by Terry Graves
Gerda looked at the drawing intently, trying to distinguish any particular features that might be of help to find such a fortress, but found none. No paths, no names, no discernable shapes to guide her steps. “Is Thrymfell very far away?”
“It is hard to say. If we could take a straight line from here to there,” he said, extending his thumb and his index fingers over the map, from Veraheim to the mountains, “you may cover the distance fast. But it never happens that way.” He shook his head, as if he had just remembered something painful. “The Thrym Mountains are all that separates Jötunheim from Miðgarð. They’re part of the giants’ realm. And you have already seen what a single giant can do. It will be best for you to avoid the main routes and villages. But at the same, Ironwood lies to the east, and that is not a good alternative. You should never enter there, Gerda. If you have to cross it for any reason, go around and remain on the outskirts, where vegetation is not so thick. If you feel like you’ve not seen sunlight in a long time, then it’s probably already too late.” He sighed and lay back in the chair. “Perhaps you should not go at all.”
“Father, you already granted me your permission,” protested Gerda. “We both know it is going to be dangerous.”
“You must not go alone.”
“Runa is coming with me.”
“What about Alarr? He seems strong enough.”
“I’m afraid that, after last night’s battle, Alarr is like you, in no condition to travel.”
“Has the boy lost a leg too?”
“No, he’s just wounded, but he will recover,” replied Gerda, although she did not know for sure. She suppressed her tears. She had had enough of that. “We cannot wait for him. Kai may not have much time left.”
“I see,” said her father. “Then you have to hurry, there’s no time for idle talk.” He stood up and grabbed the back of the chair for support. He made a gesture toward the map. “Take this and use it as it best suits you. You know we don’t have any money, and there is no hidden stash I have saved for you, I’m afraid. But I want you to take the cloak as well. A huldra gave it to me. It is magical, very powerful.”
“I want no magical cloak, Father,” said Gerda, convinced that the cloth was not magic at all.
“Then use it as a regular one. It seems that you have lost yours and the north is very cold.” Hallbjorn took the cloak and handed it to her. It smelt like mold and moss, but was surprisingly warm and soft to the touch. “Travel safe, Gerda. Bring your friend back.”
“I will,” she said. She kissed her father on the forehead and walked to the door.
“There is, I’m afraid, something that you must consider too,” Hallbjorn said when she was about to leave the house. “Kai has been chosen as a tribute, a sacrifice for the goddess of winter. If you take the tribute out, there may be winter no more. You know what this means.”
Gerda stopped with one hand on the door already, the other one holding the map against her chest. She did not know if she was going to see her father ever again, if she would ever come back to Veraheim. She could have lied about it, in the same way she had lied about so many things before in her life. That, perhaps, would have eased the sadness in which her father would spend the future days. But she did not want to lie anymore. Not about this. Some of what he had told her throughout the years was true, anyway, and the map she now had with her was the proof. He had earned the truth.
“I will take his place if I must,” Gerda finally said to him. And then she left without looking back.
There was someone else she had to say goodbye to.
Alarr had been carried into one of the few byres that had resisted the attack. He lay alongside the other wounded in beds of hay that had been hastily rustled up. It smelt foul inside, as if death and corruption were at work, as if canker and gangrene were developing already. Gerda walked down, laying her eyes on each one of the villagers, feeling the pain on their flesh and bones, the fear and the fever. The sight of those who had suffered the worst made her stomach churn. Once again, she would have preferred to be the one with the mortal wound, the one lying in pain. She deserved it.
She found him at one end, with his sight lost in the rafters above. His chest had been bandaged and his face had lost the pallor that it had shown just hours ago. He looked better, as if perhaps he was going to make it after all.
Gerda waited next to him until he slowly turned his neck and acknowledged her presence. “So you’re going,” he said, and it was not a question. “Runa told me.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“If I were you, yes, I would.” He twisted his lips in a feeble smile. “I would flee.”
She said nothing. She was fleeing, and she would not deny it. But she would have preferred to take the road to Hel than the one that led to Jötunheim, to jump onto a spear and bleed to death and wait for Ragnarök, happy with any punishment the dark lady would choose for her. To go after Kai would not make things right or even. But she could save her friend, and that was more than enough to keep her breathing for now.
“And I would flee with you, Gerda.” Alarr kept talking and there was a sadness in his voice that his words could not convey. “To the end of the world, if I must, and would be content with it. I should have stopped things when there was still time. But I’m trapped here now, with my nightmares.”
“None of this is your fault. This is all on me.” Alarr had helped her along the way, and therefore felt responsible as well. She had not realized this until now. He shook his head, and something in the gesture seemed to cause him pain, because he moaned softly.
“I doubt it. The only reason I did not go with you until the very end was because I was blinded by the promise of a different life. So my crime is even worse than yours; I have not only failed everyone else, I’ve also failed you.”
“You shouldn’t think that way.”
Alarr closed his eyes and breathed deeply. When he opened them again, he changed the topic: “Yesterday I spoke with Hafgrim. He admired my skill with the sword. Not in combat, but my craftsmanship. He told me there could be a place for a smith with him, to mend his men’s armor and perhaps to sew their boots as well.”
“You’re bound to do greater feats than that, Alarr Joriksson.”
“Perhaps, or perhaps not. Who is to say?”
“I am, for instance. You have the heart of a warrior and the soul of a hero.” He fixed his eyes on her, but she meant it, and did not looked away.
“I…” he started, but Gerda guessed what he was going to say. It was going to be a confession and she did not want to embarrass him, so she quickened to interrupt him before he could add any more.
“I don’t love you,” she said. Another truth. Painful, sad. Necessary.
Alarr hesitated. His cheeks blushed pale red.
“Me neither,” he replied at last. “I was just fooling myself, I suppose. I wanted to beat Kai at everything, and that included you.”
Gerda knew he was lying. He could not trick her at that. But stating this would only humiliate him more. It had been said, that was all that mattered. That wound would heal as well, in due time.
“I have to go,” she said, but he took her hand and pushed her down.
“Promise me you will be alright.”
“I will.”
He laughed.
“Liar.”
Gerda had completely forgotten about Fyrnir’s crown. She did not want it anymore. Gold was only a means to an end for her. It was no longer her concern, but something made her turn and walk down the street to where the giant had smacked her down. She stopped in front of the mound of snow where she had landed the night before. The crown had disappeared, which was hardly a surprise. Gerda assumed a man such as Sveinn would have seized it by then, and he would melt it. In the hands of a good leader the money could have been used to rebuild the village, but there was no way to know how the chief would employ it.
However, there was a deep circular impression over the snow, following the diameter of the crow
n, but no drag marks, which she found quite odd. The crown was very heavy, and it would have been impossible to simply lift it and carry it away. Perhaps the weight had made it sink and it was now hidden under the snow. If that was the case, it would be wise to alert Alarr or her father before leaving, so they could take care of it.
Gerda looked to both sides, but there was no one there. She kneeled in front of the mound and buried her arms in the fresh snow. At first she did not feel anything, but then she touched something solid and cold, and grabbed it. She pulled it back and lifted it out with barely an effort.
It was the same crown, no doubt about it, with the same gemstones and the sinuous snake in the center. But it had shrunk considerably, to the point that it would now fit very well around her head.
That was fortunate, she thought. Some giants changed size, Gerda had heard, and it was only logical that their clothes and garments were magical and adapted to this, and therefore changed size with them as well. Perhaps she could sell the crown along the way and get some money for food and shelter. There was not so much gold in it now, but it was still more than she had ever seen in her life and could ease things later. Unless, of course, the crown would keep shrinking until it disappeared, which was entirely possible.
Gerda threw another furtive look around and, when she was confident that no one was observing her, she hid the crown in her bag, under her cloak. Then she walked away briskly, to the place where she would meet with Runa, on the path where the city ended.
Her friend was waiting for her sitting on a boulder, on one side of the road. The quiver lay over her legs and she was fixing one of the arrows, filing it with her knife. The girl named Sigrún held the reins of a war horse, one of the beasts that the king’s warriors had brought with them the day before.
“What is she doing here?”
“She knows the way.” Runa kept working, trying to avoid Gerda’s eyes.
“It’s true.” Sigrún confirmed this with a nod. “We’re going in the same direction.”
“You don’t even know where we’re headed.”
She grinned, and Gerda thought there was something wolfish about her, something which was not quite human. “You’re going to Thrymheim, to cross the Bifröst Bridge,” said Sigrún. “My own path leads me halfway to Jötunheim before turning west to a place in the mountains known as Franang’s Falls, and then to the dark coast. We can share the perils of the trip for quite some days, and it would be safer. Then we’ll part ways.”
Gerda looked at the horse, which was loaded with supplies. She saw chain mail and two wooden shields, bags probably filled with food, horns, and a great amount of everything else. “I cannot trust a thief.”
“Corpses are generous with their possessions. All these pertained to Hafgrim’s men, but they won’t need them any longer.”
“Their brothers and children may,” said Gerda. “I have no use for a byrnie, never worn one. And I don’t know how to ride a horse.”
“The horse is not for riding, but for loading.”
“She knows the way,” Runa insisted, trying to bring the discussion to an end. She put the arrow into the quiver again and stood up. “It is wiser this way. She was with Hafgrim and fought alongside the hird, so she knows how to do things that we do not.”
“Then why is she running away?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Sigrún replied. She was calm and confident, as if she had already figured out the world. There was no doubt that she intended to make the calls from that point on, and that disturbed Gerda. She and Runa would be in the hands of a stranger they barely knew.
“Fine,” Gerda relented with a loud sigh. “Just don’t get in my way.”
“Agreed.” Sigrún shook the reins with an expert gesture and led the horse toward the road. “Now, let’s move. There’s a lot of ground to cover and we’re losing sunlight.”
She started walking along the road, but Runa and Gerda still remained for a bit, looking at the mountains far away with reluctance.
Somewhere in them was the Snow Queen. And Kai. Gerda remembered the soft touch of his lips. After what happened in Veraheim she swore that she would never take any joy in life, so the warm feeling she experienced when she thought about Kai seemed like a treason to the memory of those who had fallen.
“What are you waiting for, you two?” yelled Sigrún.
Gerda and Runa exchanged looks. She saw herself reflected in her eyes and noticed the same defiance and determination in her friend, and felt happy to be with such a good companion.
From this point on, no more tears and not a single step back, she thought. No self-commiseration, no bitterness or sorrow. She clenched her fists and started walking decidedly behind Sigrún, and Runa did the same. They followed her up the road and into the forest, under the thick tree crowns, to the smell of the pine saplings and the cold, frozen gusts of wind that came from far, far away.
BOOK 3
Jötunn
FIFTEEN
There were three sounds every creature that dwelt in Útgarð had grown accustomed to.
The first one was the noise the wind made. The howling. With daylight, it gusted around the valley and carried the scent of fresh snow from the moors and old snow from the mountains. It was kind to a Jötunn because he could hear in it the secret language of the earth and the sky, the voices of every brother and sister that had fallen and vanished. For a Jötunn, to die meant to return to Ymir’s body; and in death, to give life.
The second sound was less pleasant. It was also a howling, of a kind.
In the heart of the city of Útgarð there was a castle, but not like the ones humans raised. It was built in white stone but there were no carved blocks, no mortar or masonry. Its structure seemed the result of erosion, as if a mountain had been modelled in that shape by chance, as the water does with coastal cliffs, forming caves and pillars and corridors by licking the rocks patiently for millennia. The surface was polished and it glinted in the sunlight during summer days. The interior was cold but comfortable, and the ceilings were high and the windows were wide enough, and it had halls and pantries and balconies, and everything else a castle may have.
And inside the castle there was a chamber and a grieving mother. She was a creature older than the mountains, who for many generations had ruled over the Ironwood Forest. Her name was Angrboða and, at night, she moaned and cried for her lost children, who had been taken away from her.
As soon as the sun set, she leaned out of her window and looked at the thin silver line that crossed the sky and disappeared into a sea of clouds — the Bifröst Bridge, so close and so far away at the same time — and cursed the Æsir and yelled and tore her hair out, and her screams made even a frost giant’s blood run cold.
The story of that being, not quite a Jötunn or a goddess, but something different altogether, was well known. She had lain with the giant named Loki and from that union she bore three children. The oldest child of Angrboða had the shape of a wolf cub and she had named it Fenrir. The middle one was in the shape of a serpent and she had called it Jörmungandr. And the last one was just a little girl, half-alive, half-dead; she had named her Hel.
When Óðin received word of these births, he sent the Æsir to seize them, and they succeeded. Then he took pity on the serpent and the wolf. They threw Jörmungandr to the deepest rim of the farthest ocean, where not even light could pass. They tried to raise Fenrir in Ásgarð, but soon he grew too big and too scary, so the gods fettered him as if he was a wild beast. They threaded one end to a huge stone and, bound in that manner, they sent him down into the earth and slipped a sword into his mouth. The little girl, they simply killed, but she ended up ruling the realm of the dead.
Everyone who had lived in Útgarð long enough had grown used to these noises: the gentle wind and the cries of Angrboða, mother of monsters.
The third sound was the hammering, though, and this one was new.
It had started soon after the Jötnar offensive into Ásgarð,
when the stone-heart got lost and the giants found out that they were trapped in Jötunheim, that the paths among the mountains that allowed them to traverse into Miðgarð had been blocked by snow and ice because of the Fimbulvetr. So every day, a chosen group of Jötnar walked to the steep slopes and shoveled the snow and hammered the ice, and that constant monotonous noise reverberated across the valley as if Útgarð was one of the big forges of the dwarves.
With the passing of years, Hrímnir had developed his own technique. He laid the hammer on the ground, grabbed it with both hands, bent his knees and discharged the tool on the ice wall with a single calculated motion. Then he dropped it again, sat, and waited for a while until he regained the strength to deliver a new blow on exactly the same spot. With those powerful strikes, it seemed like the whole mountain trembled, and from time to time he even managed to create a small, satisfying avalanche, which made him feel very proud of himself. After all, hammers had never been his weapon of choice and he did not excel with them. In battle he had always preferred the bow and arrows, but you could not shoot an ice wall to break it, so the hammer had been the second-best option for him.
Still, no matter how he did it, the ice never cracked.
Mögthrasir used a different tactic. He dug intently, as if he was making burrows. Hrímnir could not have done this even if he had wanted to, but Mögthrasir’s nails were long, sharp and strong, and rarely broke. Every day he dug a hole the size of a fist and, at dusk, he liked to put his hand inside and fondle it with a dull smile. Today he was especially excited, so he introduced his long muzzle and sniffed at it.
“Tomorrow,” he declared, “I will be able to stick my whole head inside.”
