Corpse in the Mead Hall

by Cate Martin

  "This one is for you," Nilda said, pushing the only foam-free mug towards me. It was warm when I wrapped my hands around it, and I could see a curl of steam coming out of the top of it. "Tea," she told me with a wink. "Thorbjorn asked me to fix it for you."

  "Thanks," I said. I took a sip that tasted of blueberries, lavender, and lemongrass sweetened with honey. "Lovely. I hope it wasn't any trouble?"

  "Not at all," Nilda said. "We have a lot of it on hand this trip, as Freyja is still nursing Martin." Then she leaned closer to me, waving for me to do the same so she could whisper close to my ear. "Between you and me, I saw Freydis drinking it as well instead of ale. And she's only been married for a few weeks. Either she's very optimistic or they got an early start."

  "Surely not our business either way," I said, but couldn't help returning her conspiratorial grin.

  Then the food was served, and as starved as I had fancied myself, I ate far too much of it. Especially the potatoes, roasted to crispy perfection.

  The carb coma that followed was profound, and even without indulging in the flow of ale, I found myself drifting off to sleep without ever doing the slightest bit of magic.

  It was just as Haraldr predicted.

  I couldn't quite roust myself back awake to rectify that, but in that moment I wasn't really bothered. I was staying at the lodge the entire next day, after all. Time enough then for all I wasn't doing now.

  I would soon regret that decision.

  9

  If I was dreaming before I woke up, I didn't remember a bit of it. There was no lingering image or feeling of unease like I had woken with the morning before.

  But it wasn't morning. It was still completely dark, dark and colder than ever. My breath hung in the air before my face. I sat up and looked around. I could see the dark reddish glow of the last of the embers of the fire, but none of their heat was reaching me.

  This cold didn't feel natural. The others were still sleeping around me, but I could hear them rustling, turning over and groping for more blankets or snuggling deeper into the ones they had, all without waking.

  Had a sound woken me? I didn't think so. I didn't remember hearing anything. But now that I was thinking about it and listening as hard as I could, the silence outside too seemed unnatural.

  Maybe I didn't remember dreaming before I woke just now because I wasn't awake at all. Maybe this was still a dream.

  I found that thought hard to dismiss. I threw back my blankets and got up. Mjolner wasn't there on my pillow. He hadn't been at the lodge when we had returned the night before, but I expected he'd turn up at some point. He usually did. Was this another sign of trouble? Or just Mjolner being a free cat?

  I pulled a blanket around my shoulders to keep out the chill, then tip-toed my way on stockinged feet through the sleeping bodies to get to the doors.

  Before I had quite reached it, the wind suddenly picked up, howling and shaking the walls. A glittering dust of frost rained down on me from the roof overhead, shaken free from the quaking wooden beams.

  A dog barked, far off in the distance.

  Then another answered, from right outside our door.

  That bark was ferocious and ended in a snarl as something snuffled outside the door. I could see the bar that held the doors closed had been dropped into place before the last of us had gone to sleep. It rattled in its brackets but held firm.

  For now. But what would happen when the other dog came?

  The wind was still howling all around the walls of the lodge, but I could hear another sound, more rhythmic, buried under that howl. It was percussive, like the hooves of galloping horses.

  I closed my eyes and sent my magic senses out beyond the walls of the lodge.

  The walls I had failed to magically protect, but I willfully thrust that thought aside. Time enough for guilt and self-recrimination later.

  For now, I wanted to know what was out there. I already knew this wasn't like what I had felt the night before. This was something much, much bigger. Older. More powerful.

  But whatever was out there, it didn't want me sensing it. The very second I started to expand my awareness, it seized my consciousness and flung it back into my body. It was a magical throw, but my body physically stumbled back from the violence of it.

  I was left gasping for breath a few steps back from the door. But before I could even gather my thoughts about what I had just felt, I realized the dog was trying to bash its way in again. I lunged back towards the door.

  "What are you doing?" someone called out. I turned to see the others starting to sit up, looking around with wide, frightened eyes. Then I saw it was Raggi who had spoken. He was glaring at me.

  Then I realized my hand was on that bar across the double doors. I had only intended to make sure it was secure, but the narrowing of his eyes told me he suspected I was about to throw those doors open and let whatever was outside in.

  "Ingrid," Thorbjorn said, putting his hand on the wrist of my outstretched arm, then drawing me away from the door.

  "Something is wrong here," I said to him.

  "It's the Wild Hunt," he said to me.

  "Oh," I said. I knew lots of folklore about the Wild Hunt, but a lot of the specifics varied by region across the northern part of Europe. Some tales were darker than others. "What does that mean specifically?" I asked.

  "Odin's riding through the forest with his hunters and his dogs," his mother Gunna said. She was standing between me and the door now, also with a blanket pulled around her shoulders.

  "Is this why we have to be indoors before sundown?" I asked.

  "It's a good enough reason," she said sternly. But then she gave her husband a nervous glance. "We've never had one here in my lifetime, though."

  "Not for centuries," Valki said. "There were a few recorded instances in the early days of the settlement, but nothing since."

  "Why now?" I wondered aloud.

  "What I want to know is why you were about to let them in?" Raggi said. He had a drawn sword in his hand, barefoot and shirtless but ready for battle. I flinched back from the sight of that blade, and Thorbjorn scowled at Raggi.

  "Put away your weapon. There will be no fighting here," he said.

  "Not until she tells me what she was doing," Raggi said, stabbing a finger of his swordless hand at me.

  "I was making sure the door was fast," I said. "There was a dog just outside. Didn't you hear it?"

  "Sure, we all heard it," he said. "Friend of yours?"

  "Enough with the baseless accusations," Thorbjorn snarled at him.

  "Baseless? She was standing by the door before the rest of us were even awake," he said.

  "That doesn't mean she summoned it," Thorbjorn said. "She's a volva. She's more sensitive to magic than any of us can imagine. Of course she would feel the hunt coming before the rest of us."

  I said nothing in my own defense. I wasn't sure I had actually sensed anything, except maybe the smothering silence before the wind had picked up.

  And I wasn't sure that I hadn't summoned it, at least subconsciously. I closed my eyes and looked at my own magic, but I was containing the glow still, just like Haraldr had taught me. It was automatic, just like it was supposed to be.

  "We'll all be perfectly safe so long as we stay indoors," Valki said. He was using his council voice, commanding and reassuring both at once. I had to use magic to get that effect when I spoke, but he just naturally summoned it. He started to speak again, but had to wait until another gust of howling wind had passed to be heard. "We'll pass a safe night here, if a sleepless one."

  There was a murmur through the crowd of resigned agreement. Thormund and Thorge were building the fire back up to roaring life, and Gunna headed towards the kitchen, doubtless to find some drink or snack to help pass the time until the storm and the hunt passed.

  I was just heading back to my own bedroll when I heard Jóra ask, "Where's Freylaug?"

  The first time she asked it, she sounded merely curious and also still hal
f-asleep. The second time held a note of rising panic.

  The third time was nearly a shriek.

  "She was just here, by me," Freygunnar said. I turned to see her on her knees, tearing apart her sister's bedroll as if she might find her hiding in the folds. Frigg crawled over to help in the futile search.

  But then Jóra lunged to her feet, knocking me back as she barreled to the door. Thorbjorn caught her just in time before she could lift the bar to throw open the doors.

  The dog outside rattled the doors harder than ever, nearly dislodging the bar on its own. Valki put his hands down on it and leaned into it. Raggi finally put his sword away, then rushed forward to help.

  "Let me go! Let me go!" Jóra yelled as she struggled to free herself from Thorbjorn's bear hug.

  "You can't go out, you know you can't," Gunna said. She caught her sister's flailing hands and held them still. Then she put a hand on her sister's cheek, and finally Jóra began to calm, slumping in Thorbjorn's grasp.

  "She went out there. She must've done. But why?" Jóra asked.

  "Perhaps she was lured out," Nilda said.

  "By what? The hunt wasn't here yet," Jóra said.

  "There's a bigger problem with your theory than that," Raggi said, and slapped his hand on the bar. "How did she close this door again behind her?"

  "Ingrid, did you do it?" Thorbjorn asked. "Did you find the door open and secure it while the rest of us slept?"

  "No," I said. "When I got up everything was dark and still, no one else was awake, and that door was mostly definitely locked."

  The dog stopped its assault on the door, although we could still hear it breathing through the gaps in the boards. Thorbjorn handed Jóra off to his parents, then took my elbow to pull me to the most remote corner of the hall.

  It wasn't really private. Everyone could see us, and half the lodge could probably hear us if they made an effort. But Thorbjorn gave the few looking our way a quelling glare before turning his attention to me.

  "Is this what you felt last night?" he asked me in a whisper.

  "No," I said. I was absolutely certain about that. "What I felt last night felt... human. Or human-controlled. This, going on out there now? It's not remotely human. It's something so other I can't even wrap my mind around it."

  He gave me a wry grin. "Well, that would make sense, wouldn't it? If it's Odin and his band of taken souls, out for a hunt? That's definitely not remotely human. Or like anything you've encountered before."

  "There are a few other possibilities," I said reluctantly.

  "Tell me," he said.

  "What I felt last night might be some sort of precursor to this," I said. "Like a warning I didn't know enough for us all to heed."

  "I've never heard of such a thing, but that doesn't mean it isn't true," he said, stroking at his beard. "One of the taken souls that won back a measure of freedom, perhaps? It's not unimaginable."

  "Or," I said, and then stopped again, swallowing hard even though my throat was quite dry.

  "Tell me," he said again. He looked over his shoulder to be sure no one was trying to listen in, then moved closer to me, blocking out the sight of me from the rest of the room. No one but he would know what I said next.

  I appreciated the gesture. The problem was, he was the one person I really didn't want to know.

  "Maybe," I said, with such slowness that even I found it agonizing. "Maybe Raggi is right. Maybe they are here because of me."

  "You didn't summon this thing," he said with absolute certainty.

  "I know I didn't try to," I said. "I'm worried I didn't try hard enough not to."

  "You're not making any sense," he said.

  "I'm saying maybe I lured it here," I said.

  "I know what you're saying, but it doesn't fit with what's happening here," he said. "If this thing was looking for you, it would be working a lot harder to get inside to get you."

  That only made my cheeks burn hotter. "That's the other problem. I never did the protection spells I said I was going to do."

  "Does it look like we need them?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye. "My mother's ancestors built a strong house. And the magic of our line, while not remotely the same as what lies with your family, still infuses these walls. My father is right. We are all quite safe here."

  "Except for Freylaug," I said.

  His face fell, and I realized he had forgotten about her, if just for a moment. "Perhaps she is well, too. I don't know how she could've gotten locked outside, especially without waking anyone. But if she did, she would know to get inside any of the other buildings. The stable on the back of this house, the shed we use to clean the animal carcasses. In a pinch, even the outhouse would protect her."

  "Assuming she could get to any of them in time," I said.

  "Until tomorrow morning when we can get outside and look around, assuming is all we can do," he said.

  I nodded. I couldn't argue with that.

  But I didn't have to like it.

  10

  We passed a long night together in that lodge. The wind never ceased to howl. The drumbeat of horse hooves would fade but then return, stronger than ever. Sometimes there was even the sound of metal weapons striking the sides of the hunting lodge, as if the hunters were striking the logs of the walls around us, trying to scare us even more.

  It worked. Oh, how it worked.

  But the sounds started to fade away even as the first gray light of morning started peeping in from around the shutters, which were closed over the few windows.

  I helped Gunna, Nilda and Kara make porridge enough for everyone and passed the bowls around. By the time it was safe to lift the bar and open the doors, we all at least had a belly full of warm food to ground us.

  I for one felt like I was going to need it.

  And that feeling intensified when I got my first glimpse of the newly fallen snow outside. It wasn't much deeper than it had been the day before, but the top layer was like no snowfall I had ever seen. It was blown in feathery strands, creating a glittering pattern that repeated over and over again as far as I could see. Under the eaves of the lodge, under the trees on the far side of the clearing, everywhere.

  If you've ever seen a mark on the snow from where an owl or a hawk has snatched up some hapless little mammal, you have an idea of what we were all looking at. Like a multitude of birds had flown low enough to catch something in their talons, then brought those wings down with a mighty stroke to launch themselves back up into the sky.

  At least there was no blood that I could see. No sign of death. But no sign of Freylaug either.

  "Freylaug!" Jóra called. Her voice echoed through the forest around us, reverberating again and again until it faded into nothingness.

  There was no reply.

  "Let's look for her," Raggi said. He was dressed now, as we all were, prepared for a long day out in the weather doing whatever ended up being needful. But before he could step out onto that snow, Thorbjorn caught his arm and pulled him back.

  "Ingrid?" he asked, looking to me.

  "I should go first," I said. I tried to sound confident and not at all like I was fighting to keep my knees from shaking.

  Raggi struggled against Thorbjorn's grip and looked ready to argue, but Jóra put a hand on his shoulder and he grew still.

  "Let the volva look first," she said.

  Raggi narrowed his eyes at me, but stepped back out of the way.

  "You can all follow along behind me. I'll wave for you when I'm ready for you to come," I said.

  Then I stepped out onto that haunting snow.

  The surface was like ice, but only a thin sheet of it. My boot went right through it, ruining the pattern.

  That was almost a relief. It was just snow. In the spring, it would melt. The strange patterns didn't change that.

  I took another step, then another. I was ruining the snow where I stepped, but I was looking carefully before each time I moved to be sure I wasn't missing any possible clues.

&n
bsp; "Ingrid, go north," Thorbjorn called out to me. I stopped and turned to look at him, and he pointed out the direction for me. I nodded, then continued on that way, towards the taller trees with the denser undergrowth. They were all dry now, nothing but bare scratchy branches that caught at my parka and, when it was tall enough, my hair.

  I was just out of sight of the lodge when I saw the first footprint. It definitely wasn't from a bird. It looked large enough to be from a bear.

  But I was really afraid it was from a dog.

  I circled around the footprint but found my way blocked again, this time by the marks of horses' hooves in the snow. First from a single horse, then from a bunch of them all trampling over everything. Then another set of dog prints, even larger than the first.

  I could also see a few deep holes thrust through the snow, as if from the staff end of a pole axe or something.

  But that was all. No sign of any human footprints. Not from the hunt, and not from Freylaug.

  Which didn't make any sense.

  I turned around and looked again, back towards the lodge, just out of sight through the dense underbrush I had pushed my way through.

  Yes, I could see something now, almost lost in the bird wing pattern, but easier to see from this direction, looking back towards the clearing that was slowly filling with the light of dawn. They were faint, and I suspected the bird pattern was meant to hide it, but they were definitely there.

  Human footprints. From bare human feet that hadn't broken through the icy top layer of the snow. Perhaps during the deep cold the night before, that layer had been firmer.

  Or perhaps it was just part of the magic that had lured her out to meet the hunt. She had danced over the snow like she was half a spirit already.

  The footprints came through the hedge a little west of where I had pushed through, but they looked to have come from the lodge. Which made sense.

  The other end of the trail ended in the most churned up stretch of snow. It looked like the horses here had been riding around in a circle, over and over. Then I saw, in the center of that circle, a single bit of unbroken snow. The bird wing pattern was missing here, but the human footprints stood out clearer than ever.