by Matt Larkin
“Perhaps another time, then. For now …” Starkad unslung the strap from his shoulder and presented the runeblade he’d taken from Glaesisvellir. “I give you Skofnung, runeblade of the Skjöldungar. Last wielded by Prince Seskef, an age ago.” Or more recently if one counted the flame wraith Starkad had fought.
The king’s hand trembled—almost imperceptible, but Starkad had caught it—as he reached for the sheathed weapon. He grasped it, one hand on the hilt, one on the scabbard. With reverent slowness, he drew the blade enough to inspect the runes running down the length of it. “You never cease to amaze, Eightarms.”
Starkad folded his arms over his chest and stared hard at the king.
“Ah. Of course. I hold your oath fulfilled, my friend.”
Starkad nodded. They would never be friends. Starkad wasn’t sure if any sorcerer could ever hold true friendship in the way normal men did. They lost something of themselves every time they used the Art, so he’d heard it said. “If there is naught else …”
The old man grunted and drove Skofnung back into its sheath. He leaned back on his throne and rested the runeblade beside it. “I fear there is. Much has changed since you were away—some ill and some, I think, of special concern to your companion.”
Starkad followed Gylfi’s gaze to Hervor.
“What happened?”
“Be wary, Eightarms. A darkness has taken root in Ostergotland. It obscures my Sight and robs my dreams of meaning. And it is spreading.”
“Spare me your riddles,” Starkad snapped. “Has aught befallen Hervor’s family?”
“I fear it has.”
Hervor paced around the room Gylfi had lent them, casting furious glances at Starkad every time she turned. He could not well blame her for such fury, though it was not like to help the situation much.
“The tales say Bjalmar attacked Hrethel’s villages even after a peace was settled. That he betrayed his lord’s oath of allegiance and started a fresh war.”
“Troll shit.”
Starkad frowned. True enough, it seemed unlike the old man he’d met to start a war much less break an oath once given. “Numerous accounts seem to agree with the tale.”
Hervor faltered a moment, looking almost queasy.
“What is it?”
She shook her head. Always refusing to share her burdens. “I … I need your help.”
“You hardly need ask for it.”
“Good. Hrethel will pay dearly for his betrayal. I will carve the lungs right out of his back myself!”
Starkad raised his hands to calm her. “Peace, Hervor.”
“Peace! Our former friend imprisoned my grandfather!”
“Be that as it may … He acted thus because Bjalmar betrayed him first.”
“My grandfather wouldn’t betray a fucking troll! You think he turned on a man he’d sworn an oath to and started murdering villagers? Out of what? Boredom?”
Starkad reached for her shoulders, but she swatted his hands away. So instead he glowered. “You say Bjalmar would not have done this? If it is so, we must first speak with him and Hrethel both, and learn the truth. You will do your grandfather no favors by rushing in blade in hand. You think they’d let Bjalmar live if you dared attack the king? Your kin would be the first to die.”
She blanched, as if suddenly realizing more than pride lay at stake.
“The two of us are not equipped to take on an army, and your runeblade changes naught about that. So, we will go to Ostergotland, call upon Hrethel, and demand answers for his actions.”
“His actions are the grossest of betrayals.”
Maybe. But Hrethel had fought beside them against Jorund—or against the forces of Prince Rathwith, at least. Without Hrethel, maybe all of Sviarland might lay under the control of Svartalfheim by now.
And Starkad did not fancy casting aside that alliance unless no other option remained to them. Still, he could scarcely dare to hope any explanation would suffice for Hervor, given what the king had done to her kin.
3
Starkad lay in almost total darkness.
A terrible crushing weight pressed down upon his chest, driving out his breath and threatening to cave in his ribs. He tried to throw it off him, but could not move. His arms lay limp at his sides. His legs felt pinned by the same weight pressing upon his chest.
Naught but shadows played before Starkad’s eyes. An unlit candle sat beside his bed, he knew, but he could not reach it. And against all wisdom, the fire-pit had dwindled down to tiny embers, offering scant illumination.
He opened his mouth to cry out, but no words came. No breath escaped him. Nor could he draw one in, so great became the pressure weighting him down. His ribs were cracking under it.
He felt them warping, straining to maintain their shape as a veritable mountain caved them inward.
His heart had begun to beat out of control.
He tried to call out for anyone who might come, but still had no breath.
A form brushed over his shoulders, and drew up, soft against his cheek, the contrast against the killing weight on his chest all too stark. A slight exhalation tickled his ear, as if some enormous creature sat upon him, had leaned down over him.
A twisted lover, whispering close to his face.
But the words that came were no language he knew. Harsh and guttural, and seeming to rend his mind and tear straight down into his soul with each syllable that passed the lips of his assailant.
A stream of endless obscenities cutting through his brain and leaving him more and more abject with each utterance.
He thrashed against the alien presence—or tried—but found himself still held tight.
Deep in the shadows, something scurried around him, offering Starkad the tiniest of cruel glimpses at a dark silhouette: some mockery of human form.
This was a dream.
The realization brought with it only momentary relief. This was a dream … but he wasn’t waking up. Why hadn’t he woken up yet?
You’re not real.
The words wouldn’t come from his mouth and thus fell powerless. Or perhaps because, given how the Eitr had changed him, this just might be real. A glimpse beyond, into realities man was not prepared to see.
Disembodied fingers began tracing long lines up his shins. They drew higher, up along his thighs.
No. Stop.
An unseen hand cupped around his stones and began massaging them.
He squirmed trying to dislodge whatever held him down. Bile rose in his throat, but he couldn’t even retch. Despite himself, his body responded to the touch, growing hard.
More guttural, alien words whispered in his ear, this time sounding somehow both pleased and threatening. Promising what was to come.
No.
But he knew.
How had he forgotten this? How many times had this thing come for him of late?
Hands were all over his chest, his face, his legs. A shadowy visage leaned over him, a bare hint of a woman’s shape.
More hands yanked off his trousers.
A sloppy, overlong tongue lathered over his face, forcing him to close his eyes. He turned his head in disgust and the vaettr licked him. Its tongue grew longer and more bulbous as it trailed down his neck and over his chest.
Stop.
The shadow tongue traced slow circles over the muscles of his abdomen. Then it went lower, lathering around his cock.
Revulsion and excitement suddenly waged war in him.
A hot mouth closed around him. He grimaced, desperately trying not to enjoy the experience.
It wanted him to like it. And to hate himself for liking it. It lusted for his shame more than his body.
He could feel that.
The shadow mouth released him. Offered him a bare moment’s respite.
Almost enough to let him think he might escape this time …
And then it straddled him, drawing his cock inside itself. Thrusting its pelvis back and forth.
Toward the inevitable end. Ther
e was no resisting. Not really.
Until he climaxed.
He could almost feel it, sucking tiny bits of his life out, feasting upon the fringes of his soul with each time it took him. Even as merciful oblivion sucked him back down.
4
Long days trekking cross-country did not use to leave Starkad so fatigued. He wasn’t sleeping well. The nightmares had been his companions long years now, but they seemed to have changed of late, though the details eluded him. Every time he woke to but a vague sense of unease, of having wandered in some feverish delusion.
And every day he felt a little weaker than the last.
He’d dared to hope handing over the runeblade to Gylfi would abate his torment. It had made not the least bit of difference.
Hervor, for her part, seemed so intent on reaching Lake Vättern and Hrethel’s hall there, she had given over any further attempt to interrogate him. Just as well. He couldn’t have answered her questions if he’d wanted to.
And he truly did not. As though, were he to but speak of the nameless dread waiting behind his eyelids, it might become more real.
Such was the cost to pay for his long life, perhaps. Or the price of his crimes.
A chill sweat left his neck and beard sticky as they reached the newly constructed town. In the space of less than a year, it had grown substantially, though Hrethel’s hall yet dominated the lakeshore. No longer a mere jarl, Hrethel seemed well intent to assert his status to any who came to look upon his overlarge estate. Some might have thought it arrogance, but Starkad could see a kind of wisdom in it.
Those who looked strong were less like to need to rely on blades.
Warriors met them outside Hrethel’s hall, and the largest of them strode forward. “Eightarms. He said you might come back here. Can’t say as I much believed it.”
Starkad stared the man down. That he was known by sight shouldn’t have much surprised him. This man? Starkad had no idea who he was. Nor did he much care. “We’re here to see King Hrethel.”
Some of the other warriors behind the big one shifted nervously. A few fingers twitched. Hands edging toward weapons, though no one drew. Not yet.
Starkad narrowed his eyes at those reaching for blades.
The big man glanced back at the others and gave a single shake of his head. Man had some brains, then. At least one good sign. Maybe they could get out of this without—
“Stand aside,” Hervor practically growled at the warriors.
The big man sneered at her. “You must be that shieldmaiden who used to follow Haki around. We heard about you too. You want to see the king?” He shrugged. “Be it on your heads.” He looked at Starkad. “Best keep the bitch in check, though.”
Starkad took another step toward him. “You heard about the expedition to Thule?”
“What of it?”
“She was there. Fought by my side. One of the last survivors …” He glanced back at Hervor who, predictably, already had a hand on Tyrfing’s hilt. “Best keep your tongue in check, lest you find out just how good she is with a sword.”
The man quirked a smile, but it was clearly forced, and the edge of doubt played in his eyes. “Come on, then. See the king if you will.”
The warrior led them into the hall. The throne room was rimmed by a balcony above, allowing a vast gathering to look upon the court. At present, however, no onlookers and but a few warriors gathered here, lounging about and gossiping. Too late for the day meal, too early for the night meal.
The lack of an audience might make it easier to—
“Why in Hel’s frozen arse did you betray my family?” Hervor stomped her way toward the king with such fervor that a couple of men jumped up and brandished axes to bar her way. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Right. So much for diplomacy.
Starkad strode up beside where Hervor had stopped and leveled his gaze on Hrethel. Come what may, the man had acted against Hervor’s family. And Starkad had sworn to stay by her side no matter what urd threw at them. If that meant he had to turn on Hrethel … Well, that would prove unfortunate.
The king rose from his throne and paced forward, then guided away his guards with both hands. “Bjalmar pillaged and razed villages in my lands. Unprovoked. It is out of consideration for you that he yet lives at all! By all rights, I ought to have hung him from a tree up on the hill and left his corpse to feed the ravens.”
“That he lives is the reason you yet live, king.” Hervor fairly spat the last word at Hrethel. “And Grandfather does naught, unprovoked. If he attacked your villages, he had a damned good reason for doing so, I can assure you.”
At this rate, Starkad and Hervor would wind up sharing a room with old Bjalmar. Starkad put a hand on her shoulder and pulled Hervor away from Hrethel, just enough to allow him to step forward and face the king. “We have been through rather a lot, the three of us. You hold that throne because of battles I and Hervor helped win for you.”
Hrethel waved a dismissive hand. “Perhaps. But there were a great many battles you chose not to take part in, I recall.”
“Because we were compelled to uphold an oath to Gylfi. Would you begrudge us that?”
“I begrudge you naught, Eightarms.” He glanced at Hervor. “I am a king and yet I have not struck down this woman for speaking to me thus in my own hall. Consider that loyalty. I have not forgotten our battles together. Have you?”
Hervor took another step forward. “You son of a—”
“No one has forgotten!” Starkad bellowed. “Which is why I ask you to release the old man. You cannot intend to keep him here forever. And if you meant him to die, he would have died already. So now we come to you, in peace, and ask for your mercy. Let Bjalmar go and we’ll take him away.”
Hrethel paced back to his throne now, head in his hand. He did not sit. Just paused there before finally turning around to stare first at Starkad, then at Hervor. “I cannot simply pardon a man who murdered so many people. His shame does not bring back the fallen.”
Starkad shook his head. “No, but neither does holding him prisoner. Naught we do or don’t do brings back the dead. And if you do not mean to kill him in vengeance for them, we come back to it—you cannot hold him forever. Suppose though, that I vouch for the jarl and for his conduct henceforth.”
“He is no jarl.”
Hervor bristled, but Starkad waved her to silence. “Suppose I vouch for him.”
After a moment, Hrethel narrowed his eyes and raised a finger. “I will have an oath from each of you. One day, when I call upon you, you will do a service for me.”
Hervor sneered. “What service?”
“I suppose that depends on what is needful at the time, now doesn’t it? Rest assured, a king oft has need of those good with swords.” Now, Hrethel did settle back into his throne. “So what shall it be? Give your oaths and leave with the old man, or not?”
Starkad scratched at his sweaty beard. He had only just fulfilled his oath to Gylfi. Now he was going to get caught up in service to another king. This time, for an unnamed, undecided favor. Funny. Tyr had once told him that Idunn had asked something similar from Odin some three decades ago. A promise that had started the Ás king down a road from which he’d found no return.
Favors.
Messy things.
Starkad straightened, head high. “Very well, Hrethel. I give you my oath. Call upon me, and I will come to your aid.”
Hervor glanced from him back to the king. “So be it. I give my oath. Take me to Grandfather.”
The king let his gaze linger on the both of them a moment longer. Finally, he sighed and waved to the big warrior who’d brought them in. “Yes, yes. Take them to see the old man. It’s time he was gone from here anyway.”
5
Hrethel’s thegn—the big oaf—led them to the back of the hall, behind the king’s throne room. There he took up position beside an oaken door and stared a challenge at Hervor. Tempting … Starkad had already put him in his place, but Hervor’
s fingers twitched to cut him down to size. Tyrfing practically sung for his blood.
Instead, she threw open the door. The room—a cell—had only a single window, and that a tiny shaft in the upper reaches. Through this a beam of light fell upon her grandfather. Withered and sickly and thinner than Hervor had ever seen him.
His hair and beard had become a gray, tangled mess, and he wore naught but ratty trousers so threadbare they left both knees exposed. His skin had turned almost yellow, a color that had even touched the whites of his eyes.
Driving down the moment’s hesitation the shock had given her, Hervor strode to his side and knelt down beside him. Hand on his forehead. “Grandfather?”
He looked up at her weakly. Rasped something she couldn’t quite catch.
Fucking Hrethel. That bastard had reduced her proud and noble grandfather from a mighty jarl to a beggar lying in a gutter. He stank from his own piss and shit and who knew how many moons without bathing.
Hervor grit her teeth and rose, hand on Tyrfing’s hilt as she stormed back toward that big trollfucker just outside the cell. They knew what they were doing to him. They knew he could’ve died from this treatment.
Starkad interposed himself between her and the thegn before she’d made it out the door. “Stay calm.”
“We passed calm a ways ago. Move.”
“Hrethel has already agreed to release him. You won’t gain aught from starting—”
“I am not the one who started this!”
“Hervor!” Starkad shoved her back into the cell.
Her grip on Tyrfing only tightened, and she bared her teeth at him. If Starkad thought he would stand in her way, he had another think coming. She’d return Grandfather’s suffering on these bastards tenfold before she was done. To emphasize her point, she began edging the blade free from its sheath over her shoulder.
Behind Starkad, the thegn’s eyes widened as he must have caught sight of the runes lining the blade. Yes … let him look into the face of Hel. Let him despair, knowing death’s gaze lingered upon him.