by Matt Larkin
Sigurd spit in the dirt by Gunnar’s feet. “You’d build your future on a lie. Naught built such can end any way save poorly.”
“I beg you to see it done. Is it so truly onerous to lay with such a beautiful woman?”
Sigurd glowered, refusing to answer that. Not least because he had surely imagined it, alone in his chamber at night. But imagining bedding another woman and actually betraying Gudrun were two very different things.
“I beg you,” Gunnar repeated. “I must have her. And I see no other way, save deception.”
Sigurd sighed, but nodded, and looked around. Certain no onlookers might catch sight, he withdrew the Tarnhelm from his satchel. This he placed upon his head and then imagined himself as Gunnar, studying the other king’s every aspect until he was certain the illusion had taken hold.
Once it had, it felt like he no longer wore the helm at all.
Grumbling, Sigurd drew Gramr and advanced toward the flame. He cast a look back at the real Gunnar, who now moved to hide in a copse of trees just outside the town. Not even looking back.
Damn it all.
Then he had to do this. He truly had to.
Teeth grit, Sigurd ran through the blaze, grimacing at its heat, though it did not burn him. The sleeves of his shirt caught flame, and his trousers. On the far side of the blaze, Sigurd flung himself into a roll, then patted down his clothes until the flames went out.
Well. Like that, he lay panting a moment.
Finally, he rose, and trod up to the hall. It had a single large oak door and this Sigurd flung open.
Inside, Lady Brynhild rested upon a chair, one leg draped over an armrest, a sword laying across her thigh. This she tapped lightly up and down. Her glower could have set the smoldering braziers freshly alight. She wore shining mail bound with a gem-crusted girdle, well clad for battle.
“I have passed through the flames for you, my lady,” Sigurd said.
Brynhild’s face drew into a yet deeper grimace. “So it would appear.”
“With blessings from your foster father, I come to offer you marriage.”
“And I hardly know how to respond.”
Sigurd frowned. She was not going to make this easy. “I’m offering you more gold and precious treasures for your hand than you can begin to imagine.”
Brynhild grunted, then stood abruptly, her sword scraping along the mail skirt covering her thigh in the process. “Do not dare speak to me of such things unless you have the courage to back them up. I have slain hundreds of men in battle. I have turned the tides of war to favor one king or another. I have stained my sword with the blood of more foes than you can guess.” She strode forward, sword point out before her. “Would you kill for my hand? Would you kill all others who try to claim it?”
“Must it truly come to that? Was striding through the flame alone not enough to come back with me?”
“I will come with you. If you can prove yourself.” She held the sword out to her side, then dropped it, and it clattered on the hall’s wooden floor. “Best me. Prove you are stronger than those hundreds I have slain and fill me with your seed, if you can. And if not, I’ll send your useless cock back to that witch mother of yours.”
Sigurd flinched. Damn it. He slid Gramr back into her sheath and laid her carefully on the ground.
As he rose, Brynhild rushed in with a sudden hook. It caught him off guard, smacking into his jaw and sending him stumbling backward. Thor’s hammer, she was strong! He barely had time to wipe the blood from his lip before she was on him again, leaping at him, her elbow descending toward his head.
Sigurd jerked out of the way and caught her in midair with both hands on her mail. All the strength in the world didn’t matter with no footing and she had little weight. Before she could launch another blow at him, he flung her at one of the wooden pillars supporting the hall. The impact sent her stumbling down to one knee.
“How did you slay hundreds of men without knowing to keep your feet on the ground?”
“Your blood brother could’ve answered that, before he met your mother.”
What? Did she mean Sigurd himself? For she thought him Gunnar, so—
Brynhild’s foot snared his ankle and sent him toppling to the ground. She leapt atop him, snarling like a cat. Her fist snapped down into his jaw, slamming his head on the floor and sending black spots swirling in front of his eyes. If not for Fafnir’s heart, he’d probably have been knocked senseless. As it was, he barely got his arm up to block the next blow, and even then it felt like a mule had kicked his arm.
Sigurd flung her bodily off him. Brynhild regained her footing in an instant, and before he had gotten past his knees, he was again blocking crushing blows to his face. How in the gates of Hel was she so strong?
Knowing it would hurt, he allowed her to connect with a blow. Just so he could land an uppercut of his own at the same time. Her punch sent him tumbling back to the ground. By the time he rose, shaking his head, she was wiping blood from her own lip and clearly struggling to rise. So she had great strength, but it didn’t render her immune to his blows.
The gems on her girdle reflected the firelight oddly, almost seeming to hold their own inner shimmer. Hadn’t Regin once mentioned dvergar had crafted other wonders besides the runeblades? Did that belt give her strength?
“Can we not stop this now?” he asked.
Brynhild spit blood on the floor, gaining her feet. “If you’re ready to surrender your cock.”
She launched herself at him, low, with a clear intent to tackle him. Sigurd dodged to the side and caught her legs with an arm around them, then heaved, sending her flipping through the air. The shieldmaiden crashed down awkwardly. As she lay there, groaning, Sigurd dropped atop her and worked free the clasp of her girdle.
“Uh!” She grabbed his wrist with one hand and drove the other into his side. Even through his mail, through his gambeson, that stung and drew out an oomph.
But with his free hand he managed to pop loose the clasp. The wrist holding his instantly lost the better part of its force—though she remained stronger than many men he’d known—and he yanked the girdle out from under her, then cast it aside.
Sigurd rose, panting. “It’s done. All right? It’s done.”
Brynhild stood, her own breath ragged. “It’s not fucking done yet. Do it! If you can, finish it!”
“No, I don’t want—”
Her haymaker soared in at his face. He got one arm up to block and grabbed her shoulder with the other, shoving her away. But again she came at him, twisting one way, then the other. He realized her feint too late and took a blow to the jaw for his mistake. Though it stunned him, it didn’t seem to cause much harm to his dragon-hardened skin.
Brynhild glanced down at her hand, wringing it in obvious pain. Her discomfort didn’t stop her from aiming a knee at his stones. It came up so fast he had to twist sideways to avoid it, allowing her to land a punch between his shoulder blades. That was enough to send him stumbling into a column.
The shieldmaiden roared as she came at him again. Sigurd dodged to the side, grabbed her elbow, and slammed her against the same pillar. Brynhild staggered, sputtering.
He pried her arm around behind her back and leaned in close. “It’s over.”
She snorted, though even her breath sounded pained. “Ironic. Another man I have to teach how sex works.”
Something about that sounded so very odd. Why was his mind so hazy all of a sudden? He’d come here to do this. He’d already promised his blood brother he could. So what was …?
“Do it!” she shrieked. “Fucking do it, you craven sorcerous trench!”
Damn. Sigurd shoved her harder against the pillar. With his free hand, he reached around to the laces for her trousers. It took him a moment to pry them loose.
“Do it!” she screamed again. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”
He finally got her trousers down, then had to fumble with his own. “Not like this, please,” he said. “Please, just a
ccept the proposal or reject it. This isn’t how marriage is supposed to be …”
“It has to be this way.” The last sounded spat through gritted teeth.
Oh, Hel. She was too short, making it awkward to even get a good angle. If he could just get under a little more …
And then he slipped inside. He couldn’t help but linger on memories of those he’d forced himself on under Regin’s tutelage. And how he’d later learned to so disdain himself for it.
Did his mind seek refuge? Did he flee from the furious pumping of his hips, from the shieldmaiden’s grunts and groans and occasional taunts? He should not have come to this place. If only Brynhild had just accepted Gunnar’s proposal. Or, Hel, even if she had refused it. But to demand this?
Yet she kept demanding he continue. Screaming at him not to stop. Until it was finally done.
After he pulled out, Brynhild slumped down on the floor beside the pillar and fitted him with a glower. She yanked a rose gold ring from her finger and flung it across the floor. “Consider that your wedding ring.”
Sigurd took it. Runes marked it and it seemed so familiar, yet he couldn’t quite say from where. But he knew he’d seen it before. Uncertain what else to do, he slipped it on his little finger, then dug through his bag to find another ring, one drawn from Fafnir’s hoard. This he handed to Brynhild.
The shieldmaiden shuddered, took it, and slipped it on the same finger where the other one had been. “And now I am for you, King Gunnar. And for you alone.”
Sigurd crawled to where he’d set Gramr and laid down beside her, looking across the sword at the shieldmaiden princess.
He tried to sleep, but something denied him rest. A sick feeling in his gut that something was terribly wrong with the world.
In the early morning, before sunrise, Sigurd snuck outside and removed the Tarnhelm, resuming his own form. The real King Gunnar met him with horses already set to ride back to the ships. “It’s done?” Gunnar asked.
“It’s done.”
31
One thought kept running through Brynhild’s mind as she sat on the floor of Heimir’s hall, arms wrapped around her knees. One bitter, terrible thought: the Niflungar had bewitched Sigurd. They had stolen his memories and taken him from her.
As you tried to interfere in my choice of victors, so shall you never again enjoy the sweet mead of victory, woman. Odin’s curse bombarded her.
Even as Sigurd had succeeded in winning the peace, still Brynhild had lost everything. And now … now she must marry Gunnar. Yes, it saved Hlymdalir, all of Laaland, all of Rijnland even, from the ravages of war with the Niflungar.
But, the price was higher than Brynhild had ever imagined.
Hel damn Odin for any part he’d played in it. The Ás was a monster. And Brynhild had been twice over a fool to defy his will and try to spare Sigmund.
Once, Brynhild had dared to think she owed Odin a debt, for his machinations had delivered Sigurd to her and given her happiness she had not imagined was missing from her life. And she’d known Sigurd had felt the same. But Odin’s curse would not allow Brynhild such easy joy, not in the long run.
Giggling, little Aslaug chased Heimir’s wolfhound around pillar after pillar. They two of them blundered through the great hall while servants narrowly avoided being bowled over.
Bekkhildr sat across from Brynhild, watching Aslaug. Brynhild’s daughter with Sigurd was beautiful beyond words. And he seemed to have forgotten she even existed. Was that the bitterest part of this all?
Her niece reached over to pat her knee. “What are you going to do?”
With a groan, Heimir climbed off his chair, then plodded over to where they sat and plopped down beside them. “There’s not much to be done now, is there? You bargained with them, said you chose the man who fulfilled your dire conditions. Well, now, that’s Gunnar. So you either break your oath to him—and probably plunge us all into war in the process—or keep your oath and marry him.”
Bekkhildr cast a fell glare her husband’s way. “These are the people who stole her husband. Not murdered him, but worse, actually stole him away. We all know he’s under their spell.”
Heimir nodded. “Certainly, it seems that way. Does it make a difference? Does it change aught now, from where we sit? The choice remains simple. Break the oath or keep it. It’s not pretty and I don’t like it, but what else is there to do about it?”
“Not a damn thing,” Brynhild answered for her niece. “There’s no getting Sigurd back.”
“You don’t know that,” Bekkhildr said. “Maybe once you’re there … once you’re with him, you can …”
“Be his whore?” Brynhild asked. “However it happened, he belongs to Gudrun now. I won’t be a second woman to her. Not to anyone.” Was the Niflung bitch princess responsible for that, or merely the one who benefited from it?
“So call them out,” Bekkhildr said. “What they’ve done is an act of war. If they’d murdered Sigurd when we sent him to make peace, would we be having this conversation?”
“They didn’t murder him,” Heimir objected.
“No!” Bekkhildr agreed. “No, this is worse. They … they stole him. They made a mockery of our ally, of Brynhild’s husband.”
Brynhild had wanted to weep, but tears wouldn’t come. She had never really been the weeping kind. “Listen to me, both of you. I need you to raise Aslaug.”
Bekkhildr put a hand on her shoulder. “Brynhild …”
Brynhild grabbed her niece’s hand and held it tight. “Before any of this happened, Gudrun came here. She told me of the dire dream she’d had, and I warned her it portended disaster for both her and I. Somehow, I’d hoped sending Sigurd to make peace would avert that dream. But maybe there was never turning away from it. Maybe urd … is urd.” And Hel-cursed Odin had known. Two decades ago, he’d known it would come to this. “So raise Aslaug as if she were your own daughter. I … I don’t think I’ll return from Castle Niflung. And the Niflungar must not learn that Sigurd has a child with anyone else. Queen Grimhild must not learn of her.”
“Y-you plan to take your revenge …” Bekkhildr said. “Brynhild, if that is your aim, then stay with us and let us all make war.”
“No. Heimir was right, I gave my oath to marry Gunnar. Besides which, I have no plan anymore.” Odin’s vengeance had fallen upon her soul like a weight around her neck. It crushed her down to helpless pulp.
“Naught remains to me save to accept my urd. I will go to Castle Niflung and I will marry Gunnar.”
Bekkhildr—who seemed to have no trouble weeping, as now—flung her arms around Brynhild’s neck. “You don’t have to do this!”
If only that were true. If only she could stay here and watch her daughter grow up into the woman she would become.
But urd had snared Brynhild many years ago and there was no breaking free of that web. Not now, not ever.
32
Oft, the jotunnar attacked even at night, and while Sigyn could see far in darkness, the mist still limited the extent of her vision, which had forced her to scout their perimeter for a time to get a feel for their plans.
Jotunn war bands dotted the land around Gardariki, hardly seeming to work in concord in their attempts to claim the fortress. Hardly, at least, to the undiscerning eye. After watching them for a time, Sigyn had noticed a definite pattern to the ostensible randomness of their efforts. Rather than any sort of continuous assault, each war band probed the defenses in an intersecting order that ensured defenders—especially those unable to determine the rotation—were constantly pushed to alternative locations around the walls.
Such tactics meant Tyr couldn’t focus his archers on any given location, besides serving to further discomfit the citizens since they’d never know when the fighting would start again. A ceaseless attack would have worn down the defenders more quickly, but this strategy would, instead, drain their morale.
Perhaps with Loki and Odin nearby, Narfi’s prescient insights had become limited and thus he had de
veloped this unusual method of testing out his foes while remaining concealed himself.
Sigyn now crouched beside Odin, watching as Loki’s son’s war band—assuming Odin truly was a powerful enough seer to overcome the prescient blind spot Narfi should have engendered for him—withdrew from another fake push against the fortress.
Odin’s capabilities raised whole other questions that her mind couldn’t let go of, much as she knew she should direct her entire focus to the task at hand. The Well of Mimir had fortified Odin’s prescient abilities such that they now seemed to exceed even Loki’s, or perhaps anyone else’s. Sigyn had not yet determined whether the Norns delivered such visions, but whether they did so or not, how would they have felt about so powerful an oracle now walking the world and using his prescience to essentially create his own web of urd? Were Odin’s machinations a part of the greater web, or did he begin to pluck at the strands the Norns had laid in place?
Further, if Odin had somehow begun to diverge from a grander scheme, what did such a plan entail and what would the Norns do to protect it?
“Focus, Sigyn.” Odin’s whisper—no doubt caught by Geri and Freki as they knelt just behind—jolted her, not least because he ought not to have been able to realize her mind drifted while she stared at the camp. His perceptive abilities had begun to become alarming, though others no doubt thought much the same of her.
“There are men among them, for certain,” she said, pretending to have been fixated on the task at hand. “There’s no easy way to tell if any given man is half jotunn, though, other than ruling out the shortest among them. Any of those could be Narfi.”
Odin pointed to a fur-lined tent on the outskirts of the jotunn camp. “That one.”
A man using the Sight to garner information almost seemed like cheating, sometimes. For all her honed senses and deductive abilities, she could not hope to match someone with senses she didn’t have. While Sigyn might infer probable futures, Odin and Loki sometimes just knew. Of course, such a frustration was as petty as it was pointless, so Sigyn always chided herself for indulging in that line of thinking, but still, there it was.
