Heimdall hadn’t. Now, he realized, a different metallic clangor was offering a counterpoint to the hammering of the smiths.
“Those are the castle bells,” he said. “Someone’s ringing the signal to close the city gates.” Once again, the need to act and act now drove guilt and regret to the back of his mind.
Sif sent the dappled courser racing forward. Heimdall’s steed was less cooperative. He had to kick the gray three times before it resumed a gallop, but then he hurtled after his sister.
Men and dwarves hurried into the street to see if they could determine the reason for the alarm. The stallion tried to balk when confronted by the sudden congestion, and Heimdall kicked it forward once again. “Royal messengers!” he shouted. “Get out of the way!”
People did, either because they believed the lie or simply feared being trampled. The gray pounded onward, veering to one side or the other when necessary to avoid obstacles, but then a dwarf drove a cart drawn by two mules into view from the cross street immediately ahead. The cart was piled high with charcoal to feed the smelters’ furnaces.
Sif was already on the other side of the intersection. Heimdall, however, saw no alternative but to stop short if he hoped to avoid a collision. He started to haul back on the reins and then discerned that the gray, though it surely recognized the danger, was still charging forward. On impulse, and desperate with the need for haste, he allowed the horse to continue.
As the people of Asgard were stronger than the mortal folk of Midgard, so too were their horses. Tired and grudging though he was, the gray leaped high into the air and cleared the cart and its load. Cowering in expectation of a crash, the dwarf on the bench shouted an obscenity as Heimdall passed overhead.
Farther along the street, Sif had stopped to wait when she realized the cart had rolled into Heimdall’s way. As he caught up to her, and she urged her mount into motion once again, she asked, “How did you know your horse was a jumper?”
“He told me.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later. Just keep going!”
Another turn brought one of Asgard’s gates into view. It wasn’t the main gate, but it was still high, wide, and deep, a tunnel burrowing through the massive stone wall. The valves at the far end were slowly closing, the enormous windlass mechanism that controlled them rumbling.
As he and Sif raced forward, Heimdall bellowed, “Royal messengers! Let us through!”
A woman in a silver-chased helm and mail – the officer in charge of the gate, most likely – replied, “You hear the bells!”
“Our errand is urgent!” Heimdall said.
“Stop and show me your credentials!” she replied.
Heimdall only wished he could, but, of course, there were none. He and Sif hurtled past the woman in the silver armor and into the tunnel.
“Drop the portcullis!” the officer shouted, but it was too late for that. The metal grille banged down when Heimdall and Sif were already past.
Unfortunately, though, the gap between the massive valves ahead was still narrowing. Heimdall kicked the gray and shouted, “Hyah!” Beside, Sif was shouting something too. The riders cleared the space with barely a dagger-length to spare on either side.
On the other side of the wall were newer and, in most cases, humbler dwellings and the fresh fortifications the engineers were building to at least slow the frost giants if they ever came this far. Beyond those were forests and farmland.
Sif turned to Heimdall. “We should get off the road.”
They headed through someone’s barley field, and rode onwards for much of the night. The horses started breathing hard, and eventually, the gray stumbled.
“The horses need to rest,” Heimdall said, “or we’re going to hurt them.” Unlike him, whose folly had produced an unmitigated disaster, the steeds deserved better.
Sif pointed to the right. “There’s a farm with the barn a bit of a distance from the house. There’ll be food and water for the horses. We can all rest and be gone before daybreak.”
Seven
Heimdall and Sif had unsaddled the horses and put them in vacant stalls where they stood crunching oats the farmer had stored in the barn. Sif was at the barn door they’d left open just a crack, spying across the distance that separated the structure from the farmhouse. “I don’t see any lights being lit,” she said, “or anybody moving around. I don’t think we woke anyone up.”
“That’s good,” Heimdall said, although, in truth, nothing seemed good now that the excitement of desperate flight had worn off. He remembered how, for just a few moments in the vault, he’d felt jubilant when the absence of Mimir’s head seemed a vindication of all he’d thought and done. Now that he knew he’d killed the sentry and ruined his sister’s life along with his own, the recollection seemed a bitter mockery.
He slumped down on a bench. “I don’t understand how things could have gone so wrong.”
Dimly illuminated by the trace of moonlight the door admitted, red armor gray in the gloom, Sif turned her head to give him a sour look. “I have a few thoughts on the subject.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing even as he spoke that the words were useless and inadequate.
“Ever since I was a child,” she said, “all I ever wanted was to be a warrior of Asgard and bring honor to our family.”
“I wanted that too.”
She snorted. “Did you?”
He had. It was the path his father expected him to walk, and he’d been happy enough to do so. It gave him a chance to serve and to put at least some of his talents to good use.
But there were other abilities he hadn’t had much opportunity to use. He’d always been a thinker, a questioner, and young warriors weren’t supposed to do either. They were supposed to follow orders and fight bravely. If they did, they might one day rise to positions of command, and that would be time enough for thinking.
But Heimdall hadn’t been willing to wait, had he? He’d decided he knew better than his superiors, and, as a result, here he was, a disgraced murderer, and Sif a hunted fugitive along with him. He despised himself for that.
“I truly am sorry,” he repeated, the words feeling as weak and contempti
ble as before. “I wish you hadn’t come with me.”
Something in his contrition or his overall misery seemed to touch Sif, and her angry scowl gave way to a gentler expression. “I’m not really sorry I did. You’d be dead now if I hadn’t.”
“Maybe I deserve to be.”
“Stop it! You didn’t mean to kill the guard, and you were right. We did find something in the vault. Something important.”
Her forgiveness made him feel a little better. “I suppose we did.”
“Of course we did. I’ll take first watch, you sleep, and we’ll figure out our next move in the morning.”
“I am tired,” Heimdall said. But he realized he was also starting to consider the future again. “Still, maybe I’ll sleep better if I know we already have a plan.”
Sif smiled, perhaps to see him rouse at least to some degree from his despair. “That’s fine,” she said. “I’m not losing sleep at the moment.”
“All right,” Heimdall said. “Let’s look at what we know. We didn’t find any direct evidence that anyone, a traitor or someone from outside the castle, cast a spell on Odin to prolong the Sleep of Life. But we did discover Mimir’s head is missing. That at least proves a trespasser sneaked into the vault.”
“Only to you and me,” Sif replied. “Everybody else thinks we killed the guard but couldn’t get through the door, and they won’t go down and look on our say-so because we’re murderers and traitors and the All-Father forbade anyone to enter.”
“Only I’m a murderer. I hit the guard.”
“You have to stop dwelling on that,” his sister said. “Any good man would feel the guilt you feel. But in war or even just in training, warriors occasionally kill comrades accidentally. You know it’s so. Don’t let regret cripple you.”
“It won’t.” He hoped. “I was just thinking that if you’re not the killer, you’re not as bad in the eyes of the world as I am. Maybe you could go back to Asgard alone, throw yourself on Frigga’s mercy, and present our case.”
“They don’t know which of us delivered the fatal blow, and do you truly think it would matter if they did? Trying to enter the chamber where Odin lies sleeping is punishable by death all by itself.”
He sighed. “You’re right.”
“Besides,” she said, “I’m not leaving you. There’s room for two on that bench, so bring it over here. Standing feels good after all those hours in the saddle, but I’ll want to sit eventually.”
Heimdall stood, carried the bench to her, and then gazed out at the night. “If neither of us is going back to the city,” he said, “what do we do instead?”
“I thought of sneaking back to Vanaheim,” his sister replied, “but Odin’s writ runs there too, and we can’t ask our family to shelter us. That’s the first place hunters will look, and we can’t let our kin share in our ruin. The disgrace will be bad enough as it is.”
“I know,” Heimdall said, “and maybe we shouldn’t simply run and hide in any case. I hate the way things have turned out, but everything we did, we did because we’re loyal Asgardians and want to protect our people from the frost giants. It doesn’t matter that no one understands. My feelings haven’t changed.”
“Nor mine.”
“Then maybe we should do what we set out to do.”
“But how?” Sif asked. “We can’t fight in the army when the army will no longer have us.”
“Someone crept into the vault and stole the head of Mimir. It’s hard to say who. Someone who knew it was there. Someone who could slip past the sentry without him even realizing anything was amiss and deal with the magical traps afterward. Whoever it was, the head is a source of wisdom. Now the giants fight with a newfound cunning. What does that suggest?”
“They have the head,” said Sif.
“So someone needs to take it back. If the Jotuns know how to make it serve their purposes, I’ll wager Frigga and the royal mages can too. Even if they can’t, retrieving it would deprive the giants of its use.”
“And possibly redeem our honor,” said Sif. “But if I were the king of the frost giants, I’d have the head in my stronghold for safekeeping. Is there any hope of we two alone stealing it back from there?”
“Why not? Somebody took it from the citadel of Asgard.” He smiled. “And if we succeed, think of the renown it will bring you. The queen will make you the leader of your own war band.”
Sif scowled. “I don’t care about that.” Then the scowl gave way to a grudging smile of her own. “All right, I care a little. But I mainly care about saving our people. Anyway, I’ll help you, brother. It’s a mad scheme, but I don’t see any other path forward.”
“Thank you.”
“That sounded so heartfelt! As if you had any doubt I’d come along. Lie down and try to sleep. You’ll need it.”
Heimdall shed his two-handed sword, armor, and boots and lay down in the straw in an empty stall. For a time, he saw the guard he’d killed, relived the fateful moment – had he truly struck that hard? – but eventually he drifted into slumber.
Eight
The following morning, the barn left behind, Heimdall twisted in the saddle to scan the hillsides and low places, the farmland, pastureland, heath, and woodland. It was all well and good to plan a bold foray into Jotunheim, where who knew what perils awaited, but first he and Sif would need to escape their own outraged people.
The red sun had barely cleared the horizon. Shadows were long, the gloom still thick beneath the spruces, pines, and birches. White dots in the distance, sheep grazed in a meadow to the east, but otherwise, nothing was moving.
“I don’t see anyone chasing us yet,” he said.
Sif was looking around as well. “I don’t either. Asgard does still have a war to fight. Maybe those in charge decided they have more important concerns than running us to ground.”
“Maybe, but we shouldn’t count on that.” Heimdall urged the gray onward. After being afforded water, food, and at least a little sleep, the steed was less balky, and, if not fond of his new rider, at least resigned to him.
The day was a bit farther along when his mount and Sif’s crossed a shallow stream, the coursers’ hooves splashing up frigid droplets that glinted in the morning light. Despite Sif’s advice and his own wishes, Heimdall was thinking again of the man he’d accidentally killed. Would paying the wergild make things right? Well, no, not right, plainly, but would coin be sufficient atonement that the fellow’s kin wouldn’t demand bloody retribution? And was he cowardly and selfish even to consider whether there was anything that might spare him the most severe punishment for what he’d done?
Heimdall told himself that everything to do with the guard was tomorrow’s concern. He wrenched his attention back to the here and now. His surroundings still appeared tranquil and devoid of danger, the only change to the scene a tiny speck of a bird floating high in the sky.
He and Sif rode on, and she cursed. Feeling a jolt of alarm, Heimdall turned his head to look where she was looking. A company of riders was cresting a ridge off to the right.
Apparently, Sif had been wrong when she’d conjectured that the forces of Asgard might not look for them too vigorously. The attempted violation of the All-Father’s vault, if not the death of the guard, had stirred them to serious effort.
To Heimdall’s surprise, the bird swooped toward the riders who followed it, perhaps to resume its accustomed place on the gauntlet of a falconer. Evidently it had been flying high to spot the fugitives and, having done so, had summoned them in the right direction. Heimdall had no idea how anyone could train a hawk to do such a thing, but it seemed someone had, and he felt a flash of anger at himself for not suspecting the threat when he first spied the bird.
But he was glad the riders had stopped to await its return. It gave him and Sif the chance to lengthen their lead. They kicked their horses into a gallop.
As they fle
d, he glanced backward to see if their pursuers had started down the hillside, and so he saw the bird reach its destination. To his astonishment, it didn’t perch on anybody’s arm, perchance to be hooded or rewarded with a tidbit. Rather, as it swooped the last few feet to the ground, it became a green-clad woman with blonde hair who took a nimble step to steady herself. Perhaps at Frigga’s command, Lady Amora herself had joined the manhunt. Heimdall felt an upwelling of dread to realize that his plight and Sif’s were even more desperate than he’d initially imagined.
He kicked the gray once more, exhorting the animal to even greater speed, and for a few seconds, it gave him what he asked of it. Then, however, a crooning, wordless song in a sweet soprano voice sounded from the air. The melody stayed just as clear and loud as his steed and Sif’s galloped onward, as if the invisible source was moving right along with them.
Sif’s courser turned unexpectedly, and she shouted in surprise. The warhorse started running toward the riders on the hilltop. Heimdall’s mount began to turn a moment later.
“No!” he shouted, hauling back on the reins. Eyes rolling, tossing his head, the gray struggled to do what the ghostly crooning was presumably telling him to do. As Heimdall strained to control him, the steed started rearing and bucking like a wild horse that had never had a man on its back before, doing his utmost to fling his rider out of the saddle.
Barely keeping his seat, Heimdall looked around. Sif was in the same plight as he was, lurching from side to side and bouncing up and down as her horse sought to cast her off. One crimson-booted foot flew out of the stirrup, and he was sure her courser would throw her, but somehow she remained astride her mount.
“What do we do?” she called to Heimdall.
Deafen the horses? No, not feasible even if it would help and even if he’d had the stomach for it. “Jump off!” he yelled.
The Head of Mimir Page 5
