Valhalla

by Jennifer Willis

  * * *

  Alone in a clearing deep in the woods, Managarm crouched by the fire and uncovered the rounds of wood he had cut. He’d already set up his new camp—rather, he had gotten Sally, her suspicious friend, and the mostly useless Berserker to set up his new tent and supplies for him. The trio were now hunting for more firewood, leaving Managarm alone to work.

  There had been a moment’s hesitation when he started to carve the first round from the slab he’d stolen from the Yggdrasil, but no bolt of lightning came down from the sky to blast him. No tremor opened the Earth to swallow him when he sawed into the Tree to begin with, either.

  Managarm caressed the wooden rounds, each about the size of a squashed grape. Things were not exactly proceeding according to plan. The single Berserker who’d appeared barely acknowledged his presence—when he wasn’t demanding more food. He’d also not foreseen a mortal witch coming onto the scene, but she was an important tool that he would wield with care and skill. Just as soon as he figured out what to do with her tiresome friend and her fiendish cat. At least Sally was too star-struck in the presence of one of the Norse gods to put the pieces together.

  Managarm couldn’t get over the idea of Saga working a menial job in a bookstore. Lucky that Sally hadn’t recognized the goddess of history for what she was—rather, what she used to be—but Managarm was struck more by the idea of Odin’s daughter working for wages than he was by how close he’d accidentally come to one of the others of his kind.

  Were all of Odin’s kin slaving away like that? Managarm looked up at the mid-day sun, obscured by cloudy skies, and laughed. This was going to be so much easier than he’d imagined.

  He picked up one of the rounds of wood and clutched it tightly in his fist. “The witch is mine,” Managarm boasted to the fire. He’d spent a sleepless night on one of the beds in Opal’s apartment, not used to not being able to see the night sky overhead, nor the idea that a mere mortal—a naïve and weak-minded one at that—could recapture Norse magick. Was Sally the direct descendent of some ancient mage? Or perhaps a halfling, the unknowing offspring of a human and a roving deity?

  The source of Sally’s power didn’t matter, Managarm decided. He needed magick, and she had it. Even if she had only a single trick in her arsenal—calling up Berserkers—that was enough.

  He pulled a small iron from the fire and pressed the tip against the flat surface of the wooden disc in his hand, burning a straight line in charcoal black, then two shorter branches coming off it.

  “Fehu,” Managarm whispered. The wisps of smoke rising from the wood were almost heady. He could smell the old Yggdrasil’s secrets and magick. He stuck the iron back in the fire and gazed in satisfaction at the rune of wealth in his hand. He laid it down carefully on a newly tanned rabbit skin, and reached for another wooden round.

  Pulling the iron back out of the fire, Managarm burned two parallel lines into the wood, one longer than the other, then connected them with a diagonal dash. Uruz, the wild ox. Rune of strength and speed. Again, Managarm inhaled the scent of the burning wood, and he started to laugh.

  He imagined the looks on their faces when Odin and the others realized what Managarm had done, and when they fell on their knees before him. Managarm would never again be their slave-dog, eternally chasing the moon and devouring the dead flesh of fallen enemies.

  He imagined the gods’ hair and clothing streaked with blood, sweat, and mud as he forced them down into the dirt. He’d spit in Odin’s eye, and would make Thor lick his boots. The long-dead ashes of the Vikings would kindle the flames of a new era. The Age of the Wargs. The Return of the Wolves.

  Entertaining himself with his vengeful plotting, the work of creating the runes went quickly. He laid the twenty-four marked rounds on the rabbit skin in front of the fire, then grabbed the sage and lavender wand Saga had given to Sally and tossed it onto the flames. The fire hissed as the herbs started to smoke.

  The air grew heavy with the rich, pungent scent of the sacred plants. Managarm breathed deeply, letting the purifying smoke fill his lungs. The first few breaths always made his sinuses sting, and he bent forward and coughed in a furious spasm before reaching for a bottle of water. He took a long drink, then splashed the rest of the water on his face and tossed the empty bottle inside his new tent.

  Managarm leaned over his newly made runes and smiled. He picked up a handful of rounds, his grin widening as he turned each piece between his fingers. He looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching his camp. He laid down the runes and rose slowly to his feet as he reached for the hunting knife strapped to his belt. But when he heard a pitiful wail of frustration, he relaxed his grip on the knife and stepped toward the noise.

  “Sally?”

  With pine needles and torn leaves stuck in her hair, Sally emerged from the brush and low-hanging branches marking the perimeter of Managarm’s camp. She dropped a load of sticks and chunks of rotting wood in a heap on the ground and brushed herself off before she limped a few more paces into the clearing. Opal followed quickly on her heels and lay down her own load of firewood and kindling in a decidedly more orderly pile.

  “I, I’m sorry,” she stammered and gave an awkward half-curtsey. “I had a little difficulty.”

  Managarm tried to smile, hoping to put her at ease. “Rest yourself.” He gestured toward the fire. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee, and we’ll sit together and discuss how to repair this world.”

  Sally limped painfully toward the campfire. Managarm stepped in front of her, and she stopped abruptly.

  “Have you injured yourself?”

  “No,” Sally sighed in annoyance. “I got a rock in my shoe, about a half-mile back.”

  Managarm swallowed the growl rising in his throat and forced a syrupy tone into his voice. “Why didn’t you take it out?”

  “I didn’t want to keep you waiting.” Sally hobbled over to a patch of dried pine needles near the fire and sat down. She pulled off one of her pink tennis shoes and shook a few small pebbles out onto the dirt.

  Managarm turned his back on her—with the excuse of filling the camp kettle with bottled water—and cursed quietly. This was his witch? So passionate about all things Norse, but too daft to remove a few stones from her shoe? Mighty warriors had marched for days with bloody wounds and even arrowheads and spear shafts embedded in their flesh, but they’d done it with honor and vigor, not with whimpering complaints and cowardly limping.

  Managarm turned back around. “And where is the Berserker?”

  Opal looked up from the firewood pile, which she was trying to stack more neatly. “Who knows? Prowling around in the woods someplace. That kid is seriously disturbed.”

  Managarm scowled at the camp kettle. A Berserker on his own in the woods? He was about to snap at Opal for letting the Berserker out of her sight—what if someone stumbled across him? What if he made his way into the city, to one of the other gods?—but then realized David would make a beeline back to camp as soon as he got hungry again, which would probably be any minute now.

  “All right, then.” Managarm smiled awkwardly and set the kettle on a rack over the flames.

  He settled down onto the ground at Sally’s side and caught Opal eying him from her position by the firewood pile. “You there. Why not set about making up some lunch? Sally needs to rest.”

  Sally glanced at her friend and shrugged. Opal grimaced and rolled her eyes, then disappeared into the tent where she could be heard digging through about a dozen plastic and paper bags while muttering to herself. “. . . Don’t even know why we have to be out here in the middle of the woods . . .”

  “And please keep that cat inside the tent!” Managarm called over his shoulder. He turned his attention back to Sally, enjoying how her body stiffened at his nearness. “For his own comfort and safety, of course. Who knows what might happen to your kitty, if he were to get lost in the woods.”

  “Right, so . . . I want to thank you for this invitation,” she began, staring at
his beat-up work boots. “I am honored that you would seek the assistance of one such as myself, a humble . . . I mean, that you would ask the help of a humble servant of the gods, like me, for assistance in helping . . .” Sally was practically hyperventilating. “It is an honor that you would choose to bestow the honor of assisting you—”

  “Let’s skip the small talk.” Managarm looked her square in the face. “There’s work to be done, little witch.”

  He pulled the rabbit skin across the ground to position the newly crafted runes in front of Sally. “You know what these are?”

  Sally nodded dumbly.

  Managarm picked up a wooden disc marked with a symbol that looked like a pitchfork and placed it in her hands.

  “Algiz,” Sally whispered.

  Managarm grimaced at her bastardized pronunciation of the ancient name, but at least she had identified it correctly. “And you know what it means?”

  Sally nodded again. “The rune of protection, friendship, and sanctuary.” Her voice cracked. “Trust.”

  Managarm scooted closer. “Yes. Trust.” He rested a hand lightly on her shoulder and could feel her shaking. “This is also the rune of faith. It can be used to open a channel for communion with the gods.”

  “Are there others? From your pantheon, I mean? You didn’t tell me if you’re alone in this world.” She grasped Algiz tightly in her hands, as if she feared Managarm would evaporate before her eyes if she let go. “Odin and Frigga and Freya and the others, are they trapped somewhere? In a parallel dimension or some metaphysical void? Do you need me to help you free them? Is that how we bring the Old Ways back?”

  Managarm sat there looking at her for a moment. He was torn between laughing in her face and tearing her head off. “No, it’s not like that,” he replied gruffly.

  Opal stuck her head out of the tent. “How many cans of SpaghettiOs do you think a Berserker can eat in a single sitting?” She frowned at Managarm and Sally, then ducked back into the tent. “Never mind. I’m pretty sure the answer is all of them . . .”

  “The others . . . They’re gone,” Managarm lied. “But there’s still a way to preserve what they created, and what they embodied. Consider David. I know you’re trying to accept that he is a Berserker. Think of him as one of the new warriors in our mission to bring back the Old Ways.”

  Sally opened her hands and looked down at Algiz lying flat in her palm. “But why do you need warriors? Are you planning some kind of battle?”

  Managarm couldn’t suppress the low growl of displeasure, and Sally instinctively shifted away from him.

  “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I am simply unaccustomed to answering questions.” Or to humoring mortals.

  Sally nodded uncomfortably but kept her distance. “My religion honors the Earth and the cycle of seasons, and the sacred circle of life and death and life again. I understand having to embrace the dark as well as the light.” She looked down again at the rune in her grasp and closed both hands around it, an unconscious gesture of prayer to the Old Ones. “History remembers the Vikings as invaders, not farmers or explorers or poets. I’m not stupid. I know there was a lot of fighting and conquering going on, but I don’t think you and your people were blood-hungry demons.”

  Sally fidgeted where she sat and clenched her hands more tightly around the rune before she looked up and met Managarm’s eyes. “The Cosmos is all about balance. There’s a lot that’s wrong in the world right now, and if you think the only way to set that right is through . . .” She lifted her chin and swallowed hard. “I need you to tell me what the Berserkers are for.”

  Brave little witch, Managarm thought, though he was literally sitting on his hands to keep from strangling her. He didn’t know how Odin managed to live in human societies without slaughtering the lot of them out of sheer annoyance.

  “The Berserkers will be our missionaries.” Managarm felt smug at how her eyes lit up with his words. “They will arise from their every day lives, seeking to repair the planet. They will spread the truth of the Old Ways far and wide. They are our foot soldiers in this mission to heal the world. Do you understand?”

  Sally nodded in silence, her mouth hanging open slightly.

  David burst into the clearing, covered in mud and with bits of moss stuck to his clothing. He took a half-second to scan the small campsite, then erupted into a gleeful, laughing jig.

  Opal stuck her head out of the tent again and stacked cans of spaghetti and beef stew and several cooking pots on the ground. She looked at David and shook her head. “Let me guess. You’re hungry?”

  David hopped from one foot to the other and spun in a circle, lifting his knees and kicking his heels. “Hungry! Hungry! Biscuits and gravy! Cheeseburgers! Snow cones!”

  “Look, we don’t have any of that!” Opal shouted hoarsely from the tent. “You’re just going to have to be satisfied with Chef Boyardee, okay?”

  Managarm nodded toward David and sighed, trying to make Sally laugh. “Berserkers, eh?”

  Instead of relaxing, Sally’s shoulders stiffened. She moved like she was about to get up from the fire. “Listen, this all might be really normal to you, but—”

  Managarm grasped her elbow and held her in place. “I created these runes for you, a sacred tool equal to your power.” He hated flattery, but the frazzled teenager seemed to eat it up. She settled back down and started studying the runes laid out in front of her.

  Managarm reached for Algiz in Sally’s hands and placed it on the skin with the others. “There’s one last piece left.”

  Ignoring David, who was now running circles around the tent and leaping with an elated howl every few paces, Managarm slid his hunting knife out of its sheath on his belt. “To consecrate the runes with blood.”

  Sally’s eyes grew wide as she stared at the blade glinting in the firelight. She shook her head forcefully and opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t come out.

  Managarm chuckled. “No, this is not your sacrifice.” He sliced into his open palm, then squeezed his hand into a fist and let a steady rain of blood drip down onto each wooden disc. The air sizzled with every drop. “Just as Odin gave of himself to the Great Tree to learn its secrets, so I offer my own essence to bind these runes to true magick. An old god’s blood to stir the powers of the Cosmos . . .”

  Having touched the last round of wood with his blood, Managarm pressed his wounded palm against his blue jeans. The newly anointed runes glistened red.

  “So now—” Managarm’s voice was cut off by a shadow moving over him. He looked up just as David swooped down and grabbed the hunting knife out of his hand.

  “W-what are you doing?” Managarm stammered, instantly hating the weakness in his own voice. The youth stood over him, weighing the broad knife in his hands. What had gotten into the Berserker? Had he guessed how Managarm intended to use him? Had he somehow been reclaimed into Odin’s service?

  David looked down on Managarm with a wicked grin. Managarm eyed the blade in the boy’s hand and saw the metal still glinting with his own blood. The gash in Managarm’s hand throbbed painfully. Centuries ago, such a wound would have healed almost instantaneously, but these days even splinters and burns could get infected and take days or longer to resolve. Managarm didn’t know if he could survive an attack from an armed Berserker, much less beat him back, but the odds weren’t good.

  “Go!” Managarm snarled, making a show of force. “I told you to go!” Keeping his eyes locked on the Berserker, he started to climb to his feet, but David leaned menacingly over him with that same wild grin frozen on his face. Managarm stumbled back to the ground.

  “I don’t understand!” Sally squeaked. “What’s happening?”

  Managarm glanced about desperately for something that could be used as a weapon. The iron poker still lay in the flames and was glowing bright red, but David stood squarely between Managarm and the fire. Managarm scrambled backwards toward the pile of firewood at the edge of camp. He grabbed a club-si
zed piece of wood and clambered to his feet.

  “Sally!” Opal screamed from the tent, waving wildly as she tried to get her friend’s attention. “Sally! Get over here!”

  Managarm stalked toward the Berserker, waving the heavy stick. “What, are you deaf?” He spoke slowly, looking for hints of fear in the boy’s face, or at least a cowering whimper.

  The Berserker stood his ground. Sally stared up at him, dumbfounded.

  “Sally!” Opal shrieked again, but it was as though Sally couldn’t hear her.

  Finally toe-to-toe with the boy, Managarm breathed heavily in his face and bared his teeth. “Or maybe you’re just stupid.” He raised himself to his full height and stared smugly down at the boy who, despite being a new and particularly vicious brand of warrior, was still just a skinny high school student and a full head shorter than Managarm.

  David didn’t so much as blink an eye.

  “I think I could have myself a bit of fun with you.” It had been years—centuries? Managarm couldn’t remember—since he’d last tortured a human for amusement. Keeping a wary eye on the Berserker, Managarm stepped past him and retrieved the iron from the fire. David turned to face him. Managarm raised his makeshift club in one hand and held up the red-hot iron in the other.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but Sally lurched into the space between them. “Wait!”

  Sally rested a hand on David’s shoulder. “David? David, what’s happened?”

  Tears sprang to the boy’s eyes, and he sank to his knees on the damp ground before her. Still gripping the knife, he lifted his palms in supplication. “You are the Moon Witch.”

  Sally smiled in embarrassment then looked behind her at Managarm. “I don’t know quite how all this works . . .”

  Managarm glanced down at the blood-covered runes, still laid out by the fire. He stepped out from behind Sally. “Did you call her Moon Witch?”

  Still on his knees, David tore open his shirt to expose his bare, bony chest. Sally gasped as he lifted the knife with both hands, the blade pointed toward his heart.

  “Oh, no! David DON’T!” Sally grabbed Managarm’s elbow tightly. “DO SOMETHING!”

  But Managarm remained still. He’d heard the legends of Berserkers who branded themselves, the truly elite among the divine warriors who pushed beyond mortal combat to answer an even deeper call to serve their gods on their sacred quests—as when Freya required protection while she retrieved the heart of Völuspá the dragon from the lair of the serpent Jormungand.

  A slow smile spread across Managarm’s face. Dropping the stick but tightening his grip on the hot iron, he pushed Sally out of the way. “Wait!” he growled at David

  David looked up at him, eyes narrowed in an expression that was a far cry from fealty. A chill ran down Managarm’s spine. Despite his trepidation, Managarm leaned down and whispered to the still-grinning Berserker. “I bind you to my will.” He lunged toward the boy’s skin with the iron—and immediately found himself flat on his back, several yards away, looking up at the sky.

  Managarm sat up, holding a hand to his throbbing head. What the hell happened? He found the iron lying next to him on a bed of pine needles that were beginning to smoke. He grabbed the rod and stamped out the embers with the heel of his hand. The last thing he needed was another immolated campsite.

  Managarm looked into the Berserker’s hard eyes. The boy’s pupils had dilated to the point that Managarm could no longer see the color of his eyes. “Right. Immune to fire,” Managarm muttered weakly.

  David continued to stare at him, and Managarm had the distinct impression that he was being mocked. He watched as the Berserker shifted his gaze to Sally, who hovered over him in trembling shock.

  “I bind myself to the service of the Moon Witch.” David held the blade aloft.

  Sally cried out as David turned the knife on himself. Red blood ran down his pale skin and soaked into his torn shirt and pants. Without flinching, David sliced into his chest and slowly carved a crescent moon that ran the length of his sternum.

  Hands covered in blood, David tossed the knife to the ground at Managarm’s feet, then tilted his face up to the sky. “I serve at the pleasure of the Moon Witch!” Frightened birds beat a hasty departure from surrounding branches as David lifted his arms over his head, closed his eyes, and howled.

  It would have been a poetic moment, Managarm thought, except that it was early afternoon instead of the dead of night, and the moon was far from full. Managarm reached for his knife, wiped the blood off on his jeans, and slipped the blade back into the sheath on his belt. He stood up and nodded at the Berserker. “I’m officially impressed.”

  “David!” Sally grabbed hold of David’s torn shirt and tried to mop up the blood on his chest with the loose fabric. “Why would you do such a thing? We’ve got to get you to a doctor!”

  Managarm grabbed Sally’s wrist and pulled her away from David. “He is a warrior. The Berserker has chosen the symbol of his new tribe.”

  Seeing the devoted warrior on his knees before this half-wit human made Managarm’s blood boil. Witch or no witch, no mortal deserved such honor. True, it was sacrilege that Managarm sought to build a Berserker army of his own, even worse that he’d pit his forces against Odin. Managarm growled low in his throat and spat on the ground. The Berserker might serve at the pleasure of the Moon Witch, but she served at the pleasure of the Moon Dog.

  ~ fourteen ~