* * *
Slapping the steering wheel in time with the windshield wipers, Managarm pulled his mud-encrusted Suburban off Highway 26 onto the short drive leading into the wooded parking lot. The rain couldn’t have come at a better time—not the light, persistent sprinkle that was a near constant in the Pacific Northwest in the fall and winter, but a chilly, driving rain, one of the first of the season.
It kept most meddlesome humans indoors, and washed Managarm’s vehicle clean.
The Suburban sloshed through deep puddles and crunched on soggy gravel as the road curved into the parking area. Not another car in sight. Managarm smiled. He shifted the vehicle into park and shut off the engine. He sat for a moment behind the wheel, listening to the patter of rain on the metal hull of the car. It was a hollow, tinny sound compared to what he remembered of the rains coming down on a newly built longhouse, before the roof was lined with insulating turf.
He closed his eyes and rested back against the vinyl seat. He imagined the Vikings’ early villages—rows of rectangular buildings with pitched roofs along the water’s edge. But Managarm preferred the country longhouses, their peat-block walls reinforced with hand-hewn planks, sitting and sleeping benches lined with furs, and a roaring fire in the center of the single room where bards spun their tales on long winter nights. If he concentrated, he could almost smell the animal skins and taste the freshly roasted game.
Before long, Managarm thought, there will again be longhouses aplenty. Longhouses and fire pits and longships and raiders.
Lots of raiders.
He pulled the keys out of the ignition and stepped out of the car. The cold rain beat down on his uncovered head. Managarm shuddered in a thoroughly undignified manner and reached back into the car for a wide-brimmed rain hat, pushing it down firmly on his head even though it made him feel like a sissy. He zipped up his fleece pullover and pulled a 20-inch handsaw from behind the driver’s seat, then slammed the door shut.
As the rain dripped off the brim of his hat and soaked through his blue jeans, Managarm stood and stared at what was left of the Sitka Spruce.
Thousands of visitors over the years had made this same trek west of Portland, to have photos taken beside the 700-year-old giant and touch its trunk. It had been the largest of its kind in the United States. The humans had called it the Klootchy Creek Giant.
“Yggdrasil,” Managarm hissed through his teeth.
After seven centuries, the Tree had finally succumbed to a wicked wind storm. There was little more the Forest Service could do than cut down the ancient corpse.
Managarm made his way toward the wide wooden ramp leading up to where the Sitka Spruce used to stand. Visitors still came to see the stump—nearly 100-feet tall, but deteriorating rapidly.
Not unlike the old gods, Managarm sneered.
He grunted when he sank shin-deep in a puddle. Cold water splashed over the top of his boot and seeped down into his socks to chill his skin. Rain hadn’t been an issue before, nor cold. He felt himself growing weaker by the day, prone to the elements like a newborn goat.
“Cursed Odin,” he grumbled.
Managarm’s boots squished against the boards of the viewing ramp as he climbed to where the old Tree had once towered. Shreds of yellow caution tape littered the ground, left over from the spruce’s last days.
Managarm rested his hand on the rotting bark. Damp dust sifted out beneath his fingers. This was the nearest he’d ever been to the Yggdrasil. There were no more immortal protectors or divine charms to keep a lower deity away.
Managarm turned his face upward and let the rain fall on his cheeks and closed eyes. Then he laughed out loud.
Come this time Sunday, Odin would be no better than the old Tree’s rotting husk.
Managarm took a quick look around to confirm he didn’t have an audience, then jumped off the platform onto the soggy ground below. He ducked beneath the structure to approach the base of the massive stump. Gripping the saw loosely in one hand, he reached out with the other and rested a palm against the remains of the Tree, and listened.
Managarm smiled. There was no life left in the old World Tree, but there were yet traces of its magick.
He surveyed the perimeter of the hulking stump, and found a large, protruding burl low to the ground on the far side. He laid his large hand on the knot and touched the blade of his handsaw to the wood . . . And froze.
Planning to slice into the sacred Tree was one thing; actually doing it was another. Once he started, there was no turning back.
Managarm closed his eyes as if to pray. Instead of words of supplication or reverence, all that stirred within was more poison. He thought about his mission—the useless one Odin had given him, and the quest he’d designed for himself.
“I will be a slave no longer!” he shouted against the hard rain as the teeth of his saw bit into the old Tree.
It was slower going than he’d expected—but then he’d never sawed into the Yggdrasil before. Hunched over with cold rain running down the back of his neck, he cursed Odin—and most every other member of the Norse pantheon—with every stroke.
The saw came at last to the bottom of the burled knot, and a thick slab of wood nearly eighteen inches in diameter fell free to the ground. Managarm rested the saw against the base of the dead Tree and weighed the chunk of gnarled wood in his hands.
Yes. This would do just fine.
He took a step back and stared at the stump, and the smallest pang of guilt pulled at his stomach. It wasn’t the Tree’s fault. The Yggdrasil was a font of wisdom and power with no control over how it was used. This old shell was just one of many over the millennia, as each new World Tree took root and grew tall and strong, and then ultimately died and rotted away, only to be born anew in an endless cycle set into motion long before even Managarm’s time.
Managarm could feel his lips turning blue, and his jeans were drenched and sticking to his skin. Cradling the wooden slab in one arm, he picked up the handsaw and turned to head back toward the car.
He yanked open the door of the Suburban. Rusty hinges protested in a loud, squeaking groan. Managarm slipped the saw back behind the driver’s seat. He slid in behind the wheel and rested the round piece of wood on the seat beside him. It wasn’t until he started up the engine that he realized he’d been holding his breath.
He’d just hacked into the sacred Tree, and the others hadn’t lifted a finger to stop him.
“Stupid fools.” Managarm hit the headlights and switched on the windshield wipers. “They probably don’t even realize I’m doing them a favor.”
He turned east onto Highway 26, heading back toward Portland and the Fred Meyer where he’d stop off for supplies for the night, before he disappeared again into the forest to continue his work.
Water bottles. Matches. A few loaves of bread. Maybe some fruit. Several packages of hot dogs and some canned spaghetti—or whatever else was fast and convenient. A replacement camp stove. A new tent and sleeping bag wouldn’t hurt, particularly after he’d burnt up the last ones—and pretty much his entire camp—that morning.
Managarm’s stomach rumbled loudly, and he cursed. Damned Odin and his meddling! He’d saddled them all with this sluggish descent into mortality. Managarm cheered himself with the thought of an aging, impotent Odin having to face Fenrir at Ragnarok. No longer the stuff of legend, but just a few days away.
And coffee. He definitely needed more coffee.
Valhalla Page 9