Ravens' Will

by Terry Graves

  The top floor of the tower was formed by a single circular chamber. The room was littered by a reddish light that came from the center, where there was an altar of ice with a stone on top, the size of a fist. The light came from within the stone, which glowed with the color of winter berries, cyclic pulses that resembled the beats of a heart. From the altar, a series of nerves descended and formed the radial shape of a snowflake, with ramifications that got lost in the walls. He gazed at them and saw blurry shapes behind the ice, vaguely human, preserved inside. They were children. The frozen walls were hazy with blood.

  Kai looked away, trying to avert his eyes from the horrors that the translucent surfaces of the chamber hinted at. He had known about the children, but he had never really thought about it. He had not imagined how it would work, how the ritual, the stone-heart, and everything else functioned. He was oblivious to what the procedure involved and how the children were drained and died. And there should not be a difference, because he knew the facts; but there was.

  He looked back at Skaði, the murderer, the witch, weightless as an autumn leaf and dying in his hands, and gently laid her on the floor.

  “You’re going to be alright,” he said, not knowing if it was true. He took off his dark gray cloak, which had been Gerda’s farewell present and her excuse to whisper a final promise in his ear, and he tore it with the help of his knife. He made a pillow with part of it and placed it under her head, and he kept the rest as cloths to clean the blood. “I have to remove the arrow. I think.”

  She did not reply, and for a moment he feared she had died.

  Wouldn’t things be simpler then? He could wait until the ice had melted and cross Bifröst, walk down the mountain and travel back to Veraheim. To everyone who asked, he would talk about the children and explain to them that all the nasty stories were true, because they were. He would never have to think about her again and, in due time, he may even find some peace and solace.

  Kai would never act on these thoughts, so he tried to dispel them. He breathed deeply and felt the taste of blood in his mouth again and an excruciating pain throughout his body, as if he had been stung by bees.

  He had to remove the arrow from her chest; that was what he had said. But he was not sure about how. He had never done anything like that. Runa had told him once that some arrowheads were broader, to kill more quickly, and they would make a big hole. If this was one of those, whatever they looked like, she would bleed to death immediately. Kai’s first instinct was to push the arrow through her back, as it looked firmly driven into her ribcage. He grabbed the shaft with one hand to hold it in place, while with the other tried to cut it with his knife, but the black wood was impossibly strong and Skaði moaned in agony and he finally had to give up.

  There was only one way.

  Skaði screamed when Kai grabbed the arrow shaft, pulled, and removed it with the sound of ripping flesh. Blood spurted out, so much it seemed unreal. He tried to block the flow with the torn cloak, but it was useless. She was dying in front of him.

  Kai did not know what else to do so he leaned closer.

  “Don’t die,” he said. And also: “I love you.”

  Kai had told her that everything was going to be fine, which he did not know, and that the arrow had to be removed, and he was not sure about that either. But the last statement he felt might be true.

  And then Skaði rose and kissed him on the lips. A desperate, eager kiss that spoke of hunger more than it would ever speak of love. It was nothing like her first kiss that night so many years ago. Kai felt as if his thoughts were flowing toward his throat and disappearing into her. Never in his life had he experienced such pain, such immeasurable fear. He was being drained. And even then, while all his instincts screamed, he saw her cheeks slightly tinted with pink and the blood flow stopping and understood that, whatever was happening, it was making her get better.

  So he kept kissing her.

  He saw the Gjöll, the still waters that separated life from death. He saw the bridge that spanned across them, not so different from Bifröst, thatched with gleaming gold. He felt Hel’s embrace around him, covering him with a soothing darkness.

  That went on for a while, until Skaði got strong enough to push him away. They lay in the ground, next to each other, both breathing heavily, both still alive for now. Up on the icy altar, the light from the stone faded slowly and died out.

  Winter was over.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Skaði is dead,” Sigrún declared.

  The raven had been flying around for a long time before coming back to whisper in her ear and break the news.

  Runa sent her a bleak stare. “Has he seen it?”

  “He's being told.”

  “That's not nearly the same thing.”

  Sigrún shrugged. Birdsong chirped from the tree branches and insects hummed, and cold wind flushed in from the Thrym, bringing the smell of virgin snow. There was something different that morning, like a scent of spring.

  “He says an arrow carved from wood of the Laerad tree went through her heart. A mountain hawk told him. He had also seen the ice that covered Bifröst and Himinbjörg thawing. He’s been over the mountains and has crossed to the giants’ realm. And he has heard the noises the giants make bellowing and dancing, hitting rock against rock and clashing metal against metal. Nobody is crying in Útgarð. They’re celebrating winter’s end.”

  At the break of dawn, just before sunrise dispelled the darkness, they had seen the fires, a dozen yellow fireflies shining on the mountain slopes. Runa had thought that they were the Jötunheim army, but it was a bit too soon for that. Perhaps they were scouts, the first wave. Still, she had wondered how they could have crossed the mountains so fast.

  “We must hasten and reach Franang before dusk,” said Sigrún. “From now on, things are going to escalate very fast.”

  The Snow Queen. Dead. What it meant for Gerda or for Kairan, Runa could not know. She should not care about them anymore, as their lives were no longer in her hands. She had chosen another path, willingly or not, and she had given Gerda to the trolls so her friend was safe from her. And still, she cared. A lot.

  Runa nodded slowly and took Gyllir’s reins. They had recovered the horse, which was wandering about when the fog had dispersed, and she had asked it for forgiveness and had taken care of the wound in the beast’s hindquarters. She looked to her right, to the faraway lands of the east, which were covered in deep woods. Four days had passed since they had parted ways. If Gerda still breathed, the trolls would take her there.

  “You can't do anything for Gerda now,” said Sigrún, as if she had read her mind, “except save the world she lives in.”

  They marched for most of the day, as the peak of the Franang rose above their heads, following one of the many brooks that were born at the top. Runa was fast, but Sigrún always walked swiftly, as if her body was weightless. They climbed the steep slopes of the mountain, which stood alone on the frozen plains, treading with care over the slippery rocks. There was no sign of the hand of men, no huts and no roads.

  At some point, Runa looked to the west and saw the sea far away. The water was the color of wine under the faint sun, and there was a thin line of foam where it hit the coastal cliffs and the beaches full of pebbles. Runa had never been close to the sea. She had heard that there were monsters under the water, things much worse than the fossegrim of the lake: sea dragons, and oceanic giants and mer-people. And Jörmungandr, the son of Loki, was the worst of all.

  “What can we expect up there?” she asked.

  “Trouble,” Sigrún replied without turning back.

  They had not shared a word in a long time, and Runa could not stand the silence any longer. She insisted.

  “I've heard that Loki infuriated the gods at Ægir's hall. He ran from Ásgarð and hid in a mountain where he built a house with four doors, one on each side, so he could run from the gods in any direction if they came looking for him. Every day, he turned into a salmon an
d hid at the bottom of the river. But Óðin found him. The gods took a net with a mesh so fine that no creature could slip through its holes and cast it into the waterfall, and after three tries Thor captured him. Is that why we’re following the stream?”

  “You humans excel at storytelling,” Sigrún smiled.

  “So it’s false.”

  “Not a single tale in the world is either true or false. They’re all true, in a way.”

  “Then tell me what happened next,” Runa begged. She knew, but she wanted to hear it from her lips.

  “Very well. But bear in mind that the only ones who know what happened are the ones who were there.” She covered her forehead with her hand and looked up. The sun was still high. Satisfied, she decided to make a stop. “Behind one of the falls of Franang there is a cave, and the Æsir took Loki inside. They had no desire to bring him back to Ásgarð; but Miðgarð was the human realm and therefore common ground, so they found the cave appropriate. They picked up three flat stones from the bottom of the lake and bored a hole through each of them. They used them to fetter Loki to the rock of the mountain.”

  Runa did not ask how it was possible for three simple rocks to be strong enough to fetter one as powerful as Loki, because gods were not like humans. In their tales, things mutated and became other things. Spit turned into blood and blood turned into mead.

  So rock had turned into iron, or into something else.

  “Then the Æsir captured Loki’s sons,” Sigrún kept talking. “Not the monstrous ones he bore with Angrboða, but the others, the ones called Váli and Narfi. They turned one of them into a wolf and he jumped onto his brother and tore him apart.”

  At this, Runa shuddered and Sigrún stopped. Those words, spoken from the lips of the very same girl who had held the knife that had slit the throat of her father, were simply too much.

  “Is that what happened? A wolf got you?”

  Runa did not reply. “Please, go on,” she said with a sore throat.

  “Very well, then. The Æsir took Loki’s son’s entrails and rolled them around his body to bind him. And Skaði fastened a snake over his head, so every day its fangs poured venom over his eyes.”

  “Why Skaði?” Runa was surprised to hear the Snow Queen’s name in this story.

  “Because she’s a traitor to her race. And perhaps because Loki was nice to her.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” Sigrún concluded. She clapped her hands twice and resumed the march. “Still, to speak of a snake is an understatement. Skaði brought a far older creature that lived deep beneath the Thrym mountains.”

  “A lindworm,” Runa marked every syllable. Sigrún nodded. “So there is a dragon in the cave and your plan is to slay it?”

  “I would not go so far as to call it a plan. But yes, that is general idea.”

  Runa did not ask her how.

  The light lessened as they kept climbing the mountain. It was almost dusk when the brook widened into a lake, fringed by sheer cliffs. Runa could hear the noise of the waterfall even before seeing it. They halted in front of it and gazed for a while at the water, which cascaded down over a series of outcrops before plunging into the lake. There was no house with four doors there nor any other sign of the place being inhabited in a very long time.

  “We will stop here,” Sigrún said, “and we will drink and we will eat, for this perhaps will be the last time we will ever do those things. And at dawn, we will go into the cave.”

  Runa fiddled with Gyllir’s saddlebags for a while. At Sigrún’s request, she handed over the mead and the dried cod and meat they had received from Knútr. Now that Gerda was not with them, they had plenty of food. A burlap sack was still hanging from one of the saddlebags, and Runa peered at it before quickly turning her eyes away. She knew that it still contained some of Gerda’s clothes: a shirt, a skirt, and a second cloak.

  She’s safe from me, she thought, trying to feel better, but failing miserably. And then: She must be cold without the cloak, with only that ragged ruinous thing that her father gave her.

  Sigrún made a meagre fire and poured the mead into a single mug that they shared. She ate without pause, as if she planned to deplete their reserves. Runa was not hungry, but she drank eagerly every time she got the chance.

  She did not want to have dreams that night.

  Twilight ended. From where they stood, the rocky walls hid from them the views of Thrym, but Runa wondered whether new fires would appear with darkness and if the Jötnar were already on the way. Everything seemed peaceful, the noise of the waterfall was soothing and the sky was full of stars. It was hard to believe that there was an army crossing the mountain paths, or a dragon waiting for them behind the curtain of water. But winter was over and, though many things were hard to believe those days, they took place nonetheless.

  Runa had never been much of a drinker, and the mead made her feel light-headed after a short while. She stretched out before lying down with the mug still half full in her hands. When she tilted her head she found the inquisitive stare of the raven upon her, with his eyes like golden beads.

  “Is Gerda alive?” she asked him. “You must know.”

  The raven did not answer.

  “If we see the sun coming out twice,” said Sigrún, “I promise you…”

  “I don’t want your promises,” she snapped. Then she turned her gaze to the raven. “I find it absurd to pray to gods that are no longer there. But you’re here; and if you’re Óðin, or part of Óðin, then hear my pledge. It is said that you help warriors in battle, and tomorrow I will be a warrior and I will fight the lindworm. You’re the father of gods, so even in these trying times there must be something you can do. Tomorrow either I live or I die and I’ve made peace with one thing and the other. But after this is done, I want you to protect Gerda and to help her break free from the trolls.”

  The raven did not answer this either.

  “Óðin is not very pleased with us, girl.” Sigrún hastened to take the mug from her hands, as if implying that she had drunk enough. “We’re trying to free Loki, after all, so it would be better not to infuriate him with your strange petitions.”

  Runa sighed. “Then I suppose we’re done.”

  She leaned back and looked at the stars.

  She thought she was going to stay awake for the night, but soon her eyes closed and she fell asleep and dreamt with Kai. He was sitting at a large table on a long bench. There were trolls and giants and all kinds of strange and hideous creatures, but she also recognized many faces from Veraheim. She tried to decide if they were those who had died during the Jötunn attack, if she was in the halls of Hel, but she had left before the funerals, so she did not know.

  “Now we’re all part of Gerda,” said Kai, “and you missed it. But she can be part of you as well.” Kai then handed her a strip of meat. Runa picked it up and chewed. It had no flavor or smell, as happened in dreams, but she turned to Kai anyway and said she smelled delicious and tasted very good. Runa used the word she for this.

  Then Kai nudged her arm in the way he used to do sometimes and Runa woke up.

  The dream held no meaning for her.

  It was still dark, but Sigrún was already awake, sharpening the blade of her sword. It had not snowed that night and the soil was dry. Runa stood up and walked to the lake, where she washed her face and hands. The first dragonflies were flying over the water’s surface. When she came back, Sigrún was still going at the sword. The raven was nowhere to be seen.

  “Should be sharp enough by now,” said Runa.

  Sigrún stopped, held the sword in the air, and frowned. “Inspect your arrows.”

  She did. There were twenty in the quiver. The shafts were good and had no cracks. She checked the limbs of her bow as well, and tensed the string.

  “Two is not much of a warband,” Sigrún said, “but it will have to do.”

  “Aren’t you going to put the byrnie on?”

  “It will slow me dow
n and do no good. Lindworms are fast and they bite through metal as if it were nothing.” The girl shook her head. “You stay back. Don’t shoot at the scales, as they form an armor that you will never pierce. Go for the soft spots instead: the eyes, the belly. Also, look at its arms. They’re very small compared with the length of its body. Think about a line going from one armpit to the other.” For this, Sigrún drew a line with the tip of her sword on the pebbles. “Aim at the center, then move your bow slightly to the beast’s left. This is where its heart is. They’ve got big hearts, because they have to pump so much blood to the tail. The difficulty lies in forcing the beast to rise and expose its belly, as lindworms very much prefer slithering. But do not worry, I will make it dance for you.”

  “How many have you slayed?” Runa remembered that Sigrún had told them before that she had drunk from the blood of a lindworm. That was how she was able to understand the raven when he spoke.

  “Does it matter? I could have slayed a thousand, and the one we want dead would still be alive.”

  Sigrún opened the brooch of her cape and let it slide down her shoulders and fall onto the ground. She started walking down to the waterfall with the sword unsheathed in her hand. The first light of dawn had tinted the sky with the color of drawn blood.

  “Wait!” Runa shouted from behind. “If we’re not to survive, I must free the horse or it will die.”

  She ran back to Gyllir and patted its back and stroked its mane. She loosened the knot in the rope and removed it. “Go to the green pastures,” she said, “and have a good horse life.”

  The horse shook its head twice and paced to the water to drink. The wound in its hindquarters was just a red dot under the fur, barely visible.

  Runa followed Sigrún to the waterfall, where the noise was deafening. She peered through the water curtain and saw the mouth of the cave. The water was freezing, and when they passed through, she had to repress a scream. Inside, light filtered through the entrance, creating effulgent spots as if broken by the facets of a diamond. Runa put an arrow in her bow and held it.