A Gathering of Ravens

by Scott Oden

  Étaín came next, her satchel muffled by loose folds of her cloak. She did not fully trust crop-eared Dunlaing, whose eyes still burned for her, but she trusted the two older men who followed her—insofar as she could bring herself to trust a stranger. They weren’t the sort who took their oaths lightly, not to God or to man. And though her muscles ached and her eyes were hot and gritty from exhaustion, she trudged on without complaint.

  Bran and Ruadh Mór brought up the rear of the cortege. The pair were a study in contrasts: Ruadh Mór lumbered, joints creaking, his weight on the spear he used as a walking stick; Bran, however, moved with a nimbleness that belied the silver in his beard. He had taken a hunting bow from their gear—as fine an example of the bowyer’s art as any, with rune-etched bone inlays decorating the leather-wrapped grip—and went forward with an arrow on the nock, its broad iron head gleaming in the moonlight.

  Ruadh Mór glanced sidelong at Bran as the older man paused to scan their backtrail. “What’s gotten in to you, Bran-me-lad?” he whispered in Gaelic.

  “Just keepin’ an eye out, is all.”

  “Don’t go playin’ the daft old man with me,” Ruadh Mór snapped. “An’ you feckin’ know what I mean! With this! With her!” He jerked his chin at Étaín’s back. “You said it yourself: ain’t nothin’ up yonder for God-fearin’ folk, but up yonder we go, anyway! Like three fools gulled by a bit o’ the split-tail, you ask me!”

  “You could have stayed with the ponies,” Bran replied.

  Ruadh Mór’s face flushed. “Bollocks, you feckin’ arseling!” He pushed ahead, but Bran caught up with him easily enough. They walked side by side for a dozen paces and more. Finally, Bran broke the silence.

  “I ain’t no great thinker. You’ve known me long enough to know that. An’ we ain’t got no skin in whatever her fight might be, but when a slip of a thing like her has guts enough to come upon a scraggle o’ salty knots like us and ask for help, well, that ain’t somethin’ you take lightly. An’ it ain’t like we’re puttin’ ourselves out. We were takin’ this road anyway. Might as well see if anyone’s lurkin’ about, up yonder.”

  “An’ how do you know she ain’t leading us right into a trap?”

  “My gut,” said Bran. “You an’ me, we ain’t lived this long ’cause we ignore what nags at the pit o’ our bellies. She’s holdin’ back, I’ll warrant, but she don’t strike me as the sort to lead men astray.”

  Ruadh Mór exhaled; he scrubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “I hope you’re right, Bran-me-lad. Bleedin’ Christ, I hope you’re right.”

  Étaín faded back. “Is everything all right?” she said in the tongue of the Danes.

  In Gaelic, Ruadh Mór snarled, “Oh, aye. Right as the feckin’ rain.”

  She looked quizzically at the pox-scarred Gael, and then at Bran, who added, “He says he’s glad we’re nearly there. Aye, an’ his fat arse could use a rest.”

  Étaín nodded, smiling. But in her eyes the old hunter saw the funereal glow of a woman who had witnessed too much. She knew the score, this one, and she knew sooner or later there would be a reckoning. Men did nothing—undertook no good deed, performed no kindness—without first attaching a price to it. Bran knew it, and so did she. So with every glance, Étaín tried not only to discern their price, but also the manner of when and how it would come due.

  A birdcall warbled in the night; Bran frowned. Ahead, he could barely make out the silhouette of Dunlaing. The younger man crouched near a bramble-choked cut in the last crumbling scarp before the summit—its aspect too uniform to be natural, like an earthen rampart fashioned by long-dead hands and allowed to fall fallow. Dunlaing waved for them to hurry, but gestured for them to be silent. Bran, Étaín, and Ruadh Mór padded quickly to his side.

  “Someone’s up there,” Dunlaing hissed. “Seen a light.”

  “A fire?”

  Dunlaing shook his head, his face a pale smear in the gloom. “Not feckin’ likely. Looked … green.”

  Étaín’s lips set in a resolute line; she dropped one hand to the hilt of her seax. Iron grated softly as she worked the blade free of its scabbard mouth. “I’ll go first,” she said. “The ones who took my companion, they might be skittish, or so I’ve heard. Might bolt if they see us coming.”

  “Danes? Skittish?”

  “Never said they were Danes.” And without a backward glance, Étaín shouldered past the three Irishmen; she scrambled up the cut, heedless of nettles or snagging thorns, and pulled herself onto the damp grass at the top of the scarp. Some thirty paces ahead of her lay a tangled copse of yew trees through which she could see the glimmer of green fire. Étaín waited there, crouched, as Bran joined her, followed by Dunlaing. But while those two helped Ruadh Mór pull his swag-bellied bulk to the top of the ridge, Étaín left them and scuttled to the edge of the trees.

  Eerie lights danced within; above the moaning wind, she heard two voices, both faint—Grimnir’s harsh and grating tongue and another that was grim and solemn and heavy with portent. She knew, in that moment, that she was not too late to intervene in the life-and-death drama unfolding just beyond the thicket. And while her heart thudded against her sternum like a terrified beast, battering the walls of its cage in an effort to fly, she nevertheless drew from its scabbard Grimnir’s cold iron seax.

  Suddenly, she was not alone. Bran came up alongside her, silver beard bristling and an arrow half drawn. Dunlaing was a half a step behind; he drew his sword and kissed the steel in silent benediction. Finally, Ruadh Mór shambled up, his breathing ragged and shallow. He cuffed sweat from his eyes. But the hand that gripped the shaft of his spear did not waver, nor did he tremble as he made the sign of the cross.

  And with a nod of thanks to each man, Étaín led them into the wood, following the unnatural lights and the spectral sounds until the stone-crowned summit of Carraig Dubh came into view …

  17

  Grimnir crouched in the lee of the standing stone and listened to the creek and craak of insects. They were near him, and their incessant clamor wore on nerves already frayed by anticipation.

  “Where are they, you old git? Damn your eyes! Are you sure this is even the right place?”

  Look yonder, my tender little fool, Gífr’s voice commanded.

  And Grimnir did. Downslope, beyond the line of trees, hundreds of orbs shimmered into view—fool’s lamps, wisps of greenish faery light that danced over the grass and under the leaves. Grimnir could see shapes moving at the heart of the lights; he heard the faint rustle of wings.

  “Nár, parái vestálfar!” Grimnir hawked and spat, not disguising his raw hatred for these dogs who snapped at his sire’s heel. “Say the word, you old git! Gífr?” Grimnir stood; he glanced about, suddenly suspicious. “Gífr?”

  Then, without warning, hundreds of fool’s lamps pulsed to life above him, at the pinnacle of the stone—a stark green glow that was as blinding as the light of an otherworldly sun. Snarling, Grimnir turned away and shaded his eyes.

  That gesture saved his life.

  At his back, Grimnir spied four shapes creeping through the misty light, each a head taller than he and thin to the point of emaciation. There was a resemblance to them that made it impossible for him to tell them apart; the uniformity of their translucent skin, pallid hair, and hollowed cheeks carried over in their choice of garb: hauberks of silver-green scale over trousers of pale brocade. Slender hands wrapped around the hilts of leaf-bladed swords or gripped the hafts of short, heavy spears. They fanned out, edging toward him in a semicircle. Of Gífr he saw no sign.

  “Sneak-thieving swine!” Grimnir whirled; he pushed away from the stone. “Think I wouldn’t notice you lot skulking about, trying to knife me in the back? Which one of you drew the short straw, eh? Was it you?” He gestured at one of the figures on his left. “Or you, longshanks? Ha! No matter! You’ve thrown the dice and come up wanting…”

  And quick as a striking serpent, Grimnir lunged to his left. The two who came at him from that side
gave ground, while their brothers on his right surged forward. Grimnir, though, was ready for them. In a display unmatched by any human, he sprang off his lead foot and launched himself to the right, turning his lunge into a feint; his spear blade sang in the unnatural light, a long, leaf-shaped bar of killing steel. Grimnir twisted, putting his weight behind the blow. The spear blade took the first vestálfr high, bisecting his skull at an angle from his left temple to the right side hinge of his jaw.

  But there was no shock of impact. No flesh caught the force of that perfectly executed leap. Grimnir spun through the blow and tumbled to the ground. He rolled on his shoulder, came up into a crouch, and whirled back to face his enemy, panting. He should have been staring at a corpse flopping at his feet; instead, he watched a shadow dissipate like bog mist.

  “Sorcery,” he hissed.

  A somber voice answered him, pitched low and resonating like an echo from the grave. It came equally from the throats of the remaining three enemies: Aye, fomórach. The glamour of the Tuatha. But which blade is the illusion and which has your doom writ upon it?

  To illustrate, an enemy spear thrust for Grimnir’s throat. He could not say for certain whether he looked upon a dream blade or one anvil born. It had weight; its razored edge glittered like ice in the faery light. Behind it, slender sinews creaked with effort, and breath whistled between his foeman’s clenched teeth.

  At the last moment, Grimnir swayed aside; the spear passed him by a hair’s breadth, and his riposte would have gutted any living enemy. But again he struck cold nothingness, wasting the power contained in his broad shoulders and long arms to turn an illusory enemy into a drifting cloud of vapor. He recovered his balance and cursed as the last two charged in tandem—the one with a sword stabbing at Grimnir’s face while his mate swept in low with a spear.

  Grimnir ducked and parried the incoming spear with his own. He aborted a return blow when his weapon’s shaft met nothing but spectral mist. His sword foe’s attempted thrust carried him past Grimnir; the latter whirled and was on him before he could recover. With a bellow of rage, he sprang for the west-elf’s back …

  … and passed through him.

  Ever nimble and quick-footed, Grimnir turned what could have been a graceless fall into a tuck-and-roll. When he came up, he flung his arms wide and roared a deafening challenge at the impassive stone with its crown of faery light, at the shifting figures beyond.

  “Bálegyr!”

  Wretched fool, the somber voice replied. Balor is dead, slaughtered with the rest of your miserable kind at Mag Tuiredh! That pitiful one-eyed vagabond you call a king—we hacked off his thrice-cursed head and threw it into the sea!

  “Balor, eh? Is that what you call him?” Grimnir said. “You maggots can’t even say his name! He is Bálegyr of the Eye, son of Ymir, champion of the Sly One and master of the wolf ships of the kaunar. He is my father.”

  He was a worm and he died as the worm dies, caught in the beak of the raven!

  Grimnir panted, his tongue lolling from his mouth. “Faugh!” he spat. “Lies and mummery!”

  The voice gave a derisive laugh. Perhaps. But is a deathblow couched in so-called mummery any less grievous?

  But Grimnir had no breath for a reply. As the somber voice spoke, a horde of vestálfar boiled up the slope at him, singly and in twos or threes—each alike in every way and indistinguishable from a living thing until it encountered the blade of his spear. He whirled and parried, dodged and struck; in the pit of his stomach he was certain he faced nothing but an army of ghosts, but how could he ignore his most basic instinct for self-preservation? To stand idly by while his enemy took potshots at him? That went against his grain, and to willingly lower his guard was to tempt the humor of the Norns. He might block ninety-nine phantom blades but that hundredth spearhead, the one he mistook for a dream, would doubtless prove real as it tore into his guts.

  So he fought back, and fought hard, with every ounce of craft and guile his long life afforded. He fought until sweat stung his eyes, until the muscles of his arms and back burned like fire; he fought until even the legendary endurance of his people began to flag. Only then did the stream of foes cease.

  We know you, fomórach, the voice said. Does that surprise you? We have heard your legend on the wind: the Corpse-maker, they call you; the Hooded One, Bringer of Night. Some claim you are born of Fenrir; others that you are brother to the Serpent who encircles the World. Regardless, you are the sad and pitiful remnant of a cursed race.

  Grimnir stood in a circle of drifting shadows, chest rising and falling, the light atop the stone searing into his brain. Froth dripped from his bared fangs; his hair hung in lank strands about his eyes, which blazed with defiance. He coughed and spat. “Then you know,” he panted. “If what you say about my sire is true, I will have the blood price from you, you white-skinned whore’s son!”

  I had forgotten, the somber voice laughed, how much sport your kind can give. Perhaps I shall keep you alive …

  Grimnir flexed his shoulders, sloughing off his weariness. “Come take me, then, if you dare!”

  “Oh, I will,” the vestálfr said.

  “I will,” a second west-elf echoed. Then another. And another. More and more responded, until the precipice itself seemed to vibrate with the force of their collective voices. “I will. I will! I WILL!”

  Grimnir turned, describing a slow circle. His narrowed eyes searched for any threat of attack; his black-nailed fist clenched and unclenched, and he adjusted his grip on the sweat-slick haft of his spear.

  “I will,” a voice at his back whispered.

  Grimnir spun round, and as he did he had a split-second glimpse of the same tall and funereal form he had killed time and again—the same long, pale hair and dark-hollowed cheeks. But where the others had had eyes like milky opals, the eyes that bored now into his were a deep and ancient green.

  Grimnir opened his mouth to loose a roar of triumph, his spear in motion for the killing blow; as he did, one of the vestálfr’s long-fingered hands came up and uncurled like a pale orchid. He pursed his fleshless lips and blew a palmful of silvery ash full into Grimnir’s sallow face.

  Light exploded across his vision. He stumbled, his spear falling from fingers gone suddenly nerveless. His roar turned to a bellow of agony as he tried to blink the light away, each movement causing grit to scrape over his eyes like ground glass. He staggered, tripped; grunting, he came up hard against the standing stone. Grimnir writhed. The light wormed deep into his brain, hard and white and unflinching. He could taste it on his tongue, as salty and cold as frozen sea spume. And it burned. It burned down his gullet, into his lungs; it made every breath torture.

  Grimnir could not see. His limbs would not move; he sagged down alongside the stone—its form suggestive of a once-living being. And the final sound he heard before his world turned to fiery white oblivion was a voice echoing across the limitless chasm between the living and the dead: He is not for you, elf! It was a familiar voice. A woman’s voice. Loose him from your spell and get thee back to the shadows!

  Grimnir dragged a last deep breath into his smoldering lungs, where it rasped and rattled only to emerge once more as croaking laughter. “Hymn-singer.”

  18

  Étaín watched Grimnir from the thicket of yew trees. She did not rush out to greet him, for she knew instinctively that something was amiss. He was naked to the waist, his black hair stringy and matted, his hide made ashen by the eerie light streaming from the pinnacle of the Black Stone. In that wicked green radiance, he seemed to dance. His partner was an old broom, and with it he lunged and sprang, rolled and thrust. Grimnir ducked shadows and sidestepped wraiths only he could see. Nor was he silent. His grating voice provided the music—a lyric of roared curses, howls, and the inarticulate cries of rage denied. He paused only to gulp great lungfuls of air, or to wring sweat from his eyes. It might have been a comical sight—cathartic after all the grief he’d put her through—if Étaín wasn’t convinced Grimnir was
fighting for his life.

  “Bleedin’ Christ,” she heard Bran mutter. Making no more noise than the wind itself, the three Gaels came up and crouched alongside her. Wide-eyed, they watched the strange figure capering at the crest of Carraig Dubh. Thankfully, shadows and distance masked the damning details of his appearance. “Your mate?”

  Étaín nodded.

  “What’s gotten in to him?” Dunlaing hissed, loud enough to disturb a bird roosting overhead.

  Étaín silenced him with a sharp gesture; she pointed past Grimnir, singling out a well of shadow near the base of the stone that defied even the otherworldly light coming from above. In that patch of night lurked the suggestion of eyes—eyes alight with the same cruel joy shared by cats, which also toy with their prey to the point of exhaustion.

  And as they looked on, that patch of darkness shredded; tendrils of it coiled and spun away, dissipating like lamp smoke in a breeze. In its absence stood a man and a woman: she was dark-haired and perilous; he was tall and pale, regal in the manner of dead kings. His scaled hauberk rustled like ravens’ wings as he came up behind Grimnir and spoke.

  “I will,” he said, his voice as somber as the grave.

  Grimnir whirled. And with sinuous grace, the figure raised his hand, fingers unfolding, and blew a fine white powder full into Grimnir’s fanged face. His reaction was instantaneous. He stumbled and writhed as though the tall figure had set him ablaze.

  At this, Étaín started forward. She had seen enough. Though Bran tried to haul her back, she shrugged free of his grasp and strode out from the relative safety of the yew trees. What had Maeve called her? The beacon of Christ? Well, she would let that beacon shine, even in defense of a heretic like Grimnir. The strength of her faith filled her heart; she drew on it, and let the glory of the Almighty speak through her: “He is not for you, elf! Loose him from your spell and get thee back to the shadows!”