From Death to Valhalla (The Last Einherjar Book 1)

by Randall P. Fitzgerald

  She stood fully when Erik grabbed at his side, taking a few steps away from him. It was a dull, throbbing pain, unhelped by Göll’s disappointed expression.

  “Again.” She started back across the yard.

  Erik was rubbing his ribs. “How can you move so fast?”

  “Because I must.” She spun when she returned to her previous spot. “Ready your sword.”

  He did so, slowly. “To fight the others? Like at Lofgrund.”

  Göll frowned. “Luck was with me there. Somehow Mist was injured.”

  She’d barely finished the sentence when she became a blur crossing the yard. Erik could see the direction she was moving, but little else. He tried to flip his sword over, but it did not find purchase. Göll’s did, the edge bludgeoning his stomach. She came around behind him, stopping and planting an elbow in his lower back. He’d already started to curl forward over the pain of the first strike when the second pulled him back the other way. There was no way to remain standing and his knees gave. He squawked in pain and put his arm over his stomach. He was still holding the sword, he knew, something that Erik decided to take some amount of pride in. It was all that kept him from tipping over onto the ground.

  Göll came around to the front of him and cast her imposing shadow down over his suffering.

  “You could hit me softer, right? If you wanted?”

  “Yes.” She looked at her own sword. “Your speed has improved a bit. But you would still die.”

  Erik pushed down on the sword, hoping it would help him stand. Instead, it dug into the soft soil and he fell over, barely catching himself before his face hit the ground. He pushed himself up, standing with a groan filled with both annoyance and pain.

  “I’m going to remember you said yes even though you changed the subject.” He leaned the top half of his body from side to side, trying to coax his stomach into dimming the ache of Göll’s sword blow. “So, how do I get faster? How do I not die?”

  “Dying cannot be avoided.”

  Erik rolled his eyes. “How do I die less?”

  “You must learn to see.” She tapped his sword with her own. “And you hold a sword like it means to bite you.”

  He turned the sword over, looking at his grip on it. “It might.”

  Göll was unimpressed by his joke and turned around, walking back to her place. She repeated her attacks, changing them each time. The drop in his stomach every time she ran at him made Erik swear he could just feel the edges of the power inside his body. It must have been what she meant by learning to see.

  Somewhere in the mid-morning hours, Tove came and sat in the grass beside the door to Völundr’s house, watching them quietly. Göll seemed as though she wanted to protest, but she hadn’t ever found the will to do so if Tove’s presence bothered her.

  It was around noon when Völundr finally appeared in his own doorway. He watched them for a moment but quickly grew bored. He cooked another terrible lunch, saying that Erik would come and work after the meal.

  “The dishes are yours to see to, Göll.” He stood, laughing, when the meal was done. “Erik, with me.”

  They left, Tove looking depressed for a lack of anything to do. As the two men walked across the yard, Völundr looked Erik over.

  “Never swung a hammer, have you?”

  Erik shrugged. “At nails, maybe. Not much call for blacksmithing anymore.” A firm hand clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Then you’ll be useless to me?” Völundr laughed. “A true apprentice.”

  The door to the stone building was made of steel, engraved with the picture of a long-haired valkyrie with large, feathered wings. She held a runed broadsword. Völundr swung the door open without commenting on it and Erik was concerned enough about being terrible at the work that he didn’t bother to ask.

  Inside the stone-walled shop were tongs and hammers and bars of steel of every size. In the center of the room was a large stone, polished flat on the top with a thick plate of steel laid on top of it, the edges rounded down to hold it in place. There was a brickwork forge at the far corner, the stack rising out of the roof. Völundr pointed to a wooden crate of rough balls of dark rock, at least they looked like it to Erik.

  “Place those by the anvil. And an empty one next to them.”

  He lifted the box up, looking at the balls. They were knobby and full of tiny holes. The shifting of the chunks as he walked gave off the distinctive clank of metal.

  “Got to start with the basics for a man like you or I’ll lose the whole day explaining things.” Völundr was at the forge, lighting a bit of kindling on a lip near the mouth of it. The kindling lit and he squatted to see to the charcoal beneath. “Well, you’ve missed the dirty work, though.” He chuckled. “I’m disappointed. Wanted to see you waste a day panning in a river. You’ll be dirty enough by the end.”

  Erik placed the crate onto the floor and ran back over to grab an empty one. Völundr had managed to get the fire established. He stood up and walked to the far wall, pulling down a hammer, some tongs, and a soft bunch of leather. He laid the hammer on the anvil along with the leather and held up the tongs.

  “You’ll be doing the work today, Erik.” He handed over the tongs. “Do what I say and I won’t have to beat you.” Völundr laughed and grabbed the leather, tossing it at Erik and then moving to the far side of the anvil. He picked up the hammer and leaned against the steel. “And I won’t have you being surprised at my change in mood. This is my meaning. If you work my forge, you’ll take it as serious as I do.”

  “I intend to.”

  “You say that before you’ve even let a bead of sweat drop.” Völundr pointed at a sizable bellows attached to the forge. “Let’s start. Stoke that fire.”

  Erik leaned the tongs against the anvil rock and put the leather over his shoulder before moving to the bellows. It was operated by a chain coming from the ceiling. He pulled on it, nerves turning his stomach to knots. He let the chain go and the air forced its way into the forge. A deep roar answered from the guts of the brick furnace and flame licked out from the mouth.

  “Again! Until I tell you to stop!”

  Erik worked the bellows a few dozen times, his arms already burning from the effort when Völundr shouted his next order.

  “Have those tongs and stick one of those blooms in!”

  The blooms must have been the bits of rough metal in the boxes. Erik ran to the tongs, pushing them awkwardly into the box. He missed a few times before finally grabbing one.

  “About time!” Völundr laughed at him derisively. “If it was a country girl, you’d have picked it up without being asked, wouldn’t you?”

  Erik shoved the metal into the fire. Calling the heat uncomfortable would have been a gross understatement. He held it in the fire until it was glowing hot and, without being able to see it, Völundr called for him to pull it.

  “On the anvil! Now!”

  Erik ran over, placing it on the anvil and pulling the tongs.

  “Hold it! Don’t be stupid!” Völundr swung the hammer at Erik’s head but he was much too far away for it to have struck him.

  Erik put the tongs back around the bloom and Völundr started hammering the metal. His strikes were thunderous, sending chunks of dark debris off of the metal and onto the wide surface of the anvil.

  “Flip!”

  Erik did, and Völundr hammered the other side flat.

  “Wipe it.” Erik hesitated for a half second and Völundr lost his patience again. “The anvil!”

  Remembering the leather on his shoulder, Erik pulled it down, moving the tongs to the side with his other hand. He wiped debris off the anvil and put the metal back.

  “Too cold! Back on the fire. And work the bellows.”

  Erik put the bloom back in the fire and went to the bellows, doing as he was told until Völundr told him to move. The bloom was re
heated, brought back for hammering, and the process repeated until the rough, dirty ball was turned into something resembling a steel bar.

  Völundr didn’t slow. He barked for Erik to drop the bar and pull a new bloom. With the process in his mind now, Erik had more confidence. His speed wasn’t to Völundr’s standards on most things, but he worked through two-thirds of the box with no more than a few screams and swipes at his head. Most of those were from new steps being added without Erik expecting them. More charcoal, sweeping the floor while steel heated, that sort of thing. It was the heat that began to slow Erik down with the last few boxes. He could see that Völundr had barely broken a sweat and didn’t want to complain.

  “Don’t like the heat, do you boy?” Völundr’s tone had softened as the day went on, surprisingly. He mocked Erik now as a piece of steel heated. “Afraid to take your shirt off? What sort of embarrassing torso are you hiding under that filthy rag?” He laughed.

  “I’m not the one who built a fucking forge inside of a small box of rocks.”

  “I like the heat! Reminds me to keep breathing.”

  “How the hell does it do that?” Erik pulled the steel without being told and ran it to the anvil where Völundr started working it.

  “Couldn’t say!” He laughed as the hammer powered down onto the steel. “It just sounds good!”

  They finished working the metal into bars. It was dusk by the time the door of the smithy opened for them to leave. There was plenty of cleaning to be done, even with Völundr helping. Tove ran up to Erik as soon as he was out in the yard.

  “Erik! Have you made anything exciting?”

  He huffed a laugh. “Mostly rectangles of metal. Nothing that cuts anything.”

  Völundr came walking past them, chuckling at the sight. “He’ll not make anything. They’re my hammers, girl.”

  She didn’t respond to the statement, simply followed Erik as he walked by. Völundr pointed off toward the setting sun before they reached the house.

  “Hot spring off that direction. Should be good enough for a bath. I’d rather smell my own terrible cooking than your stink, Erik.”

  Erik stopped dead. “A hot bath? You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”

  Völundr stopped, turning to look at Erik. “No, you earned the right. And with a girl cooing after you so bad, I’d feel awful if I let you go on smelling so terrible. Not much I can do for your clothes. Doubt you’d fit into mine.”

  “I wouldn’t ask for anything else. Oh, man… Völundr, you know how to end a day of work.”

  “Go.”

  Erik didn’t wait to be told twice. He immediately set off toward the west, finding a small trail that had been cleared away. It was only a few hundred yards to the spring. Tove had followed him along and Göll was coming down the path as well. Erik chose to ignore them, stripping off his clothes and tossing them into the spring. He followed them in, sinking into the water with a loud, long moan. Tove snickered behind him.

  “I’m not going to look back there and have your mockery ruin my bath.”

  He waded over to his clothes, rubbing them together to get some of the dirt off of them. The dirt came away, clouding the water but the muck flowed away toward a crack in the rocks. Völundr most likely built it, if the flat slate along the bottom was anything to go by.

  “Today was terribly boring.” Tove spoke up when he’d ignored her for too long.

  “What can I do about that, exactly?” He turned around.

  Tove shrugged. “Nothing, yourself. But I want to train.”

  Göll had been standing quietly until she said she wanted to be trained. “No. I refuse.”

  Erik sunk down into the warm water. His muscles felt as if they could melt away in the heat of the pool. “Why?”

  “I have no responsibility to this girl who has attempted to steal what belongs to you.”

  “Fair enough,” Erik held up a finger to stop Tove’s immediate move to complain. “But you know I don’t plan on leaving her, so what good will it do us if she can’t fight?”

  “It is not my responsibility,” Göll repeated with an annoyed look. “And I’d likely kill her, even with a dull blade.”

  “I don’t care about dying.” Tove was insistent. “I want to learn. It’s not as though I am helpless with a sword.”

  “That you think it’s a question only of skill shows you as the silly girl you look to be.”

  Tove puffed up, annoyed. Before the argument took off, Erik pulled in a deep breath and submerged himself in the spring. There was only the sound of a trickle of water through the rocks. It was calming, something he knew couldn’t last forever. There would be pain, the valkyries would find them or be waiting for them. All the more reason to enjoy what was in front of him.

  When he came back to the surface, Göll and Tove were still arguing. They’d completely forgotten he was there from the looks of it. Erik watched them, drawing their attention when he could no longer hold in a small laugh. They both turned to him at the sound.

  Tove pointed a hand at Göll. “Tell her to train me!”

  Göll scoffed. “And why would I listen?” She looked at Erik in the spring. It was the most emotion he’d ever seen from her. With complete sincerity, she said, “Tell her I’ll never train her!”

  He could feel a stupid grin spread across his face and without saying a word to either of them, he took another breath and disappeared back under the warm water.

  chapter|20

  The boot connected with his ribs square and Erik doubled over, gasping for air. He’d managed to get to sleep easily enough after the relaxing bath, even though he’d been forced to sleep without his clothes while they dried.

  He looked up to see Völundr’s dark face staring at the door. It was a very different expression than he’d had at dinner when he was mocking Erik for walking around wrapped in a sheet.

  “Come. Assist me.”

  Erik nodded, standing himself up, the pain in his ribs dulled but still present enough to tell him the kick was not simply something meant to wake him up. He pulled on damp clothes and Völundr led him out to the main room. Göll was standing there and watched as they went by. She started to follow but Völundr turned to her.

  “You stay here valkyrie.” The blacksmith’s voice was grave and Erik could smell liquor wafting out of his mouth. “You swore I’d have an apprentice so long as you stayed here.”

  Göll stayed in her place, looking at Erik with just the slightest hint of concern in her barely furrowed brow.

  Völundr led him out the back and, to Erik’s relief, opened the door to the workshop. Inside, the smith began rifling angrily through stacks of metal bars and ores, pulling open drawers, emptying their contents onto the floor. He spun, looking at Erik with wild eyes.

  “Clean after me! What do you think I’ve brought you for?!”

  Erik rushed to the metal and began stacking it as quickly as he could, returning the ores to their places while Völundr found a piece of metal that suited his needs. The bars that had been tossed aside were returned to wooden boxes as Völundr began to hammer at the dull yellow metal. Erik moved on replacing the contents of the drawers that had been dashed out onto the floor. The drawers were labeled with specific rune carvings. While he could read the labels, knowing what some of the things on the floor were turned out to be a matter of guesswork. There were small chunks of more precious metals, things Erik had no experience with. As much as he thought Völundr was paying no attention to him, any piece of metal placed into the wrong drawer drew a shout.

  The last drawer hadn’t yet been filled and put back into place when Völundr called for a forming hammer and a dowel. Erik held his hand by various sizes of hammer and wooden rod until he didn’t receive a barked insult and laid them on the anvil where Völundr had split the gold and made it roughly round and thin enough. Erik watched as the smith’s hands be
came a blur, working the gold around the dowel and forming it down, hammering it smooth with tools he was sure weren’t meant to be used to do such detailed work.

  It wasn’t ten minutes before Völundr called for more tools. A small chisel and a burnisher. The chisel Erik managed on the first try, but not knowing that the burnisher was a small crooked piece, failed at it enough times that Völundr was forced to point to get him to the right part of the wall of tools. Erik watched again as the metal was worked with the new implements. The detail was like nothing Erik had ever seen put into a piece of jewelry. It was detailed and precise to a degree that he hadn’t imagined someone could work with only old tools and their hands.

  Völundr took the ring to a few small boxes full of sand, polishing it in places and rubbing it rough in others. He spent an hour on the work, bringing the finished product to Erik and holding it up to him, eyes red and tortured.

  “What do you see?”

  Erik looked at the ring, knowing there was some trick to the answer he was meant to give but knowing he would never guess the trick before Völundr lost his temper. “A ring. A beautiful ring.”

  Völundr spun around, whipping the ring against the far wall. “Beautiful! Of course it is! But it’s not… right!” He nearly howled the words, half crying, and went back to the bench, starting on the other piece of gold. His breathing was labored and he seemed more aware of Erik’s presence. “They’re never right, Erik.”

  Even as unfocused and unsteady as he seemed in the chair, Völundr did his expert work again, this time faster than the first. He finished the ring and put it on the anvil, frowning down at it. He picked up his hammer and smashed the ring flat, sliding everything off the table. From under his shirt, Völundr produced a simple leather chain holding a ring in the same design that had been on the two discarded rings. Only… it wasn’t. The depths between the grooves cut into the ring seemed to go miles deep and the gold shone almost unnaturally in the light.