She smiled and stacked the unevenly made plate as best she could under her own. The others were finishing their food at roughly the same time and Gaddi called the men over to the carrot field. The work there was much the same as it was with the turnips and went by quickly. The men had introduced themselves briefly on the walk to continue their jobs, but that was the end of their interest in him it seemed. He wanted to be sad about it, but he knew he would be heading back to Kvernes at the end of the day and they were likely thinking the same thing.
It was mid-afternoon when the carrots were done and they moved on to the wheat. The women walked ahead of the men with scythes, cutting the wheat. The men were in two rows, one tying the sheaves, and then Erik and his group stacked them. It was nearing dark when the work was done.
As they were preparing to go, Gaddi approached.
“You both did well.” He looked at Erik. “Slow, but the work was good.” He laughed, relieving Erik’s tension at the statement.
Gaddi handed over five coins for each of them for the day’s work and sent them on their way with good wishes.
Tove waited until they were out of earshot to start her complaints. “How did you find the work, Erik?”
“Honestly?” He rolled his head back and forth, deciding how much to say. “It was boring. Hard. Hot.”
Tove trotted out in front of him, spinning and walking backward. “Isn’t it all so boring?” She was smiling again when she spun back to face the trail. “I can’t begin to understand how they smile in Kvernes. Or in that sorry little town. None did while I was stuck inside with them, making sour cheeses in silence.”
“And you want to leave?”
She slowed, coming back to his side. “I do. I hope to.”
“Turnip farming seems like a pretty cozy life, though. Same thing for dinner every night. You might be missing out.”
Tove scoffed. “No turnip farmer ever smiled as he died. And he woke here, and went back to all he knew with the same bland face and no family to help.” She spit at the ground. “What good are they?”
The mention of it made Erik think of how no one seemed to have much in the way of family with them. Fulla even mentioned marriage. People married young when she died. It was strange.
“Tove, are Ósk and Raggi… how did they meet, do you know? The bakers?”
She looked at him. “A strange thing to ask.” She thought about it a moment. “They must’ve met in Kvernes. It’s a town of strangers. Or, they were strangers.”
“But you said your brother—”
She made a noise and walked ahead of him. Erik left the thought alone and waited, hoping she would fall back into line or talk to him again, especially as night fell. They rejoined the main road with her still walking ahead of him.
The moonlight was as strong as it had been the night he arrived. It allowed him to see well enough ahead of them to tell that there were three people standing in the middle of the road. Tove froze and Erik came up, putting himself in front of her. He recognized two of the men when they started forward. They were from the day before. He could guess who the third was.
Tove screamed from behind him. “Go home, Vali! You’ve no business here!”
“Quiet!” Vali’s shout caused Tove to shrink.
Erik put a hand out in front of her. “I don’t know—”
“I have no intention of listening to your false words, snake! You’ve come to kidnap my sister and bring ruin down on Kvernes. Puppet of the gods, don’t think I don’t know about you.”
“I’m not planning to kidnap anyone. Now let’s just calm down.”
Vali motioned to his friends. “Bring her here.”
They started forward and Tove turned, rushing from the trail into the woods. The men followed her in and Erik started to go after them but Vali ran at him, pulling a knife. Erik jumped back, taking a few extra steps just to put distance between them.
“Filth like you keeping yourself near my Tove. She doesn’t know things. Always talking of leaving. She doesn’t know the world beyond our Spring. I do. I’ve seen it.” He ran at Erik screaming. “And you would take her there?!”
Erik dodged backward, keeping his footing. Vali seemed so slow that it was almost effortless to keep his distance. He had time to think, even.
Vali stopped, seething, and started to circle around. Erik looked to the woods as he circled, half-expecting to see one of the men there, but there was no one. Vali dove at him anyway, hoping to push him into the brush, but Erik moved to the side, dodging the initial thrust and another enraged swing.
Erik had backed along the edge of the road when he heard Tove shout from the woods and then a man’s pained scream. It drew his eyes away from Vali and the madman took the opportunity, knocking Erik to the ground.
Vali swung the knife up and slammed it down to the side of Erik’s head. The panic was setting in and whatever speed Vali seemed to lack disappeared now that the man was on top of him. Vali pulled the knife down across Erik’s shoulder as he pulled it back into the sky. There was no other choice in Erik’s mind but to grab at his wrists, so he did.
“Let go! Let me kill you!”
Erik wrenched his torso to the side as best he could, pulling Vali over. It was a valiant try but Vali kept rolling, pulling himself back onto Erik, this time lying flat on him. Erik’s eyes searched frantically for where the knife was when he saw the moonlight glint off of it, still in the hands of his attacker. Vali pushed his own knees down onto the ground and rose up. He pulled the knife to the side, aiming it at Erik’s ribs. The grin was that of a man lost to the world and he let out an insane, cackling scream as he began his swing.
Erik’s eyes were wide open when he saw the flat of a pan connect with the side of Vali’s head. Tove had put her shoulder behind it and taken a running dive into her brother’s head. The speed of her charge pulled Vali over and onto the ground under the full weight of the girl, pan still pressed firm against his skull. There was a sick crack and the knife fell from Vali’s hands into the dirt of the road.
Tove was quick to her feet, dragging Erik up.
“Are you hurt? He didn’t?”
“I’m fine.”
Tove ran to the knife, kicking the twitching body of her brother before grabbing Erik by the hand and dragging him toward the woods in a frantic run.
“What about your brother? Is he going to be okay?”
Tove shook her head. Her voice was manic, shaking with adrenaline.
“It doesn’t matter!”
chapter|9
Tove kept ahead of him the entire time they ran. His lungs were burning after the first twenty minutes, but she showed no sign of stopping. It was the best part of an hour when she finally decided that they’d run far enough, looking behind them, breathing hard. Erik collapsed onto the ground as soon as they stopped, wheezing, his shoulder still burning though the bleeding had already stopped.
“Should have spent the day making cheese.” She laughed before bending over to catch her breath.
Erik rolled over onto his back. “I don’t think they would have let me. Not that I know how to make cheese. Mozzarella maybe.”
Tove pulled the pack off, sitting down. “What’s that?”
“Huh? Oh, it’s just a kind of cheese.”
“Is it good?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good. Like the stuff we had today but firmer and not sour.” Erik was close enough to being able to breath properly that he sat up. “So which way is Kvernes from here?”
“We can’t go back there,” Tove said, laughing. “Not now.”
“It wasn’t really part of my plan. Avoiding it was more what I was thinking.” He thought for a moment. “Was it true no one liked me?”
Tove shrugged. “They hate anything they can relate to the gods.” She stood up, grabbing her pack. “Anything that would bring some interest to t
heir boring lives. We should find a clearing.”
Erik stood and followed her. “You sound kind of bitter.”
She looked at the ground. “It’s not the first time I’ve tried leaving. Not nearly the first.”
Tove’s voice trailed off and he decided to leave it at that. They found a small clearing and Tove dropped her pack. She pulled two light bedrolls from it and threw one toward Erik.
“You seem incredibly well-prepared.” There was annoyance in his voice. As much as he’d felt Kvernes was a bit strange, the bedroll served to remind him that he’d nearly been stabbed.
She put her bedroll down and looked at him with a pitiful face. “I meant to ask. I meant to suggest it. I swear I did. I meant to ask as we walked back. But you mentioned my brother… and then he…” She shuddered and turned away.
Erik sighed, wanting to stay mad but unable to find the will. She had her own circumstances, clearly enough. Even if he were angry, there was very little for him to complain about. The weird reluctance to discuss what Helheim was beyond Kvernes and the nearby farms was something he found nearly impossible to ignore. They’d sent him on busywork and then ignored his questions. It was a train of events he was growing sick of.
“We’ll start a fire. You brought food?”
She turned back to him hesitant, but gave a nod.
“Good. Then you’ll answer every question I ask.”
Tove smiled. “Of course. Everything I know! You’re my chief and I’d never keep anything that might help from you.”
The woods weren’t exactly thick with fallen limbs, the forest floor being clear and easy to navigate for the most part. Still, he managed to find enough for the fire to carry on long enough for a meal at least. Tove started the fire as he had no idea where to even begin. She cut a notch in a dried stick with Vali’s knife and split it, lighting some dried leaves. She was impressively quick about it, something Erik decided he shouldn’t be impressed by as much as he should be worried he couldn’t do.
There were maybe six small metal pots that were sealed inside the pack. She took them out along with a folding iron grate and some utensils. She put the grate over the fire and put the pan on top of it. Erik’s failing interest in food was turned around immediately.
“You’re not going to boil it?”
Tove made a face. “Gods, no. It’s fine enough, but it ruins most things. And there’s no sense for flavor most times. Oily water with bones in it.”
She opened one of the jars and Erik could see a creamy white substance in it.
“What’s that?”
“You’ve not seen lard before? What sort of world do you come from?”
Erik protested. “Look, I’ve seen lard, you people just cook with weird… we don’t boil meat where I come from so how was I supposed to know that’s not seal fat or something?”
She opened another jar and pulled out thick strips of fatty meat. “This is pig belly, to put your mind at ease.”
“Yeah, and if I showed you a cheeseburger, you’d have no idea where to start, so let’s not get all judgmental.”
The lard melted and the pork went into the pan, sizzling. It was a sound Erik had realized he’d missed after so few days.
“You were going to ask me questions, were you not?”
He stopped staring at the pan and looked over at Tove. “Right. First off, where is Kvernes and what else is there?”
Tove nodded. “We’re in the area known as Spring. I’ve heard from people who lived here that every season has a place in Helheim, but I don’t know much more about the others. Lofgrund is the largest of the cities that I know of. I assume you want to make for Valhalla?”
“You know where it is?”
She shook her head. “Only that it is north somewhere. Lofgrund is to the north and the east. I’ve never been, but I know of a few small towns that exist between here and there—”
“Wait. Valhalla is here?”
She nodded. “Why would it not be?”
“It’s Odin’s hall. I mean, isn’t it?”
“One of them. Have the tales of the gods changed?”
Erik sighed. “They must have. I thought Valhalla was in Asgard.”
Tove laughed, almost dropping the piece of pork she was flipping in the pan. “The dead do not go to Asgard. What sort of foolishness do people believe in your time?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m in the right place at least. So Lofgrund? Is it safe there?”
“I’ve only heard the stories of people near Kvernes. Most never travel more than a few miles from whatever home they built.”
“Why don’t they leave?”
Tove frowned and shook her head slowly. “I do not know. They never seem to mind so long as their lives carry on as they did the day before. It may be some magic Hel has placed on them.”
Erik’s brief visit from Hel hadn’t told him much about her, but it was a theory he was willing to believe. “And why not you?”
She went quiet for a minute, ignoring the meat even as she stared at it. “My days were not as fulfilling as theirs, I suspect.” She snapped out of her daze in a panic. “Oh, the meat!” She turned around grabbing a plate and put a piece of pork onto his, handing it across with a big smile. “But things can always change.”
He took the plate and smelled the meat, his mouth nearly flooding. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food was so close to him. He took a bite, nearly burning his mouth. It was far too hot but he couldn’t convince his brain to stop trying to chew it. Sucking in large mouthfuls of air was all Erik could do to try to cool the meat down. Tove laughed at him, dumping the pan and putting it onto the ground to cool. She opened another pot offering him pickled carrots, then pulled a pair of clay jars from the pack. She handed one to him and he opened it. There was no smell, so Erik put it up to his lips hesitantly and tipped it back. It was water, fresh water. He drank probably too much of it, nearly choking when he ran out of breath.
“It’s water!”
“Is that so surprising?”
“All they gave me was ale and mead. There’s drinkable water?”
Tove gave a disappointed shake of the head. “All the water is drinkable. Except what’s downstream of the toilets. They don’t drink it, for superstition or preference for ale.”
“Well, I’m glad that we’re gone then.”
That line was enough to bring a smile to Tove’s face and some of the energy she’d had the day before was back. She talked cheerily about the tales she’d heard of Lofgrund. Stone walls and buildings and streets and hundreds of people. Before the fire ran low, Tove packed up the things they’d used and put them neatly back into the pack. They slept next to the dying embers of the cook fire, the woods quiet except for the occasional hoot of an owl.
Erik rose to the sound of a flock of cawing birds passing overhead. Tove had slept through them so he went to her bedroll and poked her with his foot. She groaned but started to sit up as Erik turned his attention to the woods around them. The ground was surprisingly comfortable under the thin coverings they’d slept in. It was a refreshing morning, somehow he felt energized by an odd feeling of freedom. There was no large man in a closed space who was going to send him anywhere to work for coin.
Trying to re-roll his bedding proved to be trickier than Erik had expected and Tove pushed him away from it, finishing the job herself. It was another reminder that he wasn’t suited to the world he found himself in and he began to understand the comfort of a place like Kvernes to the ones who’d stayed there. Whatever else it was, it was simple to live in. Still, the thought of returning made him less comfortable than whatever things he couldn’t yet do well.
Erik took the pack, insisting that he carry it in spite of Tove’s protests that the chief of the warband shouldn’t do such work. It was heavier than he’d expected. For Tove to have run with it, her small
frame must have been hiding muscle fairly well. If she could handle it then, to Erik’s mind, that was all the more reason for him to be the one carrying it. He needed to make himself strong, so much as he could. Away from the numbing ease of Kvernes, he remembered clearly his brief time with Göll and Vár and knew that it was only a beginning.
They worked their way east through the forest steadily. It was well before noon when they came across a road moving north across their path.
“Are we far enough from Kvernes to follow it?”
Tove thought on it a moment, looking south down the road. “We’ll move faster on the road.”
The road it was. The walk was quiet, with Tove grabbing bits of dried meat every hour or two. They moved to the woods to move around smaller towns that Tove knew were immediately attached to the road. They were all similar to Gandrup, small farms cut into the land, being worked endlessly by the people who had built them up. They’d passed the third such farm when Tove finally relaxed.
“That was the last of the farms which trades regularly with Kvernes.” Her voice was cheerful and she could hardly keep herself still, walking from side to side of the road in front of Erik. “They won’t know my face now.”
“And I won’t have to explain who I am.” Erik huffed a laugh, adjusting the pack. “I’m not good at talking like… you guys.”
“You’re easy enough to understand.” Tove kicked a rock off into the woods, holding her pose while she watched it fly. “And dressed the part now too.”
Erik looked down at his clothes. They were dirty from working the farms and sweating nearly constantly the previous day. Still, they weren’t uncomfortable because of it, but Tove had made him think of them and now he felt a strong need to bathe. “How far to the next town?”
Tove swayed her head in thought as she looked up the road. “Two hours, if I remember it correctly. I’ve never walked it myself.”
It was an easy enough walk, the main road being as well-kept as the others he’d traveled. They chatted idly about what sort of foods they hoped would be in Lofgrund, a conversation that was cut short by the appearance of a person coming down the road in the opposite direction of them. Tove came to Erik’s side, walking stiffly.
From Death to Valhalla (The Last Einherjar Book 1) Page 8
