As the sun reached toward the zenith of mid-day Friday, Odin stood a few yards away from the young Yggdrasil. He patted Heimdall on the shoulder. “Good work.”
Heimdall was too tired to even think. With Laika at his side, he stood motionless as his father walked toward the Tree, where Freya still sat in the dirt, resting her hands on the young Tree’s roots and humming quietly. Odin rested a hand on her shoulder, relieving her from duty.
“Why don’t the two of you take a break for a bit?”
With a quick nod, Freya got up from the ground and strode slowly over toward Heimdall. “Is Rod okay?”
“Yeah. A few cracked ribs.” Heimdall ambled over to one of the other White Oak saplings, rested his overloaded knapsack on the ground and sat down beneath the young tree’s sparse branches. “He’s back at the Lodge. Supposed to be resting. It wasn’t easy to convince him he’s out of commission for a while.”
Freya sighed. “It’s not his fight.”
Heimdall patted Laika on the head as she curled up beside him. “Well, it’s pretty much everyone’s fight, isn’t it?”
Freya looked away from Heimdall to watch Odin. Heimdall followed her gaze and frowned. “What do you think he’s going to do?”
Freya just smiled.
“There’s still some magick running through these old veins,” Odin grunted as he lowered himself awkwardly to his knees at the base of the Yggdrasil. He reached up and touched the trunk. “You are looking very young, my old friend.”
Heimdall yawned long and loud. Instead of the expected rebuke from his father, Odin winked at him. “Some in my clan had hoped you would rise again in the old Viking lands—in Norway, or perhaps Denmark,” he continued talking to the Tree. “But here we are again in the Pacific Northwest.”
“Hey!” Heimdall whispered loudly, trying to get Freya’s attention. “Is this what he normally does?” Usually whenever Heimdall located the new Yggdrasil, he was back at the Lodge at this point, joining his family in celebration of the Tree’s rebirth while Odin communed with the World Tree on his own. But now, being so close to his father in what looked to be a rather intimate moment, Heimdall felt like an intruder.
Freya crossed her arms. “This is new to me, too.”
Heimdall winced at the sound of Odin’s joints groaning as he folded himself into a cross-legged position facing the Tree. Odin scooted forward until he was practically sitting on top of the Tree, then he removed the patch over his right eye. Heimdall sat up and tried to get a better look at Odin’s face.
“If I could make my sacrifice again—with all that has happened in the centuries since—I would do it,” Odin murmured as he spread his fingers wide over the tender bark. “You are the source of knowledge and wisdom. You are the source of the runes.”
Freya edged closer to Heimdall. “You don’t think he’s going to offer up his other eye, do you?”
Odin pulled a utility knife out of his back pocket and unfolded it. Heimdall rose to his knees in alarm.
“There are new dangers here. Trees are not so sacred in this time.” Odin held his hands up to the Tree, one palm open and empty, the other holding the knife. “Few of us recognize you for what you are. And one of our own would take advantage, to destroy you and take control of all creation.”
Heimdall nearly yelped in surprise at the pulse of energy that rippled through the ground beneath him. Laika jumped up and let out a soft “Woo!”
“Shh. The Tree is talking to him.” Freya rocked back and forth on her feet as she watched Odin, who now held the knife high over his head.
“I stand with you!” Odin proclaimed to the Yggdrasil. He motioned to Heimdall and Freya with his empty hand. “My kin stand with you! The world’s sacred anchor will not be forsaken.”
Another pulse of energy radiated out from the Tree. Heimdall had to steady himself on his hands and knees, while Laika leapt into the air with an excited “Yip!”
Freya smiled at the wolf-dog. “If you think that was something, I’ve got a feeling there’s more coming . . .”
Odin took a deep breath, then brought his knife down with a forceful slashing motion. Heimdall’s heart caught in his throat, before he realized Odin had cut a deep gash in the palm of his left hand—not across his left eye. Heimdall collapsed forward in the dirt, clutching his stomach. “You could have warned me that was coming.”
Freya shrugged. “I didn’t know what he was going to do.”
Heimdall watched Odin running his hands over the Yggdrasil’s trunk, smearing the bark with blood.
“Accept what strength remains in me.” Odin’s hands came to rest at the base of the Tree, and he blew out a long, loud breath. “I nurture and feed you!”
The ground shook beneath him, and Heimdall was knocked off-balance again. Whole sections of earth shifted and were displaced, and Heimdall threw himself flat across the dirt and moss. “Earthquake!” he yelled up at Freya.
Freya stumbled first in one direction and then another as she tried to keep her footing. Leaves from the surrounding saplings rained down as their branches swayed. Trying to get hold of Laika, Heimdall watched Freya collapse forward, her mouth falling open in awe as she pointed to the Yggdrasil.
The rumbling earth fell suddenly silent. Staring at the Tree, Heimdall climbed to his feet in a state of shock. Laika ran wide circles around him and Freya, barking madly.
The Yggdrasil now stood more than 100 feet tall and nearly 50 feet in diameter. The surrounding saplings had keeled over, displaced by the sudden and massive growth. Odin himself had been knocked backward by the Tree’s now colossal trunk. Heimdall looked down at the raised berm he was standing on and realized it was one of many massive roots fanning out from the Yggdrasil.
“How . . . ?” Heimdall gaped at the crackling sound of branches extending overhead and the buds of new leaves bursting open.
Replacing his eye patch, Odin climbed to his feet and rested his hands on the Yggdrasil’s broad trunk, now covered in thick layers of protective bark. “Remember always that I am your servant. You are the source of all life, the anchor for all worlds—for Ásgard, Vanaheim, and Midgard. For Niflheim, Muspellheim, Svartálfaheim, and Álfheim. For Nidavellir and Jötunheim. As long as I or any of mine draw breath, you have a steward and a devoted guardian.”
Odin pressed his still-bleeding palm to the front of his shirt and turned to face Heimdall and Freya. “That’s more like it,” he chuckled.
“By the eyes of the Dvergar!” Heimdall exclaimed. “How did you do that?”
Odin glanced quickly over his shoulder at the darkening bark. “Teamwork.”
Laika ran around and around the Tree, yipping enthusiastically. She stopped and rose up on her hind legs, resting her forepaws on the massive trunk. Pink tongue lolling out of her mouth, she looked over at Heimdall and panted, her tail wagging high in the air.
Heimdall shrugged. “Now it will be doubly easy for Managarm to figure out which tree he’s after.”
Freya nudged him. “True, but I don’t think the Yggdrasil is now so easily dispatched, do you?”
“Good point. Unless he’s planning on dropping an atomic bomb on the Tree . . .”
Freya groaned. “I wouldn’t put it past him.” With a frustrated sigh, she turned and walked over to Heimdall’s bag. She picked it up and rummaged around inside it until she found a small pad of paper, then she sat on the ground and uncapped a pen.
“What are you writing?” Heimdall crossed his arms over his chest and looked up at the branches of the Yggdrasil looming over his head.
Freya scribbled furiously onto the pocket-sized paper. “Making a list of supplies to continue the work here.”
Heimdall stared at her in disbelief. “There’s more?”
Odin stepped up beside his son and patted his arm. “I’ll see to it you have what you need.”
Freya nodded and kept writing.
Valhalla Page 28