The Last Crucible

by J. D. Moyer

  “Hello, Lars. You’ve found me, haven’t you? Trying to make myself useful.”

  “Your grandmother likes to see men working in the village. But there is other work to be done as well. Will you join us tomorrow morning for a boar hunt?”

  “A hunt?” He’d sometimes hunted with his father, but only for small game, never for boar. He’d been too young. And then they’d moved to the Stanford, where hunting didn’t exist and the food they called ‘meat’ was made from plants or grown in vats. “Who’s going?”

  “Myself and some younger men, including your cousin Baldr. And you know Hennik, don’t you? Also a few men from Kaldbrek. We share hunting grounds now – did you know that? Relations with Kaldbrek are much better than when you were a child.”

  “Sure, I’ll join,” he said impulsively. He’d been hoping for an opportunity to get to know Trond’s younger son better.

  “Good – very good! Meet at Hennik’s house, an hour before dawn at the latest.”

  “Very well. Thank you Lars, for inviting me.”

  “Of course! I wish your father was here too. But if all goes well, we’ll gorge ourselves on roasted boar belly tomorrow.”

  And then Lars was gone, as suddenly as he had appeared. For a moment Tem questioned his own decision. What if Maggie came during the hunt? What if he were injured? Lars had lost his own leg during a boar hunt.

  But those were silly concerns; he was thinking too much like a cautious sky dweller. He’d been born in Happdal, hadn’t he?

  So he’d live like a Happdal man, at least for a day.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tem slept little in his aunt’s bed, which was hard and uncomfortable. Though even if he’d had a soft mattress, he would have slept little; his mind raced with thoughts of Saga and Maggie. He loathed himself for his stupidity, for letting Katja trick him so easily, for failing to resist Saga’s advances. If only he’d accepted Maggie’s offer to accompany him to Happdal, then none of this would have happened. He’d made so many poor decisions in such quick succession.

  And he was nervous about the hunt. But it was too late to back out, not if he wanted to preserve any shred of his reputation among the men of Happdal. He hoped it would be over quickly – a few hours of chasing boar and throwing spears. Ideally they would come up empty-handed. He didn’t have the stomach to butcher a fresh carcass, even if it meant the promise of crispy bacon.

  Rising well before dawn, Tem examined Katja’s weapon rack by candlelight. The display lined an entire wall, an array of spears, longknives, bows, and swords. Only the longsword named Biter and a knife were missing. Tem borrowed a short spear with a heavy shaft and a large iron spearhead. At the base of the head were two stubby wings, which would prevent a wounded boar from working its way up the shaft to gore the hunter. Outside, in the light of the moon, he practiced throwing the spear against a stump ten meters away. The weapon was well-balanced and flew straight, and his aim was decent.

  Approaching Hennik’s house, he heard low voices. Inside, Lars was filling his drinking horn with öl. Tem’s cousin Baldr – a boy of maybe fifteen years – sharpened his knife on a stone. Grundar, a wifeless man in his forties who sometimes worked at the dairy with Hennik, scowled at Tem. But Tem didn’t take it personally. Grundar had been scowling as long as Tem had known him; the lines were deeply etched into his face.

  “I see you brought a spear. Do you have a knife as well?” Lars asked.

  “Of course. I brought Squid Cutter.”

  “A Trond-blade, good. A knifeless man is a lifeless man.” Knívleysur maður er lívleysur maður.

  “Where is Hennik?” Tem asked. “Isn’t he joining us?”

  “He’ll meet us with the Kaldbrek men,” said Lars. “He went there yesterday, probably chasing after Saga.”

  “She is too much for him,” Grundar said. “He’ll only get his heart broken. Saga is just playing with him.”

  “She is the more cunning of the two,” Lars admitted.

  “And better looking,” young Baldr added.

  “Don’t let your eyes linger on Saga,” Grundar warned. “She’ll slap you so hard you’ll see stars. Heed my advice, boy.”

  Baldr looked down sheepishly and resumed his knife sharpening. Lars offered Tem a swig from his horn.

  “No thank you. I’ll wait until after the hunt.”

  “Suit yourself. Let’s go then, before the sun rises.”

  Grundar set a fast pace, heading north, and Tem was surprised that Lars could keep up despite his wooden leg. But the old man was incapable of feeling physical pain; their haste gave him no discomfort. Soon they reached the Three Stones and Tem was glad that Hennik was not with them to ask about the hovershuttle.

  Grundar led them partway up the high ridge trail, veering west toward Kaldbrek, and then cut down into the valley, following an overgrown hunting trail. Tem remembered taking a similar path with his mother, on the way to the ‘mule station’, the Orbital Earth Transport Shuttle that would take them to the Stanford. They’d gotten lost on the way, accidentally trespassing into Kaldbrek hunting grounds. Happdal and Kaldbrek had practically been at war at the time, and Jarl Svein had kidnapped them, holding them both prisoner until his father had come to their rescue. It was all far in the past, but Tem felt uneasy as he recalled the experience. Svein had put an arrow through his mother’s leg. Later, Car-En had had a chance to take revenge, but had spared Svein.

  Both Car-En and Tem had undergone various types of psychological therapy on the Stanford to help recover from the traumatic experiences of that year. And the therapy had helped. But tracing the hunting paths by the river, headed toward Kaldbrek, brought back the memories with more vividness than Tem was prepared for.

  “We’ll be at the meeting spot soon,” Grundar said.

  Saga had lost her uncle and father figure that same year. Völund, Kaldbrek’s blackmith, had been Tem’s captor. And his father, Esper, had cut Völund’s throat wide open right in front of young Saga. She’d not had the benefit of years of professional therapy. What healing and reconciliation, if any, had occurred for her over the years?

  “There they are,” Grundar said, pushing aside a beech sapling.

  Hennik, another man, and a woman were seated beneath a sprawling ancient sycamore. The man was about Grundar’s age, black hair streaked with gray. His lean face was weak-chinned, and a faded scar cut across his right cheek. It was Svein Haakonsson, the deposed jarl of Kaldbrek. The woman, to Tem’s dismay, was Saga.

  Tem experienced a rush of anxiety seeing his former kidnapper, the woman he had recently bedded, and the man who was in a relationship with Saga. More than ever, the hunting trip seemed like a terrible idea.

  “What’s he doing here?” Saga asked as they approached. There was none of the tenderness or passion in her demeanor that he remembered so vividly from only two nights ago. She looked at him with cold disdain.

  “I invited the boy!” said Lars enthusiastically. “If he’s half the hunter Esper is, we’ll eat well tonight.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Tem said, “but my father only took me hunting a few times.”

  “Didn’t you go hunting with your mother?” Svein asked with a sly grin. “I seem to remember catching the two of you in our territory. Though that was many years ago.”

  Tem did not meet Svein’s eye. He had an impulse to draw Squid Cutter and plunge it into Svein’s gut. Instead, he said nothing.

  “That’s in the past, Svein,” Grundar said. “We share hunting grounds now, do we not?”

  “Of course.”

  Grundar sounded reasonable, and Tem appreciated his words. But he couldn’t help but wonder if Grundar held old resentments against Svein. It had been Svein who had stabbed Karl Hinriksson to death, after Karl had poisoned Haakon, Svein’s father and jarl of Kaldbrek at the time. Karl and Grundar had been good friends.

  Sv
ein led the hunt, looking for tracks and signs of rooting, though Tem noted that Svein deferred to Saga whenever the jarl made a suggestion. Somehow Saga had tamed Svein, perhaps by keeping him close. Though Tem sensed no change in Svein’s character; he seemed as mean and cunning as ever.

  “Remember,” Grundar advised, “the boar’s vitals are low and forward, unlike a deer. A spear to its flank will do nothing but anger it. You must meet it head-on as it charges you, keeping your spear low. Either that, or a blow directly behind its ear, straight to the brain, if you can manage it.”

  “And how many boar have you killed, Grundar?” Svein asked.

  “Several,” said Grundar, sounding hurt.

  “Only one that I can remember. A young male, weak with swine fever. We dared not eat the diseased meat.”

  “There were others,” Grundar protested. “And I wounded Fyrirgef, didn’t I?”

  “Who is Fyrirgef?” Tem asked.

  “A monster sow, nearly the size of a cow, with long tusks as sharp as knives.”

  “It was her who slashed my leg,” Lars said.

  “That’s impossible, you fool,” said Svein. “You lost your leg more than twenty years ago.”

  “I swear it was her.”

  “Why is she called Fyrirgef?” Tem asked. The word meant sorry in Norse.

  “Because you’re sorry if you see her,” Grundar explained. “She’ll try to kill you, and if you managed to kill her, her old meat would be too tough to eat. Either way you lose.”

  Imagining the giant boar, Tem realized he was physically the smallest person in their hunting part. Saga was a good five centimeters taller than him, and just as strong. Svein was lean but tall and rangy. Grundar and Hennik were both hulking and broad-shouldered, and Baldr, though lesser in size and strength than his father, Trond, or his older brother, Sigurd, was just as tall and rippling with lean muscle. Even old Lars, hunched and hobbling, outsized Tem. He wondered if a territorial swine would try to target the biggest and strongest of the group, or the smallest.

  “Do you no longer hunt with dogs?” Tem asked. He remembered Svein’s hunting companions from when he was a child, terrifying black wolf dogs.

  Svein laughed ruefully. “Returned to the wild, years ago. They left during a lean winter to hunt on their own.”

  “It would have helped if you hadn’t kicked them so much,” Saga said.

  “Ungrateful beasts. Their wild pups still hunt in these woods. Keep your distance, if you see or hear them. They would hunt and eat you like any other prey.”

  “Wolves eat entrails first,” Baldr added. “And sometimes leave the rest – I’ve seen the remains.”

  Svein nodded. “Wolves sometimes hunt for sport.”

  As the dawn light leaked through the canopy, Svein found signs of a nearby family of boar: fresh droppings and trails. Their conversation dropped to whispers. Lars produced a series of boar calls that were shockingly realistic. Tem was no hunting expert but he knew that swine were territorial, that the calls might elicit a charge. He gripped his spear more tightly.

  Tem was bringing up the rear of the group with Baldr and Lars. Perhaps to confront his own fear, he pushed forward, passing Hennik and Grundar. That put him next to Svein and directly behind Saga, who led them, her own spear at the ready. Though he tried to focus on the hunt, being in close proximity with Saga recalled their night in the smithy. So recently her long legs had wrapped around him, pulling him deeper inside of her. And when she’d been on top, her dark hair had tickled his face.

  Svein nudged him and gave him a leering look, and once again Tem felt stupid and ashamed, this time for letting Svein see his thoughts.

  Saga held up her hand. They all stilled. “Listen,” she whispered.

  Tem did not need to strain his ears to hear the high-pitched grunts and whines of piglets. And something much larger crashing through the vegetation.

  Svein leaned in close and whispered in Tem’s ear. His breath was hot and smelled like old cheese. “Does Hennik know that you lust for his woman? Did you lie with her?”

  Tem shoved Svein away, swiveling his head to determine the direction of their quarry.

  “Shall I tell him?” Svein asked in a normal speaking voice. “What do you think he would do?”

  “Tell who?” Hennik asked. “Me? Tell me what?”

  “Ready yourselves,” said Lars, with a quaver in his voice. Baldr looked around wildly. Tem’s own heart was pounding. But Svein just watched Tem, calm and curious, like a cat torturing a mouse.

  A beast emerged from the underground, only five meters away: a giant boar, its shoulder as high as Tem’s chest, its hide ragged with scars. One tusk was long and sharp, the other cracked and jagged. The boar lowered its head, watching them with small, black eyes.

  “It is Fyrirgef!” Lars yelled. “The hell swine has come to finish me!”

  “Shut up, old man,” said Saga. “Set your spear.”

  The great hairy sow grunted and charged, right toward Saga. Tem rushed forward, intending to set his spear side by side with the jarl’s. But he tripped, or someone tripped him, and he collided with Saga, bringing them both down in a tangled heap of limbs.

  “Get off me, you idiot!”

  And then Lars was barreling forward, past them, with his awkward but expedient gait, emitting a guttural cry that sent shivers up Tem’s spine. Lars met Fyrirgef head-on but his aim was off. The point of his spear stuck in the huge sow’s right foreleg. Fyrirgef bellowed in fury and swiped her head, slashing her tusks through the air.

  Tem scrambled to his feet, grabbed Lars by his vest, and pulled with all his strength. But the old man was heavier than Tem expected, as if his bones were made of lead. “Help me!” Tem shouted.

  The wounded sow grabbed Lars’s wooden peg in her mouth and wrenched her head back and forth like a dog breaking a rat’s neck. The leather straps attaching the crude artificial limb snapped, revealing a scarred stump.

  “Was taking my real leg not enough, hell swine?” Lars shouted. “Now you must also have my wooden one?”

  Saga was at his side, pulling Lars up to stand on his remaining foot. Hennik and Grundar rushed forward, yelling and stabbing wildly at Fyrirgef’s face and neck. The enraged boar dropped Lars’s peg leg and bellowed, undeterred.

  Svein, motionless until then, slid into a space by the boar’s side. Moving like water, unhurried and smooth, he slipped his spear into Fyrirgef’s brain with a single downward thrust. The point entered her skull just behind her hairy ear, exactly as Grundar had described. With a final squeal Fyrirgef collapsed, shaking the forest floor, and lay still.

  “You did it!” Baldr shouted.

  “What happened?” asked Lars, whose long, gray hair was obscuring his eyes.

  “Fyrirgef is dead,” Grundar said. “Svein killed her.”

  “With a single blow,” Hennik added.

  “You tripped me!” Tem shouted, stepping toward Svein. “You tripped me, didn’t you?”

  “You stumbled,” Svein said, not meeting his eyes. “It’s understandable. You haven’t hunted for years. You panicked a little when you saw Fyrirgef.”

  “I could have died. We both could have died!” he yelled, gesturing at Saga.

  “Any of us could have died,” Svein replied. “Hunting is dangerous. Have you forgotten what danger is, living in your sky world?”

  “He tripped me. Didn’t any of you see it?”

  Hennik looked down, but Grundar nodded frankly. “Yes, he tripped you with the butt of his spear. I saw it clearly.”

  “If you stumbled on my spear,” said Svein, “it was your own fault for standing too close to me.”

  Though he did not think to do it, Tem had Squid Cutter in his hand a second later. He lunged, and though Svein was quick to step back, Tem’s reflexes had been honed from years of fencing practice on the Stanford. The
point of the blade caught Svein’s tunic, piercing it and the skin beneath. It was a shallow wound, but the sight of blood shocked Tem into self-awareness.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, dropping the weapon. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Did you see that?” Svein cried out, clutching his chest. “The half-breed tried to kill me. He must be punished.” With both hands he yanked the spear out of the boar’s head and brandished it. “Saga – will you punish him, or must I do it myself?”

  “Enough,” muttered Lars. “We are friends here. There’s no need to quarrel.”

  “Quarrel?” Svein yelled, more dramatically than Tem thought was necessary. The blade had merely scratched him. “He tried to stab me. I demand justice.”

  “Justice?” Grundar said. “He merely tickled you with his knife, and he already apologized. Besides, I saw you trip him. I would say you’re even.”

  “He insulted me! I demand justice by hólmganga.”

  “A duel?” Grundar said, scowling even more deeply than usual. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I demand it. Or I will kill him right now.”

  “You will do no such thing,” said Saga, stepping between them. “Drop your spear.”

  Svein stared at Saga, unmoving.

  “Drop it now.”

  Svein threw his spear to the ground, snorted in disgust, and stomped away.

  Saga turned to Tem. “You should not have come today. Look at the trouble you’ve caused me.” She picked up Lars’s wooden leg and handed it back to him. “You are no longer welcome in Kaldbrek, Tem, unless you are willing to face Svein in a duel. I will not insist that you do so if you stay in Happdal. But it is our way, when someone is challenged. If you set foot in Kaldbrek, you must face Svein in hólmganga.”

  “That’s not fair,” Tem said.

  “You drew your knife and tried to stab him. I saw it myself.” Taking Svein’s bloody spear, Saga left to follow him, heading east toward Kaldbrek.