by Matt Larkin
Torch in one hand, curved sword in the other, Afzal bellowed and rushed the sorcerer. Hervor pushed forward as fast as she could, but the Serklander reached the Niflung first. The sorcerer spun, hand trailing mist like a whip. It wrapped around Afzal’s legs and swept them out from under him, sending him tumbling to the ground.
The Niflung leaned in to impale Afzal, but Hervor lunged forward and knocked his sword aside.
As Afzal struggled to rise, the Niflung spun, sweeping his sword in tight arcs that drove her backward. The sorcerer twisted, struck at Afzal, who barely got his sword up to block.
The Niflung moved just fast enough to keep her crewmate from being able to attain his feet. Afzal gave over trying and swept his sword at the sorcerer’s legs. The sorcerer responded by whipping mist around into a disk that froze like ice and blocked the attack, even as he struck at Hervor with his blade.
She parried on Tyrfing, falling back.
At full strength, she could have fought him, maybe.
He didn’t try to block Tyrfing with the mist. Maybe his magic could not turn a runeblade. It had pinned Afzal though.
“Use the torch!” she shouted at him.
Afzal did, swinging the flame. It dispersed the mist shield, forcing the sorcerer back a step. Hervor pressed forward, hewing with Tyrfing with all the strength she had. Her enemy fell back farther, finally allowing Afzal to rise.
It was a brief respite. A wave of the Niflung’s hand sent a wall of mist surging at them. Hervor cleaved at it, and it broke apart before Tyrfing. Afzal, however, hurtled backward. His torch skittered along the ice before falling into the river.
The sorcerer laughed. “You should have taken my offer when I made it. But I offer you one more time, little girl. Kill the boy, and give me the sword.”
“Go to Hel.”
The man shrugged and advanced on her. “The only thing your companions will find of you is your head. I will leave it for them.”
Lacking a retort, Hervor settled for a glare.
Beyond the sorcerer, a torch burned through mist. He jerked his head in that direction, as if drawn by the burning vapors. Then the Niflung turned back to Hervor with a sneer. “Just one more of your friends who will die for you, girl.”
That torch touched the ground, and a line of flame erupted, surging out in an arc that ran all the way to the river. Mist recoiled and leapt away, almost seeming to shriek in pain. The flame illuminated Starkad, who was drawing his second sword and advancing.
The Niflung spun on him.
“I’m not like the others,” Starkad said. “I know what you are, sorcerer.”
Now the sorcerer waggled a finger at Hervor, who stood panting. The promise of a return. Then he turned back to Starkad and jerked his free hand forward. From it flew an icicle the size of an arrow.
It shot for Starkad like a flung spear.
Starkad cleaved it aside with one sword and continued advancing.
The sorcerer flung another shard of ice and another, a barrage of them. Starkad leapt over one and cut aside others, ever closing in.
Impossibly, the barest hint of tension now laced the sorcerer’s moves. He arced his hand, sending a whip of mist at Starkad the way he had at Afzal. Starkad jumped over it, flipped on the air, and swung with both swords at once. The Niflung parried one and took a deep gash to the face with the other.
Afzal was struggling to rise.
Starkad whipped his swords around in lightning-fast arcs the Niflung barely parried. In a few moves, the sorcerer had gashes on his arms, legs. Starkad was a storm of death. Hervor had never seen aught like it.
Thump thump.
Tyrfing. It wasn’t enough for someone else to kill her foe. She had to do it, or the runeblade would not be satisfied. Even now, it tugged on her arm, tried to drag her to Afzal. Hervor grabbed her wrist and pulled back.
“No. No. No.” Rather than risk being forced to kill the boy, she hurled herself back at the sorcerer.
Starkad had earned wounds as well. He was bleeding from his temple and from one shoulder. It slowed his left sword ever so slightly, though he had driven the sorcerer back to the river.
Hervor dove into the fray, desperate to stop the pounding in her head. She swung at the sorcerer, whose face now shone with desperation. The Niflung ducked, swept his hand along the water.
Bits of the river froze in spikes that launched themselves at Starkad like a barrage of arrows.
The warrior fell back, dropped one sword as a spike hit him, though he cut aside many others. Hervor lunged forward with her full weight. The Niflung parried. She scraped her sword along his blade, then lurched forward. Tyrfing’s point sliced a thin line along the man’s chest.
He froze, looking down at the wound with more concern than he’d shown the half dozen Starkad had given him.
He knew.
He understood what the sword would do to him. The wound would not heal, would not close. That scratch would prove direr than had another blade gouged him deeply.
Hervor backed away. The pounding had stopped. Tyrfing had tasted blood. It knew death belonged to it now and that must have been enough. The sorcerer’s look of astonishment turned to a glare filled with more hatred than Hervor had known a man’s face could show.
He advanced on her, ice coiling around his arm.
Starkad leapt forward and hewed off one of the Niflung’s legs at the knee. Even as the sorcerer fell, Starkad spun on and lopped his head off.
At that, Starkad turned to stare first at her, then at Tyrfing, still glowing in her hand.
“Hel will still feast on your souls,” the sorcerer’s head said. “There is no escape from here.”
Both she and Starkad froze, turned slowly to face it.
Blood poured from the decapitated head, its eyes had begun to glaze over. “Anguish … without end.”
It said no more.
Hervor tried to scream but couldn’t get it past the lump in her throat.
22
In the moons she spent with Red-Eye’s Boys, Hervor had seen murder, rape, and all manner of human cruelty. She had since witnessed the burning, tormenting ghost of her own father. Somehow none of that quite compared to being cursed by the severed head of a sorcerer.
Such things were not possible.
They did not happen, save in fanciful skald’s tales.
The others had climbed down the slope and were arguing about what had happened. Hervor dropped to her knees by the river’s edge and splashed her face. The freezing water seemed to loosen the tightness that had settled around her chest.
She sucked down a long shuddering breath. She knew little of sorcery, save it was the domain of mad men and those more wicked than even bandits. But since claiming Tyrfing, two of these Niflungar—whoever they were—had come for her. They seemed able to meld with the mist and moreover, he had commanded it like a weapon.
Blessings of the dark goddess Hel?
Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her to her feet, spun her around. Starkad flung her away from the river and into the midst of the crew.
“You brought them here!”
Hervor grimaced and rose. She was damned sick of him. Instinct drove her to draw Tyrfing once again. But after what she’d just seen, that would prove suicidal.
Any doubt she’d had about Starkad’s prowess was gone.
Maybe he truly had received instruction from the war god himself. “I did not know these mist wielders still pursued me.”
Behind him, Orvar returned, leaning on the Axe’s shoulder. The sorcerer’s attack must have allowed him to escape his captors. But how would …
Starkad raised a finger, working his jaw as if so angry he could not form words. He shut his eyes a moment before he spoke. “You have drawn the ire of the Niflungar upon us. And you did not even think to warn us!”
Warn him? She wouldn’t trust Starkad to wash her damned clothes. “You seemed to handle the sorcerer well enough.”
“I was lucky. And if
we are very lucky, that was the only member of their kingdom to pursue us to Thule.” He looked around at the rest of the crew. “Because I do not relish the idea of facing more of them, especially not if they come in numbers. Would you care to fight three or five or ten such men?”
Hervor snapped her mouth shut, her retort dying on her tongue. Starkad called them a kingdom. She had not even considered they might come in numbers.
The fisherman’s wife, the widow of the man she killed, had cursed her to Hel.
And since then, these Niflungar had come after her. Was it merely for Tyrfing, or did they want to punish her for violating their domain on Samsey?
“So you’re telling me beetle-cocking sorcerers are here?” Ivar asked. “Men using … magic?” He looked at Afzal for some reason, as if the young man ought to be some expert.
Afzal raised an eyebrow at him. “The Art is a real thing, but I know naught of it.”
Orvar shrugged off from the Axe. “These mist sorcerers may or may not still be here. Someone else attacked me, and I barely got away. Vaettir, I think. They were taking me deeper into the island.”
Starkad glowered. “Perhaps these are nixies. Such vaettir are known to take men captive from time to time.”
“What are nixies?” Afzal asked.
Bragi pointed to the waters. “River mer.”
“Why would cocking vaettir want to—”
“I don’t know, Loud!” Starkad snapped. “Who knows what drives vaettir to do aught?” He spun back on Hervor. “We’ll deal with the vaettir soon. First though …” He stalked closer, blood-stained blade still in hand. “Someone in our midst has proved more liability than ally.”
“I might be dead, if not for her,” Afzal said.
“Peace, Starkad,” Orvar said, fixing Hervor with a long look that could have meant aught. “We have enough enemies.”
Starkad glared at Hervor a moment longer, then spat. “Fine. I say we go after these vaettir, follow the river as we can, and search for sign of them.”
Hervor ground her teeth. Now they were to risk their lives hunting river mer?
Odin was fucking with her; she knew he was.
But she still needed to kill Orvar. Moreover, Starkad seemed half ready to cut her down where she stood. Some woman must have so riled him against all female kind and done Hervor no favors. She could not afford to antagonize Starkad in the least now. He was her best chance for fulfilling her oath—both their best tracker and their best warrior. To say naught of her desire to make it off Thule alive.
“You would have us take a great chance against these vaettir,” Tiny said. “This is not why we came here.”
“I agree with Starkad,” Hervor said. Everyone looked at her like she was the talking severed head. She needed him on her side, though, at least for now. “We have to follow our own honor.”
“You have honor now?” Starkad asked.
Hervor flinched, then tried to cover it. Best ignore that. Arrow’s Point would soon see her honor, born on the end of her runeblade. Except … how was she to even consider striking at him now? “These creatures have attacked us at least once, and most like, were the threat on the shores when we first arrived.”
Starkad folded his arms. “Afzal?”
“I go with you, either way, Master. My vow is to serve you until I have repaid my debt.”
Starkad rolled his eyes, then looked to Bragi.
The skald shrugged. “We all die sooner or later. May as well make it a tale worthy of Valhalla.”
“No troll-shit, beetle-cocked vaettir are scaring me off,” Ivar said.
Tiny raised his hands in submission. “It sounds decided enough, then. Do we wait for daylight?”
Orvar shook his head. “It would be too long in coming and too short to catch them when it arrived. We have to press on through the night. If we are to do this, we must do it now.”
Hervor blew out a low breath. Of course they did.
23
One Year Ago
The winter had frozen the lake, allowing Hervor to walk to Bolmso—the island of her father and paternal grandfather, a place that should have rung with the noise of civilization. Instead, the only sounds she heard were the howling wind and a raven’s caw.
She wrapped her bear fur cloak tighter about her as she trod onto the island. Snow crunched under her heels, making each step laborious. She should have waited for the storm to break. She should have brought snowshoes or crampons. Then again, she always hated people telling her what she should do.
Actually, the lake held hundreds of islands, and she’d had to search a long time to find the right one. This had to be it.
A thick copse of trees decorated the shoreline. Evergreens, though fresh snows had weighed down their branches. The raven she’d heard must be somewhere in those boughs, watching her. Like a sentinel in this otherwise forgotten place.
She pushed onward. The trees cut down on the wind’s bite, at least a little. She sniffed. Her face still burned with the cold, but she’d live. More snow crunched behind her.
At once, she spun, fumbling with the cloak to free her sword hilt. No one there. Frozen in place, she looked from tree to tree. She had heard something. She jerked her sword free. “Whoever you are …”
The moment she spoke, a reindeer broke between the trees, covering great swathes of land in each leaping stride. Hervor blew out a breath. The isolation was getting to her. She hadn’t seen a person in days, not since some fisherman pointed her in this direction. Only a few of the islands even had people living on them.
She sheathed the blade and pressed onward.
On the far shore, a wooden hall rose up. What was left of it, anyway. A large section of the roof had caved in, exposing the east side of the hall. The doors stood ajar, so she slipped inside. This had to be it. Mist clogged the interior.
The hall’s heart had been the fire pit, of course. And it had gone long cold now, naught but cinders. Ash.
No one had lived here in a long time.
Hervor moved to the walls. Tapestries still hung there, one depicted great battles with a bear at the heart of them. A berserk. Her grandfather, perhaps.
Traveling around the countryside had eventually turned up skalds happy to weave tales of those otherwise forgotten days. Of the perilous berserk Arngrim, feared by all. So pleased was the king with his champion thegn, he granted him not only the title of jarl but use of a runeblade. An heirloom forged by dvergar long ago.
And somehow she had allowed herself to hope her grandfather would be here, would tell those stories himself. But there was no one here. This place was dead and forgotten, much as all her kin.
There were not even any treasures left for her to claim. No inheritance. No wealth to hire men to join her quest. The tapestries had value, but they were too large for her to carry back across the lake.
Whatever had lain here was plundered long ago.
An intake of breath from the doorway drew her eye. As she turned, a figure dashed out, running.
“Wait!”
Whoever it was did not stop.
Hervor grimaced and dashed after the figure. The trespasser was short, slim, and very quick. He darted between the trees and leapt over a pile of rocks.
Hervor’s feet slid on ice, and she near slammed into the rock pile. Damn it. She scrambled over the rocks, then skidded down a slope.
The boy glanced over his shoulder. Only it wasn’t a boy. A girl, maybe twelve winters.
“Stop!” Hervor shouted.
The girl did not stop, dashing behind a tree and vanishing from view.
Hervor panted as she reached the spot. “Girl. I mean you no harm. Come out now.” She turned about. The girl’s footprints in the snow stopped at this tree. She looked up.
Crouched over a branch, the girl stared down at her.
Hervor folded her arms over her chest. “Come down from there.”
“Not fucking likely.”
She almost wanted to smile at that. “I’m not goi
ng to hurt you. Who are you?”
“I’m the queen of this island, so you best get away before I call my guards.”
The queen. Now Hervor couldn’t quite stop the smile from reaching her lips. “Call them, then.” The girl glanced away to the north, and Hervor followed her gaze. “Is that where your parents are?”
“My father is Odin himself. So you better flee before he arrives.”
“Why? I’d be eager to meet the King of the Gods. I have many questions for him.”
The girl stuck out her lip and looked around. Probably trying to think up another retort.
Hervor didn’t have time to play this game all day. “Come down now, queen. Take me to your people, whoever they are. If you cooperate, I won’t harm you. But if you make me climb that damned tree and get you …”
Indecision warred on the girl’s face before she finally groaned. Then she leapt from the tree and landed in the snow in a crouch. As she started to rise, Hervor snatched up a handful of the girl’s cloak. No sense giving her the chance to run off again.
“Come on, queen. Lead the way.”
With a sullen glance, the girl did so, guiding her to a small house a short distance from the fallen hall. As they approached, an aging couple rose from the shore and walked to meet them. The man had an axe in his hand, albeit one better suited for chopping wood than battle.
“What do you want?” the man demanded.
“This your daughter?”
He nodded.
With a gentle shove, Hervor sent the girl scurrying off toward her parents. “Who are you? What are you doing on this island?”
“It’s our home.”
“This is my island. I claim it as the last heir of Arngrim. And I ask you again, who are you?”
The couple exchanged glances, then the man spoke, lowering the axe. “Come inside. It’ll be dark soon.”
Hervor nodded.
The woman offered her water and hot fish, both of which Hervor took gratefully. Even more so, the warmth of their fire. When she had eaten, the man spoke.
“We were slaves of Jarl Arngrim, a long time ago. You though, you’re too young to be his daughter.”
