by Matt Larkin
“Starkad Eightarms?”
“Came to fight, said he likes lost causes. But he’s here now. If anyone could get you through, it’d be him. I can ask.” Then he shook his head. “Down there? Behind the lines? You’re beyond all help there, girl.”
“I am going to get my son back.”
Tyr looked like he might spit. “Vaettr or no, I can’t say Hödr deserves anyone’s help.”
“It’s not him.”
“See if Thor sees it that way.”
His words left her chilled.
38
Two Years Ago
Sigyn pushed aside another manuscript and pressed her palms against her eyes. No answers seemed forthcoming, though the terrible suspicion remained, and, of course, she found herself given to doubt nigh to everything these days. She had, in effect, become the new keeper of Sessrumnir, meaning she alone was forced to decide what forgotten wisdom to dole out and what was best left undisturbed. As, it turned out, so many of the Vanr secrets probably should have been.
The outer door rumbled as it slid into the floor, announcing a new visitor. With a sigh, Sigyn rose and wandered over to the stairs. From atop them she spied her newest guest.
Syn, Hermod’s wife, trod in, hand on Hödr’s shoulder as if guiding a wolfhound.
Sigyn frowned, making her way down the stairs. “What are you doing here?”
“Sister,” Syn said. A perfunctory greeting, in truth. Having married Sigyn’s foster brother, Syn was sister in name to Sigyn, though the woman had always remained aloof, a situation that little bothered Sigyn. “I found your son poking around the tree.”
The World Tree? Sigyn’s frown deepened as she took in Hödr, the boy not seeming abashed in the least. “What have you to say for yourself?”
Hödr shrugged, not bothering to conceal the defiance in his eyes. “Curiosity is a strong motivator.”
Sigyn moved to stand beside Syn, struggling to keep her own gaze as stern as possible. Was that all Hödr’s behavior indicated? Mere curiosity? If so, Sigyn of all people could hardly fault him for it. She’d faced her share of recriminations from her own family for delving into subjects and areas that rules or propriety claimed lay outside her boundaries. Even grown, she’d defied the king’s orders in studying the Art here, though she suspected Odin had some inkling of her transgression.
She tapped a finger against her lip, then nodded at Syn. “Don’t fret. I’ll deal with him myself.”
While Sigyn dared to hope Hödr’s explorations mere youthful exuberance, the fact remained that Odin had dealt in no uncertain terms with Sjöfn for breaching the sanctity of Yggdrasil. Women spoke of the girl’s fate in hushed whispers leaving the only thing certain that Odin had thought up some fate worse than death for her.
On questioning Hödr though, Sigyn’s son had remained taciturn at best, when he wasn’t outright dismissive of Sigyn’s inquiries.
Which meant she had to find something else with which to occupy the boy’s time. With her son in tow, she climbed the slopes up to Gladsheimr. Odin had remained cryptic as to what he did up here and even Sigyn had not been able to uncover the truth of his activities. Either way, though, the king remained off away from Asgard, with Hermod visiting this place far more frequently.
Sigyn found her foster brother exiting the ruins of the old Vanr hall. He cocked his head in obvious surprise at her presence, though his expression quickly turned warm. Odin had not forbidden anyone to come up here—all that remained was the foundations of an old building, after all—but still Sigyn had never seen anyone but the king or Hermod venture here.
“Sister,” Hermod said, with far more warmth and sincerity than his wife had managed.
They had both taken the loss of Agilaz and Olrun hard, but Hermod had taken it harder, becoming more like his father than ever before. Having now had an apple, her foster brother seemed to have begun honing his senses much as Sigyn had, becoming a woodsman to rival or even surpass his legendary father in everyone’s eyes save his own.
Sigyn embraced him, trying to ignore the trepidation that sent her gut twisting on itself.
He looked next to her son and nodded his head. “Hödr.”
“Uncle Hermod.” How did the boy manage to imbue a name with such arrogance without actually quite treading over the line of giving offense?
While Hermod’s expression darkened ever so slightly, he let it pass, turning instead back to Sigyn. “What brings you up here?”
What brought him up here was the question Sigyn longed to ask. Unfortunately, the current situation left her with more pressing difficulties. “My son has nigh to sixteen winters behind him now. It seems past time he find a purpose for his time.” She could almost feel the boy’s eyes, burning into the back of her skull. It filled her with a rush of heat, left her more on edge than she’d have liked to admit. “He’s had basic instruction in arms, of course, but he could use a master to teach him woodcraft and the finer points of combat.”
Hermod glanced back at the ruins as if he expected something waited for him there. Since when did he much care over ancient history or architecture? Finally, he folded his arms, squirming ever so slightly. “I’d be … honored. But surely you could have taught him woodcraft yourself.”
Sigyn allowed herself a slight smile. “Maybe. But I’m not a warrior, and I must remain at Sessrumnir, while you oft trek out into Midgard on whatever task takes your fancy.”
Her brother snorted. “Takes my fancy? No, I serve the king in most endeavors, oft ferrying messages to the fronts of the wars in Valland or Bjarmaland. Hardly a place for a boy.”
“He’s a man by law.”
Hermod nodded. “So he is. Very well, if that’s your wish. We may sometimes be gone for moons at a time though.”
Oh, she knew. The thought of not seeing Hödr for any length of time was like a weight upon her chest, but what was she to do?
The only thing which she could do. She turned, embraced her son and kissed him on the forehead. He returned her embrace, a little too hard, his body flush with heat, hand drifting dangerously close to her arse as it slid down her back. Sigyn broke away and looked him hard in the eye. “Mind your uncle in all things.”
“Yes, Mother.” Again that arrogant tone and arrogant gaze.
Try as hard as she might, Sigyn could not help but fear something was amiss with her son.
39
The boy king, Agnar, sat upon his father’s throne, looking smaller than he truly was in the mighty chair. This boy had barely tasted the flesh of man and thus had not hardly reached his potential. Skadi watched him from across the throne room, along with his mother.
Agnar addressed his people, expounding on the vileness of devouring man flesh. Naïve and weak, his reign was like to be short. In Jotunheim, strength mattered most.
His mother was shaking her head in obvious disagreement, though she didn’t interrupt her son. “It was as you foretold,” Angrboda said to Skadi, not taking her eyes from the new king. “The wizard came. He bespelled my son somehow and used him to escape. Killed my husband in the process.”
“You grieve his loss?” Skadi asked.
Angrboda grimaced, the only answer she offered.
Skadi nodded slowly. She had known Odin would escape, had seen as much in Vafthrudnir’s quicksilver mirrors. He escaped but more importantly, the fire-priest would soon follow. Skadi hadn’t known for certain that Odin would kill Geirrod, but it also surprised her little. “Have your husband’s body brought down into the tunnels beneath the fortress.”
Angrboda gaped, working her mouth as if debating whether to ask how Skadi knew of those secret tunnels. The queen eventually seemed to think better of it, though, for she nodded, and set about her way.
Dead Geirrod lay stiff, hands folded over his chest. His corpse still reeked of rot and the filth Odin had spilled ramming a sword through his gut. The body lay upon the floor in tunnels dug far beneath the fortress. While Skadi would have preferred a slab, none was available.
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The work here was crude—though it had no doubt taken centuries—but it provided a secret means in and out of the castle for the lords of Vimurland. One Skadi had used to gain ingress, in fact. Torch sconces lined the walls, testament to the lack of any worthy sorcerers here to infuse light into ice.
The flames didn’t interfere with Skadi’s Art, of course, but she’d snuffed those immediately around her, preferring dense shadows to having to work around an open flame.
Angrboda stood beside her, fidgeting. “You can restore him to life?”
Skadi barely suppressed her sneer. Fool woman. “After a fashion. Hel’s gifts do not work quite that way.”
A human slave wriggled around on the floor, bound and gagged, and stripped naked. The latter was hardly necessary either, but Skadi found being naked tended to make humans feel more vulnerable. The fear attracted vaettir on the far side of the Veil, making this easier. Besides, it made him easier to cut—he bore a dozen marks over his flesh.
After kneeling beside the man, Skadi manifested a blade of ice in her hand. She shoved the slave over onto his back, then drew a quick line with her blade along the top of his groin, just above the mess of hair. More fear, and flailing, thrashing in pain, horror. Dismissing the blade, Skadi traced her fingers along the wound, then rose.
In blood she traced another glyph on the floor. With this done, she stepped back to make certain she hadn’t missed any. Invoking other vaettir was not without risk, even to a snow maiden. In fact, using sorcery on this side of the Veil always seemed fair strange to her. Nevertheless, she needed Geirrod and Angrboda both.
The two of them would serve as her hold over Vimurland.
Nodding in satisfaction, she waved Angrboda to the side and began to chant. The guttural syllables of Supernal bombarded the inside of her head with such force she found it a wonder the queen wasn’t screaming. She’d feel it, of course, an unease, a sense of something not of her world drawing nigh. The Veil weakening …
A twitch in one of Geirrod’s fingers, barely noticeable.
Skadi remanifested the ice blade and slit the slave’s throat. Blood bubbled up from the wound, spreading quickly over the floor. Skadi tossed his body aside just to ensure none of it overflowed onto her glyphs. More than one careless sorceress had met an ill end like that.
Geirrod’s eyes opened. Empty. Lifeless, yet not quite still.
Close. He was so close.
Angrboda raced to her husband’s side and fell to her knees beside him. “I can’t believe it.”
There he was, staring up at her. Motionless, but seeing. In those black orbs would lurk darkness, complete and empty.
All at once, the queen rose, backing away. “What have you done to him? He’s not—”
Skadi caught the jotunn woman and rammed the ice blade through her back, straight into her heart. “One more sacrifice.”
Blue blood rushed out over Skadi’s fingers. Angrboda collapsed, hands fumbling with the blade sticking from her chest, gurgling.
A red gleam appeared in Geirrod’s eyes. And then the wail erupted from him. Pain. Agony, without measure, without end. The horror of the damned who know beyond any doubt their suffering has become boundless. A cry echoing off the tunnel walls. A sound already familiar to Skadi.
Even as Angrboda’s soul fed the ritual. Slipping from her body.
And the harder part. Skadi released Gudrun. She felt herself falling, pitching forward into an abyss. Tumbling back through the Veil as if being pushed bodily through a sheet. Reality bent and warped around her.
Colors bled out into the shadowy realm of the Penumbra.
Tidal forces of creation latched onto her essence and tugged at her, trying to hurtle her back through the gulf, into the Roil. Back to Niflheim.
Instead, Skadi waded through those currents. Angrboda’s hazy form was growing clearer by the instant, her soul almost gone. Body almost dead.
Skadi lunged, caught the dying host by the throat. Forced her own essence inside. Like stepping through a vat of tar, pushing her way into what lay beyond.
Her vision snapped back into focus in the Mortal Realm, now looking through Angrboda’s eyes. Vertigo seized her and she tumbled over sideways, cracked her head on the floor. Her sight blurred. She blinked through it, focusing on a receding figure in the distance.
Gudrun stumbled away, trying to run down the tunnels, clearly seeking any escape.
Skadi pushed herself up. Groaned. She’d almost lost hold of this one. Few vaettr had the strength to swap hosts at will and doing so always came with risks.
Her former host wobbled in her run, becoming a shadow in the torchlight.
Skadi turned to Geirrod. The draug jotunn now stood erect, fangs bared in rage and torment. “Well,” Skadi said. “Go after her. Break her legs and bring her back.”
It would take time to become used to such a height once more. Angrboda pushed nine feet tall, her legs much longer than any human’s. The feel of such a body, of moving it, left Skadi more graceless in her steps than she’d have preferred. Graceless, perhaps, but that only meant she needed to settle for powerful.
She burst into Agnar’s private chambers, Geirrod in tow, to find a naked human girl bent over his cock, mouthing it.
“Mother!” The boy leapt up, hastily jerking his discarded shirt to cover himself.
The girl whimpered, covering her head as if Skadi—or the queen, from the girl’s perspective—intended to bludgeon her.
“Just get out,” Skadi snapped at the girl. No doubt a slave doing only as Agnar had bid her, regardless. “I see being king agrees with you,” she said once the girl had shut the door.
But Agnar’s gaze was locked onto his father. Or more likely, upon the red gleam in the eyes of what used to be his father. “What have you done?”
Skadi lunged at him, grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking him up by it, to hang dangling. Shrieking and clawing at her hand, the boy dropped the shirt. Hmm. Skadi could get used to having this much physical strength again. “I am the Queen of Winter. And I give you two choices, boy. Swear fealty to me and live. Or die and serve me regardless, as does your father.”
With that, she dropped the struggling jotunn boy. He landed on his knees. And he stayed there before slowly bowing his head. “M-my queen.”
40
Ocean spray crashed over Sigmund’s longship as it cut through the mist toward Sviarland. Already, they sailed up the coast, past Ostergotland. Soon, they would reach Njarar and travel by land to its ancient keep in the mountains.
The wind had given out an hour ago, but Sigmund’s men carried them forward with great heaves of the oars. He’d taken a turn himself, but only just now paused to check on Borghild, who stood at the bow, watching the mist.
The last thing either of them had expected was for Helgi to invite them to his marriage. As the new king of Njarar. The boy’s successes were surpassed only by his hubris in pursuing these ends.
He’d killed Hothbrodd and Granmar, both, and proclaimed himself king of a whole new land. As if a section of his father’s kingdom were not enough for him. Courage, Sigmund appreciated, as well as the desire to make one’s own way. But Helgi seemed to lust after power with the same zeal he’d lusted after Sigrún.
“You should never have sent him raiding at his age,” Borghild complained once more. A tired argument, and one he’d sure as the wrath of Hel not have in front of his men.
Sigmund grabbed the queen’s wrist and squeezed just enough to draw a grunt of pain from her. To silence the squabbling. Some conversations belonged only behind closed doors, and even then, ought only to be had once. “We’ll be there soon. We must congratulate our son on his victories in love and war, both.”
“And when shall we see him again, if he remains in Njarar, in the heart of Sviarland?”
Sigmund could only pray the boy did remain in one place. At this rate, Helgi would probably think himself fit to conquer all of Miklagard.
“We’ll be there soon,” he
repeated.
Helgi hosted them in grand fashion, despite the airy, cold halls of Njarar Castle. For the wedding feast, guests had come from across Sviarland, from Hunaland, even some from Reidgotaland. As if Sigmund’s son wanted to impress them all with glory or with his bride.
Well and good, but Sigmund feared his son’s tactics almost invited fresh enemies to come and challenge him.
Granmar’s other son, Dag, had sworn fealty to Helgi, theoretically ensuring loyalty from the people of Njarar. But Njarar was hardly one of the strongest of Sviarland’s petty kingdoms. It hadn’t been since the days of Nidud long ago.
Sigmund walked out onto the balcony that jutted from the mountain. Legend claimed dvergar had carved this place and, indeed, it seemed one with the stones below. A mighty hall no other lord could have matched.
Fitela’s scent came to him on the wind, as his elder son drew nigh. “I’m glad you’re here,” the boy said.
Sigmund nodded, not looking back. Up here, he was staring down at the mist. Some part of him wanted to believe he could see all of Helgi’s enemies out there. The truth was, though, Sigmund would have to return to Hunaland, or risk losing all he’d just built. If Helgi intended to keep this place, he’d need to make his own allies.
Hrethel was a start. The man had once strived to control all of Sviarland. Even if those plans had fallen short, at least he remained a powerful force here. And he was kin to Helgi’s new wife. That had to buy some familial loyalty.
“Where do your thoughts roam, Father?”
Sighing, now Sigmund did turn to Fitela. “I fear for what this portends.”
“Helgi’s rule here? He wouldn’t be the first Volsung to live in Sviarland.”
“We lived in exile while seeking vengeance. Hardly the same thing.”
Fitela shrugged. “Either way, Hunaland stands united behind you now. You’ve accomplished your aim after so long.”