Corpse in the Mead Hall

by Cate Martin

  "Still," I said. "I worry she might be using Bera. Especially if Bera, unlike Halldis, gets to leave the cells from time to time."

  "Never alone," he said, but I could see from the line down the center of his forehead that my words were worrying him.

  "That just leaves whoever lives on the other side of you," I said.

  "That would be Geiri," he said and pulled a face.

  "He doesn't like you," I said.

  Frór laughed. "Is that so?"

  "That's what he said when I was here last," I said.

  "Well, he's not the first. And I suppose it doesn't hurt to admit that feeling is mutual," he said.

  "Why don't you like him?" I asked.

  Frór shrugged. "He doesn't hide his feelings as well as he thinks he does. I don't care for people who say one thing to my face and another behind my back. I like it even less when they don't do it well."

  "So he's duplicitous?" I asked. "A liar? Maybe has secrets?"

  "Well, that doesn't mean I think he's a murderer," Frór said. "That's a big leap."

  "No one here seems like a murderer," I said glumly.

  "True enough," he said, draining the last of his beer. "And yet, someone is. And it's up to us to find them. So, what now?"

  "I want to go back to that rock where Mjolner stopped," I said, getting to my feet. "I want to try looking around again from there."

  "I'll go with you," he said.

  Mjolner looked up from his thoroughly licked clean plate and meowed that he too was coming.

  We went back outside, and I quickly realized it was much later in the afternoon than I had realized. It had been a quick lunch, but apparently a late one. How much time had passed while I was inside?

  Or rather, how long had I spent sprawled out on the floor after dispelling my grandmother's memory blocking spell?

  "Where to?" Frór asked.

  "This way," I said, and half-jogged back the way I had come. Mjolner raced ahead and perched himself once more on the same rock.

  "I guess this is it?" Frór said as Mjolner proceeded to wash the herring juice off his paws.

  "Yes," I said, taking out my wand. I half-closed my eyes and then waved it around before me, the same as before. I walked all around the rock, then again in a wider circle, and then a third time in a still wider circle.

  But there was nothing there. I stopped walking and put my wand away. I could feel how slumped my shoulders were, like a discouraged child. I forced myself to straighten up.

  "Nothing," I said.

  "It's not nothing," Frór assured me. "Look, like I said, there's nothing out here but that hamlet. And there only so many cabins there. Someone there knows something, I'm sure of it."

  "So we should go door to door," I said, but I couldn't help glancing up at the sky again.

  "You're worried about the time," he guessed.

  "I promised to be back before sunset," I said. Then added, "But I’d like to come back with help. Haraldr, my grandmother, maybe Loke if he's around."

  "Oh, that one is always around. It's just a matter of finding him," Frór said. He sounded ever so slightly annoyed, and I remembered that Loke had been very eager to be there when Frór and I met. He had missed out.

  But I couldn't for the life of me guess what sort of fireworks he had been hoping for. None of my childhood memories involved him. I don’t think the two of us had ever met until the day I had driven up to Runde a few months before.

  "I don't know how I'm going to get to Villmark and then back to the lodge in time," I said.

  "Just head back to the lodge," he told me. "I'll send your mormor after you, and Haraldr if you think you need him."

  "He's been training me," I said.

  Frór snorted his opinion of that, but then turned away as if he hadn't wanted me to hear that. He wiped at his face, then turned back to me. "I'll send them on first. And then I'll ask around here. As soon as I know anything, I'll be straight out to see you."

  "Not after dark," I said.

  But he waved off my concern. "Odin doesn't want the likes of me for his Wild Hunt, believe me."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Never mind," he said. "You just get going. Tell your friends that help is on the way. We'll get to the bottom of this, don't you worry."

  "Okay," I agreed. I was reluctant to go. Not because I didn't think he'd do everything he said he'd do. And not because I'd rather ask around myself, although that was part of it.

  No, mostly I was just really done with running.

  "Here," Frór said, and pressed something into my mittened hand. I looked down at it. It was a jagged piece of chocolate that looked like it had been snapped off a bar as thick as a gold brick. "Let it melt on your tongue. It will give you energy to keep moving."

  "Thanks," I said. I put it in my mouth. It melted richly over my tongue, and my tired brain sparked back to life like he'd just given me the world's strongest espresso. Which was nothing compared to how invigorated my body was feeling. "That's more than chocolate," I said, careful not to spray any of it out of my mouth as I talked.

  "Well, of course," he said.

  I turned to run but then looked back. Mjolner was still there on the rock. He was no longer washing himself. Instead, he was rubbing his body against Frór's arm as he stood close beside the cat.

  "You're not coming?" I said to Mjolner.

  He said nothing. He just pawed at Frór's sleeve as if eager to go. Only in the other direction.

  "He knows his business," Frór reminded me as he scooped up my cat. "I'll keep him safe for you."

  "I know," I said. I didn't want to say out loud my real worry. But without Mjolner there, who was going to keep me safe?

  "I'll be along behind you," Frór said, as if reading my mind. "I'll take my sleigh. I'll probably reach the lodge faster than you."

  "So why don't I wait and ride with you?" I asked.

  "Well, maybe not so fast as all that," he said. "Go. You need to be there before sunset. That's absolutely crucial."

  "Why?" I asked. I knew the lodge was safe. The others would go inside and close the doors, and they'd be all right. Especially if Frór found who was doing this before they could do it again. But even if he didn't, I'd see that spell move past me on its way to the lodge. I was sure I could stop it. I could send it back with my wand, just as I had before.

  But Frór was shaking his head gravely. "The very last thing anyone should be doing is worrying a Thor. Let alone three of them. If they come out to find you, and they will, the Wild Hunt will find them."

  "Odin will take them," I guessed.

  "Odin will take them," Frór agreed. "Run."

  "But can't you-" I started to say, but this time he interrupted me with a roar.

  "Run!"

  The booming of his voice shook the trees all around us, and as I ran back the way I had come, it was with great clumps of snow raining down on me from above.

  25

  When I first starting running away from the hamlet, I was hyper-aware of everything I was sensing going on behind me. I didn't want to be caught off guard again if something started following me through the woods.

  But once the sound of Frór's footsteps as he carried Mjolner back to the cabins faded away, I could hear nothing but my own breathing. The forest was quiet, but not unusually so.

  And I felt nothing behind me, magical or otherwise. Nothing was setting off my danger sense.

  But I definitely didn't have the energy for another long run. It was only a matter of minutes as what would only laughingly be called a sprint became more of a light jog. And then that jog was downgraded to a brisk walk.

  Or I intended it to be brisk. But my muscles were aching, my lungs were on fire, and my feet were rubbing more and more raw with each step.

  I don't know how long I was merely focused on how miserable I was. Far longer than I ought to have been. But eventually I realized that something was wrong.

  I was in the right part of the forest; I hadn't gotten
lost. I could see the trail of footprints in the snow I had left that morning, following Mjolner to the hamlet.

  And yet, I was pretty sure the twisted pine tree I could see off to my left was too familiar. Like I had passed it more than once while enjoying my little mental pity party.

  I stopped to look at it. Maybe I was just remembering it from that morning? I looked around, but the only tracks in the snow were mine following Mjolner's, and mine now going back to the lodge. If I were somehow going in circles, I saw no proof of it.

  And yet, I had the nagging feeling I had seen that same tree at least three times. Maybe four.

  I pressed on, paying closer attention to where I was going and ignoring all of my body's little complaints. I even tried to put on a little more speed, but that effort was short-lived. Still, I kept my head up and my senses alert and I trudged on, back towards the lodge.

  I was just starting to laugh at myself for being silly - I was following my own footprints on a straight path from point A to point B, even I couldn't mess that up - when that same twisted pine rose up on my left again.

  This time when I stopped, I pulled a loose strand of yarn out of the end of my scarf and tied it to one of the branches. Then I found the energy again to jog for a few minutes.

  Until I reached that same pine again. There was absolutely no mistake. That was the yarn from my scarf on its branch.

  And yet, the only prints in the snow were the ones from that morning and the ones I was making now.

  What kind of magic was this?

  I took out my wand and half-closed my eyes as I waved it around. Nothing was revealed to me, but I knew there must be some sort of spell at work.

  The only other option was that I was going crazy.

  I sat down on the snow, regretting that I had left my art bag back at the lodge. I had nothing to work with but the wand and the world around me.

  I turned the wand around in my hand, holding it not like a magician would but like I normally held my pencil when sketching out the first lines on a drawing. I closed my eyes and settled my breathing, no easy trick after all the hard exercise.

  But when I was finally in a calm, creative place, I started sketching on the snow in front of me. I didn't open my eyes to see what I was doing, I just let instinct guide my hand.

  And it did. Furiously.

  When at last I was done, I opened my eyes and saw an absolute jumble of lines all over the icy crust of the top layer of snow. It wasn't easy to pick out any particular shape in that abstract chaos.

  I turned the wand back around in my hand and waved it between my eyes and the snow.

  Now things came to life. I could see where I had drawn the lodge, up and to the left. It glowed like a bright young sun. Then I found the stick figure that was me, right at the center of the drawing. Off to the right was the hamlet. I couldn't make out the cabins, but there was a little drawing of a cat that shone even brighter than the lodge. That had to be Mjolner.

  I looked up and blinked at the world around me. It still looked just like an ordinary forest. But something was leading me astray.

  I touched the tip of my wand to the drawing of the lodge, then aimed the wand in the direction I was sure the lodge should be.

  Suddenly something was glowing through the trees. It was bright but small, far away, with many overlapping layers of branches between me and it. But I knew it was the lodge. With this light to guide me, I wouldn't get turned around again.

  I put my wand away, got to my feet, and started running yet again. The sun was behind a dense layer of clouds now, but I knew it would be sunset soon. I could make it in time, but only if I didn't get slowed down yet again.

  I settled into a rhythm with the pounding of my feet and my breath. It was almost hypnotic, not a good combination with my tired body, but I kept my eyes fixed on that light and never looked away.

  Not even when I started to feel that thing again, the invisible thing in the woods, slowly creeping up behind me.

  When I couldn't stand it any longer, I looked away from the light from the lodge and back over my shoulder. There was nothing there. I squinted my eyes, but my magical vision wasn't seeing anything either. But I felt it. I knew something was coming up behind me.

  But when I looked back towards the lodge, I realized to my horror that the light had shifted. I was running too far to the east, and somehow the point of light had moved further away from me.

  I don't know how long I kept running like that, never daring to look back again or even to blink, always feeling the little tickles of being watched on the back of my neck. It seemed to go on for hours.

  Worse, with my focus never moving away from that light, I wasn't sure if the rest of the forest was getting darker, or if I was just seeing it that way because the brightness of the lodge's magic was dazzling my eyes.

  And I had lost all sense of where the sun was in the sky, behind those banks of dark gray clouds to the west.

  But suddenly the thing behind me seemed to reach out for me. It was like I could feel tendrils of a malevolent spell brushing over my cheeks, like someone behind me with cold, cold hands about to put them over my eyes and say "guess who?"

  The feeling was so revolting, and I was so beyond tired, that when my toe caught on a tree root rather than stumbling then catching myself, I went sprawling down face-first into the snow.

  I tasted coppery blood in my mouth, but I didn't have time to worry about that. I pushed myself to my hands and knees, then spun around to face the world behind me. I pulled my wand from my sleeve and held it out before me.

  But there was nothing there. I saw nothing and heard nothing, and that malevolent feeling was just gone.

  I stayed like that for a moment, staring around and listening intently, then put my wand away and got to my feet. I brushed the snow from my leggings, but the sound of my mittens on the wool of my leggings seemed to roar loudly in my ears.

  The forest around me was far too quiet. And it was dark. Even now that I was no longer staring fixedly into a bright light, it was all black and murky grays.

  I was too late. I was out long past sunset, and still had so far to go.

  I made a little ball of light and tried to get a better sense of where I was. I could tell I was nowhere near the lodge itself. But was I close to the grove of the moss-wives? I might get at least the protection of a tree there.

  But when I looked around, I had no idea where I was. All I could tell was that the only footprints in the snow now were the ones that ended with that tree root. I had stopped following my own trail when I had fixated on the light from the lodge, and now I had lost it entirely.

  I looked towards that light again, and my heart sank. Yet again, when I had stopped looking at it, it had shifted position and retreated so much further away. I had to fight the nearly overwhelming urge to sit down in the snow and just cry. So much running on top of sleepless nights was just too much for me to expect myself to master all my emotions as well.

  But in the end, I won the fight against that childish impulse. There was only one thing left to do, and that was get back to running towards that light.

  Frór was coming with help. Perhaps he was there already. Perhaps he had beaten me to the lodge just like he had said he would. Haraldr, mormor, Frór and Mjolner were all there now. Everyone was waiting for me.

  I had to get moving.

  And yet my legs were like lead. I couldn't summon the energy to move them.

  Or at least that seemed true. Then the first dog howled off in the distance.

  I was running for all I was worth before the second dog answered. Then I was running even harder, because that hound was right at my heels.

  And there was nowhere for me to hide.

  26

  I could feel that dog's hot breath on the backs of my legs. I could feel its drool spattering against my heels. I expected with every painful breath to feel those paws land on my back and push me down into the snow.

  But it didn't leap. It just kep
t running behind me. Pacing me. Playing with me.

  I had my wand out in my hand, but I had no idea what good I could do with that. I couldn't shoot spells back over my shoulder. But if I turned to look behind me, I was lost.

  I didn't want to admit to myself that I was probably lost already. There had to be some way out of this mess.

  The thunder of horse hooves was all around me now. I kept my head down, looking only at the ground immediately in front of my feet. But I knew the Wild Hunt was all around me now. I could hear the men and the woman calling to each other in some strange language I didn't know. Their voices were ethereal, like they were forcing terrible sounds past frozen vocal cords.

  I felt a spear bounce off my shoulder, like one of them was taunting me with a light tap.

  Then those horses and the hounds as well put on a sudden burst of speed, racing past me into the forest ahead. I still didn't dare raise my head.

  But I did turn and start running back the other way.

  Not that it mattered. I could hear them circling around. They were turning to run me down again.

  And there was still no place to hide.

  But I could run no further. My legs wouldn't do it. My lungs were on fire. I threw myself down on the ground in a little hollow between two trees. The snow was deeper there, in that hollow. I had a half-formed plan that involved burrowing down under that snow.

  But before I could dig into that snowbank, something caught on the back of my parka. This was no overhanging branch from a nearby tree; it lifted me up and off of my feet.

  The Wild Hunt had caught up with me. They had reached out to take me.

  But I still hadn't seen anything yet. I held onto that shred of hope and kept my eyes tightly shut as I pummeled whatever was behind me for all I was worth.

  "Ow, Ingrid!"

  And I realized it was Thorbjorn holding me up out of the snow.

  "You weren't supposed to come after me!" I yelled, trying to twist around to see him. "Would you put me down?"

  "Yes, if you stop hitting me," he grumbled.

  "They're coming back," I said, still not willing to open up my eyes.