Corpse in the Mead Hall

by Cate Martin

  "No, I don't reckon it's me you're trying to impress," he said.

  "Then who?" I asked.

  "Doesn't matter," he shrugged. "The point is, I'm sick of being part of your little theatrical show. Go back to Villmark, or better yet, carry on to Runde and past it. Leave the rest of us in peace."

  "Do you call this 'peace'?" Kara asked, waving her arms around to indicate the Wild Hunt still pounding on the walls of the lodge.

  "That wouldn't be happening if she weren't here," Báfurr said.

  "We don't know that," Nilda said.

  "Don't we? We've been coming out here for how many years, never a sign of the Wild Hunt? Then she comes with us, and bam!" He slapped his hands together loudly, then said no more.

  "You think she summoned the Wild Hunt just to pretend to fight it with magic?" Nilda asked, shaking her head. "That makes no sense. If this were all a show, wouldn't she be succeeding more?"

  "Hey," I said softly. That one hurt.

  "It's all part of the show," Báfurr said. "She gets rid of a few women she has no use for, just let's the Hunt take them. But not her friend. No, her friend is special."

  I tried to argue, but all I could manage was to sputter in rage.

  But Kara had no such trouble finding the words. "How dare you?" she hissed, getting to her feet and stalking over to stand over where Báfurr sat on the bench next to Raggi. She had her sword in her hand. Her arm was still at her side, but every muscle in it was tensed to move.

  "Kara," I said, but she ignored me.

  "How dare you imply that I was part of some ruse," she said to Báfurr. "Do you think that of me? Truly? Then you don't know me at all."

  "I was just talking," Báfurr said, raising his hands in mock surrender.

  "You talk too much," Kara said.

  "We're all on edge here," Thorbjorn said, putting a hand on the wrist of her sword hand. She looked down as if she wasn't sure what was touching her.

  "Apologize, Báfurr," Thorge said. He, too, was on his feet. He didn't have his knives in his hands, but that didn't matter. I had seen how fast he could draw and throw them. In a blink of an eye, Báfurr could have two knives buried up to their hilts in his throat.

  And I could see that he knew it.

  "I'm sorry," Báfurr said to Kara. He put a hand over his heart as if to indicate just how sincere he was.

  "And Ingrid," Thorbjorn said.

  Báfurr glanced at me. "Sorry," he said with a little nod.

  Thorbjorn narrowed his eyes, but now it was my turn to calm a warrior with a soft touch.

  "I accept your apology, provided you accept mine," I said. "I am honestly trying to save everyone. I know I've failed twice already, and there is nothing I can do to make amends for that now. But I swear there will not be a third failure."

  Báfurr grunted noncommittally. That sound could mean anything.

  "We should vote again," Raggi said to the room at large. "Whether to stay or to go."

  "Better just to ask if anyone has changed their mind," Nilda said. "I haven't."

  There were murmurs around the room, various people agreeing with Nilda.

  Raggi threw up his hands, then slumped back on his bench, reaching for his mug of coffee.

  The Wild Hunt continued to ride around the lodge. At least that meant the moss-wives were safe for this night, I thought to myself.

  But this couldn't keep happening night after night. It was untenable.

  "I'll figure out what's happening here," I said to Thorbjorn, Nilda and Kara. "Tomorrow, I'll devote all of my attention to it. If that means going back to Villmark, then so be it."

  "But you'll be back," Kara said, as if this were already an accepted fact.

  "I'll be back," I promised her. "If I have to bring Haraldr, my grandmother, or heck, even Loke with me to keep everyone here safe, I'll do it. But I'll definitely be back."

  22

  The noise of the Wild Hunt left shortly before dawn, but no one felt like celebrating. We just all stayed huddled together, unspeaking, staring into space.

  The fire had died back down, but the grayish light through the cracks in the shutters was brightening the room. Gunna went to the doors and lifted the bar, then swung both doors wide open.

  The bird-wing patterns on the snow were fresh and as intricate as ever. Gunna looked out at them for a moment, then set the bar aside and shuffled off to the kitchen area, where her sister was already spooning porridge into bowls.

  We ate without talking, then the other hunting parties headed out one by one.

  "What are we starting with, then?" Thorbjorn asked me once his bowl was scraped clean.

  "You are heading out with the others to hunt us some meat," I said. "I have some things of my own to do."

  "I want to help," he insisted.

  I glanced around to be sure Nilda and Kara weren't in earshot, then leaned forward to whisper, "I know you do. And I couldn't have gotten anything accomplished yesterday without you. Don't think I don't know that."

  "So?" he said.

  "Kara is working hard to keep her chin up. I respect her for that. But I think she's earned a day doing what she loves best. And you know that means hunting."

  "It does," he allowed.

  "With you," I added. He scowled at me, but I raised a hand to hold off whatever he wanted to say. "I know, and she knows, how you feel. I'm only asking for you to be there with her as a friend."

  "And what are you planning to do without me there by your side?" he asked.

  I looked over at my art bag, Mjolner once more sleeping while curled around it. It was clear to me he had very protective feelings about the wand stowed away within that bag.

  "I have to learn how to use that wand," I said.

  "What do you mean? You did great with it last night," he said.

  "That was impulse. And luck," I said. "I would like to add skill to that list before I need it again. I need to get acquainted with it. And that's really something I need to do alone."

  "Okay," he agreed. "Be careful."

  "Of course I will," I said. I yawned, then gave myself a little shake, as if that could rouse my mind to full wakefulness. "I should get started."

  "We're going north today," he said as he got to his feet. "I'm sure we'll shoot nearly more than we can haul back before we even break for lunch."

  "Then I'll see you at dinnertime," I said.

  I walked with the others to the edge of the clearing, hugging Nilda and Kara goodbye before heading back into the nearly empty lodge.

  Gunna and Jóra were still cleaning up in the kitchen. And Freyja was trying to get a few more spoonfuls of porridge into the mouth of little Martin, who for his part was anxious to get down on the floor and play.

  I crossed the room to my art bag. Mjolner was awake now, sitting patiently beside it and watching me closely with his yellow-green eyes.

  "I suppose you're a part of this, aren't you?" I said to him as I opened the bag and took out the wand.

  He meowed at me but didn't move. Well-trained dogs should have such an impressive sit posture.

  I turned to walk back to the doors, and Mjolner got up to follow at my heels.

  I paused in the doorway. I wanted to see if I could sense anything from whatever had been at the door the night before, waiting for Kara to come out. It would make sense to start inside, where I had been standing when I had dispelled it.

  But while no one in the lodge was looking at me now, that could change at any moment. I didn't want to worry anybody.

  And I really didn't want to work magic with people maybe looking at me.

  So I went outside. Mjolner followed along as if we hadn't stopped at all. I went to the left just outside the door and turned back to face the threshold.

  Of course, there was nothing to see in the normal world now. Everyone's boots as they'd headed out had churned the snow up pretty thoroughly. But I had seen the bird-wing pattern on the snow already, and it had been just like before.

  I looked do
wn at the wand shining brightly in my hand. I really wasn't sure what to do.

  My grandmother had a wand of her own, but I had only seen her holding it while acting as a judge. It had been more badge of office than weapon or tool. I had never seen her use it in her own spellwork.

  But with every little increment I made on my own journey of magical knowledge, I acknowledged more and more that she and I had very different ways of doing things. And the ur-dwarves had made this particular wand especially for me.

  So what did that mean?

  I looked down at Mjolner, who blinked back up at me. He was waiting, patiently waiting for me to figure it out.

  I glared at him just a little bit. I was pretty sure he knew what I was supposed to do but was just refusing to tell me.

  He winked at me.

  I snorted a laugh, then turned my attention back to the wand. I started waving it around, at first just to get a feel for the weight of it in my hand, the balance of it. It was like working with some art implement on a vast canvas. I was drawing from my shoulder, using the whole range of motion my arm could manage.

  I kept waving it around, my eyes half-focused as I fixed my attention instead on the sensations of the movement. But the glint of the bronze caught the light from the morning sun, like sparks of too-bright light in my vision.

  But the sparks were forming a pattern before me. And not just where I was waving the wand. They were tracing out a snaky path through the air, up and down from about shoulder height to about waist height.

  It started at the center of the doorway and trailed off through the woods to the north and east.

  Or rather, it started in the woods and ended at the door.

  "You see that, right?" I said to Mjolner, still waving my arm around.

  "Meow," he said.

  "This is tiring on my arm. Do you know where this trail leads?" I asked him. "Do you know where this snake thing came from?"

  "Meow," he said again. And then he was gone, off like a shot over the snow, across the clearing and then through the thicket into the woods.

  I decided not to put my wand away just yet and ran after him. He wasn't waiting for me, but he kept a pace that I could just keep up with. He darted through trees, over frozen ponds, and around boulders, more or less back towards Villmark.

  I hoped that didn't mean he was just heading back to the markets he knew, the ones that always had fresh fish. His favorite dinner, but not one he'd had since we'd come out to the hunting lodge.

  I really hoped I wasn't wasting the day chasing a cat with a craving. But at least if we ended up in Villmark, I could implement the "come back with reinforcements" plan.

  I followed him for hours. We were heading mostly in the direction of Villmark, but definitely not along the course we had taken out in the first place. Not that I'd been paying much attention to the countryside during that sleigh ride, but still. Nothing around me looked familiar.

  Then Mjolner leaped up to the top of a large boulder and began washing his ears as he waited for me to catch up.

  "I can't keep running like this," I told him as I leaned back against his rock and willed my heart rate to slow. "My feet are still a mess from yesterday, you know."

  He gave me a sympathetic meow, then finished bathing with a snappy flick of his enormous paw. Then he turned away from me to stare off into the trees.

  "What is it?" I asked, squinting to see what he was looking at. All I saw were trees, trees, and more trees.

  And faintly, almost lost in the shadows under those trees, the boxy shapes of cabins.

  "Is that what I think it is?" I asked him. But he just launched himself off the flat top of the rock and sprinted across the snow, far faster than I could follow. Like he was in full pursuit mode of some fleeing rodent.

  Or like he was running for his life.

  I spun to look behind me, but there was nothing there.

  So, the former then. I jogged after him. He was quickly out of my sight, but his paw prints on the snow left a clear trail to guide me.

  The vague box shapes became more definitely cabins as I drew closer. Then they were definitely cabins arranged in a circle under tall pines. There was no question where I was. This was the hamlet where the exiles from Villmark lived together.

  But why was Mjolner bringing me here?

  I followed his paw prints as they circled around the outside of the hamlet. Then they darted between two of the cabins, towards the center of the community.

  I finally caught up with him in the center of the hamlet. He was stalking back and forth as if trying to pick up the scent again. I watched him do this for a few minutes until it became clear he wasn't going to find what he was looking for quickly or easily.

  I took out my wand and unfocused my eyes as I waved it around. I could see traces of magic, but they were like random shreds of paper scattered all around me. A spell had moved through here, a powerful one, but from where and to where, I couldn't tell from what had been left behind.

  I fixed my attention on the cabins themselves, looking at them carefully one by one, but nothing magical appeared to be going on behind any of those closed doors.

  Meanwhile, Mjolner's pacing was getting tighter. He was moving past the same three cabins over and over. At first glance I thought all the cabins were alike, and could see nothing different about these three.

  But then I realized that the one on the right was Signi's place. Her shutters had little heart shapes carved into them. I remembered that from when I had been here before.

  So that meant the one in the center belonged to the man that Loke had been anxious for me to meet. What was his name? Had Loke said it? I couldn't recall.

  Wait, Geiri had told me. It was Frór.

  The house to the left of that, I had no idea who lived there. But Mjolner's hunting took him past it again and again.

  Was the murderer I sought behind one of these three doors? Not that I suspected Signi, but she did have that mysterious houseguest. Was she watching over him because he was potentially dangerous?

  That Frór man hadn't felt dangerous to me when I had met him. At least, he hadn't triggered any of my self-protecting instincts. But Geiri hadn't trusted him.

  Not that I even knew if I could trust Geiri. All I knew about him was that my sketch of him had shown nothing alarming.

  But who lived in that third house?

  Mjolner gave a little meow, as if suddenly realizing something, and ran straight up the stairs of the middle cabin. He sat down on the porch and started scratching at the door insistently.

  "What is it?" I asked him, looking around with my wand and my unfocused eyes. But I saw no more magic here than the occasional shreds that were scattered all over the hamlet.

  Mjolner was still scratching, forcefully enough to rattle the door in its frame. Then he added a persistent yowling to the mix.

  Which was odd. I knew for a fact he could walk through walls. He always managed it at home, whether that home was in Villmark, Runde or St. Paul.

  Was this place different? Or was he just being polite?

  He upped his yowling frequency, and I decided it definitely wasn't a matter of politeness.

  "Mjolner, stop," I said to him. I bent to try to pick him up, but he danced out of the reach of my hands. I gave up at once and stood up to look down at him with my hands on my hips. I had to project my angriest cat-mama energy at him.

  "Did you follow that spell here?" I asked. "Is this where it came from? Is the man in this house the one who's been luring women out to meet the Wild Hunt? Are you sure it's this house and not either of the others?"

  Mjolner ignored me. He made a little huffing sound, then went back to scratching at the door.

  "Stop that!" I said, dropping to one knee to try to grab him again.

  I was still down there, completely failing to catch hold of a cat, when the door swung open. A pair of man's boots were there in the doorway, big enough and worn enough to belong to a Thor.

  Then Mjolner was b
eing lifted up into the air. Without any feline objection.

  I straightened up, intending to apologize for disturbing him. It was the man called Frór, but he didn’t seem to notice me there at all. His attention was all on Mjolner.

  He was holding the cat gently in his arms and scratching all around his ears, just the way Mjolner liked best. He was also cooing something I didn't understand. Some of the words sounded familiar, but the accent was very different from what I was used to in Villmark. Even in a singsong, the words he spoke felt older than any I knew.

  Even without his winter coat on, he was definitely a large man, tall and wide across the shoulders. The sleeves of his knit sweater strained to reach around the hard muscles of his arms. His hair was all silvery gray but still thick, and his beard was so long he wore it tucked in his belt.

  He didn't exactly look like Santa Claus, but he didn't look like a killer either. I remembered what Geiri had called him. The man who could've been king. He did look like an old king, and of a hard-won kingdom at that. He had seen battles. He had probably killed scores of giants and trolls and maybe even other warriors.

  But luring young women to their deaths through magic? Not this man.

  And anyway, I very much doubted that Mjolner would be purring so loudly at the pets of a devious murderer. That wouldn't be like him at all. He always sensed danger, even when I didn't.

  But then, why did Mjolner lead me here?

  I realized Frór was looking at me as if waiting for me to speak. Well, I hadn't been the one rattling at his door, but I was probably still the one who should talk first.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

  Frór's eyes were twinkling merrily. I felt a wave of irritation at that, but that wave faded away before it quite crashed ashore.

  Again, there was something so familiar about those eyes. Where had I seen them before?

  "Well, come in, Ingrid Torfudottir," he said, still petting my cat as he stepped back to let me inside his cabin. "We have much to discuss, you and I."

  I tried talking again, but still had no words. So I just nodded, and went inside, and shut the door behind me.

  23