by Matt Larkin
Because of her, they would all die.
No. She could not look at Red-Eye, could not face him.
12
Men died, they fell before him in droves. As was his gift, his blessing, perhaps his curse. They screamed, erupted in fountains of blood. They fell to his swords; they fell to his words. They fell to his urd.
A friend, a brother, becalmed and desperate. Looking at him.
Starkad groaned, tried not to see it. Not again. He just wanted to sleep, he just wanted …
Vikar.
His little brother—half-brother. Hanging from a tree, body twisting, writhing in the windless night. Eyes bulging. Tongue lolling to the side.
And they called Starkad a criminal, a kinslayer.
Starkad moaned, rolled over on the icy ground. The crackling bonfire nearby provided the only warmth. He pushed himself up, blinking against the firelight. It was always like this, nigh to every night. More fool him, trying to sleep without being dead drunk.
Groaning, he rose and strapped his swords over his shoulders. His sword. And Vikar’s. There was another, smaller fire down by the shore. Starkad wandered down there. Bragi Bluefoot sat, staring out over the waves. The ocean was rough, much rougher than the dead waters of the Morimarusa, churned as though by the heaving of Jörmungandr.
Starkad lowered himself down by the old skald, who passed him a skin of mead without him even having to ask.
“Not so much left.”
Starkad took a deep swig and passed it back without answer.
“You may have to learn to sleep without it.”
Starkad grunted. It was not that he could not sleep without drink. It was that he did not want to sleep without it. The mind played tricks, twisting fear and memory upon themselves until a man was left with naught but painful truths and nowhere to run from them. He had committed a great many crimes in his life, and, perhaps there would be more still to come. His fame in the North Realms only barely outpaced his infamy, and one day, he would like as not find himself chased from all civilized lands.
But his dreams cared naught for fame.
Starkad rubbed his face. “You never told me how your name got fastened to you.”
Bragi laughed. “Gods boy, don’t you know that?”
“Do not call me boy. I’ve seen more than forty winters now.”
“And still I have you beat. Oh, and it was a cold winter earned me that name. Otwin was young, but already King of Njarar then, back where I was raised. There was still fighting with the Ás tribes, back before we knew gods walked among them. Fighting on a frozen lake, and damn my luck but I stepped on a crack and shoved my foot through. Got it stuck halfway up to my knee and I swear to Odin I couldn’t pull the damned thing loose. So there I was, thrusting with my spear and trying to keep barbarians from cleaving in my head while my foot is stuck in freezing water.” Bragi took another swig from the skin before returning it to Starkad. “So I figured I was good as dead anyway, and I start mocking the Aesir. Never was too wise, you know.”
Starkad forced himself to chuckle, though thinking of Bragi’s situation held little humor despite the skald’s smile. Much less knowing what Starkad knew of the Aesir.
“So I got this Ás berserk so mad he seized me by the shoulders and yanked me right out of the ice, planning to throttle me with his bare hands. Then I put my spear right through his neck. Hehe. Should have seen it, Eightarms. So yeah, the battle over, the vӧlva comes to treat me. My whole foot is blue with frostbite, and I’m shaking with deathchill. She got me warm, saved my life. Lost a few toes, though. But Hel, I got a name fastened to me, even if it wouldn’t have been my first choice.”
Starkad drained the last of the mead. Bragi was right enough. He would have to sleep without the comfort of it soon. This place had no people to trade with, and certainly no bees where he could harvest honey. “So.” Starkad pointed to the slumbering form of their largest member. “Tell me about this Tiny. Who is he really?”
Bragi snorted. “Claims to be from the Waegmundings. Says they call him Tiny because he’s the smallest member of his family, the runt if you can imagine that.”
Given the man was nigh to a foot taller than anyone else on this quest, Starkad found it hard to believe.
“Maybe he’s got jotunn blood,” Bragi said. “Or troll blood.”
“Neither one of those things is a laughing matter.”
“Who’s laughing?” Bragi snorted, then vainly tried to squeeze one more drop out of the skin. “This island is colder than the fortress of Hel. It stays night twenty hours a day, and we’re supposed to pass the winter here. And we’re running out of mead. Not much to laugh about.” Despite his words, he continued to snort.
“Drunk old man.”
Bragi thumped Starkad on the chest with one finger. “People don’t mind a drunk old man. What they hate is a useless old man. Not me. I’m not gonna wither away and die in my bed. When I go out, it’ll be with a blade in my hand, a full belly, and empty stones. And hopefully drunk.”
Starkad grinned. “This island has no food, no drink, and no women.”
“Then I’m not gonna die here, am I, boy?”
“Don’t call me boy.”
Bragi winked and stretched, then stared at the glowing sky for a time. “You know why we’re really here don’t you?”
Starkad said naught. Orvar and he had agreed to conceal the truth until absolutely necessary. Truth like that could make men rash, greedy or fearful, or both. Rash men made poor choices. Starkad would know.
“Uh huh,” Bragi said. “So Odin, King of the Gods, sends us to the ends of Midgard to establish a colony … just to see if we can. Spread the word to the locals.” Bragi waved his hand at a pod of seals laying on rocks down the beach. “Get him some new worshippers, maybe. Does he answer prayers of fish?”
“Seals aren’t fish.”
“And I don’t have mollusks between my ears, boy.”
“We wouldn’t be able to trust you to make this a fine tale if you did.”
Bragi snorted again. “Have it your way. Keep your secrets. Truth always comes out in the end, though. Nowhere to run from it in a place like this.”
Starkad opened his mouth to reply.
The brief scream of a man in agony cut him off.
13
Hervor jerked awake at the cry. She lay in a small tent near the fire. The scream had come from outside. Tyrfing slung over her shoulder, she darted out. The mist had thickened. She couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her save right by the fire. And those cries had come from out in the mist.
Even those strange lights in the sky had vanished, leaving them in profound, stifling darkness. All about the camp, men were scrambling, drawing weapons, fumbling around and searching for attackers.
Hel.
Her hand closed around Tyrfing’s golden hilt. It wanted her to draw it. To shed light in the darkness, to drive back the mist and slay her foes. But what foes were those? Instead, she snatched a burning branch from the fire and stalked into the mist, waving the flame before her. Mist skittered away from the smoldering branch only to reform behind her.
That was unnatural, even for the fell mists of Niflheim.
Her foot snagged, and she pitched forward, toppling over on something soft and warm and wet. The torch hit the snow and flickered out. Hervor scrambled up off the … body. What was … Hard to make out in the darkness. She leaned in close. A crewman lay dead there, his face and neck gnawed off by some beast. Bile scorched her throat.
She’d seen a lot of death, but this was sick. She was soaked in his blood.
She pushed forward—or backward, she’d gotten turned around. She needed her damned torch. She was breathing too fast, sucking mist deep into her lungs. She knew she was but couldn’t stop herself. Fear had coiled around her gut and was clenching it like a serpent, squeezing ever tighter, blinding her. She waved her hands in the mist. It was too thick, too solid even.
Pulling her away, driving her into t
he darkness.
Her foot brushed over another body, and she knelt. Hakon. His arm was bitten off at the elbow, a mask of agony on his face. Must have been his scream she’d heard.
Ghostly whispers rang through the mist around her, like the hiss of a fell wind, seeping out of Niflheim. This place was thick with dire spirits or vile beasts. Either way, she was not prey. She was the fucking hunter. She jerked Tyrfing free.
Immediately it flared to life, radiating blue white flame that reflected off of the mist and nigh to blinded her. The mist did not retreat from the sword’s light like it would a normal flame. Hervor panted, grasping her blade in both hands. She should have grabbed her shield from the tent before she left. The scream had so caught her off guard she’d not even thought.
“Who is there?” she shouted.
Other voices rang in the mist, echoing unnaturally. Vaettir distorting the sounds, separating the party?
“Hervard,” someone shouted. She couldn’t identify the voice.
She spun one way and another, searching out whatever creature had done this. Tyrfing had burned her father’s ghost. That meant the runeblade extended into the Otherworlds could harm creatures not from Midgard. She needed but find the source of these murders, and she would make it pay. And once dead, perhaps the mist would disperse, and she could find the other explorers.
She took very slow steps, turning about after each, careful to keep an eye in all directions. Some presence, some unearthly being was toying with them.
“Starkad!” she shouted. “Tiny! Ivar!”
Voices rang out in answer, but they all sounded far away, on the edge of some great abyss. Something brushed her shoulder. Hervor spun, sweeping Tyrfing through the mist. It parted before the blade but reformed almost immediately.
Another scream echoed, resounding over and over.
“What are you!” she said through gritted teeth. “Where are you?”
She turned again, and her heel brushed something. She looked down. A severed hand trailing blood. She kicked the morbid thing away.
Heartbeats had begun to ring out through the mist. Maybe she could track her foes like that, though those heartbeats echoed in her head. Pounded at her temples.
Not again.
Thump thump.
“Where are you!”
Thump thump.
There was a fire here. If she could just find her way back to it, she would be safe. Most vaettir would not draw within a fire’s near radius. Certainly not spirits of the mist, cloaking themselves in frost.
Thump thump.
A wind blew at the back of her neck, tickling her hair beneath her helm. She twisted, slashing with Tyrfing. Again, it cut through mist and naught else. She screamed in frustration. Maybe the blade could harm a vaettr, but only if she could see the damn entity.
Thump thump thump.
She screamed again but could not even hear her own voice over the pounding in her skull. The flickering light, the half-flame of the sword revealed shadows dancing around her. Naught more. No answers, no salvation, no truth.
Swinging wildly, she stumbled around. It was close to her, that much was certain. Toying with her, driving her to madness. Laughing as if it knew she would soon turn her cursed sword on herself. If it stayed away from her … she had relied on a dark blade for safety. A blade that saved none.
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
Roaring in agony, she swiped the blade backward. It cleaved through something half-solid and came away bloody. Ha! “Die trollfucking vaettr!” she shrieked. Again and again she swung, hewing through flesh. A form fell beside her.
Hervor drove Tyrfing’s point into the body, then knelt beside it. Three great gashes had carved him up, but this had been a man.
Rolf Quicktongue …
He had earned his name for his way of spinning stories to make himself the hero. On the moons they had sailed together, Rolf constantly spoke of all the women he had bedded. Raped, really, as he explained they had not known how much they wanted him until he showed them. He also explained how he’d helped a man find out his true nature by torturing him half to death. Showed the man who he really was.
If any man on this ship deserved to die, it was Rolf. Certainly more than poor Hakon.
But Rolf had not gnawed Hakon’s arm off.
Something else had.
And it was still out there.
14
Two Years Ago
Gunther and his men marched Red-Eye, Hervor, and the last of the surviving Boys—Big Spear Harold they called him—into town just before nightfall. Her grandfather stood there watching, as did her mother, although the latter stared at her feet rather than meet Hervor’s gaze. No one spoke.
Not even her grandfather. The jarl pointed to the gnarled oak on the west side of town. Gunther grabbed her shoulder and dragged her along while his men marched Red-Eye and Big Spear Harold to the tree. They threw thick ropes around the branches, and men began to tie nooses. Those nooses were placed around the Boys’ necks. Gunther’s hand on her shoulder tightened, warning her against trying aught.
“Stories claim Odin hung himself for wisdom,” her grandfather said. “Sacrificed himself, to himself. These criminals I sacrifice to Odin in the hopes we may all learn wisdom.”
Bastard meant her. He wanted her to learn from her mistake.
The jarl waved his hand, and men yanked on the ropes, yanking the Boys off their feet. Hervor forced herself not to look away. She owed the Boys that much respect. One did not reach Valhalla with deaths like these, but still. Even if they were bound for the gates of Hel, she owed them. More than she could repay.
The two men struggled, kicking, a long time choking to death. Finally, her grandfather’s men dropped their bodies to the ground.
“Burn them. We need no draugar haunting these woods.” He turned, ostensibly addressing the gathered crowd. But he was talking to her. “King Gylfi had it from Odin himself that the corpses of oath breakers and the worst criminals are food to the vilest of serpents in Niflheim. Let these disgraceful savages thus feed the dragon Nidhogg and his spawn. Speak of them no more.”
Hervor clenched her jaw.
The sun had set, but numerous torch poles and bonfires lit the town. Rather than build a proper pyre, men hurled the bodies of her friends on those bonfires. As that awful stench reached her, Gunther ushered her away, back into the jarl’s hall.
Her grandfather received her there alone. No sign of her mother.
Gunther unbound her hands and let her stand free in the middle of the hall.
Her grandfather drummed his fingers on an armrest. “I indulged you too much, Hervor. You refused to learn womanly arts, sought always to fight, to hunt, to ride. And I let you!” He rose from his throne, slapping the armrests with both hands. “I had Gunther teach you to use shield, sword, bow. Let you go on raids. Aught you wished, you had, and never did I force you to learn weaving or to manage the household. Despite your mother’s wishes. And now this. This is how you repay me. By taking up arms against my own people. By throwing in with criminals and thieves and for what!” He spread his hands as if expecting some answer. “Surely you did not want for coin, for jewelry? What was my hall so lacking, girl? Speak!”
Hervor scoffed. “You indulged me, Grandfather? Did you? Did you let me go on the raids last summer, when the men went out on the Morimarusa? Or did you insist I stay here and meet suitors from your allies and enemies? I seem to recall one pompous arse after another offering you silver for my trench. How much would you have sold that for, by the way, had I been here?”
Gunther’s sudden intake of breath was her only answer.
Jarl Bjalmar trembled as he lowered himself back onto his throne. He shut his eyes a moment more before answering. “And did you let those … dogs touch you?”
Now she smiled, couldn’t quite stop from laughing. “You mean did old Red-Eye plow my trench?” She pressed her palms to her eyes, still grinning. Odin’s stones, was that what he cared most about? That his pre
cious commodity might be sullied? It wasn’t as if a man wouldn’t trade for her if she wasn’t a virgin. She raised her hands in mock timidity. “Oh, Grandfather, it was awful. Those big strong men held me down. I tried to stop them, but they did things to me. Dirty things.” She pretended to shiver, then grinned. “And I liked it!”
“You are a disgrace, Hervor.”
“Then you should not have forced me to return, Grandfather.”
The jarl looked to Gunther. “Get her out of my sight. She is forbidden from leaving this hall without guard.”
The thegn grabbed her arm and pulled her into the side rooms. Her mother stood in one, face ashen. Damn. She had not expected her to hear that. Hervor opened her mouth, but no explanation or apology seemed sufficient.
“They didn’t really touch—” she started to say.
Her mother turned away and stormed out.
Hervor looked to Gunther, who shook his head. He didn’t want to hear aught she had to say either. The thegn left her there in the hall before her old room.
The door just stood there, inviting her. Mocking her. Just like the slaves, sitting on the outskirts, staring at her, judging her.
“What?” she demanded.
Two of the men looked away, but the other met her gaze. Now he was judging her? A slave daring to think himself fit to decide what she ought to have done. Hervor ran her tongue over her teeth. No. Not this motherless slave. Not today.
She strode purposely toward the slave, who finally looked away. Too late little man. Hervor grabbed him by the tunic and shoved him against the wall. The other two slaves rose from the bench but were smart enough not to interfere.
“What is it? You have something you want to say?” She edged in closer, giving the man nowhere to move, though he glanced to one side and the other. “Come on!” She shoved him again, and he collided with the wall. “Come on, slave.”
“Naught, my lady.”
She stepped back. “Good. Then next time shut your mouth and your fucking eyes.” She punched him in the right eye to emphasize her point. Her knuckles stung from it, but his head collided with the wall. After a heartbeat, he slid down it, groaning.