On the far end of the hall was the massive trunk of the ancient oak tree, a full ten feet in width. Skógad, the Sacred Tree of Falneth, emerged from the floor and rose the entire length of the hall up to, and then through, the ceiling. The boards of both floor and ceiling were cut to fit flush against the trunk of the tree. As the tree grew, Orbadrin’s carpenters re-shaped the planks to fit its mighty trunk. In front of the tree was set up a long table as though for a great feast. A large oak throne, ornately carved with complex patterns of oak leaves, sat at one head of the table and directly in front of the tree. This was Orbadrin’s seat, for only the master of Hrókur was permitted to sit with his back to the sacred tree.
“Father, you should not be up,” Jorn said.
“Bah,” Orbadrin said, shaking his head. “I’m strong as a bull. The healer that came up from Vistinar, he has me feeling much better.”
“You should still be careful,” Thulgin said.
Orbadrin laughed.
“My wild warrior boys preaching caution to me!” he said.
“What does the healer say about you being out of bed?” Thulgin asked.
“Ah, he says nothing about it,” Orbadrin said, arriving at the head of the table and sitting down. “I’m fine. Ask him tonight. He’ll be at the feast.”
“What feast?” Thulgin asked, noticing the frenzied preparations inside the hall. Servants were rushing around in a whirlwind of activity.
“Thane Halgaad and his daughter arrived not an hour ago,” Orbadrin said. “We’re going to celebrate our victory properly. It’s not every day we add such valuable lands to our domains. Don’t look at me that way! The healer approves, as long as I get to bed early and I don’t drink too much. Never get old, boys, if you can help it.”
“Halgaad and Yrsa are here?” Jorn said. “Where?”
“Upstairs. She said she had to rest a spell after the long ride. I’m sure they heard the commotion of your arrival and will be down in a moment. We’ll even have a pair of traveling magicians for entertainment tonight. They arrived just this morning, looking for work. Where are you going, Jorn?”
“I need to have a rest myself,” Jorn said, hurrying off out of the hall.
Thulgin watched him go, suppressing a grin.
“Very well,” Orbadrin mumbled, watching Jorn rushing off. He looked back at Thulgin. “That brother of yours is always in motion.”
_____
Jorn and Yrsa talked for over an hour that day at Heiturjan. Jorn had a thousand questions about her life in Vistinar. She enjoyed the attention, laughing frequently at his lame jokes. They agreed to meet again in one week. Jorn made his way back to the hunting camp, a grin on his face. Thulgin and the others leapt to their feet, asking him where he had been all day.
“Hunting,” he said, shrugging. “That damned elk got away again.”
They kept their promise to one another, soon meeting regularly and spending long days sitting by the edge of the hot springs or strolling in the forest.
It was hardly a month later when, meandering their way along the edge of a swiftly-flowing stream, they happened upon the massive elk Jorn had been tracking that first day. The stag emerged from the woods on the far side of the waters and they had an unobstructed view of the great beast. He was a massive animal, with hulking shoulders and a surging chest. He held his head high, his massive antlers reaching ten feet into the air. He grunted at them, as if to inquire who these insolent trespassers upon his lands might be or perhaps to order them from his domain. It was as though the elk knew Jorn was not hunting that day and decided to take the opportunity to size-up his old adversary.
With another grunt, the stag turned away and worked his way back into the forest from which he had emerged with the deliberate slowness of one supremely confident of his safety.
“That is no normal elk,” Yrsa said with hushed awe. “It is said there is a forest spirit who dwells in these parts, and often takes the shape of a mighty stag whom no man can ever hope to slay.”
“That’s the stag I was hunting when I found you at the hot springs,” Jorn said.
Weeks turned into months, the two of them seeing each other whenever they could. Jorn told Thulgin about it, his older brother expressing slight amazement Halgaad’s gawky little daughter had grown up into the goddess Jorn described.
“Little Yrsa?” he said. “You’re sure?”
“It is true,” Jorn said. “When old Halgaad brings her to Hrókur next week, you’ll see for yourself.”
“Just be careful,” Thulgin said, agreeing to cover for Jorn whenever he went away to see Yrsa. “Thane Halgaad is our most important ally, Jorn, and a proud and fierce warrior. He might be angered if he knew a son of Orbadrin was sneaking about deflowering his only daughter.”
“I haven’t deflowered her,” Jorn said, feigning shocked offense.
“Good.”
“Not yet.”
Thulgin groaned, shaking his head.
Thane Halgaad brought Yrsa to the Hall of Orbadrin the following week to celebrate one of the many feast occasions which so enlivened the otherwise-dreary Linlundic winter with good food, singing, and plenty of ale. Halgaad presented his daughter, now grown into a gorgeous young woman, to Orbadrin and his many captains and servants. Jorn and Yrsa managed to slip away from the feast unnoticed not long afterwards, finding each other in a side hallway and embracing passionately, kissing and groping one other hungrily.
“I have to meet you again,” Jorn said between kisses.
“But it is the middle of winter,” she said.
“I’ve obtained a huntsman’s cabin,” he said. “You know the one, along the road not far from the hot springs. You have to meet me there. I can’t take this anymore.”
She kissed him again, pulling him against her hips.
“I’ll meet you,” she whispered. “I’ll meet you.”
Jorn had rented the little cabin for a few silver coins from a local huntsman, and it soon became their refuge where they could be alone any night they chose. Jorn would lurk outside Halgaad’s hall waiting for Yrsa to slip out at night, and together they walked through the woods to the little cabin. A roaring fire Jorn had prepared awaited them. Once inside, they would make love by the light of the fire until late into the night.
They would fall asleep in each other’s arms, wrapped in the bearskin blanket which kept them huddled together close and warm. Jorn would always awake before first light, rousing Yrsa and walking with her back to her father’s hall. He had no doubt he loved Yrsa and she loved him back.
Jorn walked back home from the huntsman’s cabin one morning, his soft boots crunching over the thin layer of the first snowfall of winter the night before. He’d known battle more than once, slaying gruks and berserker madman with courage and skill. Even so, he knew he would have to prove himself further as a leader of men before he could think of asking Halgaad for his daughter’s hand. The chance would come, though, sooner or later.
Thane Llud attacked two days later.
_____
Jorn bounded up the stairs to the second floor of the hall and found Yrsa coming down the main corridor in his direction. He was still surprised by her beauty, especially when they had not seen each other in a long time. It had been five weeks since their last parting, Jorn only managing a brief letter passed through her maid.
“Yrsa!” Jorn exclaimed, running towards her. He embraced her, his height and burliness enveloping her delicate frame. He kissed her and she kissed him back, but seemed stiff and uneasy.
“What is it?” he asked.
She pulled away from him.
“Someone might see,” she said.
“So what?” Jorn said. “I don’t care anymore. I’m ready to tell both our fathers how we feel. I’ve gained lands for your father as well as mine. I’ve proven myself! Now is the time. Thulgin agrees.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said sullenly. “Thulgin knows about us.”
“Of course,” Jorn said. “He’s known
since the beginning. You remember.”
“Yes, of course. I’d forgotten. There’s something I need to tell you, Jorn.”
“What is it?”
A door at the end of the hallway opened behind Yrsa and a man in brown furs and chain armor stepped into the corridor followed by two men in servant’s garb. The man had long, reddish-brown hair rapidly transitioning to gray, a prominent forehead and nose, and a closely-trimmed beard. He was a big man, with broad shoulders, a large head, and a protruding stomach.
“Father!” Yrsa said. “Look who has returned.”
“Ah, one of the young conquerors!” Thane Halgaad said. “It is good to see you well, young Jorn.”
“And you too, Thane Halgaad,” Jorn said.
“Where is that brother of yours?” Halgaad said.
“Downstairs,” Jorn said.
Halgaad slapped Jorn roughly on the back, laughing and smiling.
“This is a great day!” he said. “Now that you’re both here the victory feast can finally begin! Come, daughter!”
Yrsa gave Jorn another anxious look and followed her father down the stairs, followed in turn by Halgaad’s servants.
Jorn was left standing in the narrow corridor alone and wondering what was amiss. Yrsa didn’t seem herself. It was only normal for her to be nervous with her father lurking so close, he supposed. In any case, he could not help but be happy. Life, he concluded with the certainty of any twenty year old, was indeed good.
_____
The feast was in full swing before long, Jorn and Thulgin sitting on either side of Orbadrin. Thane Halgaad sat at the other end of the table, Yrsa to his right. A dozen of Orbadrin’s best warriors and a few of the more prominent citizens of Falneth sat in the rest of the seats along with varied wives and paramours.
The healer from Vistinar who had been tending to Orbadrin sat next to Jorn. His name was Degbald and he was a rotund little man with a bushy beard and a fleshy face who seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly despite sweating profusely the entire time. Jorn had always thought members of the black-robed Order of the Healing Hand rather dour, but this one was pleasant enough to be around. He certainly enjoyed the food being served, gushing over the roast elk.
“Tell me one thing, young Jorn,” Degbald said.
“Yes?”
“This tree,” he said. “What do you call it again?”
“Skógar,” Jorn said, taking a deep drink from his tall tankard of dark ale. “They say it is a thousand years old, but I doubt it. I asked the wizard Braemorgan once. He’s a great friend of my father’s and he said the tree is old, but nowhere near that old.”
“Ah, yes, but what I don’t understand is why the entire hall of a great lord would be built around it,” the healer said. “It seems an odd thing.”
“Hrókur was built by Orbadrin’s great-great grandfather Thaalgrud. He was the founder of Falneth and of the thanehold Orbadrin now rules over. We are the House of Thaalgrud.”
“So I have heard, but I do not understand,” Degbald said. He sipped his ale. “Why did Thaalgrud build this hall around a tree?”
“Thaalgrud was the younger son of a mighty Thane whose domain was many days to the west,” Jorn said, finishing the last of his ale. He lifted up the tankard and a servant hurried over to fill it to the top.
“He sought to become a thane in his own right,” he went on, gulping down the newly-poured ale and pausing to belch. “For years he wandered the lands with a small band of followers, fighting battles and getting involved in feuds. He fought and slew the troll king Hamgog in a famous battle you might have heard tale of. No? Well, one night not long after he slept in the forest and had a dream. In it, beautiful goddesses took him up into the sky and flew him over the forests and hills under the light of the full moons. The goddesses showed him a sacred tree growing atop a hill overlooking a river. ‘Here you shall build your hall,’ they told him. He then had a vision of a proud hall built around the sacred tree itself.”
“And then he found this place and made the dream a real hall,” Degbald said.
“Not until years later,” Jorn said. “When Thaalgrud first beheld these lands, they were still under the control of a gruk chieftain named, um, I think it was Fidgalur, but Thaalgrud knew at once he was destined to have it all. He and his men approached from the west, on the other side of the river. ‘Here I shall build my hall,’ he told his warriors. ‘And rule over all these lands as thane. Our wanderings, friends, are over.’ The twelve shields on the walls around us each belonged to an original member of Thaalgrud’s band. He bade them all paint them brightly so they could spot each other easily in battle. Do you see that spear there hanging above the front door? It is the very one Thaalgrud used to slay Fidgalur.”
“Is that so? It is a grim-looking weapon.”
Jorn took another long gulp of his ale before continuing.
“It’s a story in itself. One night, in the midst of the wars against Fidgalur, Thaalgrud knelt down beneath the tree and asked Grang to aid him against the gruk swine. He fell off to asleep, and awoke hours later as a terrible thunderstorm was beginning. Lightning struck the tree and a thick branch was broken off and fell at Thaalgrud’s feet. He picked up the shaft and felt it surging with power. The lightning strike had transformed the wood, you see, making it stronger than any steel. Thaalgrud gave thanks to Grang for the gift.”
“I see,” Degbald said, glancing again at the spear.
The weapon had a long shaft of polished oak and a gleaming tip of razor-sharp steel which could surely pierce armor and flesh with terrible result. He winced, looking away from the weapon. His life’s work was consecrated to the mending of wounds and the battling of disease. He was strictly forbidden by the rules of his order to so much as touch a weapon.
The members of the Order of the Healing Hand worshipped the gentle goddess Onara, the personification of gentleness and non-violence. Degbald knew of the wolf-god Grang, though, whom so many of the barbarian warriors of the North paid homage to. Grang was a savage deity as far as Degbald was concerned, a demonic being satiated only by bloodshed and battle. He often appeared as a giant red-haired wolf ten feet high at the shoulder, or so Degbald heard men say. Always they referred to him in hushed tones, their voices edged with fear.
“Battle pleases him,” they would say. “He hungers for it. He is the ever-ravenous, always starving for the clash of arms.”
Degbald shuddered when he thought of it. Grang was a god for bloodthirsty killer, a mere shadow next to his precious goddess. It was hard for him to imagine the jovial, good-humored feasters all around him as the hardened warriors they were. And yet, underneath the happy exterior lurked a dark heart of violence. He glanced up at the carved images of wild beasts, claws and fangs on full display. He shook his head and took another sip from his drink.
_____
Huge tankards of dark ale continued to be filled and drained, only to be refilled and then drained again as music filled the hall. All drank heartily, except for Yrsa who only sipped her drink gingerly. Jorn noticed, wondering what was bothering her. The women of Linlund drank their ale as heartily as the men, and Yrsa was no exception. Jorn would always bring two big jugs of ale to their rendezvous in the cabin, one for each of them, and Yrsa would never fail to drain ever last drop. Tonight, however, she barely drank at all, staring off into the distance and listening to the music of a pair of local bards.
The musicians were talented, sometimes playing rowdy drinking songs and other times performing solemn dirges. Their music mixed with the laughter and the boasting of the feasters, which grew louder with every round of ale.
Servants, meanwhile, brought out heaping portions of dishes the whole time; piles of wild boar, elk, smoked river salmon, and roast mutton were all laid out. Toasts were drunk over and over again and many words of sincere praise for the victors were spoken before each one. Every so often Orbadrin would clap his hands loudly and a new course of food would come out.
As the eveni
ng wore on, a series of special entertainments were performed. First, one of the local bards rose to sing an old battle song. Soon the entire hall had joined in.
With axe, sword, and spear
We Fight, fight, fight!
Without pause or fear
We Fight, fight, fight!
To battle we ride
We Fight, fight, fight!
By our thane’s side
We Fight, fight, fight!
Our enemies we slay
We Fight, fight, fight!
Their skin we will flay
We Fight, fight, fight!
The sounds of the bloodthirsty hymn echoed against the walls of the hall, all of the warriors banging their tankards loudly against the table with the singing of every “fight.” When the song was over, every one of the Linlunders, women included, let out a savage cry which shook the columns of the hall. Degbald watched with bemused interest. The song struck him as crude, at best, and the sentiment behind it abhorrent.
The warriors soon resumed their gentler natures, however, slapping one another on the back and laughing loudly as another round of toasts quickly followed.
Next up were the pair of traveling magicians. They began their show with a great explosion of billowing blue smoke which brought cheers and shouts from among the feasters. One of the magicians was a portly old man with a bald head clad in bright blue robes edged with silver along the sleeves. Standing with him was a much younger man, tall and thin with long blonde hair. The old man strode forward out of the smoke in his glittering garb, holding a staff topped with a silver dragon’s head. He bowed deeply towards Orbadrin and Halgaad and began the show.
Child Of Storms (Volume 1) Page 8
