Blood of the Isir Omnibus

by Erik Henry Vick

  “And so Tiwaz is merely another being, like yourself, but from a more advanced civilization?”

  Yowtgayrr scratched the back of his neck. “I’ve never met him, nor seen him, nor known anyone who has, but it stands to reason that gods would have their own civilizations, their own motivations—other than our petty lives.”

  “Men rarely, if ever, manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child,” I mused.

  “What?”

  “It’s a quote by a famous writer on Mithgarthr. He didn’t have much of a positive view of what humans have done in the name of their gods.”

  “Ah. Tiwaz provided us with a guide for living but made no other demands. Perhaps human gods are not as advanced.”

  “Perhaps they aren’t.” I smiled and tipped him a wink. “Certainly, Luka and Hel haven’t reached that level.”

  “And perhaps Luka’s imperfections skew his understanding of these ‘dark, faceless figures.’”

  “That’s not a tough sell. Still, I’d like to know what he’s referring to.”

  Yowtgayrr shrugged and smiled. “When we capture him, ask him.”

  “Not much else I can do.” I clapped the Alf on the back. “Still, it shines a different light on Kuhntul’s visits.”

  “The Tisir are anything but gods,” said Yowtgayrr with a shake of his head.

  We rejoined the others sitting around the firepit. Thankfully, they had finished eating, and Jane had taken the meat off the fire. “How are you two feeling?” I asked.

  Jane shrugged. “I’m tired, but not out of the fight.”

  Krowkr nodded while gazing at my knees.

  “Up to a bit of slogging around in the wind and snow?”

  “Before we get to that, I’ve been thinking,” said Jane. “If I can heal wounds such as Krowkr here had, I could heal Meuhlnir.”

  I searched her face for signs of exhaustion but found none. “Without knocking yourself out again?”

  She shrugged. “Won’t know until I try. I could pop back through, heal him, and come back.”

  “And if Haymtatlr turns off the proo while you are there? No, I don’t think so.”

  “I can handle Haymtatlr.”

  “Yeah, a four-thousand-year-old insane A.I. has nothing on you.”

  She gave me her patented squinty-eyed look. “I’m too tired to smack you with my pretty shield, so count yourself lucky.”

  “How could I not?” I tossed her a wink. “At any rate, if any one of us goes across, Haymtatlr could trap us in Osgarthr, dropping whoever stays here into real trouble. It would be nice to have Veethar or Meuhlnir along for the ride, but I’m not sure we could contain Luka even with all four of us.”

  Krowkr perked up, gaze finally drifting up to meet mine. “Did you say ‘Veethar,’ my lord?”

  I nodded. “I did.” Krowkr clasped a pendant around his neck. I waited for him to go on, but his gaze snapped back down to my knees, and his mouth closed in a tight line.

  “None of us can risk taking the proo for the reason you already mentioned, so all this talk of having more Isir along is just so much wasted breath,” said Althyof.

  “Is it?” I asked.

  “Oh, ho, he’s got an idea,” muttered the Tverkr. “How will I contain my surprise?”

  “What if I sent an animus through?”

  “Can you even do that?” asked Jane.

  “Only one way to know the answer to that,” I said.

  “At what risk, Isir?” snapped Althyof. “What if Haymtatlr traps your animus on Osgarthr? What then? Had you considered that?”

  I nodded. “When I’m done with my animus, I don’t have to bring it back. I can dissolve it wherever it is, and I’m whole again. That should be true of Osgarthr, too.”

  “Should be,” said Jane. “You may not be able to control your animus across such a gulf of time and space. And what if Hawking was right about the whole multiverse thing and Osgarthr isn’t part of this universe? You are bad enough whole. I can’t begin to imagine what a pain in the ass you’d be with half your mind trapped a cajillion light-years away.”

  “I will go,” whispered Krowkr.

  “No,” I said. “Althyof is right. None of us can risk using the proo.”

  Krowkr’s eyes drifted to the shimmering silver shape in the corner. “I could go, my lord. There’s no risk to your party if I am trapped in Osgarthr.”

  “No,” said Jane, her tone leaving no doubt as to the finality of her decision. “No one is going. The others will rejoin us when they can.”

  “We thank you for your offer, Krowkr, but it’s too dangerous,” I said. “In the meantime, we will follow Luka and capture him if we can. Or at least stop him from building another Briethralak Oolfur in Mithgarthr.”

  “So, it’s settled,” said Althyof.

  Krowkr’s eyes remained glued to the proo. I stepped over to where he was sitting and gracefully fell to the floor next to him. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Put it out of your mind, Krowkr. Danger lies on the other side, from the forces of Hel, or from the crazy guardian of the preer.”

  “Haymtatlr,” he breathed.

  “The very one. Going back—even with my animus—was a crazy thought. We are here to keep track of Luka, to capture him if we can. All other considerations are moot.”

  “Yes, my lord,” he said, and the memory of Skatlakrimr saying the same came to mind unbidden and unwanted.

  “Call me Hank,” I said. “Not ‘my lord.’”

  In answer, Krowkr ducked his head and filled his mouth with food.

  When the food was finished, Jane and Krowkr claimed to be ready. We stepped out of Yarl Oolfreekr’s great hall and into the swirling maelstrom of the blizzard. We were wrapped up as best we could be, but the cold ate into my joints as though I were naked.

  Five

  “Hurry,” I said to my companions, being careful to speak only through my physical mouth. Luka and his new disciple had led us on a merry chase for two grueling days, but we had a weapon they didn’t know about—my animus—which swam in the shadows near the peak of a wooden longhouse. In the square below me, Skatlakrimr stood, holding his axe in a grip that even I knew was weak, wrong.

  Luka moved through the edge of the crowd, throwing his voice as he had during the confrontation at Piltsfetl, taunting the crowd, disparaging Skatlakrimr.

  “What’s happening, Hank?” asked Jane.

  My physical body was miles away yet, slogging through hip-deep snow, along with the rest of my party. The pups acted like dolphins—burrowing through the snow, only surfacing now and again to check their bearings. I shook my head. “He’s baiting them, pretending to be weak, untrained. Luka is slithering around the edge of the crowd trying to stir them up. We have to hurry.” Keri and Fretyi barked to punctuate my urgency.

  As soon as I’d said the words, a burly Viking stepped out of the crowd and laughed. “If you want a fight, boy, I’ll give you one. But let’s not make it a duel. Let’s keep it friendly.”

  “Coward!” hissed Luka and ducked farther into the crowd.

  “I’m no coward,” said the burly man. “But where’s the honor in killing one such as this in a duel?”

  The crowd susurrated and muttered, but I couldn’t make out if they agreed with the burly Viking or not.

  “There is none!” I shouted with my animus.

  Luka’s gaze snapped up and around, looking for who’d spoken with eyes that burned with anger.

  “That’s right,” said the big man. “I didn’t earn my name only to dash it to pieces in a silly, dishonorable duel against one so unprepared.”

  “That’s the right of it, Gunthistayn,” said someone in the crowd.

  “Gunthistayn, is it?” asked Skatlakrimr.

  “Aye, it is. Gunthistayn Ryettlowtur.”

  “The Righteous, is it? More like the fat coward!” snapped Skatlakrimr.

  “Boy,” growled Gunthistayn.

  “Oh, are you in
sulted, coward?” said Luka. He used the voice of a woman, but I still knew it was him.

  “Who said that?” snapped the big warrior.

  Trudging through the snow, I sighed. “I don’t think I can delay them much longer. They’ve almost got their first victim mad enough to fight.”

  “We must run,” said Althyof.

  “This snow isn’t helping.”

  “I’ve got just the thing.” The Tverkr cleared his throat and began to sing a trowba while shuffling his feet through the snow. The power of the kaltrar whirled around us like snow in the wind.

  The snowpack rarefied—it was like going from struggling through knee-deep mud to strolling along through fall leaves—and our pace picked up.

  Below my animus in the village square, Gunthistayn’s face came over brick red, and his hand strayed toward his belt, where his notched and well-worn axe hung. “Who is it that challenges me? You boy? Or your woman skulking about in the crowd?”

  Skatlakrimr raised his axe over his head. “I challenge you. I have no woman, so whoever said it must be one of your neighbors, who no doubt knows the truth of her claim.”

  Gunthistayn took a step forward, his hand tightening on the head of his axe. “No. It is a trick,” he growled. “My neighbors know me, it is true, and because of that, they know I am no coward.”

  “If you say so,” jeered Skatlakrimr. “Either way, we all know you are full of talk and low on deeds. Either duel me or get away. I’m not here to bandy words, I’m here to fight.”

  Gunthistayn’s eyes grew cold and a vein in his forehead engorged and pulsed. He tilted his head to the side and glared at Skatlakrimr but didn’t speak.

  “Does this little one scare you, big man?” Luka catcalled in the raspy voice of an old man.

  Gunthistayn’s eyes widened at the jibe, and his nostrils flared. “You want a duel, you great git? Fine. I’ll duel you, but I’ll not be held accountable. I’ve done my best to dissuade him, have I not?” His eyes swept the now silent crowd of villagers. “Can anyone say I should have done more? Can anyone say I was not provoked?”

  I blew out a sigh and shook my head. “It’s about to start. The first duel.”

  “How much farther?” asked Jane.

  Krowkr pointed at a hill a quarter of a mile away. “It’s beyond that hill, Lady Fr—er, Skyowlf.”

  “Then we can stop it,” she said. “I can fly ahead, Hank. That should bring everything to a halt. Right?”

  In the first exchange of blows, Gunthistayn came within a hair’s breadth of cleaving Skatlakrimr’s head down the middle. He moved with uncanny speed and grace that reminded me of Mothi. Skatlakrimr dodged to his right and Gunthistayn’s axe head lodged in his left shoulder.

  “There, boy,” snapped Gunthistayn. “Let’s end this foolishness at first blood. It’s not as if you can give me a good fight with that wound in any case.”

  Skatlakrimr laughed and shook his head. “Not unless you cede your lands and possessions to me.” With a quick, disgusted snort, he swatted at Gunthistayn’s axe haft with his own axe, dislodging the head. A gaping gash bisected Skatlakrimr’s trapezius and collar bone on his left side.

  The Viking warrior scoffed and glanced around at the crowd. “This one is insane. Or god-touched.”

  If only he knew the truth of that! I thought.

  The crowd fell silent, expecting a quick end to the battle, but they were to be disappointed.

  “Hurry,” I said to my companions sludging through the snow. “The Viking drew first blood, but it will not end well. Skatlakrimr’s blood is pure enough—he’s laughing at an axe lodged in his shoulder.”

  “I’m going to fly over there,” said Jane. Krowkr’s eyes lingered on her, awe and wonder settling on his face. My wife shrugged one shoulder free of her pack. “Someone take my pack, I want to be able to move easily.”

  The hill loomed closer but still too far away. “No, Jane. Luka is right there, and there’s no telling what he will do.”

  “But I can—”

  “No. Remember the sea dragon? The thing in the desert? There are two oolfa in that village.”

  Gunthistayn unleashed a fusillade of sweeping slashes and cunning chops that staggered Skatlakrimr and splattered more of the nascent oolfur’s blood on the muddy ground. The Viking’s expression was grim, his mouth set in a moue of distaste. “Yield, boy!” he rasped.

  In answer, Skatlakrimr laughed and immediately hacked and coughed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “Is that all, old man?” he asked. “I thought you’d be more fun.”

  Gunthistayn sighed, and it sounded as though he stood at his mother’s own deathbed. “Lad…”

  “Is that all you can muster? Lad? Boy? Shut up and fight!”

  I shook my head. “It’s getting bad. Skatlakrimr is about to begin, I think.” The hill was close now, perhaps two hundred yards, but we still had to climb it, still had to make it the rest of the way to the village and push our way to the square.

  “I should go, Hank,” said Jane. “Your split personality is there. Surely between the two of us—”

  “Not yet, Jane,” I said. “We’ll all be there soon.”

  Gunthistayn took a step away from Skatlakrimr. “I don’t want to kill you, boy.”

  “Fool! As if an old man such as you could!” Skatlakrimr scoffed and shook his head.

  The Viking warrior straightened but kept his axe ready. “Lad, I’m not sure what dream you are having, but if I hadn’t held back on that last exchange, you’d be lying dead at my feet. Hear sense! Leave off, now.”

  Skatlakrimr laughed once more, a great, belly-shaking howl of amusement. His eyes lit up, and he threw back his head and howled like a wolf.

  Gunthistayn took another step back, his gaze darting to various men standing in the square and watching. “This one is god-touched,” he said. “We should restrain him.”

  “Coward!” shouted Luka in the voice of a young man.

  Skatlakrimr’s face twisted. “Mad, am I? God-touched?” he demanded, stepping toward Gunthistayn. “Insane? In need of restraint?” He threw back his head and laughed raucously. “If you only knew the god who touched me!” He took another menacing step toward the big warrior and hefted his own as yet unbloodied axe. “Tell me, old man…is it my turn yet? Is it?”

  Gunthistayn shook his head as a sad expression settled onto his features, and he sank into a fighting crouch, axe head weaving and whirling through an intricate pattern in the air between them. “I’ve tried and tried to spare you, lad, but you seem intent on dying here today.”

  “Silly old man, I’m not the one who will die,” hissed Skatlakrimr. He stood straight and threw down his axe. “I don’t need sharpened steel to end your pathetic existence.”

  Gunthistayn took another step back, his axe slowing until it was still. “This is wrong,” he muttered. Then, raising his voice to be heard over the muttering and murmuring of the crowd. “I can’t kill an unarmed, insane boy!”

  Skatlakrimr’s lips peeled back to reveal his teeth in a ferocious grin. “Back to name calling? Well, here’s a name that’s correct. Oolfhyethidn!”

  Gunthistayn shook his head and glanced around the square. “Is the yarl here?” he asked. “We must see to this boy. It’s only right.”

  Jane crested the hill first, followed by Yowtgayrr. Her arm snapped up. “I can see it!”

  “Go on,” I said. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  Jane tossed her pack at Krowkr even as her raven-black wings emerged from the slits hidden in her mail shirt. She strapped her raven-emblazoned shield to her arm and took up her golden spear. “Don’t leave me hanging,” she said.

  “Never in life. Don’t get in trouble until you can see us getting close.”

  She nodded and with two massive beats of her wings was airborne. Krowkr’s gaze followed her, and his hand went to the pendant at his neck. His lips moved, but whatever he said was inaudible. Jane turned and raced toward the village, her golden spear twin
kling in the morning sun.

  “We should sprint,” I said.

  “Can you?” asked Yowtgayrr without malice.

  “Maybe, but if I can’t, leave me behind.”

  Althyof shook his head. “If we do, the snow will condense again.”

  “If it does, it does,” I said. “Now let’s go!” I set off at a run, not yet giving it my all, just testing the waters. Even with the far-from-pleasant jarring in my legs, hips, and back, it was far more than I’d have been able to do without Sif’s magic medicine. I thought I could make it to the village at what remained of my top speed. It was downhill all the way. “I’m not going to be as fast as the rest of you. Don’t wait for me.”

  “Give me your pack, Lord,” said Krowkr, holding out his hand.

  I shook my head. He already had Jane’s pack and his own.

  “Allow me to carry it for you, Lord,” he said. “You should be free for battle. And I’m young, I can take the extra weight.”

  I grimaced but shrugged off my pack. I wanted to hand him my arms and armor, too, but I had to draw the line somewhere. “Thanks, Krowkr. When we get to the edge of the village, I will strip off the rest of my gear. I want you to stand guard over it. None of it should fall into the wrong hands.”

  “But, Lord, you’ll be going into battle! You can’t go unarmed and unarmored!”

  I grinned at that. “You’ll understand when we get there.” Keri and Fretyi yipped from somewhere under the snow ahead, sounding like excited children.

  In the square below me, Skatlakrimr danced around on the balls of his feet, throwing punches at Gunthistayn. The big Viking watched the younger man shuck and jive, uncertainty written across his face.

  “Come on, old man,” crooned Skatlakrimr. “Let’s fight.”

  I shook my head even though it was still a football field away. I doubted Skatlakrimr had performed the change more than once as of yet, and already he displayed the bumptious arrogance of Luka and Hel.

  Skatlakrimr leapt forward abruptly and slapped Gunthistayn across the face. “There, old man! Feel my wrath!”