Corpse in the Mead Hall

by Cate Martin

  "The walls will protect us," I announced as I slipped the bronze wand into the sleeve of my sweater. At first it was cold against my skin, but it quickly grew warmer. Like it was a part of me. "Now we have to protect ourselves. No one can go outside for any reason. But we all already knew that before. What we need to watch out for now is one of us being lured out not of our own accord."

  "How will we know?" Raggi asked.

  "Because they're trying to get outside," Thorbjorn said. "Any of us who does that is being lured out."

  "By what?" Raggi asked.

  "It doesn't matter," I said firmly. I hoped he couldn't tell that he had just spoken the question that was my biggest worry.

  But there was no way to find out the answer to that question now. Not until daylight.

  "First watch, gather up," Thormund said as he walked closer to the fire, clapping his hands like he was summoning a sports team to huddle up.

  Nilda and Kara were already laying out my bedroll on the far side of the room.

  "I'm first watch," Nilda told me, then left to join the others by the fire.

  "I'm second," Kara said. "I'll be beside you while you fall asleep. Do you need anything?"

  "No," I said, or tried to. The massive yawn that came out of nowhere mostly obliterated that word. "Just Mjolner."

  Upon hearing his name, Mjolner got up from his resting place beside my bag and walked over to the bedroll. He waited for me to get into the covers and get comfortably situated with an excessive show of patience. Then he flopped down on the pillow behind my head, pressed his spine against the back of my neck, and promptly started purring.

  Four purrs in, and I was out cold. It had been a very long day.

  20

  Once again, the middle of the night found me opening my eyes. Only this time, instead of seeing the world as anyone else saw it, I was looking at it in my meditative state. I could see the soft glow of the others sleeping around me, the brighter light from the walls themselves and the spells I had spun to reinforce them, and brightest of all Mjolner beside me on my pillow.

  I could feel something approaching the lodge through the forest. Not the Wild Hunt, at least not yet. This was a solitary thing, not human, not even natural. I sensed no mind, just a mission.

  I sat up and blinked to bring myself back to the real world, but nothing happened. I was still in my magical meditative state.

  Although it had gotten easier to reach this place through weeks of practice, I had never accidentally found myself in it, let alone just woke up looking at the world this way. That was alarming enough, now that I was awake enough to properly think about it.

  But to not be able to get out of it? I looked down and realized I hadn't even sat up. I could see my body lying behind me, looking as if it still slept, undisturbed. I looked down at my own hands and saw that I had a form, sort of. It was mostly the magical glow I was used to seeing, but now it was in the rough outline of a human shape.

  And my ghostly legs were overlapping my real legs. That freaked me out, so I stood up and stepped away from my bedroll. What was going on?

  That thing in the woods was getting closer. I could feel it snaking silently through the trees.

  But how could everyone be sleeping around me? What had happened to the watch?

  I spun around and saw everyone who had volunteered for first watch sitting together by the fire. They were dressed all the way down to their boots and each had their weapons close at hand. But every single one of them had their chins resting on their chests, lost in a deep slumber.

  "Meow?" Mjolner said, and I turned back around to see him wake up and then stretch. Or stretch then wake up; it was a little unclear.

  He looked up at me sleepily, and I belatedly realized that he was no longer glowing with magic. He looked just like he normally did: a black six-toed cat.

  That made no sense to me. I wasn't in a different world. I was just perceiving the usual world differently.

  Wasn't I?

  I wished Haraldr was there. I had so many questions.

  But I really wished my grandmother was there.

  Mjolner was bathing his ears as if nothing particularly interesting was happening. But I could feel that thing moving over the clearing. It would be at the very door in a matter of seconds.

  I spun back around but saw that the door was firmly shut, the bar in place.

  But the relief that gave me was only momentary, as I sensed something moving behind me. In my magical vision world, nothing made a sound save Mjolner. But I didn't need to hear to know something was stirring. I felt it in my bones.

  I turned to see Kara sitting up in the bedroll next to mine. This time I didn't let myself feel any joy that I was no longer the only one awake. I moved closer to her and saw something wrong with her magical glow.

  There was another, darker light interwoven with her own glow. It was subtler, more invasive, even than my spells within the older magic of the walls.

  And now she was standing up, but I knew she wasn't awake. She was moving like a zombie, slow and graceless and not at all like her usual self. She didn't stop for her boots. She just made her way across the room to the doors and the thing that was waiting outside those doors.

  No, not just waiting. I had been expecting the thing to attack the doors, but that wasn't its plan at all. It was just there, waiting.

  Waiting for Kara.

  I floated over to Thorbjorn, but I couldn't touch him, let alone wake him. I couldn't even shout.

  Then Mjolner meowed again. There was a command in that meow, and not his usual dinner-demanding tone. I floated back to the bedroll to see he was pawing at my art bag, trying to get inside.

  Trying to get to the wand.

  I couldn't touch the bag, but I stuck my hand through it, inside of it.

  And I felt the wand. The bronze was so cold I was afraid my skin would freeze to it. But touching something real had never felt so good.

  Then I blinked, and I was back in the normal world.

  Standing alone inside the lodge full of sleeping people, all of them oblivious to Kara making her way towards the door.

  I ran across the room and tried to tackle her, but like Freygunnar she was suddenly imbued with super strength. She tossed me back, and I slid across the wood planks of the floor. I didn't come to a stop until I collided with Thorbjorn's outstretched feet.

  Not even that jostling woke him. I got back to my feet and looked towards Kara, but I had nothing more to try with her than another fruitless tackle. I needed Thorbjorn and his brothers.

  I realized I still had my wand in my hand. It had snapped me out of my spell when I had touched it. On impulse, I tapped the end of it in the middle of his forehead.

  He sucked in a deep, mighty breath, his blue-green eyes wide and disoriented. He blinked at me just once, then that disorientation was gone.

  "Kara," I said to him, and he followed my pointing finger to see her fumbling with the bar that held the doors closed. He was on his feet in a flash, across the room in scarcely more time.

  Kara tried to buck him away as she had done me. He stayed on his feet, but he was struggling to keep her hands off that bar.

  He needed his brothers. They hadn't been sitting up for this watch, but I knew where to find them among the sleeping figures on the floor.

  I tapped Thorge and then Thormund on the forehead and sent them to help their brother. Then I went back to the remains of the fire and made my way around the circle of the first shift watch, waking each in turn so they too could help.

  Nilda was the last of the watch to wake. By the time her eyes focused on mine and she was aware of the world around us, the lodge was echoing with the angry screams of her sister trying to fight off three Thors at once. Thorbjorn stood behind her with his arms around her in a tight bearhug. He had lifted her clean off the floor, but she was kicking and shrieking like a thing possessed.

  Even in her stockinged feet, her kicks against the doors were shaking them on their hinges.
The bar jumped and danced, threatening to come away entirely.

  Nilda ran to Thorbjorn's side and desperately tried to speak to her sister, but it was like Kara couldn't even hear her.

  "Get her on the ground!" Thorge said. "If we all pile on top of her, we can keep her here until she tires herself out."

  I didn't think that was likely to happen anytime soon. But then I realized that the others I had left sleeping in their bedrolls were waking up on their own.

  Well, not entirely on their own. Kara's screams were ear-splitting. But not with any assistance from me.

  Kara might not be tiring, but whatever was outside the doors was. It was losing its hold on the situation.

  But we were running out of time. I could feel the air getting colder by the minute. I could even see frost forming on the wooden pillars, spreading out in fan-like patterns before my eyes. I had to act fast.

  I lowered my wand and aimed it at the door. Raggi and Báfurr were standing there, trying to hold the bar in place. I don't know if it was the sight of my wand or just the look in my eye, but they both yelped and jumped out of the way.

  I didn't think it mattered if they were there. Magic didn't work like arrows fired from a bow, after all.

  Then I realized I didn't know how magic did work. I had my wand in position, but what was I supposed to do?

  On impulse, I commanded, "be gone!" in my most impressive, magically enhanced voice.

  And just like that, Kara stopped fighting.

  "Open the doors!" I yelled at Raggi and Báfurr. Whatever had been outside the doors, it was retreating. I could sense it zipping away back through the trees, so fast.

  "No way!" Raggi said.

  I grumbled something that wasn't really articulate words, then jumped over the scrum of Thors and Kara on the floor to throw up the bar myself. I pushed both of the doors wide open.

  I might've had some half-formed plan to run after the thing, never mind I was no better dressed than I had been the night before. But I didn't even put a toe past the threshold.

  I looked back to see Thorbjorn still kneeling on the floor behind me. He had gotten up off his brothers and lunged to catch the back of my clothes, holding me fast.

  "It's getting away!" I said desperately.

  "Let it," he said. "The Wild Hunt is coming. Don't you feel it?"

  I did. The cold had been the first clue, but now the wind was picking up. The first dog barked far off in the distance, and was answered by another that sounded like it was on the far side of the clearing, just out of sight amongst the trees.

  "The doors!" Raggi cried. Thorbjorn pulled me back out of the doorway, and Raggi and Báfurr slammed the doors shut and dropped the bar into place.

  Just in time. The doors began to shake even before they'd stepped away.

  "Something was here first," I said. I hoped I didn't sound as bad-tempered as I felt, but I had just lost my best chance at catching whatever was behind all this.

  "Did it summon the Hunt, like you feared?" Thorbjorn asked me as he got to his feet.

  "I don't know," I admitted. "But it was definitely doing something to Kara. Luring her out. Waiting for her just outside the doors."

  "What was it?" Raggi demanded.

  "I don't know," I said. "I've never seen anything like it before."

  He turned away from me, but not before I saw him start to roll his eyes at Báfurr.

  "I know I'm new at this," I said. "I'm still figuring it all out."

  "You'll get no complaints from me," Nilda said. She was sitting on the floor, her sister in her arms. There were tears in her eyes, something I had never thought to see in my lifetime. It shook me more than anything else I had seen that night.

  "Nor me," Kara said, pushing back her loose hair to look up at me. "Thank you, Ingrid. I don't know what you did or how you did it, but thank you."

  I didn't trust myself to speak, not pass the lump that was hard in my throat. All I could manage was a nod.

  But I knew she understood. I saw it in her eyes.

  21

  None of us got anymore sleep that night. Not with the Wild Hunt still riding just outside our walls. The wind shrieked, the dogs howled, and the horses' hooves thundered. There were cries like from men, but only inarticulate shouts of excitement and then growing frustration.

  Valki and Thormund got the fire back to roaring life. The warmth did little against that unnatural cold, but the light was much appreciated. Gunna and Jóra made large pots of strong coffee and passed mugs around.

  We all huddled together, sipping that coffee, listening to the cacophony outside, and waiting for dawn.

  "So what exactly happened?" Thorbjorn asked me. I was resting with my head on his shoulder, but I sat up to look at him, not sure what he meant. "You were awake before the rest of us. Tell me the whole story. What woke you?"

  "Nothing, I don't think," I said. "I just was suddenly awake. Only, not really."

  "I don't follow you," he said.

  "Well, you know how when I meditate I can see the magic of things around me," I said.

  "You said you contained your glow," he said.

  "I did. This is more the opposite. I'm seeing other things. I'm not necessarily being seen."

  "Were you seen last night?"

  I thought about that for a moment. "No, I don't think so. I was just awake, aware of something approaching. But I don't think it was aware of me. It wasn't coming for me."

  "It was coming for Kara, already?" he asked.

  At the sound of her name, Kara, who was sitting across from us wide awake but with her head on her sister's shoulder, sat up straight.

  "I think so," I said to both of them. "There was something wrong with the glow around Kara. Something alien was woven into it."

  "Is it still there?" Kara asked.

  I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing, then opened my eyes and looked at her magical glow. I searched it as thoroughly as I knew how. Finally, I blinked and was looking at the normal world again.

  "No. It's gone," I said.

  "You're sure?" Nilda asked.

  "Yes. Very sure," I said. Nilda nodded, satisfied with my answer.

  "Let me get this straight," Thorbjorn said. "You sensed something approaching, hunting for Kara, but she already had a mark. Was that mark what lured the... whatever?"

  "I don't know. Maybe."

  "Did Freygunnar or Freylaug have it?" Nilda asked.

  "I don't know," I said, and felt my cheeks flushing. I didn't want to admit that I hadn't even looked.

  "Well, you didn't see Freylaug at all, and when you followed Freygunnar you were pretty much running the whole time, right?" Kara said.

  Now my cheeks were glowing for a different reason. It felt good to have Kara back in my corner again.

  "You should check everyone now," Thorbjorn said.

  "No, don't," Nilda said. She looked around, but none of the others were paying any attention to us. Still, she waved for us all to put our heads closer together before she spoke again. "Wait until tomorrow. If it's even necessary tomorrow. Check us all before we go to bed."

  "She's right," Kara said before I could argue. "If anyone else was marked like I was, they'd already be trying to get outside, right?"

  "I don't know. What was drawing you out wasn't the Wild Hunt. It was that other presence, the thing that retreated too fast for me to see. I wish I'd run after it," I said regretfully.

  "I'm glad you didn't," Thorbjorn said. "Who knows where it was heading? And you'd have been caught by the Wild Hunt for sure. The mark might show who's inclined to sneak out in the dark of night, but there's more than one kind of obsession that can lure people out."

  "Point taken," I said.

  But I still wished I'd run after the thing.

  "It doesn't make any sense," Nilda said. "One sister after another, but then Kara? Where's the pattern there?"

  "Single women?" Thorbjorn said with a shrug.

  "That accounts for half the people under this roof r
ight now," Nilda said. "Why Kara next?"

  "I'm wondering how someone put a mark of magic on me without me knowing," Kara said. "Did someone cast a spell on me from afar?"

  "I don't know," I admitted.

  "Because I certainly didn't encounter anyone out in the woods who could've put a spell on me," she went on. "The only people I've seen since we left home are the rest of us here."

  "And before you left home?" Thorbjorn asked.

  "Mostly the same people," she said. "Did I eat tainted food or something?"

  "I'll figure it all out," I promised her. "Although I might have to go back home to do it."

  "You're going home? Tomorrow?" Nilda asked, alarmed.

  "I don't want to spend another night here if you aren't here too," Kara said.

  "It's not like I'm of any use with the hunting," I said. "I could go and be back before nightfall."

  "I don't want you to go," Kara insisted.

  "No, I can see why you wouldn't," Raggi said suddenly. I looked up to see most of the rest of the lodge now watching us. Our voices had been rising during the course of the conversation, I realized too late.

  "I'm not abandoning you all," I said.

  "Like we need you around for another little show," Raggi said.

  "What do you mean 'show'?" I asked.

  He mimicked waving a wand around, then sneered at me. "You know what I mean."

  "That wasn't a show," Kara said darkly. "Those were protective spells."

  "Too little, too late, if you ask me," Báfurr said.

  "No one did," Nilda grumbled.

  This was getting out of hand. The constant howling outside was putting everyone on edge, but the last thing we needed was a fight amongst ourselves. "I'm still new at all this," I said. "I'm sorry for letting you all down."

  "See, that implies you actually tried to do something," Raggi said. "Which I don't think you did. I think you want us all to believe you have power, but you don't, do you?"

  "I don't have to prove anything to you," I said.