by Scott Oden
“Don’t harm her,” Dísa said, quietly.
Grimnir chuckled. “I let you have Auða, that fool, Bjorn, and those two idiots. This one is mine.”
Úlfrún put a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It is all right, I promise.” To Grimnir, she said: “Stop me if this sounds familiar, you whoreson dog! A thief and a liar, born from some Norse slattern’s thighs, partners with a woman whose reputation is one of witchery. Together, they hatch a scheme to gull the folk of a village by claiming the spineless thief is … what? ‘The Tangled God’s immortal herald’? The pair of them fleece the good villagers, and raid the surrounding steadings until they amass … well, this.”
As she spoke, Grimnir’s good eye blazed like the coals in a hearth.
Úlfrún continued: “The woman dies, or is throttled by her confederate and he recruits a new partner—one who has lived all her life under the so-called compact forged by the thieves. Such a partner would be easy to mold.” Úlfrún looked at Dísa with a mixture of pity and scorn. “You can’t even see it, can you? This charlatan is playing the lot of you for fools! And what a charade it is! He claims his divine blood protects you from enemies you never see, while collecting payment from you—and, by the look of things, making a fair bit of coin from preying on your neighbors, as well. You’ve been gulled, child. He will try to kill me now. But I know something he does not. I—”
Steel flashed. Dísa heard the dull thud of impact, the wet crack of bone; blood splashed the piles of coin. Faster than Dísa’s eye could follow, Grimnir had snatched up an axe and hurled it across the fire pit. It struck Úlfrún in the chest, splitting her sternum and cleaving the heart beneath. Her good hand clutched at the haft, pulled it free from the wreckage of her chest; eyes as hard as the grinding ice stared at Grimnir as she let the axe fall. Úlfrún swayed, fell.
“Gods below!” Dísa muttered. “What have you done?”
“You heard her! The rat predicted it,” Grimnir snarled. “It must have been fate. She—”
At Dísa’s feet, Úlfrún stirred. The girl gave a bleat of terror and danced away, eyes wide with fear. Úlfrún groaned. Impossibly, her limbs moved; she pushed herself to her knees, rocked back on her haunches, and smiled at Grimnir through the blood spotting her face. “I told you,” she said, her voice thick. She fingered the rent in her tunic, still wet with blood. “I cannot die, you stupid man. But I can kill you!”
“What deviltry?” Dísa drew her seax, while Grimnir merely leaned back in his seat.
“A fine trick,” he said. “But let me let you in on a little secret of my own…” Quick as a snake, Grimnir shot forward. He cleared the pit, snatched Úlfrún up by the throat, and slammed her against the longhouse wall hard enough to split open the back of her skull. “Everything you’ve said is wrong!”
Úlfrún glimpsed Grimnir’s face for the first time—sharp and saturnine, his cheekbones heavy and his brow rough-hewn, with a jagged scar crossing the bridge of his nose, through his missing left eye, and into his hairline. It was the face of something far from human.
“S-Skrælingr!” she managed around his vise-like fingers.
“Yes!” Grimnir hissed. And with a savage twist, he snapped her neck.
He let her body slide down, a smear of blood following her to the floor, then turned and resumed his place on his chair. Dísa edged over to stand near, her seax trembling in her fist. She was pale and sweating despite the night’s chill.
“What … what is she? A draugr?” The thought of those undead barrow-dwellers made Dísa’s skin crawl.
“Someone’s laid a geas on her. Reckon she can’t die till she’s seen some task through,” he said. “Watch.”
And as they looked on, broken bones grated and knit back together; Úlfrún spasmed, gasped, and sat up. She winced at the pain lancing through her head and neck, but did not try to rise. “Perhaps I was wrong,” she said after a moment.
Grimnir sniffed in disdain. “Who put this thing on you, this geas, and how long have you borne it?”
“One hundred and eighty-seven years,” she said, raising her iron hand. “I was nine years old when the Grey Wanderer put it upon me, saving my family from raiders and taking my hand in exchange.” The iron fist fell, striking the floor with a dull thump. “I have died twenty-seven—no, twenty-nine times since that night. All because I did not wish to die once.” She coughed. “Have you anything to drink?”
Dísa sheathed her seax and fetched her and Grimnir both a horn cup of wine. Grimnir sipped his, but Úlfrún took the proffered cup with a murmur of thanks and drained half its contents.
“And what does that one-eyed wretch ask of you, eh?”
“I am the she-Wolf,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sworn enemy to the Wolf of Christ, that bastard out there, Konraðr the White.”
“Can you not just walk through his lines and kill him, then?” Dísa asked.
“Not that simple,” Úlfrún replied.
Grimnir chuckled. “It never is where that one-eyed starver of ravens is concerned.”
“In a matter of days, a barrow will rise from Vänern’s embrace. From it, from the skull of a dragon, I must fetch forth the sword of my ancient kinsman, Sigfroðr the Volsung. Sárklungr, the sword is called, and with it he slew the beast, Frænir. Only when I have that in my hands can I strike a last blow against the Nailed God’s champion, and usher in the ending of the Christians’ world.” Úlfrún finished her wine, leaned back, and closed her eyes. “Only then can I die.”
Dísa glanced from her to Grimnir. The girl started to say something, but Grimnir pursed his lips and gave a small shake of his head, as if to say: let her labor under her false beliefs, no doubt put into her head by the Grey Wanderer. Instead, he said: “I’ll make a wager with you, wolf-mother.” She opened one eye. “I will bet you the coin you see that your precious Konraðr is after the same thing—though he doubtless calls it the sword of some wretched saint or other.”
Úlfrún scowled. “But that would mean…”
“Aye,” Grimnir said, causing Úlfrún to belt out a stream of salty curses.
Dísa looked from one to the other. “What would it mean?”
“Think, little bird,” Grimnir said. “Say there’s something you’re after, and you want to guarantee it winds up in your hands. Do you trust the dice those weavers of fate, the Norns, hand you, or do you sneak around and weight the knucklebones in your favor? Nár! The Grey Wanderer wants this sword, so he’s playing sleighty and false—fire up the hymn-singers by telling them there’s a pile of saintly bones and a sword out in the godless wilderness. Meanwhile, you gird the heathens’ loins by telling them the same damn story, but with a twist: a storied kinsman’s bones and a sword that’s needed to slay these wretched kneelers.”
“So, no matter who wins, he’ll have his sword,” Dísa said. Grimnir tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. “Is this the source of the Witch-man’s sorcery, then?”
Grimnir shrugged. “You say he hears voices?”
“I sent Forne into Eiðar to gather news,” Úlfrún said. “The rumor is, Konraðr the White is haunted by the deeds he’d done away in the East. His priest is all that keeps him from cracking like an egg, they say.”
“Haunted, eh?” Grimnir lapsed into silence, his eye darting as he sought to recall every scrap of lore he’d learned from Gífr, about how to command spirits and how to banish them.
Dísa stirred. “So, what now?”
“It’s nigh to cock’s-crow,” Grimnir said. He drained his wine and shied his cup into the fire pit. An explosion of sparks billowed toward the ceiling, forming constellations of ash and ember. He stood. “Time we’re getting back. Hymn-singers will be trying to cross the ravine soon. Throw up a bridge or something.”
Úlfrún clambered to her feet. She stretched, rolled kinks from her shoulders, and stared wistfully at the blood-crusted tear in her tunic. “Looked like they were dismantling a few outbuildings and cutting tim
ber. A gallery, perhaps. Maybe ladders?”
“Ha! They’ll try a drawbridge, first. Mark my words.”
Dísa went out first, then Úlfrún. Grimnir lingered a moment. He looked around, from the ancient ceiling beams to the hammerscale and sawdust covering the floor; from the drifts of coin and weapons to Halla’s sleeping niche with its pillows and furs. “Nár, you gobby old hag,” he muttered. “I’ll make sure he pays.”
And without a backward glance, Grimnir went out the door and into the rising light.
20
Auða and Herroðr met them at the dock.
The sun had barely cleared the cloud-wreathed eastern horizon, but by that diffuse light Dísa could see a flurry of activity in Hrafnhaugr. And from the enemy camp could be heard the blare of horns and the thunder of drums. Thick smoke rose from the direction of the nearest steadings; Dísa was sure, then, that the Crusaders had finally fired the timber and stone structures.
“Bastards are burning out the farms,” she snarled.
Grimnir, who had donned his bone mask and headdress once more, tilted his head back and inhaled a lungful of smoke-laden air. “They’re boiling pitch.”
“What for?”
“To burn us out, little bird.”
In the bow, Úlfrún tossed a mooring rope to Auða as the boat’s hull scraped the dock. “What goes?”
But it was Herroðr who answered. “Forne sent me to find you. The Crusaders, they’re massing beyond the ravine. We can see one of them standing in the open bearing a white flag. He wants to talk.” Herroðr nodded to Grimnir. “And he’s asking for you. By name.”
“Is he now?”
“That’s not all,” Auða said. “They’ve spent the night building … machines. Accursed beasts of wood and iron, doubtless some of the Nailed God’s sorcery at work. I’ve never seen the like of it.”
Grimnir leaped onto the dock. The boards creaked ominously under his weight. He turned back and motioned to Dísa’s small hoard. “Give me those two axes, a spear, and that wretched shield.” He tucked one axe into his belt at the small of his back; the other he held in his shield hand. Once daubed white, the face of the shield had borne an Urnes-style serpent depicted in deep black, coiling around the boss. But age had turned white to gray, black to charcoal; the old iron boss now bled rust, so the whole now looked like an eerie eye, wounded and weeping blood. Grimnir took up the spear in his blade hand. “Show me this wretched hymn-singer who’d rather talk than fight!”
Word of Grimnir’s coming sped on ahead of the little cortege. Cheers erupted, growing to full-throated roars of approbation. Dísa took note of the relief etched on many of the faces they passed. She glanced at Auða. “Did something happen last night?”
“Those idiots, Hrútr and Askr,” she replied. She quickly sketched out the tale of the last few hours. When the three of them could not be found, Hrútr and Askr started spreading rumors: they’ve abandoned Hrafnhaugr, Hrútr said to the wife of Ragni the Fat, known for her loose tongue; they’ve gone out to broker a deal with the chief of the hymn-singers, Askr whispered under the eaves of Kjartan’s smithy. When pressed, the cousins resorted to the boldest lie of all: the Hooded One has succumbed to the Nailed God’s power. When the rumors reached Auða, still warm and magnanimous from her tumble with Herroðr, she went after the cousins like a vengeful spirit. “The úlfhéðnar and berserkir came with me, for they were eager to erase the stain on their Jarl’s honor. Well, needless to say, that silenced those spineless gossip-mongers.”
“Where are they now?”
“In the line,” Auða replied, loud enough to be heard over the din. “Bjorn Svarti wanted them where he could see them.”
“Good man, that Bjorn Svarti. Isn’t he, my lord?” Dísa hollered to Grimnir. She could tell by the way his hackles rose and by the cock of his head that he’d heard the entire exchange. Úlfrún, too. Her eyes raking the crowd were like chips of ice hewn from the heart of a glacier.
Grimnir and his lot passed through the lowest terrace and out the gate. The bearskin-clad berserkir in reserve cheered them on with Brodir’s deep-throated shout echoing even over the drumlike thudding of axes against shields. Near where the bridge over the Scar had stood, Bjorn Svarti had the sworn men drawn up in their serried ranks. They formed the center; on their right flank stood the common levy of Hrafnhaugr, led by Sigrún and the Daughters of the Raven, while on Svarti’s left stood Forne and his wolf-cloaked úlfhéðnar. Úlfrún split off and joined her men.
Grimnir cut through the center like a knife, emerging alongside Bjorn Svarti. The man across the ravine was a herald; his staff was a spear to which he’d tied a scrap from a white surcoat. He raised it aloft. “Come forth, Grimnir son of Bálegyr! Come forth!”
Grimnir hawked and spat. “Your archers ready, Svarti?”
Bjorn nodded. “Say the word, my lord,” he replied. “We’ll send that one off to Hel’s front gate.”
Across the way, the herald raised his staff again. “Come forth, Grimnir son of—”
“I know my name, you dunghill rat!” Grimnir roared, stepping away from the line of his men. He stalked to the edge of the ravine, where he could better see divisions of the enemy moving through the trees. “What do you want?”
The herald, too, walked closer. He cleared his throat. “My Lord Konraðr would deign to speak with you. He—”
“Your precious Lord Konraðr can lick my hairy arse!” Laughter erupted from around him. “The time for talk is over! Now is the time for spears to shatter and shields to break! It is the axe time! The sword time! Go back to your little lordling and tell him to get on with it!”
The herald retreated. Grimnir stood still. He watched the disposition of the enemy troops and saw Norsemen, Swedes, and Danes working in unison. Once sworn enemies, they put old grievances aside and united under a cast-off rag embroidered with a black cross.
Crusaders, they called themselves. Bah! Grimnir saw the same thieves and killers he’d faced in the past, men who used to be honest about their skullduggery. Now they hid their deeds behind the Nailed God’s skirts, confused the savage joy of battle with piety, and played the martyr when the Fates came to collect their due.
Resplendent in silver and black mail, his white surcoat sewn with a Teutonic cross, Konraðr stepped out from the trees. He walked to the place the herald had quit, leather gloves clutched in one long-fingered hand. His other rested on the pommel of a longsword.
“Ha!” Grimnir barked. “Look yonder, lads! Here’s the founder of our feast now. The great lord of Skara, himself! Faugh! Scurry back to your shit-hole of a town, you wretch, ere I cross this ditch and take that pig-sticker away from you!”
“Grimnir son of Bálegyr,” Konraðr said. “What a rough beast you are. You go by many names, I am told. Corpse-maker and Life-quencher, the Bringer of Night. Some claim you are the Son of the Wolf and Brother of the Serpent. The Irish called your kind fomoraig, did they not? They cursed your sire, Bálegyr, and the wolf ships that brought him to their fair isle. What did the English name you? Orcnéas? But to the Danes and the Norse your kind were always skrælingar. Accursed sons of Cain, you are … or were. For you are the last of your kind, are you not? Behold, men of Hrafnhaugr! Your Jarl, your Hooded One, is the last in a long line of monsters! Why do you hide your face, Grimnir son of Bálegyr? Are you ashamed of it?”
At Konraðr’s revelation, Grimnir merely laughed. He reached up, stripped off his horned headdress and his wolf-bone mask, and turned to face the wall of allies behind him. There came no gasps from the throats of men; whatever they thought, they kept their emotions in check. Grinning, he swung back to face Konraðr. “You forgot, you ignorant little whiteskin, that I am also the Tangled God’s immortal herald—what should I be but kaunar, wrought in the dark of Niðavellir from the afterbirth of great Angrboða? Did your precious spirits leave that bit out? Aye, you wretch. I know of the curse you bear, of the souls of your dead victims who haunt you.”
“They tell me…�
� Konraðr cocked his head to the side. “They tell me there are malcontents among you—men who might look with favorable eyes on an offer of clemency. Yes, men of Hrafnhaugr! I make you this offer: hand over the skrælingr! Trade him to me, and in return I will leave you with your lives!”
“Liar!” Grimnir snarled. “You didn’t come here for me, or for them!” Grimnir jabbed a thumb at the Geats behind him. “You didn’t even come for your precious Nailed God! Nár! You came for a sword! Do those bastards know? Do they know we’re going to sink a hand-span of steel into their writhing guts just so you can flash some saint’s bauble under your cousin the king’s nose?”
That Grimnir knew his purpose took Konraðr by surprise. “You know of the blessed Saint Teodor?”
“That’s the wretch’s name, eh?” Grimnir chk-chk’d his teeth. “A merry dance you’ve brought your lads on, if you think a saint’s been loitering about these parts. Svarti!” He half-turned to face the giant Geat. “You ever see a saint’s sword?”
“Aye, lord!” Bjorn Svarti grabbed his crotch and thrust his hips at the enemy. “Every morning! And every night I show it to the wenches!”
The Raven-Geats erupted in laughter.
“Enough!” Konraðr roared. “My offer stands! Bring me the beast’s head and we will spare Hrafnhaugr! Think of your wives! Your children! You would die—and condemn your families to death, or worse—for this creature? He’s not one of you!”
The laughter faded away. Geats up and down the line looked from the albino lord of Skara to the dark and glowering visage of the Hooded One. Grimnir turned to face them, his arms thrown wide. “Aye! Which of you dogs will take that milk-colored swine up on his offer, eh? Will it be you, Bjorn Svarti?”
Svarti shook his head.
“What about you, little bird? Will you take my head to that bastard?” Grimnir fixed his gaze on Dísa; the girl returned his stare.
“I’d rather fetch the bastard’s head for you!”