by Matt Larkin
His desires and convictions mattered little, if at all.
Nanna squeezed his hand. “I know you want to help.” Her touch was so very warm. So kind.
Hödr laid his other hand atop hers, holding her hand in both of his. “I’ll do whatever I’m able to do. But your best defense may be distance from the entire situation.”
“Except, we cannot escape Sviarland at present.”
“The winter will abate, sooner or later.”
Nanna nodded and withdrew her hand.
Jarl Eindride gave them each rooms in his hall, though Hödr visited his only briefly, before deciding to walk out in the evening. Braziers around the hall kept the mist at bay, but those who’d tasted the fruit of Yggdrasil didn’t fear mist-madness, and so he wandered alone for a while, into the woodlands beyond the jarl’s compound.
At such times, he wished he could speak to his parents. They had piercing insights that he could not always match on his own, and Father, especially, knew things beyond the ken of anyone else in the world. In the end, though, neither of them would have told him what to do, save perhaps an admonition to follow his own heart. No, they’d have prodded him onward not with advice, but with questions designed to help him uncover his own conflicting desires.
Or maybe not so very conflicting.
Maybe Hödr knew exactly what he wanted, only he feared to go after it. All that time traveling through the Fyrisvellir and beyond, it had made clear one truth. He wanted Nanna. Not only because she was one of the few women who’d ever failed to balk at his scars, but because she had a real kindness in her. A warmth he so desperately yearned to cradle and nurture.
Sometimes, during long walks, he’d wondered what she looked like. His senses could reveal her aura, and the overall shape of her figure. But he’d never know the shape of her face or the nature of her smile. The only sight he’d ever held had come while possessed by a jinn, an experience he’d never seek to repeat. Besides, now even the previously useless orbs of his eyes were missing, burnt away when Father had driven Eldr out of him.
It didn’t really matter, though. If he couldn’t see her face, he could see her energy, and it was pure and good, like so few people in all the world could be.
Her laughter thrilled him. So what would Mother have said about that? Probably that, were he honest with himself, he’d know what to do. Or that naught was worse than living with regret of never having tried.
Maybe that was answer enough.
Nanna and her father were still up when Hödr returned to the jarl’s hall, though most of the household had retired for the evening. The two of them sat in front of the fire pit, sipping water—Eindride must truly have run low on mead—and speaking of the imminent fall of their kingdom to Miklagard.
Already, many of Gardariki followed the Deathless faith. It meant Miklagard might well claim their land without even needing to mount a true invasion.
“Welcome back, Lord,” Gevarus said when Hödr made his way over to them. “Please join us.”
Hödr did sit beside Nanna, wishing again that he could see her face, though he guessed she must be smiling given the flush of extra warmth in her aura. “I came to a decision.”
“Oh?” she asked.
“It is strange for me, because I’ve not … My life has led me down a path of solitude. But I wish to rectify that now, because I found I am taken by you. And if your father will agree, Nanna, I would have you for my wife.”
Gevarus groaned, suddenly shifting.
At the same time, Nanna’s aura became a swirl of confusion, excitement, fear, and frustration.
“If the thought does not please you …” Hödr said.
“It does,” she said.
Gevarus cleared his throat. “I’m afraid my daughter is already promised to someone else. Someone I cannot deny and most certainly cannot break an engagement to.” He continued fidgeting. “Baldr is a prince of Asgard. We cannot offend him.”
Baldr? No. No, he should have said something.
Should have …
Words failed him. All he could do was sit there, shaking his head like a fool.
Because he was a fool. Twice over a fool, to think that he, a disfigured cripple, could claim a princess. To think that he could have aught good and pure, when he had already wrought such darkness among the Aesir.
Hödr lurched to his feet and stumbled back toward the exit.
“Hödr, wait,” Nanna said. But her voice trembled, holding no hint of command.
Did it make it worse, to know she would have accepted, had he asked sooner? Yes. It made it so much worse.
6
Hermod blew sawdust off his fingers and admired his work. The cabin stood deep in the woods of Styria, but close enough to the river anyone occupying it could have easy access to water. He’d intended to model the design after the house his father and uncles had built on Wolf Lake before he was born, but his memories of that place were hazy, lost in the distant past.
Oft, he could not even say what was real and what was a dream. He’d been a child then, and centuries had passed since. The world changed around him. Maybe he’d been naïve, but men had seemed more given to let honor guide them in those days. The innocence of youth, yes, but he’d seen so very much in the intervening years.
The sound of footfalls in the woods had him turning about, hand on Dainsleif’s hilt. But it was Didrik, Bergljot, and the others who emerged from around the trees.
The varulf nodded at the work. “Impressive.”
Hermod shrugged. “I learned woodcraft from my father.”
“Then he taught you well.”
Bergljot’s face trembled as she clasped his hand in both of hers. “I cannot thank you enough for doing this for me.”
Hermod shrugged and withdrew his hand. “The towns aren’t safe for your kind anymore. It’s better if you have a place away from Deathless priests.”
They were especially quick to hunt down völvur. Maybe the Patriarchs considered the witches a threat, or maybe it was the priests themselves, taking offense at völvur because of their roles in the old religions.
Didrik nodded grimly. “What if there was something more we could do to weaken them?”
“What?” Hermod asked.
“They’re building a temple on a hill south of Gradec, a massive one. They say they decorate it with gold plundered from all over Hunaland. The priests raise it on the site of a slaughter of Odinic faithful. It’s an affront to all who follow the Aesir.”
Hermod mopped his brow with the back of his hand. “Destroying a temple isn’t going to solve your problems. You’ll bring retribution down on your heads as the priests seek someone to punish for it.”
“Maybe,” Bergljot said. “Maybe it will. But it will also show them that Styria isn’t theirs yet. That there yet remain free men and women who will not surrender the old ways so easily.”
From what Hermod had seen, Styria most definitely belonged to the Deathless priests. With the way things had gone, maybe all of Hunaland was theirs. If not, it would be within a few more years. “You’ve never seen any sign of Odin himself?”
“Signs are everywhere,” Bergljot said. “You just have to know where to look. The way lightning strikes a tree. The flight of an unkindness of ravens. The falling of the bones.”
Only years of practice allowed Hermod to keep a straight face at that. People wanted meaning in their lives. They were so damn desperate for it they’d invent it if it wasn’t readily apparent. Whether Odin even knew about these people or not, he assuredly didn’t control lightning strikes or flights of birds.
“If you wish a greater sign, perhaps destroying the priests and their temple will prompt the Ás.”
Unlikely. “I’ll help you, then.” Hermod was running out of places to look for Odin, true, but at the very least, eliminating a few Deathless would serve the cause of Asgard.
Well past midnight, Hermod crouched at the base of a hill, Didrik beside him. The Deathless temple stood up there, its
foundations in place, along with support columns and stones that would serve as the lower walls. From the look, it would prove an impressive sight once completed. A beacon to followers of that accursed faith, luring them into its twisted arms.
Beside the temple proper stood a cabin, probably housing the priest overseeing construction. The builders themselves would have returned to Gradec before sunset.
Didrik growled at the sight. “Rumor is, they plan to send an Exarch here, to rule over all Styria from this abomination.”
Hermod nodded absently. No doubt watching the place get built was beneath such a high-ranking Deathless official. For now, they’d have assigned someone else, someone trusted whose career was on the rise but who did not yet hold real authority. Besides—though he had no proof—Hermod suspected most Exarchs were vampires, and thus, wouldn’t have preferred standing in the sun to watch men haul stones or cut timber. Sunlight suppressed their powers, so vampires shunned it whenever possible.
“The priest will have guards, Deathless soldiers,” he said.
“We can’t let anyone escape. Bergljot wants to burn the temple and the cabin both.” The varulf grinned with malice. “We kill them when they try to flee.”
He ought to tell them to call this off. Following this path would enrage the Deathless. They’d begin a hunt for so-called heathens throughout the entire region. Senseless slaughter that would most like end with Bergljot dead, and maybe Didrik and the others, too. But the alternative was what? Tell them to give up and surrender? Accept the spread of the Miklagardian faith?
At the very least, if they died for this, Hermod could see to it they made it to Valhalla. With Odin gone, maintaining that hall fell to Hermod, and he’d not exclude men and women as brave as these. Not assuming he could manage to get a valkyrie or two to watch over them.
“I’m going to close in and scout the area. Wait for half an hour, then send your men in to set the fires.”
Didrik clapped him on the shoulder, then Hermod crept forward until he suspected he was out of sight of the others. Still crouched low, he pushed across the Veil and into the Penumbra. Given how dark the night was, stepping into the realm of shadows didn’t make it feel any gloomier than before. Rather, swirling shadows replaced mist.
As the Otherworld snapped into focus, so too did shades. Ghosts of dozens of slain men and women flitting about the valley. Didrik had said the Deathless had slaughtered the faithful here. So many murdered souls now wandered, trapped in hatred and pain. Their moans and lamentations came to him in waves, whispers carried over chill winds. It might be too much to hope that slaying the Deathless here would avenge these souls and allow them some measure of peace.
At least, he saw no sign of vampires here, though. It should give Didrik and his men the advantage. Still, he needed to be sure, and thus he crept up to the cabin. If the priest inside was a vampire, his presence should have bled through to the Penumbra. At least, it had seemed to work that way on the few occasions Hermod had snuck up on such creatures from across the Veil.
He crept forward toward the cabin, staying low in case there was a Deathless on this side, waiting for him.
A few ghosts flitted about him, crying out about the injustice of their urd. Hermod could do naught for them, so he ignored them. He’d spent enough time traveling in this realm to no longer fear every dead—
A sibilant hiss ushered out behind him. It sent Hermod stumbling to the ground, twisting around and jerking Dainsleif free. The sound had come from a figure wrapped in a tattered black shroud, bearing a sword that seemed made of the shadowy material of the Astral Realm. A wraith!
Hermod jerked Dainsleif up just in time to parry the wraith’s descending attack. He tried to gain his feet, but the wraith lurched at him with a claw-like skeletal hand, forcing him to roll to the side instead. The hate-filled ghost swiped the sword his way once more. The entity might have once been a woman. Perhaps a murdered völva.
Now, it was the antithesis of life. Tendrils of its shroud surged forward like serpents. Despite his attempt to roll away, several strands wrapped around his ankles and jerked him back beneath the wraith. With it directly above him, swinging its sword and attacking with its claws, he caught a glimpse of its face. Or what should have been the face, under the hood. Instead, he saw a well of darkness in the vague shape of a skull, its eyes hollows of fell light.
It hissed at him as Hermod flailed back and forth, parrying and dodging. If that thing got its claws on him it would suck out his soul. In a surge of desperation, Hermod forced himself back across the Veil.
The world shifted, colors and mist both seeping back in. The wraith didn’t vanish, though it did become more etheric looking, translucent almost.
Hermod bit back a yelp of surprise. What the …?
Again that cruel sword descended toward him, and again he jerked Dainsleif up to parry. The resounding clang echoed across the hilltop. Almost immediately, shouts went up inside the cabin.
Godsdamned wraith!
It lunged with its claws again this time, Hermod managed to swipe his runeblade forward. The sword sliced off skeletal fingers which evaporated into dark mist as they left the wraith. The creature roared in pain or rage, the sound seeming apt to shred Hermod’s mind.
Its distraction allowed him to cut his feet free and roll to the side. He struggled to stand, bringing up Dainsleif as he did so. The wraith vanished, appearing to his side an instant later. Unable to get his sword around in time, all he could do was dodge. The ghostly blade bit through his mail and gouged his left arm.
Hermod bit down a scream. The chill of the grave seeped into his shoulder, stealing his breath and making his vision narrow.
A growl sounded, and a wolf came charging up the hill at the same time men came pouring from the cabin.
This had not gone according to plan.
And if he left the wraith here, it might well devour the souls of everyone here, maybe even begin hunting through Gradec. Shit! Hermod pulled himself back across the Veil, hoping the wraith would follow.
It seemed he’d earned the creature’s ire, for it did jump back in front of him.
Its blade had stolen his strength. He couldn’t keep this up much longer.
The ghost flew into a series of wild swings that forced Hermod to give ground. Dimly he noticed the shadows of men fighting on the other side, especially Didrik, who’s form held more substance.
He couldn’t help them right now. Had to focus on the wraith.
Its attacks were wild, driven more by fury than skill or control. That was his edge. If she’d been a völva in life, maybe she had never really mastered swordplay. After all, who would raise a weapon against a völva?
Swaying in not-quite feigned weakness, he lured the wraith in. It lunged forward with more wide swings. Hermod caught one on Dainsleif’s blade, then rolled the parry into a thrust. The runeblade nicked the wraith, only seeming to feed its rage.
All anger.
He could use that. He parried and dodged more overly aggressive attacks, waiting. His own strength was ebbing as his blood pumped out, but he had to wait. Wait for it to overreach. Hermod evaded a high blow and swiped Dainsleif up, severing the wraith’s sword arm at the elbow.
The creature released a mind-shredding wail. Hermod faltered for a moment, the pain in his head almost crippling. With gritted teeth, he swung back the other way, shearing through the ghost’s head. The blade met almost no resistance, as if it had truly struck naught but shroud.
The wraith wavered, its form becoming ripples of shadow.
Roaring, Hermod hefted his runeblade in both hands then swung it straight down, cleaving the ghost from top to bottom. The wraith broke apart like bubbling muck, seeming to get reabsorbed into the shadowy ether.
A wave of dizziness sent Hermod stumbling back to his knees. So cold. So hard to focus. He had to clear his mind to shift …
He fell forward, the sensation like crashing through tar, and landed face-first in snow.
Snow. Snow meant … the Mortal Realm.
But everything had grown so dark.
Bergljot clucked her tongue as she prodded at Hermod’s arm. “What in the gates of Hel did this?”
Hermod groaned. She wasn’t too far off the mark, though he didn’t think Hel actually created wraiths. Odin had posited most had been practitioners of the Art who gave up too much of their souls.
Didrik had lost two men because of Hermod’s fight with the wraith, but the varulf hadn’t questioned him. Not really. As if he knew what had attacked Hermod. Maybe he did. Maybe the wolf spirit inside him gave him enough of an idea to understand it.
Either way, they’d helped him retreat into the woodlands, laid him beneath an oak tree, and built a tiny fire, daring no more lest the Deathless loyalists in Gradec come looking for them.
The völva screwed up her face as she squeezed the wound.
Hermod had to grit his teeth from the pain. Pus oozed from it, and his skin had turned sallow already. Black streaks spread from the site. He didn’t think the apple would let him die from such an injury, but it hurt like Hel had spit on him.
“I have to carve out the rotting flesh,” she said. “I …”
“That won’t kill me.” Though he imagined he’d rather be really, really drunk for such an experience.
Maybe Didrik thought the same, because he pulled out a skin of ale plundered from the priest’s cabin and handed it over.
Hermod drank it all.
Then the varulf gave him a stick. “Bite.”
Gates of Hel!
Hermod did. Bergljot began to saw away at the skin around his upper arm. Hermod moaned, a scream building in his throat. Didrik’s rough hands grabbed his jaw and forced it to stay closed around the stick.
Hermod wanted to retch, unable to look away from the macabre sight as the völva cut away large chunks of his flesh.