by Matt Larkin
He had to deal with the queen himself.
The Niflungar and their foul goddess had done this, all of it. They had sent Ymir against Borr to test Odin. Because of that, Odin had lost father and brother and more brothers- and sisters-in-arms than he could count. Grimhild had threatened his people and his family and his very soul.
It ended now.
Odin had to protect what was left. What was most precious. His blood.
Thunder rumbled in the sky above. Valkyries, perhaps, keen to finally claim Odin’s soul. They would have to return disappointed. He was not done yet.
Odin clutched Gungnir. Handed down from his father and father’s father and before. The weapon of his ancestors, the last line of defense for his children.
“You threaten my people! My family!” Odin shouted at the sorceress.
“I will tear them from Midgard! I will rend your soul from your body! I will see trolls feast on your children!” She raised her arms, and hundreds of icicles began to swirl about her in a twister.
The sorceress advanced, tree branches shredding as she walked through them.
Odin gritted his teeth. There was no getting through that barrier. There was no fighting such a thing. But if this sorceress thought to threaten his children she would learn there was naught that would stop him from killing her. He reversed his grip on Gungnir and flung it right for her.
It hurtled like a bolt of lightning through the air, cutting through Grimhild’s twister of death. And Odin charged right in after it. Grimhild leapt to the side, trying to avoid the spear. It flew so fast it slashed open her shoulder. Her barrier slowed for an instant and Odin jumped right through it. Ice blades ripped open a thousand cuts along his body and might have shredded him completely were it not for the mail he wore.
Odin roared through the pain. “My family! My wife! My son!”
He landed on top of Grimhild and slammed her into the ground. Then he pounded his fist into her bone helm again and again, until the troll skull cracked and splintered. Blood seeped from innumerable cuts and gashes covering him. But that was all right. It now poured from Grimhild’s broken nose and split lip as well.
“You want a war?” Odin shouted at her. “You want a war!” He pounded a fist into her ribs which snapped with a satisfying crack. The woman gasped, choking on her own blood as Odin hefted her off the ground. “Know who wins a war? The one who won’t fucking quit!” He slammed his fist straight down. Her troll skull mask shattered and she fell to the ground in a heap.
Odin kicked her, sending her flying away. This was going to end. He was done looking over his shoulder, done waiting for death to come to those he loved. Father was gone. Ve was gone. Odin would not lose anyone else.
Then, as Odin looked up, he realized he still held the Sight. And it revealed Gudrun, perhaps thinking she was hidden in the mist. Watching, clutching a tree as Odin beat her mother to death with his bare hands.
For a moment he looked at the princess, and she at him. Gudrun started, clearly realizing Odin had spotted her. When he looked back to Grimhild, the sorceress was gone. Odin spun, keeping his Sight up, but all he saw was Gudrun, who looked as shocked as he did, and an unkindness of ravens taking flight.
Odin closed the distance between them at a sprint and grabbed Gudrun, pressing her against a tree. “Where is she?”
“She transformed into ravens,” Gudrun said, pointing at a flock of the birds flying away. “I didn’t know she could do that … I have no idea what vaettr she must have bound to …”
Odin gritted his teeth and pressed the princess harder against the tree until she gasped in pain. Maybe he ought to kill this Niflung, as well. Maybe he ought to kill them all. He’d do aught to protect the family that remained to him.
“You should not have let her escape, Odin,” Gudrun said.
“I would not have!” Not if Gudrun had not caught his attention, if only for an instant.
But then, Gudrun had not actually interfered. She had just tried to watch the battle, thinking herself hidden. Had she wanted to see her mother die? What kind of daughter did that make her?
Odin dropped Gudrun, who sank to her knees and rubbed her chest. Gudrun was a sorceress, her mother’s daughter, and heir to his enemies. She had come to take Odin away with the draugar, and if Loki and Sigyn had not come to his rescue, he might well be back in that dungeon. But then, he’d only escaped the dungeon in the first place because of Gudrun. The twisted girl loved him, or thought she did. Sick as she was, maybe she still imagined some kind of future between them. And despite himself, in his darkest moments, Odin did so as well.
With a sigh, he knelt beside her and placed a hand on her cheek. “You should be gone from this place, Gudrun. Do not pursue me further. If you—or your family—continue to prove a threat to mine, you will find out just who the son of Borr truly is. Today was the last of my mercy, Niflung. If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
Odin rose, turning his back on Gudrun.
He wanted to look to her, to see her face one more time. To see her safely slink away into the mists.
But he didn’t look back. Not once.
Part V
Ninth Moon, Cusp of Summer
58
Another night had passed without sign of troll or draugar. The Aesir had left Idavollir behind, and Odin hoped never to see the jotunn fortress again. With Grimhild fled, he and Tyr had been able to dispatch the remaining draugar.
But no pursuit came.
Nor had he seen sign of either Loki or his woman. Hints of the Sight told him they faced danger, but Odin could not leave the Aesir, not now, not to go chasing after them. Not even after they had done so for him. He was a king, and his people needed him. And so he marched them on, offering the king—emperor as the South Realmer fashioned himself—of Valland plunder from Hunaland in exchange for safe passage.
And after long days and longer nights, they had come at last to what Idunn called the Middle Sea. From here, they followed the coast and passed through more mountains, to Andalus, a country sparsely populated, though torn by war.
And at last they reached the ocean. Nigh to half a moon on the seashore, and though Odin’s people remained huddled around their bonfires, he could at last feel the tension begin to seep out of them. Indeed, a full night’s sleep had done wonders for them all.
And though dawn had only just broken, already the shipwrights were again at work on the longships that lined the beach. Dozens of them, a fleet unlike any the Aesir had ever built or ever needed. Many of the tribes had built longships for raiding, but never before on this scale. Ships with which to cross the sea and reach the fabled islands of the blessed—Vanaheim. Odin had grown up believing it the home of the gods. He supposed it was, insofar as the Vanir were his people’s gods.
Except now, staring over the endless ocean, it had begun to seem … real. So much of vӧlvur wisdom and legend Odin had dismissed as superstition or stories having naught to do with him. He thought himself a man of the real world. But everything they had been through since his father’s murder, that had proved far too real. The world was a wider place than he had credited, and the Otherworlds stranger and more hostile than even vӧlvur imagined. And though watching the fervent passion with which his people built these ships made him proud, it was also a subtle reminder that he didn’t really know what else might be real.
Vanaheim. It was an idea, a myth. The islands of spring. What would that even look like? Like the tree Idunn had sent into bloom so long ago, the spark that had started this whole sojourn? The idea seemed ludicrous, nor could Odin’s mind even picture an entire land looking like that, save perhaps in dreams. And that was it—they planned to sail toward a dream.
Another moon at most, and the ships would be ready. They would leave the shores of Midgard and with them the mists of Niflheim. And, if Odin had his way, most of his people would never see those cursed vapors again. Vanaheim ought to put them beyond the reach of the Niflungar forever.
Well within r
each of the Vanir, unfortunately.
He felt Idunn approach. Perhaps it was his own expanding senses, the apple continuing to interact with the energies he had drawn from Frigg and Gudrun. Or maybe it was Idunn herself, the goddess of spring, of youth. Maybe she had always radiated such energy, and Odin had been too blind to see it until now, with his Sight honed by his trek beyond death, such things were laid plain before him.
“Do they know we are coming?” he asked without looking back at her.
“Hmmm … doubtful. I mean, most of them don’t bother paying much attention to Midgard anymore. But they’ll know when we get there. Njord does watch all the harbors and the seas and fancies them his domain. Sometimes he calls up mermaids to sing for him, grand performances. They light up the entire bay for it. My favorite—”
“Idunn.”
“Huh. Right. You’re not interested in the mer.”
Odin rubbed his face. Mermaids? The idea was interesting, but he couldn’t afford to get distracted by Idunn’s latest fascination. Yesterday the goddess had been teaching his people to train snow rabbits to carry messages around camp. When Odin pointed out that a human runner could do the same task more quickly and accurately, Idunn had only said that messenger bunnies were cuter. And in those words Odin had seen something deeper in her—her mercurial nature was not all an act, but it was, in part an affected illusion much like she had used to hide from the varulfur, so long ago.
“I’m interested in keeping my people safe. Will they be, Idunn? Safe in Vanaheim?”
Odin had driven himself nigh to madness trying to reach the Vanir’s homeland. He had lost so much himself, and his people, they had lost even more. Fewer than half of their original number remained.
Now, Vanaheim and Yggdrasil were the only hope to save the rest of his people, and to save Odin’s children from the world Odin would have otherwise bequeathed them.
“Oh, yes. It’s wonderful, Odin. Blue sea and blue sky, grass so green you just have to dance in it. It’s completely safe. Other than the Vanir themselves.”
That drew a snort from him. The home of the gods was great—as long as the gods weren’t home. Odin shook his head and made his way farther down the beach.
He had slain his own brother. And oft as he looked into the Penumbra, never had he seen Ve’s shade. Perhaps Ve had already been drawn on to the Roil, or even beyond, to the unknown realms. Or worse, maybe Ve was still paying the price for Odin’s mistakes, suffering in the eternal torment. Life was agony, but now Odin knew, death was even worse.
The valkyrie Svanhit’s ring was a hot weight in his pouch. He could call upon her and demand to know his brother’s fate, but, even if she knew the answer, it would change naught. And Odin could not afford to sacrifice the one favor the valkyrie might grant him on a single, vain question. Once, he would have done so, yes, but no longer.
Solemn and bitter, he made his way to where Frigg sat on a rock, little Thor propped in her arms, staring out over the sea.
The varulfur twins played in the sand nearby, innocent as ever. Frigg had told him he’d missed their first words. Geri had called Fulla “ma,” a scene that had apparently set the redheaded maid into a fit of laughing and tears. Freki, more amusingly, had called Vili “ma,” and that Odin truly regretted missing. He would not miss Thor’s first words. This he swore to himself.
“Our kingdom is out there,” she said to the babe, “just waiting for us.” Frigg spun at his approach.
Odin held up a placating hand. He hadn’t meant to startle her. “It is out there.”
Frigg nodded at him, then fell silent, rocking Thor. Neither spoke for a long time. Odin couldn’t think of the words he wanted to say, couldn’t give voice to the feelings so pent up inside him.
At last, he sank down to the sand beside his wife and took Thor from her. “He’ll never see him.” Odin’s voice almost broke. Pain swelled inside his chest, threatening to consume him, until he wanted to weep like a woman. To let break the dam holding back the tide, to not be king, not be the leader the Aesir had to look up to, if only for a moment. But that luxury no longer remained to him, and would never be his again.
Frigg slipped off the rock and sat beside him, clearly sensing Odin’s mood. “Who?”
“My father. He’ll never hold his grandson.”
In answer, Frigg leaned against his shoulder. “Maybe. But he does see him, Odin. You who have looked into the realms beyond cannot doubt that. Borr—and my father as well—they do see us. Every day.”
Odin had seen the Penumbra, had walked there, had fought a valkyrie, and had seen the innumerable ghosts that haunted all the old places of this world. But he had never seen Valhalla. He had not seen his ancestors smiling upon him. He hadn’t ever seen his father there. As he did not see Ve.
All he had seen was darkness and hunger.
Fuck, but he wanted to call Svanhit and ask her … ask her what? To change the nature of reality?
He, a man making himself a god, still could not change that. He could not alter the past, could not bring back the dead, could not have back his father. He would never regain his brother. Even gods were not given all the things they might want. Not everything. Not really.
Buri, Odin’s grandfather, had never seen Odin. His son, Odin’s father, would never see Thor.
Maybe Loki was right, maybe the visions would consume him. But it was so easy to just … just escape …
Borr held his newborn son in one arm, the other hand gently rubbing Bestla’s forehead. “What shall we name him?”
Bestla laughed weakly. “You’re so convinced you can make a better world for him? He’s a sign of it, then. Call him Odin—the prophet.”
Borr chuckled to himself, staring at his beautiful new son. Odin. Little Odin, prophet of the world Borr would build in his honor. In Buri’s honor. “Look,” Borr said. “I think he likes the name.”
“Of course he does,” Bestla said. “I have a hint of the Sight.”
Borr chuckled and ran his thumb over his son’s head. His son, a prophet, heir to a grand future.
“He has your father’s hair,” Bestla said. “And his eyes.”
Odin shuddered, clutching his heart. Was it the apple that had given him over to such introspection? Was it immortality? Or maybe the change was deeper in him, helped along by the transformation wrought by the apple, but not caused by it. How much his life had changed since then. A short time perhaps to grow from being a selfish, arrogant child to a man, a king who must lead an entire people. And a father himself.
And he had never known his grandfather, but … But he had Buri’s eyes? As he saw his own father in Thor, his father had seen Buri in Odin. Circles, patterns of fathers and sons all just trying to do right by one another.
Frigg, gods bless her, made no comment on his emotional display, instead keeping her head on his shoulder, eyes looking out there. As Odin so often did. “I had a vision,” she said after a long pause. “The future, I think. The day you and I first met, I saw us there, in Vanaheim, ruling as king and queen. Spring was all around us, and we sat in thrones, looking over a grand city. I didn’t understand what any of it meant. Not until you gave me the apple and told me of your plan to take Vanaheim. It was the first time I realized where we were in that vision. And we had taken the islands. We will succeed.”
Odin handed her the babe, while she turned to face him more directly. It wouldn’t do for anyone else to see him so morose. Odin couldn’t afford to be just a man. Probably, while he’d been away, Frigg had felt the same, felt herself forced to be a symbol. Not a mere woman, but a queen. Even now, even in front of him, she didn’t show it. But he suspected her time ruling the Aesir had worn on her. Maybe that meant she alone could understand the burdens he bore. His father must have felt those burdens, albeit only as a jarl.
“Did the apple make your visions stronger?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I still get the visions, but they’re so hard to make sense of. Once, I saw Thor gro
wn. Big redheaded giant of a man, a warrior. I’m sure it was him.”
“How?”
“A mother knows.”
Odin understood all too well. These days, he too sometimes simply knew things. Indeed, Frigg’s instincts might well prove a boon.
“I’m afraid,” she said after a moment.
The stark, blatant statement froze Odin. Frigg, who seemed to pride herself on poise and control—Frigg, who seemed ashamed to even hint at her true emotions, she would bluntly confide in him? Maybe that scared him, too.
“Of the future?”
“So many of my visions are dark, violent. Men dying by the thousands. And … Thor. Thor died in one of my visions—at least I think he did.”
“I will not let that happen!” Odin slapped his knee. “That is why we are taking Vanaheim. I’m going to put an end to the darkness covering our future.”
It is our children we must do right by.
And Odin would, at any cost.
Frigg rocked the babe who had begun to bawl at Odin’s outburst. She cooed at him, speaking to Odin in a soft whisper. “If we will take Vanaheim, why do my visions show more war, husband? Like destruction follows in our wake.”
In their wake? Or in his? Odin was going to ignite a war between the Aesir and Vanir. But it would be the last war.
“I’m going to build something that will last for millennia.”
“And to do it, you’re going to destroy a kingdom that has lasted for five.”
Odin rose, not wanting to hear Frigg’s words. She spoke the truth, sure enough. Too much of it, perhaps, or not enough. Maybe he did have to burn down the world around him. Maybe more would die before he could build his paradise. But that was the only way forward.
The only way he could finally save his people, the only way to ensure Frigg’s vision for Thor never came to pass. The only way to protect the things that mattered the most.
