by Terry Graves
“We climb,” Logi roared. “Then we kill your Queen.”
And, as if the mere assertion had invigorated him, once again he burst into flames.
BOOK 5
Thrymheim
THIRTY-ONE
Wulfgar had come to the witches’ hut many times before. There was an old one and a young one, but the old one was frequently away, so he was surprised when he found both of them cramped in the narrow room. He liked them both, the old and the young. They always told him that he was going to become king one day.
“This place has been empty for many days,” he said, and entered. The door was small and he had to crouch down to fit. Asnir came after him, carrying the birdcage under a blanket.
“We were away,” replied the young one, who was called Nefja. They both had a thick northern accent, but Nefja’s had softened a bit after spending so much time in Heiðirsalr. This was no answer, but Wulfgar did not insist. What they did or where they went were matters that did not concern him.
“I’m happy to see that your daughter is well, Lord,” said the old one. She was named Solfrid and was sat on the high stool and dressed in Saami clothes and furs. Asnir bowed her head slightly and smiled. On one occasion, the witches had cured her of fevers when she was a small girl, and she had always been grateful.
“Do you have a question for us?”
“I do,” said Wulfgar.
“Then I must warn you, Lord, that the mists of the future are becoming darker and harder to read. We’re living in troubling times. I had two mirror shards with me the last time we met, but since then, I have come to lose them. Now I have to rely on another kind of magic, the one that can only be read in the shape of the clouds and in the foam of the waves. I also bought a fresh fish this morning in the market. That can help.”
Wulfgar nodded. Sometimes they read his future in the guts of a salmon and sometimes they cast the runes for him. He was not scared of any living man, but he was fearful of the gods and concerned about his fate and his family’s. Some of his daughters took this as a weakness, and perhaps it was; but it was a weakness he was happy to indulge. This morning, however, he was seeking something else.
“You speak of troubling times,” Wulfgar said. “So I guess you’re referring to the giant.”
“The giant. Yes, of course.”
“Perhaps there is something else?” he asked. “I’ve heard that it was killed.”
“The giant is merely a symptom, Lord,” said Nefja. “The cough of a child indicates the sickness, but it is the sickness that has to be treated, not the cough.”
“I think I know what you mean, and I’m afraid that perhaps I’m bringing you another symptom today.”
Wulfgar made a gesture to his daughter, and Asnir took off the blanket and revealed the birdcage with the raven inside. She had fed it every day and the animal was in good health, but its wing was broken and had not yet fully cured.
“I was hawking one morning,” Wulfgar explained to them, “when the bird came, pecked at my gyrfalcon’s head and killed it. They entwined together and fell from the sky. I was discussing some matters…”
He hesitated and decided to leave it as it was. The witches already knew enough about his aspirations to the throne of Heiðirsalr. He did not want to reveal his connection with Óttar too.
“This is Óðin,” Solfrid muttered. Her eyes were lost in the raven’s, which were shiny, as if they had been coated with a layer of gold.
“Yes, I am no fool. I was afraid that this could be an omen from the All-Father.”
“No, Lord, you don’t understand. This is Óðin.” She got up and paced slowly, and kneeled in front of Asnir to take a better look at the creature. The raven tilted its head to the left. It was calm, as if it had grown accustomed to human presence. “One of the two birds of the god.”
“I find hard to believe you. It looks just like a raven to me.”
But Wulfgar knew that this was not true. Ravens didn’t have golden eyes and that perfect black-blue iridescent plumage.
“What it means is obvious, and I think that you know and that you’re coming to us only to confirm what you already suspect,” said Solfrid. “A raven, the bird of your banner, kills a gyr, the most valued species for falconry. King Fróði’s badge is a falcon. So, it means that what you have been longing for so many years will finally become true. Fróði will fall, murdered by you or by your men, and you will become king.”
“Yes.” Wulfgar was satisfied. “This was also my guess.”
“But there is something else, Lord. As I said, this is not a simple raven. This is either Huginn or Munnin, Óðin’s Thought or Óðin’s Mind. So it also means that it favors you, and this may be as important as fate. For with Óðin’s help your banner will raise high in the battlefields of the earth and you will perhaps win much more than a throne in the south.”
Wulfgar’s eyes glinted in the half-lit room. “Then what should I do?”
“I would first recommend that you free the raven as soon as it can fly.”
“Agreed. Then what?”
Solfrid and Nefja exchanged glances.
“We’ll cast the runes now,” said Nefja.
She pushed aside the dried roots and the small bones that were scattered on the table and spread a cloth while Solfrid added another log to the fire. Then they both came together and muttered a prayer. Nefja threw the wooden strips carved with runes on the cloth and picked one with her eyes closed.
“It is time,” she said, “for the crown to dance from one head to the next.”
That much Wulfgar already knew. Solfrid was the one who picked up the second strip and interpreted the rune.
“King Fróði’s fleet won’t sail in summer.”
This, however, was new. If that was true, it would be a disaster, but not only to Fróði. Everybody would lose money; warriors and chieftains alike. Without the gold and the silver from plundering the coastline, commerce would stall and the winter would be harsh.
Nefja picked the third strip. She opened her eyes and swallowed.
“King Wulfgar will defend our realm from the shadow that rises in the north,” she said. “And he will save Heiðirsalr and will come to be known as Wulfgar the Giant-Slayer.”
That concluded the reading of the runes. In the birdcage, the raven cawed and Wulfgar bowed solemnly. He took out his purse and left three coins on the cloth, one for each assertion. “If what you say is true, you won’t suffer hardships a single day in your life. I will cover you in gold and silver and I will give you land.”
“It is true, Lord,” said Nefja.
Wulfgar took a deep breath as they left the shack. The staleness inside had annoyed him and he filled his lungs with fresh air, tinged with the smell of salt water, and he felt reinvigorated.
Giant-Slayer, he thought. That would be something.
He had commanded Astrið and Guðmund, one of his most trusted warriors, to wait outside. His daughter was leaning against the wall of the shack playing with a knife, with a baleful expression on her face. She looked even fiercer than Guðmund, who was a foot taller and had his face covered in old battle-scars.
Had you been born as a boy, you would have brought the whole world to its knees. But you are my eldest child, and if I become king, I will have to marry you. And you will have to bear your husband’s children, which will keep you away from the battlefield, and it will be a waste and you will be unhappy. But that’s the way of things.
“So, Lord? What is the word?” asked Guðmund.
“They said this is one of Óðin’s ravens. The All-Father is watching us through its eyes.” Wulfgar made a gesture at Asnir, who was carrying the birdcage behind him. The group started to walk away from the hut and from prying ears.
“Are you pranking me, Lord? I must believe that I am in front of Huginn?”
“Or Munnin. They did not say.” Guðmund seemed puzzled, not knowing if Wulfgar was joking or not. The chieftain smiled, adding to the confusion. Guðmund did not
trust witches or magic or omens; and it was fine, as long as he put his trust in him. “They also said that I will become king, and that Fróði’s fleet won’t sail in summer.”
“If that last bit is true, we will all lose. That would be… inconvenient.”
“It may be. But then again, maybe not. Fróði is the one who will lose the most, I think, if the longships don’t leave the docks. And that can play to my advantage.”
“If the longships don’t depart, silver will have to be gathered from somewhere else. So, under such circumstances, Fróði can only take one of two courses of action. He may decide to travel to the east and fight there, or he may increase the taxes,” Astrið said. And of course, she was right.
“Fróði won’t raise the taxes,” Wulfgar replied. “If he does, the peasantry will revolt.”
But if he doesn’t, he thought, he will have to march east to fight the people of the steppes. And then the chieftains’ hirds will have to traverse Vestar and Storolf territories, and Fróði will have to reach an agreement with them. But the agreement can be breached, and an ambush can be set, and if that happens the troops will be off-guard, defenseless. So whatever decision Fróði takes, as long as the ships don’t sail, I win.
Wulfgar turned to Guðmund. “You will take three or four men and go to Ógledidalr to speak with Vestar. You will carry presents with you: arm-rings and pelts and a well-crafted sword. You will ask him about his first-born and what his plans are for him. Ask him if he wants his grandson to be king. Then you will ride back to bring me his answer.”
Guðmund brought his hand to the pommel of his sword. He found that gesture reassuring. “He will say yes, Lord.”
“Perhaps.” Wulfgar paused, still thinking. “Leave us now, and start the preparations. I want you to depart today.”
Guðmund left, and the chieftain was left alone with his daughters. He had plans for both of them, as there were some things for which he could not trust anyone else.
Wulfgar faced Asnir first. She was his third daughter, and therefore younger than Astrið. She did not enjoy battle as much as her sister, although she was proficient with the sword and the shield too. The sickness she had endured when she was a child had weakened her health and had left her deaf in one ear, and she preferred the quietness of the forest and swimming in the river. She had taken good care of the raven during these days and had tried to cure its wing.
“Come back to the witches’ shack tomorrow,” he said to her. “Tell them you want to learn from them, become an apprentice. Say that you are doing all this behind my back. That I don’t approve. Do you understand?”
“Yes, father. But will they take me?”
“They will.”
He was sure of this. In the past, Wulfgar had already toyed with the idea of giving one of his daughters to Nefja when the old woman died, so she could learn the magic ways. There were two of them that seemed capable enough, and Asnir had been one. The other was Ingríð, but she was now in the queen’s service, and happy with it, for she loved the distaff and household endeavors. This was a good thing, and now Wulfgar also had a spy close to King Fróði; or two, if he counted Óttar. But he preferred not to, as the advisor was a weasel and Wulfgar knew he could not trust him.
Ingríð, on the other hand, was from his own blood. And if the time came, she could kidnap the queen or her children, or murder them as soon as he gave the order.
Yes, Asnir would go to the witches. She would be a new set of eyes and ears that he could use. It was no different from a game of hnefatafl. The army was taking positions on the board and, at the decisive moment, Wulfgar would say the word and the king would fall. To send Asnir to the witches was a wise idea, not only because many men and women consulted them and therefore shared their secrets with them, but because Wulfgar knew that Solfrid and Nefja were also playing at the same game. Prophecy or not, he had noticed that during the rune casting the two women had been trying to force him to make a move against King Fróði and the fleet. What reasons they may have, he could not fathom, but he would know soon enough. And the witches would take Asnir, because to have the daughter of a chieftain could be good leverage when the time came.
“And as for you,” Wulfgar said to Astrið, “I have something very important in mind. But I will not utter it here, in the middle of a street.”
Astrið nodded resolutely, as if she already knew what her father was going to say. And perhaps she knew. Because the witches had stated that King Fróði’s fleet would not sail in summer, and that was fate. But sometimes, even fate needed help.
THIRTY-TWO
Most things in the world come with a story, if not all, and the walls of Ásgarð were no exception. According to the tales, they had been built by a giant whose name had long been forgotten. Disguised as a smith, he had promised the gods that he could finish the job in three seasons; but in return, he asked for the hand of Freya in marriage, and he asked for the sun and the moon.
These were no trifles, but Loki had stirred things up again and suggested that it would be wise for the Æsir to accept, as long as the giant could complete the wall in a single season. The gods deemed the task impossible, and so they agreed, but the next day the giant brought an enormous stallion with him. With his help, he started to work feverishly, and when the winter was about to end, he had almost finished.
The Æsir had no intention of letting Freya go, nor to live without the sun and the moon, so they threatened Loki to find a solution for the trouble that he had caused. Loki turned into a mare that night and drove the stallion away, and the morning after the giant found out that his horse was gone. Without his beast of burden, the giant could not finish the wall in time. Then Thor crushed his head with his hammer and shattered it into bits.
That was the story Kai had heard.
Now he was under the shadow of that very same wall and, when he gazed up, he thought not even Fyrnir would have been able to build such a magnificent structure in the span of a season.
Perhaps it would have been wiser to wait and use his little sparrow to explore the inner wall. That way, he could look for the mechanism to open the door from the inside. Kai thought about turning around and walking back to Himinbjörg. His absence had probably gone unnoticed, and there would be no harm done if he crawled back into his bed and acted as if nothing had happened. But he wanted to retrieve the orb of stars.
He wanted to make Skaði smile.
Kai decided to stay, but before he could enter Ásgarð to search for the orb, he needed to surmount the wall. How could he enter, when it had been built so tall and sturdy that not even the giants could?
I’m not a giant, he thought, so perhaps there is a way.
Kai walked around in the hope of finding a weak spot or a section that had crumbled, but soon he gave up. The only way in required climbing. He found an area where a pile of snow raised the height of the ground slightly and decided that it was as good a place as any other. Above it, there was a window in the shape of a slit. Kai deduced that it was an arrow slit, for an archer to use his weapon safely during a siege. It was hard to be certain but, from where he stood, Kai thought he might fit through the narrow orifice. He was much smaller than Alarr, thinner than many men in Veraheim, and definitely half the size of a god or even less, although he knew that size with them was relative. Skaði had been his height when she was with him, but doubled or tripled every time she appeared in the north tower at night.
Kai studied the rock for a while, the places where he could place a hand or a foot. Then he took off his boots, made a knot with the laces, and hung them from his neck. He stood barefoot on the snow, and soon his soles grew numb because of the cold. Then he started climbing.
During his life, Kai had climbed thousands of trees. He was good at it; only Runa was better. Kai knew that the way to do it was to secure every step before moving upwards, to never stop but never try to hasten things. He also knew that nothing good came from looking down. But the wall was no tree and there were no branches, ju
st holes at the edges between every four blocks, and crevices where the ice had broken the mortar.
While he climbed, Kai tried to concentrate on the task and on nothing else. Halfway, he found an area where the stones fit perfectly and the holes were too small for his fingers to get in, so he swung left, climbed up a couple of ells, and swung back right.
If he had slipped, he would had fallen off and died. But he didn’t.
He felt stupid, risking everything for a toy that he would probably never find anyway, but he kept pulling himself up. He reached the arrow slit and, with a little effort, he stretched and crept inside. He leaned back against the rock and stayed there for a while, trying to catch his breath. Then he looked around, to find he was in a small room. He crossed to the door and reached a stone corridor, which he traversed. He climbed down a flight of stairs and came out onto a large terrace with a fountain at its center.
He was in Ásgarð at last, the sacred land. The hills were not as tall as they seemed to be from far away and the buildings crowded together, their roofs covered in snow. There was no timber, just stone and glinting gold. Everything seemed built for people twice Kai’s size, from the steps of the stairs to the size of the doors, and there were altars everywhere which Kai found surprising, for a god to pray to himself seemed a ridiculous thing to do. But Ásgarð was full of shrines and idols carved in wood and stone, so perhaps they were offerings from lesser races, or perhaps there had been human servants and they were obliged to perform the rituals.
Kai put his boots on again. His feet were wounded, his fingernails were broken, and his hands were covered with scratches. The wind stung his face and stirred his dark hair while he walked around the deserted place aimlessly, trying to figure out where the orb of stars could be. Skaði had told him that Óðin had thrown it away with his heaps of treasure, so it should be somewhere in the All-Father’s hall.
