The High Seat of Asgard (The Ragnarok Era Book 4)

by Matt Larkin

  “I had dared to hope you would,” the boy said. “If my father could be slain with ease, I’d have done so already.”

  Sigmund folded his arms across his chest. Boy certainly held a high opinion of himself. The question was, did he deserve that self-confidence? And the only way to be certain of that was to test it. He cocked his head to the cave. “There’s fire down there. I want you to go out and catch some game, cook it, and prepare the day meal for us.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “First, to dress. Then I’m going out for an hour or two. Be ready when I return.”

  From behind a tree, Sigmund watched the cave entrance. The viper writhed around in the sack he held, hissing and furious at being so snared. But if it had worked well enough to test one brother, it could test the next.

  For a time he watched, until, the sounds of scraping came from within. The boy must be skinning a kill.

  No better time would present itself, and, thus, Sigmund crept forward to the cave’s edge. Over the lip, he upended the sack, pitching the viper down over the rocks. The hissing thing slithered off into the darkness below.

  Sigmund settled back to wait.

  No shout came from within. Sigmund folded his arms. It should have happened by now. If the boy had found the snake, he’d have either run screaming or tried to kill it. If not, he should have cried out when it bit him. Either way … something should have passed by now.

  He tapped a finger against his thigh.

  The smell of roasting meat drifted up out of the cave, sending his mouth watering. Boy could cook, too. That boded well in itself. Finally, careful of where he trod lest the serpent yet lived, Sigmund slid down over the rocks himself. Slowly, he edged toward the back of the cave.

  The boy looked up from a spit over the fire and turned, revealing the animals roasting there. A snow rabbit and … a snake. He’d caught, skinned, and roasted the fucking snake.

  “Uncle. Do not seem so surprised. I only tracked the rabbit. The snake was just luck I happened upon.”

  Was Fitela mocking him? His eyes were hard to read. What child was so practiced in deception he could conceal the depths of his meaning from a grown man? Had the boy known Sigmund set that serpent, that he was testing him?

  Either way, he had done exactly as Sigmund had ordered. He didn’t lack for skill or courage, and they would need both for their mission. Rather than interrogate the boy, Sigmund settled down in front of him and accepted the meat when Fitela offered it.

  When he was finished, he licked his fingers, savoring the hot juice. “I have to ask, boy. What has your mother told Wolfsblood about the disappearance of first one son and then the next?”

  “She told him he died of snake bite while hunting.” The boy did know what had happened to his brother. Interesting. “She burned the corpse of some other peasant boy and called it Kettil. I don’t know what she plans to say of me, but I trust it will be convincing.”

  Sigmund grunted. He’d had no idea Sieglinde had grown so very accustomed to deception. He supposed her position necessitated it. Were she to admit her feelings about her husband, he’d have her killed no doubt.

  “So,” Fitela said. “About the plan. I have been thinking about our first step.”

  “Our first step?”

  “Are we not to work together to bring down my father? Mother led me to believe I could count on your assistance.”

  Him count on Sigmund’s assistance? Had the boy eaten some bad mushrooms? Biting back his initial response, Sigmund folded his arms. “How old are you, boy?”

  “Almost ten winters.”

  “Then, in almost a winter you will be two winters shy of manhood. So the first step—grow a fucking beard.”

  Fitela spit juice into the fire and glowered. “To what end? In my youth, the king’s men will underestimate me. We need but get by a few of them, sneak into his chamber while he sleeps, and slit his throat.”

  Small wonder a boy raised in Wolfsblood’s court would have no more honor than his father. “I will not kill a man in his sleep, much less Wolfsblood. When he dies, he will know a son of Volsung yet lives and brought about his fall. And I aim to bring down his entire house, all his line wiped from Midgard by my blade. To that end, we wait. We train. And you grow up strong enough to face a man in a fair fight.”

  Fitela yet glowered at him, shaking his head. “While you dawdle over your precious honor, grandfather and your brothers lie unavenged. Their shades no doubt in torment. But mother has commanded I heed your orders, so we wait. At least let us use the intervening years wisely, and perhaps find ways to turn Wolfsblood’s allies from his side.”

  Sigmund sighed and unfolded his arms. Maybe the boy was right. Maybe he had dwelt in this cave long enough. The forest was large, and many outlying towns lay just beyond it. So then, together they would begin to right the wrong Siggeir Wolfsblood had done to the Volsung line.

  Together, Sigmund and Fitela, would find justice.

  49

  Year 31, Age of the Aesir

  Odin’s injuries had not healed with the speed to which he’d become accustomed. Perhaps, drained of so much blood and pneuma by the vampires, his body lacked the resources it needed to recover. Regardless, his flight to Volund’s cave had proved agonizing and had taken him much longer than he might have desired. Walking still hurt, doubly so without Gungnir to count on. Instead, he was forced to lean on the tunnel wall as he descended into the darkness of the deep forge.

  His knee popped loudly, announcing him, though Volund must surely have sensed his presence in any event. Odin suspected the very shadows spoke to the svartalf. He paused a moment, caught his breath, and then pressed on. The throne, once completed, might help him see a way to avert or win Ragnarok. This he prayed, for it had cost him more than he’d have liked. In his current state, he was not well suited for a direct confrontation with foes. It took too much out of him, even without these accursed injuries.

  “You have not brought the Ordrerir.” The voice came from the darkness, echoing through the tunnel and making Volund seem some shadowy god.

  Apt …

  Odin pushed on, into the forge, this lit dimly by the fires. “It was suggested to me that exposure to sunlight might shatter the power imbued in the blood.”

  Volund hobbled out of the shadows, looking Odin up and down. “And yet you have brought something, have you not? There is a fresh gloom on you and not merely the shaded aspect of one who passes close to the other side, losing himself.”

  “I brought the blood of Kvasir, as best I was able.”

  Volund turned, ever so slightly, taking in the throne with a wave of his hand. “Once it is saturated with blood, the final steps can begin. It will not be long now, and you will have all you require.”

  “Will I?”

  “Has Mjölnir yet disappointed you, King of the Aesir? Through it, you fell the jotunnar and claim their chaotic souls for the forging of your treasures. Like the Vanir, you build your paradise upon the corpses of your victims. Is that not grandeur almost beyond measure? In these few decades, your fame already rivals that which they spent millennia building. And those of us who watch wait with baited breath to see how it will all end.”

  Odin made his way to the throne and settled down on it. Cold and hard and bitter. “You did not answer my question. Will the throne show me all I wish to see?”

  Volund snickered. “It will show you much. Whether you wish to see it all is a question only you can answer.”

  Odin grunted, the profound weariness of the past days almost driving him into torpor. Volund had said the throne needed to be saturated in the blood of Kvasir. That blood was in Odin now, pumping through his veins. Somehow, they used it to make more vampires, though he hoped that would not become his fate. For now though …

  Odin drew a dagger from around his neck, then slid the blade along first one palm, then the other. Then he slapped his bloody hands down upon the wolf’s head armrests, letting the blood seep over them. It poure
d into the grooves, running in thin rivers until it plummeted over the edge and dribbled onto the floor.

  Die at last …

  So.

  The throne might give him his answers, but still, another task lay before him. He could not afford to abandon Sigmund now. The Volsung was the only solution the Sight had yet revealed to recovering Andvari’s Gift. He didn’t know how Sigmund would recover it, only that the Volsung might one day do so. Odin dared hope the throne might offer another option, but until he had one, he could not risk aught befalling Sigmund.

  Thinking on the man, flickers of images came to Odin through the Sight. Darkness much like a cairn or a barrow. What was Sigmund doing in such a place? What vile urd had fallen to him now? Had Odin’s plans gone askew? Or perhaps they remained on course. If so, not for any lack of interfering by the Niflungar. Those sorcerers had caused no end of trouble for Odin, and perhaps the time had come to focus on breaking their power once and for all.

  His visions told him the Volsungs would lead to the Niflungar’s demise. Fitting then, that Gudrun’s obsession with Sigmund kept her in Sviarland. Where Odin could find her and break her power.

  Blood continued to seep from his palms, as if the throne drank it much as the vampires had. Odin did not remember shutting his eyes, but he felt himself falling into a trance. Felt his mind scraping other lands. It flitted about, all control over his visions lost in his weakness.

  He saw the barrow and Sigmund.

  A castle, belonging to his enemies.

  In the marsh, Gudrun—or Skadi—had built a fortress. She had tried on multiple occasions to disrupt Odin’s intentions for Sigmund in one way or another.

  Yes, Sigmund was in danger. Odin would need to ride Sleipnir and push him hard to reach the Volsung in time.

  He blinked.

  And the Midgard Wall. Thor had gone from there, so why did he see it? Did aught of import lay beyond it? Did the jotunnar move themselves, bestirred to learn a man consumed so many of their souls?

  His mind grazed over Asgard. There Sjöfn rode Annar hard within Yggdrasil, her back arched in ecstasy that hardly seemed feigned. Had Odin not lost so much blood, the vision might be arousing. Instead, it seemed more tedious than aught else.

  Especially when the girl left the sleeping guardian of the apples … climbed the boughs … stole an apple for herself. Foolish girl. The others all yet imagined that if Odin was not there, he could not see what wickedness they wrought in his absence. What treason.

  Always, they betray us …

  No. Odin was not like the fallen prince of the Lofdar.

  We are not so different …

  The difference was, Odin would win.

  At last he stumbled from the throne, pitched onto the floor, and looked up at Volund. “Enough?”

  The smith quirked a wretched smile and nodded.

  So, then. First he would deal with Sigmund and Gudrun.

  Then, another reckoning on Asgard.

  50

  Eighteen Years Ago

  On a moonless night, a raven had watched them enter the tunnel. One of Gjuki’s spies, perhaps, though Odin had long since given over trying to kill every such bird he came across. He would deal with the Raven Lord soon enough, and, in fact, the man he sought here might help him with it.

  The flames of Loki’s torch seemed to retreat from the darkness beneath the Sudurberks rather than the inverse, as would have been proper. Here, shadows prevailed, permeating the tunnel with a thickness that seemed apt to choke them. More disturbingly, even embracing the Sight revealed naught, as if the darkness had grown so dense it pierced the Veil between worlds.

  Odin did not need to ask if Loki was certain they had the correct location. After all, the stifling air and the plague on his senses all but confirmed they had trod down into some tainted domain of the Otherworlds. He wanted to speak, though, to fill the silence with some sound other than the pathetic crackle of a dwindling flame. And yet, his voice did not heed his call, as if it too fled from the oppressiveness that here prevailed.

  Even Odin’s footfalls sounded distant, muffled, while Loki made no sound at all.

  Without warning, the torch further dimmed, the flame retreating within itself.

  “I know what you are …” The voice emanated from the shadows, coming from all sides around them.

  “I am the king of Asgard,” Odin said.

  “Perhaps … But I was not speaking to you …” A faint yellow light gleamed in the darkness, a pair of eyes reflecting the meager torchlight.

  “We do not come here as foes,” Loki said. “We come to hire your services.”

  The man—Volund—chuckled, the sound grating on Odin’s brain as wrong somehow. “Many seek it, but few can afford the cost.”

  Odin growled. He was not about to watch as Loki negotiated with an unseen opponent. “Show yourself, svartalf. I would deal plainly with you.”

  Again, Volund chuckled. “No one deals plainly with the Otherworlds, human, for they do not deal plainly with you. There is always a catch.”

  Darkness made flesh …

  Odin would have thought Audr would prefer a svartalf to a liosalf.

  Yes … Darkness … is truth … light … lies …

  As if in response, the torch sputtered back to life, revealing the hint of a man. His skin was ashen gray while his hair was dark as pitch matched by his clothes—all black leather and worked with rubies that seemed to drink in light rather than reflect it. The smith dragged a lame leg behind him, but Odin would never have mistaken him for weak. This creature fair reeked of Otherworldly power.

  “I am prepared to offer you a hefty price if you can make for me that which I require.”

  “Oh, I do find that unlikely.”

  Odin scowled. “Unlikely that you can make it?”

  “Unlikely you are prepared for the price. No one ever is.” In the shadows, it was hard to tell, but he looked to be smiling. “Tell me then, King of Asgard, what prize do you so seek that you would travel to the edge of Miklagard or beyond to claim it?”

  “Andvaranaut,” Loki said. “A prize crafted by your own former masters.”

  Volund uttered a guttural sound like a cave lion. “I know of Andvari’s Gift. You waste your time, for I cannot replicate a craft I have never seen. Worse yet, you have wasted my time.”

  Damn it. Odin took a step toward the svartalf. “If you cannot remake the ring, then make for me another way to pass between the worlds.”

  The smith sneered. “I can make a great many wonders, but I have had no reason to study the crafting of that for which I need no aid.”

  “You can pass between worlds?”

  “Between this world and the World of Dark.”

  Svartalfheim, the realm of Nott … the very opposite of the World of Sun where Odin needed to reach.

  “I’m sorry, Odin,” Loki said. “Perhaps we have naught to gain here.”

  Grumbling, Volund shambled backward, fading into the shadows.

  No. Damn it! They had come so far. Surely it was not all in vain. Even if Volund could not make another ring …

  “Wait!” Odin said. “Wait, smith. Even if you cannot craft my dearest desire, you said you can make a great many things.” Odin’s visions had revealed enough to know that, using the Volsungs he might yet reclaim Andvari’s Gift, though not quite how. So if Volund could not recreate the ring, perhaps he might still be of use in ensuring it fell back into Odin’s hands. Besides which, Ragnarok still loomed.

  “Assuming you can meet the price, what would you have of me?”

  “Is it true you forged a runeblade in Njarar?”

  “Oh … yes …” Volund chortled, the sound reverberating through the tunnel and promising damnation.

  “Odin …” Loki said. “Are you certain this is the course that—”

  “So then, smith,” Odin said. “I would have you craft weapons fit to strike down the forces of chaos and all who might rise against the realms of men.”

  “
Oh …” Now Volund ambled forward, eyes gleaming. “I toiled for nine days and nine nights to craft Mimung. And you would have me make something stronger?”

  Pride. Odin understood Volund’s weakness now, for it was one they shared. “The greatest weapons ever forged—imagine it, even dvergar speaking your name in awe.”

  “They speak it now in fear.”

  “It is not the same, is it? Craft for me and all the worlds will know there has never been a greater smith in all of history.”

  Volund’s wicked grin set Odin’s stomach roiling. This was a man lost in his own darkness. “I would need souls.”

  “If that is your price.”

  “Oh, dear King of the Aesir. That is not the price, merely the material, much as I would need orichalcum.”

  Loki did not speak, though Odin could feel his blood brother’s disapproving stare. He was past caring.

  “Orichalcum I can bring from Asgard. Souls … I will bring from across Midgard if needs be. Speak your price.”

  Volund snickered. “The firstborn daughter of your loins shall belong to me, body and soul.”

  Now Odin frowned. Naught mattered more than family, true. But he had no daughter, save Geri, and she was not born of his loins. These weapons might help Odin protect the family he did have. After a long sigh, he drew a knife to slice his palm.

  Loki snatched his wrist. “You have no idea what it is like to lose a daughter.”

  Odin glared at his blood brother. “Perhaps not. But I have lost a father, a mother, two brothers, and many others I loved dearly. I cannot risk any more for the sake of one who might some day live.”

  Loki released him but leaned in very close. “Do you really believe in the space of eternity that you will sire no more children? Not one girl among them? I will not watch you make such a bargain.”

  “Are you yourself not experienced in making sacrifices for the future?”

  Loki recoiled as if struck, then stalked from the cave.