Twilight of the Gods

by Scott Oden

  Grimnir chuckled, a cold and humorless sound. He leaned forward, snuffling the air. “Who’s to say we’re not, eh? You? Who are you and why do you trespass on my lands?”

  It was Dísa who piped up. “This is Úlfrún of the Iron Hand, lord,” she said, gesturing to the Norsewoman. “Her companion, yonder, is Brodir. She’s brought her war-band to us in our time of need.”

  “Our what?” Grimnir snapped. “Ymir’s blood! What are you yammering on about? What time of need?”

  “There is an army bound for Hrafnhaugr,” Úlfrún said. “An army of hymn-singers, Crusaders from the Swede-lands across Lake Vänern, led by the cousin of the Swedish king—Konraðr the White, he is called, the Ghost-Wolf of Skara. They’ve crossed the Hveðrungr River by way of the bridge, there. And they were, at most, half a day behind us.” A babble of voices broke across Gautheimr, gasps and cries, oaths of protestation and calls for blood. Úlfrún spoke over them: “Their faith drives them, but so does their greed for land and wealth! And this so-called holy army is bent on your destruction, mighty Hooded One!”

  “Liar!” Sigrún said, stepping in front of the assembled Daughters. “What Norse trickery is this? You might have gulled this poor girl with your lies, but we’re made from sterner stuff than she! Bring your war-band! We’ll send them home with their tails—”

  “My Jarl does not lie,” Brodir cut in. “I’ve seen this army.”

  “So have I, Grandmother!” Dísa snapped. She tore the scalp from her belt and held it up for all to see. “I took this from a man of theirs, and killed another to boot! I have seen their so-called Ghost-Wolf—a Christian Witch-man, is what he is! They mean to slay us all! And they will, if we sit here bickering like children!”

  “Enough!” Grimnir roared.

  Gautheimr fell silent.

  Harness creaked as the Hooded One leaned forward. With a curt gesture, he motioned Berkano away before crooking a finger at Dísa. The girl ascended the dais and knelt before the chair—putting her at eye level with Grimnir.

  “Speak.”

  “What she says is true,” Dísa said quietly. “I swear it. They came around the lake from the south, got provisioned at Eiðar, and made for the Horn. Flóki and the lads must have run afoul of them in Eiðar, for they tried to get ahead of them and halt their advance. Idiots tried to burn the bridge over the Hveðrungr.”

  Grimnir grunted. “It’s a troll-bridge. It won’t burn until the Gjallarhorn blows. None of them thought to send word on ahead?”

  Dísa glanced sidelong to where Hreðel stood. “Flóki wanted to make his war-name.”

  Grimnir’s good eye narrowed. “Your lad didn’t make it, then?”

  Dísa bit back a sob, turned it into a snarl of hate. “None of them did. The hymn-singers captured Flóki and Ulff Viðarrson. I tried to get to them, to free them.” Dísa shook her head, nostrils flaring. “The Witch-man’s magic was too powerful. He knew I was there.”

  “He knew?”

  Dísa nodded. “It looked like he was listening to something only he could hear. He said the wind brought him my secrets; that he could hear my thoughts in the chirp of insects, and my dreams in the crackle of leaves. Every move I made, he was ready.”

  “Was he now?” Grimnir hissed. “You didn’t leave your precious lad to their tender mercies, did you?”

  Dísa shook her head, but then shrugged. “At first, I did. But I ran across Jarl Úlfrún and her crew shadowing the kneelers. She and her lads made a diversion while I got close enough to … to…”

  “Earn your war-name?”

  Dísa’s jaw jutted in defiance. “That I earned when I took this wretch’s scalp!” She shook her fist, the ribbon of hair, flesh, and dried blood still clenched in her hand. “No, they killed Ulff and crucified Flóki. I ended his suffering, is all.”

  Grimnir caught her by the nape of the neck and drew her close, her forehead touching the center of his wolf-mask. “Then you did right by your mate, little bird. In Hel or in Valhöll, you will see him again. Now, tell his bastard father. That dunghill rat deserves to be put out of his misery. Tell them all, Ymir be damned.”

  Dísa drew back. She sighed, cuffed tears from her red-rimmed eyes, and glanced full at Hreðel. “There’s another thing,” she said, returning her gaze to Grimnir. “Úlfrún and her lads? They know of the prophecy.”

  “Do they now?”

  “Aye. She claims she’s the she-Wolf it speaks of, and that hymn-singing bastard is the Wolf, and we’re standing where they fight: in Raven’s Shadow.”

  Grimnir nodded, his face lost in the shadows of his hood—though his gleaming eye burned even brighter as it fixed on iron-handed Úlfrún. “Tell him,” he said, jerking his chin in Hreðel’s direction.

  “Tell me? Tell me what? Is it about my son, my precious Flóki?” The old Jarl started forward, but Brodir’s restraining arm brought him up short. He glanced up into the giant berserkr’s kind face. “My boy is out there.”

  Dísa pushed off the dais, straightened, and turned to face the press of Geats—Hreðel, especially. “Hearken!” she cried over their confused babble. “Hearken! I have a tale to tell…”

  * * *

  THE REVELATION OF AN INVADING army upon their doorstep brought the folk of Hrafnhaugr together. They welcomed Úlfrún’s war-band into their midst, praised them as heroes and drank to their health, even as they mourned the loss of Flóki Hreðelsson, Eirik and Ulff Viðarrson, and Sigræfr the Bastard. Pyres were built around the Raven Stone, and all four were burned in effigy.

  As the pyres smoldered, the sounds of hammer and axe echoed across the village. Forne found very little wrong with the walls of Hrafnhaugr. “Solid, with little rot,” he told Úlfrún. “The outer surfaces of the palisade are mossy, which will make it harder to burn. There’s a postern gate in the second terrace that leads down to docks at the lake’s shore. It’s small, and the path leading down is narrow. The main gate, now … that’s a problem.”

  But it was a problem to which Forne had a ready solution. The frozen hinges had to be worked loose, the rusted iron brackets on the inside replaced, and a heavy beam found to serve as a bar. As the two Bjorns and the giant Brodir attacked the gate’s hinges with mallets and pig grease, Kjartan fired up his forge. Under Forne’s watchful eye, he hammered out the heavy brackets and forged nails from a supply of scrap iron. It was Old Hygge who suggested they make a beam from four weathered ship’s masts, bound together with the iron hoops of broken barrels.

  And while the gate was being seen to, Sigrún and Auða took stock of the armory. They sent buckets of javelins and sheaves of arrows to the towers along the wall, while Geira strung and tested the score of bows they possessed—all made from good yew, with bone nocks and cords of waxed hemp. They checked every ring of mail for rust, every shield they scrutinized for signs of rot or warping; Auða herself sharpened every spear and axe head, checked that they weren’t loose in the socket or on the haft, and eyed the iron straps that protected the wood from the clash of battle.

  As the morning wore on, the Daughters of the Raven distributed arms and armor to every man or woman in the village: a steel-and-leather cap, shield, and spear at the least. Most had their own arms—hauberks passed down from father to son; swords of ancient pattern with their lineages written in blood; axes that bore storied names, such as Ivar’s Bane or the Dane-Hewer. Even those men not counted among Gautheimr’s household troops—the Jarl’s sworn men—turned out when the horns sounded assembly. Hreðel stood among them, sandwiched between Hrútr and Askr. The old Jarl wore no mail; bare-chested, his shoulders draped in a bearskin cloak and a sheathed sword cradled in his arms, he stared with red-rimmed eyes through a mask of ashes and cinder as Grimnir emerged from the longhouse.

  The Hooded One was full of swagger. His mask half-raised, he peeled the flesh from a rib of venison, tossed the bone aside, and accepted a goblet of wine from the ever-attentive Berkano. This, he dashed off with lip-smacking relish before turning his eye on the asse
mbly of Hrafnhaugr’s warriors. He squinted up at the sun, its wan light shrouded by a pall of clouds.

  “Faugh!” he said, his harsh voice like the grating of stones. “You expect me to raise your spirits? Get your dander up and send you off to the walls or to the bridge with a fiery speech about hope and victory? You got another thing coming, then!” Work around them stopped. The Daughters of the Raven, gleaming now in war-garb of steel and iron, joined with the press of men. Women from the lower terrace, shields and spears at the ready, elbowed in closer. Even the children, who’d been given javelins and small shields, bit their trembling lips and fell silent.

  Dísa watched from the eaves of Gautheimr as Grimnir descended the steps. “What are you lot going to do with hope, eh? You can’t eat it. You can’t drink it. Will this hope you crave keep the spear from your gullet or the axe from your precious skull? Ha! Forget hope.” Grimnir snarled and spat. “Hope is for fools. Hope is for them! For those soft-bellied hymn-singers who yap and whine at our door. Let them worry what tomorrow brings. Not you louts. Nár! You are sons and daughters of the Old Ways. Your fates are written; the Norns have spun, measured, and cut the threads of your lives. It doesn’t matter if we die today, or a thousand days from today. We all die! Die in glory, you wretched bastards! Die wrapped in your foeman’s embrace, your blade snuffing out his life as his pierces your heart! Die in blood, screaming at your ancestors to bear witness. Make the Choosers of the Slain weep when they come to haul your soul off to Valhöll!”

  The sworn men stamped their feet, clashed spear and shield, creating a din like the thunder of steel-shod hooves. The others joined in, singly and in pairs, and the Daughters added their voices in ululating shrieks, like the deep and throaty kraa of their namesake, the raven. Even the children—who knew nothing of the Norns and the doom they wove for every mortal—howled like young wolves and brandished their javelins.

  Grimnir strode to where Hreðel stood. “These are your swine, you wretch,” he said. “You don’t deserve them, but they have bled with you, and they will bleed with you again. Take them! To the wall, to the bridge, or to Hel’s black hall, I care not!”

  “For Flóki!” Hreðel roared.

  And from four hundred throats came an answering cry: “For vengeance!”

  * * *

  AS HREÐEL ISSUED COMMANDS AND set his warriors to their posts to await the hymn-singers’ onslaught, Grimnir turned and stalked back up the steps to the doors of Gautheimr. Berkano started to follow, but he waved her off. The woman bit her lip and backed away, stamping her foot in childlike petulance when he made no move to stop Dísa from joining him inside.

  “What now?” Dísa said. Grimnir made no reply, though his irritation was evident from the tightness of his shoulders. He crossed the hall, ascended the dais, and sprawled across the Jarl’s seat.

  “Fetch me a goblet of wine.” He waved her toward the hearth.

  Dísa grunted. Nevertheless, she cast about; her eyes lit on a discarded horn goblet. She grabbed it up, slung the old lees from it, and dipped out a measure of spiced wine from the cauldron.

  “Water won’t be a problem, since our wells draw up from Lake Vänern,” she said, handing the goblet to him. “But we only have perhaps a fortnight’s worth of food in the larders, and that’s if we practice strict rationing.”

  Grimnir raised his mask again, and drank the wine in three swallows. “Let them eat like kings! In a few days, none of this will matter.”

  “How long do we have?” Dísa recalled the dream she’d had her first night on the Horn, the dream of … smoke and ash and the heat of crackling flames; it is familiar, if not comforting. Her mail is in tatters, but her limbs are no longer heavy with exhaustion …

  “Three days, four,” Grimnir said. “We’ll know when the seas boil and the earth splits asunder. That wretched wyrm’s barrow will rise from the belly of Skærvík, and that sly one-eyed bastard will think he’s getting the instrument of his revenge. He’s in for a surprise!”

  “What will Hrafnhaugr get?” Dísa said quietly.

  Grimnir glanced sharply at her. He knew what she was asking: what would become of them? What would happen to their homes, to their lands, once this struggle reached its culmination? “Like I said, little bird … hope is for fools. Let them fight like gods of war by day, and feast like the hallowed dead by night. That is the best I can offer them.”

  “And what about me?”

  “What about you?”

  She turned away, her face to the hearth. “I watched Ulff die choking on his own blood, unable to fight back. I watched Flóki die helpless on a hymn-singers’ cross, his courage be damned.” She drew a long, shuddering breath. “I want your word, Grimnir. Your oath that you won’t let me die screaming in a cloud of that wyrm’s poisoned vapor, or crushed under its foot like I mean nothing. Let me die cleanly, blade in hand, against a foe worthy of the name.” She looked to him. “Promise me a good death.”

  For a moment, Grimnir said nothing. He stared hard at the girl, his good eye ablaze under the shadow of his mask. Then, without pause, he pulled it off so she might see his face. Grimnir rose, descended the dais, and stood before her. Steel rasped as he drew his seax. He extended his off hand; fist clenched, he bared the underside of that arm. Grimnir nodded for her to do the same.

  “I give you my oath, little bird,” he said, gouging a furrow in the base of his hand. Black blood welled, and from it the stench of wet and salty iron. Dísa emulated the gesture, her blood as rich and red as dyer’s madder. She winced as he grasped her hand in his, wrist to wrist so that their blood would mingle. “You will die a kaunr’s death.” He dragged her close, his breath reeking of wine. “But until that day comes, make sure you earn it!”

  * * *

  BERKANO LEFT THE STEPS OF Gautheimr and drifted down to the second terrace, where Geira and the youngest of the Daughters were busy erecting a surgery not far from the village’s central well. She kept back, watching Geira direct their efforts with the efficiency of a seasoned campaigner. She reminded Berkano of her and Laufeya’s mother—hard around the edges, but with kind eyes and a voice that could spin a yarn or sing a lullaby. Berkano suddenly longed to be one of those girls again. She longed to have a purpose. The Daughters of the Raven, she was sure, would not have succumbed to Örm of the Axe. They would not be afraid.

  Two men brought baskets of dried herbs to the growing field hospital, while another pair rolled in a barrel of wine vinegar. Geira motioned a pair of the Daughters over and bid them separate and bunch the herbs. The two girls ambled over, looked at the baskets—with their profusion of dried petals and stems, roots and stalks—before looking at one another. Shrugging, they started in by grabbing handfuls, squeezing them together, and lashing them with twine.

  “No, no,” Berkano sang softly, rising from the well’s kerb. “You’re mixing your mayweed with your vervain.” The girls looked up at her; their hands hovered over dried stems. Berkano nodded, her red hair lashing about her face like a tangled veil. “That one. That’s vervain. Find all the ones that look like that and bundle them together—but not too tightly! It’s best not to bruise the leaves until you’re ready to steep them in wine.”

  Berkano crept closer until she was kneeling on the other side of the baskets from the girls. They were giggling together when Geira’s ears pricked up. She turned from cutting lengths of linen into bandages and caught sight of Berkano directing the girls’ efforts. The older woman smiled. “I’ve been looking for you, dear,” Geira said. Berkano stiffened; she shot to her feet like a thief who’d been caught with her hands in the coffer. Geira’s laugh put her at ease. She took Berkano by the elbow and guided her to the center of the makeshift surgery. “Can I trust you to order and make ready our supply of herbs and medicinals?”

  “You … you want me to do this?”

  Geira smiled. “Are you not herb-wise? Come, this is a task made for you. I am needed elsewhere, but I cannot leave these children without someone to watch over them
. Can you do it?”

  “Can … Can I cut bandages, too?”

  “As many as you like,” Geira replied.

  Berkano’s smile beamed like a shard of sunlight. She took Geira’s apron and her cutting knife, and shooed her away.

  “Come, flowers!” Berkano’s singsong voice embraced the young Daughters of the Raven, most of whom had the look of frightened rabbits about them. “Come! Fetch fire, dear Bryngerðr. We must boil water, for hot water is the source of all that is good in the world! Una, that’s burdock root, not vervain! Come, come!”

  And this is how Laufeya found her, half an hour later: on her knees, surrounded by children, singing an old herb-woman’s song extolling the virtues of the opium poppy on a world-weary soldier as they cut long strips of linen.

  “Berkano,” Laufeya hissed. The younger of the two Otter-Geats was clad in her traveling cloak; she had a bag under one arm, and in the other she carried Berkano’s belongings.

  “Feya!” Berkano said brightly. “Come, join us. We’re about to make poppy poultices.” She hopped to her feet and tried to coax Laufeya to follow her.

  But Laufeya, dour and stern though she was ten years Berkano’s junior, caught her sister by the wrist and dragged her away from the children. Laufeya’s voice was like a serpent’s hiss. “What are you doing? I’ve been looking all over for you!”