But Óðinn would know none of that. And Sturlinsen wouldn’t have been rehearsing when he spoke to the Æsir and Vanir of Asgard. No, he would have been at the height of his talent. And he would have believed the lives of his wife and children hung on his performance.
My throat felt so tight that it was a struggle to breathe. I pressed my palms into my eyes and tried not to succumb to the dark tug of sheer panic.
Fenris needed me.
I had to get my husband. And we had to find a way out of Val-hall.
THE MONSTER CHAINED: CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My heart raced and my body felt cold as I stood in front of the door. I knew Óðinn and Loki weren’t standing outside our door, waiting to trap me. That would be unreasonable.
Still, it took all the courage I had to raise my hand and touch the knob. The wooden door swung open with a low creak.
The hallway outside was empty. Dust motes floated in the low light. Voices drifted down the curved hallway, cheers and shouts, along with the scent of roasted meat and fresh bread. My stomach groaned, and I wrapped my arms around my belly. Before we left Val-hall, I’d pack up as much bread as I could carry. For the baby.
I reached the wide doors of the feast hall and saw that the last of the day’s light had drained from the sky. Good. We’d be less noticeable in the dark. If we waited until no one was outside, and Fenris shifted into his wolf form, we could cover a tremendous amount of ground. Was it possible to reach the shelter of the Ironwood from Asgard?
Remembering our cramped little cave raised a strangely intense cloud of emotions in my chest. Odd. I’d been so relieved to return to that hole in the mountainside after King Nøkkyn’s castle but, as the weeks wore on and winter began to show its teeth, that cave had felt smaller and smaller.
And now I missed it again. I raised my hand to cover my smile; stars, how fickle I was. I was about to slip through the doorway and enter the feast hall when a familiar voice boomed over the chatter of the dining hall.
“Now, let us drink like the Æsir!”
Thor. Of course. Hadn’t I heard him say that same thing, over and over, as we huddled around a fire in the darkness of the Ironwood? Had that only been last night? It felt like a lifetime ago.
I turned slowly, staying in the shadows. Thor stood at the head of a table near the center of the room. A tremendous grin shone through his golden beard. He raised a drinking horn that was nearly as long as his forearm, tilted his head back, and drained it as the men around the table cheered. With an enormous belch, Thor pulled the horn from his lips and tipped it upside down, showing there was nothing left inside.
“Your turn!” Thor cried.
My heart sank. Somehow, I knew what I was about to see.
Fenris came to his feet from his position next to Thor. He looked pale, with great, dark circles under his eyes. The handsome cobalt shirt Freyja had chosen for him was already hopelessly rumpled and stained with wet streaks of mead. Fenris’s eyes were bleary and his cheeks flushed; clearly, this was not his first horn of mead. Another surge of anger welled up inside me, drowning my fear and my rationality.
I was halfway to the table when Fenris raised the horn to his own lips. It looked absurd, like a child trying to drink the ocean. Fenris had to straighten his entire arm just to hold the base of it. Yet, by the time I reached the table, he had drained Thor’s enormous horn.
Fenris tilted the horn upside down, then sat down abruptly, swaying somewhat. The table exploded in cheers as Fenris gave a confused sort of smile.
“Not bad!” Thor yelled, clapping Fenris on the back so hard I feared he’d smack into the table. “Maybe the stories about you weren’t all lies!”
“Oh, it’s the pretty little wife!” a man slurred from behind me.
“Sol?” Fenris asked, staggering to his feet.
I pushed my way to Fenris. Thor helped him upright as I reached the table. The scent of mead rose around the men like an invisible wall.
“Sol?” Fenris said, slowly. He blinked at me, moving his gaze slowly up and down my body.
The men at the table laughed as if Fenris’s confusion was the most hilarious thing they’d ever seen.
“I need to talk to you,” I whispered. “Please. We’ve got to go.”
Fenris hiccuped. Then he closed his hand over mine. “Okay.”
“Fenris!” Thor boomed, making me jump. “I said I’d show you something truly impressive, did I not?”
Before anyone could respond, Thor stepped past us and climbed onto the table. There, with his bare chest and rippling muscles illuminated by the torchlight, Thor put his hands on his hips and laughed. Beside me, Fenris hiccuped again. Thor turned to look down at us. He seemed impossibly huge.
“You aren’t such a terrible fighter, little Fenris,” Thor said. He was talking to us, but his voice carried through every corner of the hall. “And you’re even learning how to hold your mead. But you want to see real strength?”
Cheers again. Now it seemed like the entire feast hall was following the action.
“Bring me a chain!” Thor screamed.
The crowd started yelling, and a ripple moved through the warriors pressed on either side of the table. A moment later, two burly, grunting men shuffled forward dragging a length of thick, oily chain.
I stared in horrified fascination as the two men climbed on the table, pulling the chain with them. Thor, grinning and laughing, crossed his arms over his chest. The two men looped the chain around Thor’s bare torso and pulled tight. Two bands of dark metal crossed over his arms, each link as thick as one of Thor’s fingers. In the torchlight, the chain looked greasy and malevolent. Fenris hiccuped as the men stepped back, each holding their end of the chain taut.
Thor’s expression shifted from joviality to a dark seriousness. “This is true strength, little Fenris,” Thor boomed.
Thor took a deep breath, grunted, and began to flex his arms. The dark metal loops of the chain dug into Thor’s biceps as his arms strained and his face turned red. I gulped. He was Thor Óðinnsen, of course, but there was no damn way he could get out of this. He was going to look like a fool in front of all the warriors of Val-hall.
Thor grunted and strained, tilting his head toward the ceiling. Veins throbbed in his neck. The men on either side of him pulled hard, leaning away from Thor, the chains fast in their hands. The bare skin of Thor’s arms flushed red against the dark metal.
Something screeched, like the metallic shriek of a rusted hinge. Thor panted and heaved forward, causing the men holding the chains to scramble for footing against the table. That horrible screeching sound came again, only louder this time. Now it looked like the chains were sinking into Thor’s skin.
There was a dry, cracking snap, and a dark snake of metal reared into the air. The man who’d been holding the chain crashed backward, falling into the crowd. Thor screamed in triumph; thunder boomed just above the roof of Val-hall, shaking the very rafters. The chain fell in front of me with a clatter, crashing against plates and shattering a flagon of mead.
The crowd exploded with cheers, screaming Thor’s name in near-orgasmic ecstasy. Thor’s chest heaved as he caught his breath. Sweat dripped from his body, but it didn’t wash away the dark lines of the chains. I could almost see violet bruises blooming along his biceps, and I fought the sudden urge to touch him.
Now, I realized. Now is the time to go.
I grabbed Fenris’s hand and tugged. He met my eyes, swayed forward, hiccuped, and nodded.
“Fenris!” Thor said, spreading his arms as if he were invoking the entire crowd.
Shit! Not now! I tugged harder on Fenris’s hand, but he ignored me. All his drunken attention had settled on Thor.
Thor wiped his brow with one bruised forearm and gave Fenris a smile that seemed almost predatory. “Val-hall hasn’t seen your magic yet. You think you could do something that impressive, little cur?”
Fenris pushed himself to his feet. His palms spread flat on the table as if he were braci
ng himself on the furniture, but he looked up to meet Thor’s gaze. The feast hall grew silent.
“I could do that,” Fenris said. Slowly. Deliberately. “But... Don’t you have a bigger chain?”
A few nervous titters followed this, but Fenris did not laugh. Neither did Thor. Fear grew inside me like the darkness of night gathering beneath the trees of the Ironwood. It began in my gut and pooled along my spine until it pressed against my lungs so fiercely I could hardly breathe.
Finally, Thor broke the silence with a laugh which rolled like a peal of thunder. “Did you hear that?” he called, as if there were anyone on Asgard who wasn’t paying rapt attention to what was happening between Thor and my husband. “The monster of the Ironwood wants a bigger chain!”
More people laughed this time, although the faces around me looked pale and strained. Thor made a fist and smacked it into his open palm.
“As a matter of fact, we do have a bigger chain,” Thor said. “Let’s show him Leyding!”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Several warriors turned toward the door, and I had just enough time to wonder what in the Nine Realms Leyding was before Thor turned to point at Fenris.
“Bring him,” Thor said. “We’d best do this outside.”
Before I could react, Fenris was pulled forward by the crowd. I stared at the wall of burly shoulders and arms surrounding my husband, trying to follow their progress. Everyone moved toward the door, and I was swept along with the crowd. The warriors flowed down the great wooden staircase, laughing and jeering. I caught a few glimpses of Fenris’s bare shoulders and auburn hair, but I couldn’t manage to reach him, no matter how much I shoved and kicked.
Finally, after throwing a few elbows into the drunken crowd, I managed to break free. The crowd of warriors had formed a loose semicircle on the practice grounds outside Val-hall. And, coiled on the ground in front of them, was a mountain of thick, black chain.
“Leyding!” Thor shouted.
The name made me feel cold. What in the Nine Realms was an enormous chain doing coiled so neatly on the practice grounds? There was no reason to make something like this, not here, not on dry ground. It looked like the kind of chain Fenris and I had staggered over as we ran from King Nøkkyn to hide among the barges on the Körmt river. It was a chain to tether a ship to a dock.
Just how long had the Æsir been planning to chain my husband?
Someone laughed, hard and cold and slurred with defiance. I turned, and my heart sank toward the cold ground. Fenris staggered forward, ripped off the brilliant blue shirt Freyja had chosen for him, and stood with his hands on his hips, sneering at the chain.
“Is this the best you’ve got?” he said.
“Big words,” said Thor. His tone was still jovial, but the smile had fled from his lips. “But you’re still tiny.”
Fenris tried to smile. It came out lopsided. “Would you have made me a friend of the Æsir if this was all I had to offer?” he asked, with a wide gesture toward his own pale, mud-streaked chest.
Stars, he looked so vulnerable! The memory of his naked body, surrounded by warriors and streaked with his own blood, surfaced in my mind. I had a sudden urge to pull him away from the crowd.
They’re testing him, Freyja had told me this morning. It’ll be worse for him if you try to intervene.
I bit my bottom lip until pain blossomed under my teeth, distracting me. The crowd pressing against my shoulders had grown quiet. Fenris stood by himself in front of the mounds of chain, which reached almost to his shoulders. His head was down, and he swayed slightly from side to side. Erratic golden sparks fizzed around his body, spinning wildly into the gathering darkness. What was going on? Fenris could usually shift into his wolf form as easily as taking a breath.
Slowly, the crowd began to laugh. It was subtle at first, a few chuckles as sparks exploded and then evaporated around Fenris. But, as the muscles in his back began to tense with effort, the crowd relaxed. Someone shouted; the words were lost on me, but the meaning seemed clear. Fenris’s fists clenched, and he growled, low in his throat. The crowd laughed harder.
“Well, little cur, maybe you can’t handle your mead after all,” Thor boomed. He looked strangely relieved.
Fenris screamed. At the same time, sparks surged forward, filling the air like smoke billowing from skyward from birch bark. The crowd gasped as one, and I was shoved backward. The air filled with a deep, rasping cry. Someone grabbed my arm to pull me backward, and even I felt fear surge through my cold body as I tilted my head upward.
Fenris had transformed.
The great wolf loomed over Val-hall, swaying in the thickening air. His muzzle was open, and it dripped with foam. His teeth alone seemed as large as one of the warriors; they gleamed like swords in the gloaming.
And he was growling. The low rumble of his voice shook the ground. He took a step forward. For a heartbeat, I worried he was about to fall over and crush us. Then he tilted his head to the sky and unleashed a fierce howl so terrible the men around me whimpered.
“Oh, stars,” I whispered.
I’d never been afraid of Fenris before, but now, as he stood before the crowd of warriors, drunk and snarling, my heart froze. How could I possibly convince anyone that Bard Sturlinsen’s prophecy was a lie? Their own fear would speak louder than any words I could weave.
“Thor!” Fenris rumbled. “Am I so tiny now?”
Thor laughed defiantly. He still stood next to the pile of chains, with his hands on his hips, although the crowd of warriors had withdrawn.
“Not bad,” Thor yelled. “But, are you strong?”
Fenris roared again at this. His massive muzzle swayed against the indigo sky, and his eyes rolled wildly. If he falls, I realized, he’ll destroy all of Val-hall. How stupid I had been to imagine we could run away together tonight. He was too drunk to string together a few steps, let alone flee Asgard.
Thor waited until the echoes of Fenris’s defiant screams had faded into the dusk.
“But how do we know your strength?” Thor asked, his voice rolling over the hills like thunder. “Unless we test you?”
Fear seized me, clenching a cold fist around my heart. Thor’s face looked hard and unforgiving in the flickering torchlight that spilled from Val-hall’s open doorway. The warriors around me had fallen silent, and their hands clenched weapons.
If these men bind Fenris, I thought, they will not release him.
“No!” I screamed. “Fenris, don’t!”
But my words were swallowed up by the roar of Fenris’s laughter. With a sound like an explosion, Fenris collapsed onto his side on the practice ground. His chest heaved, and his black claws scratched at the grass.
“Yesh,” Fenris slurred, his tongue now lolling from his mouth. “Tie me up.”
Thor turned to the warriors and nodded. There was a moment of hesitation as the world trembled, and I thought the men around me might still lack the courage to approach the great wolf sprawled across their practice ground. We might still escape.
Then the crowd surged forward, and the futile, fragile spark of hope in my chest flickered and died. I backed away until my calves hit the steps of Val-hall as the silent warriors pulled the thick bands of Leyding tight around Fenris’s legs and muzzle.
Fenris lay silent and still as they worked. Stars, he was so careful! One twitch of his great leg would have sent a dozen men sprawling across the grass; a snap of his muzzle could have been the end of the mighty Thor. My chest ached as I watched him, but I didn’t dare to leave.
Something rustled behind me, and I turned. Far above where I stood, near the open doors of Val-hall, was a tall man with flaming red hair, wearing black, with his arms crossed over his chest. The night air suddenly felt colder. It was Loki, the Lie-smith. Fenris’s father.
Loki had said he wouldn’t let Óðinn hurt Fenris. But his words felt hopeless to me, now, as I watched Val-hall’s warriors swarm over my husband’s inert body, dragging the great links of Leyding. What could Lo
ki possibly do against so many?
Desperation rose in the back of my throat, thick and bitter. If even Loki of the Æsir was useless against Óðinn’s army, what could I hope to do? I was penniless, pregnant, and the orphaned child of slaves. I was no help to Fenris in this realm. Or any other.
Tears stung my eyes as I turned away from Loki to watch the warriors step away from Fenris’s heaving, dark sides. By now, the moon was rising across the ocean, and Fenris’s great, pale eyes shone in its cold light. The chain named Leyding lay heavily across his body, binding his legs together. They had even tied his muzzle closed.
If he shifted his form, he could escape the chain. I brought my fist to my lips, closing my teeth around my knuckle. If he shifted his form, he wouldn’t pass this strange test. He wouldn’t be as strong as Thor.
But, fuck all that! Who in the Nine Realms would care if Fenris were as strong as Thor, or if he could break a chain in his wolf form? All I wanted was to escape this place, to outrun Nøkkyn’s dark prophecy and find somewhere to raise our child in peace.
“There!” Thor yelled, interrupting my thoughts. “Now, little Fenris. Show us your strength!”
Fenris’s great nostrils flared red as he gasped for breath. The crowd drew back. Some of the warriors held torches, and the flickering, uneven light danced across the black pelt of Fenris’s wolf shape. The dark links of Leyding, however, did not shimmer in the torchlight. Instead, they seemed to devour the light, as if they were holes in the very fabric of the Realms.
Fenris’s body heaved, and I shivered. The crowd had fallen totally silent; there were no cheers, no shouts of encouragement. Nothing like what they had shown for Thor. Fenris shook, lunged forward, and shook again. His bound legs scraped the grass, leaving deep furrows in the ground.
A low, deep growl began to shake the ground around me. The sound was so encompassing it seemed to be emanating from the earth itself, as if the entire realm of Asgard were expressing its disapproval. Fenris’s fur bristled as his muscles shook, but the links of Leyding held fast.
The Complete Fenris Series Page 41
