So, this is a wedding, he thought, seems like a lot of fuss for a big feast. I’ll bet I have clean up chores in the morning…
Where is Raga? He had seen him in the long hall in his familiar’s shape, waiting and watching from the roof hole. He expected his friend would join him any moment. He wandered down the lane by their fortress wall. Crickets chirped in the darkness. At the end of the lane he spied a group of four men rounding the turn in the road. They walked purposefully with their heads down. Something about them seemed odd to Finn, the way they kept checking over their shoulders and casting glances side to side. A cloud moved aside, and the moonlight illuminated the leader…
Magnuson! It’s Gani Magnuson!
Startled, Finn turned and ran back to the open gate. He knew what they intended. He must stop the attackers from entering the stockade. Pushed open wide, the gate blocked from closing by large blocks of wood, Finn found the guards not at their posts, one asleep tucked against the wall, another around the back of the barn headed to the latrine. No one stood to challenge Magnuson as he entered!
“Raga! Raga?” Finn shouted.
He attempted to move the blocks of wood holding open the gate but found their weight too much for him. Looking back, he could see the men approaching, the moonlight glinting off unsheathed swords. He shuffled indecisively, then decided he needed help. Raga! He must still be in the longhouse. He jumped up to the roof, scrambling across the thatch.
To his surprise Dundle crouched there, laying across a basket, struggling to hold it down against the rooftop! He crept up to the older boy as he wrestled with the wicker container. Something alive inside, something fighting to get out…Raga! Dundle had trapped Raga!
Finn tried to grab Dundle but to no avail, his ghostly hands passed through the boy like a net through water. The basket glimmered in the moonlight, small tin medallions pinned to its side. They sparkled of their own accord. Inside the trap, a crackling sound like distant lightning accompanied flashing lights, and Finn could smell the electric air of a thunderstorm, the smell they said followed Thor everywhere.
Glancing back to the courtyard, Finn saw Magnuson and his men enter the gate and head to the sleeping guardsman. Finn grabbed the basket to pull it away from Dundle, and to his surprise, a spark of static shocked him, a sharp, painful snap that left his fingers tingling.
“Ouch!” He shouted at Dundle, “What are you doing? Dundle? Dundle!” but the boy couldn’t hear him. The men in the courtyard shook the guard awake, holding his mouth so that he couldn’t raise the alarm and threatening him in low, growling words.
My uncle, Finn thought. They are here to kill my uncle. He looked at Dundle scrambling on the roof to hold the basket tight against the thatch—Raga can wait, I have to wake my uncle.
“I’ll come back for you,” he called to Raga, unsure if his teacher could even hear him, and he turned and ran along the peak of the roof. Below he could see Magnuson’s men had stood the guard pressed against the stockade wall, a blade to his throat. He didn’t need to overhear their whispers to understand that they forced the man to tell where Karl slept. Finn jumped from the longhouse to the barn and then leapt down to the yard. He sprinted past the wedding lodge, the smithy and the grain storage, along the side of the warehouse and into the open pitch before the boathouse. A path ran beside the boat storage to the last pit house in the compound, the storage shed they had converted into a room for him and Karl.
He dashed to the path and stumbled to a stop, digging in his heels. A few steps from the shed door the moonlight glistened unnaturally, the sparkle just enough to catch his eye. What is this? Stretched across the way was a fine net, as if a spider had strung its web across the footpath. Tightly pulled, the web blocked the entrance. Curious, Finn reached out to touch the strands, but hesitated…
A croaking voice called out behind him.
“Thorfinn Agneson!” He turned at the call.
Finn gasped!
Across the pitch before the boathouse stood the witch Kella. A glowing aura surrounded her, her robes a shimmer and her gray hair floating like a cloud around her head. She strode steadily toward him with a measured, confident step.
“Yes, I know your name, boy.” Finn drew a ragged breath, his knees suddenly weak. He scrambled a few steps aside, but she changed her course. She slowly circled him, stepping closer and closer, pressing him back towards the web. “Thorfinn Agneson, yes, I know who you are—Ruinda called to me. You cursed rat, you ruined my plans once, but I have you now.”
“Raga!” Finn shouted, “Raga, help!”
The old crone chuckled. “That mangy bird can’t help you. Ruinda has that old hug snared tight. That unsuspecting woman aids me, feeds me her powers. You are trapped, little Ironfist spawn. Give up! All I need is to catch you in Ruinda’s skeins, and then you can’t fight back like the last time. It will be easy to squeeze your little hug dead. So easy, like crushing a bird in its nest. Then my spirit shall take your lich where it lays sleeping. None shall know I possess you! I will rain destruction on your clan from inside…” She cackled hoarsely, reaching for him with her clawed fingers.
Finn stumbled back, feeling an odd tingle as his left side touched the silver threads and became tangled. He pulled away, jerking hard. His leg held fast, and as he struggled, his left arm caught in the webbing. He pulled and jerked but to no avail. The trap held him tight.
Her grin widened as she realized the webbing ensnared him.
“Cub, Sorven! Help me!” he sobbed. “Father! Father!”
“Go ahead boy, scream,” The old witch stepped closer, he could see her red rimmed eyes. “It sweetens my revenge.”
Panting, Finn turned his head and felt the net touch his cheek. Consumed with fear and the shame that always followed, Finn sobbed. The strands began to magically wrap about him, tying his legs together, moving to tighten on their prey. The witch reached out for his throat, her crooked fingers grasping. Close now, he could see her hair snap and crackle.
“Time to fulfill my curse on Ironfist!” She leered evilly, “Time for you to die.”
Suddenly his fear, the shameful panic that had followed him for years, burst like a warm bubble in his chest to be replaced by…anger.
Finn wasn’t afraid, not anymore—he felt a furious rage building in his chest.
The Viking in his heart came alive.
Feeling her touch, Finn’s remaining free arm flailed about, trying to push her away and his wrist banged against his sax hilt.
My sax! Gripping the sword handle, he jerked it from his belt. At his touch it illuminated, a bright flash in the moonlight, and he shouted, an inarticulate cry.
With an upward swing, Finn sliced the blade across the witch. A jolt ran through his arm, and Kella screamed in pain and grasped her side. She stumbled back from him. With a swipe he sliced through the web on his left side. The sword absorbed the magic as it cut through the skeins, and the air crackled and popped as the spell broke. The air around them sparkled with motes as the web disintegrated.
Kella fell to her back, grasping her right arm with her left. Finn’s sax blow had damaged her limb, and it hung limp and shriveled against her side. Her face blanched , her evil grin replaced by surprise, her eyes wide with realization that her prey could fight back...she began chanting, mumbling words to regain her power. Finn shook off the remaining magic netting and strode purposefully to her, and as she scrabbled backwards into the boatyard away from his advance, he swung his sax over his head.
“No!” she screamed.
Without hesitation, Finn plunged his blade into her heart and felt a surge as the blade shimmered and pulsed. Kella’s aura of power faded, sucked into his weapon, her shape shriveled and grayed as her arm had, her hair dropping thick and greasy across her weathered face. Her scream grew faint, her shape withered under his blow. Pushing with both hands, he plunged the sax deeper. His sword glowed like a beacon in the darkness, a light that blinded him and when his eyes cleared, nothing remained.
> Finn stood over the spot and drew a deep breath.
The curse is broken.
Kella is gone.
I did it, he thought, and savored the feeling of new-found courage.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement in the shadows, men moving stealthily around the barn to the smithy—Uncle Karl! They came to kill his sleeping uncle!
He turned and ran up the path to the shed. Hooking his sax on his belt, he concentrated on unlatching the door. It seemed to take forever, carefully lifting the lock in Midgard and sliding it aside so he could crack the door and slip inside with his hilt on his belt. Finn slid the latch back into place and stopped to survey the room. There sat his uncle, leaning against the wall where he had tried to stand, snoring softly. He rushed to his bedding and poked his sleeping body. As with Dundle on the rooftop, his hands passed through his sleeping form. He shouted at himself, but his stupor remained stubbornly real—the bridal ale had put him into deep sleep. He could see his slumbering body twitching with dreams, he affected his lich, but it would not wake. It merely trembled and stirred in the bedding.
“Wake up,” he shouted, “Wake for Thor’s sake!” He turned to Karl and concentrated on pushing him. His uncle seemed less stupefied, grumbling as he prodded him. But his hands slipped and passed through him as well. This wouldn’t work; he couldn’t wake them up.
What could he do? His eyes fell on Karl’s sword laying by his side where Havar had placed it. Maybe he could use it. Maybe he could lift it. Maybe he could fight back or maybe he could scare them away, a sword floating in mid-air. All he could do was try…
Concentrating as Raga had taught him, he lifted the sword by its hilt, just a few inches off the plank floor to start. He struggled and pulled the sheath from it. Across the room his lich mimicked his efforts in its sleep. Finn pushed the sheath aside and tipped the blade up on its point. Placing both hands on each side of the handguard, he strained and put all his effort into lifting the blade. Slowly it rose from the floor, lifting higher and higher.
This is taking too much time, he chastised himself, I must do better. It’s my uncle! They’re coming! He could feel the strain in his arms and back, his muscles shaking. I must do better….
Karl
With a snort, Karl woke from a fitful sleep. His mouth was dry, his belly felt full and a bit sour, and his head ached from too much drink. The room felt stuffy, he kicked out a leg and coughed to clear his throat. The open shutter cast a square of moonlight across the floor. He listened—a funny, grunting noise interrupted the stillness.
His nephew, the little one lying in the room next to him, sniffed and grunted in an odd way, holding his arms above his chest as if lifting something heavy with both hands. His arms trembled. Karl leaned forward, inspecting the peculiar behavior.
What…? He steadied himself and climbed to his knees. Is he having a bad dream?
What is he doing?
Confused, he looked about the room.
There. Hovering in the shadows by the door…
A sword…his sword…
Unsheathed, in the air, chest high.
Right there before him, suspended in the air….
His sword!
Karl blinked and rubbed his eyes, then looked at the boy again. He held something in his dreams, and here his sword floated in the air.
“What strange sorcery is this?” he whispered.
He crept carefully to his feet and stepped up to his blade, leaning close to inspect it in the dim light. It trembled as it floated—he looked back at the boy, quivering in his bed.
How strange…?
He reached out with his right hand and took hold of the hilt, gingerly grasping the weapon. He could feel it quavering.
A scratching sounded at the door, and the latch slid aside. Karl held his breath and shook his head to clear it. He hefted his blade, lifting it from invisible hands—something is wrong here…the door creaked slowly open.
Who sneaks into my room at night?
An unsheathed blade glinted in the moonlight and a shadowy form peered into the dark shed.
Cutthroats! We’re under attack!
Forewarned and with surprise to his advantage, he slammed his body weight against the door, pinning the interloper midway through the entrance. He kicked the door twice into the man’s body, disarming him, his sword clattering to the floor where Karl kicked it into the corner. With a stifled cry of pain, the invader retreated. Grabbing a stool in his left hand, Karl pulled open the door and leapt out of the shed to face his attackers.
Lit by the full moon, the attackers charged him. He countered a strike from his right with a parry, a loud clang ringing out in the quiet night. To his left a second attacker swung his sword at his head, but using the stool like a shield, Karl caught the blade with a resounding thud.
Four of them faced him in the gloom, the disarmed one scrambling away to the boatyard pitch, two pressing him from each side of the door and a forth advancing up the path—Karl stepped back into the doorway, the narrow opening effectively protecting his sides but reducing his movements to parries and jabs. The two closest men stepped forward to press their attack, while the third armed man held his position behind them. The man to his right appeared to be the better swordsman, swinging first high, then low. Karl parried both strikes, his own counter swing blocked as well. To his left, the man poked his sword through the doorway, jabbing ineffectively. Karl hacked downwards strokes on the man to his right, battering his antagonist’s sword in a furious counter.
The man to the left of the door, a taller fellow with a long reach, stepped directly into the doorway and swung a two-fisted blow at Karl, who parried with the stool, the blade biting deep into the wood. As a shield captures a blade, Karl’s stool caught the sword bite, and he wrenched it in an attempt to pull the blade from his assailant’s hand. The man held tight to his weapon—the twist pulled him off balance and he slipped to one knee. With a wild swing at the man to his right to keep him on guard, Karl kicked the man on his knee and toppled him. He followed through by jumping over the fallen man and backed up into the corner where the pit shed met the boathouse. The earthen bank pushed against the walls gave him a higher position, a slight advantage in this unequal contest and outside the doorway he had a wider range of motion. He could swing his sword.
Karl recognized the lead assailant, the man at the right of the door.
“Magnuson,” he hissed, “You coward. Fight me fair!”
“Time to die for your crimes,” Gani Magnuson aimed a blow at Karl’s midsection, easily parried. The clang of metal against metal rang clear. The fallen man scrambled to his feet, the third man stepping forward to poke his sword into the fray. Blocking a strike from his left with the stool, Karl swung his blade in an overhead offensive that Magnuson caught against his hilt. The third man’s blade knifed in over his mate’s shoulder, narrowly missing Karl’s cheek. Karl pulled his makeshift shield free, the leg in his hand breaking away from the shattered seat. He threw the wooden leg and smack, it hit the third man square in the nose.
The tall man thrust forward, his long reach jabbing his sword tip into Karl’s side. Karl twisted at the last moment, evading a mortal wound, the turned blow resulting in a minor cut, but the blade tangled in his shirt and before it could be pulled free, Karl rolled into the weapon, grabbed the man’s outreached forearm, and sliding his blade off Magnuson’s sword, he sliced it across the man’s unshielded upper arm, the blow cutting muscle and tendon—with a stifled cry, the tall man’s sword dropped from his hand.
Knowing he had exposed himself to Magnuson, Karl dropped and rolled, hearing the swish of a sword swing past his head. His momentum carried him into the third man’s legs, knocking him to his back. The two wrestled in a confused heap, the man cutting Karl on his left shoulder, while Karl landed a glancing blow to his attacker’s leg, both drawing blood. Magnuson shouted and leapt after Karl, furiously hacking at his scrabbling shape. Rolling down the path to the boathouse yard
, Karl heard the smacks of Magnuson’s blade as he chopped down the hill after him. Jumping to his feet, he parried blows from Magnuson in quick succession, high, to his middle, then high again—the two of them began to circle the pitch and battle in earnest.
The tall man’s wound ended his ability to fight—he scrambled aside, his damaged arm cradled in his other, his sword unsheathed at his feet, blood from his wound coursing down his sword arm. The man he had knocked over climbed to his feet, pacing behind Magnuson, watching Karl for a misstep or an opening. Wary, Karl backed away from Magnuson’s onslaught, facing his assailants. Clang, bang, scrape, clatter, the battle sounds rang as they fought. Magnuson hacked angrily, his face split in a furious leer, teeth shining in the moonlight. A seasoned warrior, Karl measured his opponent, counted his blows, one-two-three, one-two-three—Magnuson fought in a predictable, inexperienced fashion—he swung high from the right, lower to the middle on his return from the left and then high at Karl’s head from the right. Alone, Karl could have easily defeated him, but any misstep now would leave an opening for the second man to strike a killing blow. Karl could feel sticky blood seeping through his shirt at his side and from his shoulder. Cautiously, he parried Magnuson’s attack and withdrew across the boat yard, hoping the battle noise would raise alarm.
“I got him!” Karl felt the man grab his waist from behind—in the heat of the battle, he had forgotten about the fourth man disarmed at the shed. “Now! Now, strike!” Magnuson and his man charged forward, Karl struggling to stay on his feet and deflecting blows. With his left hand he grabbed the arms around his waist and tried to free himself, swinging defensively with his right.
Suddenly the man at his waist squealed in pain, the grip loosened, and he fell moaning to the turf. Karl stumbled backwards over his body, dodging Magnuson’s wild attack and evading a blow from the other attacker. Magnuson and his man slowed their assault, spreading out to surround Karl. The man at their feet lay rigid and trembling on the ground, his eyes staring wide at the sky, as if he were having some sort of a fit. Magnuson looked at him and gave a derisive snort, then stepped forward to face Karl.
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