by T L Greylock
“And yet I never saw her smile,” Raef said, his gaze fixed on the smoldering embers of the fire. Vakre accepted this with a nod and Raef turned to his friend. “What now?”
“Now you wait and see what the sunrise shows you.”
Twelve
Raef rubbed his hands together and blew hot breath on his palms. The morning was frigid and frosted over and though the sun spilled into the valley below, it was a cold light made even colder by the ripping gusts of wind that battered against the walls of the nest. The day would be cold, perhaps the coldest yet that winter, but somehow it made Raef glad, for it suited his mood, and his own clear mind was a reflection of the clear, pristine sky above.
The fire burned still, but it seemed to be a fire without heat so quickly was the warmth swept away by the wind. Men clustered around it all the same, furs pulled tight over their ears. Others huddled at the entrance to the largest cave, waiting, though whether they waited for him or for death, Raef could not say. Their faces were grave, the faces of men who did not know if they had chosen well.
Seventeen men had made the choice to stay. The last of those who departed the nest were still in sight, their descent made tricky by slick frost on stone, but some had slipped away in the night, as though the sun might shame them into staying. Each and every man of Vannheim had answered Raef’s challenge, and each had come to him in the night with words of fervent loyalty on their lips. Of Fengar’s men, none remained and Raef was sure they had been the first to vanish in the night. But one face he was surprised to see. Eyvind, the warrior from Axsellund with the snake tattoo, had chosen to stay.
Alvar of Kolhaugen was dying. It was a peaceful death, his blood draining away from the slice Dvalarr had made into his neck. They had set him up by the edge of the nest, as though giving him a last view of the world might either wake him from his stupor or send him gladly into death, though Raef was sure he was conscious of nothing around him, not even the cold. His eating knife, for that was all that remained on his belt, was pressed into his hand in the hopes that the gods might see him and take him to Valhalla, and Vakre had hooked the red glass bead into his ear once more. It glistened now and Raef stepped forward to close Alvar’s eyes.
“Little of Alvar remained in this husk of a body,” Raef said, “but we will build him a pyre nonetheless and let the gods see if him if they can.” Raef looked to Eyvind. “They will see Torleif, I know.”
Raef took to the task with vigor, leading a few men into the valley to select and fell a pair of young trees. Their axes chopped into the trunks, sending chips of bark and wood flying, and the forest came alive with the rhythmic sounds of steel meeting wood and labored breathing. They dragged the trees back to the nest and soon the pyre was stacked high. Dvalarr and Rufnir lifted Alvar’s stiff corpse onto the wood, and Eyvind did the same for Torleif, but for Raef this was no longer a pyre for the man who wanted to be lord of Kolhaugen or for the ally who had gone to Valhalla too soon. It was a pyre for those he had not been able to burn, who had not had the light of a fire to lead them to Valhalla. In his mind’s eye, he placed their bodies on the pyre. Asbjork, Rufnir’s brother, was among them, but last of all was Siv.
With a nod from Raef, Dvalarr held a burning log to the base of the pyre. For a moment there was silence and then the kindling and pine needles began to smoke and spit and a fire was born.
Without oil to help the flames spread and burn hot, the pyre would burn slowly and linger through the daylight hours and well into the night, and yet Eyvind took up his vigil as Raef had known he would. When Raef came to stand at his side, the warrior of Axsellund did not begrudge him a place.
“Do you stand vigil for all your foes?” Eyvind asked. “Alvar of Kolhaugen would not have done the same for you.”
“I do not stand here for him.”
Eyvind nodded, his eyes clear with understanding.
“I did not think you would stay,” Raef said.
“There is little enough to return to,” Eyvind said. “And I want no part of what will follow.”
“And what is that?”
“Torleif’s widow, she carries his child. She will fight for that child’s inheritance.”
“And you do not wish to see a child of Torleif claim what its father left behind?”
Eyvind looked away, his brow furrowed. “I do not know what I wish for a child of Torleif.”
“What did Torleif want for Axsellund?”
When Eyvind looked back at Raef, his eyes were clouded with suspicion. “You mean the demands he made to Fengar.”
“Were they just a ruse? Or did Torleif hold this dream in his heart? Did he wish to rise above his ancestors and be marked the greatest of them all?”
When Eyvind answered, there was a smile on his lips. “No. It was never about his name, his family. All he did, he did for Axsellund. But the sea did not speak to Torleif. He never craved ships or the influence they can grant.”
“I would have given it, all he asked for,” Raef said. “If he truly wanted it and he brought me victory, I would have carved a path from Axsellund to the sea for him.”
Eyvind seemed surprised. “And the Hammerling? Axsellund and Finngale have not quarreled in many generations. Nor, I think, have Finngale and Vannheim.”
Raef took a deep breath. “The Hammerling will come for me in time. There is no chance of reconciliation now.” Even if the Hammerling remained ignorant of Raef’s naming as king, even if he might yet harbor good will for Raef, he had a serpent whispering in his ear, for Raef was certain Hauk of Ruderk would slander the name of Skallagrim. Raef waved away a gust of smoke. “I see you are not the only man of Axsellund to remain behind. Will they fight for me and uphold Torleif’s oath? Will you?”
Eyvind was quiet but his face betrayed little emotion. “Your friend. Is he truly the son of the silver-tongued god?”
Raef nodded. “He is.”
“Fire is a dangerous plaything.” There was no judgment in Eyvind’s voice, but Raef felt a twinge of ire creep into his chest.
“Those flames have saved my life more than once.”
“And if he should choose to end it? What then? Will he set a fire in your flesh? How many deaths will he be responsible for? How many bodies will he leave in his wake?” This last was hissed in Raef’s ear, the vehemence bursting into Eyvind’s voice with sudden strength, and then Eyvind turned and retreated from his vigil, striding as far from the pyre as the bowl would allow.
Raef closed his eyes and when he opened them, Vakre had come to stand by him.
“He blames you,” Raef said.
“He is not wrong.”
“We do not know that Torleif would have survived that battle.”
“And still, he is not wrong.”
“He fears you,” Raef said, then corrected himself. “No, not fear. He does not understand you. I think he only feared one thing and that has come to pass.”
“Let me speak to him.”
Raef searched Vakre’s face, though he knew not what he was looking for. He nodded. “Go.”
He watched from a distance and through a veil of smoke as the two men, perched at the edge of the nest, conversed. There were no wild gestures, no raised voices, only cloaks lifted by the wind and silence. The sun had ridden far across the sky by the time they finished. Vakre returned alone.
“He will stand with you. As will the rest of Torleif’s warriors who remained.”
Raef felt his stomach unclench. “What did you say?”
“I think perhaps that should stay between us.”
Raef frowned. “Did you threaten him?”
Vakre shook his head. “No.”
“Then I will ask no further questions.”
The stars burned bright when Raef finally released himself from his vigil. The bodies of Alvar and Torleif were nothing but bones and ash, and Raef’s throat was dry, his eyes burning with smoke. He stepped away and filled his lungs with cold night air, clearing his senses, and when he had breathed his fill, it s
eemed to him that the walls of the nest were closing in around him, that the only thing holding them back was the icy air that swelled within him. Raef scanned the walls of the bowl and found her, her sunset eyes dancing with firelight as she watched his every move from on high. He did not need to call, did not even move, for the kin was already sweeping down to land at his side.
Around them, warriors drew back, uneasy so near to the strange beast, but Raef was blind to them. He felt the life that had been drawn out of him by the funeral pyre return with new force as he climbed onto her back.
She took to the dark sky, rising higher and higher until the nest was the size of Raef’s fist and the moon and stars were spread before him, so close it seemed he might stretch out to touch them. If Hati, the wolf who chased the moon was near, Raef could not feel his vile presence.
They soared high above the mountains, then dropped with terrifying speed back to earth, skimming the surface of the fjord. For a moment, Raef’s thoughts turned west and he longed to fly her to the Vestrhall and descend upon Isolf, but the thought faded in a heartbeat for the kin was tiring, he could see. She pushed onward, her joy in the flight boundless, but Raef tapped the side of her neck to steer her back over land. They climbed once more, this time up above the slopes on the southern side of the valley and landed on a ridge between two summits. Across the way and beneath them, the bowl was aglow with the light of the funeral pyre, but Raef turned away from it and let the darkness of the mountains fill him.
Raef put a hand on the kin’s rib cage and felt her heart beating there. The pulse was strong and sure but the lack of meat on her bones and her faltering flight knit Raef’s chest with concern.
“You are not well. Tomorrow we will find you a good meal.” Raef patted her shoulder and sat down on the narrow crest of the ridge. Below him on both sides the ground dropped away in steep cascades of stone spotted with snow. The kin folded her limbs close and settled next to him. “I know you do not care for moss. Perhaps birch bark would suit you better?” She blinked her bright eyes and Raef laughed. “No, no, you need meat. A nice, fat pig would do.” Raef leaned against her and she rested her nose on his knee. “You may have to settle for some leggy hares and a barrel of fish.”
A pair of wolves struck up a distant song, their voices carrying in the empty, windless night. Raef closed his eyes and listened until they grew quiet.
“I do not have enough men. Twenty-one swords will not win the walls of Vannheim.” Raef leaned back and looked at the stars, seeing the shapes of the bear and the bow and the longship, trying to imagine the night sky empty of stars. “But time is against me. If I wait, gather more men, strengthen my shield wall, the Einherjar and the giants may go to war before I am ready. Ragnarök may come while I sharpen my sword in this lonely valley, and my cousin will sit in my father’s chair while the world of men falls.”
The stars listened to Raef in cold silence and the kin closed her eyes, leaving Raef to hope that the light of a new day might give him answers.
**
The newly risen sun showed Raef one thing. The kin was dying.
Her eyes were dull, the sunset colors muted and listless. She seemed unwilling to rise, to stretch her wings, and the heartbeat that had seemed so strong under the moon was now slow and hesitant.
“Tell me what to do, skeiflyng,” Raef said, whispering her true name. His toes were numb with the cold, his hands longed for the warmth of a fire, but all was forgotten when he understood the extent of the kin’s weakness. “It is not fair, that you have saved my life so many times, but have come to me too late so that I cannot save yours.”
She responded to the sound of his voice by lifting her head off the rock, but only for a moment.
Raef felt tears sting his eyes, tears of frustration mixed with grief. “Must I lose you, too? Am I to be stripped away until I have nothing left?” Raef pulled her head onto his lap and bent over it. “I do not know how much more I can bear.”
Raef stayed with her, unmoving, until the end. She lingered through the day and endured the bitter watches of the night, and she saw the rising and passing of the sun one last time. Only when the mountains grew purple and drew tight their mantles of deep shadows in the fading twilight of the second day did she breathe her last.
Raef, his hand on her chest, felt her heart go still, felt her shudder into quiet death. He kissed her between the eyes. “Sleep now, beautiful one, and dream of your home in the sky.”
As if heralding the smoke-colored kin’s death, a coil of clouds wrapped themselves around Raef’s ridge and snow began to fall in thick, heavy flakes that soon coated Raef’s shoulders and hair. He might have lingered, might have watched the snow cover her body, might have waited until the storm passed and descended to the valley with the morning light, but there was nothing to keep him.
“Enough. Enough,” Raef said to the snow and the grey eyelids that covered the sunset eyes. “I have been gone long enough.” And so he trudged down from the ridge, through the tree-covered slopes, across the rushing, snow-capped river, and up to the eagle’s nest, arriving dressed in frost and snow to face the bewildered faces of those he had left behind. The men watched as he went to stand by the fire, he who had flown away on a creature of legend and returned on foot two nights and two days later.
It was Vakre who came to him, a question in his eyes, as Raef felt the heat of the fire sink into his chilled skin.
“I am well,” Raef said in answer to what Vakre did not ask. “I have not eaten nor slept since last you saw me, but I am well enough.” The words, though, seemed to sap him of what strength remained in his muscles, and he was glad to feel Vakre’s strong arm take hold of his. “She may have been the last of her kind and now she is dead. She came here for me and I think it killed her.” He had left his grief on the mountain, locked it away so that he might only look forward, ever forward, and not back where despair waited for him.
Raef looked into Vakre’s eyes. “But I know how to win the Vestrhall.”
The thought had come to him on the ridge. He could not have said when, but by the time the kin had breathed her last, it was firmly planted in his mind, an ember, a delicate thing that he must protect and cherish, something secret that would slip away if he did not take care.
“Rest,” Vakre said. “Eat. And then tell me.”
Thirteen
The ship had been left to the whims of the tide, rising and falling on the slick green rocks, sharing a berth with pieces of driftwood that bumped ceaselessly up against the shore. The hull bore a few scrapes and scars, visible now that she was in low water, but from Raef’s distance she appeared to be seaworthy. High tide would tell.
Vakre was already climbing over the sheer strake, and Raef stepped from rock to rock until he, too, could pull himself over the side and onto the wide, smooth planks of the deck. The funeral pyre meant for Visna was still standing, a forlorn thing dusted with snow, and Vakre set to work disassembling it in order to clear the deck. Raef walked to the stern to examine the rudder and was glad to find it in working order. Together, they lowered the grey sail and bundled it up to carry back to the nest to be greased with animal fats as protection against the wind and snow.
“No oars,” Vakre said. “But we have plenty of pines to work with.”
“The Allfather has given us good ropes,” Raef said, fingering the fine cords made of seal skin. He knelt by the mast and opened the ballast hold. It was filled with a few large, flat stones and one fine iron anchor.
“She is small,” Vakre said.
“She is enough.” Raef caught Vakre’s glance. “She has to be enough.”
“And what of her?” Vakre gestured over Raef’s shoulder.
Visna stood yet on land, reluctant to venture closer to the ship that had carried her from Asgard. Her arms were hugged tight across her chest and even from a distance Raef could see her brow was furrowed by a frown. She had followed Raef from the nest willingly enough when he told her he meant to claim the ship from the t
ides, but the sight of it had stilled her curiosity.
“Everything hinges on her,” Raef said.
**
The hot fat glistened on Raef’s palms as he worked his hands across the weathered woolen sail. Down in the valley, men were at work felling the six young spruces he had chosen to fashion oars from, and still others were maneuvering the small ship off the rocks now that the tide was up. Theirs was a cold, bone-chilling task, and they would return soaked and grumbling, but the fire waited and Vakre had promised each man who braved the icy fjord the best cuts of meat from the pair of deer they had taken that morning. As for Raef, he would have preferred to work with bear grease, but the deer fat would do, and he was glad of the labor.
Rufnir worked from the opposite end of the sail, his one hand useless for anchoring ships or cutting trees, but sure and practiced at the job at hand. They coated the sail in silence, each caught up in the rhythm of a task they had first learned as children, and by the time Dvalarr returned to report that the trees were down, there was only a small section left ungreased. Leaving Rufnir to finish, Raef wiped the fat from his hands and descended into the valley to show them how to make oars.
They had few woodworking tools between them, but Dvalarr had produced a file from a pouch at his belt, and another man a chisel, and Raef had converted a borrowed knife into a makeshift draw knife that he could use to shape the wood. The trunks were split into pieces Raef could work with and the bark was removed, and then Raef settled down on a stump with a long piece of smooth spruce and began the slow task of drawing forth an oar from the wood.
For two days Raef worked the wood, leaving the valley only to sleep a few hours each night, returning with the sun. He ate when Vakre brought him meals, drank from the river when he was thirsty, and inhaled the scent of spruce with each and every breath. In the end, he had six crude oars, rough things made from rough tools that he might have scorned once. But they would take him the length of the fjord if the wind failed to fill the sail and for that they were most dear.