by Matt Larkin
“And?” Volund asked.
Slagfid rubbed his beard. “Well … I’ve decided we should go to the lake.”
Volund cast a glance at Agilaz. His middle brother nodded sternly. Volund sighed.
In his dreams, a world of shadows danced and played, its laughter a muted cacophony of madness. It called to him, whispering of pleasures found in the places where no light had ever reached, taunting him of the weakness inherent in the world he clung to still.
And so, Volund did not sleep too often. He sat through the ever-lengthening nights with his back to the fire, staring off into the woods. The wolves were out there, howling, stalking. Their anger saturated the air. No, they did not like that men had dared settle in their valley, had begun cutting timber to build their house. The foundations of it were set already, the fire pit dug and set ablaze. That kept the beasts at bay. That and, perhaps, that Agilaz had put an arrow through the eye of one who had drawn too close.
Volund’s brother slept on a wolf pelt now. Soundly, as did Slagfid. Volund had told them he would watch through the night. If sleep was to be denied him, why should he not at least allow his brothers respite? And what did they dream of? Girls, perhaps.
It had been too long now since Volund had had a slave girl. The dvergar had given him the habit of spending himself before sleep. And those dreams, when he found them, they showed him flickers of flesh in the darkness. Daring him, demanding he hunt down some farm girl and ravish her. Even now, awake, it was like having a serpent constricting his gut. Squeezing him, pushing him toward his insatiable need.
He gagged on it and stumbled away from the fire. A glance in that direction nigh blinded him. It was so bright. Volund scrambled away from the flames, stumbled his way to the lake, and fell to his knees there. Beneath the surface, flesh writhed in a mass of tits and arses and trenches begging to be ploughed.
“No,” he sobbed. “Stop it. Get out of my head.”
He plunged his face into the water. Its icy chill beat the salacious thoughts away. There was peace down in the murk. If he but held his head under a few moments longer, all suffering would abate forever. Just hold it there and let oblivion take him, sweep him down into the realm of Hel, where twisted souls such as his own must surely belong.
His lungs burned. His arms twitched.
Of its own volition, his head jerked upward into the air, and he sucked down great lungfuls of it in painful gasps. Unable to catch his breath, he pitched over backward and lay in the wet mud. The mist was thick over the lake, and here he was, breathing it deeply. Welcoming mist-madness.
The men of Kvenland claimed that mist would steal souls and memories. According to the dvergar, the latter was true. Memories faded, replaced with a corrupted poison of Niflheim. What would such poison do to a man, were he to accept it willingly? Should one welcome the fading of memories, would it then become a painless transition into whatever haunted state the mist would leave in place of a man? No. That seemed unlikely. There was no end to pain in this world. That lesson the dvergar had taught him with clarity, their cruelty merely a reflection of their own unending agony.
Such was the way of the world.
And they had put it in him. That cruelty, that wicked perception that had no place beneath the sunlight. As indeed, the light still felt too hot upon his skin, on rare mornings when the mist was too thin. He, like some accursed vaettr, now felt shelter in that poisoned mist. Hel damn Dvalin and all his people and Volund’s own father for sending him to the dvergar. They had done something to him. Gods above, had he but left when his first year was ended, he might have escaped this.
What if they had … had put one of their own—
The lake exploded upward like a geyser.
Volund jerked to a sitting position as the waters showered him. It was like a jotunn had tossed a rock into the lake, but no such monster ought to be here, on the wrong side of the Midgard Wall. He reached for his sword. Damn. Still resting by the fire.
Something splashed around out in the water.
“Who’s there?”
A cry of pain. A woman’s voice.
Volund stared dumbly at the waters. Some nixie trick perhaps, a ploy to lure him into the river where she could drown him. If so, then he welcomed such a reprieve. Volund waded into the waters, waist deep. Freezing, so cold he already could not feel his legs as he stumbled around.
But he could see. Despite the mist blocking all starlight, he saw the woman, splashing around, trying to pull herself to the surface. Volund grabbed her, throwing her arm around his shoulders. She struggled—stronger than a woman ought to be. Volund pulled her ashore and dropped her in the mud.
Her soaked blonde hair spread out wildly. Her gown was torn, soaked in blood. Volund knelt beside her and pulled it away, revealing the glint of golden armor beneath it. Blood caked that too, seeping from a gap between plates over her ribs. The workmanship was inhuman: even a glance revealed that much. Not dvergar make, though, and he knew little of the crafts of other vaettir. The liosalfar favored golden armor, he supposed. Could she be an alf? She was glorious indeed.
The armor was held on by latches, which he began to pop one by one. She groaned, swatting at him. Despite her eyes being closed, she was still strong. Maybe inhumanly so. Had she been more than half conscious, he probably couldn’t have managed this. With a third clasp open, he pulled the plate away, exposing her ribs. A severe wound had pierced her side. Not an arrow—it was too big. Someone had thrust a spear through her. The question was how? A man might have slipped a knife between those plates, but not a spear.
He pushed away her undershirt to better examine the wound. In doing so, he exposed one of her breasts. And could not stop from reaching for it. All her muscles were toned as a warrior, but her breast was still soft. As would be her … He looked to her legs. To where the trench between them would be if he but pulled away that cloth. So thin a piece of fabric keeping him from even a moment of reprieve from the pain, from the darkness they had planted in him. It was growing, he could feel it. If he just buried himself inside this woman he could be spared for a night, at least.
Oh, fuck. Gods above and Hel below. He jerked a dagger loose from his belt. His hand shook. Slowly, he drew the blade along his arm, trying to relish the pain. It was a welcome distraction from his unsavory lust. No matter what the dvergar had done to him, he was not going to rape this woman. They had subjected him to that on several occasions—as much to break him as out of any desire to do so, he suspected. He would not become one of them. No, not if he could help it. Though had they planted one of their nascent souls inside him, perhaps that was how he changed. Was he losing himself to possession by a dverg soul?
He looked back at the blonde woman, bleeding out in the mud. A dverg would have ploughed her trench and then thrown her back in the water. That was not what Volund would do. He was still a man.
After lifting the woman in his arms, he carried her back to the house’s foundations. “Brothers!”
She should have died. A human woman would have perished from any such injury. Instead, the woman—or alf, if she was—clung to life. Her color returned not long after Agilaz had bound her wounds. She stirred in restless fits, though, turning, twisting, and crying out as though engaged in a pitched battle. Perhaps she was, albeit a battle not to be won with spear or sword.
Agilaz and Slagfid sat aside, arguing over the woman and who she might be. They wondered if she was Sviarlander, or a barbarian Aesir shieldmaiden, or some wanderer. The latter seemed most likely, though Volund said naught. The thought of explaining to his brothers he suspected this was no human at all tasted foul on his tongue. What strange twisting of urd had caused this woman to plummet into their sheltered valley?
Not quite certain why, he leaned forward and held the woman’s hand. It was hot, clammy, perhaps even feverish. She should have died, but she hadn’t. She shouldn’t have been here at all. But she was. And while he clasped her hand, while he watched her struggling face, no longer did he
feel compelled to give in to violence or darkness. All he could think was how to save her. As if Freyja or some other Vanr had heard his prayers and offered him a purpose to his twisted existence.
A cold metal band touched his fingers. She wore a ring. He pulled her hand closer to examine it. The most intricate of designs decorated it. Swan feathers, perhaps, etched into orichalcum.
Not sure why he did it, Volund pressed the ring to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
With dawn, the brothers resumed cutting timber. Volund stopped every so often to check on the woman, who remained by the fire, soaking in its warmth.
The air had grown chill. Snow would fall very soon, and they needed to have the walls built, or dire wolves would feast on their frozen corpses. His brothers deferred to his orders, trusting he knew best how to construct a hall. He did, of course. He had learned architecture from the finest architects on Midgard, after all. He could not quite decide whether he hated the dvergar. They had tortured him, perhaps even implanted something in his soul, something slowly taking him over. And yet, they had taught him secrets and wisdom no man had ever known.
Once, Dvalin had spoken of Midgard as it was in another era of the world. An era before the coming of the mists, when men ruled the land and they, too, had known and built wonders. Perhaps the dvergar spoke of such times as one more torment, meant to shame him with the knowledge of all his people had lost. Somehow, though, it made him dare to dream he might help mankind return to those days.
As soon as the house was done, he’d start on the wall. They’d want a strong one to keep the wolves at bay, just in case the fire was not enough.
Of a sudden, Agilaz dropped the plank he carried and turned to the south. A pair of women stood there, golden armor glittering in the sunlight. More impressive still, they each bore great wings spread out behind them. Both women were blonde like the one within, somewhat similar of feature. One had brown wings, the other silver.
Slagfid, too, had come to stare openmouthed at them.
At the valkyries.
The dvergar had not spoken of such things, and Volund had thought them mere legends. Choosers of the slain who came to take the greatest warriors to some blessed afterlife. They claimed the souls of great warriors. Like the woman he had saved.
Volund tossed his tools aside and drew his sword, advancing on the valkyrie pair. “If you’ve come for her soul, you shall pay dearly for it.”
The silver-winged valkyrie scowled and drew a sword, while the other laughed.
The laughing one strode forward. Her hand rested on a sword at her hip, but she did not draw it. “You are a bold one, to think to defend anyone from us.”
“Damn it, little brother,” Slagfid mumbled. “What are you getting us into this time?”
Agilaz edged his way toward the house. His bow was there, but he’d never make it. Volund tried to wave him to stillness, lest the valkyries attack.
“Do not come between us and Altvir,” the other valkyrie said. She advanced a few steps, spear ready.
It was madness to stand before valkyries. Had they come to claim this Altvir’s soul, it surely meant she was already dying, despite his best efforts. Moreover, fighting valkyries was apt to get his own brothers killed.
Somehow, Volund still could not sheath his sword. “You will not have her while there is life left in her.”
The silver-winged valkyrie leapt into the air. Her wings flung her upward which such force the wind of it swept Volund from his feet. He crashed to the ground, the impact stinging. Somehow, he managed to hold onto his sword. The valkyrie landed astride him and hefted him upward by his tunic with one hand. The other hand held her sword a hairsbreadth from his eye. Her own eyes were pale blue, but they seemed to blaze with otherworldly fire, demanding he not look away. Holding him bound to her power.
And then it hit him. This valkyrie was stronger than any woman, blessed with supernatural grace and power. “Altvir is one of you.”
“Yes. I am.” The voice came from behind them. It was weak, a little raspy. “Release him, Olrun. He’s only tried to help me.”
Volund felt ill. Here she was, defending him after he had almost …
The silver-winged one—Olrun—dropped him, and he landed on his feet. “They do not hold you against your will?”
Altvir looked down at her bandaged side, then pointedly at Volund. “I think he fished me out of the lake.”
Olrun scowled, but the other valkyrie walked forward with a half-smile. As she did so, the wings receded into her back, vanishing. Olrun planted her sword in the ground and folded her arms, but made no move to retract those beautiful silver wings of hers.
“Will you live?” Volund asked Altvir.
She smiled and held up her hand, displaying the ring. Did that grant her the powers she wielded? “I will, thanks to you. Most wounds heal. Drowning does not.”
Agilaz had continued to move toward the house and now snatched up a torch from the fire pit, holding it before himself in warding. Volund chuckled. Fire kept Mist spirits at bay, and others—Dark spirits, Water spirits, were none too fond of it. It was not like to hold much fear for these valkyries, though. He did not know their true nature, but they clearly did not fear to walk in daylight. Which meant if they were vaettir at all, they did not hail from Niflheim or Svartalfheim.
All three valkyries looked at him, then glanced at Volund. Altvir walked forward slowly, the effort an obvious pain to her. Volund closed the distance between them in a few strides.
The brown-winged valkyrie had begun to walk toward the lake. Volund glanced at her, then focused on Altvir. “What is it, my lady?”
Altvir placed a hand on his shoulder, seeming to support herself that way. In fact, she seemed ready to pitch forward at any moment. “A man who aids a valkyrie is entitled any wish in her power to grant.”
“Ask her for a night,” Slagfid said.
Volund struggled to keep his face emotionless. The very thought had crossed his mind, though perhaps not for the reason Slagfid thought. Men told stories about the valkyries. They lusted after them even as they feared them, and it was said if one could win such an embrace and please a valkyrie, one would inherit glory and an almost fey insight. And he wanted her so badly it hurt. Not just in his cock and aching balls, but in his gut. In the hollow of his chest. It was more than all that, though. Altvir’s green eyes were somehow luminous, like the sun. But unlike the sun, he could look into them and feel no pain, no burn. Feel no desire to return to the shadows.
“Marry me.” The words escaped him almost unbidden.
Her mouth opened, eyes wide. She might well strike him down for such temerity. If that was her wish, he found the thought acceptable. Just to touch the light, if only for a moment.
“I have an oath to keep,” Altvir said, her voice trembling a little. “I am a chooser of the slain.”
“Make a new oath. An oath to me. And I will be only yours. Is that not in your power to grant?”
“Altvir …” Olrun’s voice had a hint of warning, and yet, almost an edge of longing. Part of her approved, wanted it for her sister. Volund knew she did.
“You hesitate, then,” Volund said. In the end, the bold might find early graves. But they alone took all the glory and all that was worth having in life, while those who cowered in fear languished in envy. Such was the way of the world. “I will change my wish. Three valkyries. Three brothers. You each marry one of us.”
Olrun’s wings stirred the air. “I ought to eviscerate you for such arrogance.”
“Be that as it may, I did save Altvir. And that is my wish. I leave it to you whether to grant it.”
“I do not speak for my sisters,” Altvir said. She looked at Olrun, then at the other, who now returned from the lake bearing a sword. Altvir’s? It must have fallen when she did. “Their choice is their own, and they are not bound by custom to honor your wishes. I, for one, though … I will stay with you. As much as I am able.”
Volund flung his arms around he
r and kissed her, then. Altvir returned his embrace, stiffly at first, then without reservation. Unbidden, a tear crept from the corner of his eye.
Volund wept again as he spent himself in her. He had felt many women climax beneath him. This was different. A wave of light crashed into him and scoured him from the inside out, suffusing his soul and silencing the wicked shadows that thought to command him.
Peace and warmth surrounded him as much as her arms and legs did. Whatever the dvergar had tried to plant in him, Altvir killed it, burned it away in her light.
Her eyes looked so deeply into his he could see the glory of all creation.
Of his salvation.
To his surprise, the other two had agreed to marry his brothers. Perhaps they did so to remain with Altvir, or perhaps they too longed for a simple life, removed from the death they must witness without end. Or maybe he would never understand their reasons.
Olrun, who spoke little, chose Agilaz. Volund supposed their natures were similar enough. They seemed keen to walk the woods alone together, hunting, snaring. It was hard to imagine there being much conversation, but then, perhaps they spoke without words.
And Slagfid had seemed more than happy with the last valkyrie—Svanhit. Volund’s eldest brother was probably happy to bed any valkyrie, and twice thrilled to spend his life with one who seemed to appreciate his sense of humor. And Svanhit’s laughter did often grace the night.
His brothers had slept with their new wives as soon as they were wed, he had no doubt. Altvir—despite his desires—he had insisted recover more fully before they lay together. Tonight she had come to him and told him it was time. Three days since they’d wed and they had finally consummated it.
He lay stroking her hair for a time.
And when he slept, he dreamt of sunlight dancing over green fields and lush forests where shadows fled his presence.
19
A lingering silence had spread over Frothi’s kingdom in the wake of the Niflung’s death. Men called Slagfid a hero, and women offered themselves to him in drunken frenzies, their anger over the burnt house drowned in the flush of a sole victory. He turned them away—most of them. He did not feel a hero. He felt a man staring into the calm before the worst of winter storms, knowing it was coming.
