Corpse in the Mead Hall

by Cate Martin

  "It is strange," one of the other dwarves said. "Especially in the part of the world where you dwell."

  "We do not know what it means," the first dwarf said, then took a bite from his pear slice. "It is outside the usual order of things."

  "Outside the natural order?" I asked.

  He looked at me with those stony gray eyes, and I had no clue what he was thinking. He ate another bite of pear and licked off his gray fingertips. Finally he said, "there is no such thing as outside the natural order. Everything is part of nature."

  "I meant, is someone controlling it?" I asked.

  All five of the dwarves gaped at me, dumbfounded.

  "Ingrid," Thorbjorn said to me. "Do you know what you are saying? Remember, the Wild Hunt is a thing of Odin himself."

  "I know," I said. "I just wondered. Why twice in two nights? Why two sisters?"

  "It is strange," one of the dwarves said. Then they all turned their attention back to their fruit and cheese.

  "But we are pleased to see a volva and a guardian working together again," the first dwarf said. "It has been many an age since we've seen such a thing. Far, far too long."

  I wondered how long was too long for an ageless being who had possibly seen the creation of the world itself, but Thorbjorn spoke first. "Surely not so very long. Ingrid's grandmother had a guardian. At least, at first," he finished in almost a whisper.

  "No, not the same," the dwarf said. "Not so tightly bonded as you two."

  "Two sisters, you say?" another dwarf asked.

  I was getting conversational whiplash with how fast these dwarves changed the subject. A weird juxtaposition with the unhurried way they got their words out.

  "Yes, sisters," I said. "Does that mean anything?"

  But the dwarf just shrugged.

  "They cannot be freed," the first dwarf said. Somehow he made his gruff tone sound even more stern as he spoke these words.

  "I know," I said. "No one returns when they're taken by the Wild Hunt. I know."

  "And yet your heart is still fixed on rescuing them," he said. He was arranging dried currants on his plate as he spoke, but when he looked up, he barely glanced at me before fixing his gaze on Thorbjorn.

  Thorbjorn flushed a deep shade of red.

  "You intended to...?" But I broke off, not sure how to finish that question.

  "I don't know what I intended," he whispered back to me. "I only meant to help you in any way that I could."

  "So you were hoping I could rescue them?" I asked.

  He said nothing and wouldn't meet my eyes, but the color in his cheeks was giving him away.

  I didn't know how I felt about that. It was nice he had so much confidence in me. On the other hand, I wasn't a superhero. I was only ever going to disappoint him.

  "Thorbjorn," I said.

  But the first dwarf spoke over me. "We cannot help you with your task," he said.

  "Oh," I said. "Well, thank you for the lovely dinner. We do appreciate your hospitality."

  He made a sound like "hurm" and seemed inclined to speak no more, but the other four dwarves were all staring at him intently.

  "We agreed," one of them said.

  "Oh, very well," the dwarf said testily. "First, she must swear to do no foolish things. We do not share our gifts with fools."

  "She swears," I said. "I mean, I swear. I know what has been lost cannot be regained. I only want to find out how this can be stopped from happening again."

  "We can't help you with your task, to our sorrow," one of the other dwarves said. "We have been too long under our mountain, too little out in the world."

  "But there are others who can assist you," a third dwarf said. "Others who live closer to you and your kind."

  "What others?" I asked. "The women in the trees?"

  "The women in the trees?" Thorbjorn repeated. I waved a hand at him, hoping he'd get the message that I would explain later.

  "You have sworn," the first dwarf said.

  "I have," I agreed. "I truly hope to see you all again, but the hour is late and Thorbjorn and I must leave now."

  It was probably already too late, but I didn't say that out loud.

  "You will find it's not so late as you fear," the dwarf said. Before I could ask what he meant by that, he reached under the table to fetch something. Then he slammed a wooden box onto the table in front of me, sending my plate of cheese rinds and fruit stems bouncing away.

  "What's this?" I asked, not sure if I should touch it. But it was a gorgeous box, carved from some sort of reddish-brown wood with a knot design on the cover. It was shaped like the sort of box a necklace would come in, if a bit large for that purpose.

  "The gift I mentioned," he said, sounding even grumpier than before. But the other dwarves were watching me with keen attention, like I was the birthday child about to open a mountain of presents.

  I lifted the lid and saw nestled within a wand of bronze.

  "Oh, lovely," I said, stroking a single fingertip down the side of the wand still in the box. It danced with light that was more than mere reflected firelight. "My grandmother has one like this."

  "This one is yours and yours alone," the dwarf said. "We agreed. You needed one."

  I didn't know what to say. The crafting of such an object was not a quick task. Clearly these dwarves had been aware of me longer than I had been aware of them. A lot longer.

  "Thank you," I said, and realized I was blinking back tears. "I thank you."

  "You'll need it," one of the other dwarves said.

  There was a sadness in his voice, a sort of sadness that only a lifetime of ages could feel.

  But before I could say a word about it, I blinked, and Thorbjorn and I were standing together at the far end of the canyon. The stream at our feet was dancing away from us across the wind-swept meadow off to our left, and to the right was the very edge of the forest we had emerged from what felt like hours before.

  And yet the sun was barely halfway across the southern sky. Not only had no time passed while we dined with the dwarves deep under that mountain in their ghostly city, it actually seemed to have gone backwards.

  "That was..." I started to say, but I had no idea how to finish that sentence.

  "Yes, it was," Thorbjorn said. He was looking at the wooden box I still held in my hands.

  "And yet, no clues," I sighed, tucking the box away in my bag before we started back across the meadow towards the forest.

  "I wouldn't say that," he said. "Let's head back to where Freygunnar was taken. We might have some leads yet."

  "I can't imagine what we missed," I said.

  "We'll see," he said with a cheery vagueness. "In the meantime, what's this about women in the trees?"

  17

  By mid afternoon, Thorbjorn and I were back at the hill where Freygunnar had been taken by the Wild Hunt. The marks from the horses, dogs, and weapons of the men were still visible in the snow, but the bird wing patterns were almost gone. The few that remained were mostly close to the trees, where the wind hadn't reached them nor the warmth of the sun at midday.

  "Which tree?" Thorbjorn asked. We were both avoiding climbing the hill itself by mutual unspoken agreement.

  "Over here," I said, leading the way just a little further south to where the lightning-blasted tree still stood. "See, there is where I was sitting when I woke up this morning."

  "Where were you last night before you found yourself inside the tree?" he asked.

  I looked around. I remembered shrubbery that had offered no refuge, but there was a lot of that around.

  Then I saw the marks of my own boots tracing a path down the hillside to stop some meters away from the tree. "There," I said, pointing towards it.

  Thorbjorn motioned for me to stay where I was as he picked out a careful path over to the spot. He crouched low, examining the snow more closely.

  "Your weight was on your heels," he said, pointing to the footprints without quite touching them. "There is a bit of slippage at the
toes. It's like you were pulled backwards and dragged away."

  "Towards the tree," I said, following the way the motion must have gone. "But there are no marks between there and the tree."

  "No," Thorbjorn agreed, straightening up. He looked up at the dead branches of the tree far overhead. "It's like you, just like Freygunnar and Freylaug were pulled up into the sky."

  "I think I'd remember that," I said. "All I remember is a hand touching my shoulder. Then I was just instantly inside that tree."

  Thorbjorn said nothing. He made a slow circuit around the tree, examining everything. "There's no way inside that I can see."

  "Nor a way out that I could find when I was inside," I said. "I could see the sky through the top of the trunk. If you step back a bit, you can see where it was blasted. The crown of the tree is gone now, and the whole trunk is hollow."

  "Interesting," Thorbjorn said. "Did you want to try drawing it again?"

  "I don't know," I said, looking at the sky. "It's getting close to sunset. I want to be back to the lodge before then."

  "You don't sound frightened," he said.

  "Well, I am," I said.

  "Not of getting taken by the Wild Hunt. You already know they weren't after you," he said.

  "Not that time," I said. "But I think they would've taken me anyway if I hadn't been spirited away into the center of that tree. Something or someone saved my life. I desperately want to know who it was and why, but I want even more to be sure we're both back inside the lodge before sundown."

  "To protect the others," he guessed.

  "As much as we can," I said. "I certainly hope we can do better than last night."

  "Agreed," he said. Then he looked up at the tree again. "I've never heard any tales of magic trees in this part of the forest. It's awfully close to the boundary to the outside world. Most nonhuman things stay well clear of that. I'm curious to know what you might draw if you tried."

  "I don't think it'll be anymore than I've drawn already," I said.

  "The first go around led us to the ur-dwarves. That wasn't the lead we hoped it would be, but it wasn't a waste of time either," he said, nodding towards the bag on my shoulder, where I had put the bronze wand.

  "I didn't recognize what I drew until you told me what it was," I said. "Here, I want you to look at what I drew at the clearing where Freylaug was taken." I took my sketchbook out of my bag and turned to the appropriate page before handing it to him.

  "I see them," he said. "You're right, they do look like they are hiding in the trees. But you sense nothing here inside this tree?"

  "Nothing," I said. "By all the magic I know, as little as that is, that's just an ordinary tree."

  "I think I know what these are," Thorbjorn said, looking more closely at the images I had drawn. "They have many names, but most often we call them moss-wives."

  "Moss-wives," I repeated. "That's a new one for me. Do they have moss-husbands?"

  "I don't know," he said, handing me back my sketchbook. I closed it, then put it back in my bag.

  "Have you ever seen one?" I asked.

  "No, but I know they have been seen in these woods," he said. "Or rather, in a different part of these woods, further away from the boundary I just told you about."

  "They live inside the trees, or they are the trees?" I asked.

  "Something between the two," he said. "They have a bond to their trees that's more than just a home to them, but they can move about at will."

  I closed my eyes and cast out with my magical vision. I looked carefully at all the trees around the hill, then searched a ring further out, and then another ring still further out.

  I opened my eyes. "I don't sense anything like that around here."

  "No, I'm pretty sure that the moss-wife that saved you followed you here and used that tree because she knew you could survive inside it."

  "Followed me from the lodge?" I asked.

  "I don't know. But if you drew them yesterday where Freylaug was taken, which was practically outside our door, that seems likely."

  "If I drew them yesterday, they must've already been aware of me then," I said.

  "I think so," he said.

  "But I looked at all the trees around that clearing too, and there was no sign of any magical or sentient creatures anywhere around there," I said.

  "They might've been drawn nearer by the Wild Hunt," Thorbjorn said. "In the old stories, they had a tie to the Wild Hunt. Like they knew first when it was coming and would occasionally warn humans. Then again, in some tales they're the ones that scout ahead for the Wild Hunt. Perhaps they're not to be trusted."

  "I don't think that’s the case," I said, shaking my head with firm confidence. "One of them saved me, and all of them in that picture were saddened by Freylaug's fate. No, I think they're on our side. If asked, they might be able to help us."

  "It could be they are the ones the ur-dwarves were hinting about," he said.

  "Maybe," I said. "Do you have any idea where to find them?"

  "I might," he said. "Like I said, I've never seen them. But there is a particular grove I sometimes pass through that feels... different."

  "Magical?" I asked.

  "No," he said slowly, half closing his eyes as he tried to conjure the words to describe his memory. "It feels like the trees are watching me."

  "In a good way or in a bad way?" I asked.

  "Neither," he said after a long moment's thought. "They're just watchful. Just making sure I move through without bothering anything."

  I looked up at the sky again. The sun was no longer visible overhead; the trees were obscuring it from view. But I could infer where it was by where the light was strongest.

  It was nearing the tops of the western hills, but we had some time yet. Not a lot, but some.

  "Is it far?" I asked.

  "No," Thorbjorn said. "It's just a little bit north of the lodge. We won't have to deviate far, and we'll be closer to the lodge there than we are here. If anything should happen."

  "Then let's go," I said, hoisting my bag up higher on my shoulder. "Hopefully they will have some information they are willing to share with us. Especially if they really are tied to the Wild Hunt. They might even know a way to send it away."

  "I wouldn't get my hopes up on that score," Thorbjorn said as the two of us started walking more or less due north. "I doubt if anything has that power, but if they did, surely they would've used it already."

  "Maybe they don't have the power themselves, but know how it's done," I said. "Like Haraldr teaching me magic."

  "Maybe," he said noncommittally.

  "Or," I added, "maybe they know who's behind it all."

  "Behind it all?"

  "I still feel like something is luring the Wild Hunt out. Someone is picking targets, somehow getting them outside the lodge walls, and putting them into the path of the Wild Hunt," I said. "I don't know who, but I feel a hand deliberately acting behind all this."

  "That's a terrible thought," he said. "The Wild Hunt is a thing of Odin. No mere mortal can control that."

  "Maybe not," I conceded. I knew he knew more about these sorts of things than in all the books on Norse mythology that I had ever read. Which had been all the books I could find. Which had been a lot.

  On the other hand, there was one thing I was absolutely sure I was right about. "But something is definitely going on here, and I'm going to find out what it is. We aren't going to have a third night like the last two. Not if I can help it."

  "Not if I can help it either," he said.

  Then we quickened our pace until we were breathing too hard to talk, while behind us, the sun sank ever lower in the sky.

  18

  When I was a kid, my mother and I used to go on hikes together. This was mostly through the parks near St. Paul, but sometimes we ranged further from home. Not terribly far, the farthest was probably Saint Croix Falls, just a little way up north and then over the border into Wisconsin.

  My mother always knew every
tree by sight, and most of the other plants too. She would show me the distinctive features on their leaves or flowers or whatever, but none of it really stuck. I usually have a vague idea of what sort of tree I'm trying to draw, but it's more "oak tree" and less "swamp white oak" or whatever.

  I suppose Thorbjorn was more like my mother than he was like me, but I didn't ask. Mostly because we were moving too quickly for easy conversation, but mostly because even I could tell that the forest around us had changed. The trees around us weren't the usual North Shore trees.

  I didn't know what they were or where they should belong, but the forest around us even in its glittering coating of snow was darker and twistier. And the trees themselves felt older. They weren't taller, but the trunks were stouter, and their branches, even leafless as they were now, were woven together so densely that little light reached us on the forest floor.

  I didn't like that last bit at all. Not that I'm afraid of the dark, but it was terribly inconvenient not to be able to see the sun when you were racing against sunset.

  "There," Thorbjorn said, pointing up ahead of us. I saw nothing but more trees at first, but then I saw a patch of bare snow-covered ground that was still shining in the waning afternoon light. A break in the trees. A clearing.

  The minute we reached it and stopped walking, Thorbjorn took out a kidney-shaped leather bag and opened a stopper in the top. He took a long drink, then handed it to me.

  Cold water had never tasted so good.

  As I took a second sip, Thorbjorn turned around in a slow circle, looking at everything around us. When he'd completed his circuit, I handed him back his water bag.

  "Anything?" I asked him.

  "I don't see anything," he said, his voice halfway to a whisper. "But I think something sees us."

  I felt the same way, like we were being watched. But it didn't feel malevolent, not like whatever had watched me leaving the hamlet the other day. This was more curiosity, but not a childlike curiosity. More like whatever was watching us wanted to see what we would do before deciding what it would do.

  "Hello?" I called out. There was no reply. I set my art bag down on the snow, then pulled off my hood and hat so I could see better. "I wanted to thank you for last night. Won't you come out and talk to me?"