by Matt Larkin
Without further explanation, the son of Odin turned and strode off to rejoin his companions. Sigmund rose as the god vanished into the mist, his words faltering. More than aught else, he wanted to call out and beseech Thor to return, to grace them with his presence a moment longer. Or to take Sigmund with them and let him look upon the wonders of Asgard or fight beside them against aught they might face.
But one did not demand such privileges from the gods. More than ever, Sigmund was certain all he had achieved he owed to Odin. He could no longer doubt that the old wizard who placed Gramr in Barnstokkr had been the king of the gods. Odin had helped Sigmund avenge his father, as legend claimed had once been a driving quest for the god himself.
He supposed that had to be enough.
He turned back to the blaze. By midday, naught but cinders would remain of this place. One of the Seven Kings of Sviarland was dead, along with all his line. Things would change here, no doubt, but it was no concern of Sigmund’s.
His line came from Hunaland. And he had been away more than too long already.
64
Legs folded beneath him, Odin projected his mind into the Astral Realm. From there, he passed ghosts and spirits, wandering amidst a ruin in southwestern Skane. Night had settled in above them, and a half moon lit the sky. He might have awaited daylight, save that his foe would cast at midnight, and Odin would not allow this spell to be completed under any circumstances.
In the heart of the ruin, Gjuki, the Raven Lord, stood, preparing a foul conjuration. Nearby, his wife Grimhild, the priestess of Hel, sat, awaiting the results. Awaiting the Raven Lord’s attempts to restore the powers she had lost.
Odin had tried to plan every detail, but the Raven Lord had managed to liberate his wife from his daughter’s captivity. Those ravens must have fed him so much information, he’d managed to use Thor’s distraction against him. Now, Gjuki would call upon the foulest vaettir in an attempt to restore Hel’s greatest servant on Midgard.
Except, Odin had grown tired of the king and queen of the Niflungar. These sorcerers had hunted his people, thwarted his plans, and otherwise proved an unending source of misery to the world. And the time had come to put a stop to that.
Gjuki froze from painting a glyph, then turned slowly to look right at Odin’s astral form. The Niflung’s shadowy outline solidified as he embraced the Sight. And Odin made no attempt to hide. Let the Raven Lord know Odin was coming for him. He was already too close for the man to flee unless he were to abandon his wife.
No, this moment had been coming for a long time, and from the way Gjuki watched him, the Raven Lord knew it too.
Death draws nigh … and we all await its pleasure …
Odin dismissed his projection and rose. Damn but he missed Gungnir. Lacking it, he instead drew a sword and advanced on the ruin.
Resting the past few days had finally allowed his body to heal, maybe to as good as it would get now. His knee no longer pained him any more than his other joints. The Art had made him an old man, and he was stuck that way. But he was an old man who could channel his pneuma to be faster and stronger than any mortal warrior, even enough to match most draugar or vaettr-possessed hosts. That made him more than a match for Gjuki.
The Raven Lord met him at the ruined gate, black cloak billowing behind him as though the wind were twice its actual intensity. From beneath that cloak, Gjuki produced a sword. A runeblade, in fact, the etchings perfect and terrible. The man hefted the sword in salute. “Dainsleif, taken from Prince Alf when the Bragnings fell long ago.”
Odin grunted, then raised his own sword. “I send you to Hel with a message for her. Tell her, one day, I will come for her as well. One day, no matter whose daughter she is, I will end her.”
“You still remain a fool, Ás. Do you truly think the Queen of the Mists can die?”
We are all dead …
“I know she can.”
Gjuki’s mouth dropped open, as if stunned by the certainty in Odin’s voice. In another lifetime, Odin had once almost liked this man. Almost thought they could be friends, allies. But Gjuki followed Hel. And in truth, mankind would be better off without any sorcerers. “I had high hopes for you once, Odin.”
Odin shook his head, sadly. “You had arrogance then, as you have now—for a single moment more.”
Behind the Raven Lord, lurking in the ruins, Grimhild stared at him.
Odin pointed his sword at the Niflung Queen. “You are next. Watch your inevitable end close in around you, sorceress. And know you have wrought your own urd.” He turned back to Gjuki. “Come. Let us have done with one another at last.”
Gjuki snarled, then lunged forward, his form blurring as he did so. Shadows leapt off his cloak, streaming around him like a river, grasping and hungry to consume Odin. The sudden assault drove Odin back, and he barely got his sword up to parry Gjuki’s runeblade. Again and again, the Raven Lord cut and thrust and lunged, driving Odin ever backward. Shadows wrapped around Odin’s limbs like ethereal serpents, slowing his movements. One tugged his sword arm out of place, and the runeblade sheered through Odin’s mail and into his chest.
Unlike the bite of Gramr, this one burned like acid, drawing a shriek of pain from Odin. He fell back again, one hand clutched to the searing wound.
“No man lives through the caustic venom of this blade.”
Odin grit his teeth against the rapidly spreading pain. Tongues of fire pulsed through his veins with every beat of his heart. “Not. Just. A man.”
He focused his pneuma on his blood, his heart, heating it. Burning away the venom. The pain doubled, tripled until Odin was screaming from it. And then it faded. He gasped, trying to catch his breath.
Gjuki faltered a moment, shaking his head. “How many times can you manage that, I wonder? Or perhaps I will simply strike your head from your shoulders. Very few foes live through that, Ás.”
Growling, Odin tossed his hat aside, then swept his sweat-stained hair from his face. Then he himself lunged forward, a feint left, a low thrust. A riposte. Pulling all the power he could from the apple, he drove Gjuki back in a relentless assault. Faster, stronger.
His memories of other lifetimes had faltered, but pieces of it, of the skill he wielded as a hundred different warriors, they came to him. A short slash rolled into a thrust when Gjuki tried to parry. Odin’s blade snaked in, opening a gouge along the Raven Lord’s side. He lurched backward, and Odin stepped in to drive home the blade.
And then dozens of ravens dove at Odin’s face, clawing and shrieking and fluttering about his head.
“Gak!” He beat at them with his sword and free hand. Bird claws scratched the back of his hand, his forearm, his chest, his face. The sword tumbled from his grasp as he flailed, snarling at the creatures. Damn things kept trying to tear out his eyes.
Odin caught one bird in a fist and crushed it.
Another pecked a chunk out of his ear. Odin bellowed in pain, slapping down another bird and another.
Take them …
Take the birds? How?
Vaettr …
Of course. To control the ravens, Gjuki must have bonded some vaettr, not unlike the great spirit bear Odin had met in Kvenland. So then … Arm shielding his eyes, Odin spoke Supernal words, cajoling and commanding the spirit. Binding a vaettr from within another sounded impossible, but then, Odin had managed impossible deeds many times before.
“What are you doing?” Gjuki demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he raced forward, swinging that runeblade.
Odin dodged, batted a bird aside, and dodged again. This time, he caught Gjuki’s wrist with one hand and slammed his forehead into the Niflung’s nose. The stunned king toppled over. Maybe Odin could have killed him right there, but … But Audr was right. Those ravens might prove useful, especially since Gjuki had gone to the trouble of summoning a spirit raven.
Wrapping his other hand around Gjuki’s throat, Odin leaned in. And he squeezed, continuing to chant. It wasn’t the words that really mattered thou
gh. Everything was a contest of wills. His will against Gjuki’s and against the raven spirit’s, too. He pressed his mind against Gjuki’s, clawing at it, pounding, beating it into submission. It was like assaulting an iron-banded door. The Raven Lord had spent long centuries honing his will.
But then again, he had also taught Odin a great deal about suffering. About despair. “I have seen the end of your line. All the Niflungar will be dead within the next generation. As you breathe your last, know that your kingdom and your people will soon join you in Niflheim. Until finally I destroy even the gates of Hel.” He pushed harder. The man flailed, unable to match Odin’s strength and no doubt becoming delirious from lack of air. “You will die. Grimhild will die. Gudrun will be dead. Hogne will die. Gunnar will die. All dead and … forgotten …”
And there it was—a crack in the iron door. A moment of doubt, of weakness, when the will faltered along with the body. And Odin slipped inside.
There, in a place that was no place, a giant raven had alighted upon an even larger tree. Watching him.
Odin reached out a hand to it. “Join me.”
The raven cocked his head.
“For the better part of a thousand years, you have been a slave to the Raven Lord. Join me—as a partner. I know what you need.” For it was what all vaettir wished. To feast on the souls of mortals. “Aid me, and I will deliver you all the souls you desire.”
The raven turned its head. As it did so, it split in two, then each took flight. One settled on his left shoulder, then the other on his right. His ears popped, and his lungs closed as the vaettr lurched free of Gjuki and into Odin. It stole Odin’s breath and sent him toppling over backward, clutching his chest, clawing at his throat in a desperate attempt for air.
It settled inside, the new vaettr. Valravn.
Gjuki rose, moaning, hand to his throat. “What have you done …” His voice was raspy as a draug’s. And he himself as nigh to death as one of them.
Odin at last managed to fill his lungs, sucking down precious air. As he stood, a raven had settled on his shoulder. “I will take everything from you …”
The former Raven Lord screamed in apoplexy and shadows exploded out of him. Umbral chains suddenly became solid, wrapping around Odin’s legs and holding him in place. One managed to snare his wrist, jerking it down. Gjuki’s eyes turned black as he fed his pneuma to whatever foul vaettr allowed him this feat.
Audr!
The shadows cross the Veil …
Meaning not even the wraith could break free of them.
A shadowy tendril shot out and snared up Dainsleif from where Gjuki had dropped it. The runeblade lurched through the air and into the Niflung’s hand. “I will cut you limb from limb until I reclaim what you have stolen. The ravens are mine!”
The ravens. Odin bent his mind toward Valrvan, beseeching his aid. The raven on Odin’s shoulder cawed. But it was the other, his partner, that dove for Gjuki. And the Niflung king did not react fast enough. A single swift peck tore one of Gjuki’s black eyes from its socket, drawing out a sickening mess behind it. The king fell, screaming, hands clutching his face.
The shadows lost any substance, and Odin pushed through them. He snatched up Dainsleif from where it had fallen. And he drove it through Gjuki’s heart. “Remember my message for Hel.”
An image jumped into his mind of Grimhild fleeing, her cursed grimoire tucked under her arm. The sight came from the sky, as a raven watched the scampering sorceress. As if she might somehow outrun the sight of a raven.
“I promised you souls,” Odin said. “Let us start with her.”
He strode after the queen, relishing it as she tripped over roots, stumbling and awkward, consumed by terror. Her foot sunk in a mud pit. She ran like lamed deer fleeing dogs, casting more and more panicked glances over her shoulder. Odin did not run, but he used his pneuma to give him speed, and he strode with a determined pace. Let her exhaust herself. Her stamina would give out hours before his would.
Sword in hand, he stepped around trees, over roots, and pursued deeper into the bog.
“You wish to die in the middle of nowhere, that I can oblige,” he called after her.
With his mind, he sent the two ravens after her. They cawed about, clawing and flapping, until she dropped her precious tome in the mud, continuing to flee.
Odin stooped to claim the book.
A prescient insight warned him of danger an instant before a wave of ice erupted from the ground, massive spikes of it jutting out beneath him. Odin flung himself to the side as sharpened ice blades rose up all around him. He tried to stand, then had to duck again as an icicle the size of a spear crashed into the space he had occupied. It exploded into a tree, shredding bark and wood and turning the trunk to kindling.
Odin rose again, turning on Skadi. Naught of Gudrun remained now—white haired and looking for all the world like the very incarnation of winter.
One arm hung limp and bloody at her side, and yet, coated in rime and icy fury, she looked as much a goddess as Hel herself. “Your son has cost me a great deal.”
“Not as much as I’m about to cost you.”
Skadi shrieked, the sound like something borne of Niflheim and enough to make Odin cringe, shielding his ears. She thrust a hand forward, flinging shards of ice at him. He twisted out of the way, but several caught him, shearing through muscles in his arm. It lost all feeling, and the runeblade spilled out of his grasp and pitched into the bog.
The snow maiden had already called upon some other foulness of the Art of Mist, conjuring a spiked sphere of ice around her hand. This she flung at him. Odin dove into the muck himself. The sphere exploded as it contacted a tree, the impact sending Odin sprawling end over end.
His ears rung, his sight blurred. He tried to sit. The explosion had devastated the bog, shredding through every tree within twenty feet and opening a new clearing.
Her good hand supporting herself on her knee, Skadi stood panting.
Odin rose again, then felt weak. He looked down. A shard of ice the size of a sword stuck from his chest on the right side. He toppled over sideways.
“Why don’t you …” Skadi panted. “… Deliver your own message … to Hel.” The snow maiden stalked closer.
Odin watched her approach, laying on his side. He fidgeted around in the mud, tugging at the icicle, but it was wedged so tightly inside his shoulder he couldn’t … couldn’t do …
Everything had turned blurry and white.
Death comes …
Flames swirled in the air overhead. They danced around in a spinning disc that expanded and expanded again. The fire washed over the bog like the lights of the northern winters. It ought to have made a sound, but Odin heard not a thing.
Ice crashed into those fires. And the flames came back again, scorching all around him.
Ash and mist mingled and joined him in the darkness.
And then there was a voice. “I am here, brother. She has fled.”
Odin let himself fall into the void.
65
A strange stench seeped from beneath the bandages wrapped around her thigh. Not rot, praise the Tree, but whatever herbal poultice someone had applied. It seemed to ease the pain, so Sif could not complain overmuch. She lay abed in a small house, perhaps in the same town outside which they had fought. So had they won?
She tried to sit up, but weakness drove her back down, and she collapsed onto the bed with a huff.
“Hello?” she called out. “Anyone?”
A moment later, the door opened, and Thor stepped inside, standing at the threshold and staring at her. “You’re awake,” he said after several long heartbeats.
Obviously. Sif bit back any remark and just nodded.
“I was … worried.”
“Hmm. Geri treated my leg?”
“No.” Thor finally walked forward and looked down at the bed. Sif shifted enough to let him sit on the end of it. “Father attended you himself,” Thor said after he settled down. “He said the he
rbs and whatever draught he brewed would speed your recovery. Stuff stank like a troll’s crotch.”
How closely had he smelled troll crotch? She wanted to ask it. To laugh with him and joke and still be friends. To let things go back to how they had been. But they couldn’t. They never could, not knowing what she knew now. What he had known all along.
Then again, when did life ever give you exactly what you wanted?
“I’m still leaving. I cannot do this anymore.”
Thor frowned. He reached a hand toward her shoulder, then shook his head and rose, scrambling for the door like a man expecting the house to catch fire. He paused there, cast a single glance back at her, then slipped outside.
Gone.
As she would be as soon as her leg healed.
Sif didn’t own much, really. It took no more than moments to jam it all in a satchel. Procuring supplies took a bit longer, but the townsfolk were more than happy to trade for her silver. Most of the coins she carried were Miklagardian, picked up during her time in Bjarmaland. The locals didn’t care much over the stamping, she assumed, but then again, silver was silver. People tended to like it in every land she’d ever visited.
And after nine years with the Thunderers, she must have seen damn nigh to half the lands in Midgard. Certainly most of the North Realms and a handful of places in the South Realms too. So many adventures. Laughter … yes. And blood. And death. So many of the others were gone now, and she still wasn’t certain what they had really accomplished. Did killing a few jotunnar and trolls truly make the whole of mankind better off?
Sif tied a skin of mead to her belt. Who knew how long before she’d get more of the stuff?
Maybe no one was better off. Certainly not Meili or Hildolf or Itreksjod. Not Sif, either.
So then. Back to Asgard, she supposed.
She opened the door. And there was Thor, leaning against the frame head down like he was in pain.