by Matt Larkin
It was still in good condition, though he had naught to burn here, either. All the tools, though, they remained. In fact, these looked to have been forged from dvergar steel as well. Maybe that was why they had remained rust-free after so many years. Nidavellir had traded with the Old Kingdoms. Trade was how the dvergar put it. In reality, they graced humanity with pittances, in exchange for slaves and sacrifices. Much as they did now, save the powerful Old Kingdoms might have received slightly better terms than the dying petty kingdoms now scattered across the North Realms.
A few more generations, perhaps, and if mankind had not yet wiped itself out, the dvergar were like to enslave what remained. The age of man was ending fast. All the more reason for Volund and his brothers to remove themselves from these lands. He needed to find Altvir with all possible haste.
And yet … this place …
Volund ran his fingers over the masterful tools. With these, he could make almost aught. Things for trade, for information. The only reason he had to stay at this forge. Spread the wealth around and someone must have seen Altvir.
The thought of her sparked fresh visions, and he slumped down to rest. Volund tossed the torch into the forge’s fire pit and shut his eyes. He could almost see her. Feel her soft hands massaging his temples and banishing the need for fear or anger. Suppressing the rage and replacing it with light.
He needed her light.
4
The fortress of Halfhaugr was clearly named for the hill it sat on, a lopsided slope that looked to have been chopped off with an axe. A high wooden wall surrounded the town, in addition to the fortress proper, funneling travelers to a single gate nigh to the river. The town looked much like any well-defended settlement in Kvenland, in fact. Given the spearmen watching the gate, they expected trouble sooner or later.
No surprise. A day back, Agilaz and Hermod had passed through a battlefield lit with numerous pyres. The victors had burned the dead to keep them from rising, but had left skulls impaled on spears. Some of those skulls were small enough to have come from children. Agilaz could not stomach that, especially not with the way Hermod had looked at them. The local tribes warred with one another, as they so oft did. The Skalduns had slaughtered whole families in half the outlying lands between here and the sea. He and Hermod had sneaked past a war party leading away slaves not far from the battlefield.
The Halfhaugr men watched Agilaz and Hermod warily, but made no move to bar their passage. A single man and a boy probably posed no threat in their minds. It gave them free rein in the town.
In any case, the fortress itself seemed the most obvious destination. The jarl would almost certainly have to put up a foreign guest, and his court might hold the information Agilaz sought.
The town itself consisted of perhaps two dozen houses, most of which had their own snow-crusted walls. The builders had clearly feared raiders, who would no doubt find Halfhaugr difficult pickings. On the other hand, perhaps that very defensibility had led the Skalduns to claim so many of the Hasding lands. If the Hasdingi retreated to this haven, they were, perhaps, less prepared to stand and fight over every last river, farm, or bog they might otherwise have claimed. One by one, they were losing their lands, and their fortress was becoming their prison.
A strong one, too.
“What’re those marks on the walls?” Hermod asked, perhaps following his father’s gaze.
“Dvergar runes.” Unlike his brother, Agilaz could not read them, but most likely they were intended to ward against the mist and its denizens. At least, he’d never known runes to protect against aught native to Midgard, man or beast.
“Did Uncle Volund make them?”
“Not these.”
Twin doors stood open at the fortress threshold, protected by a scar-faced man leaning against one wall. He stood talking to a shieldmaiden in what appeared to be a very unsuccessful attempt to impress her.
Agilaz cleared his throat, and the man turned on him. “What do you want?”
“Information.”
The man shrugged. “And who is asking?”
“I am Agilaz, a traveler from across the sea. I bring a silver handled knife, from Kvenland. A gift for your jarl.” It was a treasure, granted him by his father. But material treasures meant very little without Olrun. He drew the blade, allowing the man to inspect the silver hilt.
After a quick look, the man jerked his head toward the inside, and Agilaz led Hermod in. Stone pillars supported a high roof. The doors led right into the great hall, the place lit by a large brazier, in addition to a fire pit, the whole place thick with smoke and the smell of mead.
Evening approached, and already the jarl and his men sat at a great table, drinking before the night meal. A few men boasted with each other about their hunts. Many, however, complained about food stores for the winter, or how much the Skaldun raids had cost them.
The jarl sat at the table’s head. He looked up as Agilaz drew nigh.
“Boy,” Agilaz said. “Take the jarl his gift.”
Hermod did, running the dagger over and putting it on the table before the jarl.
The man’s eyes sparkled with undisguised greed at the treasure. His wife, too, leaned close to inspect it. A young girl sat in her lap and reached for the blade until her father swatted her hand. “Very impressive. I am Jarl Hadding. Come, sit at my table.”
Agilaz did so, and accepted the mead a slave brought. He drained it. Watered down. Even the stores of honey must be running low. “Your tribe faces war.”
“What do you care?”
“I am looking for a particular warrior.”
The jarl bit deep into a hunk of roasted meat. Venison, it looked like, though certainly not enough to go around. Still, you could not blame the jarl for eating and feeding his own family first. His closest thegns seemed fed, as well. Other warriors, less so, and some of the serving slaves looked gaunt as the dead. “Warrior have a name?” Hadding asked, juice dribbling into his blond beard.
“Olrun.”
The men chuckled. “A shieldmaiden mercenary?” a red-haired one asked. “Your wife run off to join a war without you?”
Agilaz scowled at him. It was closer to the truth than the warrior probably realized, and Agilaz had no mood for such mockery, in jest or in earnest.
“Mmmm.” The jarl spit out a bit of grease. “And you? Are you a mercenary?”
Getting caught up in the war did not seem wise, but then it might be his best chance to find Olrun. As a valkyrie, she could choose to hide herself from mortal eyes. But he had to believe that, if she saw him, she would come to him. She had to. Her ring had guided him here. His son would not grow up without a mother. Volund had done so, and it had haunted Agilaz’s younger brother. Hermod would not suffer that fate.
“I might be willing to offer my services.”
“For what?”
“A position in your court. A share of the plunder. Food.” Those were what they’d expect him to ask for.
“Mmmm. You carry a bow. You good with it?”
“I am.”
“Give us a show, then.” The jarl pointed to a shield hanging on the far side of the hall. “Right in the middle, wanderer.”
Agilaz rose slowly and unshouldered his weapon, sighing. A show. Boasting was a fool’s game, but was sometimes something to be done for getting men’s attention. He nocked an arrow. Hitting a shield dead center from across a room did not exactly pose a challenge.
He spun, releasing his shot. It slammed into the mug of the red-headed man who’d mocked him, shattering it right out of his hand. Watery mead exploded over the warrior, while the arrow continued onward to thunk into a different shield.
“Forgive me. I missed the target. Shall I shoot again?”
The warrior he’d drenched rose, sputtering, while the rest of the table burst into laughter.
“Sit down, Borje,” Jarl Hadding commanded. “Brought that on yourself.” He turned back to Agilaz. “What is it you think you can do for me?”
Agilaz sighed, then looked about the room. These thegns looked like they could fight, but they had not done so. His initial judgment had been right, he supposed. The Hasdingi had become trapped in the very haven they kept to protect themselves. “From the looks of it, you have fine enough warriors. But there is something I do well. I can sneak into your foe’s camps, lead a small force. Harry them, destroy their supplies.”
Borje wiped his face with a cloth a woman had given him. “The winter storms are coming.”
“Which is why they will not expect it. I am an expert woodsman, and I know when a storm will break. I can find shelter for us and get us in and out of their—of your—stolen lands before they know we’re there. By the time summer returns, they will be desperate to leave this place far behind. Let them turn their eyes to Hunaland or some other tribe and leave the Hasdingi be.”
For that matter, if he killed enough men in battle, maybe a valkyrie would come for one of their souls.
“You are bold,” Hadding said.
“In its own way, boldness can be wisdom.”
“He’s a fool,” Borje said. “And he’ll get anyone who follows him buried in the snow.”
Agilaz favored the man with a withering gaze.
“You can’t talk to my papa like that!” Hermod shouted.
A few men chuckled.
“I will need someone to provide for my son while I take such expeditions.”
Hadding licked his fingers clean of grease. “The boy can stay here, in my hall. My wife and her ladies are already raising our daughter.”
Good. Fostering his son with a jarl, even for a short time, might be good for the boy. A lesson learned firsthand was worth ten lectures. Hermod needed to understand the world, and the best way to do that was with new experiences.
“Who will come with me?” Agilaz asked.
After a few grumbles, a handful of men stood. Thegns and other free men, most likely, eager for plunder. Or starving, eager to steal food. Without the lost stores, the Hasdingi faced a hard winter and were like to lose a great many of their people.
A slave brought him a pathetic sliver of venison. Agilaz tore the greater portion of it off and handed it to Hermod, saving only enough to maintain his strength. “We leave at dawn, then. Before that, someone show me the lay of the land. I need to know what places you have lost.”
One of Hadding’s thegns, a man named Erik, took Agilaz to meet his wife, Liv. She had a map of the lands and began to point out the numerous hunting forts and few farms the Hasdingi had lost. North of them lay the Gandvik Sea. Agilaz had bartered passage there not so long ago, on one of the last ships to make the crossing before the next summer. They had landed at the Athra tribe’s town, a whaling people. It was from the Athra he had learned of the Hasdingi’s plight, a difficulty they had no interest in involving themselves in. So he had travelled south. Wherever men died valiant deaths, valkyries must follow.
Liv rolled up the map.
“Did you draw that yourself?” Agilaz asked.
“I did.”
“Impressive.”
The woman beamed at him.
Agilaz turned back to the thegn.
“They raided us all throughout the summer moons,” Erik said. “We didn’t realize it was so well planned until late.”
Agilaz raised an eyebrow at that, and the thegn shrugged.
“There are always summer raids. A man defends his farm, a thegn holds each hunting fort. Men die. They took mine from me while I was out. Jarl Hadding couldn’t spare the men to reclaim it.” Erik spat.
That was what Agilaz was counting on. The more who died—good deaths, of course—the more likely he was to find Olrun. He needed his wife, and Hermod needed his mother. And if he had to kill some Skaldun raiders to make that happen, he’d do so. In truth, he would kill them all to get her back.
5
Altvir’s ring was a masterwork, a piece of beauty not quite like any of the jewels made in Nidavellir. Depending on how you looked at it, it might have been a dragon or a swan. And it had been wrought from orichalcum, the most precious of all metals. Orichalcum—the rosy gold—was found rarely in Midgard, and the dvergar treasured it above all other ores, above all treasures even. For it was stronger than any steel and, more importantly, apt to soak up enchantment—souls, really. Enchanted items were forged from souls of unfortunate victims, hammered into metal. The greatest crafts of history, including all the famed runeblades of old, were made from souls bound to orchicalcum. Dvalin and his kin had crafted the runeblades long ago, weapons without equal. Any weapon of ancient Art must be forged from orichalcum, but little of the ore remained.
The valkyries had rings of orichalcum, symbols that bound them in service to some eldritch power. And bound them to their husbands. If Volund could but understand the power of the rings, he might use it to immediately find Altvir, maybe even to summon her back to him. Or even—he dared barely dream it—break the bond that tied her to that master of whom she feared to speak. Perhaps the rings held a piece of the valkyrie’s soul, but he could not be certain.
And so, to understand it, he had forged seven duplicates at the forge in the ruined stone hall. Not of orichalcum, of course. The forge was stocked with iron and silver and even gold, but only those metals. With a fine chisel, he carved away, working every pattern the same. It didn’t matter. He could make seven or seven hundred. The mysteries of the valkyrie’s ring were not unraveling.
Still, he worked, the seventh ring almost finished. A little tap here. A little shaving there. It had to be perfect. If he was going to craft something, he would craft it without flaw. A master smith created naught less than a masterpiece. The dvergar had instilled that in him.
He feared they had instilled other things in him, too. His time in Nidavellir was when the darkness in his heart had first wakened, deep inside him. When the shadows had begun to move, to whisper to him as though they knew him well. They lied, claiming he belonged to them and need only welcome them. Perhaps—had he not met Altvir—he might have eventually heeded their call.
Volund blew metal shavings off the latest of his rings. It was flawless. Gold and silver entwined, married in elegance and beauty. It might bind a man and wife, but it had no secret power. He might have tried to infuse it with dvergar Art and bind a soul, but somehow he didn’t think Altvir’s ring came from them. No, the style of her ring was different, if somehow still familiar.
The duplicates would serve, however. In his days hunting, he had found a town not far, a trade center. People passed through oft enough, and they would direct him. One of these rings should buy him a lead on Altvir’s location. It must.
The town lay on an icy crag above the fjord, making it unapproachable on two sides. A thick wall encircled the rest of it, no doubt intended to protect from the other six kingdoms as much as from trolls and dangers of the wild. It was damned large, too. Several dozen houses gathered together in mutual defense, all probably beholden to some king or other. In the far distance, a castle rose up out of the mountainside. No one built like that anymore. More remnants of the Old Kingdoms, probably, but it was too far off to judge.
The gate guards had welcomed him in at the mention of trade, and now he climbed the rocky path toward the town center. There would be a market up there. Atop the path, a wooden bridge spanned a small waterfall pitching down into the fjord. Clumsy work that would not last a decade. Yet one more example of modern man’s vain attempt to assert the slightest dominance over nature. The bridge creaked under his boots as he strolled toward the market. Volund shook his head. He could have built a better bridge in his sleep. Did the artisan take no pride in his craft? None at all?
In the square, he paused before a cobbler’s shop. His boots were worn almost through, and that was one thing he could not so easily make. After inspecting the lot of them—all serviceable, in a handful of different sizes—he broke off a piece of his arm ring. A tiny shard of silver, but more than enough for a good pair of boots. The cobbler grunted at him
and tossed him a pair.
Volund frowned. How could the man know which size he needed? He slouched down on a rock and yanked his old boots off. His toes had turned slightly yellow, and he had to massage warmth back into them before he tried on the new boots. They sat snugly, as close a fit as he’d ever had. Cobbler knew his trade after all.
And everyone needed shoes. Especially men going off to battle, marching long distances.
“Who rules here?” Volund asked.
“King Nidud.” The man arched his neck toward the castle in the distance, then spit for emphasis.
Volund refrained from comment. Dvergar were known to do the same. Most men were, in fact, vulgar, it seemed. And to a prince of Kvenland, it seemed quite vulgar. “Not a just king, then?”
The man spit again, the only answer forthcoming.
So not just—but then, who was? Power settled upon the corrupt, the one drawn to the other in an endless cycle. Such was the way of the world. And if this Nidud was not generous with his people, perhaps he was at least ambitious. “Men come through here. Do they speak of wars?”
The cobbler grunted, then looked to the sword hanging over Volund’s shoulder. “You a mercenary?”
Volund might have told him he was searching for a valkyrie. The man might have laughed or might have told him best to die in battle then. Either way, it did not seem like to get him anywhere. Instead, he drew one of the silver rings from his pouch. “I am a smith. Where there is war, one finds profit.” The cobbler would understand profit.
The man’s eyes flashed hungrily at the ring. Perhaps enough wealth to change his life. At the least, it would ensure he lived well through the next winter. But such treasures meant naught without Altvir. They were pittances compared to the jewel of his wife. The thought of it left his stomach roiling and shadows playing upon his periphery. Without warning, an urge built in his gut, the need to seize the cobbler and beat the answers from him. Volund bit his tongue, trying to still the sick feeling. The man had done naught to warrant such violence.