The Song of the Ash Tree 03 - Already Comes Darkness

by T L Greylock

  “Lord,” he began, “my sword is yours, and my shield.” It was then that Raef saw that Rufnir’s left arm ended in a stump at the wrist. He stooped to raise his friend, but Rufnir refused. “I know not what strength runs through my veins, but I swear to you, I will see you returned to the Vestrhall.”

  Raef nodded, then pulled Rufnir to his feet. “Your hand.” He spoke quietly as the other warriors, having uncovered the remains of the fire, used their torches to rekindle the charred wood.

  Rufnir shrugged. “I can still strap on a shield.” There was defiance in his voice, as though he feared Raef might strip him of his weapons and cast him from the shield wall. “I can still gut a man.”

  “When did it happen?”

  Rufnir looked down at the stump. “After the burning lake. The wound rot went deep.” His gaze rose to meet Raef’s. “But I was fortunate. The gods let me live and the healer who took my hand knew his work. Asbjork was not so lucky.”

  Raef bowed his head and closed his eyes. “It grieves me to know he is dead, and I am sorry that I have only now learned of it.” The brothers had been inseparable since the day Rufnir could walk fast enough to keep up with Asbjork. Raef could not remember a time when they had been apart. As boys, the three of them had fought and laughed and grown, and together they had fallen in love with the sea, entranced by the ever-stretching ocean and the secrets that lay beyond the sunsets off Vannheim’s shore.

  “He sits at Odin’s table,” Rufnir said, his voice gruff. Then he forced a grin and laughed. “And the troll spawn is surely laughing to see me now, forsaking the arms of a pretty girl in exchange for the cold embrace of winter and this bloody lot,” he said, gesturing to the men who now huddled around the fire, sharing skins of mead and breaking apart a loaf of bread. Then Rufnir grew serious once more. “They followed, but some more eagerly than others. They did not trust that you lived, or that I could find you. But I knew,” he said, thumping his chest, “I knew you would come here.”

  Raef smiled. “Then I am glad I shared the secret of the eagle’s nest with you all those years ago, though it earned me a lashing.”

  “We have some good supplies, but I did not dare bring more men, for fear of catching the eyes of that red bastard who sits in your chair in the Vestrhall. His men patrol the closest hills for any sign of you or those who might seek to fight for you. I watched him drown four men who were caught trying to sneak through the gate in the black of night.” Rufnir’s sorrow turned to glee. “But he could not find me, no, and I slit the throats of two of his men in turn when they strayed too far from their friends.”

  “The village?”

  Rufnir hung his head. “Much was burned. I am sure the dead were many. In this, too, was I fortunate. I had planned to visit Engvorr, the shipwright, but fate delayed my journey from my father’s farm and I arrived the day after the slaughter. The smell, the smoke,” Rufnir shook his head. “I did not approach the gate and took refuge in a hunter’s shelter until word spread of your cousin’s great betrayal.”

  Raef asked the question that was nearest his heart, though he felt his lungs clench and the words nearly caught in his throat. “Tell me, Ruf, did you ever see a woman with a braid of red and gold? Isolf would have relished her death, would have made certain it was known.”

  Rufnir shook his head. “But for the warriors he sent into the hills and the men he took to the fjord to drown, the gates remained shut. I saw no women.”

  It was the answer Raef expected, but it knotted his stomach nonetheless. He forced himself to nod and push away thoughts of Siv, but Rufnir broke in.

  “The hounds,” he said. “The hounds left, too, with seven men at their heels. They slipped through the gate at dawn, so quick and quiet in the grey light, I almost missed them as they passed beneath my perch above the valley. I waited a day before leaving so that they might not catch my scent.”

  Raef nodded. “Greyshield. He is dead and his sons with him.” Rufnir grinned. “I am glad to have you with me, Rufnir, son of Bjarne. We have much more to discuss, but the hour is late.”

  Raef greeted the warriors who had followed Rufnir. Four were poorly armed, farmers convinced by Rufnir to pull their dusty spears out of the thatch and trek into the wilderness in search of their lord. The other five were hardened warriors known to Raef, men he had fought beside in Solheim and Garhold. All were accustomed to hardship, though Raef knew, as he looked from face to face, the task before them would test their wills.

  “Men of Vannheim, brothers of Vannheim,” Raef said, speaking so they all might hear. They faced him, some with bold faces yearning for battle and glory, others with uncertainty and questions in their eyes. “You are first to answer the call, first to fulfill your oaths, and I shall not forget it. Others will come. Others will brandish their bright swords and boast of what they will do to the enemies of Vannheim. But you, you are the first. There is no certain path before our feet. There is no promise of victory that I can give that would not ring hollow in your ears. I see in your eyes the same fear that eats at my heart. But there is one promise I can make to each of you. All of Asgard will know your names, for we are wolves, unyielding and fierce, and we will scratch and claw and savage until the Allfather himself gazes down on us with his terrible eye.”

  It seemed a feeble attempt at binding them to him, a paltry means of bolstering the hearts of those who wavered, but the response was better than Raef could have hoped for. A roar went up from the men, shields were beaten, spears were hammered against the ground, and the eagle’s nest filled with the sounds of bloodthirsty defiance.

  That night, just before the dawn, stars streaked through the sky, more than a man might count. Silent bolts of lightning split the darkness, and Raef watched and knew the god of thunder was at war.

  FIVE

  The crows were thick in the morning sky, a seething cloud of dark wings over the treetops in the valley, greeting brother and sister with harsh voices. Raef watched from the edge of the eagle’s nest, an uneasy feeling in his stomach. The others rose and stretched and grumbled for food, but only Vakre seemed to share Raef’s apprehension, for only Vakre had sat awake in the last hours of darkness and watched the ominous sky with Raef while the others slept. They had spoken only a little, for little needed to be said. Balder, bright son of Odin, beloved of the gods, was dead, and the doom that came for the gods and all the nine realms was at hand. That Thor had battled his eternal foes while the world of men slept, there was little doubt.

  “Ever does the thunder god clash with the giants, Raef,” Vakre had said, his face flashing white as lighting forked overhead. “It may signify nothing.” There was little conviction behind his words.

  “And yet stars fall from the sky before our very eyes. This is no skirmish. Even now the walls of Asgard may be besieged. Fenrir may be at the gates, lusting for a taste of the Allfather. Black Surt may be setting Valhalla ablaze with his flaming sword.”

  “The end is yet to come,” Vakre had said, sure of himself then. When Raef had frowned and questioned this, Vakre sat quietly for a moment before answering. “There are times when I can feel him. Loki.” Another pause. “He is angry.” Vakre closed his eyes. “Betrayed.” Vakre’s eyes snapped open, a hint of fire retreating with his eyelids. He took a deep breath. “If this were the end, I would feel his joy.”

  Raef had accepted this, not questioning the Loki-blood in Vakre’s veins, and the lightning storm had ceased not long after, but as the sun rose and the crows flocked, he knew whatever drew the corpse eaters to the valley was connected to Thor’s anger.

  Leaving a pair of men behind to watch the nest, Raef and his small band of warriors descended into the valley. The stench that rose to meet them was that of foul and rotten flesh, so putrid and choking that, as they drew closer to where the crows blackened the treetops, Raef pulled his cloak up to cover his nose and mouth in an attempt to blot out the smell. He could hear the moans of those who followed him, and more than one man spit up watery remains of the p
ast night’s mead.

  They advanced in tight formation, though Raef did not expect to find a live foe beside the river’s edge, and, after exchanging a look with Vakre, Raef signaled for the men to halt before continuing on with just Vakre at his side. Here the crow song was deafening, the voices mixed with the beating of wings as the birds swirled from tree to tree. Axe in hand, Raef carried on, pressing through the trees.

  The giant’s corpse was a swollen mass of flesh and bone, so savaged it was nearly beyond recognition. The chest was caved in with a mighty blow, the splintered rib bones protruding from pulpy flesh. Half the head was gone, revealing grey brain matter and broken bits of skull all tangled together with strands of bloody, once-blonde hair. A single eye stared upward, rich brown in color. The giant’s legs were broken at the knees, the fingers torn from their sockets, dangling from limp skin.

  “Mjölnir,” Raef said, unable to take his eyes from the ruin that had been the giant’s chest, the foul smell forgotten in the presence of such brutal death. Thor’s hammer had done its work well.

  The giant had been tall, not so tall as the brute Mogthrasir, Raef reckoned, but taller than his fair-faced kin Hrodvelgr, and his weight had toppled more than one tree while several others leaned at dangerous angles, their trunks threatening to snap where the giant’s limbs rested.

  Raef looked up to the sky, but it was Visna, dressed now in borrowed clothes pieced together from among the men who had arrived with Rufnir, moving silently to stand beside him, who spoke the words in his mind.

  “This is wrong,” she said. “A giant slain in Jötunheim should remain in Jötunheim.”

  “This is the fourth,” came a new voice, young and high-pitched. Raef whirled, ready to fight, but the speaker was a boy draped in furs so thick and long that they dragged behind him and tripled the breadth of his shoulders. The boy stared straight ahead at the giant, his eyes bright but his expression blank. He paid Raef and his axe no mind as he walked close to the corpse and knelt beside the broken head. A slender hand reached out of the furs and closed the eyelid. When the eye popped open again and refused to stay shut, a small smile came to the boy’s face.

  “Who are you?” Visna said. The Valkyrie had not been idle, but had moved closer to the boy, and, though she spoke with a pleasant voice, Raef saw deadly intent in her face should the boy prove to be dangerous.

  “Some call me He Who Burned, others say I am Fire-Born, my father gave me the name Barek in the hopes that I would be mighty in battle, but the name I have chosen for myself is Anuleif, for I shall be the ancestor to those who inherit the world.” The boy fixed Raef with a calm gaze, those light blue eyes full of certainty, and Raef knew him for what he was.

  “You are the son of Gudrik of Karahull, the boy lord who would not grant the Hammerling Karahull’s spears and shields,” Raef said. The boy was changed from when Raef had seen him in the smoky hall of Karahull. Then he had sat, nearly naked, in his father’s massive chair, his shaven head glistening with sweat, the raging fires in the pits threatening to start the whole hall ablaze. Raef had thought him mad then and, though the boy had grown hair and layered himself with reindeer pelts, the madness was still there.

  “Yes,” the boy said, content to leave it at that, though Raef had expected him to lash out, for the Karahull warriors had made their own choice and followed the Hammerling to battle against his will. “But I am no longer the lord of Karahull. Let them fight this war as they see fit, let them choose one king or another. That is their right. I let them choose a lord from among the warriors and they are happier for it. And I have no need of a lord’s seat or a lord’s hall. I did not know it when I last saw you, Raef Skallagrim, but my fate moves beyond the circle of Karahull, beyond, even, the circle of this world.”

  “You said this was the fourth,” Vakre broke in, returning all thoughts to the giant’s corpse. The crows remained at bay, though why Raef could not have said.

  “I found the first in the far south of Karahull. The second lay on the border between my father’s lands and Silfravall. The third fell further west, half-submerged in a river. And the third led me here.”

  “Led you?” Vakre’s voice was full of suspicion.

  The boy who called himself Anuleif shrugged, though the thick pelts over his shoulders masked his movement. “I discovered the first by chance. Palest white and hairy that one was, the crudest example of their race.” The boy’s gaze flickered over to the crushed chest. “It smelled even more foul.” Those bright eyes lingered on the ruined form of life before returning to Vakre’s face. “The moment I saw it, I knew there would be more and I knew I had to find them.” The boy looked at Raef. “I think I was meant to find you.”

  “Why?”

  “The gods have not seen fit to tell me.”

  “You came all this way alone?” Raef asked.

  “I am a good walker.”

  Visna stirred and scowled at the boy, her derision plain. “You should walk home, boy. This is not your concern.”

  “A giant’s corpse falls from the sky and you would brush it off as you would a spider?” Anuleif’s voice, though still high and childlike, rang out with new strength. “Balder is dead. Ragnarök is upon us. It is very much my concern.”

  Raef saw the anger flush Visna’s cheeks and he laid a hand on her shoulder. “You know much, Anuleif, son of Gudrik. Tell me, then, how is it that these giants have fallen like rain upon Midgard? Has Thor sent them here?”

  “They fall because the boundaries between the nine realms are weakening. Races that have been kept apart since the dawn age will soon collide. Yggdrasil is old and tired and cannot withstand the war that is coming.” The words were grave and spoken in earnest, but Raef saw a gleam of something in Anuleif’s face that told of awe.

  “Once you told me you must protect your people from the frost giants. Now, you speak as though you look forward to seeing their triumph.”

  “Triumph? The giants will succumb to the same fate that follows us all, that haunts the Allfather. They are the instrument, but not the victor.” Anuleif smiled. “But you speak true. When last we met, Raef Skallagrim, I had much to learn.”

  “You are a boy. You have seen ten winters,” Visna said, her eyes narrowed by mistrust. “What could you know?”

  Anuleif continued to smile and did not allow Visna to provoke him. His strange eyes looked up at Raef, unwavering. “I dreamed of you. And here I am standing before you, summoned by the blood of giants.”

  The other warriors had ventured among the broken trees. Many touched the hammers of Thor that hung from their necks. All stared at the mutilated corpse. Raef saw the fear in them and, though he knew not what to make of the boy from Karahull, of one thing he was certain. That fear would spark like tinder if they heard what the boy had to say.

  “Come.” Raef reached out and put a hand on Anuleif’s shoulder. “Your journey has been long. You must be hungry. Let us go fishing, together. Just you and me.”

  The boy chewed on his lip for a moment. “What of him?” He indicated the giant’s corpse.

  Raef glanced at Vakre, who nodded in understanding, and asked Rufnir to lead the men back to the nest. Only when they were out of sight and Raef had begun to walk with Anuleif to the river, did Vakre, kneeling beside the giant’s ruined head, send a tendril of flame out to latch onto the matted hair. The flame flared and grew and spread, and soon engulfed the giant from head to toe.

  It was only after Raef had reached the river and begun to search the water for silver fish that he realized Vakre had not been wearing his father’s cloak.

  “You had a sister,” Raef said as he watched Anuleif bound from one river-washed rock to the next, nimble and quick. Raef held a spear borrowed from Rufnir in one hand, poised to let fly should a fish dart near enough. “What became of her?”

  Anuleif paused, balancing on a rock that knifed up from the river bottom like a mountain ridge and fixed his gaze on Raef. “She died.” He smiled, then, and leapt to the next stone, th
is one nearly submerged. The boy watched the water rush around his feet and did not say more.

  “Do the warriors of Karahull still follow the Hammerling?”

  “Perhaps. They are no longer my concern.” Anuleif reached down and stuck his fingers in the cold river, letting the water drag against them.

  “You dreamed of me?”

  At this the boy stood and stared hard at Raef, all traces of childishness gone. Then, with slow, deliberate movements, he stripped the reindeer skins from his shoulders, one by one, until he was bare-chested and the skins dangled in the river. His chest was puckered with scars, white and shiny. Not scars from battle, not scars made by a knife or sword or axe. These were a tumbling patchwork that swirled up from his navel and over each shoulder. Anuleif turned, showing Raef his back. The scars were thickest there.

  A gust of wind blew across the river but the boy seemed not to notice.

  “Do you know what it feels like to have flames lick across your back? To watch your skin burn away? To be consumed by fire? My people called me Fire-Born, for I lived when I should have died.”

  Raef lowered the spear, the fish forgotten. “I heard you say once that you would cure the weakness in your skin. That you would never burn again.”

  Anuleif smiled. It was not a happy thing. “I was foolish. I thought to become stronger than a man so that I might not perish as my father did. But I burned, and then I dreamed. Of you and many things. I did not understand them at first. When I gave up my father’s hall, only then did I begin to see. I have not gone near a fire since. Fire is what will claim the world, Raef, and so I must distance myself from it.”

  The warriors gave Anuleif a wide berth in the nest that night, and the boy himself kept well clear of the campfire. He ate only a single fish and did not ask for more, though he eagerly drank from Rufnir’s skin of mead when offered. Raef saw more than one guarded glance cast the boy’s way