by Scott Oden
On the fourth throw, Nótt jiggled Náli’s elbow, causing one of the dice to fly off toward the edge of the lake. The two elder brothers went bounding after it, capering like bearded children. “It plays where it lays, you worm!” Nóri shouted. Demoralized, cheated of his victory, Náli shuffled after them.
But as the crookbacked dvergr passed by where Grimnir sat, the latter snagged his arm and drew him close. Étaín saw a flash of iron as something passed between the two; Grimnir gave the runt a knowing wink. Náli blinked; he glanced sidelong from Grimnir to his deceitful brothers and tried without success to hide a gap-toothed smile.
Finally, the dice flew for the fifth and final time. Twisted little Náli was the clear winner, but it was Nóri who stepped forward. Nótt, ever the sycophant, cleaved to his brother’s shadow, muttering endearments and licking his cracked lips at the thought of being permitted a taste of flesh, a drop of blood. Sullen Náli stood behind them, his face suffused with black rage.
“I’ll take that prize now, cousin,” Nóri said, a gloating smile twisting his features. He started toward Étaín.
And with a strangled cry, Náli struck.
The crookbacked runt shouldered Nótt aside; the knife Grimnir gave him flashed in the firelight as he planted it hilt-deep in his elder brother’s neck. Nóri stumbled, his scream of agony turned to a wet gurgle by the rush of black, foul-smelling blood. Étaín saw disbelief written on the dvergr’s face. He took a step toward them, and then dropped like a stiffened board, as dead as Judas.
For an instant, no one moved; save for the crackling of logs on the fire, the cove was absolutely silent and still. Suddenly, a peal of tittering laughter ripped from Náli’s breast. The runt capered and danced. But, as he whirled in place, crowing and crooning, it was Nótt’s turn to strike. Snarling like an animal, the middle brother came up off the ground and wrapped his long fingers around Náli’s throat. The runt’s crowing turned to screeching as Nótt bore him down; they thrashed and struggled, rolling and twisting and tearing as Grimnir and Étaín looked on. Nótt’s clawed fingers tore ribbons of skin from the flesh of Náli’s throat; for his part, the crookbacked runt tried to gouge his brother’s eyes out.
“Look at the high-and-mighty sons of Náinn, now,” Grimnir said. Náli’s bulging eyes implored him for help as Nótt throttled him atop the blood-spattered corpse of Nóri. “Driven to murder by dice and the promise of flesh.” Grimnir spat. He rose off the log and crossed to the struggling dvergar. Before either one could react, he grabbed a handful of Nótt’s hair, wrenched his head back near to breaking, and—in one smooth motion—drew his seax and ripped it across the dwarf’s throat. A fountain of foul black blood jetted from the ragged wound; it drenched Náli, who coughed and wheezed as he dragged himself free of his dying brother’s grasp.
Even still, the dvergr wanted his prize. He rolled onto his belly and scuttled toward Étaín, hunger and lust filling his dead black eyes with an unholy light. His brother’s stinking lifeblood dripped down his face. Náli licked the gore from his lips; faster he came, like some obscene crab. Étaín recoiled, tried to get her feet under her. She shrank from the thought of Náli’s foul touch.
Inches from her, Grimnir caught him. He planted a foot in the dvergr’s twisted back, slamming the runt to the ground and driving out what little air he had left in his lungs with an explosive whuff.
“Your life is mine, beardling,” Grimnir said. “Open the way.”
Náli struggled to draw breath. “Will … Will y-you honor our bargain?”
“There is no bargain. Your life is mine. Open the way or I’ll carve maggot holes in your belly, you miserable runt!” Reaching down, Grimnir knotted his fingers in Náli’s hair and hauled him upright. He gestured to Étaín. On unsteady legs, she clambered to her feet. “Turn around,” he said, and with one stroke of his seax Grimnir severed her bonds. Trusting she would follow, Grimnir dragged Náli toward the opening in the palisade of trees.
Étaín watched them a moment; then, she caught up Grimnir’s pack and hurried after him. “You … You had no intention of bartering me to them, then?”
“Why would I?” Grimnir paused, giving her a chance to catch up. Náli writhed in his grip. “You need to open your eyes, little fool. Three to one? Now the odds are more to my liking.” He shook the crookbacked dvergr like a sack. “Isn’t that right, cousin?”
“You lied!” Náli screeched. “Ymir blast your eyes!”
“I never said what your prize would be, did I, beardling?”
“They assumed…” said Étaín.
“Aye, the fools assumed.” Grimnir turned Náli loose and shoved him toward the opening in the trees; the twisted dwarf walked slowly ahead of Grimnir, scowling in his beard and fingering his bruised throat. He passed through the wood-wrought doorway.
The woven wall of trunks towered above Étaín’s head. It was impossibly ancient, a fortress of gnarled trees and interlaced branches. Slender birches coiled around the boles of mammoth yew trees, while oaks that were young when Christ was a boy erupted in a profusion of tangled shoots and branches that wove in and out among the hawthorn and the beech. Along the edges, like guards tasked with keeping a crowd at bay, stood countless ash trees, from tender saplings to hoary old gray-barks that must have seen the dawn of the world. Étaín hesitated on the threshold of the gate, shivering at the thought of what might lie beyond. Was it truly Yggðrasil, the mythical World Tree? Or was it just some bit of heathen mummery that flourished in the shadows, where the Word of God did not yet reach?
“Go on.” Grimnir’s hand thrust her across the threshold. She gasped. But, despite the cold knot of apprehension in her belly, Étaín marveled at the sublime beauty that existed inside the tree-garth. It was a cathedral, of sorts, a heathen shrine made from living wood. Dwarf-wrought lamps, like fantastic beasts hammered from copper and bronze, cast pools of silver or gold or red light. They illuminated an intricate pattern on the floor, a labyrinth of knotted roots that made their footing treacherous. At the heart of the garth grew a primeval ash tree.
“Yggðrasil,” she heard Grimnir mutter.
Étaín coughed. The air here was heavy with the scent of ancient vegetation, of moist earth and leaf mold. From far above, she could hear the rustle of the wind, the flutter of wings, and the faint chittering of a squirrel.
They followed Náli. The dvergr approached the tree with a sense of reverence, like a priest attending his god; Grimnir’s wolfish face bore an almost childlike look of wonder, though his eyes never lost their cold and calculating gleam—ever did he look like a merchant who marveled at his gold even as he appraised its worth. Étaín herself stepped carefully toward that knotty and twisted goliath with a deep sense of foreboding.
Before the ash tree, and cradled by its living roots, stood a stone basin filled with glowing embers. The great tree’s trunk was hollow with age, and set inside it was an arched doorway made from rough-hewn stones, each one carved with a serpentine trail of runes. Beyond the doorway was darkness so utter and complete that Étaín wondered if it was not some trick of the light; harder to explain, though, was the bone-chilling breeze that wafted from the doorway.
Then, something happened that Étaín did not expect: the sullen dvergr passed his hand over the basin of embers. Instantly, blue-tinged flames leapt up and curled around his fingers. Étaín recoiled in terror—this was no mere hedge witchery, but an ancient sorcery as old as stone and bough; it was the Devil’s bailiwick, and simply witnessing it meant she strayed perilously close to damnation. Out of reflex, she crossed herself …
Náli reacted as though she had struck him; the sorcerous flames wavered. “Ai! Curse you, niðingr! Your White Christ has no place here! Lop off her hands and rip out her tongue, cousin, lest she bring the wrath of the Æsir down upon our heads!” Náli trembled and clutched at his temples.
Grimnir seized her by the scruff of the neck. “Leave off, you blasted hymn-singer,” he growled. “And none of your miserable air cros
ses, either.”
Étaín did not reply, though a small voice in the back of her mind wondered what would happen if she flourished a crucifix and sang out the Lord’s Prayer. After a moment Náli regained his composure. He shook himself, as though clearing his mind of a foul memory. The flames sprang full to life. The crookbacked dvergr stared deep into the heart of the basin, and in a harsh, croaking voice he began to chant.
Étaín could not understand the words; they were guttural and repetitive, but the rhythm of Náli’s voice gave the blasphemous suggestion of a heartbeat—as though he tried by savage words to awaken something long dormant. The chill breeze gusted, causing the eerie blue flames to dance and waver. Something deep in the earth shivered, running through root and bole and causing the branches overhead to rustle and shake.
Náli’s voice dropped to a low growl:
Yggðrasil shivers,
The ash, as it stands.
The old tree groans,
And the giant slips free.
The dvergr nodded to Grimnir. Still holding Étaín by the scruff, he pulled her with him to stand before the stone-bordered doorway, covered now in a rime of frost. The blackness beyond writhed and roiled like a living thing. Sounds came forth, distant and phantasmal: the clash of steel, the roar of voices, music, harsh laughter, the cries of the dying, howling and monstrous grunting and tearing—the din of the Nine Worlds echoing through the roots of Yggðrasil. Étaín clasped her fists together, biting her knuckles to keep from calling out to the Almighty for succor.
Beside her, Étaín felt Grimnir stiffen; Náli had fallen silent and the sudden end of his chanting raised the skrælingr’s hackles. Grimnir turned …
Suddenly, both of them staggered forward as the dvergr rammed Grimnir in the small of the back. Long-fingered hands tried to strip Étaín from his grasp. She had a brief glimpse of Náli’s eyes, no longer dead black but alive with lust and vengeance; Étaín screamed. With a bitter oath, Grimnir twisted his body, wrapping her in a protective embrace; with his free hand, he snatched a handful of Náli’s beard, dragging the crookbacked dvergr off balance. The echo of their struggle ended abruptly as all three tumbled through the doorway, vanishing into the heart of Yggðrasil …
13
Étaín fell into darkness, wrapped in soul-searing cold, her ears battered by the clash of iron and the screams of the dying. She opened her eyes and …
… winces as an eerie light stabs down from the green-tinted sky. Ferocious clouds boil across the horizon; lightning slashes like drawn steel and thunder rumbles with the roar of kettledrums, calling the ravens to war. Ahead of her, a hillock rises from the windswept plain. Not of stone or earth, this knoll, but of naked bone—a cairn of skulls. Empty eye sockets glare at her; yellowed teeth gnash in the keening wind as tongueless mouths seek to give voice to their scorn. They are the dead of Exeter. Dead because of her.
Dead because she opened the gate to the Danes.
Godwin slept like an exhausted old fool. He’d spent himself early, rutting in her like a swine in heat despite the fires and the raucous howls of the Danes at the gate. It was nothing to slip from his filthy bed; like a ghost, she drifted from the old fool’s house. No one paid her any heed—she was nothing, less than a whore, that silly orphan from Glastonbury old Godwin had bought to scratch a familiar itch—and soon she’d crept through the heart of the city. She avoided the embattled main gate, where a handful of archers kept Red Njáll’s reavers at bay, their arrows shattering on shield and corselet. Étaín padded through the shadows along the wall until she came to a small, forgotten postern gate. Its guard, an old soldier named Hereward, slept as soundly as her wretched husband. He snored on as she unbarred the gate; he smacked his lips, dreaming of wine and tits, as she took his lantern and signaled to the invading Danes; old Hereward was still smiling when a reaver’s knife slit his throat. She walked down to the dragon ships as the first screams echoed over doomed Exeter …
She stumbles to her knees, hands clasped in supplication. She wants to speak but she has no voice; she wants to beg forgiveness but she cannot find the words. The eyes of the dead bore into her. Accusing. Judging. She wants to scream but she has no breath; she wants to crawl away but shame shackles her. She sinks lower, the weight of her crime doubling her over, grinding her brow into the cold earth.
Can the dead understand? Can they understand the burden of being a foundling—motherless and fatherless, unwanted, left by the back gate of a cloister like something unclean? Can the dead understand a childhood bereft of love? Can they understand innocence lost in an abbot’s bed, and the shame at being sold for Judas-coin once the first blush of womanhood has faded? Can the dead understand what it is to want to die?
But she does not ask, and the dead do not answer. There is no release in their hollow gaze, no forgiveness. A shadow falls over her. Weeping tears of dust, she raises her eyes to the heavens and beholds a glorious sight: a cross rising from the crest of the hillock, and from that cross hangs the silhouette of a man. A crucified man.
The Christ! He is risen, and He brings with him redemption, for is He not the Redeemer of the World? Hope fills her breast. If she can only reach Him … He is the way and the truth and the life. His blessing is absolution; in His gentle smile she will know eternal peace.
She wills her limbs to move, scuttling forward on her belly like a crab to clamber up the steep-sided cairn. The earth trembles. Bone clatters in an avalanche of skulls. Desperate, she scrabbles higher, pulling herself over leering skeletal faces. Teeth splinter beneath her heels; her knees crush eye sockets and nasal cavities, and the thin sutures knitting together plates of bone pop under her weight. She gropes and claws her way to the crest of the hillock, reaching out, entreating the Christ to absolve her …
The earth heaves; the cairn beneath surges and ebbs, and she rides the swell like a leaf on Rán’s breast. The skulls of Exeter’s dead fall away to reveal ancient bark, gnarled and mossy—the root-knotted base of a monolithic tree. Deep crevices surround her, black and blood-reeking chasms that echo with war chants and ring with the rasp and slither of iron. She looks up, suddenly fearful. The figure of the Christ vanishes, and beneath spreading boughs like great storm clouds she beholds a crucified titan, one-eyed and fey-bearded, with a pair of giant ravens perched on his naked shoulders.
The great birds stare at her; their coal-black eyes glitter with malign intelligence. They ruffle their feathers, shaking their bodies and flexing their enormous wings. In unison, with voices that reverberate like brazen horns, they chant:
From Serpent-girdled Miðgarðr, | by the Ash-Road,
Comes Laufeyjarson’s blunder: | filth-born skrælingr,
Against Odin’s Doom; | and with him a child
Sworn to the Nailed One, | foe of all.
The titan stirs, tendons in his neck creaking like ship’s cordage as his massive head turns. He looks left, then right, gray beard sweeping across his chest. Then, with agonizing slowness, he leans forward—a man seeking the insect that bedevils him. Mastering her fear, she raises her head and meets his gaze. The socket of his left eye is black and empty; the right, however, is the color of a storm-racked sea. It pierces her, flaying her courage, leaving her naked under its cold and terrible scrutiny. In its depths images take form … visions …
She sees a wood-wreathed ship tossed upon winter’s foaming waves. A man stands beneath the dragon prow; his red-bearded visage is familiar to her, though careworn now and scarred by rage, loss, and a thirst for vengeance. “I will find you,” he mutters, his words lost to the tempest. “By Odin, I swear it!”
The rain becomes the swirling smoke of a mighty bonfire, its flames curling up into the night sky. Waves crash in the distance, and harsh laughter echoes about the strand. A dozen men sit around the fire—men with plaited beards and amulets carved of bone, cold-eyed and angry, hands caressing sword hilt and axe haft. Their leader, a hunched and spine-twisted giant with a beard like tarry thatch, laughs loudest of all as he j
abs an accusing finger at the newcomer. “I remember you. You were King Olaf’s man. Why would you serve me? Why should I trust you, son of Hjálmarr, when last I recall you were panting for my blood on the beach at Scilly?”
The laughter turns to the shouts and screams of dying men on a corpse-strewn moor, a coppery sun sinking into the western mists. The giant is prone in the gore-slimed heather; he claws for the hilt-shard of a broken sword as his foeman, a broad-backed Saxon in chain and wolf fur, plants a foot on his chest and is poised to ram an iron-headed spear into his throat. The red-bearded man—graying, now, and blood-blasted—appears from the mist and catches the Saxon unawares. His axe bites deep into his foeman’s spine. He stares down at the fallen giant as twilight descends. “Stay alive, you bastard,” he says. “I need you as bait!”
Twilight turns to darkness, and the man to a twisted ash tree limned against the star-flecked sky. Beneath its boughs is a smoking altar, and the air is thick with incense and the reek of blood. Hands drag her forward; those same hands strip her naked and wrestle her spread-eagled onto the altar. A priest hovers into view—gray-bearded and one-eyed, an iron dagger in his upraised fist. He invokes the Allfather, a dozen voices joining his own, and as the chant reaches its crescendo the priest drives the blade into her bare breast. She screams …
… and recoils from the titan’s doom-laden glare. He laughs, then—a sound like the thunder of war drums, loud enough to crack the foundations of Heaven. She scurries back, to the bark-ragged edge of a root chasm; there, with the titan’s laughter thudding against her ribs, she stumbles. Her foot catches on a knurl of wood and for a terrifying moment she hangs over the abyss, arms flailing, feet seeking a purchase that is not there. She draws breath to scream anew … but before she can utter a sound she plummets into darkness.
