‘No-one would have found Mjøllnir without you,’ insisted Knut, ‘and the way you faced up to Loki in Jarnvidr – both of you!’ he added, turning to Mithrén. ‘Everyone’s talking about it, here!’ and he raised the horn again.
‘Really?’ replied Sharp Axe, genuinely taken aback and a little abashed to hear this news. ‘I thought that everyone in Valhalla would be too busy, doing… er… whatever it is you all do, up here… what do you do, exactly?’
‘Ah… that’s a good question!’ smiled Knut, after finishing off the current contents of his drinking-horn; then he looked enquiringly, firstly at Sharp Axe, then at Mithrén. ‘Now… who’s for another drink?’
*
Valhalla served a very specific purpose other than, of course, to provide accommodation for deserving, deceased Viking warriors – and the chief beneficiaries of this function would, one day, be the Aesir and Vanir.
Every evening, the great hall of Valhalla rang with the joyful, exuberant and invariably drunken sounds of warriors really letting themselves unwind, after a hard day’s work. During daylight hours, the vast fields of Valhalla were home to a most incredible training-session, the likes of which could not be seen anywhere else in the Nine Worlds.
Each day, Valhalla’s warriors enacted battles, as if a full-scale war were actually taking place: battle strategies were devised and employed; weapon techniques were perfected; fighting-fitness was honed; many warriors were slaughtered and, then, came back to life shortly afterwards, to re-join the action.
The objective of this most audacious of military exercises was simple and straightforward: to prepare for Ragnarøkkr. The warriors who trained on Valhalla’s fields during the day and indulged in boisterous revelry in its great hall throughout the night would, at some unknown point in the future, fight side by side with Aesir, Vanir, Valkyries and any other race in the Nine Worlds which Odin could persuade to take his side.
The precise date of Ragnarøkkr might have been uncertain, but who the enemy would be when it came was in no doubt whatsoever: it was the Frost Giants and Fire Giants who would face Odin and his allies, in the battle of all battles.
Knut Cod Killer recounted all of this to Sharp and Mithrén in calm, matter-of-fact tones, pausing only occasionally to refill his drinking-horn with ale, then despatch the contents rapidly and with undisguised pleasure. His visitors listened, without interrupting the old warrior, even when he started to tell them something they already knew well.
‘So, by thwarting Loki’s evil plans to kill Baldr, you’ve managed to buy us some more time – time in which to ready ourselves for the onset of Ragnarøkkr!’ concluded Knut, addressing both his visitors.
‘Well, it’s not as if we set out to save the Nine Worlds,’ protested Sharp Axe, feeling awkward that he was being made into a hero when he felt he hardly deserved it.
Knut, however, would have none of it. ‘Oh, now, you’re just too modest,’ he chided. ‘From what I hear – and I hear a lot,’ he added with another wink, this time directed at Mithrén, ‘you’ve both risked your lives, all along the way, to do the right thing… and no one could ask more of you than that!’
‘Hmm… ’ sighed Sharp Axe, feeling no less awkward for Knut’s counter-protestations, ‘... he won’t give up, though, you know… Loki.’
‘No, perhaps not... ’ conceded Knut reluctantly, as he surveyed the contents of his drinking-horn and briefly considered another refill, before looking Sharp Axe in the eye again, ‘... but he’s met his match in you two. And when Ragnarøkkr comes,’ went on the old campaigner, clenching a fist defiantly, ‘the warriors of Valhalla will be ready and waiting for Loki and his comrades!’
Sharp Axe smiled admiringly at his grandfather, although he could not share the old man’s optimism. Knut, now considering the subject closed, picked up the ale barrel, squinted into it to assess how much ale remained, quickly estimated that there was not enough left to allow him to fill the horn easily by the previously-employed method of plunging it into the liquid, so lifted the barrel to bring its rim to his mouth. Carefully, he tilted the wooden vessel at an ever-steepening angle in an attempt to relieve it of what was left of if precious contents. At first, nothing happened, so Knut steepened the angle of tilt further still; then, quite suddenly, he was hit in the face with a torrent of ale, completely soaking him from forehead to waist.
Mithrén bit her lip; Sharp Axe pretended not to have noticed; Knut shook the excess beer from his face and hair, as a dog might have done after a walk in the rain and said, rather earnestly, ‘It does that sometimes,’ then put down the near-empty barrel carefully onto the kitchen floor. Immediately he did so, he began to chuckle to himself; after a few moments, he began to laugh joyously, uproariously and at length; it was a laugh Sharp Axe remembered well and now realised he missed painfully; it was a contagious laugh and the grandson could not help but follow the grandfather’s lead. Not to be outdone, Mithrén threw back her head and matched their laughter; she had witnessed countless more amusing sights, but she sensed Sharp Axe’s happiness at being reunited with his grandfather, she was beginning to feel rather light-headed due to her body’s unfamiliarity with alcohol and, pragmatic as ever, she thought that the longer someone could keep the laughter going, the more chance there was that Knut might just forget to go off in search of another barrel of that disgusting ale.
*
‘Well,’ wheezed Knut, after what seemed like an age, slapping his thigh with one hand, then wiping the tears from his eyes with the other, ‘I suppose Odin will be making an appearance soon. Should we go back into the hall to see Odin… or shall I open another barrel of ale?’
‘Odin!’ replied Mithrén, with heartfelt conviction and almost indecent haste.
If his lady guest’s response had disappointed Knut, he did not show it: he merely smiled, nodded, got to his feet, picked up the empty barrel and deposited it with a cluster of equally-empty barrels behind the same door from where he had procured it. Knut waved a polite farewell to Andhrimnir (who, once again, was so busy that he hardly seemed to notice), then beckoned to Sharp Axe and Mithrén to follow him out of the kitchen, back into the chaos of the great hall.
Knut made his way to the part of the table where Sharp Axe and Mithrén had found him. Here, he made some space for the two of them, by pushing a group of drunken revellers along the bench which served as a seat, then indicated to his visitors that they should take their place at the table. Knut leapt onto the tabletop with an agility which belied his advanced years, scrambled across it and sat down on the bench opposite Sharp Axe and Mithrén.
Shortly afterwards, a line of Valkyries appeared from the direction of the kitchen, carrying the familiar, enormous wooden trays, this time stacked high with plates of meat which Sharp Axe presumed, correctly, to be the remains of the perpetually-unfortunate Saehrimnir. The Valkyries then distributed the fare at various points up and down the table. Knut deftly gathered up three meat-laden plates, with the practised skill of one well used to fending for himself at Valhalla’s table and slid two of them over to his guests.
Sharp Axe and Mithrén sampled the proffered food and each had to admit that it tasted surprisingly good; Andhrimnir’s frantic efforts in the kitchen had not been in vain. As the visitors ate their way through the generous portions of boar and potatoes (with Mithrén politely resisting the urge to air her thoughts on the importance of a well-balanced diet) and sipped at the horns of ale which had been thrust into their hands by their hospitable neighbours, Knut talked to them about the warriors with whom he had become acquainted since his arrival, their exploits in Midgard and their kinship in Valhalla.
At some point, very late in the evening, Odin made a brief appearance at the head of the table, too far away to be seen clearly by either Sharp Axe or Mithrén but, by then, they had both eaten and drunk so much that they were too sleepy to have cared much, anyway. Shortly afterwards and exhausted by the momentous and emotional events of the day, they joined Knut and his compatriots, slumped across the surfac
e of the dining-table and fell into a satisfyingly-deep, drunken sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Wolf Slayer
Gullinkambi’s raucous tones sounded loudly and clearly as dawn arrived in Valhalla; they were welcomed by absolutely nobody. Each morning, Valhalla’s fastidious rooster crowed his wake-up call for all to hear and, under different circumstances, the residents might have considered the distinctive reveille as something of a service: informing them that the time had come to rise, face the day head-on and set promptly about their allotted tasks, such as battlefield training and weaponry classes, with vim and vigour.
Unfortunately, circumstances on Valhalla mornings never usually varied: each morning, everybody in the great hall woke with a hangover to end all hangovers. Each member of Valhalla’s elite band of warriors could happily have strangled the life out of Gullinkambi in mid-crow, if the wily old bird had not known better than to position himself at a safe distance from those he brought back to reluctant consciousness.
This particular morning in Valhalla was slightly different from all other mornings in Valhalla, however, in that the great hall was home to two guests who would not, normally, have been present: a human warrior and his Light Elf maiden bride-to-be, neither of whom had had to undergo the usual entry requirement of being killed honourably. At that precise moment, however, Sharp Axe might have been forgiven for thinking he was in the process of suffering a horrible, painful and lingering death.
‘W… where… am I?’ he groaned, groggily and with bleary eyes, having just been rudely wrenched from his sleep by an unworldly noise, the like of which he had never heard before and which, with all his heart, he hoped he would never have to hear again. Sharp Axe’s head had been supported throughout the night by his left arm which, as a result of being trapped between head and table surface, had lost all feeling. As he attempted to massage the numbness out of it, Mithrén, who had fallen asleep next to Sharp Axe in a similar and equally-uncomfortable fashion, raised her head, squinted in the general direction of her intended, moaned as she became aware of a pulsating headache and a numbness in her own arm and, finally, lowered her forehead onto the table surface, muttering something in a language which Sharp Axe did not recognise. He thought, inasmuch as he could think at all, that what he had heard had probably been a series of carefully-selected, appropriate ancient curses, in a near-forgotten Elvish tongue and, if Sharp Axe had been in the right frame of mind to ask Mithrén about it and she had been al all inclined to answer, he would have been delighted to find that his theory had been correct.
The next voice of which Sharp Axe became aware was his grandfather’s: more comprehensible but equally unwelcome. Knut was suffering much like his grandson but, by now, was well-used to Valhalla hangovers.
‘Good morning!’ he bawled at his visitors and thumped the table forcefully for good measure, which caused Mithrén’s head to bounce upwards off its surface and fall back onto it, with a rather painful-sounding thud. The elf maiden raised her head, this time of her own accord and did not look terribly pleased.
‘Good morning!’ repeated Knut, either blissfully unaware of Mithrén’s icy, disapproving glare or fully prepared to ignore it. ‘Ready for breakfast?’
Breakfast was the thing furthest in all the Nine Worlds from the minds of Sharp Axe and Mithrén at that moment but, not wishing to hurt his grandfather’s feelings, Sharp Axe made the considerable effort of asking what it would comprise.
‘Co – ’ began Knut, but Mithrén interrupted.
‘Cold… boar,’ she groaned.
‘That’s right!’ shouted Knut, grinning, hugely impressed with Mithrén’s knowledge of Valhalla cuisine.
Mithrén released a couple more ancient Elvish curses and placed her head back on the top of the table.
‘Just the thing for the morning after the night bef – ’ began Knut but, once again, he was prevented from finishing, this time by the sudden appearance of someone behind Sharp Axe. Knut looked surprised, which caused Sharp Axe to look back suddenly over his shoulder, a manoeuvre which he regretted immediately since it brought on a bout of acute nausea and dizziness and did nothing to ease his severe headache.
When Sharp Axe was able to focus his vision, he saw an impatient-looking God of Thunder standing close by, with folded arms and tapping foot.
‘Time to go,’ said Thor, matter-of-factly and without the slightest trace of warmth.
‘Oh… ’ said Knut, desperately disappointed by this news, ‘… couldn’t they stay a little longer?’ he appealed, looking Thor in the eye. ‘We’re just about to have breakfast… then go out to the fields and… er… no… I… can see it’s, as you say, time to… go… ’
Thor’s withering gaze had left Knut in no doubt as to who was going to win this particular dispute.
‘Well… ’ said Knut, resigned now to an imminent farewell, ‘… I suppose this is… goodbye, then.’
Sharp Axe had not been prepared for such a sudden departure. Mithrén, to her credit and despite her delicate condition, had the presence of mind to act quickly: with some effort, she forced her slight frame onto the surface of the table, swung her legs across it to the other side, dismounted and embraced Knut warmly, as a new addition to a family might embrace a revered and much-loved patriarch. Then, she crossed the table again, walked up to Thor a little unsteadily, took one of his enormous arms in hers and made to guide him away.
The God of Thunder, wishing to make it clear that he still commanded a certain degree of authority over the situation, stood his ground.
‘It’s time to go,’ he repeated, just as coldly as before.
Mithrén, unimpressed and more than capable of assuming her own air of authority, looked up into Thor’s face and engaged his eyes determinedly.
‘Sharp Axe is saying goodbye to his grandfather,’ she pointed out, stressing the keywords to help the Thunder God with any potential difficulties he might otherwise have experienced with understanding her point. Thor appeared unmoved; Mithrén went for the kill. ‘That’s the same grandfather, by the way, whom Odin decreed Sharp Axe should visit… as a way of recognising his success in resisting Loki’s attempts to get his hands on a certain important document… when the Aesir and Vanir were truly desperate for some help… ’
Several stirring warriors, seated either side of where Mithrén had been sitting, now began to take an interest in the conversation.
‘… Help,’ she continued, mercilessly, ‘which the Aesir and Vanir needed as a result of their arriving a little too late in Jarnvidr, because… well… need I go on?’
Thor, becoming aware that he risked being humiliated in the presence of Valhalla warriors who held him in the highest esteem for his courage, his considerable fighting prowess, his apparent invincibility, his capacity for all popular 10th Century alcoholic beverages and, not least, his punctuality, took stock of the situation and rapidly came to the conclusion that he should cut his losses and allow himself to be led away by the diminutive and infernally-irritating elf maiden, currently positioned some distance below him.
Immediately following Thor’s rather ignominious exit and forgetting, momentarily, his own considerable discomfort, Sharp Axe hauled his frame over the table and stood facing his beloved grandfather.
‘Er… I just… wanted… to say… ’ he started, awkwardly, wishing that his head could have been a little clearer and that he had had more preparation time, ‘… thank you for… all those stories – they’ve been really helpful... and sorry that tree fell on you the way it did and – ’
Knut pulled Sharp Axe into a hug.
‘Our time together on Midgard was short,’ said Knut, wisely, as he crushed his grandson affectionately, ‘but our love was – and remains – strong!’
A few painful, air-starved moments later, Sharp Axe felt Knut’s powerful hold on him relax; they each took half a step back and looked at each other.
‘I have you to thank… ’ continued Knut, raising a hand and sweeping it slowly from le
ft to right, to indicate the great hall around him, ‘… for all of this… and I know you’ll be back here, one day… oh, yes, I’m sure of it… if anyone is destined to secure his place in Valhalla, Erik… Sharp Axe… it is you!’
‘Granddad… ’ croaked Sharp Axe, finding that saying a proper goodbye to his grandfather was far more difficult than he had expected it would be, ‘… look after yourself… when Ragnarøkkr comes.’
‘Me?’ laughed Knut, taking another half-step back and piercing Sharp Axe with his mischievous gaze. ‘I’m indestructible!’
The two continued to look at each other. ‘At least… ’ went on Knut, raising an eyebrow and grinning wistfully, ‘… as long as there are no trees around to fall on me.’
They embraced again and Sharp Axe felt, reluctantly, that he should take his leave without saying another word, or he would risk spoiling a memorable moment.
*
The latest wolf-hunting expedition was well underway, in the woods close to Grimstad.
At the head of the small group of hunters marched, with some reluctance, Fearless Wolf Slayer, in whose step there was a noticeable lack of spring. Just behind him walked an equally-reluctant Aldaron, who was present only because he felt he lacked sufficient knowledge of the local geography to attempt to find his way back home to Álfheimr. Next came Fynn the Fortunate, whose reputation for bringing good luck to any situation would, in Fearless’s eyes, be seriously damaged if he, Fearless, eventually ended up being savaged by a wolf, as seemed more likely with each new hunting-trip. Finally, bringing up the rear, strode an indecently- and uncharacteristically-cheerful Harald Wolf Wrestler, whose good humour was not entirely unrelated to the ever-rising probability that his less-favoured son would, at some time in the not-too-distant future, be forced to admit that his new name – the very name out of which Harald felt he had been cheated in his youth – had somehow been acquired in a less-than-deserving manner. Harald did not need or even wish to know the details; he cared only for the inevitable confession from his son.
Asgard Page 9
