Corpse in the Mead Hall

by Cate Martin

  Maybe everyone else was right. Maybe this hadn't been a murder. The face of the Freylaug I had drawn certainly hadn't looked like a victim.

  But why was she outside in the middle of the night in the first place?

  I hated the thought that I might never know. I went back to the hunting lodge to put up the protective spells I knew and then help with the peeling.

  12

  For the second night in a row, I found myself awake in the wee hours, heart pounding, not sure what had disturbed me. The silence was profound, pressing painfully against my eardrums, and the air was again frigid in a way it hadn't been when I had climbed into my bedroll hours before.

  The others around me were tossing and turning in their sleep. At first I thought they were again mostly reacting to the sudden drop in temperature without quite waking. But a few of them whimpered or cried out like they were trapped in the throes of a nightmare.

  And Mjolner was gone. He had been purring against the back of my neck when I had drifted off to sleep, but there was no sign of him now. Something was definitely going on with him. I only wished he could tell me what was so important he kept not being there when I faced things alone in the middle of the night.

  And I was alone. No one else was showing any signs of waking, despite the disturbances to their sleep.

  I got out of my bedroll and started walking down the center of the lodge, checking that each bedroll had an occupant.

  And quickly realized that one didn't. I looked to either side of the empty bedroll. I saw the loops of Frigg's braids peeking out of the top of the next bedroll over and remembered that it had been Freygunnar who had laid down to sleep beside her, on the far side of Nilda from me.

  Freygunnar was missing.

  I spun around and looked to the door, which was still barred, just as it had been the night before.

  Only this time I must be awake sooner, because everything was still deadly quiet. No wind, no dogs, no horses.

  I half-closed my eyes and expanded my magical awareness to the spells I had cast that afternoon. They still held, although the older magic I had interwoven them with, the magic from Gunna and Jóra's ancestors, didn't seem to need the help from my puny spell craft.

  I pulled on my boots then ran to the door, setting the bar aside then pushing my way outside into the moonless night. I closed the doors behind me. There was no way to bar them from this side, but with all the tossing and turning the others were doing, I was sure one of them would be awake before long.

  Soon enough, they all would. I could feel that old power drawing nearer from somewhere just over the horizon.

  I held the door handles closed behind me but took a moment to close my eyes and focus on my magic. I was still standing on the threshold. I wanted to be absolutely sure I had contained my glow before I left the last bit of shelter from the lodge behind.

  But that effort had already become automatic for me, even though Haraldr and I had been practicing it only for a few days. There was no more of a supernatural gleam about me than there was to anything else out in this forest.

  Which wasn't exactly nothing. Every living thing has at least a little bit of a glow. Lots of things were out here with me that I didn't have time to look at more closely now. But I didn't stand out, and I wasn't drawing anything to me.

  That was the best I could hope for.

  I opened my eyes and started walking away from safety. I knew I didn't have much time.

  There wasn't a cloud in the sky above, and the stars were bright enough to light up the clearing in front of me.

  I saw a single track of footprints in the snow. They weren't deep; like Freylaug's from the night before, they rested on the icy top layer without breaking through.

  I had no such luck. Every step I took following those footprints found my boots crushing through the ice, then getting mired in the softer snow beneath. It was slow going, and just when I needed speed.

  I followed the footprints through the tangle of dried underbrush, but they didn't stop in the clearing beyond. They kept going, past the point where the Wild Hunt had rode the night before. Deeper into the woods.

  Did the Wild Hunt ever come twice in as many nights? I wasn't sure.

  And I still didn't know exactly what else there was to fear in these woods after dark. I probably should've tried to wake someone to come out here with me. But I'd come too far to backtrack now.

  I started to re-evaluate that assessment as the cold sank into my bones. I had pulled on my boots, but my coat, hat, mittens and scarf were all still back in the lodge. The sweater and wool leggings that had been enough for a short walk in the afternoon were woefully inadequate for a long midnight hike.

  But then I saw something ahead of me, at the top of a small hill just barely visible through the trees. Someone's pale face had reflected the starlight, if just for a moment.

  "Freygunnar!" I called out and tried to break into a run. The snow wouldn't cooperate, and I stumbled and fell into a tree whose branches promptly snagged the sleeves of my sweater. I pulled myself free and looked back up towards the hill.

  There was no sign of her now, but I was sure I hadn't imagined her. "Freygunnar! Stop!" I called again. I sprinted as quickly as I dared up the hill.

  I could see her clearly now, her long braid of red-gold hair catching the starlight as she continued to walk away from me. Towards what, I had no clue. I ran down the far side of the hill until I had caught up with her, then grabbed her arm.

  "Freygunnar, stop," I said, nearly out of breath. It hurt to pant like that. The air was so cold, and the stitch in my side was brutal.

  She jerked her arm out of my grasp and continued walking without so much as a word to me. I pushed on after her again, this time running around to stand directly in front of her and block her path.

  "Freygunnar. Stop," I commanded.

  I was flat on my back, sprawled out on the snow before I even realized she was pushing me. But that wasn't the most startling thing.

  No, that had been her eyes. Her blue-green eyes had been wide open but totally unseeing. Like she was sleepwalking, or worse.

  Like she was hypnotized or under some sort of spell.

  I could feel bruises forming all over me as I struggled back to my feet to go after her again. Whatever was happening to her, it seemed to have also given her a measure of super-strength somehow.

  Maybe it wasn't the best plan to try to stop her. Maybe I should just stay with her and make sure she was safe until she woke.

  Then, as cold as the air had been, it suddenly dropped another dozen degrees in a heartbeat. My eardrums hurt worse than ever, like the air pressure was changing as well.

  My fingers were going numb, and so was my face. I was in real danger of frostbite.

  And so was Freygunnar. I couldn't just walk with her. I had to get her back to the lodge somehow.

  I started to run after her again. Then the wind picked up around me, strong enough to bend the trees and send their branches snapping in all directions.

  A dog howled, far off in the distance. That remote sound chilled my already freezing blood.

  Then the second answered from right behind me. I didn't dare turn to look. I just put my head down and ran for all I was worth.

  The thunder of horse hooves was growing louder. And still Freygunnar kept walking. Where was she going? Where was she being summoned to?

  "Freygunnar!" I yelled over the roaring wind. "Stop!"

  I could only yell once. I didn't have enough breath to do it again. It hurt so much, to be short of wind in air so cold. It was burning my lungs.

  But that burning was nowhere near as worrying as the lack of feeling in my hands.

  Even if I wanted to abandon Freygunnar and run back to the warmth and safety of the hunting lodge, the sounds of the Wild Hunt racing up behind me were between me and it. I was trapped or was about to be.

  I forced myself to keep running, but I knew I didn't have much stamina left in me. I was going to fall down in
to the snow soon, and when I did, I doubted I would get up again.

  I needed to find shelter, but there was none. No caves in the sides of the hills, no fallen trees making tents of their branches under a blanket of snow. Nothing.

  I nearly collided with Freygunnar as she stopped suddenly and turned to face whatever was behind us. I skidded to a halt, captivated by the rapturous look on her face. It was just like the one I had drawn on Freylaug, only the eyes were wrong.

  I had drawn Freylaug with her eyes closed. Freygunnar still had hers open, but as much as she should be looking right at me, she didn't seem to be seeing anything. Not me, not anything behind me.

  But I could hear the snapping of tree branches growing ever louder, and the dog's panting breath must be very close indeed to be heard over the thunder of the hooves.

  "I'm so sorry," I said to Freygunnar. Then I ran past her, hoping to find some small protection in a thicket of leafless branches at the bottom of the hill.

  But when I got there, I realized they were not as dense as they had appeared from the top of the hill. There was no protection here at all.

  And when my boot skidded over an icy patch of snow, I realized that I was all done running. The stitch in my side had become a knife angling up from my diaphragm, through my lung, heading for my heart. I could barely catch my breath standing still. Running was out of the question.

  It hurt so much to breathe.

  I bent over, hands on my knees, trying to suck in enough air past that stabbing pain to make the starbursts in my vision stop.

  I could hear the horses coming up behind me, and the inarticulate shouts of men as well as the baying of the dogs. But while the percussive beats of the hooves went on and on, they drew no closer.

  I realized they were riding in circles, as they had the night before.

  Then Freygunnar cried out, just once, a cry of pleasure and pain intermingled, neither quite dominant.

  The beat of the hooves slowed, the horses blowing out their breaths and the dogs snuffling. I didn't dare look up, but I knew what was happening. I could see it so clearly in my mind. They were still circling, but not so fast as before.

  They were looking for their next target.

  And I still couldn't catch my breath. I couldn't even see properly, the edges of my vision starting to go gray. Not only couldn't I run, I was in real danger of fainting dead away. It was all I could do to make sure that I still wasn't exuding magic, but my defenses were still up. I wouldn't draw anything to me magically, but surely it wouldn't be long before they saw me physically. And there was nothing I could do to prevent that. There was simply no cover.

  Suddenly a hand fell on my shoulder and jerked me forward, pulling me through the thicket. The short, spiny branches tore at my sweater, caught at my hair, scratched bloody furrows across my face.

  Then everything went dark.

  But it was a warm, nurturing dark. At first I just accepted it. Then I thrilled at the deep breaths of air I could take here where it wasn't so cold that it burned my lungs.

  I could still hear the sounds of the hunt. It sounded like it was all around me now, like I was surrounded by it.

  But it also seemed so very far away.

  At last my heart slowed from a gallop to something closer to its normal rhythm. Although I couldn't tell in the darkness, it felt like the grayness was no longer threatening to consume my vision.

  I put out my hands and felt dried wood splintering away under my fingertips. I was inside the hollow of a tree. A very large tree, I realized, as I moved my hands in a circle around me. I looked up and could just see a patch of the starry sky far above me. I took another deep breath and discerned the slightest whiff of ozone in the wood around me.

  A lightning-struck tree, still standing in the forest after what given the dusty dryness of the wood must have been years and years.

  I shuffled my feet, but there was nothing below me but earth and a crumbling layer of dry leaves.

  I moved my hands over the inside of the tree again, making a more thorough search this time. But how I had gotten inside, I couldn't tell. There didn't seem to be any opening but the one yards and yards above me. I groped around with my feet, poking my toes into any concavity in the trunk around me, but felt no trace of a crawl space.

  I didn't know how I had gotten inside, and I really didn't know how I was going to get out again. But with the sound of the hunt still all around me, as if they were circling my very tree in search of me, I was in no hurry to figure that part out.

  Something had grabbed me and pulled me out of danger. I was grateful for that. But whoever they had been, they were gone now. I was alone, inside that dead tree.

  And the hunt gave no sign of passing on any time soon. I found myself slumping a little, resting my back against the wood behind me, my knees pressed against the other side.

  It was more comfortable than it sounds. And the smell of old tree, faint ozone, and the dry, clean smell of faded leaves were a comfort as well.

  I soon found myself drifting off to sleep. And as my consciousness slipped away, I swear I heard the sound of a lullaby sung in some old, forgotten language. It syncopated with the persistent sounds of the Wild Hunt, making those terrifying sounds just a harmless part of its soothing narrative.

  When I woke, it was dawn, and I was outside the tree, sitting with my back against its trunk.

  And all around me for as far as my eyes could see was the repeating pattern of bird wings pressed into the snow, not quite concealing the traces of the Wild Hunt that had failed to catch me.

  13

  I examined every inch of that tree, but there was no sign of how I had gotten myself inside of it the night before or how I had gotten back out again. I could tell by rapping on it that it was hollow in the middle, but that was all.

  There was certainly no sign of what had put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me to safety. If it had left any trace on the snow the night before, it was lost under the overlapping pattern of bird wings.

  I closed my eyes and looked at the magic around me. The tree had a definite glow to it. It felt protective to me, but it didn't have the weaving pattern I associated with spells. Had it been some sort of magical tree before it was struck by lightning, or had the lightning imbued it with power? Or maybe the power had drawn the lightning. There was no way for me to know.

  I wanted to sit down in the snow and sketch it all out, but I didn't have so much as a stub of a pencil with me.

  And the moment I thought of my art bag, waiting for me by my bedroll back at the lodge, I realized I had no idea where the lodge was. It was east of me, but beyond that, I just wasn't sure.

  I climbed the hill and saw the spot where Freygunnar had last stood. Her bare feet had imprinted the snow much as her sister's had, deeper at the toes, as if she too had leapt up into the air and then never come back down.

  I looked around at the other tracks in the snow, but there was no new information there. Horse hooves, impossible to tell how many. Two different sets of dog prints. And a scattering of places where pole axes had been thrust through the snow to the ground below.

  But I had the nagging feeling that something was wrong with those tracks. I inched my way around that hilltop for quite some time before I realized what was bothering me.

  The tracks never came down to my tree.

  And yet I would swear I had heard them all around me the night before.

  I looked around again and saw that the tight circle around Freygunnar's last footprints became more dispersed as horses broke away singly or in pairs. I followed one trail as it traced a lazy circle through the forest, the pair of horses sometimes together but often farther apart. It led back to the hill. I followed another trail that did the same thing, wandering through the trees as if searching for something it wasn't finding before circling back.

  Many of them did this, and the tree I had been hiding in was always within the borders of their circles, but apparently only coincidentally. If they had be
en looking for me, they had no idea where I had been.

  But they had made a straight line towards Freygunnar.

  I suppose I should've been relieved. This was the best proof I was ever likely to find that I hadn't lured the Wild Hunt to the lodge. They had been pursuing Freygunnar, not me.

  But I didn't feel relieved. Because if they had been pursuing me, I would understand that, and I would have some idea what I should do next.

  But why was the Wild Hunt targeting the Freyas? And what could I do to protect them?

  I heard a soft inquisitive meow behind me and turned to see Mjolner making his way towards me over the feathery snow.

  "Mjolner!" I said, dropping to my knees to catch him up in my arms. He purred like mad, ramming his head again and again under my chin. "So you came back to bed and found me gone, did you?"

  He gave a sheepish meow, not quite looking at me. I mean, most cats don't, but Mjolner isn't most cats.

  "Well, trust you to be the one to find me," I said to him. "Do you know the way back? Of course you do. No, you don't need to get back on the snow unless you want to. I can see your trail and follow it myself if you want to ride home in my hood."

  He purred happily, settling himself into the hood of my parka as if it were his own personal hammock. And sleeping against the back of my neck was his very favorite thing. He was soon curled up in a tight, warm ball, purring away in his sleep.

  I followed the trail of his paw prints back towards the lodge, but before I was even in sight of the building, I heard voices crying out my name throughout the woods around me.

  "I'm here!" I called, although I couldn't see where any of the voices were coming from. But no one seemed to hear me. I could still hear my name echoing through the trees, but always from so very far away.

  Then a thicket beside me rustled. I stepped back and started to raise my fists as if I could somehow defend myself from whatever might be about to jump out at me with my bare hands. I remembered there were bears in these woods in addition to the many small creatures who had been glowing magically when I had looked around the night before.