Runeblade Saga Omnibus

by Matt Larkin

  Not that the draug would ever hear it.

  He’d played him. Maybe somehow even engendered that rage, worked Ecgtheow up to those murders. The draug wanted vengeance on Hervor, and he’d do aught imaginable to get it.

  And now Bjalmar was in chains, Hervor’s homeland was razed to the ground, her friends dead. And Odin alone knew what Orvar might do to get further revenge.

  Worst of it was, Hervor had murdered him, betrayed him. And she probably deserved what was coming to her.

  37

  It was a long road back to Godmund’s hall. Harder now as winter set in. Jotunheim grew even colder, if that was possible. The snowstorms became blinding incarnations of fury that could have buried them alive if Starkad did not always seem to somehow locate a cave or other shelter. And when those storms passed, they oft had to spend an hour or more digging themselves out.

  Hervor did not press him then to know how he always knew which way to go, or where to shelter when the storms drew nigh, or where to hunt for game. She did not press on that, but she did force him to keep talking. Every night. Because she knew him now, and knew, too, that if they were to move forward in any direction, she’d have to be the one to take them there.

  And at night they’d talk long. Sometimes, she could get him to reveal just a little bit about himself. Most nights—if she thought she had little risk of getting with child—she’d come to him and insist they lay together. He never refused.

  And slowly, they made their way back to the jotunn king’s hall.

  Starkad offered the jotunn the better part of the hoard he’d claimed from the valley as weregild for the man Hervor had slain, as well as in exchange for shelter through the winter.

  Thus Godmund gave each of them a room in his mighty hall, and they passed their days. Hervor no longer bothered to disguise herself as Hervard—everyone knew now anyway. Most treated her with respect regardless. Especially Höfund, who oft asked her for tales of her home, of her adventures at sea, of her life.

  Sadly, most of those tales involved Hervor robbing and murdering people. She’d spent so much of her life doing it … and what had she to show for it? Dead friends and not much else. Except maybe for Starkad.

  He lay beside her now, naked and breathing heavily. Not surprising, given the fervor with which they’d just had each other.

  Hervor traced her fingers along his abdomen. A mass of scars covered almost every spot on his body. So many battles. So many wounds.

  She sniffed. Like herself? She bore fewer scars, but she had her share of them. She glanced at her right clavicle. Couldn’t get a good look at it without a mirror, but enough to see where the old wound marred her. Always would.

  “It’s not so bad,” he said.

  Hervor snorted. Of course he’d known what she was thinking. “Höfund asked me to lay with him this morning.”

  He grunted. “Did you?”

  “Of course not! I told him I was with you.”

  “I lay no claim on you, Hervor. You are free to do as you wish.”

  Oh really? She turned over, grabbed his stones, and squeezed until he drew in a sharp breath.

  “Not going to … get much more out of those … right now.”

  “Maybe I want you to lay claim to me.”

  Starkad worked his jaw, fighting with something inside himself. Hervor tightened her grip just a tiny bit. He yelped.

  She eased off the pressure, then straddled him, massaging his chest more gently. “Would that be so terrible?”

  “I am not …”

  “What?” she demanded. “Am I not desirable enough? Not ladylike enough?”

  “It has naught to do with you.”

  She rolled her eyes. She was going to strangle this oaf. “That’s what a woman wants to hear. Thank you, Starkad.”

  He groaned, shook his head. “I mean to say … I am not good for what you want. I cannot remain in one place long and those close to me … they suffer. They die.”

  “Then we are not so different.”

  “I have done so many … crimes. So much blood.”

  And there it was. Because she had as well. She had told him a little of her days with Red-Eyes’ Boys. Told him of her piracy, raiding, murders. All save one.

  Orvar-Oddr. The Arrow’s Point.

  Starkad’s friend, whom she had betrayed and murdered.

  And now, like this, she could tell him. Let him know everything and make a true choice … to stay, or to walk away from her. She opened her mouth. Tried, really. Until she gagged on words that would not come.

  “What is it?”

  “I … I …”

  “Hervor?”

  “I killed …”

  “Who?”

  “Many people. So many, myself.” Damn it. Just let her tell him. Let the words come out. “We are not so different, you and I.”

  He was shaking his head again. “I bear a curse that will not be broken. A wanderlust that drives me to the ends of Midgard and beyond.”

  “Then I will wander with you!”

  “That is no life for a jarl’s heir, nor one I would wish upon a woman I …”

  “What? A woman you what?”

  He shook his head.

  She leaned in close to his face. “Love? A woman you … love?” Could that be what he wanted to say? Was that possible for them? To move past all the unspoken words, the half-truths, and find some kind of warmth in the end?

  “I am not free to love.”

  Now she groaned and rolled off him. Fuck him. “You know what—whatever you told me about this Ogn, she was an unworthy bitch. And she’s fucking dead! She ought to have no more hold on you. I am alive. I am right here! Or maybe one day you want to be sitting and moaning about how your curse cost you me as well?”

  He recoiled. Sat up and pulled away to sit against the wall.

  So that was it? Hervor grimaced. “Maybe I’d be better with Höfund, then.”

  “He is a king’s son …”

  “You are unbelievable, you know that?”

  “Do you fancy Höfund?”

  She sneered. Odin’s stones, Starkad could be so dense, so damned difficult sometimes. “He’s a damn fine man. Large all around, so I imagine he’d get the job done. Shit, he even suggested that, if I felt tied to you, perhaps all three of us might lay together.”

  “And would you want that?”

  Hervor snorted, trying to not look like she’d considered it. Like the idea of fucking the both of them didn’t make her hot.

  “You do want it.”

  “So maybe I fucking do. What of it?”

  “Naught. If you want it, let us do it.”

  Oh. Really? Well, just imagining that … No. No, damn it, focus. That was for later.

  She lunged at him, wrapped her fingers in his long hair. “You cannot get out of this so easily, Starkad. I am telling you. Clear as the dawn, I want us to be together.”

  “You ask … for marriage? I am not fit to be husband to any woman.”

  “What do I care about marriage? All I want is your oath that you will stay by my side. That if you feel you must wander, you will do so with me. If you cannot linger somewhere, we shall leave together. And for that, maybe I don’t need Grandfather’s lands or titles. Maybe I just need to get something out of life.”

  Starkad worked his jaw, then lurched forward and kissed her. So hard he bore her down. Kissed her until they both broke away panting.

  “I …” he finally sputtered. “I cannot give you children.”

  “What?”

  “Another effect of my curse.”

  That was … horrifying. What a fell urd to cast upon a man. To know he was the end of his line? But … still. Her heart wanted what it wanted. “Then I guess I no longer need worry about skipping the nights I might get with child. Suppose that means I must put you to work every night from here on out.”

  “You cannot truly choose this urd, Hervor. To bear no children, to never be able to hold wealth, to wander this world your wh
ole life!”

  She leaned forward, grabbed his hair again. “It is my choice, and I choose it. I choose it. I want your oath, Starkad. Fuck marriage, fuck convention. I care naught. But if you love me, I will have your oath.”

  He hesitated a bare moment. His eyes were wide. His hot breath fell heavy upon her face. “I … I swear it. I swear to stay by your side, then. I give you my oath of love, Hervor. I swear it! I swear it!”

  She pulled him close and he lunged onto her, kissing her again and again.

  And she dared to hope that, given such an oath, it might be enough. Despite the lies and murders and secrets.

  She dared to believe that their oaths would bind them.

  Epilogue

  “I have seen things … I did not expect.” Odin trudged over to where Loki sat, looking out over the Middle Sea.

  “Such goes the Sight. What use for it if it but revealed what we already perceive with our own eyes?”

  Odin grunted as he settled down on the beach. The sand was chilly and uncomfortable on his arse, but Loki hardly seemed to notice. “Starkad claimed another of the runeblades. In case the flames didn’t tell you that.”

  “I have seen.” Loki turned to him now. “You take little care for the things your puppet brings back into this world.”

  Odin frowned. “I care a great deal about the runeblades.”

  “I do not speak of blades, as you well know.” He pointed out over the waters. “Beyond that sea lies Utgard, the vast world surrounding our own. And within it lie two realms you ought to concern yourself with. Jotunheim and Serkland.”

  “I know them both. We aid the Vallanders in their wars against Serkland. No Serklander army will make it past them, and they dare not attempt the treacherous open sea. As for Jotunheim, I am attending to that problem as best I am able. It is not as if I can simply rebuild the Midgard Wall where it has begun to falter.”

  “And would you, if you could? Would that not interfere with sending your pieces on forays into Utgard?”

  Odin groaned. “You seem in a foul mood this day. And I have no inclination to be lectured.”

  Loki sighed. “In any event, it was not Jotunheim I spoke of. You’re right … the Serklanders do not wish to cross open water if they can avoid it. Though I cannot say that will hold them back forever. And your emissary has granted them another boon, another ally, like them, possessed by a Fire vaettr.”

  “They have many such sorcerers. It has not let them break through Valland as yet.”

  “Scyld is old and powerful, an asset we have freely handed them. One I had dared to hope would remain lost for long years more. A mistake I made a long time ago … I should never …” He sighed again. “It matters naught now.”

  “True.”

  Loki looked up sharply at him. “True?”

  “True. It matters naught. If the Serklanders have one more possessed flame-spewing ally, so be it. I have more pressing concerns. Would you have me contend against both fire and mist, brother? Fire is life. Is that not the idiom we live by?”

  “It is life. But it can also be death, destruction without measure, without boundaries. To be a boon, it must be contained, not unleashed and let run wild.”

  Odin clenched his fists at his side. Loki of all people ought to understand the pressures he faced. Finally, he shook his head. “Two runeblades yet remain unaccounted for. Tell me, brother, will you help me find them?”

  “You already know that I will.”

  Yes. He had known. “So then … It’s time to look into the flames once more.”

  Author’s Ramblings

  This book served as a departure from the last in the sense that most of the action takes place away from the political landscape, with the except of the Ecgtheow chapters. Hervor has basically sated her lust for vengeance (and paid a price for doing so) and is now focused on more personal goals, like helping Starkad uphold the oath he made on her behalf. Because of this, it marks a change in her character, one that made this book particularly interesting to write.

  Much like Days of Endless Night, we have our characters heading off into a faraway and perilous land filled with both natural and supernatural dangers. Consequently, this one feels a bit more similar in tone to book one than book two did. And while the entire series remains a sword & sorcery / horror tale, this one might not be quite as dark as the last.

  In the Hervarar Saga we are told that after getting Tyrfing from her father’s burial mound, Hervor goes on various adventures before eventually coming to the court of King Godmund. There, while she is discussing a game with Godmund, another courtier tries to steal Tyrfing. She kills him for it, and Godmund warns his people not to seek vengeance.

  Godmund is traditionally the king of Glaesisvellir, a location in Jotunheim (a kingdom in this case). His son, Höfund, also plays a role later in the story, while Godmund appears in several myths.

  Obviously, in the Runeblade Saga, a whole bunch of shit happens between Hervor getting the sword and meeting Godmund. Most of these other stories were drawn from other sources, discussed previously. We’ll call all that her “various adventures.”

  This volume allowed me to dive a bit deeper into the lore of the Old Kingdoms, a subject touched on in almost every story set in the Ragnarok Era, but rarely explained in depth. This is largely because most of those alive in the modern age have no access to reliable information about the time of the Old Kingdoms (they all collapsed eight hundred years before the current stories).

  While Scyld, Bedwigius, and Seskef are all characters in Norse mythology, the specifics of their tale here are largely an original creation. Ilona is named after a Hungarian faerie queen loosely adapted for the Ragnarok Era. Choosing to incorporate her flashbacks (seen by Hervor) allowed me to create something a little different in this story than I done thus far, and proved very fun to write. I hope you all enjoyed the look into the past, as well.

  Coming back around to Ecgtheow … As in the previous book, he receives a smaller section of the story than the other protagonists. Here, he serves as the lens through which we can see what’s going on back in Sviarland while Hervor and Starkad are away. Hervor has left for a prolonged period, allowing Arrow’s Point free reign to ruin her life while she’s away. And it might be tempting to think she’s getting what she deserves: she chose to pursue vengeance, and then chose to murder a man even after he tried to make amends and helped to save her life.

  Most of the awful things that happen to her are thus a direct result of her own choices.

  On the other hand, through the draug’s manipulations, Ecgtheow becomes a murderer and loses nearly all he has (to say nothing of everything Hervor’s family goes through). Anyone familiar with the original myths will probably recognize all this as a precursor to Beowulf, a story I hope I can eventually get around to incorporating. By the end of this book, Ecgtheow finds himself banished and desperate, turning to Hrothgar for salvation. Finally, he realizes what a bastard Orvar-Oddr has become, but it’s too late.

  Which is to say, the Arrow’s Point is far from done with Hervor.

  I want to offer a big thanks to Clark and Hanna for the development and editing of this story, and to my cover designer for another fantastic job.

  Thank you for reading,

  Matt

  P.S. Reviews are super important, especially to small presses like mine. Without reviews, small presses cannot get ads. It takes only a single line or two to make that difference. So if you liked this, please leave a review where you bought it!

  Want to talk about the book? I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at: matt@incandescentphoenix.com

  Days of Fading Dreams

  Prologue

  Though far from a perfect world, Midgard was the only one men had, and thus, Odin found himself forced to preserve it through any means available. If Ragnarok could not be averted, perhaps it might be delayed, or—at the least—won.

  And thus he found himself forever wandering, seeking every bit of knowledge with
which he might forearm himself against the coming battle. Midgard was vast and filled with myriad secrets oft lost to the ages, or nigh to it.

  As now, when he walked the frozen lake shores of Kalevala in Kvenland. He had come here before, of course, several times. For here lay the extreme fringes of the human world, a land where some vestiges of arcane lore yet remained, passed down among shamans and wandering wizards.

  True knowledge was rare, of course. As nigh as Odin could tell, only a handful of sorcerers yet walked Midgard, and the better part of those he was forced to count among his many enemies. But Odin had met a few wizards in Kvenland before and made the acquaintance of one he now sought. A song-crafter, the wizard called himself, a practitioner of galdr. Odin’s studies with Freya had only scraped the surface of the Art, so he could only assume the songs another means of invocation.

  And yet the mastery Väinämöinen had demonstrated, his ability to affect and influence the world through his galdr—they had been uncanny. An ability Odin would need himself if he was to win Ragnarok.

  And so he walked the lake shores in Kalevala, stalked the woodlands, and scoured the hills. Idunn’s apples had made him immortal and, still, he had never enough time. Too many places he needed to be, too many moves to make on the tafl board. For all his gifts and all his power, he could not be in two places at once—though Sleipnir’s speed did help him cover great distances in but a few days—and every moment he spent here was one lost to other opportunities.

  Wandering the wilds alone oft gave him overmuch time to think, to lose himself in such musings. It almost made him sympathetic toward Loki, who himself must nigh to have drowned in his endless, perilous memories. Men thought them gods and still could not begin to imagine the burdens of immortality.

  At last, Odin cracked a slight smile. Upon the shore of a pristine lake, there sat the man himself, arms draped over his knees, gazing out as if he had not a care in this world. Odin had not looked upon Väinämöinen in a number of winters, yet the man seemed little changed. Maybe a few more hints of gray in his long blond hair and beard. The man rocked in time with the breeze, humming to himself, even when he turned his blue-eyed gaze upon Odin.