by T L Greylock
A pair of wolves struck up a distant song, their voices carrying in the empty, windless night. Raef closed his eyes and listened until they grew quiet.
“I do not have enough men. Twenty-one swords will not win the walls of Vannheim.” Raef leaned back and looked at the stars, seeing the shapes of the bear and the bow and the longship, trying to imagine the night sky empty of stars. “But time is against me. If I wait, gather more men, strengthen my shield wall, the Einherjar and the giants may go to war before I am ready. Ragnarök may come while I sharpen my sword in this lonely valley, and my cousin will sit in my father’s chair while the world of men falls.”
The stars listened to Raef in cold silence and the kin closed her eyes, leaving Raef to hope that the light of a new day might give him answers.
The newly risen sun showed Raef one thing. The kin was dying.
Her eyes were dull, the sunset colors muted and listless. She seemed unwilling to rise, to stretch her wings, and the heartbeat that had seemed so strong under the moon was now slow and hesitant.
“Tell me what to do, skeiflyng,” Raef said, whispering her true name. His toes were numb with the cold, his hands longed for the warmth of a fire, but all was forgotten when he understood the extent of the kin’s weakness. “It is not fair, that you have saved my life so many times, but have come to me too late so that I cannot save yours.”
She responded to the sound of his voice by lifting her head off the rock, but only for a moment.
Raef felt tears sting his eyes, tears of frustration mixed with grief. “Must I lose you, too? Am I to be stripped away until I have nothing left?” Raef pulled her head onto his lap and bent over it. “I do not know how much more I can bear.”
Raef stayed with her, unmoving, until the end. She lingered through the day and endured the bitter watches of the night, and she saw the rising and passing of the sun one last time. Only when the mountains grew purple and drew tight their mantles of deep shadows in the fading twilight of the second day did she breathe her last.
Raef, his hand on her chest, felt her heart go still, felt her shudder into quiet death. He kissed her between the eyes. “Sleep now, beautiful one, and dream of your home in the sky.”
As if heralding the smoke-colored kin’s death, a coil of clouds wrapped themselves around Raef’s ridge and snow began to fall in thick, heavy flakes that soon coated Raef’s shoulders and hair. He might have lingered, might have watched the snow cover her body, might have waited until the storm passed and descended to the valley with the morning light, but there was nothing to keep him.
“Enough. Enough,” Raef said to the snow and the grey eyelids that covered the sunset eyes. “I have been gone long enough.” And so he trudged down from the ridge, through the tree-covered slopes, across the rushing, snow-capped river, and up to the eagle’s nest, arriving dressed in frost and snow to face the bewildered faces of those he had left behind. The men watched as he went to stand by the fire, he who had flown away on a creature of legend and returned on foot two nights and two days later.
It was Vakre who came to him, a question in his eyes, as Raef felt the heat of the fire sink into his chilled skin.
“I am well,” Raef said in answer to what Vakre did not ask. “I have not eaten nor slept since last you saw me, but I am well enough.” The words, though, seemed to sap him of what strength remained in his muscles, and he was glad to feel Vakre’s strong arm take hold of his. “She may have been the last of her kind and now she is dead. She came here for me and I think it killed her.” He had left his grief on the mountain, locked it away so that he might only look forward, ever forward, and not back where despair waited for him.
Raef looked into Vakre’s eyes. “But I know how to win the Vestrhall.”
The thought had come to him on the ridge. He could not have said when, but by the time the kin had breathed her last, it was firmly planted in his mind, an ember, a delicate thing that he must protect and cherish, something secret that would slip away if he did not take care.
“Rest,” Vakre said. “Eat. And then tell me.”
THIRTEEN
The ship had been left to the whims of the tide, rising and falling on the slick green rocks, sharing a berth with pieces of driftwood that bumped ceaselessly up against the shore. The hull bore a few scrapes and scars, visible now that she was in low water, but from Raef’s distance she appeared to be seaworthy. High tide would tell.
Vakre was already climbing over the sheer strake, and Raef stepped from rock to rock until he, too, could pull himself over the side and onto the wide, smooth planks of the deck. The funeral pyre meant for Visna was still standing, a forlorn thing dusted with snow, and Vakre set to work disassembling it in order to clear the deck. Raef walked to the stern to examine the rudder and was glad to find it in working order. Together, they lowered the grey sail and bundled it up to carry back to the nest to be greased with animal fats as protection against the wind and snow.
“No oars,” Vakre said. “But we have plenty of pines to work with.”
“The Allfather has given us good ropes,” Raef said, fingering the fine cords made of seal skin. He knelt by the mast and opened the ballast hold. It was filled with a few large, flat stones and one fine iron anchor.
“She is small,” Vakre said.
“She is enough.” Raef caught Vakre’s glance. “She has to be enough.”
“And what of her?” Vakre gestured over Raef’s shoulder.
Visna stood yet on land, reluctant to venture closer to the ship that had carried her from Asgard. Her arms were hugged tight across her chest and even from a distance Raef could see her brow was furrowed by a frown. She had followed Raef from the nest willingly enough when he told her he meant to claim the ship from the tides, but the sight of it had stilled her curiosity.
“Everything hinges on her,” Raef said.
The hot fat glistened on Raef’s palms as he worked his hands across the weathered woolen sail. Down in the valley, men were at work felling the six young spruces he had chosen to fashion oars from, and still others were maneuvering the small ship off the rocks now that the tide was up. Theirs was a cold, bone-chilling task, and they would return soaked and grumbling, but the fire waited and Vakre had promised each man who braved the icy fjord the best cuts of meat from the pair of deer they had taken that morning. As for Raef, he would have preferred to work with bear grease, but the deer fat would do, and he was glad of the labor.
Rufnir worked from the opposite end of the sail, his one hand useless for anchoring ships or cutting trees, but sure and practiced at the job at hand. They coated the sail in silence, each caught up in the rhythm of a task they had first learned as children, and by the time Dvalarr returned to report that the trees were down, there was only a small section left ungreased. Leaving Rufnir to finish, Raef wiped the fat from his hands and descended into the valley to show them how to make oars.
They had few woodworking tools between them, but Dvalarr had produced a file from a pouch at his belt, and another man a chisel, and Raef had converted a borrowed knife into a makeshift draw knife that he could use to shape the wood. The trunks were split into pieces Raef could work with and the bark was removed, and then Raef settled down on a stump with a long piece of smooth spruce and began the slow task of drawing forth an oar from the wood.
For two days Raef worked the wood, leaving the valley only to sleep a few hours each night, returning with the sun. He ate when Vakre brought him meals, drank from the river when he was thirsty, and inhaled the scent of spruce with each and every breath. In the end, he had six crude oars, rough things made from rough tools that he might have scorned once. But they would take him the length of the fjord if the wind failed to fill the sail and for that they were most dear.
With Dvalarr’s help, the oars were carried to the nest and set before the fire, alongside the sail, thick now with cold fat.
“She will hold ten oars,” Dvalarr said, brushing the wood dust from his hands. “Should we not
make more?”
“Four more oars would go to waste, as would the time spent to make them.”
Dvalarr nodded, accepting this, but there was confusion on his face for Raef had shared his plan only with Vakre. The Crow moved away, his shaven head bristling with new hair, and Raef looked across the nest, through the mire of smoke and sparks, and found Visna.
The Valkyrie was watching him, arms wrapped around her knees, the sword that was no longer hers set by her feet. The blade was unsheathed, and though the day was bright, the metal was dull and dim, as though a darkness was buried deep within it.
Raef approached Visna and held out his hand, but did not offer any words until she, with hesitation in her eyes, took it and came to her feet.
“Will you come with me?”
“Where?”
“To my home by the sea under the setting sun.”
Visna frowned and Raef led her to the edge of the nest.
“She floats.” Raef pointed down at the fjord. The small ship was anchored just off shore, motionless on the smooth surface of the water
“You cannot think to make her into a warship. She will not hold even this many men.”
“I do not intend to make war with her. And she need carry only six.”
Visna’s frown deepened, her blue eyes dark and her brows drawn close. “You mean to sail to your home, to your cousin, and then what? Throw yourself on his mercy?”
“I mean to make an offering.”
“Of peace?”
Raef felt the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile. “I will explain, but you must promise to listen to all I have to say before giving me your answer.” Visna nodded, though her face was now shadowed with suspicion, and so Raef unraveled the knot of his plan to her.
She listened in silence as he had asked, but her face grew tempestuous with each word, and when he had finished speaking, she was rigid with fury.
“No.” Visna spat out the word with contempt. “I will not.” She turned on her heel, but Raef reached out and pulled her back. She lashed out as though to strike him, but Raef caught her wrist and forced her arm down. Visna snarled but went still. “You would dishonor me and complete my father’s punishment. I should never have trusted you.” She twisted away and this time Raef let her go, but not without calling after her.
“Dishonor, no. I would give you fame. I promised you the world of men would know your name, that the skalds would sing of you. Take this chance and live forever, or cower and die unremembered.” Raef’s words went unanswered. She did not turn, did not slow her step, but Raef had not expected her pride to give way in that moment. That would come later, if it came at all, and only after she went to war with herself.
And so Raef waited. Outwardly, he was patient. He ate a meal with the men. He helped fill water skins from the river. He sharpened his sword. But on the inside Raef was a knot of tension and he could think of nothing but Visna and whether the words he had chosen might sway her.
She came to him at last with the rising of the moon. A low, sad song rose up from one of the voices around the fire, a song that spoke of a lonely death far from home. The voice was joined by two more and the song swirled with the smoke as Visna approached. Raef was seated at the edge of the firelight and she was nothing more than a whisper of boots on stone. Raef stood to face her, questions threatening to flood from his mouth, but he held his tongue and waited.
“You will need to carry these for me.” Visna held out the sword of dark steel, waited until Raef grasped the hilt, and then plucked a knife from her belt and rested that in Raef’s other palm. Then she was gone as quickly and quietly as she had come.
FOURTEEN
Raef closed his eyes and listened to the beating of his heart in the dark. The five men were silent except for their breathing and the cramped space had grown warm with the heat of their bodies and the smell of their sweat. Raef shifted his shoulder, trying to maneuver away from Vakre’s knee, which dug into his ribs, but doing so pressed his face up against Dvalarr’s boot, so Raef shifted back again and focused on the sound of the water around him.
As a child, more than once that sound had lulled him to sleep after a long day on the waves and under the sun, but there would be no sleeping now.
Above Raef, a foot tapped once, twice, and then the faint glow of firelight trickled down to cast the faces around Raef in shadow in place of darkness. Though he could see none of it, Raef knew well enough what the scene above looked like.
The torch at the prow had been lit, sending light jumping over the small waves of the dark fjord. Ahead of them, the shore would be growing closer, though it would be hard to see where the water ended and the land began. But someone, somewhere on that land, would be watching and be first to witness something astonishing.
The eyes on land would see a small boat gliding across the deep waters, they would see the torch, a fearless beacon calling to the shore, blazing at the prow, but most of all, they would see a figure standing by the mast.
She would be small at first, but golden, and then, as the ship drew ever closer, the firelight would pale and grow dim in the shadow of her radiance, for Visna the Valkyrie had come to the Vestrhall.
Grim-faced and hard-eyed, Visna had donned the golden gown in a cove out of sight of the walls of the Vestrhall just as the sun slipped below the horizon. She had shivered a little, bereft of furs and cloak, but she had refused the woolen blanket that Raef had offered her, instead throwing back her shoulders and raising her chin in rebellion against the cold. She had raked her fingers through her hair, then swiftly plaited a few tresses and pulled them back from her face. Last of all, she slipped the rings on her fingers and settled the heavy necklace over her slender collarbones. The arm ring she had worn since her arrival aboard the funeral ship now came off over her wrist and she had handed it to Raef with reluctance. He had not asked her to remove it and he could see the sorrow it caused her, but she had insisted.
A close inspection would reveal dirt at the hem of the dress and a slight tear in one of the sleeves, but in darkness and lit by fire, Visna would be a vision to slacken jaws.
“I do not need to tell you what you look like,” Raef had said.
“Must I smile shyly and look down at my feet?” The scorn had been plain in Visna’s voice.
“No,” Raef had said. “You must be extraordinary and irresistible and unlike anything he has ever seen. Be fierce and proud and they will believe you have been sent from the gods.”
Doubt crept into Visna’s face. “Will your cousin believe?”
“He will want to believe it, and he will want you, and in the end that is all that matters. Consume him with desire so that he does not think twice about a small boat left behind in the dark.”
And so they drifted to the shore, their small ship bringing an offering, a bride sent from Asgard for Isolf Valbrand.
The first voice rang out across the water to challenge the boat’s sudden and strange appearance, and Raef, tucked into the corner of the ballast hold along with Vakre, Dvalarr, Rufnir, and Eyvind, felt that challenge in his bones. There was no turning back now.
“Name yourself, stranger.”
Above them, all was silent on deck for a moment and Raef held his breath as he listened for Visna’s answer.
“Where is Isolf Valbrand?” Her voice was clear and strong and Raef could hear the defiance in it. “Where is he who shall have my heart?”
The silence that followed this was even longer and Raef could imagine the confusion among Isolf’s men.
When an answer did come, it was a new voice, deep and commanding, but not without hesitation.
“Again we say, name yourself.”
“I am Light-Bringer, I am Sun-Singer, I am Storm-Rider. I have seen Valhalla and the heart of Yggdrasil, and I come from Odin, Allfather.”
By this time, Raef could hear commotion on the pair of docks that jutted out into the fjord between the walls of the water entrance.
“Do you come in peace, lady?”
The deep voice was perplexed now.
“I come leashed to fate and with purpose that shall not be denied. Bring me Isolf Valbrand.”
“Will you not come ashore, lady?” The warrior’s voice was full of genuine doubt and deference.
“I will wait and you will not touch me.” Visna let a snarl taint the edge of her smooth voice and Raef could imagine the men on the docks with readied ropes to capture the ship. A moment later, her foot tapped once more against the deck, a signal Raef took to mean that Isolf was being fetched from the top of the hill.
In his mind’s eye, Raef took the path up the hill with the messenger, passing the blacksmith’s forge, the small market hung with drying skins and the ever present smell of smoked fish, up and up to the stone steps that led to the door of his father’s hall. His hall. It seemed an interminable wait before at last he heard the voice he had been waiting for, the voice that had taunted him in the darkness as his village burned and his men died, and then taunted him in his dreams ever since.
“Lady, will you not come in from the cold?” Raef could hear the smile in Isolf’s voice. His cousin was pleased with what he saw.
“Are you Isolf Valbrand, the great war leader?”
“I am.” The smile was growing wider.
“Then I bring you greetings from the Allfather.”
“And what does the Allfather say?”
“He says the lord of Vannheim has earned more than a wooden chair and the company of savage warriors. He says the lord of Vannheim must rise above the rest and have a woman worthy of him.”
“The Allfather is generous. Let me welcome you to Vannheim.”
The boat shifted slightly and Raef heard Visna walk to the sheer strake. Then came the sounds of rope securing the small ship in place. He heard her climb over and land gently on the dock.
