by Matt Larkin
Fuck.
Sucking down a breath, Hermod dove from the island and back into the river, as deep as he could. Whatever those things were—like the damned riding forth from the gates of Hel, it seemed—he didn’t want them to catch sight of him. If they already had …
Panicking, he swam as deep as he could. Maybe the waters were black enough to conceal him from those hunters. If not, he had no idea what he’d do against flying horsemen.
He swam until he could take no more, then surfaced just long enough to catch his breath. That billowing storm was now directly overhead, and coursing onward, back along the course of the river. It seemed they hadn’t seen him. Still, no point pressing his luck. He dove under once more, again swimming underwater as far as he could with a single breath, then surfacing.
By then, the cloud had passed well beyond him and was soaring onward. If it was following the river, did the hunters intend to enter the Roil? That sounded like a nightmare for whoever dwelt back there.
Feeling only half conscious, he swam toward the riverbank. His fingers brushed over coarse sand, and he heaved himself up and onto the bank, panting, almost ready to faint. With a groan, he managed to pull himself farther away from the waters, then roll over.
Around another bend of the river, he caught an outline of a mighty wall. A city perhaps, but in the starlight he could make out little detail.
His destination? Perhaps, if he could but catch his breath.
17
Ingfred’s gasps, sputters, and incoherent ramblings punctuated every step they took. Hödr sympathized, but they had only just passed beyond the edge of the twisted woods, and they couldn’t afford to delay. He’d been pushing them for days.
The kobolds had tried to ambush them once more, but when Hödr shot one before they revealed themselves, it must have scared them off. He still didn’t like his chances if more than a handful came at them at once. The slimy bastards were fouler than just about aught else Hödr had ever encountered. It was a blessing they hadn’t spread much farther into Midgard.
Ingfred coughed and then groaned. He’d begun to stink of rot yesterday, but Hödr hadn’t wanted to tell the others. The man would be lucky to keep his leg.
“He’s burning up,” Gudbrand said.
Hödr glanced back at the man. His aura had turned all wrong, distorted and fading. “The fevers have him.”
“He needs rest,” Kasmira said. “We all need rest.”
Hödr knew it, but he had to get these people as far from that wood as possible. “A little further.”
They made it another half of an hour, perhaps, before Ingfred’s sudden convulsions sent Gudbrand toppling to the ground beside him.
The wounded mercenary thrashed.
Hödr was at his side in a moment.
Ingfred thrashed his neck violently from one side to the next. He was spewing forth nonsense that sounded … almost like the kobold croaking. The man screamed, raising his hands to his mouth. One of his teeth popped out and fell from his gums with a spray of blood.
“What in the gates of Hel?” Gudbrand said.
A horrible fear seized Hödr’s gut and he grabbed Gudbrand and yanked him up and away from Ingfred.
Another tooth popped out of the man’s mouth. And another. Then they all fell free in a bloody explosion Hödr was glad he couldn’t clearly see. Kasmira screamed. Ingfred arched his head back. Hödr caught the outline of fangs wedging their way out of his gums, to his obvious agony.
“One of them is inside him!” he jerked his blade free.
As he closed in, Ingfred’s eyes exploded in a shower of gore that gushed out over Hödr. His gut churned. Screaming himself—everyone was screaming—he swung his sword at Ingfred’s neck. The blade wedged into the man’s spine, failing to cleanly decapitate him.
Ingfred reached a hand toward Hödr. The tips of his fingers ruptured and claws began to jut free.
With his boot, Hödr braced against the man and yanked his sword free. Bellowing in terror, Hödr swung once more.
This time, his blade sheared through bone and cut the man’s head from his shoulders.
Kasmira was on her knees, weeping. “Odin save us …”
Gudbrand retched.
Hödr stumbled backward and plopped down on his arse.
“What do you mean …” Brynjar mumbled. “How did …”
“Vaettir …” Hödr’s voice was breaking. “They need bodies in this realm. Whatever festering wound it had dealt him, it must have … must have given the spirit a way into him.”
Kasmira moaned again.
Gudbrand wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You saying those arse-thumping abominations used to be men?”
Hödr pointed his sword at Ingfred. “What does he look like?”
“Like larger eyes were trying to grow out from behind his old ones, same as the teeth did. Like he’s halfway toward being a kobold. Big one.”
“Godsdamned, arse-juggling, Otherworldly trollshit!” Gudbrand said. “Think I need to retch again and I’ve got less than naught in my gut. After that display, I’d be lucky not to retch up my spleen.”
Frigg had forbidden Aesir to come to Kvenland, especially Pohjola. Had she known what sort of monstrosities lurked here?
With a sigh, Hödr pushed himself to his feet. “We move on. Another hour at least, before we can sleep.”
Gudbrand scoffed. “What? You think I can sleep after that? I don’t plan to be sleeping again for a decade, give or take. Even then, I don’t suppose I’ll be closing my eyes.”
Having spent so long under the thrall of a vaettr, Hödr could almost forget other people had no idea what to expect from the Otherworlds.
“Then we move on for as long as our bodies can take. Let’s go.”
As it turned out, the mercenaries had but a few more hours in them before exhaustion forced them to make camp.
“No amount of silver is worth this,” Brynjar complained.
Hödr winced. He’d known he’d need help, but he’d never imagined he’d be brining people into such horror. Their deaths fell on him. Their suffering, their terror. His burden.
While the others fell into sleep almost immediately, Hödr found himself listening to the thunder overhead. This land was accursed, he had no doubt. The witch-queens trafficked with the Otherworlds, perhaps no longer even caring what they let loose on Midgard.
Hödr’s long torment under Eldr had left him more familiar with the hateful beings beyond the Veil, though even he had not imagined something like these kobolds could exist. But jinn, those he knew too well. They pushed at the fringes of reality, ever threatening to burst forth and devour the souls of men.
Most days, he tried to forget.
It was long ago, and time dulled even the most painful of experiences. Dulled, yes, but never quite expunged.
Hödr should not have come to Pohjola.
The voices of men alerted him to the presence of a war band long before the others, and Hödr called for a halt. The storm clouds lessened here, so perhaps they drew nigh to the boundary of Kalevala. Hödr’s mercenaries now seemed beaten down into despondency, resigned to a dark urd, perhaps, and even the thought of escape out of Pohjola had not yet buoyed their morale.
“People?” Kasmira asked, as if she couldn’t half believe it possible. “Mortal men?”
“Yes,” Hödr said. Not that no vaettr could imitate human speech, but she needed to hear something more hopeful than that. Besides, he doubted kobolds could mimic the sound of a large group of men.
The Kvenlanders fell almost silent as they approached, their voices becoming whispers they probably imagined no other men might overhear. Despite speaking Northern, their accents were strange to Hödr’s ears, and it took a bit of effort to unravel their words. They’d seen the torches carried by Kasmira and Gudbrand, and were closing in, wary of attack.
“They flank us,” Hödr said softly.
Brynjar drew back his bow, twisting around to one side. Hödr mirrored him, watching
their opposite flank.
He could hear them, closing in, slow and very at home in the light woodlands of this region. To another man, they might have seemed specters in the mist.
But Hödr caught their every motion in the snow, could’ve even shot them before they drew nigh. Still, whoever this was had at least twenty men, and Hödr and his three warriors could never overcome such odds.
Was this Rutto?
If so, he was better off shooting now and taking down as many as possible before they could see him. On the other hand, if they had stumbled across men out of Kalevala, they’d throw their lives away for naught.
With a resigned sigh, he lowered his bow. “Let them approach.”
“What?” Brynjar said.
“There’s too many.”
The mercenary grumbled, but followed Hödr’s lead.
Gudbrand spit. “Just glad if we’ve found men of flesh and blood.”
Moments later, the war band began to drift into view. Many had bows drawn back, aimed at Hödr’s party. Others had blades or axes in hand, oft with shields, though sometimes with crackling torches.
“Get caught out alone, eh?” a man said. “You a scouting party?”
“After a fashion,” Hödr answered. “Who are you?”
The man snorted. “Given I’ve got men with arrows aimed at you, I’ll do the asking here. You’re out of Pohjola, so don’t bother denying who you’re working for. I just can’t fathom why you’re all alone here. How many more are out there, huh?”
“You think the witch-queens sent us?”
Several of the man’s group spit in warding.
The speaker—their leader?—took a menacing step forward. “Don’t you try these games. I’ve no mood for it. You’re clearly sworn to that walking pestilence, Rutto. I might still be inclined to take you prisoner instead of having you flayed and strung between the trees. But only if you’ve got some use to me.”
Hödr sighed. A skald would have loved the irony—that they might die to the enemies of the man they’d come here to kill. Sadly, Ingfred would never get to tell his son about it. “We’re not Kvenlanders, if you can’t tell by our clothes and speech. We’ve come from Lappmarken in Sviarland.”
“What? Down south through Pohjola?” Now the man chortled. “Got your stones made straight from dverg steel, did you? Or maybe you think that’s what I’ve got between my ears?”
Kasmira snickered. “Did he just suggest his stones are between his ears?”
“Silence,” Hödr whispered to her, before focusing on the man. “I’ve come to kill Rutto.”
“Oh, and I’m like to believe that, am I now? You and your three friends are going to kill the warlord son of Loviatar, are you? What with you being as blind as tale said Rutto’s mother was, no less. Give me a reason not to have my men loose their arrows.”
“I can kill him,” Hödr said, struggling to keep his voice level.
“Can you now, blind man?”
“You’ve heard of the Aesir?”
“Sure. Gods what them in Sviarland and elsewhere are always carrying on about. Now you’re claiming the Aesir are going to protect you, that it?” The man snorted. “Maybe I ought to keep you around, just so you can amuse my kin with your jests, blind man.”
Hödr took a step forward, ignoring the arrows pointed at him. A little boldness sometimes went a long way. Besides, Hödr was done living his life by the rules of Queen Frigg. “I’m one of them.”
“Wait, what now?” Gudbrand said. “You telling me I’ve been trekking through the fucking gates of Hel with a godsdamn … er … I mean … er. Well, trollshit! I mean … aw, Hel.”
Kasmira and Brynjar exchanged glances, then both of them sank to their knees.
“My lord,” Kasmira said. “I should have known.”
Hödr focused on the Kvenlander leader. “It’s the truth.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for it, is that it, then?”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? Hödr slowly laid his bow on the ground, then unslung his sword. “Test my strength, then. Send one of your men to wrestle me.”
The man spit. “Don’t need to. I can do that well enough by myself.”
Hödr spread his hands wide and breathed deeply, letting pneuma flood into his limbs.
His opponent tossed aside his sword and shield and strode forward, flexing his shoulders as he walked. The man definitely had brawn, Hödr would give him that. And swagger.
His foe lunged forward and Hödr batted his arm aside. A few onlookers chuckled, perhaps shocked he could see the attack coming in. Again the man lunged in to grab Hödr’s leg, and again, he slapped the hand away.
Growling, the Kvenlander charged forward, intent to tackle Hödr to his abdomen. Hödr caught his shoulders and hefted him off the ground, spun him round, and flung him five feet down into the snow.
Shouts immediately went up among the Kvenlanders, and bows were drawn back once more, now all pointed at him.
The leader groaned, but regained his feet, if slightly swaying in the process. “How’d you do that?”
“I’m stronger than a mortal.” An oversimplification, of course. While he had pneuma to call upon, he could prove monstrously strong, yes. But the power didn’t last forever. “Does that suffice to prove I am who I claim to be?”
The other man cracked his neck from side to side. “Not yet, it doesn’t.” He charged forward again, light-footed in the snow, this time going for both of Hödr’s legs.
It would have been easier to hit the man in the chest, but that might’ve killed him. Instead, Hödr allowed the Kvenlander to heft him off balance and fell to his back. The other man tumbled down atop him, grunting in his attempt to pin him.
Hödr pressed his feet against the man’s gut and heaved. The effort sent the Kvenlander flying through the air once more, only to crash down in a snowdrift.
Hödr rolled to his feet while his opponent was still moaning, and struggling to dig his way clear of the snows, batting away help from his men.
“I don’t want to injure a potential ally,” Hödr said. “We want the same thing—to see Rutto dead. He has something I need and I plan to take it from his corpse. Let us help one another.”
The Kvenlander rubbed his gut and shook his head. “Right. Maybe you are an Ás. Me, I’m King Gelderus of Alavus.” The king strode back over to Hödr, looking him up and down, before shaking his head. “I suppose we have some things to talk on, then?”
The only talk Hödr was interested in was about how to kill Rutto.
18
In the darkness of Svartalfheim, Freyja’s own skin glowed like a bonfire, obviating any need for a torch but also making it almost impossible to conceal her presence as she plodded over coarse fields. Thus, she rested her palm on the hilt of the sword belted at her waist. Only the proudest of fools would think herself capable of overcoming a svartalf war band, and yet, she would scarcely be willing to go down without a fight.
In the years since she’d come to Alfheim, no peace had ever taken hold between the liosalfar and the svartalfar, and neither side had probably ever truly sought one. No one in the court truly revealed the source of the conflict, if anyone even remembered. Perhaps it dated back to some distant blood feud. Certainly, the history of the alfar bloodlines far predated the current iteration of the Earth.
Another strange truth she’d learned since Odin had banished the Vanir—that many cycles of destruction and rebirth had played out over the Mortal Realm. Still, a great many truths remained hidden from her, perhaps deliberately obfuscated, or perhaps even the liosalfar did not know. She could not say how many times the cycle had played out, nor how it began. All she had uncovered did somewhat align with Vanr history, reaffirming that a breach to Niflheim had allowed Hel access to the Earth and brought the mists.
And for more than five thousand years, mankind had suffered because of it.
Beyond that, one other thing seemed agreed upon, whispered in the upper echelons of the c
ourt: that this era was drawing to a close. A cataclysm approached.
At the edge of the field lay a putrid bog, reeking of sulfur and noxious gasses that seeped up in bubbles in the muck before popping and releasing into the air. Freyja glanced over her shoulder. Should she turn back and seek another way forward?
In truth, she had no idea where to find Odin. Rather, she knew of craftsmen, the sons of Nainn, who had wrought something that allowed them to track anyone they wished. Those craftsmen were said to live as hermits in a tower beyond this bog, in the Shattered Hollow.
Which meant, most like, this route was the only one that would lead to the brothers.
Never mind that the ground here looked like pus-filled sores continuously rupturing on all sides.
She focused on a rocky island rising up out of the muck, several dozen feet ahead. And then she Sun Strode to it, appearing instantly at her destination. Such a use of her stored sunlight dimmed the glow of her skin, ever so slightly. Using it up would allow her to pass with stealth, but it would leave her defenseless against any svartalfar she happened across. A painful trade.
But it wasn’t like she could fly across the swamp, either.
In those first years, when she’d begun to change, when her body began to absorb the light, it had taken special effort to harness it, to clear her mind from distraction and fear and make a Stride. With enough practice, though, such things became second nature. As easy as breathing. She Strode to another island, then another, in rapid succession.
Each Stride used only a tiny fraction of her sunlight, but still, there’d be no replenishing it here. Once her power was drained, it’d be gone until she could return to Alfheim.
This island proved to be more of a peninsula, barely wider than the breadth of her shoulders, but twisting its way through the bog like a slithering serpent. Careful of her footing, Freyja continued onward, until she came to a place where the land dropped away into a crater. The bog bubbled over and flowed down into a ditch, a thick, noxious waterfall, across which lay a rocky lip around the crater.