by Scott Oden
“Not the Allfather,” Sigrún whispered to those Daughters in earshot. “He’s watching us.”
Old Hygge met them at the end of the trail. “Before sunset,” Hygelac said, “we heard Askr’s horn, my old da and me—but it was weak, like it wrenched the last breath from his lungs to sound it. We followed the noise and yonder is what we discovered.”
The folk of Hrafnhaugr arrayed themselves behind their Jarl, craning to get a better look. In the trees along the water’s edge, from the heaviest branches, four figures hung by their ankles. Auða and Hrútr, it was, and Askr and Bjorn Hvítr, all strung up like suckling pigs. “We did not touch them,” Hygelac said, “but came to fetch you, instead.”
“Ymir’s blood,” Sigrún said, shouldering past the Jarl to reach Auða. Bjorn Svarti followed.
“Did … Did he kill them?” Jarl Hreðel licked his lips; blood had drained from his face, and sweat beaded his brow. “Did the Hooded One do this, may the Gods ever blacken his name?” The same fear echoed from a dozen throats: “The Hooded One killed them!”
“Keep your blasphemous tongue between your teeth!” Sigrún snapped; she spun Auða around and looked her over for injuries. “She’s not dead. Geira, lend me a hand!”
“Nor are these three,” Svarti said. “Took a good beating, but they’re breathing. Quickly, lads! Cut them down.” Geira helped Sigrún while the Jarl’s men saw to their own. In short order, the four were loosed and upright, groggy but alive. Auða leaned on Geira’s shoulder. She spat blood.
“He … He wouldn’t let us have her. Dísa, I mean.” Auða looked over at Hreðel. “She protected you as long as she could, Jarl. She didn’t tell him you’d made threats. But he found out anyway, and he means to settle the score.”
“Settle?” Hreðel said. “Seems he’s upped the stakes rather than settle any scores!” He turned and looked back at the folk who followed them out from Hrafnhaugr. Some were nodding; others looked petrified, as if the fabric of their world was slowly unraveling. “I say it’s the Hooded One who crossed the line! We give and we give, and when we ask a simple favor we’re rebuffed, our folk attacked, and we’re made to live in fear? No more! I say we burn that bastard out!”
“Then what?” Sigrún said. “Say you do this thing, what then? Will you turn to the White Christ for protection from the Swedes or the Norse?”
“Why not?” Hreðel made a clumsy sign of the Cross. “What interest would the Swedes or the Norse have in us if we were like them, eh? If we knelt and prayed to the Nailed God, why would they seek to do us harm?”
“You’re a fool,” Auða said.
Spittle flew from Hreðel’s lips as he thrust his face next to Auða’s. “Am I? All he had to do was help me! Help me get my son back!”
“Dísa was right. Let Flóki go and earn his beard.”
“That little traitor will pay, alongside her wretched master!” Hreðel straightened. “Men of Raven Hill! It is high time we took back what is ours! I’ve had my fill of being lorded over by women, and living under the threat of that devil they worship! It ends now! Tonight! Arm yourselves! I mean to cut this thorn from our side, and if that means we take to our knees and sing the hymns of the Nailed God, then so be it! I bid you, my sworn men, to stand by your oaths to serve me!”
“You’ll not have the Daughters of the Raven at your side, you weak-minded fool!” Sigrún said.
Hreðel turned and stared hard at the old woman. There was a newfound purpose in the set of his jaw; his eyes glittered with righteous fervor. “Then get back to the spindle where you belong, you useless old hag! Who’s with me?” The Jarl ascended the path to Hrafnhaugr without a backward glance.
Though reluctant, most of the Jarl’s sworn men—some seventy-five strong—fell in behind Hreðel, Askr and Hrútr among them. Auða felt the sting of her bedmate’s betrayal, but said nothing. She looked at Bjorn Hvítr, who shook his head. “I’ve had his measure, and I’ll not take up arms against him.”
The other Bjorn, Svarti, gave a solemn nod. “I must. My oath compels me, even if my heart does not.” He turned and followed the cortege back to Gautheimr. The Daughters of the Raven came last; the youngest, Bryngerðr, snuffled and wiped tears from her eyes.
“What must we do?” she whispered to Geira.
“Hold to our faith and pray this madness passes.”
“And look to our steel, in case it doesn’t,” Sigrún added.
The Daughters walked into a Gautheimr transformed. Bright flames licked the top of the hearth; torches burned in sconces, and lamps upon table. The Jarl’s men were donning their war-gear, their mail and leather, wolf-headed cloaks and iron helmets. All around the hall echoed the clash and rattle of harness. Their sudden flurry of activity drew villagers from the lower terraces; they clustered around the door to watch the arming.
“Don’t do this, Hreðel!” Sigrún motioned to the Daughters, who brought her mail from its stand. Another carried her round shield, its white face bearing a stylized raven in black. A third brought her spear and her raven-winged helmet. “Don’t force my hand!”
“It is done!” Hreðel replied. He sat in his seat, his sword in its scabbard laid across his knees. “We’ve been ruled from the shadows for too long! It ends tonight! You villagers, take up arms! Unlimber your oars and draw your keels from their sheds! This night, we cross Skærvík and rewrite our destiny! Go! Spread the word! Tonight we fight for freedom!”
“No, Hreðel. Tonight you die!” Sigrún drew herself up to her full height. “I am Sigrún of the Raven, Eldest Daughter, Captain of Shield and Spear, and I challenge you, Hreðel Kveldúlfsson! Fight me, and let the Gods decide who is right!”
Ragged cheers and shouts erupted. Men paused in their arming, torn, like Bjorn Svarti, between their oaths and their hearts; their eyes flickered from Sigrún to Hreðel. The Jarl looked like a man stricken with palsy. His hands shook. To hide his tremors, he grasped his sword by scabbard and hilt and held it tight.
Before he could answer Sigrún’s challenge, however, a voice from behind the villagers clustered in the doorway roared a single command: “Stop!”
All heads turned. The throng parted; gasps and whispers punctuated the scrape of hobnailed boots on stone as Dísa stalked into the heart of Gautheimr. Gone was the moody girl of fifteen summers who left here over a month before. The figure who returned was ageless, as fey and feral as a wolf, hard-eyed and snarling; her lean torso and muscular limbs bore the scars and forge-marks of the Gods’ own anvil. Like Kolgríma before her, Dísa passed through the fires of an Elder World and came out the other side—its light burned in her gaze, enough to make men tremble. She reached the center of the hall.
“There is our traitor!” said Hreðel, glad for the distraction. “Come to gloat, eh? Come to witness the strife you’ve caused by not standing by your own people? I’ll say this much for you, child: you have nerve coming here alone!”
“That is where you are wrong,” Dísa replied. “I did not come alone.”
A shadow rose up from behind the high seat; men had the impression of a swirling cloak, a horned and masked silhouette. A single red eye blazed as a black-nailed hand curled around Hreðel’s throat and wrenched his head back. Screams erupted from the doorway of the hall.
The Jarl’s sword clattered to the ground.
Led by Bjorn Svarti, a half a dozen of the Jarl’s men started forward, blades rasping against scabbard chapes, spear shafts clattering. They all stopped short as the shadow drew an ancient long-seax and balanced it point-first on the heart’s path, that soft hollow of flesh between Hreðel’s left collarbone and neck. The threat was clear: one more step and he’d send their Jarl down the icy road to Hel’s gates. The figure leaned over him and laughed, soft and menacing. “I hear you’ve been threatening me, you fat fool!”
* * *
AMID CRIES OF ALARM, THE Hooded One dragged Jarl Hreðel from the high seat, flinging him bodily down the short steps to land among his sworn men. Bjorn Svarti helped h
im to his feet; another Geat fetched a bench as Grimnir kicked away shards of crockery and settled himself into the Jarl’s seat. Dísa joined him; she stood at the base of the steps, a little to Grimnir’s right.
Grimnir drove the point of his seax into the arm of the seat. “Every blasted day, I walk the fences of Geat-land—through forest and fen, hill and hollow—killing any I find and leaving their heads for their mates to stumble across. Those heads tell the tale of a savage folk, you Raven-Geats, who make the piss-ant Swedes and those miserable Norse think twice before trying to raid this land! I kill and I kill and this is my thanks? You threaten me, threaten my priestess, and send an armed rabble to violate the ancient compacts? Faugh! Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand, Hreðel Kveldúlfsson!”
“If the compacts are broken, it’s you who broke them!” Hreðel sputtered. He sat heavily on the proffered bench. “We asked for a simple boon! A small thing! But you could not be bothered even to check on the well-being of the future Jarl of your followers!”
“I could not be bothered to fetch your wayward son, you mean? Who am I to stand between a lad and his war-name? Did I drag you back kicking and screaming when you went off to raid the Norse against your father’s wishes?”
“That was different,” Hreðel muttered. Whispers arose from the onlookers—now numbering almost three hundred, all jammed cheek by jowl in the tight confines of Gautheimr or else standing outside, listening as others relayed what was said.
“Aye,” Grimnir said, leaning forward to point an accusing finger at Hreðel. “Your old da was a man about it! If the Norse got you”—Grimnir made an expansive gesture—“such was the will of the Weird Sisters, the Norns. He’d just make more sons.”
“I do not have that luxury,” Hreðel said, bitterly.
“And how is that any of my concern, you wretch? How is that your lad’s concern?” Grimnir gestured at Dísa. “This one tells me you coddle him, is that so?” Color stained Dísa’s cheeks. She looked away.
Hreðel’s gaze had an edge to it. “She speaks out of turn.”
“Does she?” Grimnir leaned back, directing his question to the throng of onlookers. “Does this little bird speak out of turn when she says the Jarl’s son is coddled?”
Murmurs arose. But it was Sigrún who stepped forward. “She does not, lord.”
Hreðel snarled and shot an accusing glance at the old woman—who moments before had been ready to spill his blood.
Sigrún met his hate-filled gaze evenly. “It is our custom that a boy on the cusp of manhood can only grow his beard after he’s felt the warm and bloody rain of Odin’s weather. Flóki is well into his eighteenth year and remains beardless.”
Grimnir sniffed. “By what lights do you think I’d choose a beardless, unblooded boy to be the Jarl of my village? You think me that foolish?”
Hreðel’s eyes snapped up, narrowing with suspicion. “The Jarl’s mantle is hereditary,” he said. “It passes from father to son.”
“It passes from father to son, aye,” Grimnir said. “But only with my blessing and only if I think the son worthy. The compact is clear. I choose who sits on this seat, not you!” Grimnir slapped the armrest. “This is a gift I choose to bestow, or not! You think the blood in your veins is noble and pure? That you and your sons are destined to be Jarls? Bah! Kveldúlf’s grandfather was a swine-herd ere I chose him to take up the high seat!” Grimnir looked askance at Dísa. “This is what I was talking about, little bird. You lot have forgotten even what’s in the cursed compact!”
“What will become of my son if he is barred from following in my footsteps?” Hreðel said. “All his life, I’ve groomed him to wear the wolf-mantle. I’ve protected him, taught him to read the runes, to sacrifice and find wisdom in the entrails; I’ve taught him what we recall of the compact between us.”
“And you’ve tried to find him a wife, haven’t you, you sly dog?” Grinning, Grimnir glanced from Hreðel to Dísa.
The girl knew enough not to rise to his baiting.
“It matters naught if he’s to be cast adrift and forgotten.”
Sigrún growled, “Then you should have better prepared him for the world out there!”
Grimnir touched the side of his bone mask. “The old hag is right. Ymir’s blood, man! Where are your balls? You’ve dogs aplenty! You want your brat back?” Grimnir gestured to the ranks of the Jarl’s sworn men. “Send one of them after him and quit grousing to me about it!”
“I’ll go,” Dísa said suddenly. And like a curtain, silence fell over Gautheimr. Sigrún’s eyes narrowed; Hreðel snorted in contempt. But Grimnir … Grimnir rubbed the pommel of his seax, contemplating and calculating. He knew what drove the girl—and it was more than her admiration for Flóki. She, too, was unblooded. “You said it yourself: it’s time to put to the test what I’ve learned from you. Send me after Flóki and the others.”
Hreðel could not contain himself. The Jarl laughed and shook his head. “You? No doubt it was you who put him up to this.”
“He’s his own man, even if you’re blind to it!” Dísa snapped. “He needs no encouragement from me.”
“Svarti,” Hreðel said, turning to look at the saturnine Geat. “I’d consider it a favor if you’d pick a couple of good lads and bring my son back to me.”
Bjorn Svarti’s face was impassive as he looked from Hreðel to his cousin, Bjorn Hvítr, before turning to the Hooded One. “By your leave?”
Grimnir chuckled. “You’re a quick one, lad.”
Hreðel spluttered. “You would seek his permission? Am I not your Jarl, dog?”
Grimnir came to his feet; he loomed over the assemblage, his shadow made greater by the flaring cloak, by the carved horns on his headdress. His eye blazed from the depths of his wolf-mask as he wrenched his seax free in a shower of splinters. “Jarl? You are nothing, swine!” he roared. “A drunkard and a fool! I take back the wolf-mantle! If you think me unkind, if you think me unfair … then draw your steel and we’ll settle this the old way!”
Hreðel blinked. He sniffed and stared at his feet, hands trembling.
“As I thought, you dunghill rat!” Grimnir glared at the sworn men and beyond, at the throng of villagers watching this spectacle. “Any of you dare dispute my right to sit upon this seat? Step up, dogs! Step up, or keep your tongues between your rotten teeth!”
For a moment, it looked as though Hrútr might step forward, but his kinsman’s hand on his arm stopped him. Askr shook his head.
Satisfied, Grimnir sat. He nodded to Dísa. “Go after him, little bird,” he said. “I will decide after I meet this Flóki if he’s fit to take up his father’s mantle.”
13
Dísa left Hrafnhaugr in the cold hours before dawn.
The night before had not been one of merriment. No songs were sung under the eaves of Gautheimr, no lies embroidered upon by drunken Geats, no calls for tests of strength or of wits. The men who drank did so in deadly earnest, silent and brooding.
Hreðel took himself off, his shame almost too much to bear. Some of his sworn men remained loyal to him and followed—Askr and Hrútr among them. The Daughters remained in the great hall, attending the needs of the Hooded One even as they gave Dísa a wide berth. Grimnir sat atop the high seat, watching. Only Berkano—gentle, mad Berkano—dared approach him. Her sister, Laufeya, waited a short distance off as Berkano sat at the foot of the seat and offered him a horn of her herb-infused mead. He sniffed it, nodded, and raised his mask a fraction. He drained the horn in three gulps. Grimnir smacked his lips and passed it back to her.
“Aye,” he said, “you Otter-Geats know how to brew mead!”
“You knew our people?” Berkano said, glancing back at her sister.
Grimnir leaned back in the seat; his gaze shifted from Berkano to stern-faced Laufeya. “I hunted the Norse who burned out your folk,” he said. He hitched at his belt and drew the scalps around. One he plucked from the others and held it up for the sisters to see—a red-gold mane
with strips of shriveled skin still attached by the roots. “This was their chief, a black-toothed braggart who called himself Örm of the Axe.”
“I remember him.” Berkano shivered … and recalled the screams; they echoed across the years, the sound of steel cleaving flesh, pleas of mercy; and at the center of it all, the merciless laughter of the man who led them. He was an ogre—blood-slimed and coarse-handed, and he stank of sweat, gore, and feces. She felt, once more, the wet slime of his tongue; the laughter as he violated her, then passed her to the next man. She did not fight. She did not cry out, for if she made no noise she was sure these iron men and their ogre lord would go away. They would never hurt her, her mother, or her sisters again … “I remember.”
Grimnir unlaced the scalp from the string and offered it to Berkano. Hesitantly, she extended her hand. Grimnir laid the scalp in her palm. Berkano cradled the mane and petted it like it was an animal. “I still dream of him … of what he did.” Berkano closed her eyes and sobbed. Laufeya started toward her, but Grimnir warned her off with an upraised hand.
He leaned over Berkano and spoke in a harsh whisper Dísa strained to overhear. “Nár, girl. His bones molder on the banks of the Otrgjöld River. His shriveled soul howls from the fences of Hel’s realm. I sent him there. By Ymir, let him trouble you no more.”
Berkano looked up and met Grimnir’s smoldering gaze without flinching. She smiled, wiped her eyes. “I will dream of that, instead,” she said. Grimnir nodded and leaned back; taking that as a sign, Laufeya came and collected her sister, who showed her the scalp the same way a child would show off a prized toy.
Dísa spent the balance of the night mulling over that exchange. By every measure she knew and understood, Grimnir hated the sons of Men. He only tolerated the likes of her because there was something in it for him—in the case of the Daughters of the Raven, someone to bring him offerings of meat and of mead and, rarely, of silver. By having only one point of contact, he preserved his way of life and enriched himself in the process.
