by Matt Larkin
A mighty clawed limb reached for Sigurd. It fell several paces short and slapped the sand in front of him, kicking up great gobs of muck. Filth and gore now coated the otherwise mold-colored serpent, and blood oozed from a terrible rent in its belly, fountaining up with each beat of its slowing heart. Horns jutted from its head at irregular angles and spurs from its spine, any one of which could have pierced Sigurd like a spear. Here was a beast fell beyond imagining, like something drawn up from some ancient time the world would have just as soon forgotten.
And it stared at Sigurd with hatred beyond his ken. Acid-like venom dribbled from its gaping maw.
“Who are you … impudent to strike at me …?” The stench of rot accompanied the creature’s rumbling, inhuman voice. As if the land itself bellowed at him.
“You can talk?” Did that mean some part of the original Fafnir yet remained?
“Who … dares …?”
“I am Sigurd Sigmundson.”
The linnorm choked, a glob of some foul mix of poison and blood oozing from his mouth. “And who urged you to face me?”
Sigurd rose, glanced about for Gramr. The blade still stuck from the beast’s hide a dozen or so paces from where he stood. “A mind hard as stone forged me into a weapon. A courageous warrior whetted me to a razor edge.” He stalked over to where Gramr jutted from Fafnir. “And with this, I fear neither man nor beast.” He placed a foot on the linnorm’s side then yanked the sword free.
This elicited a fresh spurt of burning blood spraying over him, and the dragon hissed, tracking him with its eye.
“I see … my brother’s hand … around this hilt. It wrought my death … and it shall be your end as well. In the end … he shall claim the Tarnhelm and the ring with which I secured my domain. And the hoard goes back to him after all.”
Sigurd wanted to wipe the blood and grime from his face, but since all his clothes were so soaked, he saw no way to do so. “Regin will have naught save his vengeance against you. I have taken your life and I will find your den and claim the gold.” He waved his hand. “And this helm and ring you speak of.”
The linnorm snorted, a pathetic rasp of air that turned into a shudder. “Go there. Claim riches beyond your ken. And find your doom in the cursed hoard.”
Sigurd spat. The linnorm lied now, even as he’d been a murderer and a kinslayer in life. All vaettir were treacherous, Fafnir and his brother included.
Kneeling in the mud, Sigurd watched as the beast finally expired.
Dusk had settled into evening before Regin showed himself, appearing like a specter in the mist before hobbling his way to Sigurd’s tiny fire beside his brother’s corpse. The dverg walked the length of the beast, shaking his head, mumbling something in his own coarse tongue.
He shooed away a raven that had settled on Fafnir’s horn, muttering something that sounded profane. The bird took flight but soon alighted on a nearby tree. It knew when food was about.
“Good of you to join me,” Sigurd said.
The dverg turned his sneer upon him. “You have won a victory the skalds will praise until the dying of Midgard. Be sated with that. My brother is dead. Do not think because I sought this I am wholly without grief.”
Grief? Did a dverg even feel such an emotion? Sigurd fastened Regin with a hard look, but the dverg refused to further meet his gaze, instead staring at the corpse as though it might once again begin to speak.
“Be that as it may,” Sigurd said, “I tested my mettle and my steel against the serpent and you raised not a finger to help.”
“The sun—”
“Yes, I know.”
The dverg scoffed. “Fine, what of it then? I made that sword and without it, you’d hardly have performed such a feat, would you?”
Undoubtedly not, though Sigurd would also not have attempted such a thing.
“Just … use Gramr,” Regin said. “Cut out his heart and roast it for me.”
Sigurd looked back to the massive corpse. His own brother? And why not? If a man’s heart could hold pneuma, how much more might a dragon’s? What power might Regin absorb from the creature his brother had become?
Still, it would be grisly work, without a doubt. Drawing Gramr, Sigurd set to it.
Coated in fresh gore, Sigurd hauled the heart over the flame. The muscle weighed more than he did, he had no doubt, and stretched a good three feet from side to side. In order to spit it, he had to carve a spear from a nearby tree.
In the meantime, Regin stoked the flame higher and larger.
Sigurd then thrust the spit over the flame and set to cooking the grisly meal. How did the dverg intend to eat something so large? Perhaps he meant to taste but a few bites. Either way, Sigurd found himself panting with sheer exhaustion and feeling more filthy than he’d have thought possible.
While the heart roasted, he waded down into the river. Ice had formed along the banks but most of the river continued to flow. Sigurd dipped a hand in then sucked down a sharp breath. Cold as the realm of Hel. Still, he splashed water over his face, then scrubbed it along his arms, trying to work off layer upon layer of grime, blood, and other vileness.
Another raven’s croak caused him to jump up sharply, reaching for Gramr. Damn birds. He shook his head. Between fighting the dragon and its dying curses, he was jumping at naught. He, who had long walked dark halls beneath the land. Who had grown up in shadows.
Flinging stray water from his hands, he trod back to the fire and slunk down before it. Juices had begun to bubble and sizzle from the heart, dribbling down into the flames and popping. Such a thick hunk of muscle would take all night to cook. Maybe the outside was done enough the dverg would satisfy himself with it.
Sigurd poked at it with a finger. It was searingly hot, in fact. Cooked? He sucked his finger, savoring the juices. The serpent’s flesh had a rich, earthy taste that seemed to fill his mouth and flow down it, surging through him with each beat of his heart. A wave of vertigo seized him and he slipped down onto his side, gasping. Was this the power of the linnorm’s pneuma? Such that even a taste of it would overwhelm him?
Everything seemed louder, the night fair pulsing around him, abuzz with insects and birds and beasts stalking the woods. With the heartbeat of the dverg not so far away. With the low, gurgling calls of the ravens.
“Better he should eat it himself …”
Sigurd cocked his head. “What?”
“Say something? Is it ready, boy?” Regin called.
“S-soon.” Sigurd shook his head. If Regin hadn’t said that then who in the gates of Hel had?
“Better he should feast upon the heart himself and gain wisdom.”
Was that … the raven talking? Sigurd glanced at Regin, but the dverg paid the bird no heed. The animal hardly moved its beak and yet its speech seemed clear as any to Sigurd.
“Already his skin is saturated by the pneuma-drenched blood of a dragon. Consume its heart and quicken its blood to make his skin like armor, warded against flame or blade. Its power shall flow through his veins.”
“Or wait.” The second speaker was another raven, this one having alighted on a branch behind Sigurd. “There lies Regin, the one who craves the cursed gold. The one who will do aught to possess it. Now with it in sight, will he share? Or will he strike down the very fosterling he raised to a particular end?”
“Strike off the dverg’s head,” the first raven said, “and the gold falls in Sigurd’s hands. He is not wise at all if he trusts one who arranged the death of his own brother.”
“No, no. Not wise.”
The ravens were talking to him. Or … about him at least, and they knew overmuch of what had gone by. Was he to take it as a sign from Odin himself? Having tasted a drop of the dragon’s blood, he could now understand the language of birds. So how much stronger might he yet become if he ate this heart himself?
Sigurd quietly slipped Gramr from her sheath. He need not even wonder at her opinion. She would as happily feast upon the blood of her creator as on any other. Blade
in hand he crept to where Regin dozed.
The treacherous dverg had sought to make Sigurd into a weapon. If the ravens spoke the truth—and Sigurd could not imagine why birds would lie—the dverg had been forging him for just this day. And now, with the day having passed, he had no further use for Sigurd. No, it was not Sigurd’s urd to fall at Regin’s hands. Rather, he’d send both brothers to Hel together.
“I hated you when I first came into your keeping.”
Regin turned over, glanced at Gramr held in Sigurd’s hand, and scowled. “What of it? I made you strong as dverg steel.”
“True enough.” Sigurd lunged in.
Regin immediately started to sink into the ground. But not fast enough. A single swipe of Gramr took the dverg’s head off and sent it rolling away. Blood bubbled up from his neck for the instant before his body toppled over.
Sigurd glared down at the corpse of his foster father. His stomach churned at the sight, but he refused to be cowed or look away. Even if he … the roil of his gut sent him stumbling down to retch beside the broken, headless body.
No. Trollshit, but no. He had no love left for the traitorous dverg and no reason to feel aught but relief at his death. Indeed, rising, he spit on the corpse just to make certain no part of him should indulge in regret. The creature had planned to kill him—the ravens had told him so.
And still the birds watched him. Waiting, perhaps, for him to follow the rest of their advice and devour Fafnir’s vile heart.
Sigurd slunk back down at the fire and then passed several more hours waiting for the meat to cook well and grow tender. When he judged it ready, he carved off a chunk worthy of a feast and set to devouring it. The meat was chewy and he had to work at it until his jaw ached. It tasted not so very unlike venison, save more earthy and perhaps a touch acidic, for it burned his stomach. Before he’d eaten much, his gut was roiling again.
He ate a few bites more, forcing the tough meat down his throat. The birds had advised it …
A sharp cramp doubled him over in pain and he collapsed sideways, curling into a ball. Pain, like when he’d gotten his chest punched by Eightarms, save this time in his stomach. And reaching outward in pulsating waves. A chill sweat overtook him.
What in the frozen underworld of Hel was he thinking, eating a dragon’s heart? He needed to retch it back up before he—
His stomach spasmed, then his legs. Unable to control the convulsions, he was flung onto his back. Bile scorched his throat and bubbled up from his mouth, but he couldn’t heave up the traitorous meat.
His palms slapped wildly against the ground as he tried to cry out in agony, but couldn’t get a scream out past the spasms now reaching his throat. Everything around him faded in and out between a cacophony of sounds far greater than they ought to have been—the cricket’s chirp like a gong, the bubbling river a steady drum—while others seemed muffled as though heard through a wool blanket.
His vision faded into gray, losing all color, only to shift back in, all too bright. Blinding. The stars above, through the mist, they stung his eyes. The moon was an orb of fire to rival the sun.
A thousand ants crawled over his skin, biting him everywhere.
His mouth tasted of flame and ash.
His back arched in pain and a ragged gasp escaped him, before darkness finally pulled him mercifully under.
14
An enormous screech overhead ripped through the quiet and sent Odin scrambling for cover. He flung himself up against the trunk of a tree in the midst of a red forest. He half expected some hideous bird above. Instead, he saw but a shadow passing over the canopy. A very large shadow.
No, this had come about in a vision. Still, his heart pounded so painfully he had to wonder if an immortal could die of a heart attack.
Again, the giant shadow soared overhead. Odin snuck to another tree trunk where he could peer up through tiny gaps in the canopy. His visions had shown this before, leaving no doubt about the monstrosity he would see, yet still he could not stop himself. An irresistible pull drew him to look upon the creature’s majesty.
As the flying animal banked and passed overhead, Odin caught a few bare glimpses of it. Though lizard-like in appearance, it had a membrane of skin spanning its wings like a bat, and a feathered frill behind its head, with a massive, elongated maw jutting from the front.
A soaring predator unlike aught that dwelt on Midgard.
Odin jerked free from the vision and turned about, steadying himself as he trod toward the place where Sigurd had slain Fafnir. He’d sent Huginn and Muninn to converse with the young man, relaying his messages through Valravn.
By now, Sigurd ought to be well entranced in visions engendered by consuming the dragon’s pneuma-infused heart. Why should Odin not simply go and take the ring? After all, with the dragon dead, he could claim it without breaking his oath to Hreidmar. What he could not discern was why his visions had shown him taking the ring after Sigurd and the others were ash. Did that mean something would prevent him from seizing it now and being done with it?
His other plans did depend on Sigurd following a certain path and, if Odin removed Andvaranaut from the hoard, it might alter Sigurd’s future actions. But his palm itched to hold it, to call upon its power and pass beyond Midgard and onward, to the World of Sun.
Hateful, all-consuming radiance …
He could scarcely expect a wraith like Audr to relish the idea of traveling into a world of light.
Nor should you relish such strides as you intend …
Oh, but Odin had seen it in his mind’s eye. A beautiful, wondrous world of eternal architecture and bountiful flora. A paradise of light.
Are you certain you see what you think you see …
In Alfheim, you will be without our power, Valravn said.
A Moon vaettr and a wraith—yes, Odin had considered that. But it hardly mattered. Freyja would embrace him. He’d felt their passion, so real he could still feel the warmth of her touch on his skin.
Perhaps his plans for Sigurd didn’t even matter. With Freyja—
The flash of vision was his only warning, and that only a heartbeat before a valkyrie pushed through the Veil and strode on him, sword raised. Another joined her, and another.
Reacting to the vision—or rather trusting himself to take the action it had revealed him taking—he dove to the side, avoiding a swipe of a blade that would have opened his throat.
Clearly not his valkyries.
Coming up in a roll, Odin clenched his fist around Draupnir. “Come to me.”
He didn’t even know which valkyries were closest to him now, but he had no other allies to call upon.
He jerked his walking stick up just in time to deflect a descending cleave toward his skull. His glamour fell away and the stick became a spear, which he used to drive the woman back.
A beat of her wings carried another valkyrie toward him. Armed with a spear, she flew at him with a thrust he barely managed to knock aside. The third was on him now, hacking away with an axe. Their attacks came so furiously, so well coordinated, he could not hope to enact a spell song. Indeed, it took all he had just to hold them at bay.
While he deflected a spear thrust, the swordswoman gouged his side. He’d not worn his mail, having not expected or foreseen battle. The bite took a moment to hit him, then it became a lance of fire. Pulling on his pneuma allowed him to block the pain—somewhat—and enhance his reflexes and strength.
He whipped the spear around in tight arcs, driving back one valkyrie then the next. The spearwoman took to the air and flew over his head, forcing him to twist around just to keep them all in view.
Growling, he latched onto Audr’s power. The wraith’s coils dug through Odin’s guts, bored into his mind, and wrapped around his throat with crushing force. Audr yanked Odin across the Veil and into the Penumbra. For a heartbeat, he couldn’t breathe, his lungs seeming filled with tar. Nausea sent him stumbling to the ground, though he caught himself and regained his footing.
; For that bare instant, the valkyries moved as though caught in a mire, slowed to half their normal speed.
As expected, those valkyries too passed through the Veil.
The nearest, the swordswoman, appeared not far from Odin, and she too reeled for a bare instant. Odin thrust his spearpoint up under her chin with enough force it caught on her spine and hefted her off her feet. It must have broken her neck, for she fell in a heap, not even clutching the wound from which her blood now poured.
Odin furiously backed away as the spearwoman dove at him once more. All he could do was throw himself to the side to avoid getting impaled.
The axewoman was also aloft, circling around him while Odin scrambled to his feet, struggling to get his own spear in position to deflect the incoming attacks from the spearwoman.
Another war cry sounded in the darkened sky above, and a shadow dropped down, colliding with the axe-wielding valkyrie attacker in midair. The two figures spun round and crashed into the ground, neither able to fly while entangled with the other.
That was Altvir. He’d have to reward her later.
Roaring, Odin directed all his attention to the spearwoman. Focusing on but one foe, he could move faster than her, finally able to switch to attacking. His swift jabs forced the valkyrie back. Odin whipped his spear around in an arc, sweeping her feet with the spear’s butt. The valkyrie tumbled to the ground and Odin thrust the butt down into her face. Cartilage crunched under the blow and blood sprayed up.
A woman shrieked.
Odin glanced to see Altvir had taken an axe blow to her thigh and fallen. The other valkyrie jerked her axe free, raising it for a killing blow. Odin flung the spear at her. It didn’t fly half so true as Gungnir would have, and merely clattered off her armor. It did serve to distract her, though, and had enough force to drive her back a few steps.
Already, Odin was charging in at her. He caught her wrist with one hand before she could swing the axe. A twist and a heave flung her over his shoulder and to the ground. Odin dropped down with a knee to her chest the same instant he slammed a palm into her nose. Skills from past lives reasserted themselves at such moments, a blessing of his expanded consciousness.