by Matt Larkin
Runeblade Saga Omnibus
Matt Larkin
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Days of Endless Night
Prologue
In ages past, the dvergar spread across Midgard and built four great cities at the corners of the world. Odin did not know exactly when each had fallen, but they had, abandoned even as the Old Kingdoms of men rose. And to barter peace with each of those kingdoms, the dvergar had wrought nine runeblades. Fell works, one given to each prince of an Old Kingdom.
Careful of his footing, Odin drifted amid trees in the marshes of Sviarland, waving a torch before him to dispel the mist. This land had embraced him, had embraced all the Aesir as their new gods. And as such, these people had many uses. Walking openly among them would have only confused them. No, Odin disguised himself as a simple vagrant on these long sojourns, and it well suited him. Men did not watch their words around old wanderers as they might among kings or gods. In the illusion, one could catch bits of truth.
Odin had seen the effects of some few runeblades himself. The flaming sword Laevateinn, once the pride of the Lofdar, then wielded by mighty Frey. The perilous Gramr, arm of the Niflungar, now given into the care of the Volsung clan. Most runeblades though had been lost in the ages since the Old Kingdoms themselves had fallen, eight hundred years ago.
But what was lost did not always remain so.
Beyond the marsh, in the kingdom of Dalar, a sorcerer-king slept. Gylfi. One of Odin’s most useful servants. Very few among mortals were touched with the Sight. Those who were … well, those few could be reached, influenced by the Otherworlds. Or by Odin, projecting himself beyond Midgard and thus able to walk in the dreams of the select few. Many did not even know he did this, that he used them so. Gylfi though, wise and schooled in the Art, would suspect the source of his visions.
And he would act, so eager to impress his god. So desirous to build his legacy.
Odin settled down on a dry mound, folded his legs beneath him, and closed his eyes.
Those runeblades had the power to change the course of a battle. And a great battle was coming, an end battle for this world. Before it came, Odin needed the runeblades back in play. He need not own them … just make sure he could control those who did. All of it—moves on a tafl board, pieces—positioned to win the long game.
For naught else truly mattered.
And so … Odin let his mind drift from Midgard and beyond, into the shadowy Astral Realm from which he might visit Gylfi. And offer a vision … a lost city.
A great treasure.
And a chance at glory.
Men sought such petty things.
Odin offered whatever men sought. For his was a greater game.
Part I
Eleventh Moon
Year 26, Age of the Aesir
1
An etheric light hovered over the hills, beckoning or forewarning, depending on the constitution of one’s heart. Hervor’s heart was cast from iron. No daughter of a great berserk feared to tread in any land, nor did ghost stories frighten her.
Her own crew had refused her, refused to even set upon this island after sunset. They had argued against even anchoring off shore, had wanted to return to other lands before dark. But Hervor—or Hervard as she called herself when she thought it best others mistake her for a man—had led this crew on more than one raid. They had bent to her will, even if she’d had to row ashore on her own.
She had left the rowboat behind and headed for those hills. The ever-present mist grew thicker in these lands, thicker than Hervor could explain, unless the ghosts themselves conjured it. It did not matter. She carried a torch to ward against the poison fumes and had several more in case of need. That ephemeral light meant her destination lay before her. Skalds called the light barrow fire, claiming the wakeful dead might sometimes cast it above their resting places.
The bravest of men would turn craven at the mere thought of beholding a ghost or draug. In this case, she was lucky enough not to be a man. Her errand here had waited long enough, her vengeance delayed for far too many years.
The damn mist seemed almost as thick as a wall of water, and she had to keep waving the torch back and forth to drive it back. Fire was the only true defense against it. Breathe in too much of the stuff and you went mist-mad. She’d seen it happen. A raider with her had lost his torch and come wandering into camp, hollow look in his eyes. Hervor had cut him down. You let men like that go, they’d turn on you or run off into the wilds becoming Odin-alone knew what. Death was quicker, even if the mist drew the poor bastard down to Hel.
The snows had melted for the summer, and wiry grass had spread, covering the hills of Samsey. A flame flickered just before those hills—a real flame, not some etheric light. Fire meant people. Since when did people live on this haunted island? Had some trollfucking looter come here thinking to steal her plunder?
Even as her steps quickened, she jerked free the broadsword slung over her shoulder. No one would take what was hers. No one. She raced forward.
You couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead in this cursed mist. But one torch probably meant only one … she nigh to collided with a grazing sheep. The creature let out a mewling cry and scampered away, running off into the night.
“Dammit!” a voice shouted. “Who moves in this land?” The torch drifted closer, the light burning away mist and revealing a man. Despite the axe in his hand, he was no warrior. Stance was wrong, didn’t have the bearing. And those simple clothes. A man grazing his sheep—brave to do so at night. “What mortal would dare these shores? Do you not know where you are? Find shelter quickly.”
The shepherd glanced up at the moon, barely visible through the vapors blanketing the ground.
Hervor advanced on him but did not raise her sword. “I have never been one to flee, old man. These hills are barrows, aren’t they?”
The man’s eyes widened, and he fell back a step. “Do not ask such things. Have you gone mist-mad? If you’re some raider, you have come very far astray. This island belongs to an old people, one best not disturbed. To say naught of what lies buried in …”
Odin’s stones. This was just some frightened slave. Hervor sheathed her sword. “I do not scare easily. Stand aside. Something of mine lies here, and I will have it this very night.”
The shepherd did step aside, shaking his head. “Any man who ventures onward is a fool.” He scurried past her, chasing after the lost sheep, away from the hills.
Torch before her, Hervor pushed forward, upward. No path led over the hills, but neither were they too steep. The barrow fires glowed but produced no heat. Indeed, as she passed among them they seemed more like luminous mist than aught else. Except … she swayed a little … it made the hair on her neck stand on end. She shivered at a sudden chill, then swept the torch around in anger.
“I know you are here, dead ones. I do not fear you.”
Far away yet somehow all around her, the mist seemed to laugh. She shook herself. Her own mind playing tricks and naught more. Instead, she wandered, embracing the chills and walking toward where they grew stronger.
When a faint shock ran along her fingers all at once, she paused. Turned. At the base of one hill lay a mound of stones. Behind one lay a crack revealing da
rkness. The entrance to a barrow. Hervor planted the torch in the ground then grasped the stone with both hands and heaved.
Dust and dirt cascaded around the stone. She pulled until her muscles felt ready to burst, but it did not pop free.
“Fucking Arrow’s Point” she said, then spat. That murderer must have put this here. Or put it back. She wiped her brow, then climbed above the mound.
Back braced against the hill, she used both legs to push at the stone. Pain welled in her lower back. Her fingers dug into the dirt and scraped rock, and she grunted with the effort.
All at once, rocks beneath that stone shifted. The stone slipped free, tumbling away from the mound. Hervor fell forward and slammed against the remaining stones. Grimacing, she sat there a moment before gathering the strength to rise.
With the top stone removed, the barrow opening was large enough for a small man—or a well-muscled woman—to squeeze through. She reclaimed the torch then crawled forward on her belly, holding the light out in front of her. After a few feet, she dropped down into the barrow tunnel.
She was tall for a woman and had to stoop to avoid hitting her head on the roof. Years of dust caked the walls. With the torch, she batted at spider webs choking the whole passage. The webs ignited and sparked away. Skittering creatures retreated from the torchlight.
Odin’s stones.
The air had grown stale, rank. Hard to breathe.
She pushed her way forward a dozen feet. The path delved down deeper into the hill before opening up into a triangular chamber just tall enough to allow her to stand properly. She cracked her neck side to side and flexed her shoulders. A stone slab lay here, with a body rotting on it. Hervor held the torch over it.
“Angantyr?”
The corpse did not respond. It had a sword clutched in one hand. Hervor brushed dust off it. Pattern wrought iron but otherwise unremarkable.
This wasn’t it. It wasn’t him.
The flickering torchlight should have spread farther than it seemed to. The mist had seeped down here, but it wasn’t thick. Still, the tomb’s shadows did not retreat from the light, not as much as they ought to have. Hervor paced the room. On each wall of the triangle, an opening led to another such chamber. Those in turn opened up into more tombs.
Scowling, she turned about. One tunnel led out, and if she lost track of it, she might wind up wandering this mound for hours. Not that she was frightened. She feared naught.
Still.
That stench of death had grown so thick. Not like the smell of blood and shit and urine that saturated a battlefield. No, the smell here was old. Flesh had rotted away to leave decaying bone. A smell of eternal damnation and unending despair. Like a stench escaping from the gates of Hel.
She might well search this whole place and not find what she sought. And were she to do so she might truly run out of torches. How much longer did this one have? An hour, at the most. Not even a brave woman should climb around barrows in darkness.
No.
She had come here for a purpose, one that demanded it be fulfilled. Turning about, torch held high, she cleared her throat.
“Angantyr, wake now! The daughter of Svafa calls upon you. Your daughter, your only child. Wake, Father!”
Her voice echoed through the barrow, ringing from one tomb to the next and seeming to repeat too long. Hervor swallowed. Could she have the wrong barrow? No, this had to be the one her family lay in. Her father, her uncles, all entombed here to rot and writhe in restless sleep. Denied Valhalla or even the halls of Hel.
“Hervard! Hjorvard, Hrani, Angantyr!” She turned about again. “Berserkir wake! Have the children of Arngrim turned to mold and dust? Will not one speak to their kin?”
Unintelligible whispers seemed to carry on the mists, to stalk the shadows. All the hair on her body stood on end now, and fresh chills wracked her.
But no voice spoke that she could understand.
There were ghosts here, but they did not deign to speak with her. She had once heard a vӧlva say there was another world, an invisible world. This Astral Realm was the true home of ghosts and vaettir and all beings not quite of Midgard. A barrier one could not see or touch separated the worlds, but sometimes, those on the other side could see this world. Could hear it.
In places like this, the barrier was thin. Or so the vӧlva claimed.
“If you will not speak to me, then may it seem as though a mound of maggots wriggle through your ribs. Let your corpses mold and rot if you will not fetch for me the sword Dvalin made.” She turned about again. A palpable anger had begun to creep into the air, one that felt like a stone beginning to compress around her heart and lungs. She grunted. Harder to speak now. “It does not become ghosts to hoard such valuable arms. What use have the dead for sacred blades?”
The pressure lightened, and she sucked in a deep breath, forced to steady herself on the wall. Her hand came away caked in mold and unidentifiable black slime. She scrubbed it on her trousers.
“Why do you hail me, Hervor, daughter?” The voice came from the opening to her right. She spun, torch forward. Naught there. “You tread swiftly toward your own doom. You walk in darkness.” The voice was like a hollow whisper, as if spoken by the wind, from far away.
She pushed forward, slipped into the next tomb. No sign of aught.
“You have gone mad, your mind dark, when you think to wake the dead.”
Hervor’s jaw trembled. She wanted to deny him, to defy him. She was not scared. And she had come here to avenge him.
No words escaped her, though.
“Our father Arngrim did not lay us in these cairns, nor did any kin of ours. Our enemy placed us here, cursed us, and took from me Tyrfing. It is lost.”
Hervor gasped, rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. “You lie! By Odin, you lie! I have come here for my due, Father. I, your only child, demand my heirloom.” The stories agreed with what the slave had told her—Arrow’s Point had entombed Tyrfing with the brothers. It had to be here. And after all she had done, all she had risked, now she had found her father. And he was lying to her. She drew a dagger and sliced open her palm. The same vӧlva had told her a blood offering could contact that invisible world …
Hervor pressed her bloody palm onto the wall. “By the blood of the living I beseech you! Show yourself, ghost!”
A crack resounded through the entire barrow. The ground trembled, and dust and dirt fell from the roof. The whole mound was going to cave in. Before she could react, even try to run, etheric blue flame erupted from the next tomb and swept inward. Hervor threw herself against the wall and covered her head with her hands. She did not scream.
No heat reached her—if aught, the graven chill only deepened.
She dropped her hands.
Across the tomb drifted the image of a large warrior, writhed in blue flame, clad in a bearskin. He was translucent, his features hard to make out, save those piercing, flaming eyes. A great gap had been cleft through his skull, and yet the two pieces hovered together. “You willingly call open the gates of Hel and crack the barrows. This island is thick with ghosts, girl, all now blazing into grim wakefulness. Your ship shall burn around you, lest you reach it quick. If you still can, maiden!”
Hervor glanced back at the exit. No. Another lie. She swept the torch in front of her. “You cannot light any flame, ghost. Fire is the enemy of Hel and all her misty children. I am not afraid of you! Yes, I see you, blazing in the darkness, standing on the threshold between this world and the next. Is that your wish? To drag me down to meet Hel?”
Her father’s form flickered, appearing closer to her, though the blaze had dwindled. He appeared almost lifelike, with just the barest hint of that ethereal fire. “I am trying to spare you, daughter. Hervor, heed my words. Tyrfing will be the ruin of all your family. Take the sword and your children shall wield it and suffer for it. The dvergar forged the runeblades for their own ends and for the hands of the Old Kingdoms. Their time has passed, and the blades ought to lie dead, in
darkness, as their wielders.”
Hervor squeezed her fist. “No! I make my own fate. And my kin lay entombed here, cursed and denied Valhalla because of the crimes of a living man. I too, remain human. And I will have the bane of Hjalmar before I leave this place.”
The last flames around the ghost faded. The torchlight seemed to not set quite right upon him. He reached a hand to her cheek. It was not like being touched by a person. More like a feeling, a slight pressure without substance. At last his hand fell away, and he shook his head. “You are strong, daughter. And foolish. Beneath my back lies Hjalmar’s bane, blazing, scorching me as was my curse.”
Hervor grimaced. Arrow’s Point had spared her father no agony.
“No woman would dare take up the runeblade,” her father said.
“I will.” She stepped around the ghost and trod into the next tomb. It must be this one. Another corpse rested upon the slab here. Its face had rotted, but it could have been the same man who stood beside her. She looked to the ghost.
A slight blaze had returned to his eyes.
“I will guard it well and use it to avenge the murders and the curse, both.”
“Fool Hervor. I cannot refuse my own blood … I warn you one more time—Tyrfing will bring ruination upon your line. It seeks blood and once freed, that bloodlust cannot be denied.”
Hervor scowled at that and reached slowly toward the corpse. “My family lies here, dead and suffering. My father burning instead of feasting in Odin’s halls. I have no sons. You do well to yield the sword to me. It is dearer in my quest than were I to rule all Sviarland.” She pushed the corpse over.
The shade flickered as she did so, vanishing for a moment.
Beneath the body lay a sword, writhed in iridescent flames. Just more ethereal fire. It could not harm her. Her hand closed around the hilt. Flames surged up her arm, burning and searing. She collapsed to the floor screaming, clutching her flesh. The sword and her torch clattered down beside her.