by Terry Graves
She vacillated, but in the end she used her knife to cut the ropes of her hands. The brigand girl had endured a lot during the last few days and she was not a menace to her at that point. She probably would not even recognize her after all those years.
Runa still did not know how she felt about her or what she was going to do. At that point, killing her was as much a possibility as freeing her. But the answer to that question could wait for later, when they were safe.
“My name’s Runa,” she whispered. “What should I call you?”
“Sigrún,” said the brigand girl, and smiled thinly.
Suddenly, a great blare startled them, and the roof of the barn over their heads was violently ripped off of the building.
ELEVEN
“You want to know about the Lindworm Prince?” said the warrior named Eigil, the one with the red hair. He jumped on top of the table with feline expertise and flicked a chicken’s ribcage away with a quick movement of his foot. “He was covered in scales all over and had a long tail where there should be legs. Most hideous thing you’ve ever seen. So ugly, he could have been one of Loki’s spawn! And the king sent word to distant lands, and a princess came to marry him. And you know what happened?” Eigil took one of the pitchers from the hands of a thrall, emptied it with long gulps, and cleaned his beard with his sleeve. “Instead of bedding the princess, the next morning the Lindworm Prince had eaten her!”
They all laughed, and Alarr lifted his cup too and drank until not a single drop was left. He had almost forgotten about Gerda and that was a good thing. During the last few days, the girl had clouded his good judgment. Now, the only thing that obfuscated his senses was the sweet mead being poured from the horns and the jugs of ale, of which the thralls seemed to have a never-ending supply. The giant did not bother him much anymore. Kai had gone after Gerda, and he was perhaps the only one who could dissuade her anyway. Tomorrow, the giant would be killed. It was the fate all those creatures deserved for raising their weapons against gods and men.
All his life he had been getting ready for this moment. His only chance was to stand out before a chieftain, but these days the levies were more and more spaced out and nobody worthy enough bothered to come so far north to scout for soldiers. Gerda had been right about that. Perhaps it was his only chance to become a warrior, and he could not give that up for anyone else.
He had been thinking what the best way would be to show his skills in front of Hafgrim. And, after much ruminating, he had concluded that he needed to pick a fight with someone in the great hall. And he needed to win.
So, at the beginning of the night, Alarr had drank to pluck up courage. He had finished three cups full to the brim and it seemed to work. He was starting to feel like a proper warrior at last, capable of anything. But after so many days, mead felt good and filled him with warmth. Alarr had kept on drinking and he knew his head was muddled and he had missed the opportunity. If he tried to fight now against one of these warriors he would die or, even worse, he would make a fool out of himself. Maybe there were other ways to attract Hafgrim’s attention, he decided.
“And the king looked at the bed sheets soaked in blood, pulled his beard out and then, guess what he said?” Eigil paused. “Well, he said… I think we’re going to need another princess!”
More laughs. More drinks and dumb joy.
Hafgrim did not speak much. He was seated at one end of the table and looked at the grain of the board, pensive. He drank and smiled when it was required, roared and laughed if appropriate, but he put no heart into it. He was not a king — a chief and a king are two very different things — but his manners were those of a monarch sitting on his throne. Alarr wanted to get closer to him on the long table, but places among the guests had been reserved for mightier men than him. Those were Sveinn, of course, and some of his most trustworthy friends.
His own father was not far away from them, and that was another reason why Alarr did not dare to approach Hafgrim. He still had his sword with him, hidden under his cloak, and if his father was to discover it, he would be very sorry later.
Still, it was clear to Alarr that Sveinn was bothering Hafgrim with his peasant ways and his ceaseless talk. He could imagine what the conversation would be about: oxen and pigs, mud and snow, brigands and wolves. And Alarr knew it could only be about those things because they were the only ones they had in Veraheim. After all, small people only know small talk.
After a while, Hafgrim muttered something and stood up, and Alarr saw him crossing the great hall and leaving through the wooden gates.
Perhaps he had grown tired of Sveinn, or he was just going to take a leak. Alarr waited a moment and then followed him. When he got up, he felt dizzy and grabbed the back of his chair. He shook his head to clear it and walked outside.
Hafgrim stood in the middle of the market square with his head raised to the sky.
Alarr paced toward him and stopped a couple of steps behind, feeling as if he was intruding. But he had to reveal his presence so, after some time, he said: “Are you alright, Lord?”
“Look at the moon.” Hafgrim did not turn. Alarr saw a sliver in the darkness behind a layer of clouds. The halo it projected was of a peculiar orange shade. He had never seen something like it before. “The bloody thing is trying to tell us something. But what could it be?”
Alarr did not know the answer. He wanted it to be a good omen, and maybe it was, as he was finally talking with him.
“I want to serve you, Lord.” The words escaped his mouth in a stream. The mead was talking through his lips, speaking the truth he would not have dared to tell otherwise. “I want to be a warrior of your hird, sail the world with you, and follow you through the dark lands and the battlefields until we find solace together under the golden shields of Valhalla.”
Hafgrim turned around. He was shorter than Alarr, but not by much.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Alarr, son of Jorik, Veraheim’s blacksmith, son of Tjodolf who was blacksmith before him,” he said.
“That is not saying much, Alarr son of no one. I cannot make a thing out of those names because I have never heard them before. All your family amounts to nothing.” When he said this, Alarr lowered his head, ashamed. “I’m asking who you are.”
“I’m a warrior,” he replied, all fired up.
“Well, are you now?” Hafgrim seemed bemused. He raised his brows. “How many men have you killed?”
“None.”
“I see.”
Voices came to them, muffled behind the walls of the great hall. Hafgrim looked at the crescent moon again and sighed. “I don’t know about a warrior, but perhaps there’s a place with me as a smith. Someone who can fix our weapons and mend our byrnies in the field. You won’t be sitting at our table and won’t share our mead or our food, but you will sail with us and that is a start. Are you any good?”
Alarr revealed the sword he had concealed under his cloak. He handed it to Hafgrim, who raised it in the air and examined the blade with care. The man turned it until the moonlight shone over the surface, revealing the complex herringbone pattern under the eerie sanguine color. “There is no steel in it.”
“Steel is expensive and we are poor. As I’m sure you know, Lord.”
Hafgrim wielded the sword and made a beautiful flourish before returning it to him. “It is fine enough,” he admitted. “The offer stands.”
“That would be a great honor to me.”
Hafgrim nodded slightly and went back inside, but Alarr stood there, enjoying the feeling of triumph. At last, it had started. He was going to leave Veraheim. Not as a fighter, but this didn’t matter. He loved the metalwork just as much and there would be plenty of chances for him to show off his talents in battle further on. And he would no longer need to train with Gerda, as now he would have the chance to pit his skills against real warriors.
Gerda.
He would have to leave her, and this was maybe for the better. Better for him, who would finally be free from her capr
icious demands; and better for the girl herself, who would settle with a better man than him. Gerda and Kai were meant for each other and Alarr knew it in his heart, but this made him feel bitter no longer. He was the one to leave with the hird and the one who would carry the golden crown to the high king. There would be other women, he was sure. Dozens of them. His father’s horrible beatings, the lashings, the shame; all this would be left behind. Finally, Alarr would become a man.
He decided he had to tell her right away, share all this news and perhaps — and this was again the mead talking — get a farewell kiss or even something else. Who knew? That orange moon had brought him only good luck that night.
He started walking toward Gerda’s hut, but he heard a hum coming from the forest and stopped to listen to it more closely.
It did not seemed like the wind.
It was more like something very large being dragged around. And the noise was increasing. He squinted at the darkness behind the houses and captured a golden glint up in the sky, like a shooting star.
But it was not a star, no. And he heard a scream. Maybe. Or was it an owl? Alarr damned the mead which had so easily turned him deaf and blind.
Another scream followed, this one more clearly, and a woman cried for help.
Had Runa been right about Hafgrim’s men? Were some of them crossing the line? That would be a problem for him and his future plans, but he could not turn a blind eye. Alarr decided to pursue the matter further and took two clumsy steps in the direction of the cries.
There was a big crashing noise somewhere to his right, as if a whole building had collapsed. Alarr shifted in that direction and raced, the heart pounding in his chest, stumbling with his feet. He came to a sudden stop when he saw the giant rising over the roofs, darkening the sky. His eyes were two bright gemstones. The creature hit a house and smashed it into pieces, then trod on someone who was running away. Alarr could not see who she was and thanked the gods for it.
He ran back, as fast as he could, until he reached the market square and the great hall. He pulled the doors wide and stepped in. And, with all the power left in his voice, he screamed:
“Giant!”
The laughter died, the songs stopped, the voices fell silent. The men rose from their seats and the chairs fell down. Weapons were drawn from their sheaths and brandished and, soon, a great multitude swarmed outside.
By now, Fyrnir was walking down the street to the square, the ground heaving under his feet. A fire had started somewhere and the flames offered some flickering light to things that Alarr would have preferred not to see: simmering blue eyes glowing eerily in the half-darkness and rounded teeth the size of his head. There were bloodstains all over Fyrnir’s face, and a single drop hung from his big nose.
Two men charged against the monster and were repelled with a kick. Both were dead before they even reached the ground, their limbs disjointed and their bones crushed.
“Oi! Disperse right now!” shouted Hafgrim to the people that were crowding together at the center of the square. They scattered and ran in multiple directions. The women with children in their charge went far away, hopefully to the sheltering forest, and the ones that remained were no longing presenting themselves as an easy target. “Now, the rest with me! Hold it!”
“Let him come!” Ingolf roared, hitting his shield with the back of his axe, metal against wood. Others followed him, their shafts and blades striking with all their strength.
A light drizzle had started to fall from the sky.
“I may be corrected,” said Eigil. “When I said that the Lindworm Prince was the most hideous thing in the Nine Realms, I had not met you.”
Alarr held his sword in the air with both hands. He had no shield, nor did he need one. Not even chain mail could protect him against the monster, in the same way that no piece of armor could defend a man from the wrath of a mountain landslide. He found to his horror that his teeth were chattering uncontrollably, that his legs trembled and threatened to fail him. He bit his lips until he felt the warm blood running down his chin, ashamed that Hafgrim or any of his men would see him. He was going to battle, at last, and against the worthiest of adversaries. He should have felt joy, but there was none left in him. The ale and the mead that had given him bravery a while ago had vanished. All was left was fear, clinging onto his body and dragging him down.
“Hold it!” Hafgrim shouted, but his voice broke at the end, a small detail that the skalds would no doubt forget in the songs they would compose after his death.
Alarr crossed eyes with his father, who only had a club with him, and noticed that he was trembling. Until that moment, Alarr had thought the man was incapable of it, not even in the worst of winter. But there he was, the man with the strongest arms in Veraheim and his skin darkened by the forge and covered in old burn scars, shaking like a child.
Alarr found no solace in this image. On the contrary. For the first time in his life he saw his father as what he was: just a man about to die.
Think of the glory.
But all he could think of was the conversation he had held with his friends that morning in the forest, about the afterlife and the endless void. It had got into his head and now he could not take it out. Alarr wished Kai and Runa were next to him now, so he could crush their skulls together. But he pictured them deep into the forest, running to safety, like the cowards they were.
Think of the glory.
The rain worsened. The water was very cold and stung his skin. When the giant set foot into the square, there were fifty able men ready to receive him with axes and swords and spears raised. Alarr saw the creature’s body, lit by the fires that were starting to spread all across. When he was leaning over the great hall, Hafgrim gave the order, and the first wave of warriors ran toward him and tried to wound his feet and ankles, thrusting their spears and using their axes to clamber up his legs as if they were trying to climb a vertical wall.
The giant looked down. His movements were slow, contained. He crushed the men with his fists as if they were ants and threw them away, flying.
The screams they made.
“I look for no quarrel with you, sons of Ask and Embla,” said the giant. The voice that had spoken to them about the kindness of the mountains did not seem to fit that face anymore. His long beard was tangled and soaked in blood and his eyes were no longer kind or wise, but crazy, with blue light coming from them. He looked quite human, but crude at the same time, like a statue that had been made in its image. “I’m just looking for my heart. I can smell it. Where have you hidden it?”
But the battle had started and his words were ignored. Eigil raced through one of the nearby roofs, jumped onto the giant’s gnarled back, and stabbed him in the shoulder. Fyrnir groaned in pain and tried to get rid of him, but Eigil was faster. He slid all the way down the giant’s back and landed on the ground, where he was received with cheers.
Rain had mixed with the ash from the fires and a nasty mud had started to cover them.
Alarr tried to move but his feet did not answer to him. He looked around but could not find his father in the chaos of the battle. He distinguished a man who might have been Hafgrim by the shape of his helmet, charging with a cry of rage and being repelled just like the others. By then it was clear to Alarr that the fight could not be won. They were not going to defeat a frost giant that night. They could not slay a god. Alarr wished his friends were there, so he could die by their side and not among strangers.
Or he could just leave. No one would notice, no one would ever know. Why should he waste his life with no discernible purpose?
Think of the glory.
“My heart! I want my heart back!” the giant yelled. His movements were getting frantic, more violent. He walked where Alarr was, and stomped on him together with the other warriors. He felt a wave of pain all over his body as he fell and rolled.
With that, the battle was over for him.
A last, disconnected thought, went through his mind. He looked at his han
d lying on the snow and wished for someone to take care of his body when he was no longer around, to cut his long and dirty fingernails before they burned him, so they were not used in the afterlife for building the Naglfar ship.
He could hear the noise the brave Einherjar made, hitting the tables of the great halls of Valhalla with their fists.
And he closed his eyes, contented.
TWELVE
Kai found Gerda under the golden crown; dead, or so he thought. But the girl coughed miserably when he approached, and tried to speak.
“Save your breath,” said Kai. “You’re going to need it.”
Rain fell fiercely, but not even this seemed able to stop the fires that spread from roof to roof, from cabins to barns to longhouses, blackening timber with their yellow and orange tongues. Kai did not look at Gerda. He knew that, if he did it, he would brood about whether the girl would survive and what the extent of her wounds would be. He grabbed the large mass of gold with both hands and tried to lift it, but it was too heavy and barely moved. He then pushed and pulled, a combination of movements that only caused a moan of pain from the girl. He blamed the wolf that had bitten him and his wound, and missed Alarr, his brawny arms, his confidence.
“The snow,” Gerda said, with great effort. And then, in the kindest voice, she added: “Idiot.”
Kai looked to the ground and understood. Gerda was lying over a snowdrift, so he started to dig in the snow. It was newly fallen and had not yet become compacted, and in no time he had produced a hole with a ramp, through which he managed to pull Gerda out from underneath the crown.
The girl sit up by herself. Her face and hair were covered in mud and soot but otherwise she seemed unharmed. Kai sighed and hugged her. “For a moment, you scared me to death.”
She leaned into the hug before pulling away.
“I did this, Kai. This is all my fault.”
Crows were flying over his head, cawing, despite the time of night. Kai could no longer see the moon, but there was still a reddish brilliance behind the clouds, like a bloodstain on the sky, a wound in the dome of Ymir’s skull. “The giant did it.”