by Matt Larkin
Sigmund toppled over backward before the unexpected assault, unable to form an effective riposte in time. The varulf overreached, and Sigmund kicked him in the knee, sending him stumbling to the ground, one hand still holding in his entrails. Maybe he’d even live through that wound.
Fitela appeared out of nowhere, landing on the varulf’s back. Before either the varulf or Sigmund could react, the boy planted a dagger in the man’s throat. A geyser of hot blood sprayed Sigmund in the face, blinding him. He shoved upward, sending his attacker tumbling over, then managed to crawl away, wiping his eyes.
Again and again, the boy impaled the varulf, until the creature finally collapsed in the now blood-drenched dirt.
Sigmund rose, gasping. “I was engaged with him. You had no right to interfere, torch, dagger, or otherwise.”
“I just saved your life.”
“I might have taken him! Here I stood, calling them out for refusing to face us one on one, and you made me guilty of the same charge. We have naught but our honor, boy!”
Fitela slowly wiped the gore from his face, then spit out a trickle of blood. “Your honor will not keep you warm when you pass the gates of Hel … uncle. Nor is it like to see your father and brothers avenged on Wolfsblood.”
Sigmund opened his mouth to object, but his legs gave out, and he fell to his knees. With the battle fervor broken, he had no strength left. Night would approach soon, and the varulfur’s cabin offered the only shelter they might find in time.
Fitela must have realized the same for he sauntered over to the first man he’d killed and began to drag the body from the doorway. It was well since Sigmund could barely drag himself inside.
Sigmund lay on his back beside the fire pit, trying not to think on the ways his body ached. Nor to give overmuch thought to whether or not the boy was right. Honor was all they had. But … more like than not, the varulf would have killed him. And if Wolfsblood himself was such a monster? How then could Sigmund avenge Father in any fair fight? Much less considering the king had a great army? And how many more varulfur served Wolfsblood? They needed to hunt each down one by one, but they’d been lucky only the two varulfur lived together this time.
Unless there were more of them, now stalking the woods.
Sitting sent fresh pains washing over him and stole his breath.
“Someone draws nigh,” Fitela said, jumping up from the window. The boy snatched up a torch in one hand and pulled his dagger with the other, settling into place beside the door.
Hel take the damn varulfur. And Fitela was right about one thing—Sigmund could not afford to continue offering these creatures honorable combat when they would not return the favor.
Grabbing his sword, he staggered to his feet moments before the door creaked open.
A woman stood in the doorway, her garb not at all the tatters the other varulfur had worn. A bitch of the pack or …
“Gudrun?”
Fitela had reared back to fling the torch at her as he had done with the man but faltered as Sigmund spoke. “You know this bitch?”
“She’s not a varulf at all.”
The woman raised an eyebrow and stalked inside, giving Fitela a wide berth. “Sigmund Volsungson.”
Sigmund knew his mouth hung agape, but he had not thought to see his onetime lover again, much less in such a place. Though, true enough, their first encounter had come in this very forest. “What are you doing here?” he at last managed to ask.
She snickered, her gaze still darting back and forth between him and Fitela. “I come bearing a gift, son of Volsung.”
“So formal? I had once thought we knew each other well, even if only for a little while.”
The woman smiled a little, her thoughts on their nights together unreadable. She still moved with sensuality, even after these many years. Though her face showed few signs of aging, her hair had begun to fade from blonde to frosty white. “Indeed. We know each other well enough. But you, I think, do not realize I am steeped in the secrets of the Otherworlds. Thus I come to you in your time of need to … repay what kindness passed between us.”
Time seemed to have changed her more than he had first thought, for her words sounded somewhat amiss, though he could not say why. Perhaps it was the unease with which any man might meet her claim. “You are a vӧlva.”
She waved that away as it were of no consequence. “You still think to challenge the king, but you cannot hope to match his varulfur. You have slain two, true enough, and yet from the look of you, the battle came at a cost.”
Sigmund slumped back down, letting the sword fall from his hand. “So it did.”
Fitela moved behind her and, after peering out into the mist, shut the door. The boy did not sit nor relax though.
Gudrun drifted among the small cabin, examining the hunters’ few possessions. “If you wish to overcome such foes, the most obvious choice is to become like them.”
Sigmund chuckled. “One is either born a varulf or else not. Besides which, such creatures are a plague on Midgard.”
“The first part is not entirely correct. There are ways, old, nigh to forgotten, in which a man might be changed.”
“How?” Fitela advanced now with such fervor Sigmund balked. The boy wanted to entertain such a path?
“I have no wish to become a monster,” Sigmund said before Gudrun could answer. “Neither of us do.” Even if Fitela seemed to think he did.
“No?” Gudrun said. “In ages past, the varulf progenitor Fenrir sired many offspring, and they themselves did so as well. With each generation that power diluted. None of those who came after possess the sheer power of their forebear, but still, even the meekest varulf has strength, stamina, and agility beyond any human. With such power, you might counter Wolfsblood. Particularly, were you to host a varulf more directly related to Fenrir, an elder soul.”
Sigmund scowled. “What you speak of sounds hateful to the gods.”
“Does it? Have you not heard of the wolves of Odin? Do you not know they too are varulfur?”
Now he fell silent. Odin was famed in the North Realms for his eclectic servants, from the eight-legged horse to the wolf twins. So did Gudrun speak the truth, and were those two wolves themselves varulfur?
“Uncle,” Fitela said, “whatever your misgivings, we cannot discount any advantage in our pursuit of vengeance. For all you know, Odin himself sent this woman to us that we might gain the power needed to redress the wrongs done to the Volsungs.”
Gudrun frowned but said naught else, eyes seeming to beg Sigmund to heed Fitela’s words.
Finally, he sighed. “What must we do?”
Gudrun’s frown vanished. “Go forth under the moon, and cut out the hearts of your victims, and too, cut their skins from their bodies. Consume the hearts and then don the skins. The rest, I will attend to.”
Sigmund’s stomach clenched at the thought of it.
Fitela, however, threw open the door. Not hesitating to undertake any ritual or act. As Sigmund must now do.
“Very well,” he said, at last.
Groaning with the effort, he rose and headed for the door. Out into moonlight to desecrate corpses.
And become a monster.
54
The southern ranges of Kvenland had become overrun with jotunnar marauders, come across the borders from Bjarmaland. No surprise that Thor and his people had come here to try to contain the threat. Odin’s son must on some level blame himself for the surge of jotunn anger that now threatened Midgard, though Odin knew better. That had always been the likely result of sending the man in a doomed attempt to repair the wall.
The inconvenience here came from the time it would take Thor and the others to reach Sviarland. Even could they board a ship tomorrow, it would take days to reach Skane. In that time, Odin’s plans for the Volsungs could falter.
He patted Sleipnir’s mane, dismounted, and strode as purposefully as he could through the ruin where his son had holed up. The pain in his knee had diminished—which was to say, it had gone f
rom agony to mere continuous, profound discomfort. Odin had grown accustomed to suffering, though, and it mattered little, save when he felt compelled to move with speed.
A form melted up out of the shadows of the ruins, silent as a ghost, but welcome the moment Odin recognized him.
“Freki,” Odin said.
“Father. What brings you here?”
Odin quirked the barest smile. Sometimes, he wished he could tell his children the truth of such things. Would it lessen his burdens to share them with others? But Freki was not prepared to understand the depths of Odin’s plans, even were Odin willing to try to explain them. The varulf’s world was simpler—fighting foes before him, living in the now, and probably thinking of the future rarely if ever. Odin had to envy him that.
“I must see Thor immediately.”
Freki nodded, then led him to a building where the others had taken shelter. They sat around a fire pit, though all rose as he entered. Thor, Sif, Geri, and Itreksjod … had there not been more of them? Flickers of insight tickled his mind, revealing death and loss and grief.
Odin motioned them all to sit and himself settled down before the fire, welcoming its warmth almost as much as he did the chance to be off his feet. “I offer my condolences on your lost brothers.” He looked at Thor as he spoke, though he meant the words for all of them. These were the bravest of Asgard’s new generation, and, because of their bravery, Odin used them cruelly and without much regard for their lives. He had to. “Their names will be honored in all the halls of Asgard as long as our fires burn.”
Thor turned about, snatched up a drinking horn, and raised it in salute, though it was certainly empty. “Thank you, Father. You came to us because of the fallen?”
“Sadly, no. I came to you because I am in need of your help.”
“I … I’m honored, Father. You have but to name your foe, and I shall smite them off the face of Midgard.”
Odin stifled his smile, though Geri snickered. Thor’s world was simpler than even Freki’s. Maybe simpler than anyone else’s world. In his mind, Thor was the protector of mankind, wandering Midgard battling monsters and tyrants and making the world a better place. Part of Odin hoped his son would never have to lose that innocence, no matter how absurd it seemed. Part of him wished he could share it himself. In a way, Thor was more like … who? Odin’s father … those details had become blurred, like someone had stolen away bits of his life. Had Borr not been a hero … to someone?
Odin stilled the disquiet in his mind, trying not to dwell on the bitter holes there. “You recall the bog witch in Skane? The time has come to deal with that threat. I want all of you to break into her fortress and break her grip on Sviarland. Her foul sorcery has caused enough harm there.”
Geri frowned. “We didn’t find her keep when we were there. Besides which, we’d have to cross the Gandvik Sea. Why now?”
Odin frowned at her, ever so slightly. More astute than Thor and in a time he was disinclined to explain himself. Still, it would not do to show his daughter ire simply for being intelligent. “You do not need to hunt long for her. I can tell you where to find the witch—Skadi, she now calls herself, or Gudrun on occasion. As for the timing—before now she was an annoyance. Now, she has become a threat.”
Thor slapped his knee. “What witch dares to threaten the king of Asgard? Consider her dead already!”
Geri snickered. “I’m not certain Father meant that she threatened him …”
“Come, Thunderers!” Thor said as he rose. “We leave immediately for Sviarland.” Without further ceremony, Thor strode off, presumably to gather supplies.
The others left as well, save for Freki, who remained standing by the doorway.
Finally, Odin turned to him. “You have something you wish to ask?”
“Gudrun … the Niflung princess, yes? Whom you once warned us to stay away from.”
Odin sighed, then groaned as he stood. He needed rest to replenish his pneuma, but recent days had only forced him to push himself harder. “I did tell you that.”
“And now?”
“Now …” Now, things had changed. He could remember her, the girl he had once thought he loved. And he had always wanted to blame that on her potions and her seid, but deep down, he knew—he had truly cared for her. And thus, he’d been unwilling to see harm befall her, even when Freyja had driven all others from his heart. “Gudrun is no longer Gudrun.”
“She’s possessed by Skadi.”
Odin nodded.
“And if we kill her?”
“Death,” Odin said, “might be the only mercy you can offer her.”
Though he knew it for a lie. Hel would punish her servants for failure, even in death.
55
The snow maiden’s wail jolted Skadi from her reverie, tore her away from her plans for Grimhild, and sent her racing out of the dungeons. That snow maiden had but one purpose here in the marsh—to alert Skadi should any dare trespass nigh to her castle. Such a wail meant not only trespassers but those coming in force. Needing to move faster, Skadi fed her pneuma through her form, becoming mist and flying up the stairs and onto the ice-crusted battlements.
There, beyond the mist, came a mighty red-haired man leading a war party. So, this must be Thor, of whom she had heard much from the jotunnar of late. His presence here meant Odin had finally decided to strike against her and to do so through his proxies.
Skadi scowled. The jotunnar claimed he wielded a hammer capable of crushing the strongest ice into shards, one powerful enough to fell any foe and devour the soul within. So then, Skadi would not risk fighting him herself. If Odin wished to send proxies, she could do the same.
And Odin would grieve his precious son.
Resuming mist form, she scattered, flying off the castle and out in the rocky island beyond the marsh. By the time she reached it, cacophonous blows rang out against her castle. Odin’s boy was trying to beat his way inside. He would succeed soon enough. Before that could happen, though, he would find the castle defended by more than snow maidens.
Skadi resumed her physical form and drifted among the rocks, running her fingertips over them and leaving a layer of rime behind.
“Come to me, bergrisi. Waken now and revenge yourself upon the one who dares threaten your kin.” She rubbed a rock. “Heed my call and I shall reward you …”
Jotunnar derived their power from a connection to one of the Spheres of Creation. The most populous, frost jotunnar drew their power from Niflheim. But other kinds existed as well, and Skadi was willing to negotiate with any—well most any—jotunn eager to bring about an age of chaos. As were the bergrisi—mountain jotunnar.
It started with a rumble.
Like an earthquake, setting pebbles dancing across the ground and sending ice cracking and snow falling. A spray of slush exploded upward as boulders broke and separated, waking the mountain jotunn from his slumber. She had found this one when she first came here, found him, and reminded him of who she had been in life.
The earthquake intensified until she had to spread her arms to steady herself.
And then a boulder began to rise up, the head of a creature five times her own height. The bergrisi opened opalescent eyes, the crack of its lids sending a shower of dust raining down on her far below. From its misshapen head jutted a pair of granite horns. The jotunn was a walking mountain, one rousing itself from a slumber that had lasted a decade. When it stretched, its groan evoked memories of avalanches in her father’s kingdom. Arcane sigils marred the creature’s rocky chest as a reminder of its oaths to her.
A reminder it did not need, perhaps, for when it at last noticed her, it bent at the waist and squinted as if uncertain she truly stood before it.
“My beautiful bergrisi … forgive the waking. Mortals now assault my very abode. I ask you to advise them of their error.”
The mountain jotunn worked its jaw, sending a further rain of dust pouring down. In the spot it had vacated—now a sunken hollow some ten feet deep—it had l
eft an iron club twice her height. The jotunn reached down with bulging fingers to snatch it up. Naught about it spoke of speed, but then, naught needed to. Finally, the jotunn shook itself and took off back toward her fortress in great plods that carried it over wide stretches of the marsh. As it moved, it built momentum, once more drawing to mind an avalanche. Slow to start but unstoppable once in motion.
Every step sucked up enormous gobs of muck that plopped back down in a putrid shower as it ran, crushing trees and kicking up a wave of mud. Skadi resumed her mist form and floated atop her castle, to look down on her would-be attackers. The redheaded man swung the hammer again, shattering the last of the ice coating that had secured her main gate.
He raised the hammer to swing at the iron beneath but paused to look at the rumbling earthquake charging straight for him. Another man rushed the jotunn first, eyes wild and axe high. The jotunn kicked him so effortlessly one had to wonder if it even meant to. The man—corpse—flew through the air, snapped a tree trunk, and splattered down into the mud beyond.
A shrieking female with brown hair rained ineffective blows on the jotunn with her halberd. The blade scraped along the jotunn’s rock-shins without drawing its attention. The woman snarled and began to strip out of her fur cloak. A shifter of some sort?
The jotunn finally noticed her. With one hand it plucked her from the ground and flung her spinning and screaming out into the marsh, disappearing from Skadi’s view. Oh, so precious. Naught on Midgard could stand against her bergrisi. And if it should kill Odin’s own son in his arrogance, all the better.
56
“Itreksjod!” Sif screamed.
No answer came from the man’s obviously broken corpse. Not even an apple of Yggdrasil could have saved him from the mountain jotunn’s blow. Panting, Sif turned on the rocky monster.
It stood as tall as Vörnir had. Maybe taller. But then again, they had slain Vörnir too.
Sword in hand, she advanced.