Thorgil screamed a warning. Jack opened his eyes. Here, there, everywhere puffs of light appeared in the deadfall as the moss kindled. Flames spread rapidly, hissing and crackling in the dry pine needles. The twigs caught, the branches flared, and then the tree trunks exploded in a sheet of flame that rose and twisted up into a massive pillar.
Jack was so alarmed, he ran for the shelter of the rocks. He and Thorgil clung to each other, enmity forgotten, as the pillar rose higher. It put out flaming branches like a tree, spangling the night with whirling sparks. The heat was so intense, they had to hide behind the boulders. Bold Heart clawed his way out of the bag, and Jack swept him to safety.
“I should be with Olaf!” Thorgil cried suddenly. She began to crawl toward the flames. Jack hauled her back by her good ankle.
“You idiot! He wanted you to live!”
“I don’t care! I want to go to Valhalla!”
“Then why don’t I just knock you on the head with a rock?” he yelled, beside himself with fury.
“No! No!” she screamed, her voice full of real panic now. “If a warrior dies by the hand of a thrall, he doesn’t go to Valhalla. He goes straight to Hel. It’s a shameful death.”
“Then stay here,” Jack snarled. “Live, damn you, or I will knock you on the head with a rock!”
“You wouldn’t be so cruel!” she wailed.
“Try me!”
A shrill cry made them stop in the middle of their fight. It came again, growing louder. Jack looked up and saw the dragon sweeping toward them. She flew over the pillar of fire with a harsh scream, swerved, and came back again. The light reflected on her belly and the undersides of her wings. Back and forth she went, like a sheet of living gold, screaming her challenge at the fire.
For challenge it was, Jack realized. “She thinks another dragon has invaded her valley,” he murmured.
“No. She’s honoring Olaf,” said Thorgil. Her face was shiny with tears, and Jack didn’t contradict her. Perhaps the dragon was honoring Olaf. They were both creatures larger and grander than normal beings. Perhaps even now Olaf was watching this tribute from the gate of Valhalla and thinking he had a finer funeral than had ever been seen in Middle Earth.
Chapter Twenty-nine
THE FROZEN PLAIN
Dawn reddened the ice mountain, and a cold wind rose and swirled the ashes of Olaf’s funeral pyre into a gray cloud. They turned white when they reached the sunlit upper air and streamed away to the south. A few charred logs marked out the edge of the deadfall, but all the rest had vanished. The river flowed through the middle as though nothing had ever been there.
Jack went through their meager stores. They had a bag of dried fish, a skin for water, the flask of poppy juice. For weapons Thorgil and Jack had their knives—Thorgil’s sword had disappeared in the deadfall—and she had a battle-axe.
“You should leave me behind,” said Thorgil.
“Why? Your ankle will heal,” Jack said.
“Not soon enough. I’ll wait here for the dragon and make my stand.”
“Nobody’s waiting for the dragon. You’re coming with me or I’ll knock you on the head.” Now that Jack had discovered how terrified Thorgil was of dying by the hand of a thrall, he knew he had a weapon against her. He’d never have killed her, but she didn’t know that. She judged him by her own behavior.
“That only means we’ll both be eaten somewhere else,” she said with a melancholy smile.
Jack took Thorgil’s axe and hiked into the forest to look for a stick she could use for a crutch. He found an ash tree—unusual in such cold woods—and chopped off two branches. One had a fork at one end for Thorgil to lean on. The other was a staff for himself. He hadn’t planned to make one, but the gnarled wood reminded Jack of the blackened staff the Bard had used. It gave him a strange feeling to hold it, as though he were following a trail the old man had made long ago.
On the way back Jack gathered a patch of early cloudberries for Thorgil. “You eat them,” she said with a sigh, pushing them away. “They’re wasted on me, for I shall soon die.”
Jack was tired of arguing with her. He shared the cloudberries with Bold Heart, and they all had a long drink of water. He pulled Thorgil to her feet. She immediately slumped to the ground. He pulled her up again. “Come on! You have to try!” he cried as she collapsed.
“It’s pointless. I’ll fight the dragon here.”
Jack hauled Thorgil up, none too gently, and tried to plant the crutch under her arm. She hurled it away.
“You will… use… this crutch,” Jack said between gritted teeth. “You will… walk… with me, or I will… knock you on the head with a rock and send you straight to Hel!” He retrieved the crutch, and Thorgil, her mouth twisted with rage and pain, obeyed him. She refused any help and Jack didn’t care. He had enough trouble carrying Bold Heart and the supplies.
Slowly, they crept along the valley floor. Jack led the way with the crow on his shoulder. Bold Heart couldn’t fly and might never do so again. He seemed lively enough, though, and muttered to himself as he dug his claws into Jack’s tunic.
The boy looked up to see a puff of smoke from a cliff. He knew the dragon was up there, brooding, perhaps on a nest full of dragonlets. She’d be hungry long before they got to the ice mountain.
At night they camped in the open. Jack made a small fire of lichen and moss, but it burned quickly and soon left them as cold as ever. They huddled together under their two cloaks with Bold Heart between. Sleep was fitful. Thorgil woke up weeping. Jack dreamed of dragons. When he couldn’t sleep, he thought of trolls and how to catch their attention with the gold chess piece before he got his leg bitten off.
When day came, they crept on. There were no trees now and no bushes. The patches of snow were larger and the ground was treacherous with ice, which slowed them even more. Jack noticed that as Thorgil weakened, she became a lot easier to live with. She stopped calling him a thrall, and she thanked him once when he handed her the water bag. Perhaps she didn’t have the energy to be evil.
She isn’t half bad in this condition, Jack thought. She listened to his tales and asked questions about his life. She was particularly interested in Jack’s parents. It amazed her that Father devoted himself to making Lucy happy. “It’s why she’s weak,” Thorgil decided. “He should have beaten her and made her sleep outside without a blanket to toughen her.”
“Is that what your father did?” Jack asked, appalled that anyone could be that cruel to a small child. But then, Thorgrim had ordered his newborn daughter thrown out for wolves to devour.
“Of course,” Thorgil said proudly. “It made me what I am today.”
You’ve got that right, thought Jack.
“Maeve kept me warm, though,” the girl said. “She always found me when I had to sleep outside.”
“Maeve?”
“She was an Irish wolfhound. She belonged to King Ivar.”
“Ah,” said Jack, understanding. This was the dog who had saved Thorgil when she was an infant. “Did you know Maeve was named for a famous warrior queen?”
“No! Really?”
“Dragon Tongue told me about her. She ruled Ireland long ago. He said she still lives on the Islands of the Blessed with all the great heroes.”
“I’ve never heard of the Islands of the Blessed.”
“They’re in the Utter West, where the sun goes down. The sea around them is as clear as sky and winter never comes.”
“Do they allow dogs on the islands?” Thorgil said softly.
“I’m sure they do.” Jack had a big lump in his throat and couldn’t trust himself to speak. They crept on through the barren valley with the ice mountain seeming as far away as it had been when they started. Jack thought of the Bard sitting under an apple tree with the great hound Maeve at his side.
In the morning Thorgil refused to stand. Her ankle was swollen, and her eyes had deep shadows under them. She hadn’t eaten in days. “I will die here,” she announced.
“You’re worn out from pain,” Jack said. “Olaf told me to save the poppy juice for you. He said you’d need it before this trip was done.”
“I want to suffer. Odin loves warriors who can endure pain.”
“You Northmen are crazy,” Jack said.
“We’re brave,” Thorgil corrected. “My uncle, when he was dying of an arrow wound, tore the arrow from his chest with a pair of tongs. He laughed as the blood gushed out and said, ‘See how well nourished this heart is!’ Then he died standing up like a true berserker!”
“It would have made more sense to let a wise woman treat him,” Jack said.
“I wouldn’t expect a Saxon thrall to understand.”
“You’re half Saxon. Or have you forgotten?”
“My mother was of no account. I am all berserker,” Thorgil said.
Jack was about to remind her that she’d been born a thrall when he remembered his promise to Olaf. “You know… I think I’ll call you Jill.”
“What?”
“It’s what your mother named you. Thorgil is a boy’s name, and it doesn’t suit you,” he said.
She sat up. She looked a lot more alert, which was Jack’s intent. You couldn’t reason with Thorgil, but you could count on rage to get her moving.
“Jill’s a fine old Saxon name,” Jack said.
“I hate it!”
“Oh, but it suits you. Such a pretty name for a pretty girl. Jill! Jill! Jill!” By now Jack was dancing around and Thorgil was hauling herself up in a perfect fury. She panted with the effort, but it didn’t stop her. She hobbled after Jack with murder in her eyes. Bold Heart squawked and scrambled out of her path.
“Oh, Jill! Sweet Jill! Give us a kiss, Jill! How nice you’ll look with ribbons and flowers in your hair!”
“My name isn’t Jill!” Thorgil raised the crutch to hit Jack and fell over with a jarring thud. Her eyes rolled up in her head. She passed out on the icy stones.
Oh, heavens, what have I done? thought Jack. He knelt at once by the fallen shield maiden and tried to see whether she was still breathing. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Thorgil,” he cried. “Please, please, please wake up. I won’t do that again.”
Thorgil sank her teeth into his hand. Jack yelled and pulled back. He was bleeding! “You pile of sheep droppings! You kindaskitur!” he shouted.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” She grinned.
Jack trembled with rage, wanting and yet not wanting to hit her. “Yes, it hurts,” he said.
“So we’re even.”
“We’ll never be even,” Jack said, “but we can call a truce. I know”—he held up his hand as Thorgil tried to interrupt—“berserkers never sign truces. But we’re on a quest, and Olaf said we should work together.”
At the mention of Olaf, Thorgil’s face became solemn. She looked at him for a long moment, and her eyes became suspiciously damp. “You’re right,” she said at last. “I’ve behaved dishonorably. You have my oath I will not try to hurt you again.”
Thorgil’s apology was so unexpected, Jack stared at her. Was she joking? Was this another trick? “I hope you aren’t an oath-breaker,” he muttered, expecting her to fly at him again.
“Thorgil Olaf’s Daughter is not an oath-breaker,” she replied gravely. She didn’t even try to hit him.
Jack forced the wound on his hand to bleed and washed it in the icy river. He kept watching Thorgil and wondering at her sudden change of mood. “You know, it’s the duty of all members of this quest to keep up his or her strength.”
“That’s true,” she admitted.
“You should eat. And if you took some of the poppy juice—as Olaf commanded—you’d be able to keep walking.”
“I will eat one dried fish and take one drop of poppy juice,” she said. “When the dragon comes, I’ll at least have the strength to stand and fight.”
Jack glanced up at the cliffs. He didn’t see any smoke, but he knew their time had run out. If the dragon didn’t find herself another elk, she had a dandy snack sitting just below her nest.
Jack got Thorgil to eat two dried fish and take two drops of poppy juice. He retied her splint, frowning at the puffiness of the flesh over her ankle. “Why is pain so important to you?” he asked.
“I told you. Odin loves those who can endure it.” Thorgil clenched her teeth as Jack eased the splint into a firmer position. “Pain gives you knowledge.”
“Joy gives you knowledge too.”
“Only about foolish, trivial things. When Odin wanted the lore that would make him leader of the gods, he had to pay for it with suffering. He was stabbed with a spear and hanged for nine days and nights on the tree Yggdrassil.”
“That’s just plain stupid,” Jack said.
“Your god was nailed to a cross. It’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Anyhow,” Thorgil went on, “Odin needed even more knowledge to gain power over the nine worlds, so he had to drink from Mimir’s Well.”
“Mimir’s Well? That’s where we’re going.”
“If we survive and if we can find it.”
“Aren’t you the cheerful one,” said Jack.
“I’m only being realistic. Odin wasn’t allowed to drink until he sacrificed something of great importance. He tore out one of his eyes and threw it into the well,” Thorgil said. “They say it’s still there.”
“Tore out an eye?” Jack felt sick. He couldn’t imagine doing such a thing, but the Northmen probably thought it was normal, like trimming your toenails.
What are you doing today, Odin old boy?
Oh, I thought I’d rip out an eye after lunch.
Jolly good.
“Wait a minute,” Jack said. “Can’t you, you know, just dip a cup into Mimir’s Well?”
“You have to sacrifice something of overwhelming importance before you’re allowed to drink,” Thorgil explained patiently. “It could be your right hand or your tongue. You can agree to die horribly later or see your firstborn devoured by a wolf.”
Jack bowed his head, appalled. Rune hadn’t mentioned this feature. It wasn’t Jack’s idea of a quest at all. You expected to walk a long way and to endure cold and hunger. You might have to fight trolls (to be exact, he’d expected Olaf to take care of the trolls). Nobody said you had to tear out an eye.
“Don’t worry,” Thorgil said. “We probably won’t find the well. Rune and Dragon Tongue didn’t.”
“I didn’t know Dragon Tongue came here,” said Jack. “If he couldn’t find it, we don’t stand a chance.” And Lucy doesn’t stand a chance either, he thought with a pain over his heart.
“It isn’t a matter of cleverness,” Thorgil said. “Rune says the path is guarded by Norns. They choose who finds it.”
“Norns? Wonderful. Something else in this wretched place that wants to stomp on you or bite off your leg.”
“Oh, no!” Thorgil was shocked. “Norns keep the tree Yggdrassil alive. Without them, nothing would exist.”
“So what are they? Huge, horrible trolls?”
“They’re women,” Thorgil said. “Well, they look like women. That’s what Rune says, though he hasn’t seen them. They show up when you’re born and decide what kind of life you’re going to have.”
“I guess they were in a rotten mood when I came along,” Jack said. He loaded up the water bag and supplies.
“Me too,” Thorgil said gravely.
As they neared the ice mountain the air grew steadily colder. When the wind came from that direction, it actually hurt to breathe. Jack wrapped his cloak over his nose. Only his body heat kept the water bag from freezing solid.
Bold Heart shivered and his feet sparkled with ice crystals as he tried to hook his claws on to Jack’s shoulder. “Poor old fellow,” Jack said. “I’ll bet you’re sorry you ever met us. I’ll carry you for a while.” The crow sank gratefully into the bag, and the boy slung it around his neck.
I feel like a donkey in a lead mine, Jack thought as he trudged along. I’m loaded
up with stuff. I’m hungry and cold. All I’ve got to look forward to is more work and a nasty death. The Norns certainly don’t love me. Oh, I’m really in luck now! Thorgil wants to lean on me.
Perhaps two drops of poppy juice had been too much, or perhaps Thorgil, in her starved, weakened state, couldn’t handle it. She staggered and clung to Jack. Her eyes kept closing, and he feared she would fall over right there. He couldn’t possibly carry her. He could hardly stand himself. I am the most miserable, Norn-cursed boy alive, he thought as Thorgil reeled into him again. Things couldn’t possibly be worse.
But he was wrong.
Chapter Thirty
DEATH FROM THE SKY
For such a large creature, the dragon was able to float along with scarcely a sound, or at least nothing Jack could hear over the wind and his own labored breathing. She came up behind them like a leaf coasting on a breeze. Her claws swooped them up before he could even scream.
She did not kill them at once. That would have been too kind. She merely picked them up from the ground and sped off with her talons locked around them like a cage. For a moment Jack couldn’t understand what had happened. He was surrounded by black bars—bars that were hot. He saw the ground disappear. He felt the wind whistle past his ears.
He heard a terrible, deafening, heart-stopping shriek and recognized it at once. It was the same challenge that had been hurled at Olaf’s funeral pyre. “It’s the—it’s the—” Jack couldn’t get the words out. The dizzying ride and his own fear made him sick.
“It’s the dragon,” Thorgil finished for him. He saw her trying to chip away at the talons with her knife. She was woozy and weak but still attempting to fight.
“It’s hot,” Jack said. And it was, uncomfortably so. The talons radiated heat, and he had to shift to keep from getting burned. By now they were high above the ground. The dragon flew along, level with the cliffs. Each wing-beat blew a blast of heat past Jack’s face, and the dragon’s bones creaked mournfully, like a ship under full sail. It’s a knorr, Jack thought foolishly, echoing Olaf’s words from weeks ago: They call it that because the timbers creak the whole time—knorr, knorr, knorr. It takes getting used to.
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