“You were better at that than me.”
Ljunge smiled. “A man’s honor is not something to be refused.”
Food was ordered and Erik, hoping to distract himself, turned his thoughts to Ljunge.
“What did you used to be? Before landing in Gjallarbrú, I mean.” He’d never been offered many discussions about people’s lives before Helheim and it seemed to him that it may have been something they wanted to avoid.
“Ah, yes.” Ljunge leaned back in his chair, thinking over the question. “Many things. A man can be what he wishes in Helheim, at least to a point. I led something of a boring life once and decided I’d rather not. There’s a risk in this place of becoming quite insane if you keep your mind in your head.” He took a hesitant breath. “For a time, I played the bandit. Robbing travelers and small villages if I could manage it. I met men who made it their purpose in life to do such things and no longer found fun in it after seeing them do their work. Lately, I steal.” He chuckled. “You’re aware of that, I suppose. No one is truly poor in Helheim. Not as they were. But still, those with less react in a way I found unexciting. The powerful, though… they never fail to make theft exciting or interesting.”
“By tearing your skin off?”
Ljunge smiled, pointing. “Exactly! You understand!”
“I really don’t,” Erik said, chuckling. “I don’t think getting skinned is my thing.”
“Bah, it’s fine once you’ve gotten used to it.”
“You know other people feel things, right?”
Ljunge laughed at that. “They keep saying. Seems a terrible way to go through life.”
The food came. It was good, not that Erik could eat much of it. Tove watched him with concern in her eyes. Ljunge paid, agreeing to half-price after a minor argument with the owners of the shop. They thanked Erik repeatedly for choosing their restaurant. It didn’t seem worth explaining that he hadn’t done anything of the sort.
Erik had Göll lead them when they left the restaurant. She walked ahead of Tove, who kept herself next to Erik. Ljunge lingered at the back, idly watching women as they passed. If he had a concern anywhere in his mind, Erik couldn’t see it in the way the man acted. Perhaps he was truly sick of death. Or maybe he couldn’t care what happened in any case.
The ball grew in Erik’s stomach as they neared towering stone walls. The gates and inlaid carvings on the wall were lined in gold. The images were very different from the gates Hel had placed at the entrance to her city. These were of valkyries and Yggdrasil and swords crossing over shields. The gates ahead were open a crack and people flooded into it. People making for the gate passed by him, all of them revelrous. They talked with excitement about the battle.
“There are spectators?” Erik gritted his teeth as he looked up at the gates. The feeling in his stomach suddenly twitched, causing him to stumble forward.
Tove ran to him, forcing his eyes to meet hers. “What is it?”
Erik shook his head. “Just… nerves maybe. I’ve got a weird feeling in my gut.”
She looked ahead at the crowd flowing through the doors. “If…” She stopped. “Odin is great and wise. But if you believe… if…” She struggled with the sentence, conflicted. “If you believe you should go… elsewhere, then I will follow.”
Ljunge came to his side. “I am with the demon. I joined meaning to follow you.”
Göll turned, a concerned expression on her face, her fingers tracing the chain of the necklace he’d given her.
Erik smiled, trying to force the odd feeling in his stomach down. He let out a slow breath, looking over at the gates with narrow eyes. His lips turned down at the sides as he steeled his resolve, trying his best to sound casual.
“No.” He closed his hands into empty fists. “I mean, we already came this far.”
chapter|33
They walked toward the gate, Göll in the front with Erik beside her and Tove near behind. Ljunge kept his casual distance, not seeming bothered by anything around them.
The gate rose up above them as they approached. The turning in his stomach had become nearly unbearable. He felt as though his abdomen would burst and worms would fall out. Still, he followed Göll to the back of the crowd. They filtered in, hardly noticed by the people around who all buzzed excitedly at the prospect of their trip beyond the golden wall to see the einherjar battle.
A few of the more boisterous men and women cheered at Göll when they saw her armor, though the valkyrie showed no sign of caring if she did at all. Her eyes seemed to be focused somewhere beyond the cracked gate. The light from beyond it was blinding, though it seemed to die before ever traveling past the stone threshold. No light spilled over the wall either. It wasn’t so strange considering that a winged murderess stood beside him, but somehow Erik was awed by it more than anything he’d seen in Helheim.
The awe fell away, replaced by a sense of dread as the ball in his stomach seemed to crystallize. He winced, leaning forward, pressing his stomach but finding nothing there. Tove put a hand on his back and Erik forced himself back up straight. He turned and gave her a reassuring smile even as the feeling streamed out into his chest, pushing through him with each step he took. Erik gritted his teeth and pushed forward, ahead of the rest, wanting whatever he felt to be done or to kill him if it was going to. He shoved people out of the way, most of them hardly stopping to notice or care.
In the final steps before the threshold the light began to change. The sky turned a bright blue with the sun high within it. As he slammed his foot across the stone and found himself beyond the wall to Valhalla, the winding tendrils inside him faded, as if whatever it had been smoothed out into his body. It didn’t disappear. More, the feeling became suddenly normal.
He looked around as Göll and the others caught up to him. Tove rushed to his side.
“Are you alright? Why would you run ahead like that?”
Erik looked down at his hands, feeling as though he could move them more freely somehow. “I don’t know… there was this… feeling.” He looked at Göll. “I should have said something maybe. Is that normal?”
Göll looked at him for only a brief moment, a hint of concern on her face. “I have never heard it spoken of.”
“Has it gone now?” Tove looked down at his hands.
“Yeah, it’s… I feel better.”
She gave him a look, not believing what he’d said.
“Really. No joke.”
For the first time, Erik looked around. They were in a wide stone square, statues of Odin and Thor and others placed all around and people gathered around them, chatting happily. To their left, there was a large, open field, an enormous tree in the center of it and a forest at the near end. At the far end of the field was what must have been Valhalla. It easily dwarfed any building Erik had seen in Helheim. It stood twenty storeys tall and ran the length of the field, hundreds of yards in each direction. The unnatural sun shone off the golden roof, patches of which were covered in grass. Another great tree was growing through the top of the hall itself and even so far from it, Erik could see a pair of immense animals walking idly around, grazing from the grasses and the tree as they liked. Doors ran the length of Valhalla, each with gold inlayed with the shape of some symbol of Odin. There were a pair of ravens on one, a pair of wolves on another, the steed Sleipnir in the center. On and on they went.
The sight of the building somehow brought him no joy and before he’d made a thorough accounting of what it was he wanted to do, Göll started toward it.
“Hey, Göll.”
She did not stop so he trotted to catch up with her. Her face was stern, solemn, and her eyes were fixed on Odin’s great hall.
“Hey!”
He grabbed her arm and Göll whipped around, seeming to snap out of her trance.
“We must go to Valhalla.” She said the words almost as if there was panic hidden som
ewhere beneath her placid exterior.
“Why? Why right now?”
A murmur came over the crowd and Göll’s eyes shot to the sky. There was terror in them. Erik followed her gaze up and saw six valkyries hovering, a pair each with eyes locked on a chosen member of his warband. Panic flushed through him and he felt his body tense. They did not move, only watched.
“What is this, Göll? Why are they watching us?”
Göll shook her head, her hand raising to the chain on her neck. “I… I do not know.”
Erik’s expression turned sour and he looked up at the valkyries. Rage started to bubble in his stomach and the power he’d had so much trouble finding rose in him immediately, more readily than it ever had.
“Tove! Ljunge! Draw weapons!”
They did, both lowering their stances. The valkyries looked to each other for a moment and then back to Erik. He could hear the hissing and it stirred something terrible inside him. He felt pure hate.
The moment the first of the valkyries twitched to fly at them, Erik slammed his fist down into the ground below, sending stone and dirt flying up into the air.
“Go! The tree line!”
Neither Tove nor Ljunge waited to be told again. They fled at speed, keeping pace with Erik even as the power coursed through him. The valkyries followed, though not Göll. She still stood in the clearing, dumbstruck as people screamed around her, fleeing the fight.
Erik kept himself behind Tove and Ljunge, watching as the valkyries slowly closed the gap. As his warband cleared into the woods, Erik spun.
“Göll! Come on!”
He saw her snap out of her haze and he pulled a fist back, burying it in the arm of the first valkyrie to reach him. Four flooded past him, only the partner of the one he’d struck remaining behind. He ignored the other, turning to move into the woods. Göll was well on her way to the trees, flying over the crowd toward them.
Erik sped through the small forest, catching up with the valkyries who had split Tove and Ljunge. His warband were handling themselves well, keeping pace ahead of their pursuers and striking if they got too close. Erik closed on Tove first, reasoning that Ljunge could handle any damage he sustained. He stopped in front of a thin tree, plunging a hand through it, and before it fell, dragged it down in the path of a charging valkyrie. She stopped, looking at him for a moment and then returning to her pursuit of Tove.
It was all the support he could manage, as the pair who meant to attack him had found him among the trees. He spun to meet them. Their pace was quick, but seemed to slow as seconds passed. He slapped away the first blade, putting a square fist into the nearest valkyrie’s ribs. She was pushed away, her body snapping trees with a disturbing lack of resistance. The other drove at him, Erik forcing the short sword she held away, pounding her down into the ground where she formed a divot. He left the valkyrie there and returned his efforts to finding Tove. From the corner of his eye, he could see Göll moving through the forest parallel to him. A look of determination on her face gave him hope that whatever pulled at her resided for the time. He did not want to fight her, not ever.
Erik saw Tove rushing toward Ljunge. They came together and stopped, valkyries circling them. He could do nothing at his distance, but he rushed at them with all the speed he could manage. He was yards away when the sound of a deep, bellowing horn pierced the air around him.
Their attackers stood bolt upright, eyes turning toward Valhalla. He felt panic at the sight and turned to find Göll. She had dropped to her knees, screaming in pain. The two who had attacked him were at her already. They grabbed Göll, dragging her into the sky.
“No! Hey!”
He rushed after them, stopping hard at the edge of the forest. There was only open field between them and Valhalla and the valkyries were well across it and in the air at that.
Tove and Ljunge were quick to come to his side.
“Why would they leave? Why did they attack?” Tove was breathless, looking at the glimmering hall.
“I don’t know. They took Göll.”
Ljunge crouched after sheathing his daggers. “I don’t get the impression that was something we ought to have expected.” He looked up at Erik. “What will you do?”
“We have to go, right? They took Göll.”
“Took her to her home, you mean.”
Erik snapped at Ljunge. “And who goes to their home screaming? Huh?”
The horn blew again. Erik stood, pensive, watching the hall for anything that might leave. Instead, cheers came from the square and wide doors along the length of the hall opened. Thousands of men and women began to file out into the field. The procession was slow and seemed to be endless, the first out finally coming to a stop only a few dozen yards from the tree line where Erik watched. He could see them well enough. They were dead-eyed and listless, shuffling in place. They had spread fairly evenly across the entire field and all of them watched the hall with a sort of cold detachment.
Ljunge leaned to Erik. “The battle.”
Erik nodded. “Should we join? We should, right? Maybe we can get to Göll.”
Tove nodded. “You are einherjar. It is your place to join them.”
“Sure, and maybe…” His eyes rolled across the slack-shouldered fighters. “Maybe it will help you two get in. To prove you deserve it.”
Tove nodded, though not enthusiastically. He knew she had seen the look on those in the field. It bore none of the glory Erik had been sold. One more thing that was not what he believed. One more thing he could have been told.
Expressions of horror grew on the faces of the einherjar in the field. Some even pleading with their eyes. The horn came again, and he could see the will inside some of them break as they pulled their swords and axes.
Erik watched a moment as the battles began. They were fierce, desperate. Each fighter finding another and screaming as though there was nothing they could hope for but to survive the day. A woman plunged an axe into a lethargic man’s leg. He fell, screaming.
“No! No, not again!” He wept as he bled out into the grass.
Ljunge stood, watching with a knit brow. “This is… What glory is there in this?”
Erik gritted his teeth, sucking in a breath. “What can we do?”
They had to fight, he knew that. Göll was taken. There would be no answers or meaning if they fled. He charged out onto the field, finding it hard to look behind and see if Tove and Ljunge had followed.
He met the axe-wielding woman and she gave a shout, swinging. She was slow. The einherjar all were, glacially so. He could not afford to be kind. He punched the woman’s face and her skull caved under his hand, skin splitting and she wrenched away under the force of the hit. Her body dragged and then rolled across the ground. Erik looked to his side and saw that Tove and Ljunge had joined him. They faced as little resistance as he did, putting blades through their first opponents as though the men were made of hay with bones of sticks.
Another charged him and Erik reeled back, again putting his fist through bones as if they weren’t there. It was the second attacker that drew attention to him. Others stood away, not wanting to engage him, one fleeing to another side of the field. He marched forward, Tove and Ljunge off to his left, tearing through all those who came at him.
He had neared the tree in the center of the field when a large man showed himself, bearing a pair of axes and covered in blood. He did not look nearly so lost as the others had, and pointed the end of his axe at Erik without a word. An open-mouthed smile showed that the man had no tongue. Others circled them to watch the fight. The man charged but to Erik he may as well have been walking. A pang of guilt rolled through him, until he thought of Göll’s screams and the world came crashing back to him. The warrior swung his first axe and it came down wide of Erik’s arm. Erik reached a hand out, swatting the man with the back of it. He disappeared in an instant from Erik’s view, his
limp body clipping three or four others as it went. The gathered men fled, getting as far away as they could manage, some running themselves into the path of Ljunge and Tove and finding blades put through them in spite of any effort to remain alive.
As he neared Valhalla, Erik saw that the valkyries were gathered along a balcony that ran along the space above the doors. They stood, watching the battle with little interest. Even as they worked their way across the field, felling any that came near them, the warband drew no particular concern from the valkyries. The field had nearly been cleared of fighters when Erik realized he could neither see nor hear the crowd and hadn’t since he entered the field. It only seemed to stretch on toward nothing in either direction. Even the forest had disappeared.
His warband came together with only a dozen men left on the field. Ljunge’s shirt had been torn by cuts. Erik could see his body was covered in scars below the neck. Ljunge looked down as he came close, realizing what Erik was looking at.
He laughed. “Scars are a man’s pride. But never on the face.”
The remaining dozen closed on them, forming a loose group. Erik sighed. “I thought it was supposed to be one on one combat.”
Tove’s breath was heavy from the work of moving across the field. “They seem not to have heard that.”
The men broke into groups of four, each squaring in front of one of Erik’s band. Tove and Ljunge moved away, immediately putting distance between themselves and the groups. The men gave chase while Erik stood his ground facing down the ones who’d chosen him. Three enormous men and a woman sized to match. They moved out, circling around him.
They charged at once, Erik putting swift blows to the first two, ending them instantly. He spun, striking the woman beside the head. It was the fourth who caught him. He felt the familiar metallic press of steel against his side. Erik braced for the piercing pain but it never came. The man grunted, throwing his weight into the stab. The sword bent and snapped, the tip spinning into the air and falling harmlessly onto the ground beside the dissipating corpses. Erik turned, planting a foot in the man’s chest. The man pulled up his hands to catch Erik’s kick, but the force of it dug him into the ground where he wrenched over backward when the dirt no longer gave way.
From Death to Valhalla (The Last Einherjar Book 1) Page 29
