Fire and Lies

by Angela Chrysler

  “You… Uskit!” Bergen barked over Kallan’s shoulder.

  With astounding relief, Kallan gasped and, free to feel once again, she fell onto Rune, shaking beneath her tears. Around them, the spell dispersed and the Alfar stirred.

  With Bergen’s help, Kallan and Rune rose to their feet.

  Ever smiling, Kallan clasped tightly to Rune’s hand, paying mind to little else.

  “We have a problem,” Roald said, drawing Rune and Kallan’s attention to the battlefield.

  The spell had worn off and the first wave of confusion had lifted. The second wave was settling in as Dokkalfar recognized Ljosalfar.

  “We don’t have much time,” Rune said. “Re-form the ranks,” he ordered and joined Bergen to restore order.

  They scrambled, reforming the Ljosalfar, but the Dokkalfar, abandoned and leaderless, took up sword against the only known enemy surrounding them.

  “Reform the ranks!” Bergen bellowed, urging the Ljosalfar to find order among the chaos and abandoning all worry with the Dokkalfar.

  Pockets of skirmishes grew, disrupting the ranks as confusion settled in where the Dokkalfar stood.

  “Enough!” Kallan bellowed, forcing her voice out over her people.

  A wave briefly calmed the skirmishes, but once they failed to see Aaric mounted, ready to lead them, they rose up again.

  Siphoning her Seidr, Kallan inhaled again and located each life source. If she failed to unite them now, she would have failed completely.

  “Enough!” she screamed again, this time adding a harmless pulse of Seidr through the wind.

  Dokkalfar and Ljosalfar alike faltered against the force and the call of a Dani horn sounded, forcing all eyes to the east.

  “He’s here,” Rune muttered, looking out among the fifteen thousand that stood on the horizon, ready with armed archers and spearmen.

  * * *

  The Midgard king of Dan’s Mork gazed to the west. The numbers before him were staggering, but unorganized as small skirmishes continued to break out. Forkbeard’s blood chilled as he gazed upon the Alfar. He furrowed his brow, knowing instantly that something was not right.

  “What is Borg doing?” Vagn asked, peering up at Forkbeard perched high on his steed.

  Forkbeard’s throat tightened.

  Fueled on Borg’s adamant vow that he would have the support of the Dokkalfar, Forkbeard had heeded the words of his wife and amassed his troops. He pulled as many as he could from all of Northymbra: from Jorvik to Loden. He had left the northern reaches of Danelaw nearly bare.

  “I don’t care.” Forkbeard grimaced. “So long as Borg upholds his end of the bargain.”

  The Alfar had risen back to their feet, giving Rune the time he needed to re-establish his order.

  “Form ranks!” Rune commanded of the Ljosalfar as Kallan took up her sword still lying beside Astrid’s body.

  The Ljosalfar obeyed and fell into line as they sorted out themselves.

  “Hear me!” Kallan cried with a Seidr-enhanced voice, walking through and among her kin to restore order to the masses. Slowly, the Dokkalfar repositioned for battle. Slowly, a front line formed alongside the Ljosalfar. But, almost instantly, pockets of fighting broke out again.

  “Stand down!” Rune barked to his own, reasserting order among his ranks just as Kallan prepared to send off another pulse. She marched before the lines of Dokkalfar, crying out as she moved.

  “Look at me!” she begged of them, sending her voice out over the thousands. “Look at me and know me!”

  Silence fell among the troops as the last of the chaos dispersed and the mass quieted.

  “We all have been deceived!” Kallan pleaded, hoping they would see her familiar face. “Now look at me as you once did! Look at me and know me!” Slowly, the chaos cleared and questions came as Fand’s spell broke.

  “Come! Rise up once more with me! Fight with me so that, should I live, I may look upon you and know you as my brother! My brother, who dared to fight alongside me this day! This day! When we rise up together in arms and fight! Not against me, but alongside me. Share this fight with me. Rise up and fight with me!

  “For centuries, I have fought beside you, my brothers. Stand with me as you once did and know me again! I may not live to this battle’s end, and many who stand before me shall fall. But should you fall then fall beside me as my brother. Know that if I should fall and go with Odinn into his halls, I will lift my eyes from the darkness and I will look to you with my final breath, and I will call you my brother!

  “I call to you, rise up this day and fight with me! Rise up and win with me! Rise up and call me your brother!”

  Kallan raised her sword to the sky, sending her voice out over the masses.

  “Rise!” she bellowed. “Rise!” She turned to the west.

  “Rise!” She led them on as their voices joined with hers.

  “Fire.” Forkbeard’s order unleashed the archer’s volley. It showered the Alfar as they charged over the plains of Alfheim.

  Forkbeard stifled a sigh as the whole of the Alfar barely flinched against his archers.

  “Again,” he muttered, knowing the sacrifice he would need to make before leading the majority of his troops back to the ships.

  Cursing Borg, Forkbeard witnessed the thousands charge through his arrows as if they were pellets of rain.

  “Charge.”

  Kallan grasped her white whips of Seidr that flowed from each hand. With each turn, she met a Dani and slashed her whips around and down, exercising full control as her eyes glistened gold.

  “And again,” Forkbeard ordered.

  Desiring nothing more than a single arrow to pierce Borg’s chest, Forkbeard shifted his gaze over each face, desperate for the one Dokkalfr, who had promised him victory, to fall.

  With a wide grin plastered across his face, Bergen wielded his Firstborn, swinging the blade wide with ease as he charged ahead of his troops and caught Dani after Dani with his blade. Bare-chested and brazen, the Dark One lunged into battle eagerly slashing alongside the Seidkona, who snapped her white Seidr whips.

  “Once more,” Forkbeard ordered as the fourth and last volley peppered the Alfar. But they remained formidable, undaunted by the barrage of his archers.

  With a sick that had settled in the pit of his stomach, Forkbeard dropped the next order, despite his rising temper.

  “Spearmen at the ready,” Forkbeard said. “Make it look like it was worth the expense.”

  Vagn didn’t flinch. The line of spearmen snapped their arms in unison, waiting for the command that would send them charging across the plains to their deaths.

  “Advance,” Forkbeard muttered.

  From his seat, the Dan’s Mork king watched the Alfar swallow his front line as they charged to their deaths.

  A glint of a red pommel caught the sun as Rune lunged, head first, into the lines of spearmen. Alongside the berserker and the Seidkona, he wielded his sword and dagger. Slashing a spearman, Rune brought Gramm down across a spear then up again, plunging his dagger into a Dani. Beside him, Bergen’s laugh carried over the battle as Kallan relinquished her whips only long enough to send a blast of Seidr into Forkbeard’s front line. With a flick of both wrists, she restored her white Seidr whips.

  Forkbeard clenched his jaw as he watched thousands of spearmen fall beneath the formidable magnitude of the Alfar. Forcing down a mouthful of curses, he delivered his last order.

  “Pull back.”

  Vagn echoed the order as Forkbeard steered his mount around. He didn’t have to look to know most of them wouldn’t survive the retreat.

  With a glance to the abandoned spearmen, Vagn forced his horse to follow his king.

  “My lord?” Vagn asked, knowing too well the temper that brewed beneath the silence. “Will we reform and come back?

  The cheers and celebration had already exploded from the battlefield behind them.

  “I haven’t the troops to take down such an alliance,” Forkbeard said, not bot
hering to look back at the waste he left behind. “Not without the help of Otto.”

  Vagn glanced back, ensuring the Alfar too had pulled back.

  “We lost many troops today,” Forkbeard said.

  Scowling, he followed the road back to the ships as he stewed in resentful bitterness, writhing with hate for the Alfar.

  “I swear this land will pass to my son and he will inherit their land if I have to burn every last tree and scorch the earth behind me.”

  Vagn listened with stilled breath, wise enough to hold his tongue.

  The Alfar whooped and cheered while those at the front finished off the last of the Dani. Already, the majority of the Alfar had started rejoicing, their celebrations too loud to hear Forkbeard’s words.

  The greens of Odinn’s Riders streaked the sky with ribbons of light. In silence, they rode overhead as the Valkyrjur gathered their warriors for Valhalla. For a moment, Kallan grinned and wondered why she couldn’t hear them. Soon they would send the Fallen off to sea in flame.

  She could hear the boisterous drinking and merriment from Gunir’s keep carry across the river as far as the vacant plains, where she stood alone with the remnants of Astrid. The Alfar had wasted no time opening the best barrels of mead and slaughtering the fattest of pigs, which seemed to cue the festivities that already had lasted for hours.

  Despite the cause for celebration, Kallan’s sorrow pulled her from the Great Hall as it burst with merriment. With heavy shoulders, she stood before Astrid’s cold body. With ease, she mustered her Seidr, but battled against the sharp pain that stayed her hand. For a long while, she cradled the ball of white fire until, at last, she sent the flame onto him.

  Alone, Kallan watched her Seidr-flame devour the stallion. The fire reached up past the tips of the trees. Flames consumed her friend and crackled as it battled back the darkness that tried and failed to swallow the light. The light of the fire glistened off her silver gown and the Valr that hung delicately around her neck. With Torunn’s help, her hair was combed and pulled back to fall down the length of her back.

  “From the sounds of it, the festival won’t be slowing down any time soon.”

  Rune’s voice cut in to Kallan’s thoughts and she gazed from the flames to Rune. Like she, he had washed and changed. He had sleeked back his hair and left it untied.

  “They’ve all but forgotten they once were enemies only hours ago,” he muttered, coming to stand beside her.

  Kallan inhaled deeply.

  “It still amazes me,” she said, “how much…”

  Rune said nothing as he stared at the rolling fire.

  “I want to cry with relief.” Kallan gasped. “But my grief has left my eyes dry.”

  She forced her face from the pyre and Rune gazed at the golden rings that glistened brightly by the fire’s light.

  “Come,” Rune said, taking her hand and pulling her away from the fire. “They’re asking for you.”

  * * *

  Kallan felt the warmth of the Great Hall long before they ascended the steps to the courtyard. The blast of jubilation bombarded the senses as Rune led her into the glowing liveliness of the Hall packed with Dokkalfar and Ljosalfar, who passed drink and tales.

  The late summer chill that swept into the Hall behind Kallan and Rune did little to deter the mood. With a boom, the Hall burst into a deafening hail that didn’t die out for several long minutes. The wounded had been picked up and welcomed to share in the merriment while others, too wounded to join, had been moved to the war room where Geirolf and Torunn kept vigilant watch through the night.

  The fire pit roared beneath the sweet scent of roasted pig, and barrels of mead, hauled from the buttery, rested at the ends of the tables richly strewn with candied fruits, fresh berries, pastries, sausages, puddings, and salted meats along with a large assortment of foreign vittles not even Kallan had seen in Northymbra.

  Amid the merriment and laughter, Bergen bellowed and waved, bare-chested and as jovial as ever, urging Rune to guide Kallan to the table. With a grin forming at the edge of her mouth, Kallan felt the first of her spirits begin to lift.

  “You’re a bard,” Kallan declared as she locked a disbelieving glare onto Bergen, who beamed.

  She had found a seat crammed between Roald and Bergen, who had wasted no time passing trays of meats and cheeses down the long table.

  The conversation and frequent belts of laughter were deafening as they filled the Hall.

  “That I am!” Bergen proclaimed with the widest of grins and the slightest of slurs. “Bergen the Bard!”

  With a hearty gulp, he took down the last of the mead in front of him while Kallan pondered laughing at the entire concept.

  “Would you dare look at him and laugh?” Rune asked, leaning across the table to Kallan. “If you couldn’t hold your own against him, I mean.”

  She understood his point too perfectly.

  “But why?” she asked, forcing back the bout of laughter that bubbled enthusiastically beneath her throat.

  “Because,” Roald interjected, staring down into his nearly empty mug of mead. “He didn’t want to wait for the bards to sing his praises.”

  Roald threw back his head and polished off the last of his drink. He struck the table with his empty flagon.

  “So he studied in Dubh Linn with the finest of Eire’s Land and became a bard,” Roald said. “After that, he went on to Râ-Kedet to further his studies.”

  “—and burn down the library,” Rune said into his drink.

  Bergen proudly widened his grin, clearly not hearing Rune.

  “For the sole purpose of spreading my glory ahead of my time,” he announced to the room, his head cocked high toward the wrought iron wheel overhead. The mead left a glossy sheen in his eyes as he gazed at Kallan. “You should hear some of my tales. I was great.”

  Gradually, Kallan dropped her jaw with a widening grin.

  “You are the ‘Bergen the Bard?’” she asked. “Bergen the Bard who used to perform every year at the Tailten Fair in Mide…”

  Bergen obtusely nodded in a slightly drunken stupor.

  “Bergen the Bard who always sang tales of the north, and of the deeds of the Dark One who fought there?” She repeated the stories back their author.

  “That I am!” Bergen beamed, swinging his mug wide over the table still flooded with meats and mead.

  “The Dark One,” Kallan mused. “You sang of yourself!”

  “Well, I couldn’t very well go around singing about ‘Bergen the Bold’ whilst I was ‘Bergen the Bard’.” Bergen scoffed. “People would know.”

  Kallan lowered her voice, forcing Bergen silent to hear.

  “This entire time we have shrieked in horror…from a bard. A bard, who coined his own name in songs he composed of himself?”

  “Imagine my surprise when my little ditties caught on to the local taverns,” Bergen said and tipped up his flagon.

  Unable to hold back, Kallan threw her head back and laughed until tears wet her eyes.

  The festivities had hardly diminished as the evening breached the first hours of morning. The kitchens proceeded to supply the constant demand for food and the first of the barrels emptied, requiring more be brought in from the buttery. An uproarious wave of enthusiasts welcomed their arrival as flagons refilled.

  “Hops!” Daggon bellowed over the ruckus.

  “Gruit!” Bergen barked back. “Hops are bitter and leaves the driest after-taste of tannins in your mouth.”

  “Gruit is piss water for babies!” Daggon hollered. “Sugared pears for children! Women drink gruit!”

  “Gruit has always been, and will always be, my truest love!” Bergen said. “For there is no finer lass than Gruit, my sweet!”

  Daggon sneered, grumbling into his flagon.

  “Hops is a man’s drink!”

  “Many a lass did I impale with my longsword,” Bergen announced, raising his drink to the ceiling. “But many more did I lose to Gruit, my first, my sweet.”

/>   “Hoooops!” Daggon grumbled.

  “Kallan! This one is called, ‘Oh, Gruit, the Dark One Comes,” and Bergen sang, swaying a drink to his own composing:

  “There, within the shadowed brink,

  The Dark One comes with lavished drink,

  For ne’er will a maid there be,

  As sweet as my Sweet Gruit, my drink.”

  “Bah,” Daggon scowled and chuckled into his drink as Bergen continued.

  “Beyond the brink, she comes with me,

  My bed that night I’ll share with she.

  No deeds were e’er as great as she,

  Save for my sword, my tongue, and me.”

  Kallan threw back her head and laughed, but Bergen went on, not missing a beat.

  “Within the brink and finest hour,

  When fullest body, I devoured,

  There it was that I deflowered,

  The fruits she bore within my bower.

  Ne’er mind what Daggon thinks,

  Nor what lay beyond the brink,

  For when I lay me down to sleep,

  My coupled lass, my Gruit will sing,

  Although my sword may lose its sheen,

  Although sweet Gruit, she may dream,

  Of sharper swords, of hops, and things,

  To me my Gruit, will always be,

  My first, my dearest Gruit, my sweet.”

  Bergen ended his song on a grin.

  “That was…the most Baldr-bad…Odinn-awful song I have ever heard,” Daggon said.

  Bergen burst into laughter. Daggon, mid-chuckle, threw back his head and took in the last of his drink just as Bergen added a slap to Daggon’s back that sent him into a coughing fit.

  Shortly thereafter, in a mad scramble, they raced each other to the barrels of mead at the end of the table, stopping to pick off a bit from the pig roast before racing back to the table, each balancing a fresh pint of mead.