Runeblade Saga Omnibus

by Matt Larkin

  She’d always stayed well clear of Svarflami in any event. He was the son of Gylfi’s daughter Heithr and of Sigrlami, who Hervor’s own grandfather had killed in Holmgard. Agantyr had taken Sigrlami’s daughter, Eyfura, and Tyrfing too. Not that Svarflami could’ve known her kin had slain his father, but it felt foul mingling with him, knowing what Hervor knew.

  And could Svarflami be the king his grandfather had been? Seemed nigh to impossible, really. So what would become of Sviarland now? Maybe Hrethel would claim it all. She’d caught sight of a few other kings here, Aun, even, but none she knew had the might or stones to stand up to Hrethel.

  And Hrethel … well, he deserved Hervor’s wrath for what had befallen her other grandfather. Finding him like that, she’d been ready to swear a fresh oath of vengeance, save that Starkad had talked her down from it. That chafed worse than wearing mail with no padding, but … But maybe she didn’t have it left in her to uphold another oath of vengeance. She’d spent years working against the Ynglings, got many of them killed.

  And what did it bring her?

  Orvar-Oddr, stalking her with each passing moment. And she couldn’t fucking stop him. Maybe Starkad could have, but Hervor couldn’t let him ever find out she’d murdered his friend. One way or another, she’d have to find a way to kill the draug. She needed him burned to ash.

  Sighing, she kicked up a pile of snow. Her world was well and truly fucked. Maybe … maybe she needed help from someone else. Mercenaries, maybe. Aun owned them a hefty price in gold already.

  And he’d gone inside, no doubt eager to affirm friendships with the other kings.

  Shaking her head, Hervor trudged on after the others. Inside, Svarflami’s hall was so thick with people she could hardly move without getting jostled about. That, and dozens of braziers billowing smoke up into the rafters. Everyone was milling about, trying to grab the drinking horn or find a seat on overcrowded benches. Trying to get a piece of the largest feast she’d ever seen.

  A bunch of them had clustered around some brawl. Mix enough mead and enough people together, you’ll get some scuffles. Slightly curious, she shouldered her way through the crowd. Only it was Starkad brawling. A big, red-haired man had him by his tunic, atop a table. The man flung Starkad along the length of the surface, spilling over platters and plates. Starkad slid right off the edge and hit the floor.

  Hervor gaped. Odin’s stones! She’d never seen another man beat Starkad. Was he still weakened from his ordeal?

  She tried to shove her way through, but the crowd was too damn thick. A warrior and a shieldmaiden grabbed Starkad and hefted him up. He shook them off as the red-haired man approached. Starkad’s hands edged toward his blades.

  Shit.

  Brawling was one thing. Turning this into a duel, that would serve no one. Hervor shoved forward, caught Starkad’s eye and glowered.

  He lowered his hands, glaring at the other man. “I came here to pay respects to a fallen king. Not to squabble with you, Odinson.”

  Odinson? Odin’s … Fuck. That was Thor? As in Thor?

  Thor shrugged. “Should you reconsider … I would relish a duel between us.”

  She knew her mouth hung open but she couldn’t have shut it to stop a bird from flying in. Instead, she pushed forward, trying to get a better look at the Ás. Odin’s actual son. Walking around and drinking and fighting.

  Pummeling her lover.

  Starkad grabbed her arm and yanked her away. She’d been reaching out to try to touch the god’s arm, she realized. “Stay the fuck away from him.”

  “That was Thor …”

  Starkad scoffed. “Not you too. The man acts like a troll’s arse and has the brains to match.”

  She flinched, looked around. If someone heard Starkad so disparage one of the Aesir, who knew what could happen? Worse than a brawl, she’d guess. “You have some quarrel with the Ás?”

  He glowered, silent as usual, and pulled her along after him to the back of the hall. “Höfund is here,” he finally said. “He was looking for you.”

  Hervor stumbled over her own feet. The noise of the crowd drowned out the sound of her groan. Barely. Höfund, who’d just asked Grandfather for Hervor’s hand in marriage. Wonder how Starkad would react to that.

  Bastard might even encourage it.

  She couldn’t rightly refuse to meet him, though. Not after all they’d been through together. Without him, maybe she’d never have been able to save Starkad from the mara. She’d sure never have made it out of Pohjola.

  So she said naught as Starkad guided her to a bench where the half-jotunn sat. The man had a mouthful of some meat, grease dribbling down his face and sticking in his beard. He looked up as she approached, toothy grin just letting bits of food stick out. “Hervor!” Didn’t even bother finishing chewing.

  She blew out a breath, then clasped his forearm. “Höfund. Uh … there’s got to be a drinking horn around here.” She glanced about, then motioned to a shieldmaiden holding it. The woman handed it over and Hervor took a long swig of the mead.

  Höfund was loyal. A friend. Wouldn’t do to insult him, even if she couldn’t agree to wed him. He’d always helped her and … Oh. Oh, Odin’s glorious stones. Höfund was almost as strong as a draug. Maybe he’d be just the one she needed to help her hunt down and kill Orvar-Oddr without Starkad ever catching wind of it.

  She handed the horn to Starkad, who himself drank long. “I thought you were in Holmgard?” she asked Höfund.

  “Was. But I’d already come round here looking for you. Caught word of this gathering and figured as you’d be here. You ain’t the easiest person to find, most times, what with the wandering around and so forth.”

  Damn it. He’d come to press his request for her hand, hadn’t he? Last thing she needed was him raising it in front of Starkad. That’d be almost as troubling as having to discuss it alone with him.

  “Got tired of Bjarmaland?” Starkad asked.

  “Can’t say as I have. Fact is, I’ve taken up working for the local king there. This Rollaugr, he’s called. Got more than his fair share of troubles, he does.”

  Huh. Well, that was … not what she’d expected. “If you’re working for the king, why are you here?”

  “Holmgard is looking to fall soon, I reckon. King’s getting fair desperate, and I told him I’d help as best I could. But he’s heard of Eightarms here, and he wants him. Was planning to send a man across the Gandvik to come and look for you. So I told him I knew the both of you and I’d come myself.”

  Starkad passed the horn on and rubbed the back of his hand on his mouth. “What’s he want with me?”

  “Reckon the same as any king wants with a mercenary. Best you let him do the telling of it, though. I’m only here ’cause I reckoned you’d be more like to help if it was me asking than some stranger.”

  Probably true. And either way, if they helped Höfund with this, maybe she’d get the chance to recruit him to help deal with the Arrow’s Point. “Seems like we have to go,” she said.

  Starkad glanced at her. “I didn’t expect you to agree so readily.”

  She shrugged. “We owe him.” Which was true. “And I know you.” Even more true. “You’d have gone regardless.”

  And there Höfund was, grinning again.

  13

  The growing ache in her shoulders began to overwhelm the throbbing pain in her head and back. Hervor cracked open one eye. The other seemed crusted shut with blood and wouldn’t respond. Manacles bound her wrists and strung her up from the ceiling. She was in a cell of some sort, lit—barely lit—by candles on a shelf along the wall.

  Afrid was there too, still unconscious from the look of her, and strung up just like Hervor.

  A closed metal door shut them in here.

  “I can smell that you wake.” The words came from shadows beside the door. A man strode forward, the very faint glimmer of candlelight reflecting off his eyes. He wore a robe, elaborate as Tanna’s had been, but cut in a different style. Indeed, this
one’s facial features were different, his skin darker, more like Afzal’s had been, though it seemed unlikely he was a Serklander if the two empires were at war.

  Hervor grunted in discomfort. “Are you one of them?”

  “Them?” The shadowy figure chuckled.

  Of course he was one of them. With her head all fuzzy, she was asking pointless questions. “You work for Tanna?”

  Now the vampire’s expression turned into a sneer. “You are here to answer questions, not to ask them. Tell me what you are doing in Miklagard.”

  “Ugh. Selling wolf pelts.” She looked up at her chains. “Clearly they’re not in fashion here, though.”

  “Arete.”

  “Huh?” Hervor asked.

  A faint disturbance in the air as something passed close behind her, then a female form took shape.

  “The next words I hear from her shall be the truth,” the vampire said.

  “Of course,” the female said.

  Come to think of it, they were speaking Northern. So that whole exchange was for her benefit. Meaning …

  The lord—another Patriarch, probably—threw open the door and left, not bothering to shut it behind him. They didn’t feel the need to lock their victims inside. Because they knew a human woman would never overpower a vampire?

  “So,” Hervor said. “In my land, the best way to get to know new friends is over drinks.”

  Arete—assuming that was her name—smiled, revealing fangs. “As you wish.” She leaned in close to Hervor’s face. Brushed her cheek along Hervor’s arm. They’d removed her mail, she suddenly realized. Made sense they’d have taken it with her runeblade.

  The female vampire snatched Hervor’s sleeve. A single jerk of her hand tore the seams and the sleeve came away. Arete pulled it up, exposing Hervor’s left biceps. Without further warning, the vampire bit down on Hervor’s arm.

  Her fangs punched through flesh with ease, scraped the bone, even.

  Hervor shrieked at the burning, piercing agony of it. For an instant. Then it felt like the creature was sucking all the warmth right out of her. Ice welled in Hervor’s chest. So cold her scream died in her throat. It felt like her very life was fading away, consumed and devoured with each passing heartbeat. And even her heart began to slow.

  “Hel’s fucking arse cheeks!” Afrid shouted, the sound muffled, far away.

  Arete jerked away, blood dribbling from her lips and down her chin. She licked at it with a bright red tongue, smiled, fluttering her eyes like she was on the verge of a climax.

  Hervor convulsed, unable to still shivers that seized her. So cold …

  “So …” Arete ran her thumb over her chin, mopping up more blood, then sucked on it. “Lord Nikolaos asked you a question.”

  “What was the fucking question?” Afrid asked.

  Arete snickered and drifted over to the other shieldmaiden. “Why? Do you have the answer? You weren’t the one with the runeblade …” She leaned in close and sniffed Afrid’s neck. “Still. I’m deeply interested to know more about you.”

  “Huh. Well, unless you have a cock the size of a bear’s, I’m probably not interested in you being so close.”

  Arete chuckled, shaking her head. “How deliciously vulgar you North Realmers are. A cock? No. But I have a skillful tongue. There’s actually quite excellent blood flow in your nethers. A little nip where your thigh meets the groin and we could know each other so very well. People have been known to beg for it, after a while …”

  Hervor finally managed to blink her other eye open, though everything was hazy from her blood loss. “Leave her alone.”

  Arete trailed a long nail over Afrid’s cheek, drawing a line of blood as she did so. Afrid grimaced but didn’t cry out.

  That was enough. “Listen, you sick, dead bitch—” Hervor began.

  In a heartbeat Arete was there, holding Hervor’s chin so tight it felt like her jaw bones would crack. “I want you to understand something, Northerner. I could pry open your teeth with one hand and rip out your tongue with the other to leave you choking to death on your own blood. Lord Nikolaos would forgive that. He’s got lots more of you to interrogate. The local man. The pompous one.” She sneered. “The filthy dog. The one with a dead eye.”

  Starkad.

  “Oh,” Arete said. “Oh, is that one special to you? Hmm.” She stalked back over to Afrid. Then she punched her in the gut.

  Afrid seized up, clearly trying to double over and unable to do so. Breath exploded from her mouth, followed by wheezing. Gurgling. Coughing out blood in great heaving splatters.

  “And does this one matter to you, too?” Arete shrugged. “We have all night if that’s what it takes. Or I can bring in the man you care for. Maybe break a few bones. Or would it be harder for you to watch if I drain him dry?”

  The thought of that set an even colder chill growing in her gut. She couldn’t lose Starkad. Not like this.

  Arete dug a nail into Afrid’s shoulder. The woman squealed, sucking in breaths that obviously pained her.

  “Enough,” Hervor said. “Enough. What do you want?”

  Arete’s hand only tightened on Afrid’s shoulder. “Why are you in Miklagard?” Hervor could barely hear the vampire over Afrid’s screams of agony.

  “We came to steal Tanna’s runeblade.”

  The vampire released Afrid, whose screams rapidly became whimpers. “Runeblade?”

  “The sword he carries. It was forged during the time of the Old Kingdoms, by dvergar. We came to reclaim it.”

  Arete licked the tips of her lips then strode for the door. She flung it open and slammed it behind her, leaving Hervor and Afrid alone in the candlelight.

  Afrid was sobbing now, but after losing so much blood, Hervor found it damn hard to focus on aught. She just needed a little rest …

  Maybe she dozed—or fainted—because when the door flew open again, Hervor jolted. How much time had passed? Arete hardly glanced at her. The vampire leapt to the wall and stuck on it. She climbed up the surface like a godsdamned spider, transferred to the ceiling, and crawled along that too.

  What the fuck?

  The vampire grabbed Hervor’s chains off the metal hook they dangled from, hefted her up, then let her drop to the floor. Hervor collapsed, too weak to even consider trying to escape. The sudden removal of the pain in her arms only served to remind her how much they ached.

  Arete next dropped Afrid, who crumpled into a heap. Blood was still oozing from the wound on the woman’s shoulder.

  Before Hervor could even say aught to the other shieldmaiden, the vampire dropped off the ceiling and landed between them. She grabbed each of them by an arm, yanked them to their feet, and began dragging them along with her.

  Hervor struggled to walk, if only to avoid the indignity of being hauled like a carcass. Afrid seemed to be faring little better.

  The vampire guided the pair of them along a dimly lit corridor for several dozen feet before shoving them through an open door. They both stumbled, pitched to the floor, and landed on hands and knees.

  Groaning, Hervor lifted her head. The room within was cleaner than anywhere else down in these sewers, if still unadorned stone. Nikolaos sat in an ornate chair, one leg crossed over the other, fingers drumming on the armrests.

  “Hervor,” Starkad said, coming to her side and helping her up.

  Höfund moved to help Afrid, but she shoved him away, glaring at Nikolaos.

  Hervor leaned on Starkad, too fucking tired to care overmuch on pride anymore.

  The others were there, too, standing against the side wall. Vebiorg’s hands were behind her back. Manacled? So the vampires respected the varulf’s strength enough to keep her bound, while fearing naught from the humans.

  “So,” Nikolaos said. “I am given to understand you came to Miklagard because of a grievance against my fellow Patriarch.”

  Starkad grunted, maybe surprised.

  Maybe Hervor shouldn’t have said aught, but it seemed better to be out with it
than get tortured more and then reveal the truth anyway. Or to have to watch Arete torture Starkad.

  Win almost snarled at the Patriarch. “Tanna has dared strike against lands under the protection of the Aesir. He has badly overreached himself.”

  Nikolaos snickered. “It seems to me you are the ones who overreached at the moment.”

  Win spat. How princely of him. “Even if we fail, others will come. The Aesir will not let your corruption spread across Midgard.”

  Now Nikolaos broke into a full chuckle, shaking his head. “Blood of Kvasir, human! Who do you think you are? Your precious, dear Ás king himself was here not a moon back. He fled, bloody and weak, no doubt hiding on his far-flung islands.”

  “Blasphemous lies!” Win shouted.

  Odin had come here? Had fought these creatures? Had … lost?

  Even Starkad seemed shaken, had drawn in a sharp breath at Nikolaos’s comments. No, the vampire lord didn’t seem to be lying. But Hervor found it hard to fathom or credence that a god could have come here and failed. Would that not make the Patriarchs themselves … gods?

  Nikolaos leaned back, clearly not interested in disputing his claims with Win. His smirk said it all.

  Arete, meanwhile, stalked in front of the crew, looking each up and down with a sneer. “They cannot do it. Most of them are human.” The sheer contempt with which she said the last word left Hervor reeling. How far removed this creature must have been from her own humanity.

  Or … well, Hervor was assuming that like draugar, vampires had once been human. Perhaps they were aught else entirely. Hardly mattered, really.

  “Cannot do what?” Baruch asked.

  Nikolaos’s smug grin only deepened. “If outsiders came here and slew Tanna, it might open opportunities for those Patriarchs who remained. Voids in the structure of society. No such void can long exist, and thus, those who are most prepared would be best able to take advantage.”

  Starkad grunted. “You mean you want us to kill Tanna so you can move in on his territory.”