Gods of the Ragnarok Era Omnibus 2: Books 4-6

by Matt Larkin

  Arm-in-arm with his wife, they strolled up toward the balcony. The way she laid her other hand on her belly, perhaps the babe had kicked, or perhaps—as Sigurd thought quite likely—she simply wanted to remind everyone of another child on the way.

  Of course, his beautiful wife couldn’t even imagine that he’d lain with Brynhild in order to secure her as Gunnar’s wife. That knowledge bit into his heart like the fangs of a viper and refused to release him, instead letting slow poison suffuse his soul. And when they made love, always, he found his mind drawn back—against his will—to penetrating Brynhild.

  He’d given Gudrun the ring he took from Brynhild in a vain attempt to bury his remorse.

  They took the stairs slowly, though Gudrun need not have bothered this early in her pregnancy. Still, he saw no hurry. Grimhild would not conduct the ceremony until the moon had risen, regardless. So, with Gudrun, he made a leisurely course around the balcony, selecting a good spot to watch the wedding from.

  “Last time, we were the ones down there,” Gudrun said.

  “I had just been thinking the same thing.” That, and of having betrayed his wife with another woman. The bitter guilt of it felt apt to choke him.

  “We had not nigh to so many guests, though.” And she sounded at least a little offended at that slight.

  Sigurd sighed. “I am king under Gunnar, sworn to him as my high king. Surely you understand the wedding of a high king must draw in more spectators than any other event.”

  Gudrun shrugged as if to deny what should have been painfully obvious to her.

  “Gunnar will save Midgard from conquest by Serkland or Miklagard or any other power. We must show him our utmost support.”

  “I know my brother’s burdens better than most.”

  Gudrun—much as he loved her—was given to bouts of melancholy with no clear source. These she fought or perhaps encouraged with overmuch mead or sometimes wine or ale. Being elder than Gunnar, perhaps she thought she should have been the heir to the throne. But Grimhild had made her choice, and Hogne and Gudrun both had to live with it.

  As the sun set, the crowd grew, many still holding goblets sloshing with one liquid or another, and all, so far as Sigurd could tell, caught in wild gossip.

  “We have not had guests in such numbers here in centuries. We let so many forget we existed until not so very long ago.”

  Sigurd shrugged. “All things much change with time. If you wish to restore the glories of old, you must step out of the shadows.”

  As if in response to his invitation, Grimhild strode into the courtyard. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the mist seemed to follow on her heel, thickening in the gathering darkness. The Niflungar allowed but a few torches lit for this, and those spaced at great distances apart, and only up on the balcony. Grimhild would no doubt have preferred no flame at all, but had to make concessions to the need to see at night.

  The queen raised her hands, looking terrible and regal, so at home in the mist. Like a specter of a bygone time when men were capable of greater glory than they now were. “People of the North Realms! Behold the rise of a new age. With this marriage, King Gunnar begins his ascension as protector over Midgard!”

  Some few in the balcony murmured about the Aesir and about Thor protecting them. They kept their voices low, though, clearly daring not openly question the sorceress queen.

  Grimhild continued on, even as Gunnar and Brynhild strode out into the courtyard. She spoke of the blessings of the mist and the need to pay homage to Hel, goddess of the frozen world Niflheim. For Hel’s power had no equal and she alone could save or damn all souls on Midgard.

  From the corner of his eye, Sigurd caught many making the sign of the Aesir, and still others begging for Thor’s forgiveness. But the Aesir had not come here and had naught to do with this day. If they wished to save Midgard, they had not done so yet.

  The couple exchanged rings once more, Brynhild slipping a ring onto Gunnar’s finger. The real Gunnar this time. And they spoke their vows and kissed one another.

  And a dam broke in Sigurd’s mind. A flood of memories drowned his consciousness, choking him, until, gasping, he leaned on the balustrade. Gaping at Brynhild. The love of his life. How … how had he forgotten her? He’d longed for her before he’d ever known her. He’d come here to protect her kingdom and somehow … had lost track of that. He’d married Gudrun.

  Sigurd slowly turned to the woman at his side. She had a hand on his back, patting it. Asking if he was ill. He shook his head, forcing a smile.

  Oh, by Hel. No! By Odin. What had happened to him? He was married to Gudrun … they had a child, and another on the way.

  Brynhild! Brynhild had just married Gunnar. If she knew Sigurd remembered, would she run back to his arms? Or would she curse him for eternity, maybe even suspect the role he played in tricking her into marrying the Niflung king?

  Such a revelation would destroy the peace without doubt. It would crush Gudrun, ruin the lives of their children. It would leave all Reidgotaland embroiled in war.

  Regin’s hammer began to beat on Sigurd’s chest. To cave in his heart. To crush his lungs to a bloody pulp.

  To salvage what he still could … he had but one choice before him.

  To live the lie and carry the truth to his grave.

  35

  Much as Odin preferred to avoid sorcery, sometimes the situation rather demanded it, especially when confronted with the workings of other sorcerers. Breaking Grimhild’s hold on Sigurd had proved difficult. Her potions had so thoroughly entranced the young man that Odin had required a goat to sacrifice in order to restore Sigurd’s memories.

  Now, covered in sweat and goat’s blood, Odin slumped down just outside his conjuring circle.

  He carved runes into rocks on a deserted plateau on Cimbria. Ideally, he’d have worked the Art on Samsey, close to his target, but doing so might have alerted the Niflungar to his presence, a risk he wasn’t quite ready to take.

  Not yet, but soon. The time would come when the Niflungar would fall, undone by their own reliance on the vile Art and the subtle prodding of an old man who’d suffered too much under their schemes.

  Knowing Grimhild would die at his hands had provided a comfort, and Odin had oft indulged in that vision. Just the knowing that he would at last be revenged … That, though it had taken seven decades, his vengeance would tear apart those who had taken so very much from him.

  Now he advanced on her with the spear. “To which of your many crimes should we trace the origin of this tragedy, great queen? The deception of Sigurd? The abuses you visited upon your own children? Or perhaps your greatest miscalculation lay in sending Ymir to kill my father!” Odin rammed the spear through Grimhild’s sternum, hefting her up off the ground. He held her aloft for a moment, staring into her hateful eyes, relishing the pain and fear there.

  Then he planted the shaft in the ground.

  In her helpless flailing, Grimhild only managed to sink deeper upon it as she died. Odin spared her no more thought. Grimhild may have executed Hel’s will that day, but the goddess of Mist herself lay at its source. And one day, Odin would see to her as well.

  Before that, he needed the ring.

  Thus he fell to his knees and dug through Sigurd’s ashes. Prescient visions had revealed this moment many times before. He knew exactly where to dig. The ashes were still warm enough to prove uncomfortable, but little more. He flung them aside until his finger brushed over the rose gold ring.

  Andvaranaut. Andvari’s Gift. The ring with the power to break through any barrier, to carry him between worlds.

  Oh, he was so nearly there. Already, he tasted the clean winds rushing over the rainforests of Alfheim. Even sitting here, on the cool shore in Reidgotaland, he could feel overwhelming heat from the Alfheim sun. He could hear the songs of the alfar, beautiful and clear, coming to him across the gap of time.

  A song had begun to fill the rainforest, not of birds, but of voices carried on the wind, high and melodic,
and somehow ethereal. Odin wandered along this path until he came to a lake where a half dozen women were bathing, and where she would come to him. Not Freyja, he hadn’t seen her here. Did he meet her later? For he must meet her, this he knew without doubt.

  The women spied him, standing there waiting, and their song drifted away, though none of them seemed the least bit abashed at their nakedness. One of them cocked her head to the side and then started for him, a deep skinned, beautiful woman he’d known so very long ago.

  “Idunn.”

  The woman didn’t speak, but rather stooped to grab a sheer white dress that she slung over her shoulders. It had no sides, but belted in the middle, offering a hint of modesty, if only a hint. Despite her unabashedness, he was left with the memory of her being the granddaughter of his own past life, and thus found himself squirming at her manner.

  They were waiting for him there, Freyja, Idunn, and the others. He would, perhaps, need to make some amends for his mistake in sending them there. He’d believed the only way to spare the Vanir and yet still make himself king of Vanaheim had been to cast them out of this world. Knowing their new home had indeed proved a paradise offered some comfort, yes, small though it was.

  But still, he’d offer his regrets.

  Oh, how he had missed her. Freyja had become his own little sun, gleaming in the distance, begging him to find her. To climb across the sky and take her hand. For so long, for so many years he’d lurched in one painful step after another, desperate to take her grip.

  He was so close now, he could feel it.

  All he had to now was wait.

  Sitting upon a rock by the sea, Odin waited.

  Not having embraced the Sight, Odin didn’t see it when Hermod drew nigh, but still he knew. He’d sent for the man some time back, and he’d known Hermod must invariably catch him here in Cimbria. For a heartbeat, a face pushed against a membrane as Hermod stepped through the Veil.

  The man shook off the disorientation with remarkable ease, enough that Odin could not help but be a little jealous.

  Practice …

  No. Audr had well taught Odin that he could afford to rely on the wraith’s power only under the direst of circumstances. If even then.

  Hermod turned to him, and offered a nod. “Another lesson?”

  Odin chuckled. “You speak as if you think I don’t know where you’ve been or what you do.”

  Hermod glowered at him before slumping down beside him. “If you see so very much, why haven’t you seen who murdered my daughter?”

  That question had become a thorn between Odin and his apprentice, one he could not pluck, no matter how oft he tried to explain that prescience was never perfect, and looking into the past was less so. “You know I don’t see everything.”

  “So very much, though.”

  “Yes. And I’m telling you to leave it be. If you ignite a fresh war with Serkland, Sif will have died for naught. Either way, we may never know who murdered her.”

  Hermod folded his arms, offering no answer.

  “I can’t give you any more lessons,” Odin said after a moment. “Soon, I’ll have to go away for a time, and you’ll need to govern Valhalla in my stead. And … to watch over Midgard.”

  “Go away where?”

  “Far. The details need not concern you.” Odin unslung a runeblade from his shoulder and handed it, sheathed, to Hermod. “This is Dainsleif, the legacy of the Bragnings. Use it to defend against whatever threats you must, but never forget that aught forged with the Art is forged from souls. They will ever bring suffering to match their own.”

  Hermod pulled the blade half free, inspecting the runes without comment before sliding it back in.

  Odin reluctantly slipped Draupnir from his finger. “The ring should give you some measure of command over the valkyries, though they remain bound to me and you won’t be able to bind more of them. But you might use them to further fill Valhalla’s ranks.” He dropped the ring into Hermod’s open palm.

  The man’s frown only deepened when his hand closed around the ring. “I mislike the way you speak. Just how long will you be gone?”

  Odin shook his head. “I don’t know, in truth. A while, at least. When I return … everything will be different.”

  When he returned, Freyja, Idunn, and the Vanir would be by his side.

  Maybe then he could finally heal the world.

  Part V

  Year 73, Age of the Aesir

  Summer

  (One year later)

  36

  Brynhild shuddered at the lap of the ocean on her heels. Even now, in summer, the waters were colder than the rivers she was accustomed to.

  “Just get it over with,” Gudrun called. The Niflung princess had already waded out into the sea and was waving at Brynhild. Probably she meant her taunts playfully. She had been the one to invite Brynhild to come swim with her and Brynhild would be twice damned if she’d let the other woman demonstrate even a morsel of more daring than her.

  The summer breeze whipped against her bare skin, raising gooseflesh over her arms and legs and making the water about her ankles seem all the colder.

  “It’s not bad once you’re accustomed to it!” Gudrun shouted.

  Brynhild shot her a look of mock scorn. Despite herself, she almost wanted to like the other woman. A year together had been nigh enough to convince her Gudrun knew naught of what she’d stolen from Brynhild.

  Her mother Grimhild was another matter altogether, and Brynhild found herself oft considering eviscerating the sorceress, could she but have found a way to do so without provoking terrible retribution down on Heimir and Bekkhildr.

  Forced to take Gudrun’s advice, Brynhild rushed into the ocean, letting the cold hit her all at once rather than one painful nip at a time. The sudden shock of it left her almost paralyzed for a moment, and gasping.

  “A little bad, maybe,” Gudrun said, chuckling to herself.

  Teeth chattering, Brynhild turned her gaze back to the other princess. From what she’d heard, Grimhild’s unnatural long life had withered, and yet now the woman’s beauty seemed restored. Though hardly schooled in sorcery, Brynhild could guess at the means by which the Niflung Queen Mother had achieved this end. Indeed, it must have involved the sacrifice of innumerable young girls, siphoning off the life they ought to have had to further extend her own.

  It was a shame Odin had failed to kill the vile creature thus far. Had he but done so, everyone might have been saved a great deal of grief.

  “It’s not that cold,” Gudrun said. “You seem as if it’s driven you into a torpor.” She splashed water at Brynhild, though she was too far out for more than a little spray to rush over Brynhild’s face.

  Treading water, Brynhild made her way out to where the Niflung princess waited, but found herself too lost in thought to form much of an answer.

  “I’ve been reading of late,” Gudrun said.

  Brynhild turned to her, drawn from her musings by the utter suddenness of Gudrun’s statement. “The Niflung library is vast.”

  “Yes, well, I’m told it’s but a fraction of what it once was, back in the days of the Old Kingdoms.”

  “And that is what you read of?”

  “Hmmm.” Gudrun was panting a little from treading water. “I was actually looking into the decline of the Odlingar.”

  “Why them?”

  “I … I used to have an amulet they’d held, one that far predated them. It allowed me to take the form of a seal and swim beneath the sea. In my whole life, I have never known such freedom as that, though the depths do hold a certain terror, an unknown presence down there. Still, to swim free, it felt like flying.”

  Brynhild grimaced at that, though she doubted Gudrun could see it. As a valkyrie, she’d been able to fly, both on her own or in the form of a swan. It was a grace she dearly missed, though it seemed distant now, most days.

  “In any event, the Odlingar were masters of the Gandvik Sea and had trafficked with mer, which is where I suspect
they got the amulet in the first place. I wonder only how they managed to call up such creatures.”

  Brynhild could not help but groan at that. “Tell me you are not fool enough to delve into the Art once more?” Gudrun did not speak overmuch of her past, but it was enough to know she had been a sorceress and had suffered having her body possessed by the vaettir she tried to control. To have recovered from that put her ahead of most any sorcerer Brynhild had ever heard tale of. Since then, Gudrun appeared to have controlled the addictive desire the Art created in its practitioners.

  “No … no … I just wanted to know.”

  Scoffing, Brynhild swam farther out. The Niflung princess might be short of breath, but Brynhild had long training as a warrior. And since Gudrun had insisted they come here, she would at least use the opportunity to truly work herself a little.

  “What are you doing?” Gudrun demanded.

  Brynhild chuckled and kept swimming.

  “That’s too far!”

  Now she turned about so she could look back at the Niflung princess. “Maybe for one who needs an amulet to swim. I spent my life honing my body. I imagine I could swim to the mainland if I had to.”

  “You’d freeze to death first. Stop being a Hel-cursed fool.”

  A fool, was she? Sneering, Brynhild kicked herself out further. The Niflung princess thought she knew so very much about Brynhild, but she had no idea what they had brought into their midst. Gudrun’s family had invited an adder into their very beds. They had bespelled Sigurd and yet had the temerity to send their prince asking for her hand. While Gudrun might have known naught of all these things, Brynhild still had half a mind to drown the other woman out here just to punish Grimhild.