Twilight of the Gods

by Scott Oden

  She crouched in the shadowy cover afforded by a gnarled birch grove and studied the pavilion. Near it was another, this one festooned with symbols of the Nailed God. She saw a single guard standing rigid before the curtained doorway of the larger pavilion, cloaked and muffled against the weather. Dísa frowned. The man kept glancing toward the cross-decorated tent; she saw him shake his head. He staggered as a particularly violent gust of wind threatened to topple him—in that same howling blast, Dísa saw the doorway to the Nailed God’s tent ripple; in that split second, she caught sight of a knot of men standing inside with blades drawn. Her gaze flickered over two kneeling captives, both bound and gagged—Ulff Viðarrson was one, and the other was Flóki. The men seemed to be waiting, listening. A bearded and tonsured priest in a black cassock peered out before quickly securing the doorway.

  And Dísa, crouching in darkness, felt the unseen jaws of a trap closing about her. She wanted to scream. They know I’m here, but how? She was careful not to leave a glaring back-trail; she caused no ruckus, raised no alarm. She could not fathom how they’d discovered her presence inside their camp, but the evidence was damnable—they knew someone was out here, and they knew who they came for.

  This was foolish, she chided herself. Better to return to Hrafnhaugr and fetch Grimnir, perhaps raise the Jarl’s sworn men and attack this rabble on the road, ere they reached the village. She stared hard at the Nailed God’s tent. “Kiss their crosses, you daft bastard,” she whispered. “If it keeps you alive one more day, sing their hymns and keep the Tangled God in your heart.”

  Slowly, Dísa made to disengage and retrace her steps from the camp.

  Suddenly, a voice rang out over the keening wind. “Day-strider,” it said. “Dagaz-bearer! Raven daughter, come out!”

  From around the corner of the Nailed God’s tent came a figure with skin the color of milk, his pale hair unbound; a white mantle floated on the wind. The silver in his mail caught and reflected jags of firelight. With a start, Dísa recognized him—the crucified man from her nightmares.

  “Come out, Dísa Dagrúnsdottir!” he bellowed. A chill danced down her spine. Flóki or Ulff must have talked; otherwise, how could he know her name? Damn them! “Come out and perhaps your precious Flóki will live another day! Bring out the captives,” the man said. “Bring them out. She knows they’re here, and that we’re using them as bait for a trap. She’s a smart one, our intruder.”

  The priest held the door to the Nailed God’s tent open while four of the men sheathed their weapons and wrestled Ulff and Flóki out into the open. Ulff, who was closer to Dísa’s age, sobbed, begging for mercy through his gag. Flóki, however, remained defiant. He snarled at his captors, cursing through the knotted cloth between his jaws.

  “You’ve come all this way from…” The pale man paused, as though listening to something only he could hear. “Hrafnhaugr, in the land of the Raven-Geats. I am bound for your village. Perhaps you could show me the way?”

  Around them, the camp stirred. Men stepped from their tents to watch this odd display. Was their lord drunk? Had heathen spirits possessed him? But the harshly whispered truth quickly squelched such rumors; word spread from tent to tent: there was a Geat hiding among them.

  The pale man hissed the growing throng of men to silence; he listened for some reply, some indicator his words had struck home. But Dísa bit her tongue; she swallowed every retort that came to her lips. He heard nothing but the rattle of the wind through naked branches. The priest stirred. “My lord Konraðr—”

  “Oh no, good Father Nikulas,” the man called Konraðr said. “Temper your doubts. She’s out there in the darkness, near enough to hear my voice. Aren’t you, little bird? You do well not to curse at me. You know to give voice to your anger would only betray you. Who taught you this? Was it your mother, Dagrún … Spear-breaker? No, it could not have been her, could it? She has long since shuffled off to whatever Hell you heathens are bound for.”

  Dísa snarled to herself. What all had Ulff or Flóki told these bastards? Did they spill the soup on every man, woman, and child inside Hrafnhaugr’s walls? Ymir’s blood! What did they not tell them? Even Grimnir’s pet name … “No! Impossible!” she hissed under her breath, eyes growing wide. Tendrils of fear wormed through her guts. That milk-colored wretch! He had called her “little bird”—she’d heard it plain as can be—but that was a name neither Flóki nor Ulff could have known. So, how did he know it?

  Konraðr smiled. “I know more than you could ever imagine, little bird. The wind brings me your secrets; I hear your thoughts in the chirp of insects, your dreams in the crackle of leaves. I know what it is you fear, Dísa Dagrúnsdottir.”

  Men were actively searching around their tents, looking for the figure their albino lord spoke to—and wondering if they followed a God-cursed madman. “Sorcerer!” she muttered. Limbs trembling, Dísa sank deeper into the well of shadows and plotted her withdrawal, back the way she’d come.

  “What did you call me? Seiðr-man?” Konraðr considered the insult, and then shrugged it off. “I have been called worse. No! Do not run!” He snapped his fingers, gesturing for his men to bring Ulff to him. “You killed a man of mine, did you not? Poor Haakon? His ghost is here.” Konraðr looked surprised. “Minus his scalp, you pitiless little beast!” Men muttered and swore.

  “Where’s his body, lord?” one said.

  “She left him … in a ravine … with this one’s brother.” Ulff glanced up, eyes wide as a small glimmer of hope kindled deep inside. Konraðr crushed it like an ember. “Both dead, alas. Fear not, young Ulff.” The pale lord drew his belt knife. “Fear not. She can save you with a word. Do you hear me, little bird? Speak up and Ulff Viðarrson lives!”

  Flóki threw himself against his bonds, cursing and spitting through his gag. He struggled to rise, got a leg under him, but the men holding him forced him back to his knees.

  Out in the darkness, Dísa clenched her fist around the shaft of her short spear until her knuckles cracked; the nails of her off hand bit into her palms. She relished the sharp jags of pain. She wanted to lash out, to kill that freakish maggot with his pale skin and reddish eyes. She longed to slash his wretched belly open and throttle him with his own entrails. But she kept still. She kept quiet. She heard Grimnir’s voice echo in the back of her skull: Make a sound and die!

  Dísa said nothing.

  After a moment of silence, Konraðr tsked. “So be it.”

  He seized a handful of Ulff Viðarrson’s hair, wrenched his head back; as the youth kicked and screamed around his gag, eyes glassy with terror, Konraðr sawed his knife through the tough muscle and cartilage of the young Geat’s throat.

  Blood spurted. Ulff writhed and snorted, froth spewing as he fought to take a breath through the wreckage of his windpipe. Steaming gore sheeted down his neck, down his chest. Konraðr held him by the hair as his struggles ebbed. Finally, as the blood slowed to a trickle, Konraðr slung him to the ground to finish dying.

  “That was the blood-price for the man of mine you killed!” Konraðr roared. “Consider that account settled. Now, what will you do to save good Flóki, eh? Or will you let him die like you did poor Ulff?” He walked over to where his warriors kept Flóki on his knees, bent low to the ground. Hreðel’s son glared up at Konraðr with murder in his eyes. “Will you trade your life for his?”

  Tears of rage sprang unbidden to Dísa’s eyes. With a soundless scream, she punched the ground with her balled fist. Thud followed thud, too low to hear; she punched until her knuckles bled and her bones threatened to crack. She loved that daft bastard. She did! She’d loved him since she was old enough to know what that sensation was that he caused in the pit of her stomach. But Dísa would not bear his children. Such was not the fate of the Hooded One’s priestess. She would leave nothing of herself behind save for the fame of her name, and that fame had to be built on something. On Glory. And, in that moment of silver-bright truth, she realized to her utter shame that she loved Glory—and t
he promise of her name wreathed in splendor for an eternity—more than she loved anything else. Or anyone else.

  She would not die for Flóki Hreðelsson, but she would kill …

  Dísa’s nostrils flared. Her lips peeled back over her teeth in a murderous snarl. She drew upon the rage seething just under the surface. Rage as red as blood, as hot as fresh-spilled gore. She called upon the spirits of the earth …

  And though weakened by the hated symbols of the Nailed God, and by the natural barrier of the Hveðrungr River, they nevertheless heard her silent plea.

  As Dísa looked on, Konraðr flinched when the fading power of the spirits struck him; this White Witch-man who meant to lead his army into the land of the Raven-Geats looked around as though he’d lost sight of something that only a moment before had appeared with great clarity. He looked confused.

  Dísa chose that instant to spring. Muscular legs drove her forward a handful of steps; with a savage grunt, she hurled the spear in her right fist. Nor did she wait to see if it struck its target. Like a quick moving shadow under a windswept moon, she vanished into a night made darker by cloaking spirits.

  A half a heartbeat later, Konraðr’s clarity returned. “’Ware!” he cried, spinning around and pushing a stunned Father Nikulas aside. The razor-edge of Dísa’s spear sliced through the flaring hem of the priest’s cassock; it tore through the outer thigh of one of his mail-clad guards. The man grunted as he threw himself out of the way.

  The spear thudded on impact, quivering, its blade buried deep … in the ground, inches from Flóki. Were it a slender javelin and not a thrusting spear, on a windless night the son of Hreðel would have joined his ancestors, slain by the merciful hand of the girl he loved. But the Norns were ever full of surprises.

  He looked at the juddering spear and bellowed like a wounded animal.

  Konraðr sprang up. “Sound the alarm!” he screamed. “Rouse the sentries! Do not let her escape, do you hear me? I want Dísa Dagrúnsdottir alive!”

  Flóki’s bellow turned to derisive laughter. He laughed as Konraðr took a step toward him and backhanded him across the mouth. Flóki laughed through the blood and the spittle soaking his gag. He laughed even as the pale lord of Skara pronounced his fate.

  “Let him taste the punishment meant for Barabbas!”

  “My lord?” the guard replied, puzzled.

  Konraðr spat; his eyes gleamed with a red haze of cruelty as he glanced at the man. “Crucify him!”

  * * *

  DÍSA FLED INTO THE NIGHT and Flóki’s screams followed her. The sound of his agony dogged her as she slipped from thicket to thicket; it was the screams of a wounded animal punctuated by the dull thud of hammers. What was it the man she’d killed in the ravine said? Kiss the Cross or hang from it? She knew Flóki would not submit, not after the maggot killed Ulff. Dísa swiped at her eyes, brushing away the tears. They were tears of shame; her face burned with it. She had failed Flóki; she’d broken her oath to fetch him back, repudiated him, and left him whole and hale in their enemies’ clutches. And she let Ulff die.

  Recrimination’s blade stabbed deep. Sigrún would not have let this happen. Oh, no. Sigrún, her mother, even Auða would have devised some wily stratagem to fetch them all home. Grimnir would have fetched them home after killing every last man in that damned war-camp. Even Halla would have spirited them to safety. But not me! No, she thought, I blundered into this like a fool and where’d that get us? The lads dead, or as good as, and me running back to find a set of skirts to hide behind! She tasted gall.

  So distracted was she by these thoughts that Dísa didn’t realize how near she was to the sentry cordon. Indeed, she thought she’d passed it, stretched her pace into the loping stride of a hunting wolf, and was blindsided when a figure rose up before her.

  The sentry yelped as she collided with him. They both went down, knees and elbows flashing. The sentry—a young Norseman with a short golden beard—scrabbled for his sword hilt; Dísa punched him and rolled to her feet. “Ymir take you!” she snarled, her seax flashing from its sheath. Her first blow skittered across his mail-clad shoulder. “Faugh!”

  Dísa stepped back as he surged to his feet; she braced herself to fend off his blows. But the sentry stopped in mid-stride, sword rising to a high guard. His eyes grew wide; behind her, Dísa heard the slaughterhouse sounds of steel cleaving flesh—but she dared not look. She could not risk taking her eyes off the foeman in front of her to survey the carnage behind.

  The young Norseman backpedaled; he dropped his blade, then turned and hared off toward camp. He bellowed an alarm. Dísa saw her opportunity. She snatched her Frankish axe from her belt, drew back, and hurled it with all her might. The heavy blade tumbled twice before striking edge-on at the base of the Norseman’s neck. The blow split the collar of his mail shirt as the head of the axe buried itself in the hard bones of his cervical spine.

  The sentry dropped.

  Quick as a snake, Dísa twisted and resumed her fighting crouch, seax at the ready. The second sentry was a handful of yards behind her, but he was on his knees, his horn forgotten and his arms slack at his sides. She saw a gory crevasse of splintered bone and bits of brain where his face should have been, caused by the blade of a bearded axe that had split his head nearly to the chin.

  And looming over him, with one hand on the haft of the axe—the other was a fist forged of black iron—stood a scar-faced woman with braided hair the color of wood-ash, clad in leather and mail. She nodded at the man Dísa had slain.

  “Fetch your axe and follow me,” she growled, “unless you want these dogs of the White Christ to find you first.”

  Dísa nodded; she backed away from the woman, who was easily as tall as Bjorn Hvítr, sheathed her seax, and wrenched her axe from the neck of the Norseman. He moaned weakly, clawing at the earth. Dísa struck him again, for good measure.

  She turned as the woman kicked the corpse of the second sentry off her bearded axe. “I know you,” Dísa said. The woman was familiar, but she could not place where she’d seen her.

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “I am Úlfrún of the Iron Hand, child. Many know me, and some even live to tell the tale.”

  Úlfrún. Her dream, the cart of severed heads. One, she knew, was a woman called Úlfrún—and that woman had been as a mother to her. Dísa shook off her discomfiture. “I am Dísa Dagrúnsdottir.”

  “I know. Come.”

  And like shadows, the two women faded into the night.

  * * *

  ÚLFRÚN LED HER WEST, INTO the forested hills overlooking the Horn. She had the impression they did not run alone; twice, from the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of wolf fur. She wondered, albeit a bit late, what kind of woman she’d fallen in with. By the end of an hour, as the night grew old, they reached a camp nestled beneath an overhanging bluff, hidden from view by hurdles of thorn and yew branches woven with hides; beyond, fires warmed the air, though very little light escaped into the night.

  “Coming in,” Úlfrún announced, ushering Dísa in before her. Men rose from where they’d been crouched, crag-faced giants in bear-skin cloaks, heavy spears and axes at the ready; among them were smaller men, lean and feral, clad in wolf skins, the flesh around their eyes daubed black. They bared yellowed teeth in snarls of greeting.

  The lot of them stared at Dísa as though Úlfrún had brought them a rabbit for their sport.

  Úlfrún brushed past her and went to the far end of the camp, where a score of men were entering from a different direction—men clad in wolf fur and sporting crossbows with rune-carved stocks and iron-headed quarrels fletched with hawk feathers. They spoke in low voices to Úlfrún, some glancing in Dísa’s direction. She made to move closer, so she might hear what they said, but one of the bear-men stepped into her path. He looked down at her, his eyes a gentle brown.

  “What are you supposed to be, little sister?” he rumbled.

  “I am a Raven-Geat,” she said. Dísa tried to worm her way past him, but he
stopped her with an outstretched arm.

  “She will speak with you when she’s ready. Brodir, I am called. Sit, drink with me, and tell me of your people. Are they all as small as you?” the bear-man said. He motioned to another, who passed him a horn cup of warmed wine. This he offered to Dísa, who accepted it with a nod.

  “Most are much larger,” she said. It was warm here, and the exhaustion of the past few days finally caught up to her. She sighed as she sat on a sawn log, near one of the fires. “Our land starts beyond the river and goes on for a day. We hunt, we till our fields, and sometimes we trade with the folk of Eiðar, or with the boat-merchants of the Swedes. We keep to ourselves. We have nothing valuable enough to draw an army. So I can’t understand what the White Witch-man wants. Who is he and why does he threaten my people?”

  Brodir spoke slowly, brows knitting: “A hateful bastard, that one. Konraðr the White, he is—made a name for himself off in Miklagarðr, a few years back. He’s the lord of Skara, across the water, and cousin to the young king of the Swedes. As for what he wants…” The giant man leaned forward and tugged a leather cord from inside his shirt. On it was an amulet of silver—Mjölnir, Thor’s enchanted hammer. Gently, he touched it to the raven tattoo decorating Dísa’s cheek. “He wants to see an end to the Old Ways. He has called a crusade against our kind, little sister. We sons of the Bear and of the Wolf, we will answer his call!” Soft growling and hooting answered his boast.

  Dísa looked from man to man, her gaze finally coming to rest on Brodir. “You are all berserkir?”

  Brodir shrugged. “Some are; some are úlfhéðnar, the wolf-folk. And some are simply good men who’ve sworn to end the scourge of the White Christ.”

  “It will end soon enough,” Dísa replied, staring into her wine.