The Song of the Ash Tree 03 - Already Comes Darkness

by T L Greylock

  The relief Raef felt when the sky grew light behind them was profound. So strong was the light, so sharp, it seemed to him a show of defiance that lifted his spirits.

  “If this it to be our last sky, at least it is clear,” Raef said to Siv, hoping she might hear him through the veil of the fever.

  The day grew warm, softening the top of the snow they rode through. Snow fell from tree branches in wet clumps and sweat beaded on Raef’s spine under his warm layers.

  “A breath of spring,” Vakre said. They stopped to let the horses drink from a narrow stream. With one arm still wrapped around Siv, Raef rummaged in his pack until he found the last strips of dried meat. He handed Vakre two pieces, kept two for himself, and returned the rest. “It will grow cold before the end.”

  “Do you think the Einherjar are gathering on the field of Folkvangr? Or do they squabble still over mead and old quarrels?”

  Vakre managed a small smile as he urged his horse onward. “I think they will fight among themselves until Fenrir comes for the Allfather.”

  “I wonder if my father and his brother will stand side by side.”

  Vakre had no answer.

  “And Cilla. I wonder what Cilla will do.”

  “Her duty. She is of Asgard now,” Vakre said.

  “Yes.” Raef was quiet for a moment, his mind skittering here and there. There was so much to consider, so much that might be said. And so little time. “I kept Ulthor Ten-blade alive for you.”

  Vakre frowned. “For me?”

  “You had more right to send him to Valhalla than I did.”

  Vakre’s eyes narrowed and Raef saw the feral look he had come to know so well, the look he had first seen on Vakre’s face. “You should have killed him.”

  “Raef.” Siv’s murmuring voice was so quiet that Raef was not sure she had spoken until her eyes opened, green and golden in the newly risen sun. Raef kissed her forehead. The fever still burned hot.

  “How do you feel?”

  Siv did not answer, but the look in her eyes was answer enough.

  “Sleep.” Raef kissed her again. “Sleep and get well. Do not leave me here alone.” Siv closed her eyes but Raef could see that sleep did not claim her.

  She grew worse even as the day grew bright and Raef shed his cloak to savor the light. Her rest was fitful, punctured by spasms of pain, but when Raef asked her if she wanted to stop, she refused. He did not tell her of Hati’s victory over the moon.

  But when the twilight came and the moon did not appear in the sky, her gaze, though clouded with pain and fever, roamed the stars above Raef’s head and he could see understanding come to her.

  “I am not blind, you know,” Siv managed. The grin Raef might have expected did not appear. He smiled for them both, even as his chest constricted and her hand found his on the reins and held tight. “How far?”

  “Too far.”

  Two days moving northwest through the hinterlands of Vannheim, desolate and deserted. Two nights of darkness that chilled Raef more than the cold and two sunrises that brought him a measure of strength. When the sun was high on the second day, they passed two farms sharing one valley, abandoned, the sheep left to huddle in the barn, a cow desperate to be milked. The animals would not survive much longer. It was not starvation that would take them, for there was fodder enough in the barn. But wolf tracks rimmed the open fields and Raef knew the pack would come again, bolder this time, and sure of an easy meal.

  They took what food they could find. Fresh cheese. Dried apples. A sack of nuts. Grain for the horses. Vakre discovered dried flowers preserved with care, including one that might chase away Siv’s fever. Raef released the cow from distress and searched for evidence of what had driven the families away from their homes, finding nothing.

  A third farm passed late on the second day seemed just as empty but when Raef pushed open the door, he startled a young woman, upsetting the cream she was churning to butter. She jumped away from Raef as it spread on the packed dirt floor, her back pressed against the wall, her eyes darting around the small house in search of escape. An old dog in the corner struggled to get to its feet, its movements slow and limited. It made a brave attempt at ferocity, though there was no fight in its eyes.

  Raef held up his hands and came no further. “Forgive me. I do not come to hurt you. I thought there was no one home.”

  The young woman swallowed. The dog watched Raef. “Then you came to steal.”

  “No.” Raef took a small step through the doorway. “Do you know me?”

  “Once I might have thought you the lord of Vannheim. I saw him once, a few summers ago, before he was lord. We took maple syrup to the Vestrhall to sell that year. But he is dead in the south.”

  “I live. The war is over and I am returning to the Vestrhall,” Raef said, summoning the lie quickly.

  “Then what do you want?” The young woman shushed the old dog, who grumbled still at Raef’s presence, but she remained wary of Raef.

  “Your closest neighbors have left their homes,” Raef said, choosing his words carefully. “I was looking for answers and thought this one, too, was abandoned.”

  “It will be soon enough.” She gestured to the dog. “We are the only ones left. We will have to leave soon. Go to my sister’s, if she will have me.” Dropping her eyes from Raef, she grimaced at the cream she had spilled and got to her knees with a cloth to soak up what she could.

  Raef stepped forward and bent to retrieve the bowl, righting it. “The only ones?” He remained at eye level with the woman.

  “My husband’s brother went out three days ago. He likes to set snares for rabbits and we were eager for fresher meat. He came back at dusk, raving, saying the trees had chased him, saying there were shadows where none should be, saying a squirrel had spoken to him and sung a song of death.” The young woman shook her head, but her dismissal was tinged with fear. “We put him to bed and hoped the morning would make it right, but he slipped away in the darkness and did not come back.” She stopped and Raef could see unwanted tears brimming on her lower lid. “Though I begged him not to go, Karvol went looking for him the next day,” she continued, fighting to keep her voice level. “I have not seen either of them since.”

  “And your neighbors?” Raef asked. The other farms were set in separate valleys, but the families would still have known each other well. “Did something similar happen there?”

  The young woman shrugged. “We had not visited in some time. Karvol and Ferrun did not always get on well.

  Raef nodded and found the young woman was looking at him expectantly. He did not know what to say.

  “I am sorry for your trouble.”

  “What should I do?”

  As lord, he should have an answer. As lord, he should protect her. Raef could not protect her from Ragnarök. Whatever the truth of what her husband’s brother had seen and heard, Raef did not doubt that something had disturbed the valley and brought both brothers to their deaths.

  “Tell me your name.”

  “Brama.”

  “Is your sister far away, Brama?”

  Brama nodded, her long brown hair falling across her face. She brushed it aside.

  “I do not think it is safe to travel any great distances,” Raef said, forming his answer as he spoke. “How much food do you have?”

  Brama considered for a moment. “With just me, plenty.” She shivered a little and Raef wondered when the hearth had gone cold and if grief had kept her from rekindling it.

  “Then stay here, where it is safe.” The lie tasted foul on Raef’s tongue, but he had nothing else to offer her. “Come, show me your stores while my friend starts a fire to keep you warm.” Guiding her with his arm, Raef led Brama out of the house. As she blinked back the sudden light, Raef whispered for Vakre to carry wood inside and light a fire. Vakre nodded his understanding and brought Siv inside, and Raef kept Brama occupied, nodding as she showed him the small storehouse and the cured meat hanging above the winter vegetables, nuts, chee
se, and dried fruit, until he judged enough time had passed for a man without Vakre’s talent to start a fire. Even so, the flames were tall and the house already filled with warmth when Raef and Brama returned, though if she noticed she said nothing.

  “Will you stay?” Though Brama mourned her husband, it was clear their presence was welcome. “Perhaps I can help your friend,” she said, motioning to Siv, who sat, listless, in a chair.

  “Thank you, but we must go on,” Raef said. Brama nodded and Raef hesitated after lifting Siv into his arms. “I will ask Frigg to keep your husband safe.” It was a wasted promise. Karvol was dead, he was sure, and Frigg would not notice such a small plea amidst the turmoil in Asgard, not when her own husband was preparing to face the great wolf, Fenrir. But it seemed to give Brama some comfort, even though Raef was sure she, too, knew her husband was not coming back. He wondered if she had noticed the absence of the moon. They exchanged farewells, and then Raef was mounted once more, ready to push onward.

  “If we ride through the night, we will reach the coast and the Old Troll by midday tomorrow,” Raef said to Vakre, who was taking a turn with Siv on his lap. “We will stop when the moon,” Raef paused, realizing his error, “when the last of the light has gone, and rest the horses and ourselves for the final stretch of the journey.”

  They rested at a merging of two streams as the sky grew deep and dark and the long reach of the sun’s rays slipped at last over the western hills, black and stark on the glowing horizon. As the horses drank, Raef crushed the dried flowers Vakre had found and added the powder to Siv’s skin of water. She was awake and alert enough to swallow when Raef lifted it to her lips.

  “Elder flowers,” Raef said. Siv gave a weak nod and took a sip from her skin. It was a stronger remedy than the yellowhorn he had suggested to the boys Eddri and Tjorvi, but harder to come by in winter. “You must eat. The flowers will unsettle your stomach.” Siv had swallowed no more than a few mouthfuls of cheese and meat in the past three days. She nodded again but her gaze drifted from Raef to the early stars above them. “You need your strength, Siv,” Raef said, drawing her attention once more. “And I need you to be strong.”

  She accepted the meat he handed her. “The stars are bright,” she murmured, and Raef looked and saw it was true, as though they burned hotter to compensate for the loss of the moon.

  They rode onward through the black world and Raef waited and waited for the sun to come and release the shadows. The hours passed, measured by the light of the stars and by the hills they wove through and still the darkness persisted. A knot of primal terror grew and twisted in Raef’s stomach and neither he nor Vakre said a word, refusing to give life to the dread swirling within.

  The hour of the sun had long come and gone without a change in the sky when Raef could deny it no longer. He looked to Vakre and saw his thoughts mirrored there. The endless night was upon them.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “Strange, that the moon should go out with a shudder and a howl, and the sun in silence,” Vakre said. The darkness seemed to press on Raef, crushing him, and Vakre’s voice sounded muted to his ears.

  Without thinking, Raef drew back on his reins and his horse came to a halt. Vakre circled around, watching Raef.

  “What will there be left to save, without a sun?”

  It was a question that had not come to him until that moment of loss, but now it consumed him.

  “Without light and warmth, the world will wither and die, even if there is a way to spare it from Ragnarök. I have failed. I am too late.”

  Vakre stretched one hand out, palm to the stars, and a flicker of light bloomed there. Siv stirred in Raef’s arms. The elder flowers had helped her sleep. It was too early to tell if it would calm the fever.

  “What is it? What has happened?” Siv asked, struggling to sit up straighter.

  Raef found he could not answer, his tongue dry in his mouth, his throat tight.

  “The morning has not come,” Vakre said. The tiny flames still danced on his skin. The son of Loki looked away from his fire and glanced at Siv, then fixed his gaze on Raef. “It will not come.” He let the fire spread until it reached his elbow. “Perhaps there is another way.”

  “What do you mean?” Raef asked.

  Vakre was quiet for a long moment. He dismounted, his arm still burning, then with a flick of his wrist, the fire went out, leaving them in sudden darkness. Raef lowered Siv to the ground, then swung himself out of the saddle to look Vakre in the eyes.

  “When my father took me to the mountains of the far north, when he made me open the heart of the mountain and release Freyja’s army, he told me something of my future.” Vakre was utterly still as he spoke. “I had forgotten because I would not trust a word from Loki’s mouth, and it seemed not to matter, for it is a future that all can claim. He said I would know pain and suffering. I asked him what man or woman does not and he laughed in reply.” Raef felt a wave of heat surge from Vakre’s skin. “But I think perhaps he told the truth, though he could not have foreseen this moment, for I can think of no greater pain and suffering than to burn forever.”

  Raef’s heart dropped to his stomach and he forgot to draw breath as he comprehended Vakre’s words.

  “Could you?” Siv asked. Her voice was stronger than Raef had heard in days, but he was supporting nearly all her weight. “Burn forever, I mean?”

  “Only one way to know the answer to that.”

  “But you said it does not hurt.”

  Vakre nodded. “Not here,” he said, touching the skin of his palm. “But here,” he brought his fingers to his head, then lowered them to rest over his heart, “and here most of all.” His gaze shifted to Raef. “That is why I asked you to end it all.”

  “Then you cannot,” Raef said, finding his voice. “It is too much to bear, Vakre.” Whether he spoke of Vakre’s suffering or his own sorrow at the prospect of saying a final farewell, Raef did not know.

  “What other choice is there? You will reach the Old Troll soon, but a sun must rise, or there is no hope.”

  Raef blinked. “The rising sun,” he said softly, remembering. “Something Anuleif said, though I do not think he understood. He left because he said he could not remain in the land of the rising sun. I thought he misspoke.” Raef stared at Vakre. “He knew. He knew without understanding, without even knowing what you are.”

  A silence spread between them and Raef’s grief raged against the hope Vakre had kindled.

  “What will you do?” Raef asked at length.

  Vakre looked to the line of hills to the north. “I think I must find higher ground.”

  Raef did not watch as Vakre and Siv shared a goodbye. He heard Siv whisper something, heard Vakre’s easy, warm response, a laugh even, as the tightness in his own chest threatened to steal all breath away. When he turned back to face them, Siv was smiling and Vakre looked content.

  They left Siv with the horses, her bow strung and resting across her lap should she need to defend herself, a knife and her sword in reach. There was no question that she had to stay. In her weakened state, Raef and Vakre would have had to take turns carrying her on the climb, slowing their progress. Raef leaned over her and kissed her, glad to see some strength in her face even though her skin was still feverish, and then he and Vakre set off.

  Vakre led the way and with every step Raef could feel the son of Loki growing warmer, the heat radiating off his back until Raef had to fall back in search of cooler air. He did not think Vakre was conscious of the change.

  The first crow was nothing more than a rush of wings across the stars, though Raef heard it settle on a branch somewhere above them, heard the gentle croak in its throat. It was the first bird he had seen or heard since the day in Narvik when the birds had risen to the sky in a swarm of wings and flown west. Its sudden presence made Raef uneasy, though he could not have said why. If it watched them, if they passed right under it, Raef did not know, and soon they were approaching the edge of the trees and heading into th
e high reaches of the hills. He breathed more easily once they passed out from the tree cover and came under the open embrace of the night sky.

  They paused on a shoulder of rock. Above them the summits were still far away. Even in the dark Raef could see the air around Vakre shimmer with heat. Vakre’s gaze, though it rested on Raef, seemed very far away.

  “I will go on alone. You must reach the coast.”

  Raef nodded, not trusting his voice. For a moment, they looked at each other, then Vakre extended his hand. Raef, his heart pounding, reached out and grasped Vakre’s forearm. In that touch, Vakre’s heat vanished and Raef wrapped his other arm around Vakre’s shoulders, pulling him close in a fierce embrace. Neither said anything, though Raef’s mind ran with words, words that were not enough, and he held his silence, lest speaking break him.

  As they released each other, the warmth rushed back into Vakre with sudden force and Raef had to yank back his hand as Vakre’s palm grew too hot to touch. He stepped out of reach of the heat but his eyes remained locked with Vakre’s.

  At last the son of Loki took a deep breath, exhaled, and then turned to face the hills above. He had gone only three steps when he stopped and faced Raef once more. Only then did Raef see the fear in him, see how it had caught him up in its cold grasp, see how it threatened to tear him apart.

  “I am afraid.” The words came out hoarse and shaken. Vakre tried to laugh, but it was a mangled, broken thing that lifted neither of their hearts. “I am afraid of what it will feel like to burn forever. I am afraid of what I will remember.” He stared, unblinking, at Raef, as though he dared not look away. “And what I will forget.”

  Vakre was shaking, his control weakening, and Raef felt his very blood tremble. “I should have honored the promise you asked of me. I should have ended your suffering in that moment, spared you from an eternity of torment.”