by Matt Larkin
And the mercenary allowed it, choosing not to step in and close the gap.
With his shield arm, Sigurd put a hand to his ribs. Thor’s arse, that hurt! He glanced down at his fingers, now soaked with his own blood, then jerked his gaze back up to Eightarms, advancing once more.
Now that the sun had finally dipped below the horizon, Sigurd could at last get a proper look at Eightarms. The mercenary had bared his teeth and was snarling, staring at Sigurd’s side. And his teeth … looked like wolf fangs. What in the gates of Hel?
Eightarms surged in, even faster than before, and Sigurd jerked his shield up, catching a blade against it. The impact numbed his arm and chipped his shield as though he’d tried to stop a draug’s blow. That wasn’t even the runeblade … What was going on?
By reflex alone, he parried Eightarms’ runeblade with Gramr, twisted it around into a riposte. The mercenary saw it coming and knocked his blade aside before flying into his own counter. Sigurd barely evaded that and this time came up, aiming Gramr at Eightarm’s knee.
Any thought of conscious tactics gave way to reflexive maneuvers. Forms Tiwaz had pounded into Sigurd’s head just as Regin beat metal into submission. Against this foe, Sigurd could afford no thought. No plan.
Just let instinct guide him.
His grunts punctuated the ringing of metal on metal. And the curious lack of Eightarms’ own panting. The man wasn’t tiring?
The mercenary’s blade split Sigurd’s shield down the middle.
Fuck!
Wildly, Sigurd swung the shield’s jagged edge at Eightarms’ face. Predictably, he used his runeblade to chop another chunk from it. That hardly mattered—Sigurd used the distraction to swing Gramr at Eightarms’ ordinary sword. His runeblade cleaved into the steel, slicing a chunk of it clear.
Eightarms’ fist caught Sigurd in the chest. The blow lifted him off his feet and sent him flying backward. Crashing down into the snow, breathless. Gasping. His vision turned hazy on the fringes.
Had to have … cracked ribs around his sternum.
The mercenary leapt onto him, snarling like an animal, those fangs closing in. Sigurd’s fingers closed around Gramr’s bone hilt. Her touch filled him with strength, burying his pain behind her fury.
As Eightarms landed, Sigurd jerked the blade up. Gramr sliced through the mercenary’s cheek, sheared clean through one of those fangs and took off the tip of another.
Eightarms pitched over sideways, clutching his split face, blood pouring between his fingers.
Sigurd growled himself, trying to rise, desperate to end this. But his stolen strength lasted him another breath, and then he was on his hands and knees. Unable to stand for the crushing pain in his chest. Barely able to look up.
Starkad Eightarms had regained his feet and now stumbled toward the tree line, leaving a trail of crimson in the snow behind himself.
Groaning, Sigurd let himself fall back and shut his eyes. Only for a moment.
He wasn’t sure if he slept. He was still losing blood from the cut in his side.
Sigurd rolled over—or tried. Waves of pain and dizziness churned inside his head. Spots swam before his eyes. He wrapped his hand around Gramr and she fed him strength. Enough to fight through the pain for a few moments, at least.
Now, Sigurd rolled back onto his face and pushed himself up onto hands and knees. He sat there like that, gasping. Shook his head to clear it. Discovered that had been a truly awful idea as a new surge of dizziness seized him.
When he finally looked up, he saw his torch had nigh gone out. Something glinted under the moonlight. The other runeblade …
Teeth grit, Sigurd crawled to it and wrapped his hand around the hilt. Eightarms had abandoned his weapons here. Maybe he’d die from his own wounds, though Sigurd thought that unlikely.
In fact … he wasn’t quite sure that Eightarms wasn’t some kind of draug, though he didn’t seem beset by decay as one would have expected.
Either way, with both runeblades in hand, Sigurd managed his feet.
And like that, he took slow, painful steps toward the slope. It would be a long way across the ice and back to his camp.
Given that drinking hurt as though he’d been kicked by a horse, the feast proved less enjoyable than Sigurd might’ve liked. Thrain had reminded him—twice, in fact—that such a celebration was not really for him so much as for his men. It solidified his position as the new king of Rijnland and gave Troels a formal place to pledge his oath.
Part of Sigurd wanted to see the trollfucker dead for daring to raise arms against him. But too many men of Rijnland had followed Troels, and Sigurd needed those people. Besides, he dared to hope that, shown mercy, Troels himself might prove loyal.
Certainly, he’d been cowed when Hring withdrew his support and returned to Sviarland, and without his champion, if rumors held. Sigurd had no idea what had befallen Starkad Eightarms, though he rather hoped never to see the man again.
The duel had left Sigurd with a fierce scar along one side of his chest and nigh to caved in ribs on the other. The first völva he’d seen had called him like to die. Sigurd had lived through a great many injuries, though, thanks to Regin. He refused to die from wounds or the rot. He refused.
Sigurd watched Troels during the feast. The man made every effort to look like he belonged, like he and his men hadn’t been trying to kill half the others in the hall but a few days ago. A facade of camaraderie that churned Sigurd’s stomach. Had he asked for this in choosing to spare Troels? Perhaps he had.
From the corner of his eye he caught sight of Thrain making his way over. The Vall wended between guests, only slightly more at ease than Troels. Thrain, though, Sigurd had to offer some thanks for their victory. The mercenary had stayed at his side even when pay seemed uncertain. For that, Sigurd owed him a debt, and he misliked the feeling. Whom had he ever depended on before this, save himself?
Regin had taught him that lesson as well. A man had to be able to achieve his ends without counting on the support of others. Because that support could be snatched away at a moment’s notice.
Thrain plopped down in a chair beside Sigurd. “Fine food. Least as fine as you North Realmers ever seem to serve. I’d have liked more wine than ale, but there’s not much for it, is there?” The Vall snickered to himself. “And you? Are the ribs still holding your insides where they belong?”
Sigurd offered a faint chuckle then immediately regretted it as fresh pains raged through his chest. “More or less. I want to thank you …”
“Ha! Well now you’ve a kingdom, I imagine you can pay handsomely.”
“Indeed.” Sigurd unslung the runeblade he’d taken from Eightarms—he’d had a new sheath made for it—and let it clank on the table in front of Thrain. “I promised you friendship to help you win back your family’s honor. With this, you could carve out a kingdom.”
Thrain stared at the sword, a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. He grasped the sheath and slid the runeblade out just enough to examine the engravings along the length of the blade. A few onlookers gaped as well, until they caught Sigurd’s disapproving glare. “This is …”
“I don’t know which one, nor how to learn such, but either way, you’ve earned it.”
“Mistilteinn,” Thrain said, his voice seeming far away.
“You can read dverg runes?”
The Vall nodded absently. Well, he was full of surprises wasn’t he?
“It’s yours,” Sigurd said after a moment more.
Thrain slid the blade back into the sheath and looked to Sigurd, his eyes seeming far away. He nodded in acknowledgment, perhaps at a loss for words, then offered his arm. Sigurd clasped it.
“I’d embrace you …” Thrain said.
Sigurd chuckled, then winced. “Let’s forego that.”
Thrain nodded.
A murmur had begun to build in the back of the hall and Sigurd turned to see what caused the stir. A misshapen figure hobbled his way toward Sigurd’s table, forcing Sigurd to st
and and meet his approach.
“Regin.”
The dverg seemed heedless of the stares cast upon him, though dvergar and other vaettir rarely showed themselves to large groups of men. Instead, he shambled up to the table and stared hard at Sigurd. “The king on his throne. Quite a spectacle. Quite an accomplishment.”
Regin lunged at Sigurd and grabbed his hair, pulling his head down and sending more lances of pain through Sigurd’s chest. Dozens of hands went to weapons—Thrain’s included—but Sigurd waved them off. “You owe me, boy,” Regin said, his voice a growl.
Sigurd grunted. Despite their twisted, shrunken bodies, dvergar had strength greater than men, and Sigurd probably couldn’t have broken the dverg’s grip through sheer force even had he not been wounded. “Let us speak outside, alone, then.”
Regin released him at once, and allowed him to rise. Not wanting a scene—or no more of one than he already had—Sigurd waved everyone back to the feast and followed the dverg outside, his own steps slow and painful.
Twin braziers flanked the entrance to Sigurd’s hall, holding back a mist that had grown quite thick as the night drew on. Those, and the moon, provided the only light, and Regin seemed quite at home in the relative darkness. Dvergar were creatures of stone, yes, but hiding under the surface made them well adapted to shadows.
“You’ve avenged your father. Avenged your kin. Claimed his kingdom. And now …”
Sigurd held up a hand. “I have not forgotten my promise.”
“And yet I had to travel across the whole of Cimbria and beyond to find you here.”
“I am wounded.”
The dverg leaned in close and sniffed Sigurd’s side. “Eh. I can make a poultice that will speed the healing of that.”
Sigurd nodded, offering no thanks, considering Regin would help him only out of his own self-interest. “I swore an oath to you, and I mean to keep it.”
“Then we must be about it. I’ll give you three days to rest and let the poultice do its work. Then we ride into Myrkvidr.”
Well, he could hardly refuse, given that Regin had forged Gramr for the sole purpose of slaying Fafnir. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a feast to attend.”
The dverg chuckled, shaking his head in a way Sigurd had come to associate with the creature’s lechery.
With a grimace, Sigurd returned inside and made his way back to his seat.
“What have you to do with dvergar?” Thrain asked the moment Sigurd’s arse hit the wood.
Sigurd favored him with a cold stare. The man had been his friend, true, but some tales were not meant to be shared. Still, he might yet have need of Thrain. Finally, Sigurd sighed. “I owe the dverg a debt and I must fulfill an oath I made to him.”
“What oath?”
Sigurd glanced around, then leaned in close to make sure none would overhear. “To slay Fafnir, the serpent of the Poison Marches.”
“A dragon?”
“A linnorm, if tales hold true.”
Thrain grunted. “Well then, my friend, it has been my pleasure to know you.”
Sigurd groaned at that. Not even Thrain believed him capable of slaying the beast. “I’ve one more favor to ask of you, then. I do not know how long I will be away nor even if I’ll survive this, as you seem to doubt. I need someone I trust to rule here in my stead, at least until my stepfather Alf can come from Cimbria, if he chooses to do so. I’d not trust Troels to keep his oath overlong if I’m not here.”
“You want me to rule Rijnland for you?”
“Consider it a step in rebuilding the power of your kin. Forge alliances with Valland, even, if you so choose.”
Thrain nodded, seeming lost in thought. “And if you don’t return?”
“Then toast me, I suppose.”
Thrain nodded, frowning.
Sigurd leaned back in his chair and looked out over the feast. These were his people now, but he still knew them little. His time with Regin and Tiwaz had made him a masterful warrior, yes, but it had hardly left him prepared to rule over a kingdom or even comfortable among so many people in one place.
In truth, the adventure ahead called him. And Gramr sang to him, dreaming of quenching her thirst on dragon’s blood.
10
Winter had already settled in when Thor and his party passed into the mountainous region between the Black and Hyrcanian Seas. Not a fortnight out they’d been met by Tyr who claimed Odin had come and sent him to meet them.
Thor didn’t bother asking how Father knew about his plan to strike an accord with Hymir, but clearly the man thought their odds better if they came in the company of Hymir’s son, no matter how estranged they were. No one talked much of those old days in Aujum, but rumor held that, before Thor’s grandfather had spared him, Tyr had been a warlord in service to Hymir. A raid captain responsible for taking slaves and plunder from the Ás tribes and Bjarmaland locals to fill the coffers and bed of the greedy jotunn.
Hymir’s power had only increased in the decades since then. Either way, Tyr had marched at his side a great many days here. The going had gotten more tedious once the winter storms came, which, in truth, had been one of the reasons Thor had sent Magni away with Rathbarth. A boy who hadn’t had an apple had no place trekking through the wilds of Bjarmaland in winter.
No, and they’d had to sneak or fight past several camps of warriors, human and jotunn both. These days, anyone who happened by was prey. Everyone grew, uh … what was that word? Desperate. They were damn desperate.
Now, though, hiking through these mountains, they saw fewer camps and a lot more snow. Too much of it. Yesterday a sudden storm had forced them to take shelter in a gorge, counting on overhangs to keep them from getting buried. The winds had howled for hour upon hour and left Thor with naught to do save listen to Baldr tell stories.
His brother wanted Thor to tell them, in truth, but Thor wasn’t much for telling tales since the stone had wedged into his head. Tyr wasn’t much for talking at all. That mostly left Baldr and Freki to pass the time.
For a while, Thor had covered his ears and tried to sleep. Tried to pretend the hum of their voices wasn’t triggering another splitting headache. It had taken a long time before sleep came to him in earnest.
In the morning the winds had died down and the snows had lightened, so now they were on the move again, and making for the jotunn’s fortress.
Tyr led the way. “Haven’t been here in a lot of years.” He’d said that a few times, in fact.
Hedging, in case he got them lost, Thor imagined. Not that Thor would’ve known had that happened. All he could do was keep following Tyr and hope the man steered them true.
Day after freezing day passed like that, and Thor became all the more glad he’d sent Magni away. Thor’s stones seemed apt to freeze off. Even Freki shivered at night. Baldr, surprisingly, didn’t complain in the least. The boy had too much pride, that was certain, but he had courage too, and he wasn’t afraid to suffer a little. Maybe Thor was too hard on him. He certainly had a brain in his head.
High enough up on the peaks, sometimes they’d pass above the mist line. On those days, when it wasn’t snowing, the damnably bright sunlight would trigger Thor’s headaches. Splitting ones that started with blurred vision and ended with him ready to smash his own head on the rocky slopes. In the midst of one such pounding headache they came upon it—the jotunn’s fortress.
It rose up from the mountainside, looking like someone had grown it there, a multi-towered behemoth that reminded Thor of a clawed hand. Like something tried to break through from underground. Plumes of smoke rose from amidst those spires. The place was only accessible by a large stone bridge that spanned a gap between this slope and the next. All along that bridge rose smaller, spike-crested watch towers.
As they drew nigh, Thor realized some few of those towers actually had watchmen atop them. Archers, some human and at least one jotunn. The archers had a bead on them but didn’t loose.
Tyr glanced back at Thor, grimaced, and then start
ed across the bridge. “A mistake,” he mumbled.
Well, the man certainly inspired confidence.
At the end of the path lay the jotunn’s fortress. Walls that rimmed the bridge ran right up to the portcullis, further narrowing any approach, and the bridge itself sloped upward, slowing their progress. A man would’ve needed to fly to attack this place, and Thor had sworn he’d never try that again.
The portcullis was raised and within the gatehouse stood four human halberdiers, each of whom lowered their weapons as Thor’s party drew nigh. A glance back revealed Baldr with a hand on his sword hilt. Thor didn’t really blame him. His fingers itched to reach for Mjölnir, too. It was still a damn fool thing to do, especially with them here trying to make peace.
An incline of his head at Freki, and the varulf had a hand on Baldr’s shoulder, easing his grip away from the weapon.
“Tell Hymir that Tyr has returned,” Tyr said, staring hard at guards whose own fathers probably weren’t born when Tyr had last come here. Maybe not grandfathers, even.
The looks they exchanged told Thor the men had at least heard of Tyr, though whether that would prove beneficial or not remained to be seen.
One of the halberdiers spoke in the coarse jotunn language—strange to hear men talking that—and another took off at a trot inside the fortress.
For an awkward pause Thor stood out there, whipped by the freezing wind, not knowing what he ought to do with his hands. The guardsmen here seemed even more ill-at-ease, not even lowering their weapons. Which must have begun to grow tiring.
“I have to piss,” Freki whispered in Thor’s ear.
Damn wolf. It took all Thor had not to snicker.
“No, really. If Hymir doesn’t hurry up, I’m using the wall here.”
Thor set his jaw, refusing to give in to the varulf’s attempts to amuse him.
After just long enough Thor began to think the jotunn was deliberately antagonizing them, the runner returned, this time accompanied by another ten guards, four of them frost jotunnar. “You’re to be escorted inside,” the runner said.
