Icefall

by Matthew J. Kirby

  “Of course you do,” Hake says.

  Per is trembling with anger, but he turns away from the berserkers to help his wounded warrior. I know Per is lying about his feelings, but I feel sorry for him. He does love my sister, but it seems cruel to mock that love so openly. And apparently the entire steading knew about it before I did.

  If so, then Per and Asa are crossing a treacherous ice floe, one where the snow could swallow them into a chasm without warning. It would take only the whisper of an accusation for my father to execute Per. For his sake and Asa’s, I hope that Per was being truthful about his honorable conduct. But at the very least, he has brought suspicion down on my sister, and I am angry at him for so selfishly jeopardizing her reputation.

  I watch him now as I would a stranger. He is not the man I thought he was. I’ve imagined trolls coming down from the mountains for my sister, but perhaps the troll has been in our steading all along.

  Asa and I lie awake together, without talking. I worry for the berserker wandering out in the woods. Where will he go? Perhaps he is trying to climb out of the fjord, but that would be impossible. During winter, the mountain pass is closed, sealed shut, rendering our steading accessible only from the sea. Has he already frozen to death? We have not seen or heard the wolves for some time, but perhaps he has met one of them. And Hake took his sword.

  When I think of the berserker captain now, he frightens me more than he ever did before. I have caught a glimpse of the animal inside him, waiting just on the other side of its den-shadow. The others in the steading seem to have forgotten quickly about the incident. To them, it is just a part of being a berserker, and the risk my father took when he brought them into his hall.

  “Did you know?” Asa asks, scattering my thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Did you know about Per and me?”

  “I did.” But I feel guilty for not saying something to her before now, so I add, “But not for very long.”

  Asa sighs. “Father will banish me just like that berserker.”

  “Not if he doesn’t find out.”

  “How could he not? Everyone knows.”

  “But you haven’t really done anything wrong.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Have you?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Then you’ll be all right.”

  “All right?” Her voice is so loud and angry, I worry she’ll wake those sleeping out in the hall. “How could you possibly think I’ll be all right? Per and I … I don’t know what to do.”

  I think of the two of them walking into the hall together and feel a stab of betrayal. “Well, you could start by not going off alone with Per anymore. That way —”

  “Oh, shut up, Solveig. You don’t know anything.”

  Tears spring to my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  A moment later, she reaches out for me and takes my arm. “No, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

  I rub my eyes with my sleeve.

  She lets me go. “I’m just so confused. Sometimes I want to run away.”

  “How would you escape the fjord?”

  “Not from here. From every thing. Away from Father’s kingdom.”

  What is she saying? “But … you can’t.”

  There is a very long pause. “No,” she says. “I can’t.”

  I wake up late to a meager day meal of cooked oats. I feed some to Muninn and then step out into the yard. The day is dismal, the pallor of death in the sky and on the ground, the world a corpse. I watch a few berserkers heaving snow and I am surprised and relieved to see the banished warrior hard at work alongside the others.

  Hake stands nearby with folded arms, watching.

  I am wary again of the berserker captain, of the rage he holds within, and keep my distance, but he turns and sees me. I don’t want him to think I’m avoiding him, for I know there is kindness in his heart. I force myself to approach him.

  “I thought he was banished,” I say.

  Hake bows his head in greeting. “He was. They found him half-frozen at the gate this morning, begging admittance. He asked to become a thrall to the king and his family. I saw no reason to deny him.”

  I look back at the man. Yesterday, he was a proud berserker warrior, feared and strong. Now he is a slave, without weapon or property to his name. I cannot decide if it was pity that compelled Hake to let the man back in, or cruelty.

  “I must apologize for last night.” Hake rubs his knuckles, and I see that they are bruised and split. “I know what you must think of me now, and you are right to. I let down my guard. But you can believe me when I say it will not happen again.”

  I only nod.

  Hake looks up at the troll mountains. “This is a strange place. A steading that can turn warriors into thralls and princesses into skalds.”

  “I’m not a skald yet.”

  “No, but you will be. I prefer your voice to Alric’s. And I think you are more naturally gifted than he. I believe your father will be proud.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  His words strike a place in me that has never sounded before, something deep and ignored for a long time. My father proud of me? A rush of joy radiates outward through my body from my chest, a feeling I relish, but have a hard time trusting fully.

  My father. Proud of me.

  “Don’t worry,” Hake says. “I won’t let that new thrall anywhere near you or your siblings. And he’ll soon discover the true nature of servitude.”

  “But that is still better than death,” I say.

  “No. It isn’t.”

  That evening, I stand in front of the steading telling a story. It is going well, and among the array of faces in the audience looking up at me I imagine my father’s. As soon as I’ve conjured up his image, his eyes like shields, I feel the emptiness of his disregard and all the meager confidence I’ve gathered slips between my fingers. Were it not for Muninn at my side, I think I should fall to the ground, as though my bird is holding me up by the shoulder.

  I barely finish my portion of the tale and find my seat, heart pounding. What if Hake is wrong and my father isn’t proud? This storytelling is the one gift that may be mine, and if my father disapproves of it, I don’t know what will be left. For the first time since coming to this place, I don’t want to leave. At the thought of what I may face at home, a sense of dread pulls back my earlier joy into a knot in my stomach.

  Alric finishes, and we go to our beds. I bring Muninn a bit of food and notice a familiar shape in his straw.

  “Again?” I pull Bera’s key from his cage, and this time he squawks at me in anger. “It isn’t yours, you little thief.”

  Bera laughs this time when I return it, although she can’t figure how Muninn stole it from her. “Perhaps he really is Odin’s bird,” she says. “Got some magic in him.”

  I regard my magic raven as I return to the bedcloset. Even my bird has secrets. It seems there is no one I can fully trust, no one without a secret concealed inside themselves. And here in this steading, that is the only place left where anything can be hidden.

  In fact, if Alric is right, then I’m hiding things there even from myself.

  My sleep is restless with tangled thoughts and shapeless nightmares. The stale air in the bedcloset stifles me. The mattress is uncomfortable and the walls feel too small, a cage. I need to stretch, to move and breathe freely. So I climb out, pull on my boots, and tiptoe across the hall. The doors are heavy, and emit a slow groan as I ease them open and slip outside.

  The air is deliciously cold, a shock that brings relief. I inhale with my eyes closed, pulling the frost into my chest. Then I look up, and I catch that lonely in-between moment that is neither day nor night, when the boundary loosens between the mountains and the sky. I decide to stay out and watch the sun rise above the ravine, so I walk down the length of the hall. But as I reach the garden patch, I see that someone is already there.

  It is Hake. He stands bare-chested in the almost-dawn, h
is pelt on the ground beside him. His broad back is to me, and he whispers to himself. I turn my ear and listen.

  He is praying. He pleads with Odin to grant him strength, to help him stay vigilant and keep his rage under control. “If I ever come so close again,” he says, “destroy me, Allfather, before I hurt anyone.”

  There is pain in his voice, and strain. Hake sounds and looks so vulnerable. And that is something I would never have thought to see in him. I don’t want to spy on this moment. I do not want to violate his privacy, so I back away quietly and return to the bedcloset.

  But the sight of the berserker remains before my eyes. The sound of his voice in my ears. I have seen Hake’s heart, his goodness laid bare. Perhaps he alone has nothing hidden there.

  I remember a time when a neighboring chieftain began sending raiding parties onto Father’s lands after sheep and cattle. When Father demanded compensation, this chieftain gathered his sons and declared war. You were sent to fight, Hake. You and your berserker men. I was so frightened of you. I must confess now that before coming here, and knowing you, I was always glad when Father sent you and your men away to war.

  That is how we all felt, everyone in the kingdom.

  You were despised. Before Father, what king had offered you a home? What hall had ever opened its doors to you and your kind? No one trusted you. No one wanted you. The only reason we tolerated you is because Father demanded it.

  That is, until Alric.

  For you came back from war victorious, as you always do. You recovered what had been stolen and made our people safe in spite of their suspicions of you. And Alric sang of your strength. Your courage. Your cunning. And your loyalty. His tales nudged my thoughts and changed the course of my feelings, so that I gradually came to accept you.

  As did we all.

  And now, we trust you with our borders and our lives, and you have a place among us.

  Though we still give you plenty of room.

  CHAPTER 11

  FALLEN

  The next day, Harald sulks about the hall, eyeing the food that Bera is preparing, complaining loudly. Bera sometimes gives him a taste of whatever is boiling in her pot to silence him, but today she scowls and ignores him. We are all short-tempered.

  “But why can’t I eat now?” Harald asks.

  “Silence, boy,” Hake says. “Be patient.”

  “Ha!” Bera snorts. “Your men complain as loudly as the boy, Captain.”

  “You take issue with my men, woman?”

  Bera points her long spoon at him. “That I do, sir. They become fouler with each passing day. I agree with Per. This steading would be better off if you and your lot had never come.”

  Hake stands. “Your king felt differently.”

  “I’m still hungry!” Harald says.

  I get up and put my arm around him. “Come, let’s go for a walk.”

  “I don’t want to go for a walk,” he says.

  “But I do, and I don’t want to go alone. Will you come to protect me?”

  “Take Hake,” he says.

  “I want you.”

  Harald sighs as though the weight of manhood has already fallen upon him. “Very well, Solveig. I shall protect you.”

  I smile, and Bera mouths a thank-you to me as he and I leave the hall. Out in the yard, Harald announces to the berserkers hanging about that he is escorting me on a walk.

  “Where would you like to go?” he asks.

  “Let’s go up to the glacier,” I say. I do not want to go into the woods, and Hake would not allow it, anyway. But the ravine is behind our steading walls and feels safer.

  “Very well,” he says.

  Raudi walks up to us. “Where are you going?”

  “The glacier,” Harald says.

  “Can I come?” Raudi asks.

  Things between us are still not as they once were. I’m not sure if they ever can be, but I nod, and he smiles, and it’s settled. After we’ve wrapped ourselves in furs and strapped on our snowshoes, we set off across the snow.

  It is farther than I remember from that evening I ran up this way. And now I notice the boulders that line the bottom of the ravine are placed at regular intervals, forming a narrow, winding channel, a natural defense against an enemy trying to fight their way up. I realize the rocks must have been arranged that way, rolled into place to protect the cave.

  “I’ve enjoyed your stories, Solveig,” Raudi says.

  I look at him. “Thank you.”

  “So have I,” Harald says.

  “Thank you.”

  “But I’ve always liked your stories,” Raudi says. “Even before you started telling them like a skald. In fact, I think I liked them better before.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me, too,” Harald says. “Back when you told them just to me.”

  I thought I was getting better at telling stories, not worse. “Why were they better to you before?” I ask Raudi.

  “I don’t know,” he says. He crooks one side of his mouth. “I think it’s because it felt more real before. It felt like you believed it.”

  “Alric says it isn’t important what I believe. And it doesn’t matter if a story is really true.”

  Raudi shrugs. “Well, he’s the skald. But that doesn’t make sense to me. How can you make the people believe it if you don’t believe it yourself?”

  Harald sighs. “I’m tired of you talking about stories.”

  I laugh. “Then how about I tell you one when we reach the glacier? Just for you.”

  He nods. “If you want to.”

  A short time later, we stand under the wall of ice. Its weight and depth feel greater for its stillness. The glacier slumbers like something coiled up tight on itself. Wind sails down the ravine, over the lip of the glacier, carrying a bloom of snow into the air above us.

  “Why does it groan at the end of summer?” Harald asks Raudi.

  “Because some parts of it are freezing faster than other parts,” he says.

  “You mean like how a hot kettle will crack if you put it in the snow?”

  “Just like that,” Raudi says. “And at the end of winter, it will groan again.”

  Harald’s forehead wrinkles. “Because parts of it are melting.”

  “Exactly.”

  Harald nods to himself. “The groaning makes it sound alive.”

  “It does,” I say. “I even had a dream where it broke free and rushed down on us.”

  Harald looks into my eyes. “Can that happen?”

  “Well, glaciers can break apart and trigger avalanches,” Raudi says. “There are stories about floods coming out of them.”

  Harald takes a step closer to me. “But not this one, right?”

  I reach out and smooth his hair. “It was just a dream I had.”

  Harald turns and looks up the wall of the ravine. “Is that the cave?” He points at the column of steam rising from the mountainside.

  “Yes,” I say. “But there’s more steam than I remember.”

  “Let’s go inside it,” Harald says, the glacier already forgotten.

  We start up the slope, burrowing and digging through the snow, until we reach the entrance. Heat rises from it, a hot breeze in our faces, with the same stench I smelled last time.

  “It smells like a hot spring,” Harald says, pinching his nose.

  “It’s hotter than I remember, too,” I say.

  “Something is happening under the mountain,” Raudi says. “A dragon, maybe.”

  “I don’t want to go inside anymore,” Harald says, and starts back down.

  Raudi and I linger a moment. I notice a subtle vibration through the soles of my boots. The mountain is humming under its weight. I wonder if the dragon is waking. Is that feeling in the ground the rubbing of its scales against the rock as it climbs out of its den? Is that why its breath feels hotter and closer?

  “Solveig, come on,” Harald says below me. “Come tell my story.”

  I follow hi
m down, and Raudi follows me. I look forward to having the audience I am used to. Eager to tell a story without having to think about rhythm and sound, without having to worry about anything beyond the little bit of joy I will bring my brother.

  Later in the day, after we’ve returned to the steading, Harald and I sit in the hall together. I have Muninn out on my shoulder, and even though Harald still teases my bird, I’ve seen him slip bits of his own food between the bars of Muninn’s cage when he thinks I’m not looking.

  “When we get back to Father’s hall,” Harald says, “I want to show my friends your bird, and you can tell them a story, too.”

  The hall doors open, and two berserkers come in bearing a third between them. The man is barely upright, his ankles bent, feet dragging. Hake is behind them.

  “Make way!” he shouts, and sweeps a nearby table clear. A few mugs clatter to the floor.

  The berserkers help the unstable man onto the table and lay him down. His face is white and his eyelids flutter.

  “What’s going on?” Bera asks.

  “He just fell,” one of the berserkers says.

  Bera touches the man’s cheek. “Has he been lying in the snow for long?”

  “No, ma’am,” the berserker says.

  “He’s cold as ice.” She turns to Hake. “Get the children out of here.”

  Hake nods and crosses to Harald and me. “Get your cloaks,” he says. “Come with me.” We follow his orders, and he ushers us toward the doors.

  I look back at the sick man on my way out. He’s started convulsing. The cords of muscle in his neck ripple and his tongue sticks out of his mouth.

  “Get me a rag so he don’t bite it off!” Bera shouts. “Help me hold him still. And get the fire going!”

  Hake pushes me through the doorway into the yard. Then he closes the doors, and Harald and I are left standing outside. We pull our cloaks about us and wait to be let back in.

  By nightfall, eight more of the berserkers have fallen, and one of Per’s men. After the convulsions, all of them have slipped into a stupor and do not respond to anything. They breathe, moan, and they blink at times. It is sometimes possible to pour water down their throats, though I am not allowed near them. I look at their open mouths, their drying lips, and I cannot help but think of my dream.