by Matt Larkin
Regin had given Sigurd only a mere taste of the heart, claiming the greater portion for himself.
Sometimes, Sigurd wondered how his mother or stepfather would’ve felt, had they known the dverg forced him to eat the flesh of men. Forced him the first few times, at least. All things a man could adapt to, given time.
“If silver is so scarce, why then do you let Hjalprek hold the hoards of gold and gems gathered by Volsung? Why not claim your birthright, boy, and do us both the favor?”
Sigurd flinched and shook his head.
Many miles away, by the sea, King Hjalprek ruled from his hall at Arus. Though he lay claim to a fair portion of Healfdene’s now shattered kingdom—these mountains included—Hjalprek lacked the strength to hold the lands secured. Indeed, he most like had no idea the banditry his son’s stepson now practiced here.
Further south still, in Hunaland, lay the lands of Sigurd’s true father, the fallen king Sigmund Volsungson. His wealth was legend, but Prince Alf had married Sigmund’s widow, Sigurd’s mother Hjordis.
“Hjalprek holds it in trust on my behalf.”
“Bah! Why do you think the king would foster you with me? Because he wanted to return your inheritance? Does that seem credible?” Regin spit into the flame again. “You’re a man now, but did he ever send anyone to come and claim you?”
Sigurd knew better than to glare at Regin. Though most of the tortures had stopped once Regin considered Sigurd well forged into a weapon, tempered as a mighty sword must be, still, the dverg brooked no insolence. And still, he treated Sigurd as much a slave as a ward, expecting him to always have meals prepared, always be quick to do as he’d bid.
The dverg forgot, perhaps, that a sharp enough sword might well cut its wielder, if not handled with care.
“Test them,” Regin said. “See how willing King Hjalprek is to part with any fraction of your due. Ask him for … his finest steed. A pittance, really. And his answer will reveal the shadows of his heart.”
“You truly send me south? Outside of the woodlands?”
The dverg fixed him with a glare, his narrowed eyes flickering in the firelight ever so slightly. “Should I not?”
“N-no. I mean, yes … That is … I am ready to go.” More than ready, in fact. Many times, Sigurd had considered attempting just that, even without Regin’s blessing. Some few times, he’d even tried it, much to his regret. Surely Alf had not known the things the dverg would do to his stepson. Surely no man would wish such upon the child of his own wife.
And Sigurd had not lain eyes upon his mother in a decade.
Regin nodded, seeming grimmer than ever. “Go and claim your steed, if he will let you. And if he won’t …”
If Alf refused such a small request, then Regin was right, and the king had betrayed Sigurd. Which would mean he would have to die. Sigurd dared hope it would never come to that.
He had too many people to kill as it was.
Sigurd made little sound as he moved about the woodland. While he spent far more time in the lightless expanses beneath the mountains, he’d learned woodcraft well enough in his many forays into the wilds.
Stalking men and deer, bears even. So many kinds of prey, since Regin had finally let him leave the darkened halls.
In the early days, as a boy of a mere six winters, Sigurd had wept at the tortures Regin had lavished upon him. The dverg had branded him, had sliced his flesh. Had raped him, repeatedly. Once, Regin had left him alone on the mountainside all day in winter. Frostbite had claimed two of Sigurd’s toes and Regin had relished cutting them off, then forced him to watch as he ate them.
Now, Sigurd wept at naught. A great many years he’d hated his foster father. He’d tried to run away, back to the lands of King Hjalprek, more than once. Always, Regin had come for him, dragged him back in the dark tunnels, and thought up ever more creative cruelties with which to punish Sigurd’s disobedience.
The dverg had destroyed a boy and left behind a man hard as stone. Stronger in mind and body than any who walked Reidgotaland. For fire was a forge, a crucible that immolated the weak and tempered the strong. Regin had told him that, time and again. Mercy availed no one, Regin claimed, for it perpetuated one’s frailties and left one all the more vulnerable to true foes. Such was the way of the world.
Urd, Sigurd’s one-handed friend had called it. Tiwaz little approved of what Sigurd had told him of Regin’s forging of him, so, these days, Sigurd told him little. They both had their uses. Both had, in their own ways, helped shape Sigurd.
When he couldn’t find travelers to prey upon, Sigurd oft came to call upon Tiwaz, and the man taught him swordplay for hour upon hour beneath the sunlight, while Regin slept. Even if the dverg knew, Sigurd doubted he’d much have cared. Regin offered but one command—that Sigurd not venture beyond the woodland.
Now, though, he came to its edge and peered outward, to the south. Out there, he’d find Alf’s court, a place he’d not seen in so very long.
Sigurd frowned, shaking his head. He saw men little, so he knew but pieces of the tale, most from what little Tiwaz deigned to share. And the one-handed man was not much for speaking, in general. So Sigurd could but guess how things might’ve changed in his long absence.
No one would recognize him now, grown tall and strong and—beneath his clothes—heavily scarred.
No one would recognize the boy who had left. But soon, everyone would know of the man who returned.
Nigh to a hundred years back, Healfdene had conquered most all Reidgotaland and brought it under his rule, had held it fast against threats within and without. Despite a long life, the old king had died well before Sigurd’s birth and split Reidgotaland among his three sons. Those petty kingdoms had begun to falter, though, torn between wars amongst themselves, even as some threat said to come from the Otherworlds had brought low Hrothgar’s lands.
Hrothgar’s brother, Heorogar had a son, Hjalprek, whose son in turn had become Sigurd’s stepfather, Prince Alf.
Such things couldn’t help but run through his mind, as he made the long trek through hills and woodlands, back toward Arus and Hjalprek’s hall. While Sigurd had dealt little with men in the past decade, he’d made it his business to learn the histories of this land, a whim Regin had indulged him in at great length, going so far to as to whip him should he mistake a single prince or jarl in the reign of Reidgotaland going back even to Healfdene’s ancestors.
How and why the dverg knew or cared so much of the lineage of men, Regin had refused to answer.
And the trek toward Arus gave Sigurd ample time for such musings, and more besides. What did Regin truly wish of him? What did the dverg hope to gain by sending Sigurd back to his stepfather now, and by forcing him to wonder about his grandfather’s motivations? And worse yet, what if Grandfather truly had sent him to Regin as a means of keeping the Volsung hoard to himself?
Lost in thought, he followed the banks of a river southward a great ways. Until he nigh blundered into an old man sitting on the shore, staring at the water. The man had a bushy gray beard, and the travel-worn clothes of a vagrant, all hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. The way he looked at the river, he almost seemed asleep sitting up.
Nor did he bestir himself when Sigurd paused beside him.
“Who are you, old man?” Sigurd asked.
And still the vagabond said naught, only cocked his head to the side.
“Are you ill?”
Finally, the old man turned to look up at Sigurd, revealing a hint of his face. A patch covered one eye, not quite concealing a bitter scar around it. “You go to choose a horse for yourself, yes?”
Sigurd balked. “How can you know that? Did Regin send you?”
“You want to know the best horse?” The old man quirked a smile. “Let me tell you of Sleipnir … Have you heard tale?”
The name sounded familiar, but Sigurd couldn’t quite place it.
“The eight-legged steed of the Ás king, Odin. Sleipnir is possessed of ancient blood, of a line of m
ighty steeds the likes of which rarely still walk Midgard. And when the Ás has no need of him, the stallion runs free, and thus spreads his seed to mares around the world. And they hold within them, some remnant of Sleipnir’s power.”
Sigurd frowned. “How can you know such things?”
“Because I am old and have wandered far and heard the whispers on the wind and the secrets swept away by currents like this river. Bring those horses you think best here and have them swim. The one who shows no fear, who does not strive straight toward shore but rather basks in the waters, that one hails from the blood of Sleipnir, and no finer horse could come to you.”
Was the old man mist-mad? He didn’t seem so, though Odin alone knew how long he’d sat on the water’s edge, and bearing no torch. Sigurd knelt beside him. “What do I call you?”
“Gripir, if you must truly have a name.”
Sigurd frowned at the strange old man. A hermit? A wanderer? Or seer? Most men were more like to trust such words from a völva than any male. Still, Sigurd could hardly discard the man’s advice entirely.
Assuming Hjalprek even granted him leave to test the horses.
Arus sat upon the sea in central Cimbria, a fishing town with the king’s hall upon a hill above it. Outside it, men had cleared the nearby trees and built up a stone wall not nigh tall enough to hold back invaders, yet still plenty to have slowed any assault.
The gate there stood open and, as the afternoon had not yet dragged on, none of the men there did aught to bar Sigurd’s entrance. Indeed, why would they accost a single man alone, even one bearing a sword over his shoulder? Within the hall, shields decorated large wooden columns that must have overawed most of Hjalprek’s guests. They seemed frail, pathetic things next to the dverg-wrought palace of stone Sigurd had left behind.
Still, Alf had saved his mother’s life and it was the prince who sat on his throne now, holding his court. A half dozen steps led up to the dais where Alf presided in judgment over a man protesting about the rise of banditry in the hill lands to the north in recent years.
Sigurd quirked a faint smile. It seemed his reputation had spread so far already, even if no man lived to describe him nor even to imagine a single hunter had brought low so many traders.
Alf—so named for his fair complexion and alf-like grace—agreed he’d send a war band scouting the hills. His assurances seemed to placate the merchant. Did the prince realize such efforts would prove vain? No amount of warriors would find Sigurd in tunnels deep beneath the land, nor dare to venture there, should they have even known such places existed. No, men feared that darkness, and rightly so.
The prince caught him staring though, and cocked his head. Oh … he tried to place Sigurd, no doubt, thinking him familiar yet unable to say from where. An ally in some raid? A foe faced on the battlefield? The son of some noble or other … Sigurd could see the man desperately trying to work through it and yet struggling to keep his confusion from his face.
The prince beckoned him closer, and so Sigurd approached and offered a polite incline of his head.
Perhaps best he spare the man any further consternation. “Stepfather.”
“Sigurd?”
Now Alf fair leapt from his throne, stumbled a little in his haste, and then plodded down the steps to stand by Sigurd’s side. The prince gaped at him a moment, before wrapping him in an embrace.
Sigurd flinched. No one had so warmly held him in a decade. If any had embraced him it all it had been women, and only because they’d understood cooperation was the surest way to remain well-fed.
“By the Aesir, boy!” Alf said. “You’ve grown strong.”
Oh, he had no idea. “A decade has passed, stepfather. Surely you did not think me still a child?”
Alf chuckled, then clapped Sigurd on the shoulder. “I suppose not. Come! Your mother is like to faint to hear you’ve returned. She’s asked after you oft enough.”
To hear him speak of her left an uncomfortable hollow in Sigurd’s gut. A jumble of memories bombarded him—sensations, really. Warmth, kindness, generosity. Things Regin had spent a decade tempering out of Sigurd.
He’d retched the first time Regin made him kill a man. Only the first, though. And the dverg had beaten him to a bloody pulp for the weakness. Some lessons only took the one time to learn.
Alf led him back outside, to a garden behind the wall, tucked between an orchard on one side and a rock the size of a troll on the other. Sigurd grimaced, unable to look away. How many hours had he raced amid those trees? How many more pretending the rock a real troll, and one he alone could slay to protect his mother?
Childish fancies he’d all but forgotten until walking here.
Except, there, against an apple tree she sat, where she’d once sat with him, telling stories of Hunaland and Sigurd’s great father, whom she’d loved and claimed she’d known not nigh as long as she’d wished. Sigmund had gone to Valhalla, she said, there to feast with the Aesir and sit beside Odin.
Sigurd found his feet betrayed him now, and he stumbled, unsteady and slow in his advance.
She looked up, looked him right in the face from twenty feet away. And unlike his stepfather, it took her but a moment. And then she was on her feet, running toward him, her arms around him before Sigurd could even react.
The warmth of it, the impact, it felt like a stone striking his chest, and Sigurd could scarce breathe for it. Who was he to deserve this greeting? He, who had spent the past four years murdering and raping as if such were the fairest thing in the world.
Regin had caught him handling his own cock, once, ready to burst for need, as Sigurd so oft was. And so he’d had Sigurd go out and grab the first woman he saw and take her. Part of him had reveled at getting such permission—nay such an order—and he’d gone. But to see her, a girl nigh his own age at thirteen winters, maybe a bit older, he’d hesitated. Unsure he could do it, thinking even to ask her if maybe she’d want it …
The dverg had told him if he didn’t do it, didn’t hold her down and make himself a man, first he’d make Sigurd eat one of his own stones. Then Regin would go and use the girl himself, and leave her body floating in the lake. Thoughts like that had Sigurd’s cock wilting, and the fear that engendered only made it all the more difficult. But he’d done it.
With a shudder, he jerked away from his mother’s embrace. “I didn’t know you’d recognize me …”
“Of course I recognized you!” She patted him on the cheek, like she’d done when he was little and said things too foolish for words.
Sigurd forced a smile to his face. Let her see that, and not the hollow pit in his gut. Not the vileness that had seeped into his mind.
Alf cleared his throat. “We uh … we asked father about sending for you last summer, but he said to give you a while more in the dverg’s care. That the old ones knew fearsome truths like to make you strong.”
Sigurd snorted softly. How was he to even respond to that? Regin indeed knew most fearsome truths. Secrets ancient and vile, about the true nature of man, before the veneer of civilization had curbed animal impulses. If Regin spoke truth, then even man came from the darkness.
And much as Sigurd loathed it, the dverg had raised one point that had refused to flee from Sigurd’s mind. A revelation or a taunt, either way, it had wormed its way into Sigurd on the long trek back to Arus. “I’m a man now, and I’d have a proper steed, claimed against the Volsung hoard Grandfather holds in trust.”
Alf exchange a glance with Sigurd’s mother, then nodded. “You may claim any steed we own.”
“Actually, I’d like to take several out by the river and see how they fare.”
“As you will,” Alf said. “I’ll arrange it all with my father.”
Sigurd nodded.
Sigurd brought the nine strongest looking horses to the river and did as Gripir had bid him, driving them all to swim. As the man had foretold, one horse did not strive immediately toward shore, but rather basked and played in the waters as Sigurd had seen hounds
do. Fearless.
This horse, Sigurd claimed as his own, patting his mane. “I’ll call you Grani.”
The old man had spoken the truth. Did that mean he truly was a seer?
Mounted on Grani, Sigurd returned to Arus, to the obvious surprise of his stepfather.
The man gaped at the horse. “I don’t think anyone ever managed to mount that one.”
Sigurd couldn’t help but smile at that. “No finer horse walks the world, or so I’ve been told.”
Alf scratched at his beard clearly uncertain what to make of that. “Will you ride back to Regin now?”
That question had raced through Sigurd’s mind as he’d ridden back to Arus, and the ride had proved far too short to offer any answer. “I need to speak with Grandfather myself.” A part of Sigurd still hated Regin for the things he’d done, but the dverg had succeeded in forging Sigurd into a weapon. And he could not simply ignore the doubts the creature had planted in his head.
Alf nodded and arranged for King Hjalprek to meet Sigurd in his private chambers. The honor meant, perhaps, that the king did yet consider Sigurd family, despite Regin’s accusations.
The old man sat in a fine-wrought chair, warming his hands before a fire, smiling wanly as Sigurd and Alf entered. His son he motioned to another chair, and Sigurd to a third. “Alf tells me you wish to speak to me.”
Sigurd nodded slowly. “I am a man now.” Keeping his voice steady—and free of accusation—took a fair bit of willpower. “Long you held in trust my inheritance from my father, Sigmund.”
“Yes.” Hjalprek placed his hands on the chair’s armrests and stared hard at Sigurd.
“I have come to claim it, and with it, to reclaim the land that was my birthright.”
The king sighed, then shook his head. “It is not possible.”
“You will refuse me my wealth?” Even as Regin had said he would. So Hjalprek’s greed was the reason for fostering Sigurd with Regin. And the dverg’s suspicions proved accurate.