by Matt Larkin
Geri snickered. “Whether you are special or not has little to do with Father or Thor or anyone else. It’s about the choices you make. If you run away from us, from your family here, you may never find the answers you seek.”
Sif shook her head and turned away from the window. Watching Thor fight was marvelous. And like getting a fresh knife between her ribs. “What answers? I don’t even know what the fuck I’m looking for. For nine years now, I’ve been doing this. And he’s known. He’s known, Geri. Maybe the whole damned time.”
Geri shrugged, then scrambled to her feet as well. “Well he’s not a complete imbecile.”
“So what? Everyone knew?”
“I’m not sure about Hildolf. He was a complete imbecile.”
Sif frowned.
“I know, I know. Don’t speak ill of the dead. And I loved Hildolf. He was a brave man and a worthy ally. It’s just I’ve known rocks smarter than he was.”
Sad but probably true. Regardless, he had been a brother to them and … brother? Oh damn it. She also thought of the other Thunderers as brothers. True, she’d slept with Freki all those years ago but since then … Thor wanted to see her like that, as a sister. It would have been better for all of them if she’d just let him. It would have been better if she’d remembered her own damned rules.
Don’t get involved with princes.
“Come here,” Geri said after a moment. The varulf grabbed Sif’s arm, then dragged her out of the house and into the town. “Look.” Geri swept her arm as if to encompass the whole valley. “What do you see?”
“Houses. Trees. Rocks.”
“And?”
“Not a lot else.”
“Hmm. No people? No children? No life?”
Sif jerked her elbow away from Geri and folded her arms. “No. The jotunnar killed everyone, and we were too late.” What was the damned varulf even trying to say? To point out how badly they had failed this time?
“Too late for these townsfolk, yes, but we did kill the jotunnar who murdered them. Because of us, those jotunnar will not do this elsewhere. You have the ability to try to fulfill the unspoken promise Father made to Midgard when he took the throne. Through us, the Aesir can try to preserve human civilization a little longer. You’ve seen what I’ve seen, Sif. You know the world is dying. With the power the apple gave you and your training and your passion, you can delay that end.” Geri frowned and spread her hands. “So don’t you have a duty to try?”
Sif shut her eyes, trying not to look at the ruins. Damn, but she did not want to listen to this. After nine years of blood and sweat, had she not given enough to Midgard? But now, thanks to this, were she to return to Asgard, she’d never get this sight out of her mind. Damn Geri for that.
“Even if you’re correct, even if I have a duty to Midgard, I might do it apart from the Thunderers.”
“It’s not going to be the Thunderers without you!”
Sif glanced around to make sure none of the others had heard that. Chances were, Freki would have, even if he lurked many streets over. “I’ve made my decision, Geri. I’m done with this. I’ll travel with you until we pass back into Sviarland, but from there, I go my own way.”
“The Thunderers—”
“The Thunderers are finished.” Sif left her friend standing there, unable to look back. Unable to offer solace for fear of breaking her resolve.
52
Sigmund’s vision returned in sputters of pain. He managed to roll over enough to cough and spit, hacking up blood and Odin knew what else. Groaning, he finally managed to sit. One of his eyes seemed bruised shut. Iron fetters bound his hands and feet. He blinked, trying to clear the blood from his working eye.
He lay on the floor in the great hall, in the back of which, Siggeir Wolfsblood sat on a throne drenched in shadow, head resting on his fist.
After staring at him a time, the king rose and drifted forward, though not quite into the light. “You have become one of us, Sigmund Volsungson. I can smell it in you.”
Sigmund forced himself to his knees, staring daggers at the murderer before him. “So you are a varulf, then? The man who took his throne through treachery and lies.”
A few guards stood in this hall, and they bristled at his words. A few guards and four women—berserkir, no doubt.
In the shadows beyond the throne stood a woman, concealed in a hood, from which hung stark white hair.
Fitela knelt beside Sigmund, similarly fettered. Their whole quest was lost, then. They had failed most utterly, having managed to slay but a few warriors and a pair of small children.
Wolfsblood paced about in the shadows, casting furtive glances at the main door, as if assuring himself only those he trusted would hear this. That seemed to include Sieglinde, his faithful queen, who lingered by the throne, face an unreadable mask. “I have been long in deliberating the slowest death you might suffer. For one of our kind, I can think of naught worse than starving in a cage, consumed from within by the beast. Thus, have I prepared one for you.”
Sigmund almost toppled over as he stood, his chains barely allowing it. “I fear naught you might conceive of, murderous craven.”
Wolfsblood snickered. “Maybe not yet.” He turned to the berserkir women. “Take them to the cairn.”
Two women hefted each of them up by their forearms, lifted them off the ground, rendering all their struggles pointless. Sigmund spat at them, earning himself a backhand that left him dazed as they dragged him from Wolfsblood’s hall.
Wedged up against the older stone wall of the fortress sat a half dozen barrows, no doubt dug by the original builders before they abandoned this place. Wolfsblood’s men had hollowed out one from the top down. The berserkir carried Sigmund and Fitela atop the mound.
In the center of this pit someone had placed a massive stone slab, standing on its edge, thus dividing the pit in two. Sigmund peered down into the darkness of the cairn. He just barely made out the bottom, perhaps twelve feet down, perhaps a little more. Stonework lined much of it, finely crafted in days when men yet buried their dead instead of sending them to pyres. He could only pray the builders have never interred anyone in this particular cairn. If so, Wolfsblood’s people had no doubt woken the dead, and a curse was like to fall upon them as much as upon Sigmund.
“Do you like your cell?” Wolfsblood asked. Before Sigmund could answer, the king shoved him over the edge.
He hit the ground shoulder first, sending a shock of lightning through his system. An instant later, one of the women landed beside him. She flung him up against the slab, knocking his head on it in the process. Her form split and danced before his one good eye, swirling through a miasma of pain now clutching him.
With another chain, she bound the fetters on his feet to an iron ring jutting from the slab. Then someone lowered a rope, and she climbed out.
Sigmund groaned, trying to clear his head. The wolf stirred, soon to wake, but at least another hour of daylight yet remained, and besides, shifting now, with his arms fettered behind his back, was like to tear his limbs off.
“You see,” Wolfsblood called from above, “it occurred to me, it shall be worse for you, to hear the anguish of the other, yet not be able to be together as the beast slowly consumes your mind.”
“Go to Hel,” Sigmund said, his voice sounding slurred in his own ears.
Wolfsblood chuckled. “Perhaps, one day. But for now, you will begin a long, slow march toward her gates. I wonder how long will that wolf spirit will sustain you without food? A moon? Longer? Of course, you shall be worse than mist-mad long before that. One cannot expect your mind to last half so long as your body. Enjoy yourself, son of Volsung.”
With that, someone lowered another slab over the top of the cairn, shutting out all but a hint of light.
Sigmund slumped down against the rock, unable to do aught else.
“The wolf spirits brought us to this,” Fitela said, his voice reaching Sigmund through gaps between the slab and the cairn walls. “Perhaps you were
right, and we ought never to accepted them into ourselves. Besides which, I think that very sorceress was the one standing behind Wolfsblood’s throne.”
Gudrun?
If so, it meant she had betrayed him, though Sigmund could not imagine why. Nor could he do aught about it now. He shook his head. A man could never really understand the motivations of a witch. Wolfsblood, though, Sigmund understood. Petty jealousy and fear drove him, for which he deserved an ignominious death—one which Sigmund ought to have delivered unto him. Instead, he had failed.
His only redemption lay in that Wolfsblood seemed not to suspect Sieglinde’s treachery against him, meaning she might yet be spared. Though only to live out her days beside the man she loathed most in all of Midgard …
“Uncle?”
“Hmmm.” He shook himself again. “Forgive me. I cannot think of much to say now … besides, I do not think the wolves alone to blame for this. They are but pieces of our own selves.”
Fitela didn’t answer right away. When he spoke, his voice came out slow and laced with venom suited to a linnorm. “And this was my ill-conceived plan.”
“What? You think I blame you?” Fitela had planned this, yes, true …
“Do you not?”
Sigmund scowled. “The plan was a fool one, I grant.” And tempting as it was to blame the boy, Sigmund had agreed to it despite his own misgivings. “Still, it benefits no one for us to spit and spew recriminations now.”
“What would you have us do, then?”
Sigmund didn’t know. Lacking any other option, he began to whisper prayers to Odin, Thor, Tyr, or any other of the new gods who might listen.
53
Five Years Ago
No matter what Sieglinde had told Fitela, how could the boy be so eager to kill his own father? Kinslaying was foul before the eyes of gods and men, and, though necessity forced Sigmund to accept aid, he could not understand his nephew. Always, the boy trained. He completed every task Sigmund set before him and then spent the hours between concocting and discarding plan after merciless plan. Sieglinde had raised him with such a singular purpose he seemed incapable of even discussing aught else.
Fitela ambled along through the forest, not nigh to as silent as Sigmund might have hoped for, especially given their errand.
“Watch where you walk,” he said. “Every time we go without a torch we risk mist-madness. If you then fail to move with grace, that risk becomes pointless.”
Fitela grunted, slowing his pace. “You don’t really think we can sneak up on these varulfur in any event?”
Sigmund frowned. Perhaps. He had always avoided this stretch of the wood for fear of the creatures, but Fitela had confirmed Sigmund’s suspicions of a pact between Wolfsblood and the varulfur. Any ally of the king had to die. “I am most concerned with ensuring they cannot sneak up on us, but yes, boy. I hope to catch them sleeping before the moonrise and thus force them to fight without being able to …” The hair on the back of his neck had started to tingle and with it came a nagging sensation in his gut.
Someone watched them. He had not heard anything, but … Even the birds had fallen silent. Sigmund grabbed Fitela’s wrist tight.
The underbrush rustled some distance off to his right.
His hand drifted to his sword hilt over his shoulder.
The faintest creak of leaves sounded behind him. Fuck. The varulfur had started to flank them.
In one motion, Sigmund shoved Fitela forward and pulled his sword. “Move, boy!”
Sigmund relished a fair fight. Taking on multiple varulfur at once did not sound to him the least bit fair.
Fitela sprinted through the woods, darting between trees with natural agility. Sigmund came slower, constantly casting his gaze behind them. The wolves pursued, he had no doubt, though he had seen no sign of them. They were even more adapted to this forest than he, and being inhuman, they probably had naught to fear from the mists. It gave them a strong advantage.
Sigmund dashed around a tree, leapt over a root, and spun around, sword out before him. Still couldn’t see aught. Through the mist, he heard them though—light footfalls, bushes brushed aside, the occasional pant.
“Face me like men!” he bellowed.
None answered him.
They awaited the moonrise, when they would gain every advantage over mere humans. Damn it. Lacking a better plan, he raced off after Fitela, who had already disappeared into the mist himself. Following tracks while running was never easy, but it looked like the boy had kept a fairly straight course.
It felt like a quarter hour—maybe less—and he almost ran into Fitela, where the boy had knelt in a slight clearing, staring at a log house. A hunter’s cabin, perhaps.
Fitela glanced at Sigmund, then scrambled forward in a crouch before Sigmund could say aught about this plan. The boy stole up to the window then rose to peer inside. Sigmund crept forward after him.
Then a twig snapped behind him.
Fuck it all. He rose, sword in hand, breath coming heavy after his run. The damn varulfur had become all but invisible in the mist. Where were the bastards? Hiding like cravens?
He glanced over his shoulder. Fitela had disappeared. A moment later, the boy flung open the cabin door and beckoned toward Sigmund. Chest heaving, Sigmund ran for him. The moment he crossed the threshold, Fitela slammed the door and then dropped a board in place to bar it.
“This must be their house,” he said, as he raced over to the window. No full-grown man could have fit through it, but Fitela flitted about, clearly looking for a way to bar that as well.
“Don’t bother. We must face them sooner or later.” The varulfur had left a low fire, embers really, burning in a pit in the cabin’s center. Sigmund stoked this, feeding it until it rekindled. The cabin’s owners had only a few torches lying about. Hel, they were lucky these savages kept flame at all.
“Nowhere to run!” someone shouted from outside.
Sigmund snatched up a torch and stuck it in the fire. “So face us like men! Save what little honor remains in your accursed bones.”
A face covered in a matted beard, with dark eyes appeared at the window. Wild, savage. Sigmund spun and lunged at him, thrusting the torch at the man’s face. The varulf bellowed and fell back, even as something else struck the main door. The board trembled with the impact. It wouldn’t hold long.
Fitela cast about the cabin, tossing aside aught he found, in his search for Odin-alone knew what.
Sigmund raced over to the door, tossing the torch back in the fire pit. Another impact cracked the board barring it. With one hand, Sigmund yanked the pieces free, then backed away from the door. An instant later, a different varulf barreled through the unbarred door clearly expecting more resistance. He stumbled on his footing. An upward swipe of Sigmund’s sword cleft the varulf through the jaw, splitting his face in half in a shower of bone and blood.
That should have killed anyone, but the man pitched onto the floor, clutching his face and wailing in agony. Before Sigmund could do aught else, Fitela launched himself atop the body and slit the varulf’s throat with a dagger.
Sigmund stepped around the boy and the corpse to the outside. “Fight me like a man!”
A silhouette stalking around in the mist, a dark form. If the wolf dragged this out much longer, twilight would settle upon them. Then the true varulfur could join the battle.
Damn but he missed the comforting weight of Gramr’s bone hilt, even after so many years. Sigmund strode forward, bloody sword pointed in the last direction he’d seen the beast. “Craven!”
A heavy pant beside him sent him spinning but not fast enough. The varulf caught him with a shoulder slam that lifted Sigmund off his feet and flung him several feet away before he crashed down. The impact knocked the sword from his grasp. Gasping for breath, Sigmund struggled to rise. An instant later, the varulf leapt atop him, superhuman strength driving Sigmund back down. The man grabbed Sigmund’s tunic and slammed him straight down into the ground.
Everything went red as his head cracked against the dirt.
Barely aware of it, Sigmund raised arms to block blows that he knew would come. And they did, slamming against the arms he held over his face with such force it felt apt to break bones. Sigmund rolled to one side, struggling to win free. Something hit him in the ribs and sent him doubling over into a ball, unable to block out all the pain of it.
Giving over any attempt at defense, he jerked his fist up into the varulf’s stones. The man yelped, stunned for an instant. Long enough for Sigmund to scramble away hand over foot and snatch up his blade. Eyes bleary and feet unstable, he rose. Every breath sent waves of agony rioting through his chest. Broken or bruised ribs, for certain.
That he could use his arms at all meant they weren’t broken, but every move ached like Hel herself had wreaked her torment upon him.
The varulf rose, snarling, and unslung an axe from his belt. So the games were done.
That suited Sigmund well enough. He spat, spewing out blood and phlegm. “So there were only two of you after all.”
Savagery had seized the varulf, as if he barely still understood human speech. He sprang forward with such speed and ferocity, Sigmund had to fall back, any hope of a counter given over. It took all he had to back away fast enough, ducking and dodging the varulf’s never-ending barrage of swipes.
A torch sailed end-over-end through the air and caught the varulf in the chest, igniting his tattered garments. The man shrieked, patting out the flames.
Scowling, Sigmund lunged forward, swinging with all he had left. The varulf veered backward, but the blade still clipped his abdomen, releasing a spray of blood. With one hand, the varulf grasped his guts. And with the other, he attacked with the damn axe, stilling swinging.
