A Gathering of Ravens

by Scott Oden

  “They were going to leave in peace,” she muttered.

  Her captor merely grunted.

  “You murdered them without cause.” She opened her eyes. Grimnir was crouched over the dead. He did not despoil Asgrimm’s son, but he gleefully rooted through the possessions of the others he had killed, coming up with a pair of twisted gold and copper arm rings, a small pouch of hacksilver—silver hewn from goblets or decoration and carried like coinage—and a new whetstone. “Like you murdered poor Njáll.”

  “Murder?” Grimnir laughed, pocketing his finds. “Murder, is it? You filthy hymn-singers are all alike. You call it murder when it doesn’t suit your needs. When it does, it’s the will of your maggot-riddled corpse god.”

  “Whose need did the deaths of these men serve, then?”

  “My need, foundling. I take what I want and I pay for it with this.” Grimnir slapped the hilt of his seax. “If any of your kind wants back what’s theirs, they need only meet my price. This one”—he indicated the old Dane with a jerk of his head—“knew it. That’s why he came after you with steel instead of words. And you … you played your part well.”

  “My part?”

  Grimnir chuckled as he walked to the edge of the glade and retrieved his satchel, then came back to stand before Étaín. “You didn’t really think I just wandered off and left you alone, did you?”

  Her cheeks flushed. “You used me as bait!”

  “Aye, and you did just what I thought you would, once my back was turned—you took to your heels. So much for your oath to come quietly, eh? I scratched two itches, here. Got these swine off my back and put your word to the test.”

  “My word does not mean I plan to stand in place like a lamb being led to slaughter,” said Étaín. “And ‘to come quietly’ means I will neither plot to kill you in your sleep nor sit and hatch incessant schemes of escape. I am here because it is God’s will. When His will changes, I will no longer be under your thumb whether you like it or not. And if I am left to my own devices I will go my own way.”

  “Fair enough.” Grimnir stared at the gray sky. The snow had slacked off; only a few flakes drifted down from the heavens. “We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s go.” He prodded her, gesturing for her to move off ahead of him. But Étaín shrugged him off and stood her ground.

  “Go where? If you hold on to this insane hope of reaching Britain before winter sets in then we must go west, to the coast. There may yet be ships—”

  “Oh, aye … ships filled with Danes who are convinced my people are devils sent to lead them astray,” Grimnir hissed. “Maybe once I would have been welcome among the reavers, but no longer. What did your Christ-Dane call me? The bane of his people? The truth is his people were the bane of mine. Your kind covers the earth like vermin, while I am the last of the kaunar. The world has changed, foundling. Twilight has come for the Elder Folk, and soon … soon will sound the horns of Ragnarok.”

  Before she could reply, Grimnir caught her by the arm, twisted her round, and shoved her in the direction he wanted to travel. She stumbled forward, the silver cross still clutched in her fist. Étaín risked a backward glance.

  Grimnir, too, was looking back at the glade, back at the blackened ruins and the sprawled corpses. Two ravens had alighted upon the steading’s tall center post, huge black birds with glossy beaks and obsidian eyes that gleamed with malicious wisdom; Grimnir sketched a mocking bow to them. “Go back to your master,” he muttered, barely loud enough for Étaín to hear. “Go and tell him a son of Bálegyr yet lives, his Doom be damned!”

  As if in answer, the two birds took wing, their deep cr-r-ruck echoing about the glade.

  11

  For two days, under skies hewn from the cold heart of winter, Grimnir guided them south and west. They left the settled fjord-lands of northern Sjælland for the wilder country of the south, a land of moors and fens and tangled forests. They ate what food they had left—hard bread and salt pork and the last of her store of apples—and drank from clear running streams. By night, as the temperatures plunged and snow threatened, Grimnir grudgingly built a small fire. Étaín would huddle near it for warmth, but the cold had little effect on the now-taciturn skrælingr. He sat away from the fire, muttering to himself in the harsh tongue of his kind or singing some tuneless chant that echoed with the drums, horns, and wrack of war; he was awake when Étaín dropped off to sleep, and awake when she crawled stiff-limbed from beneath her blanket. She wondered if he slept at all.

  For the most part, her first impressions were sound. Grimnir was as godless and profane as any heathen Northman. He sneered at her morning prayers and scoffed at her wish to pray at midday, or over her food. He had no time for anything that smacked of Christ. Just the sight of even the small silver cross Hrolf Asgrimm’s son had cast aside filled Grimnir with sullen rage. But he made an effort to pause by every moss-covered rune stone, poring over each surface like a priest over the Gospel. What he found there dictated not only the direction they traveled, but also his mood. Stones commemorating those who had fallen in battle left him nigh upon jubilant, while the few they happened across trumpeting some nameless Dane’s conversion sent him into a curse-laden tirade.

  “Traitors and oathbreakers!” he would mutter. “May the Wolf gnaw their wretched livers!”

  By the afternoon of the third day, as a keening wind whistled down from the north, they descended into a shallow valley thick with some of the most ancient forest Étaín had ever seen. The trees were squat and gnarled, like giants in repose, their spreading boughs half-clad in the finery of autumn. Walking beneath them felt as though she were walking down the nave of a mammoth cathedral; it was silent, and gray light tinged with red and gold filtered down from the clerestory of branches overhead.

  With each step, Étaín felt like she came more and more under some fell scrutiny, like something beyond the ken of mortal man was watching her descend into its world, a slice of the pre-Christian past, a twilight world of branch and leaf—something that would judge whether or not to let her live. She glanced at Grimnir; if he felt the same sensation he did not show it. Perhaps he knew what lurked among the trees. That thought caused her to clutch all the more tightly to the tiny silver cross …

  “There,” Grimnir said, after another hour had passed. The shadows had grown deep and long and Étaín could only just make out what lay ahead of them. The forest hemmed in a lake, its surface as black as a starless night; at the center of this lake was an island that looked overgrown with trees. Hawthorn, birch, oak, ash, and yew grew in such profusion that their trunks twisted and writhed together in a mass as solid as a fortress palisade.

  “Christ Almighty, what is this place?” Even as she spoke the words, Étaín felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end; she turned suddenly, staring into the deepening gloom. The trees around her exuded menace, something hoary and wild and fey that begrudged every breath she took.

  “No place where your Nailed God is welcome,” Grimnir said. “So watch your tongue, little fool.”

  Étaín nodded, her eyes wide with fear.

  Grimnir led them to the water’s edge, to where someone had drawn a slender punt up on shore. Étaín looked dubiously at the flat-bottomed boat. It seemed as old as the forest, its boards black and shiny with use and decay. A pole lay next to it.

  “Get in,” Grimnir said.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” Étaín replied, backing away from the water. “This place is … wrong. It’s evil. I can feel it.”

  “Evil, eh? What do you know about evil? Get in the boat. We’re close, now.”

  Étaín shook her head, her trembling hands clasped before her. Something inimical to her lived among these trees, something unnatural whose hatred and malevolence warped the bosom of the earth itself. That island …

  “Get in the gods-be-damned boat, little fool!” roared Grimnir. The echo of his voice profaned the silence. Boughs rustled on a phantom wind; Étaín imagined she could hear spectral laughter, as though whate
ver dwelled here took great pleasure in her terror. She backpedaled. She was on the verge of fleeing from this cursed grove when Grimnir sprang.

  Étaín screamed. She had the impression of lips skinning back from yellowed fangs and eyes blazing like coals an instant before his fist hammered into the side of her jaw and sent her sprawling into oblivion.

  12

  Étaín woke by a fire—a great, roaring blaze that filled the glade with warmth and light. She lay with her back against a fallen log, her hands bound behind her. A dull ache radiated from her bruised jaw. Her ears rang, yet. She blinked, looked around, and tried to remember how she’d gotten here—wherever here was.

  What she’d taken for a glade was actually a bight in the living palisade of trees that girt the small island, a grassy cove dominated by a stone-curbed fire pit. It was fully dark, now, but Étaín could still see the black lake beyond, its surface gleaming like a sheet of dark ice. It was snowing; fat flakes hissed and died in the crackling flames rising from the pit.

  She twisted to see what was behind her. Red-orange light sent shadows writhing along the tree-walls; the boughs overhead laced together like a roof, its autumnal thatch sparse, now, with the onset of winter. At the deepest part of the bight an ash tree and a mighty yew stood with their branches and the upper reaches of their trunks woven together; the bases of these two trees did not touch. Indeed, enough space existed between them that they formed an opening in the living palisade—an ominous black gate into the heart of the island. She saw Grimnir a few paces behind her, staring at this dark aperture.

  “Why are my hands tied?” she muttered, her words slurred from the swelling in her jaw. The silver cross that had belonged to Hrolf Asgrimm’s son was gone; no doubt he had sent it to the bottom of the black lake.

  Grimnir did not move. His chest expanded as he took a deep snuffling breath and held it before exhaling. When he finally turned toward her, a frown etched his craggy brow. “The taint of your kind reaches even here,” he said. He moved to where she sat.

  “Loose me,” she said.

  With a grunt, Grimnir leaned her forward and checked the knots that bound her hands in place.

  “You stay like that for now,” he said.

  “What? Why?”

  “For your own good.” Grimnir walked around to the other side of the fire and sat on a seat sawn from the trunk of a fallen oak. His eyes gleamed in the light, feverish and bright.

  Étaín shifted around, trying to find a more comfortable way of sitting; while not tight, the leather cords kept her arms at an uncomfortable angle. Was this punishment? His way of chastising her for trying to run away?

  “Where do the Danes gather in England, eh?”

  Étaín looked up. The question caught her off guard. She shook her head. “It’s been a year and more since I’ve been there,” she replied. “But, some used to make their camp on the Isle of Wight, just off the coast of Wessex.”

  “That’s where he’ll be, the miserable bastard. That maggot, Half-Dane! He’ll hide out among his mother’s people and try to convince them he’s a gold-giver and a war leader. Ha! Wretched oathbreaker, that’s what he is.” Grimnir stood and paced like a caged wolf. “He’s another who plays his part well. A few years back, he had that idiot, King Haakon of the Norse, convinced he was a powerful goði. The fool wouldn’t move an inch against the rebel sons of Eirik Bloodaxe, who schemed to boot him off the throne, until his pet priest had cast the runes. Well, I got wind of it and tracked the lot of them up-country to a wretched pisshole called Rastarkalv.” Grimnir spat into the fire.

  “Haakon was a crafty one. Knew the rebels were coming. He played a ruse to convince Bloodaxe’s sons they were outnumbered. Fools fell for it. They took to their heels and Haakon’s dogs reaped a bloody harvest among them. I left them to it, circled round, and came at Haakon’s camp from the north. That’s where I found him, Half-Dane, crouched over the runes like he knew what he was about.” Grimnir laughed at the memory. “Wasn’t expecting me. The swine! My coming was spelled out right there in the runes and still he was blind to it. Well, he had enough sand in his belly to trade a few blows, but when it went ill for him he took off like a March hare. I nearly had him, but we ran full into Haakon and his guard.” Grimnir stopped pacing; his eyes grew stern and deadly as he glared at something beyond the firelight, behind Étaín. “This time, he won’t have a score of Norse rogues to hide behind.”

  “Rastarkalv?” Étaín said, after a moment. Her brows knitted. “That was more than a few years ago. Njáll’s grandsire fought alongside Haakon the Good. But … if you fought Half-Dane, there, and he also sailed with Njáll and Olaf Tryggve’s son, then wouldn’t Bjarki Half-Dane be an old man, by now?”

  Suddenly, Étaín heard a trio of voices at her back. Harsh and rasping voices, like three different sizes of stones grinding together in a mockery of speech.

  “Use your wits, niðingr…”

  “He is only half a Dane…”

  “Whence comes his father’s blood, eh?”

  She stiffened as that same feeling of unnatural hatred, of cold menace returned; it crept up her spine, threatening to freeze the heart in her breast. Eyes wide with terror, Étaín turned …

  Three gaunt figures emerged from the opening in the living palisade of trees. They were naked save for twists of filthy hide knotted about their loins. Their skins were as pale as curdled milk, their hair and beards black, stringy, and matted; they stood as tall as Grimnir though their limbs were heavier and gnarled with age. The eyes staring out from their seamed faces, beneath bushy brows, were dead and black—as lifeless as the eyes of a shark.

  They stared at Étaín with an insatiable hunger.

  Grimnir moved around the fire. “Nóri, Nótt, and Náli,” he growled. “My wretched cousins.”

  The three figures stopped. The largest of them, Nóri, stood only a handful of paces from Grimnir; the other two—Nótt and the crookbacked runt, Náli—crouched in their brother’s shadow.

  “Why have you come here, son of Bálegyr?” said Nóri. “We have no truck with the one you seek.”

  Nótt pointed a dirty, accusing finger at Grimnir. “When has one of Bálegyr’s brood ever come before the sons of Náinn and not asked a boon, eh, my brother?”

  “He has brought tribute.” Náli dared to dart in close and sniffed the air above where Étaín was sitting. “A gift, brothers! One of his … a woman of the White Christ!”

  Grimnir slapped Náli away. “Back, maggot!”

  Náli squeaked and sought refuge in the shadow of his brothers. “The kaunr wants something,” they muttered and hissed to one another. “What do you want, son of Bálegyr? Does he want gold? What is gold to us, eh? A sword, then? A blade forged in dragon fire by the hands of the mightiest smiths of the dvergar? Are we not the sons of Náinn, cousin? What does he want, eh? What does he want?”

  “I want to walk the branches of Yggðrasil,” Grimnir said. “Like my father did of old. I want to take the Ash-Road!”

  The dvergar—dwarves, for such is what Étaín heard them call themselves—seemed taken aback by Grimnir’s request. They huddled together, whispering. Finally, Nótt stepped forth. “And where would you go, cousin? Not to Ásgarðr, for you are the last of your kind to yet face the Doom of Odin. Would you seek jarls and gold-givers among Angrboða’s kin in Jotunheimr, or would you wander the mists of Niflheimr, never to plague Miðgarðr again?”

  “Faugh! I am not fool enough to tempt those whores of Fate, the Norns, by leaving Miðgarðr,” Grimnir replied. “Yggðrasil’s branches pierce this world in countless places. Work your sorcery, cousins, and open a path that leads across the sea to England, to the shores of a place called Wessex.”

  Once again, the dvergar babbled among themselves. Étaín’s eyes flickered from the three horrid brothers to Grimnir and back, again. Yggðrasil? Norns? Ásgarðr? These were stories and fables made up by the heathens to explain the world around them. Myths that could not stand before the truth o
f Christ the Redeemer. To hear them talk so freely of them, as if they truly existed, filled Étaín with a curious sense of dread.

  Finally, the strongest of the brothers, Nóri, silenced the other two. “It is not as it was in olden times, cousin. The power of the White Christ rises like an unwanted weed in the garden. It chokes the life from the Old Ways and threatens the very roots of Yggðrasil. We can do this thing you ask, but the outcome is not as certain as it was in your sire’s day. And there is a price. A blood price.” Nóri leered at Étaín and licked his lips.

  Grimnir’s eyes narrowed. “You sell yourselves cheap, beardling. There’s not enough meat on her bones for one of you, much less three. And why would I pay three to do the work of one?” Like a conjurer, Grimnir produced a pair of old dice carved from bone. “You maggots throw for it. The winner opens the way and gets the prize. Share it or not, that’s your own business.”

  Avarice brought a gleam of life to the three brothers’ eyes; they glanced sidelong at one another. Nóri chuckled. “We will take your wager, cousin.”

  Étaín struggled against her bonds. “You bastard! I thought … I thought you needed my help?”

  Grimnir ignored her. He tossed the dice at the feet of the dvergar. Like dogs fighting over a scrap of meat, they went at one another in an effort to lay hands on the dice. Amid all the shouting, punching, kicking, and cursing, Grimnir leaned down and grabbed Étaín by the hair, dragging her close.

  “Watch, and be silent,” he hissed.

  Suddenly, Nóri emerged from the scrum with the dice held high. Crowing like he’d won a great victory, he chivvied his brothers into some semblance of order and quickly sketched out their game: the winner would be whichever one scored the best in three out of five throws.

  With a derisive chuckle that even Étaín could barely hear, Grimnir seated himself on the log and watched the three of them go at it. The first three throws took over an hour, with Nóri and Nótt squabbling over even the tiniest nuance, from acceptable stances for throwing to what the phrase “out of bounds” truly meant; crookbacked Náli accepted their every pronouncement in stoic silence and rolled highest every time he touched the dice. Clearly, he was in the lead … until Nóri declared his last two throws invalid because he couldn’t stand up straight.