The Song of the Ash Tree- The Complete Saga

by T L Greylock

  The arrow whistled past Raef, unleashed from Siv’s bow where she rode behind him. It struck the creature’s throat, lodging there, and the creature swung its neck around, a fierce rumble charging up its throat as it registered the new threat. Dashing forward in the moment of its distraction, Vakre slashed his sword at the base of its neck, drawing blood that sprayed across the son of Loki’s face, but the beast took little notice of either wound and instead launched into the sky with effortless power and a single stroke of the immense wings.

  Eyes of starless midnight narrowed on Siv, and the beast, hovering on high like an eagle, tucked its wings and dove. The silence was overwhelming and then Raef heard his own shouts, hoarse and desperate, but the beast was not to be distracted and there was nothing he could do, his sword, his axe, all useless as the creature descended from the sky.

  The jaws opened as the beast closed in on Siv’s terrified horse, whose legs churned in fear, and Raef saw at last the pair of great, curved teeth protruding from the upper jaw, as long as a spear and bearing a promise of death and gore. The jaw snapped shut and did not miss, closing around the horse’s head. If the horse screamed in the moment of its death, the sound was caught in the creature’s throat.

  Siv still clung to the saddle as the creature flung the headless horse through the air and opened its maw in a scream of triumph that reverberated through Raef’s limbs. Siv and the horse’s corpse landed in a heap in the snow, the impact throwing the shieldmaiden clear of the saddle. She lay still.

  Raef had no chance to go to her, for the creature rounded on him now, but this time he and Vakre faced the attack together. Raef felt the heat of Vakre’s anger wash over him in a wave less than a heartbeat before the flames roared to life, consuming Vakre, billowing outward with ferocious hunger. The creature answered with a bellow of rage, rearing up and beating its wings at the flames. The air churned, tossed about by the strength of the creature’s wings, and the flames bent toward Raef. Throwing himself to the snow, he felt a heat so unbearable, so searing, it forced a scream from his throat. And then his cloak was on fire, his hair was smoking, his very skin seemed to smolder. Raef rolled through the snow and at last the flames went out and he was able to look up.

  Vakre, tucked into the heart of his cloak of fire, had risen from the snow, drawing the creature with him, and for a moment they hung high in the air, suspended in silence, and then they moved as one, Vakre’s blaze bursting forth even as the creature twisted and lashed out with one wing, striking the flames, and Raef watched as Vakre fell.

  The fire around Vakre went out, but not before taking root in the creature’s wing, and in that moment of bewilderment, the arrow found its mark.

  The shaft drove into the creature’s eye until only the tip of the fletching could be seen and Raef whirled to see Siv, on her knees, bow in hand as the creature’s scream ate into his ears, his heart, his bones.

  The beast plummeted to earth and struck the ground with a roar of fury and pain, but Raef was already moving to finish it before it regained its feet. The flaming wing beat against the ground but the fire only seemed to spread as Raef vaulted onto the creature’s belly and drove his sword down into the thick muscles of its chest. Again and again he plunged the blade and ripped it forth but still it howled at him, still it fought on, twisting so violently that Raef was thrown from his perch. Scrambling to his feet, Raef raised his sword over his head and brought it down onto the creature’s neck. The steel bit deep, severing bone and tendons, and the creature flopped in agony, the head dangling loose.

  When it lay still, Raef found he was on his knees, his heart thudding still in his chest, his shaking hands clinging to his sword. The will to breathe had left him and he had to work to force air into his lungs, his whole body tense, rigid, but at last he could breathe and he was able to rise.

  Siv was still kneeling in the snow when Raef got to her side, her face pale and still, but she grasped Raef’s hand as he laid his palm on her cheek. “I am fine,” she whispered, her gaze shifting to where Vakre lay, the air around him still shimmering with heat. “Go to him.” She got to her feet, clutching Raef’s arm for support, and he could see she was hurt. She would not put weight on her left ankle, but she steeled her face. “Go,” she said again.

  Vakre was alive. He stared up at the sky, his eyes empty, his breathing shallow, but he flinched when Raef put a hand on his chest and a storm washed through his irises as he inhaled sharply.

  “Be still,” Raef said, examining Vakre for injuries. There was nothing, not a bruise or a scrape. “Does it hurt to breathe?” Raef asked, sure Vakre was bleeding internally. The strength behind the creature’s wing would have leveled a house.

  Vakre was quiet for a moment, as though assessing his body, then pushed himself into a sitting position. “I am unhurt.”

  “It should have killed you.”

  “Yes.” Vakre hesitated, his brow creasing. “The blow was painful. But there was something else. Memories, I think. Pieces of thoughts so primal I cannot begin to comprehend them. Tastes and sounds and smells.” Vakre looked at Raef, his eyes shining with wonder. “It was full of malice and hatred long-fermented in a black heart. It knew only savagery. But I think you know what it was.”

  Raef turned and looked over his shoulder to where the creature lay in the snow. One wing still smoldered but the flames had not continued to spread, as though the cooling blood in the creature’s veins prevented the fire from growing.

  “An elder kin,” Raef said quietly. He rose and walked to the tip of the unburnt wing. The skin was stretched thin between slender bones, dark in color but suffused with something Raef could only describe as drops of dawn on the surface of a fjord still black with night. Vakre followed him, one arm supporting Siv as they came to stand at Raef’s side. “An ancient dragon, born in the first light of the sun, old when the gods were young.” Raef wished he could ask Finnoul for the secret name of such a creature.

  “The last dragons vanished from the nine realms even as the first men drew breath. Odin and his brothers hunted them to extinction,” Siv said. “How is it that this one has come to be here now?”

  “The borders between the realms are withering,” Raef said. He could not remove his gaze from the elder kin. “Imagine what ancient, forgotten horrors might call Niflheim home.” The realm of the dead belonged to the goddess Hel, and Raef did not doubt that she ruled over more than those who did not earn a place in Valhalla.

  “Was it merely chance that brought it to our path? Or was it set upon us?” Siv spoke the question that had been forming in Raef’s chest.

  Neither Raef nor Vakre answered at first, but then the son of Loki spoke, turning away from the elder kin. His gaze fixed on the snowfield above them and the path he had taken in flight from the dragon.

  “I left the horses because I knew something was out there,” Vakre began. “It was waiting, watching, calculating our strengths. A dragon dragged from the depths of Niflheim has never before seen or hunted man. Wolves, it knew. Wolves were not a threat. But it did not expect to find us in the woods, I think. We walk on two legs. If the Allfather hunted these creatures in a similar form, perhaps it feared us.”

  “Then why attack when it did?”

  Vakre frowned. “Perhaps when I got close enough to where it was hiding, it knew I did not smell of Asgard. The fear turned to hunger.”

  “Or you did smell of Asgard,” Raef said. “And the dragon sought revenge.” A whisper of wind on Raef’s neck reminded him that time was against them. He looked to the sky and the path of the sun. “We cannot linger. We have lost too much time.”

  With only two horses between them, Siv straddled Raef’s horse behind the saddle, one hand resting on his hip. She kept her bow strung, the arrows within easy reach, and all three of them waited for another winged shadow to fall across the sun. But their passage north was untroubled and when they came to rest under the cover of darkness, they had reached Vannheim lands.

  Raef knew the place, knew
the river and the waterfall that, in spring, would roar. In the depths of winter, the cascade would be half frozen, but still Raef could hear the telltale fall of water just out of sight to the west. They crossed, leading the horses through ankle-deep, unhurried currents, and took shelter on the northern side.

  “With luck we can buy another horse tomorrow,” Raef said, dismounting and taking Siv’s hand. She slid down from the horse, her feet unsteady under her and her knees buckled. Raef caught her, thinking she was sore from riding without a saddle, but then he saw her eyes in the moonlight and knew her suffering had a different cause. When she did not protest when Raef scooped her up in his arms to carry her to even ground, his stomach clenched in fear.

  Siv grimaced and bit back a cry of pain as Raef stretched her out on a patch of earth free of snow. Her right hand flew to her side, to the bottom of her rib cage, but she yanked her fingers away at the first touch and this time her cry was sharp.

  As Vakre placed a blanket under Siv’s head, Raef undid the buckle of her belt and began to peel back the layers of leather, wool, and linen while trying to disturb her as little as possible. A sudden flare of light from Vakre’s hand made it bright enough to see a deep purple bruise spread under Siv’s skin when Raef pulled up the edge of her linen tunic. It stretched from her hipbone up to her lowest rib, sustained, no doubt, when her horse was flung from the dragon’s mouth.

  “You should have said something,” Raef said, meeting Siv’s eyes.

  “Would you?” She stared at him, unblinking, and Raef regretted his words. Vakre offered her a skin of ale, but she shook her head and closed her eyes as she leaned back to rest her head on the blanket.

  Keeping his touch as light as possible, Raef placed his fingers on the discolored flesh, trying to determine the extent of the injury, but his probing revealed nothing. He sat back on his heels.

  “At the least, you have cracked the bottom of your rib cage,” he said.

  “And the worst?” Siv murmured, her eyes still closed.

  Raef was sure she already knew the answer, but he said it anyway. “Ruptured organs. Blood flowing into places it should not be.”

  “Then I would be dead already,” Siv said.

  “Can we be sure of that?”

  Siv opened her eyes and met Raef’s gaze but said nothing.

  Vakre rested the back of his hand on Siv’s forehead. “No fever. Yet.”

  That was a good sign. Raef rose and paced away from where Siv lay. “Tomorrow we will turn west. There is a village a day’s ride from here. We can seek a healer.”

  “No, Raef,” Siv said, her voice quiet but firm. “You must go north. To turn west now will place two fjords and a stretch of hills and valleys between you and the Old Troll. It will take time you cannot spare. You must take the shortest path, and that means staying on the eastern end of Vannheim’s fjords.”

  “You need care,” Raef said, suddenly angry.

  “And what good will that care be when Hati and Skoll swallow the moon and the sun?” Siv remained calm. “Do not choose me over all of Midgard, Raef. If we do not save the world, it will not matter if I go to the last battle with broken ribs or with all my strength.”

  “I do not know how to save the world,” Raef shouted. “I am helpless against this fate. It is madness. What can one man do in the face of the end of all things?” His eyes burned with tears of frustration and Raef turned his back on Siv and Vakre and strode into the pines that lined the river.

  His steps took him to the waterfall and he let himself take refuge in its thrumming rhythm, in the blurred rush of water where the fall was strongest, in the steady, delicate trickle where streams of water found their own paths down the glistening rocks and icicles. After a time, he stretched out a hand and let the water play across his fingers. For a flashing moment, no more than a heartbeat, Raef felt the tumbling water in his veins, felt the strength of the river even while winter kept it chained, felt what it might be like to exist only as a drop of water, constantly moving, following the curves of the world on a path etched out by every other drop of water, destined to roll into the sea and drown. A bleak, yet beautiful life.

  Raef drew back his hand and studied the droplets that ran down his fingers to pool in his palm. The fate of those droplets had changed the moment he came to the falls, the moment he thrust his hand into their existence. He tipped his head back and poured the water onto his tongue, thinking of Finnoul and her relentless belief that Raef had come to Alfheim for a purpose. His arrival had been an accident, an unforeseen consequence of Eira’s decision to keep him alive, and yet he had taken a place in Finnoul’s rebellion, had disrupted the flow of Alfheim’s future just as he now disrupted the waterfall.

  “What was it all for?” Raef murmured as he watched the moonlight play across the water. “Fate,” he said, looking up at the stars, “I do not fear you. I do not fear what lies ahead. I defy you.” The last words were whispered but never had Raef felt such conviction burning in his heart.

  When he returned to the riverside camp, Siv was asleep. Her face was free of pain and for that Raef was glad. Vakre was hunched by the river’s edge, filling skins with the clear water. Raef squatted next to him.

  “Take care of her,” Raef said. “Perhaps rest is all she needs. I will return with the second dawn.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “In search of an answer.” Raef rose, settled a hand on Vakre’s shoulder, then walked away.

  The horse was tired, but she pricked her ears when Raef approached and waited patiently while he cinched the saddle and drew the reins over her head. Raef stroked a hand down her nose.

  “Are you ready, friend?”

  As if in response, the horse bobbed her head and snorted into Raef’s gloved hand. He pulled himself up into the saddle and turned her away from the river.

  Thirty-Three

  Raef came into the valley from the east, just as Fengar had done before him when the lord of Solheim had sought refuge from the war in the furthest reaches of Vannheim. Riding through the night had brought Raef to the eastern entrance to the valley in the late morning and he stopped to water the horse and give his own body a period of rest. The climb would come next, but he granted himself a long, sun-drenched moment at the edge of the river that split the valley in half. To the north, across the water, rose the slope to the eagle’s nest, the hidden fortress of Vannheim. But that was not the steep climb ahead of him. Raef looked over his shoulder to the southern summits, to a ridge where he had flown, once, the ridge where he had watched the smoke-colored kin breathe her last.

  He was not sure what drew him to return to that place. And even then, with his destination in sight, he could not escape the feeling that he was wasting precious time. That he should have continued on to the Old Troll without further delay. But the decision was made and could not be unmade, and so, after steeling himself for the climb, Raef pushed his doubts into the deepest recesses of his mind and, leaving the horse tied to a tree, he began his ascent.

  The way was easy at first, a gentle trek through tall pines. The snow cover on the sheltered ground was thin and Raef’s strides ate up the ground. Soon the way grew steep, the trees more scattered, the ground slick beneath Raef’s boots. When he crossed the tree line, he cast a quick glance over his shoulder toward the eagle’s nest. The deep bowl was in full sun, the steep walls bright with the light’s reflection. Taking two deep breaths, Raef pressed onward, attacking the bare, ravine-carved slope above at a run that soon made his thighs burn and his lungs cry out for respite.

  Only when shadows flitted across his vision and a stumble nearly sent him sprawling did Raef realize he was dizzy and weak with hunger, not having eaten since the previous day. He collapsed in the snow and dug out his skin of water, but his shaking hands caused him to spill more than he swallowed. Raef set the water skin aside, closed his eyes, and forced himself to slow his breathing, to command his thundering heart.

  When he had regained his lungs, Raef pulled o
ut the small ration of food he had taken from his pack. The crumbly cheese broke apart as he opened its cloth wrapper, but Raef brought the cloth to his mouth and ate like a dog, his tongue snatching up every stray piece. The strips of dried venison took more time, more patience, and Raef resolved to continue his climb at a slower pace while he tore at the meat and chewed.

  The sun beating down on his back as he climbed on soon had him soaked in sweat but Raef knew that if he stopped for any length of time again, the winter air would need only a moment to chill him. He could not risk that.

  He could see his destination in his mind, a narrow crest of stone, a shoulder between the heads of two peaks. Enough room for one man and a loyal dragon-kin to wait for death. The ground would drop away on either side. A perilous place but one that held claim over a piece of his heart.

  When at last he reached the top of the ridge, Raef was drained and he dropped to his hands and knees on a slab of granite, the tip of his nose brushing the stone as he sank down. To his relief the air had gone still. There were no cruel winds whipping over the ridge.

  “Perhaps there is a goddess yet in Asgard who still watches over the world of men,” Raef murmured to the cold stone. At last he gathered the strength to raise his head, to see what was left of the smoke-colored kin.

  The snow had come to cover her, he remembered, but snow never lingered in exposed places for long and any trace of the storm that had descended on the peaks after her death was long swept away. Her body remained, the grey skin still stretched over the bones, the sunset eyes still masked by eyelids. The cold had kept the teeth of decay at bay. But tears flooded Raef’s eyes at the sight of her so shrunken, so bereft of life and strength.