by T L Greylock
“This is the end we have all come to know, to wait for. This is the end Odin fights against, knowing he fights in vain. But oblivion is not all that lies ahead, Raef. There is hope.”
Raef’s heart was pounding, his blood hammering in his ears as he tried to take in Anuleif’s words. “What do you speak of?”
“I am the ancestor. There can be life after the darkness, after the fires burn and the seas swallow. I am meant to survive.”
“Impossible. You do not know what you are saying.”
The blue eyes flared and for a moment no longer than it takes lightning to streak across the sky, Raef saw something other than a child in Anuleif’s face. “I do know what I am saying. The world can go on. Not without great sacrifice and trials beyond reckoning, but it can. You must believe this.”
The shout of alarm broke the bond that had formed between Raef and Anuleif. The boy did not move, did not take his eyes from Raef, as a warrior rushed toward him, did not flinch as a spear point came to rest against his spine. And then others were there and a dozen voices were ringing in the darkness. Anuleif was pulled to his feet.
“It can be done, Raef,” the boy said. “The swift knows the way.” A warrior’s strong arms dragged him backward through the snow and cast him at Fengar’s feet. Griva loomed behind the king, his lined face alive with the promise of blood.
“A brave boy,” Fengar said. Anuleif trembled on his knees, the fear he had eluded now gripping him tight. “But foolish to attempt such a rescue. How old are you?” Anuleif’s teeth chattered as he opened his mouth to reply and nothing came out. The warriors roared with laughter. Fengar bent over and reached out a hand to brush snow from the boy’s hair. “Do with him as you will, Griva.”
“No,” Raef shouted as Fengar straightened. The king’s shoulders rose and fell and Raef could hear the heavy breath escape from his lungs before Fengar turned to face Raef.
“You are in no position to argue, Skallagrim.”
“He is a child, Fengar.”
“Boys grow into men who wield spears and shields.”
“No, not him.”
The king’s gaze narrowed and Raef halved the distance between them, the lie forming on his tongue. “He does not know where he is. His own name comes and goes from his mind like the rain in spring. He is no threat to you and never will be.” Raef spoke quietly and came within an arm’s length of Fengar. “The gods would find no pleasure in this child’s death.” Raef did not dare break eye contact for fear that Griva would slip into the gap he left behind. Fengar glanced down at the top of Anuleif’s head once more and when his gaze rose to Raef again, there was burning hatred there.
“Then let him live his pitiful life,” Fengar said. He turned away into the darkness, leaving Anuleif surrounded by men who were looking for blood. Griva was but a step away and Raef wondered how quick the old man would be.
Raef stared hard at Anuleif, who was getting to his feet. “Run.” The boy frowned and Raef could see the fear still gnawed at him, still clouded his mind. “Run.” The boy’s gaze darted left and right, and then he was gone, feet churning through the snow. One man reached out to snag him, but Anuleif was alert now and he slipped out of reach and into the trees. He would not get far if those loyal to Griva wished to hunt him down, but it was with satisfaction that Raef saw their blood-hungry eyes focus on him instead.
Three came on him at once, fists flying. Raef ducked one and upended the second with his shoulder, but the third struck hard in his ribs and then a boot buckled his knee, sending Raef, unbalanced and unable to use his arms, face-first into the snow. He caught himself on his shoulder, rolled, but his knee, the same that had suffered damage in Jötunheim, would not take his weight and he could not get to his feet. The blows came hard and fast, raining down, and Raef took them gladly, for each one put more distance between Anuleif and Fengar’s warriors.
When the frenzy of pain passed and Raef knew something other than the taste of blood in his mouth, he was on his back, the shelter blocking the light of the stars, and Vakre’s face hovered over him.
“The boy is away,” Vakre said. “They have not gone after him.”
Raef accepted this information by closing his eyes and trying to breath without pain lancing through his chest. When he opened his eyes again, Vakre was still there, and Raef saw that the son of Loki was not untouched. His nose leaked blood and the bruise that spanned his cheekbone was now accompanied by a fresh one and a laceration along his jaw.
“You too?” Even that sent spasms along Raef’s ribs and he winced.
“Two have my boot print in their backs,” Vakre said. “They did not care for that.”
“Visna?”
Vakre’s face grew solemn. “I do not think she is here. Not really. She has not moved.”
“She must eat. She must stay warm.”
“You cannot make her want to live, Raef. But you must. Are your ribs broken?”
Raef took as deep a breath as he dared and to his relief his ribcage felt better than he had expected. “I do not think so.” He prodded at the arrow wound on his shoulder. The stitches held. His hands sought the knee that had failed to hold his weight. It ached with dull fury.
“How is it?”
“Weakened as it was when I returned from Jötunheim. It will need time.”
“The boy spoke strange words,” Vakre said.
Raef met Vakre’s eyes, but he was hesitant to speak, to give voice to Anuleif’s beliefs.
They fell into silence and Raef felt the weariness return. He slipped into a sleep spotted with dreams, fragments of images only. Siv, her red-gold hair tied in a neat braid, laughing. His father, speaking to Raef despite the gaping hole in his belly. Griva, the crow feather glistening in his white hair, holding back a tide of water with nothing but his bare hands. A raven, pecking at Raef’s skin. Raef wanted to chase it away, to wave his arms and see it burst into the air, but his arms would not move and the raven’s beak began to draw blood. A voice called, the words muffled, and then Raef was awake and the voice was Visna’s and the raven’s sharp beak was her hand, light and tentative on his shoulder.
“Help me,” the Valkyrie whispered.
Raef struggled up onto one elbow, though it pained him. “Are you well?”
“In body, yes, but in spirit, no.”
Raef looked over his shoulder; Vakre slept curled on his side, hunched as though burdened even in sleep. “What troubles you?”
Visna closed her eyes and for a moment Raef thought she might not speak. “I begin to forget who I am. More and more with every rising sun. One day, I will wake and be a woman, bound to the earth, to a husband, to death, knowing only the smell of the dirt I work with my hands, knowing only the feel of the wind when rain follows behind, knowing only that my life is fading. Visna, who flew to the stars, who watched the Norns work their carvings into the great ash tree, who knew the Allfather’s embrace, will be lost, forgotten, forever.” Visna opened her eyes and sought Raef’s. “Do not let me forget.”
Never before had Raef heard such a desperate plea and it dug into his bones, heralded by the knowledge that he could not save her from this fate. “I will help you remember,” he said, though he knew not how.
Visna shook her head. “My father has been cruel, but sometimes I think even he does not understand what he has done to me, what terrible future he has given me.”
“To know the wind and the rain and the sun and the earth, is this so terrible?”
Visna’s sorrow turned to pity. “Knowing those things is simple. Common. I am like a blind woman who remembers what it was like to see a sunrise.”
The Valkyrie’s pride aggravated Raef. “I am a lord of men, descended from lords. I rule the lives of others. I can claim their sons for battle, I can condemn those who have committed grievous offenses, I can allow or forbid marriages as I see fit, and I can give land to those who please me and take it from those who do not. Power is mine and I wield it. And yet I take a thousand times and a th
ousand times again more pleasure in the warmth of the sun on my face, the smell of the salt breeze, the feel of good, green earth between my fingers.”
“Because you are a man, content with these things. You do not rise above.”
“Rise above to what? To a cold and callous thing who looks only to the stars and the gods? The stars are beautiful and I take joy in them, but they are far away and the earth and the growing things and the cool mountain water, they are near.” Raef watched Visna’s face in the moonlight as the Valkyrie struggled to make sense of his words. “You have already lost what you were,” he went on, and he could see the pain his words caused her even though he spoke gently. “Remember it, cherish it, be proud of it, but do not be disdainful of what you have now. It is all you have.”
Visna was quiet for a long time, but the troubled emotions that had clouded her face seemed to have faded.
“I have seen men who wish to rise above,” Raef said, letting his thoughts slip away to a burning lake where men had died with ice and fire. “One such was the Palesword and he was willing to tear apart this world to achieve his desire for fame in the eyes of the Allfather, to impose his will on the realm of men. He woke a terrible host that sowed death and destruction in its wake. Men should seek battle-fame, men should seek wisdom and a place at the long table in Valhalla, but men must not forget what it is to plant a seed and watch it grow.”
Their eyes met and for the span of two deep breaths that seared Raef’s chest, he thought he saw a glimmer of understanding there, but then he let himself lie flat on the ground once more.
“That woman, what did you want with her?” Raef asked.
Visna was quiet for a long time. “I must find the one who will take my place in Asgard, who will ride with my sisters.” Another pause, this one filled with a heavy sigh. “When I saw her, I was sure it was her. I wanted to rip her heart out and I wanted to see the sword burn with light once more when she held it. I am not sure what I would have done had I had her within my grasp.”
“And now?”
“She is not the one. I do not know whether to be glad or grieved that I must continue to carry this burden.”
Raef closed his eyes but Visna’s voice came to him again out of the darkness.
“What will you do?”
“Survive.”
Raef slept and the dreams that had plucked at the strings of his mind returned, this time with the weight of a heavy, suffocating snow. He was outside the walls of the Vestrhall, the smell of ashes sharp in his nostrils. There was blood everywhere, and on Raef most of all. Crows settled on the corpses, pecking half-frozen flesh. He tried to scare them off, but they stared at him with bottomless black eyes. And then he saw her. Siv, sprawled under the dark sky, eyes staring at nothing, her hair caked with the drying, sticky blood of other men. He reached for her but the crows drove him back, sharp talons and outstretched wings beating him away. He tore the head off of one and the rest, screaming, took to the sky, disappearing on black wings. The other bodies were gone now, only Siv remained. So pale. So empty of the life that had coursed through her. He felt a cold wind on his neck and turned, then staggered back as he saw the labyrinth of Jötunheim open up before him, twisted and cruel, forever bleak. And then he knew he was meant to choose between the punishment of staying beside Siv, so close to her and yet to never see her smile again, or reentering the labyrinth, never to return. He would not leave her again. He stretched out his hand to her cheek, but then he felt the labyrinth pull him in, sucking, reaching, devouring. And then it was gone.
Anuleif appeared, and the boy’s words of the future seemed to fall from the sky like bolts of lightning. Fear made Raef cower, but in time the lightning seemed less monstrous, less deadly, and Raef stepped from his hiding place and let the bolts strike the ground at his feet. And then he knew hope.
When he awoke, it was to shouting and the sun on the horizon. A pair of warriors dragged him to his feet and through the snow, and for a moment Raef was sure he was about to meet Griva’s knife, but then all was quiet and he was let go at the edge of the river. Vakre was given the same treatment. A man waited for them there, but it was not Fengar. He was unknown to Raef and he picked at dirt beneath his fingernails. He wore his hair long and his beard short and from his left ear hung a bead of glass. In the bright morning, it caught the sun. Raef was sure he had never seen him before, but there was something familiar about him, something that only grew more certain when he spoke.
“Lost your taste for battle, Skallagrim? I thought you to be at the Hammerling’s side.”
“I was. As Fengar promised to be.”
The man scowled. “Do not speak of promises. Speak instead the truth, and you might earn an easy death. Why do you skulk about in this corner of Vannheim? What does the Hammerling want with you?
Raef thought quickly, glad to learn that his separation from Brandulf Hammerling was unknown. So too, then, would be his naming as king. “We were sent to treat with Torleif of Axsellund.”
“What then?”
“That was to depend upon the manner of our reception.”
The long-haired man nodded as though Raef had imparted a piece of wisdom, the glass bead dancing with his movement. “Go on.”
“If Torleif agreed to give the Hammerling his oath, we were to remain and gather the Axsellund warriors. If not,” Raef took a stab in the dark, “we were ordered to do the same in Bergoss.”
Again, the man nodded. “Strange that you would make such a journey alone,” he said.
“The Hammerling hoped we might travel undetected.”
“Then he sent no gifts, no treasures to sway the lords he hoped to win?”
“Those were to come later,” Raef said, aware that his lie might unravel at any moment. “We rode swift and light. Speed was our aim.”
“And where were you to meet the Hammerling with your newfound spears?”
Names and places flashed through Raef’s mind, but he abandoned them all and held his tongue lest he betray himself.
“Lost your tongue?” The man cocked his head at Raef and grinned. He was missing a tooth just right of center. “I wager you will sing to us soon enough. But let me ask you one more question, Skallagrim, one question that is not the king’s.” He leaned in close and Raef could smell his foul breath. “Did my cursed brother still draw breath when you left the Hammerling?”
“To answer this, I would need your name,” Raef said.
The man grinned again and the glass bead twinkled. “He calls himself the lord of Kolhaugen, but I am the true lord.”
“Then you are Alvar, twin of Eirik,” Raef said, at last recognizing the hint of Eirik’s voice in the other brother.
Alvar of Kolhaugen spat. “I am Alvar, son of the last king.”
“He lives,” Raef said.
Alvar scowled. “By Odin’s will, not for long.”
“Even in Valhalla, all the pretty women will smile at him and avoid you.” Vakre’s voice was sharp and teasing, a sudden spark that reddened Alvar’s face. The lord of Kolhaugen lashed out, striking Vakre across the cheek. Vakre managed a grin, though Raef could see blood on his tongue. “You must hate him, always the fortunate favorite, beloved by your father, admired by every village girl at the long tables.” Again Alvar’s fist cracked across Vakre’s jaw, but the lord of Kolhaugen did not strike a third time.
Alvar fought to control his anger. “Best not mar that pretty face before Griva gets his hands on you. He likes a clean surface to work on.” Alvar forced a laugh and turned, leaving them alone with their guards.
Vakre spit and ran his tongue over his teeth. “I heard a rumor once that the twins of Kolhaugen were ever at each other’s throats, that Alvar had always loathed his brother and writhed in a stew of jealousy.” Vakre wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Raef could see a smear of blood on the cloth. “Seems the rumor was true.”
“We are not winning any friends, Vakre,” Raef said. “Would you stab a weakened spear at an angry bear?”
Vakre stared at Raef for a moment. Raef saw something distant and wild there. “If I want the bear dead, I would.” Vakre blinked and seemed more himself. “If they are going to kill me, I want them to earn it.”
A chorus of voices reached them and they turned to look east, down the valley. At first, Raef could see nothing, but then he heard horses and more shouting, and soon the river camp was crowded over with new faces. Men had come with the first rays of the sun, traveling through the night to swell Fengar’s numbers. Chief among them was a man the sight of whom made Vakre’s face darken with hatred, for his uncle, Romarr, lord of Finnmark, had come to Vannheim.
EIGHT
“You. I thought you dead.”
Romarr, lord of Finnmark, had been deep in conversation with a captain when he stopped in his tracks and drew back at sight of Vakre. In the confusion of the arrival of the new warriors, the prisoners had gone unnoticed at first and Raef was sure he saw a burst of fear, quickly masked, in the lord of Finnmark’s face.
“And wished it, I know,” Vakre said, chin held high, contempt in every line of his face.
“I should bleed you now, right where you stand.” Romarr’s hand twitched to his scabbard, but his feet stayed rooted to the stones. “I should have known I would find you hiding in a useless corner of the world such as this, choosing to save your own skin rather than stand your place in the shield wall.” Only then did Romarr take in Raef’s presence. He barked out a laugh. “And the lost lord of Vannheim with you, nephew. How fitting. I will see to your deaths myself. It is time you joined your mother in Hel.”
