Ravens' Will

by Terry Graves

  “But I’m so hungry, my dear, so hungry I cannot wait.” The man was not pleased, Runa could see that. His face decomposed a little, perhaps. One of his eyes moved a bit to the left, his nostrils grew slightly bigger, his forehead flattened, his sharp chin grew rounded. Everything fell apart as if the man himself was a reflection in the water and someone had thrown a stone at it. But it was so brief a moment that when it passed she forgot about it, and about what the man had said. “I’ll have to, though, if it’s important to you.”

  “I’ll come back, I promise,” said Runa. And she meant it. When everything had passed she would come back to that lake and she would marry the man that lived in it, if he still wanted her. She knew that a promise was an unbreakable bond, especially with strange beings you ran into at forests and ponds and crossroads. She hadn’t much interest in palaces or riches, but she wanted him. She loved him, unconditionally.

  “But a kiss… you won’t deny a kiss to me, my future bride, would you? It’s such a small thing to you! And then I will play the song one more time, so you will remember forever.”

  He could not know, of course, how important that was for her. A kiss may not look like much. But a first kiss is a different thing entirely.

  Runa thought about it and decided she wanted to, so she nodded and smiled, and the man smiled back. She planted her feet firmly on the stones of the shore, opened her lips, closed her eyes, and leaned forward.

  Then she heard a scream.

  The young man vanished with it, and in its place, there was a creature with its mouth opened wide. She saw two rows of teeth sharp as needles and a thick tongue, curly as a gillyflower, blooming inside his throat, and she drew back and screamed too.

  Gerda had pierced the maw of the thing with her sword and was trying to pull it back out, but it was stuck. The creature gurgled.

  “Runa! Help me!” Gerda yelled at her. She pulled again and freed her weapon with a swooshing noise, but lost her feet and fell back. A spurt of blood fell over Runa’s arm. The liquid started to smoke and she felt a stinging pain, as if her flesh was being eaten by thousands of bugs.

  The creature pushed her and Runa fell and hit her head on one of the stones. The world around her got blurry while she was being pulled toward the shore. Somehow, she managed to take a deep breath before she was thrown into the lake.

  She felt the kiss of the cold water on her skin. It calmed the burn on her arm, but numbed her senses at the same time. The creature had grabbed her firmly with both arms and was dragging her down, and the light was getting fainter. The lake was not very deep, but the water was murky and turbid and the first light of the morning did not break through.

  Runa struggled, but she was sinking fast and the thing pressed her bones as if it wanted to break them. It was at least twice her size, perhaps more. In a glint of light, she saw its hideous face. It had no nose, just a wide mouth like a big sack, and a series of barbs protruding from its chin, with two longer ones coming out from its upper lip in the manner of whiskers. Its eyes were large, bulging, and their color was the same as the man’s eyes, a dark muddy green.

  Runa grabbed her knife, held it in the water, and tried to stab the thing frantically. Its skin was covered in dirt and moss and algae, and the blade did not break through. The creature bit her shoulder. She opened her mouth to scream and she could not hold the air in her lungs any longer. It was expelled in a cloud of bubbles.

  She felt the tiredness in her legs and arms and the lightness of her head. Perhaps this was part of the trial, Runa thought. Perhaps the palace and the riches and the love were waiting for her at the bottom of the lake and all this nightmare would turn out alright in the end. She could see a golden gleam lighting the darkness and thought that maybe that was it.

  But it was not.

  Runa saw the shape of a girl diving toward her, and found that the light came from the piece of rock she held in her hand, faceted like a precious stone. In her right, she had a battle axe. She was Sigrún.

  “Stone-heart,” croaked the thing, and its voice sounded strange but comprehensible even under the water, and somehow it reminded Runa the voice of the handsome man from the harp, but twisted and guttural. Then it freed her, as if she was nothing, and propelled itself toward Sigrún.

  There was barely any fighting. The monster passed by her once and tried to grab the stone without success. When it turned back, the edge of the axe found its throat three times and the water grew dark with a cloud of blood.

  Runa tried to swim in some direction, not knowing if she was diving upwards or not. But soon, she felt Sigrún grabbing her. They broke the surface together and Sigrún held her with an arm around her chest, and together they swam back to the shore.

  Runa did not remember the trip back to the cabin, but she found herself seeing the timber ceiling, and Gerda fighting with her and trying to remove her soaking wet clothes. After a while, she stopped caring about the state of her body, about the fang marks of the hounds and the broken bones that had healed poorly. She was too tired, too weak, and she stood motionless while Gerda took off her clothes and dressed her with new dried ones. Then, the girl had covered her with all the cloaks and blankets she could gather and had lit a fire. Runa asked after Gyllir, and Gerda promised her that the horse had not suffer any harm.

  “What was that?” she heard Gerda asking Sigrún while she added more wood to the fire. “And why in Hel’s name did she want to kiss it?”

  “The creature was a fossegrim, one of the water-troll kin.” Sigrún untied the braid on her hair, letting it loose. “They live in ponds and lakes like that one, luring young boys and girls in and then drowning them and eating them. They can make you think they’re something different, they numb your senses. It is a very powerful spell.” She faced Runa with a serious expression. “You don’t have to feel ashamed. There was nothing you could have possibly done.”

  “So this… this grim, it was living under the water?” Gerda seemed horrified. “Some seasons ago, when we bathed in the lake, it was already there, wasn’t it?”

  Sigrún shrugged. She twisted her hair to dry it. A small puddle started to form on the floor below her.

  “It was after the stone-heart,” Runa muttered, “so perhaps it wasn’t just going to eat me. It was using me as bait for you.”

  “Everyone is after the stone-heart, I’m afraid. And trolls and giants get attracted to it. They can smell it, as you know very well by now.” Sigrún got up and started undressing while she looked through her belongings for a new shirt.

  “You have a mirror shard?” Gerda’s eyes opened wide.

  “Not a shard. Much more than that.” She took out the stone and showed it to them. Runa had seen it before, in the byre. It did not look like such a great thing. Just a reflecting stone, faceted, perhaps precious or perhaps not. Had it been at the side of the road, she could have passed it by a million times without giving it a second look. “For a hundred years I’ve been getting pieces of the stone-heart all around the world; some as small as a grain of salt, others bigger, like pebbles. They were melted together to increase its power, to achieve this.”

  Gerda’s face darkened. She dropped the firesteel and the flint.

  “So you were the one Fyrnir was after,” she said, and her tone was contained, not angry at all, and this was what scared Runa the most. “It was your stone-heart that he smelled.”

  “Yes, I don’t doubt it. My presence at Veraheim was unfortunate. Had it not been for me, perhaps your monstrous friend would have gone back to the mountains. I didn’t plan to spend the night in your village, but I was mortally wounded and I needed a new body.”

  “But why didn’t you show yourself and fight then, you coward?”

  There were tears tricking down Gerda’s cheeks. Sigrún rose and turned around. She was naked, and somehow that did not make her more vulnerable but, on the contrary, gave her an aura of strength. At that moment, it was easier to believe that she was indeed a goddess.

  “My body
was not ready for a fight. Besides, protecting the stone-heart is far more important.” She said this calmly, then pressed her lips together and seemed to think about something. “But you can blame me, Gerda. Perhaps it will be a good thing for you to do so. I’ve seen the weight on your shoulders during these days, how you can barely manage it. I believe you can stop now. I release you from your guilt. It was all my fault.”

  Gerda seemed confused and not quite sure of what to say. She clenched her fists, trying to find new words.

  “You said the trip would be safer with you!” she yelled finally. Red came to her cheeks.

  “But I didn’t lie, did I? You’re still safer with me. I slew the fossegrim for you and saved both your lives. I know the roads and what dangers we may face.”

  “But why are you bringing us with you?”

  “Let’s say that I enjoy the company.” Sigrún covered her nakedness with some furs and leaned back against the wall, as if she had grown tired of the argument. Runa was convinced she knew the real reason, but she did not say it out loud. She did not want Gerda to know, because it would come to no good. She shivered, but not because of the cold.

  Gerda was deflated. She looked at the fire for a while, then stood up and left the cabin silently. Runa wanted to say something to her, but she was too exhausted to deal with her and her troubles. She curled up and her eyes got lost in the ceiling again. Soon her mind was wandering freely and sleep took her in its arms.

  They spent the whole day in the cabin, Runa dozing off from time to time then regaining consciousness, and Sigrún tending to her. Her body burnt with fever, so she put cold cloths on her forehead and prepared soup. Runa had a bump on her head from hitting it against the rocks but the burns on her arm were the ones that hurt the most.

  “I have to take care of this, or it will get infected,” said Sigrún. She took a bag from her rucksack containing dried leaves and small vials with oils and other liquids. She mixed some of them and prepared an ointment that she applied over her skin.

  “Why does it hurt so bad? It was just blood.”

  “Sometimes troll blood burns like fire. Not always, just sometimes. One never knows.” Sigrún spread the ointment and bandaged her arm. For a moment it seemed that she was going to leave her to rest, but she added: “I’ve seen the rune.”

  “So?” Runa shrugged. She was referring to her birthmark, a reddish stain on her left shoulder blade in the shape of the prescience rune. Nobody had seen it for quite a long time. None of her friends knew about it. “I was born with it. That’s why my parents called me Runa.”

  “Your body is sacred, it is under the gods’ protection.”

  Runa would have laughed, but she didn’t; the joke was on her, after all. She knew the meaning of the rune, a straight line that divided into three, like the foot of a bird. It was not only one of the symbols used for divination, but for protection, the kind of rune you paint on your shield or under the bed of your sickly child. But that had not stopped the dogs tearing her flesh apart, so perhaps the gods had carved it wrong.

  “It’s nothing. A birthmark with a whimsical shape.”

  But Sigrún did not give up. She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re a seeress, as I suspected.”

  “I definitely am not,” Runa said with care, uncomfortable with all the scrutiny. She ensconced herself on the tangle of blankets and clothes. “Besides, rune magic doesn’t work anymore.”

  “But stone-heart magic does,” Sigrún replied. “You’ve never been in contact with it before. Now, if you were to use it, you could see the future in your dreams.”

  “Even if you were right, I wouldn’t do it. Nothing good comes from knowing one’s destiny, especially if you can’t do anything to change it.”

  “No one has ever said truer words,” said Sigrún. “But there’s more to it than you know. I will explain it to you, in due time. For now, you need to rest.”

  She intended to go back to the other side of the room, but Runa grabbed her wrist and forced her to stay. She had something to ask. “Does my birthmark mean that you cannot harm me?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re implying with that question.”

  “You know it quite well.”

  Runa did not want to say it out loud, for it was too terrible a thought. That way, if Sigrún did not know what she meant, she could just claim that it was nothing. But she knew, and Runa had figured it out. They were spares, Gerda and her. If Sigrún had been wounded during her fight with the fossegrim, she would have done to one of them what she did to the brigand girl, to find herself a new body to keep going.

  “Perhaps I could do it,” Sigrún said, as it made no sense to hide her intentions any longer, “but I won’t. The gods would not be pleased.”

  “What about Gerda?”

  “Yes, your friend I could use, if it was necessary,” Sigrún put her hand over Runa’s and stroked her lightly before freeing herself from her grasp, “but it won’t come to that.”

  “If I tell her…”

  “You could, but you won’t. Nothing good would come of it if she knew. She would force us to part ways, and then you would have to choose between her and me. And you’re scared of what will happen then.”

  “Why would I choose you over Gerda?” Runa was puzzled. “I want to save my friend and I barely know you or your goals.”

  “Sometimes it amazes me how humans are able to conceal their innermost desires, even to themselves,” said Sigrún. “Let’s leave the matter now. Please, forget that I mentioned it.”

  Sigrún stood up and paced back to her side of the shack, where she started gathering up her herbs and vials and putting them back in her rucksack. Runa tried to go back to sleep, but she could not. She spent the time looking at the ceiling, trying to figure things out despite the fever.

  Gerda came back in the late afternoon. She had been fetching wood in the forest and had her arms full. It was wet and not suitable for making a fire yet, but she left it with the old firewood in the corner, so it would dry out for the next visitors that came to the shack. She went to Runa and asked her how she was. Then she served herself some food from the pan and ate it avidly.

  “You spent the whole day fetching wood?” Runa asked her.

  It took a while for Gerda to reply. She seemed much calmer than when she had stormed off, but Runa knew that her friend was still angry deep inside. Something in her calculated gestures gave her away.

  “Of course not,” said Gerda. “I’ve been wandering about, too. Scouting. And I’ve also gone back to the lake, to see if the monster was dead. And it was.”

  She told them that she had seen the corpse stranded on the shore, already whitened and half decomposed, as if it had been there for many days rather than just a few hours. It smelled horrible, like the entrails of pigs and rotten old eggs. She explained to them that it seemed like a frog and a fish and a man at the same time and that each one of its teeth was as long as her hand.

  But when Runa asked why Gerda needed to see if the creature was dead, she just shrugged.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Kai held the fistful of grass in front of the reindeer. The beast gazed at him and its nostrils flared. Solfrid had told him once that the eyes of northern reindeers were golden-colored in summer and shifted to blue during the winter months. It was mid-spring, but the eyes of the animal he had in front of him were big, of a metallic blue, with long black eyelashes.

  “Come on, I know you want it.”

  Kai had chosen one of the smallest members of the herd, a female with short antlers, which was still the size of a large war horse. He had been observing it for the whole morning to confirm that none of the calves were its offspring, that it didn’t engage in any mating competition, and that it was friendly enough. Then, he had been getting closer patiently, just a couple of steps at a time, so it get used to him and his smell.

  Kai’s plan was simple. He wanted to tame one of those monstrous reindeer, jump on its back, and fly back to Veraheim. However, his id
ea was full of flaws. One of them was that Kai had never ridden a horse, and this one did not have a saddle, or spurs, or reins. Another was that, in the time Kai had spent observing the reindeer, he had not seen them fly even once.

  “Come on, it’s good.” He stretched out his arm. The reindeer smelled the grass. Its dark muzzle was a couple of inches away from his hand, but the animal shook its head. The antlers went up and down menacingly and Kai fell back, and the reindeer lost interest and trotted back to the herd to keep browsing in the snow-covered meadow.

  Kai sighed and threw the wisps of grass away. The sun was at its zenith, still a long way to nightfall. It was his third day in Himinbjörg and he was starting to feel as if he had already explored all the places he was allowed to. He had walked the hill on which the stronghold stood until he reached the wall that enclosed Ásgarð. He had circled it on the other side and stood at the foot of Bifröst, and had convinced himself that no one could climb down the bridge, frozen as it was, full of spikes and crevices. He had been in most of the rooms; empty chambers with no furniture, or tapestries, or anything worthy of mention except for the carvings in the ice.

  He had even followed one of the Queen’s albino bees until he found the place where they came from, a grove of robust oak trees next to the prairie on one side of the hill. Some of the hives hung from the tree branches and were white, like clumps of snow, but others were kept in straw skeps. Kai assumed that the latter had been its original habitat when Skaði had established her home in Himinbjörg. She must have built the skeps for them and later the bees had kept expanding to the nearby trees.

  “Why bees? Bees don’t survive the winter,” he had said, aloud, and had spent some time looking at them buzzing and going back and forth, and wondering where they would find flowers in that place.

  The only time of day he welcomed was when Skaði left the north wing and walked down to the hall to share dinner with him, although she was not the best company. The night after their argument she had been in a gloomy mood and barely shared a word with him. Kai had requested fire for the second time, but this had been denied to him. That night, the cold had been unendurable. He had stood awake, looking at the snowstorm outside and listening to the Queen’s spell time after time.