by T L Greylock
“Is it true you have seen Jötunheim?”
Raef felt his nerves sharpen and push to the surface. “What have the runes told you? Surely you, above all, would know the words I will speak before I have even formed them.”
If Raef’s irritability ruffled Finndar, the half god did not show it. “Have I offended you?”
“I risked the lives of my friends to keep you free from the Palesword’s clutches. You gave me nothing in exchange.” Raef felt his cheeks flush with anger.
Now the Far-Traveled’s face darkened and the blue eyes narrowed. “I gave you a means to free your friends. You were satisfied at the time.”
The flush turned to shame but Raef was not prepared to give in yet. “You might have offered a warning,” Raef shouted, his voice caught in the tightly knit threads of the tapestries.
Finndar looked away, his gaze burrowing down the length of the passage. Whatever he saw there brought a heavy sigh up from deep within his chest. He looked at Raef once more. “I told you once that I speak what I am given. Sometimes, it is as though my own hand is carving the runes on Yggdrasil. They are branded into my mind, as sure and certain as the beating of my heart. This makes me glad, even if the words are grave, for there can be no doubt, no questioning. But more often I am given smaller, slighter things. A glimpse of a dawn-shrouded forest cloaked in mist, the call of a proud eagle as he rides the setting sun, the scent of honey carried on a summer wind. Tell me, Raef Skallagrim, what would you make of such things?”
“But you suspected.” The anger had fled from Raef.
“There is much I can suspect. I saw pain and sorrow in your future, Raef, but is not this so for all men and women? I would have done you no service by giving you such a feeble warning as that. But it is true, then, that you have walked the land of the giants.”
The Far-Traveled’s words summoned the vast darkness of Mogthrasir’s hall, the deafening roars of Hrodvelgr’s arena, the mind-numbing, heart-eating oblivion of the labyrinth. Reflexively, Raef stretched his hand against the solid stone wall at his back, as though somehow the cold, rough rock might anchor him. He swallowed and tried to work saliva into a mouth that had gone dry. Then Finndar Urdson blinked and Raef felt the weight of the words lift.
Raef gestured to the narrow passage around them. “Come, I can offer you better than this.”
They retreated to a grove of bare apple trees awash in moonlight and guarded by the eyes of four stone wolves. The night was still and far milder than the recent days. The brutal winds had subsided and it seemed to Raef that the stars shone with new warmth.
Raef stroked the nose of one of the prowling wolves, a habit formed in boyhood. “It was Alfheim I visited first,” he said. The wolf stared back at him with blank eyes. Raef turned to the Far-Traveled and the story of his strange journey tumbled forth, halting in places, as fast and fluid as a racing river in others. Through it all, Finndar listened with little expression and when Raef finished the account, he was quiet for a long time.
“But that is not all,” Finndar said at last. “I can see it in your eyes.”
It was more difficult to speak of Isolf’s betrayal, for that anger was fresh, and that grief and pain far more devastating than any injury he had suffered while away from Midgard. But the tale came out under Finndar’s watchful eye until there was nothing left to tell.
Clouds had drifted in so that the stone terrace and the sentinel wolves gleamed less brightly, but the snarling teeth and raised hackles were all the more fierce for their newfound shadows.
“What now, then, son of Urda?” Raef asked. “I ask again, what brings your feet to my door?”
For the first time since crossing the threshold of the Vestrhall, Finndar looked uncertain. To Raef’s eyes, he sank deeper into the shadows, or perhaps the shadows came to him.
When he spoke, though, the uncertainty vanished. “The Hammerling is coming for you.” Finndar looked to the stars, as though the Hammerling’s horde of warriors and their spears might be found marching across the sky. “He grows weary of chasing Fengar through the wild and looks for different prey.”
The news did not surprise Raef. The bonds between them had been brittle to begin with and were now severed beyond repair. “Has he stopped to think why Fengar eludes him still?”
At this, the Far-Traveled’s mouth turned up at the corners but he kept his thoughts to himself.
“So the war will come to Vannheim and the west at last. Once before you came to the Vestrhall and brought tidings of war. The lord of Vannheim did not live long after.”
It was not a slight or an insult or meant as a condemnation against the Far-Traveled, who was only a bearer of news. But Finndar’s face drained of all color and he clutched at the snout of one of the stone wolves with both hands. His breaths came short and fast and Raef saw beads of sweat form at his hairline. Only with effort did Finndar regain his composure, and even then he retained his grip on the wolf.
“Are you well?” The son of Urda seemed not to hear Raef, who took a step toward the other man and tried again. “Forgive me.”
At last Finndar stirred and the look that he gave Raef was full of fear. “The fault is not yours, nor mine. It was not your words, son of Einarr, but something else, something I have felt before and know that I will feel again. It reaches out, from darkness, through darkness, its grip both trembling and terrible, and leaves me stripped bare, bereft of all that I am, have been, and will be. And then it passes, vanishing like a moth in the night when the last flame is blown out.”
“What does it mean?”
“I have walked these lands for years beyond count. My memories are packed away in here,” Finndar tapped a finger against his skull, “all the fates of men, the knowledge, the things I have seen, all kept tidy and neat and under lock and key, as a steward might. Endless vigilance is required to maintain this tidiness, to maintain my mind. If I let it, my brain and what it holds would grow restless and wild.” Here Finndar looked at Raef. “You know that the twilight of the gods is at hand, you have not said it, but I can see it in your eyes. You know that Black Surt will soon rise and stride forth and swaddle the golden halls of Asgard in fire and blood.” Finndar turned again to the stone wolf. “Before Odin succumbs to the jaws of Fenrir, before Thor and Jörmungand destroy each other, before Yggdrasil crumbles, before, even, Hati and Skoll catch the moon and sun, and before the cock crows to summon the Einherjar to battle, my mind will break. Those tidy bundles of memories will burst free, savage and cruel, and, unfettered, unchecked, they will rampage through my mind and heart and destroy me with both the speed of a swift, violent death in battle and the agonizing creep of a slow, debilitating illness. This is my fate, Raef Skallagrim, and it will come soon enough.” Finndar was pale when he finished speaking, but calm.
“I cannot imagine,” Raef began, but Finndar cut him off.
“No. No, you cannot imagine.” The sharpness of his voice was countered by the hint of a weary, gentle smile. “Nor would I want you to.” The Far-Traveled heaved a sigh.
“Let me show you to a chamber where you might rest,” Raef said.
“Is there not more you would say, son of Einarr?” Finndar’s voice betrayed genuine surprise. “Are there not questions you would ask of me?”
“The Hammerling comes. If Odin wills it, Hauk of Ruderk, my father’s murderer, will be with him. That is all I need to know.”
Sixteen
Brandulf Hammerling was coming, but it was not that impending clash that occupied Raef’s mind, to his surprise, as he finished clearing the last remnants of Isolf’s presence from the Vestrhall and began the work of rebuilding the homes that had burned. His dreams were not of Hauk of Ruderk, that false friend, nor of the Hammerling and his righteous anger, but instead his sleep was filled with stranger things, things unlooked for and only half-remembered when he opened his eyes, things that turned to ash and dust and smoke when he tried to stretch his mind out to meet them. Always, he felt as though something was just bey
ond his reach, and his mind and body grew restless.
When he wasn’t hauling timber or laying turf on newly raised roofs, Raef slipped into the forest outside the walls. He carried no weapon but his axe, for he was in no mood to hunt, and he found himself walking the hills, from the high, bare saddles to the deep, hidden valleys. Some days he traveled far afield, striding over snow-covered ground without rest. Other days he lingered, once by a frozen pool that would surge with snow melt in the spring, once at the shore where he tasted the salt sea in the air, and many times he did nothing but sit within a ring of old, weather-beaten stones whose carvings were too worn to make out, but always he returned with the cover of darkness and always Vakre watched for him from the stone steps of the Vestrhall as Raef made his way up the slope. The son of Loki asked no questions and Raef offered no answers, but it was the Far-Traveled’s eyes that Raef felt on him as the mead and meal were shared each night.
The Far-Traveled stayed for three days and three nights. At first the people of the Vestrhall were wary of him and whispered to each other when he passed by, but by the third night he was telling tales by firelight to an enthralled audience. When the hour grew late and the hall had emptied save for a few men debating the merits of seal skin rope, Finndar returned to the high table.
“It is time I left Vannheim,” Finndar said. He refilled his cup with golden mead and sat in the empty chair to Raef’s left.
Raef nodded, for the Far-Traveled’s restlessness was not unexpected. “The men from Axsellund are prepared to make their journey home. They leave in the morning and I am sure would welcome your company.”
“The dawn is too far off,” Finndar said. “Though I would be glad of friends upon the road, I must be satisfied with only the stars.” And yet the son of Urda hesitated and stared into his cup of mead.
“You were right,” Raef said. “There is a question I would ask you.”
Finndar’s smile was that of a young man, quick and easy, and he gestured for Raef to ask.
“We spoke of what lies ahead. This grim knowledge has settled in my heart, but sometimes I wonder if I should keep it there.” Raef waved out at the hall. “My people, they live as they always have. They hunt, they fish, they farm, they build. And they see many tomorrows yet ahead of them. Do I owe them the truth, or is it right to keep silent?”
It was not the question the Far-Traveled had expected, Raef could see. The laughing eyes had grown subdued as Raef spoke and Finndar Urdson no longer looked young.
“It would change their lives to know the truth, Raef. Are you prepared for that burden?”
“What I am prepared for makes no difference. I would do what is right.”
Finndar drained the last of his mead. “I think you know already what I will say. You must decide for yourself. This question is not one I possess an answer to.” The Far-Traveled got to his feet, cast a glance at Vakre, who relaxed with his feet up on the table next to Raef. He nodded once to the son of Loki and Raef wondered what might have passed between them while they were beneath the same roof. But then Finndar’s gaze came back to fix on Raef and he felt the blue eyes pull him in. “Farewell, Skallagrim. You and I will not meet again.”
And then he was gone from the hall.
**
Four days of confinement had muted some of Aelinvor’s defiance, though Uhtred’s daughter bore no visible burden of guilt on her slender shoulders, or if she did, she hid it away under a careful face when Raef came to visit her at last on the morning after the Far-Traveled’s departure. Her keepers said she had eaten and drunk what was given and had suffered her isolation without complaint, indeed, without many words at all. But he would not have called her meek, no, and she greeted him with poise.
Silence followed their initial words. Aelinvor seemed content to wait for Raef to continue, but he found he still did not know what to say.
“The strength of your ambition was always clear to me, Aelinvor. You were not shy about conveying your desires to me. But what I do not understand is when it all became worth your father’s life.” Raef had meant to sit, as she was, next to the fire, but instead he paced between the pair of windows that overlooked a grove of trees. “He was proud of you. Your happiness and future were important to him.”
“Have you ever set about a task and found that, through no fault of your own, the desired end result was out of reach and impossible to attain?”
Raef frowned. “If I believed that, I would still be starving in the wilderness, not standing once more in my hall.”
Aelinvor smiled a little. “These are the words of a man. A man who has been bred and trained and taught to be as he is. Imagine instead that you were raised without all this,” she said, gesturing to the walls around them. “That your place in the world was much smaller and that no one had any expectation of you but that you would exist as you have always existed. Imagine that you wished to rise above your small place, but that you do not have the tools to do so.”
“Then I would make persistence my friend.”
“As I have done.” Aelinvor’s voice sharpened and she stared hard at Raef. “It is no easy thing for a woman to make her mark upon the world. I have done little but weave cloth and ride horses and comb my hair for most of my life, and no one, least of all my father, has expected me to do more than this. I have chafed, Raef,” she said, desperation creeping in, “chafed against this since I was five years old.”
“I have known many women who are not content with weaving.”
“Not all of us, even men, take to the blade and the warrior’s way with ease. I did not have the skill or the talent or the teaching to become a shieldmaiden. And I have always meant to rule, Raef, not fight.”
“Why? Why do you wish to rule?”
Aelinvor frowned. “Because I am suited to it. More so than many men.”
“Torrulf Palesword was suited to be king. You know his fate. But let us not speak of that,” Raef said, as Aelinvor began to argue. “Let us speak instead of your father. You were his only surviving child. Would Uhtred have cast you aside and named someone else to rule Garhold after his death? I think not. Many women have ruled after their fathers and have done so without murdering them. Bryndis rules well in Narvik, despite her youth, and long has Kollumheim prospered under Leska, lady of the sapphires. They have earned places of respect on their own merits. You sought to bind yourself to me, or even Isolf, in an effort to raise yourself above others. You are driven by greed.”
Aelinvor had gone still and stiff, and her voice was cold when she spoke again. “You will not cause me to regret my actions. I would have wielded the knife that killed my father myself, if need be.”
Raef looked at her, so young, so beautiful, and felt the strength of her resolve as though it had struck him. “I will grant you a quick, clean death, for your father’s sake.” He pushed off the window ledge he had been leaning against and left the room.
But in the end Aelinvor denied Raef. She was found at dusk, a ragged cut carved into her wrist by a dull piece of iron meant to stir the logs in the fire, her blood emptied across the fine cloth of her gown, her determination and persistence carrying her into death, for it would have been no easy thing to end her life in that manner.
A funeral pyre was built in haste, small and not fitting for the daughter of a lord, but Raef did not feel he owed her anything else. He watched the first flames lick against the oil-slick logs and then turned away as the heat flared and left Aelinvor to burn alone as the stars unveiled in the darkness.
By dawn, all that was left of the daughter of Uhtred was a hint of smoke in the air, and it was under this shadow that Raef said farewell to Visna.
The Valkyrie had been restless, Raef could see even in his distracted state, since the victory over Isolf, and so he was not surprised when Visna came to him in the early light of the morning dressed for travel. She said nothing at first, and went to look out his window, but her mind was clear to him and so he said it for her.
“You mean to leave
.”
She turned from the glass and nodded, her hand going to her belt and the sword that was sheathed there. “I must not fail my father. There must be nine Valkyries. Too long has he been without me.”
“You know you do not need my permission,” he said, glad to see his teasing bring a smile to her face.
“No, but I find that I would not wish to part without knowing that I have your friendship.”
“You have it.”
“And I would thank you.” Visna paused, her uncertainty forming furrows in her brows. “You have shown me something of this world that I did not understand and because of you my heart is not so darkened with fear as it was.” She stepped close and placed a light kiss on his cheek, then brushed past him and out of his chamber. Raef listened to her footsteps fade and then, from the wide ledge outside his window, watched her descend the hill. A tall, broad figure approached her, the bald head gleaming in the sunrise, a horse in tow, and Raef watched with a smile as Dvalarr offered the mount, which Visna quickly refused only to be won over by Dvalarr’s humble doggedness. She took the reins and the Crow watched until long after she was out of sight.
Seventeen
The Hammerling’s banner fluttered outside the gates of the Vestrhall on the sixth day after the Far-Traveled’s departure. A single rider carried it in the afternoon breeze and braved the spear-lined path to reach Raef. Warriors had come from across Vannheim, boys no more than fourteen, men with grey beards and gnarled hands, women with long plaits in their hair, each answering the summons to defend their home, and now the walls were flanked with their makeshift shelters and the smoke of many fires.
The rider was not a stranger to Raef and he was sure the choice of Eirik of Kolhaugen was no accident, for the Hammerling was no doubt aware that they had struck up a friendship while fighting together in the east. But Eirik’s strong face displayed no warmth or eagerness at seeing Raef.
