The Song of the Ash Tree- The Complete Saga

by T L Greylock

  Raef knelt at her side and stretched out one hand until it came to rest on her nose. The cold he found there startled him, though he had known it would be that way. Yet he could think only of the first time they had met, when she had been set to watch him while he awaited his audience with the Guardians, of how she had stretched out her nose, both curious and tentative, to smell his outstretched palm. Her warm breath had tickled his fingers.

  “Why?” Raef whispered. “What brought you here? What brought me to Alfheim when I should have died on the seas?” He ran his fingers down her neck to her chest, remembering how he had felt her heart go still. “Would that you could help me now. That you could tell me what it is I must do. If I can do anything at all. This fate is as old as the void at the beginning of all things and I am but one drop of water waiting to drown in the sea. And still, I will try, though I expect nothing for myself in return. Because I do not know any other way to live.” Words sprang to Raef’s mind unbidden, the Allfather’s words, as he spoke to Raef about foolishly hanging himself upon Yggdrasil, all because he knew no other course.

  Those words seemed to Raef a seed in his mind, but he felt blind to whatever might grow from it. Raef sighed and sat close to the crook of the kin’s neck, his knees tucked up to his chest. “I killed one of your ancient cousins,” he told her. An involuntary shiver coursed down his spine and Raef knew he could not linger. As he stood, his boot brushed against the kin’s outstretched foot, the impact jarring loose one of the talons from the sunken joint. Raef picked it up and stroked a finger along its curved length until he reached the tip. It was as long as his hand and deadly sharp. “Perhaps I have come in vain, for I will return to Vakre and Siv no wiser. But you have granted me a final gift and so I do not count it a wasted journey.” Raef tucked the talon into his empty food pouch and leaned down to touch the kin one last time. “Farewell, friend.”

  The descent passed quickly as Raef tracked the sun through the western sky. There could be no rest, no fitful sleep, not if he meant to return by dawn as he had promised, and so Raef, after filling his water skin once more, mounted the mare and turned her back the way they had come, first east, through the valley, and then south to the river where Vakre and Siv waited.

  He beat the sun, returning to the small camp near the waterfall when night still held sway. The horses greeted each other as Raef approached, waking Vakre. The son of Loki held the mare’s bridle while Raef, stiff and weary, dismounted.

  “How is she?” Raef asked, looking at Siv who slept beside the dying embers of a fire.

  “No worse.” Vakre’s gaze searched Raef’s face. “Did you find what you sought?”

  “I am no closer to understanding how I might change fate, if that is what you mean. But Odin sacrificed himself for something even he did not understand.” Raef met Vakre’s gaze. “Are we not made in the Allfather’s image? Do we not share the follies of his heart, the strength of his anger, even his hunger for knowledge? We are weak of body and spirit when compared to the gods, but my course is laid before me and I know no other.”

  Raef let Siv sleep, even drifted into a half-sleep himself, until the sky lightened. They shared the last of their bread, dry and stale, and half the cheese they had remaining. Vakre heated water over the fire and they drank to warm themselves from the inside. Siv gave no complaint when Raef helped her onto the horse, though her lips tightened and her face grew pale. She smiled, though, when Raef showed her the smoke-colored kin’s talon.

  “I would have liked to know her,” Siv said, returning the talon to Raef. She held to his waist more tightly than she had before, but she gave no sign of weakening as they rode north to curl around the double forked end of the fjord.

  They made good time in the daylight, their route made easy by a wide valley. Prevailing winds had swept the snow into hulking drifts as tall as farmhouses, leaving swaths of frozen ground clear. The empty land around them was uninhabited, a bleak part of Vannheim home to little but rocks and stunted trees. The good soil for farming lay to the west and north at lower elevations, and the waters of the fjord were a great distance away. Looming to the east, the highest peaks in Vannheim and the vast glacier stretched over those slopes were the only landmarks, the only means to gauge distance and location. The summits were shrouded in cloud, as they nearly always were, Raef knew, but their sharp shoulders, their bald faces, their jagged silhouettes, were known to him, as were their smaller brothers and sisters clustered at their feet.

  Raef pointed toward the northeast, at a finger of glacial ice that delved lower into the foothills than any other. It dipped in and out of sight as they crossed the rough terrain.

  “When we are level with the Serpent’s Tongue,” he said, “the fjord will no longer obstruct our passage west. We will find gentler terrain and, with the gods’ help, a farm with meat and bread to spare.”

  They rode on, Raef with one eye on the Serpent’s Tongue, watching it draw closer, but his mind was on Siv, who had grown quiet and seemed to lean more heavily on him. He slowed his horse to a walk, hoping to give her a respite from the constant jarring of their faster, ground-eating gait. It would come again all too soon.

  But he was too late. Siv, her eyelids fluttering as she slipped into unconsciousness, began to slide from her perch behind Raef. Twisting, Raef caught her around the waist and halted the fall, but one look at her face told him the fever had come. With Vakre’s help, Raef settled Siv on his lap, her head cradled on his collarbone, his arms encircling her as he held the reins, her fevered brow warming his neck, his cloak pulled around them both. They rode on, for there was no place to turn back to, and they would find nothing but darkness if they lingered.

  They turned west when they drew even with the Serpent’s Tongue, but Raef, consumed by the fever that burned in Siv, felt no relief at their progress into the lower lands away from the mountain plateau. The closest farms were still out of reach and Raef’s sleepless night was wearing on him, but they pressed on until the light began to fade, lengthening the shadows across the glen they rode through. They chose a grove of oaks, tall and proud, to shelter them and Vakre lifted Siv from Raef’s lap, then began to build a fire. He kindled the spark with his hands and they wrapped Siv in all three blankets they carried, laying her as close to the flames as they dared. Neither Vakre nor Raef spoke until the sun dropped out of the world, leaving them among the blues and purples of twilight and the first stars. The moon, a fat crescent, hovered among the black branches of the oaks above them.

  “You should go on,” Vakre said. He sat apart from the fire, though whether he was simply warmed by his own heat or he wanted to distance himself from the flames he had come to loathe, Raef was not sure.

  The words were an echo of those in Raef’s mind but he did not respond.

  “Take what food we have. I can hunt with Siv’s bow. There is fresh water here. If she does not worsen, I will take her to the closest farm. Then, if it is not too late, I will follow you.”

  “I will not leave her.”

  Vakre was quiet for a moment. “Would you choose her over all of Midgard?”

  “Do not ask me to make that choice, Vakre,” Raef said, his voice sharp though it was Vakre’s words that had cut. “There is no certainty of success. I do not know what I am looking for. I do not know if the Old Troll will show me anything.”

  “Will you wait here, then, by her side? Wait for Black Surt’s fires? If the red rooster has crowed, Heimdall will soon sound the Gjallerhorn. Staying with Siv will not save her.”

  “And leaving will?” Raef shook his head. The truth in Vakre’s words hounded him. “Do you know what I fear most?”

  Vakre met Raef’s gaze, unblinking. “What?”

  “I fear achieving the impossible, only to discover that I alone have eluded Ragnarök, that I am left to walk Midgard in isolation, that I will save this world that I love and take no joy in it because to live in this world alone would be the worst fate imaginable. And I fear that is the unknown future the Allfat
her spoke of.” Raef stood and turned away from the too-hot fire.

  “I cannot save Midgard, Raef,” Vakre said, his voice filled with a sad certainty. “I know it in my bones, in the very air I breathe. And Siv,” Vakre hesitated, his gaze shifting to Siv’s face. Her forehead was damp with sweat as she dreamed a fever-dream. “It was your fate Odin One-Eye could not comprehend, Raef, your runes he touched and could not read. I do not know what lies ahead. I do not know if this is folly and madness. But I know you.”

  Raef closed his eyes, as if shutting away the world could delay the moment he would have to say goodbye to Siv, for Vakre spoke as Raef’s own heart did.

  “She will forgive you.”

  Raef turned back to Vakre. “We never found a priest. And now it is too late.” He glanced to the stars, bright in the velvet sky. “Perhaps it will all be too late,” he murmured before returning his gaze to the light of the fire and Vakre’s waiting eyes, then went to his mare and lifted the saddle onto her back.

  “The world is full of hope, Raef, though we are often too blind to see it. Remember that.”

  “Let it fill the hearts of others,” Raef said. “I claim none for myself.” He could not look at Siv as he drew the reins over the horse’s head.

  He was in the saddle when the wolf song shattered the night and the earth began to tremble. The mare reared up and Raef slipped backward, tumbling from the saddle as the shuddering ground lurched up to meet him. So violent was the shaking that Raef could not stand, though he tried to crawl to Siv’s side.

  “Raef.”

  Vakre’s voice was calm, his eyes on the sky, his face full of dreadful anticipation and Raef, ceasing to fight against the heaving ground, followed Vakre’s gaze.

  The moon was gone.

  The wolves went silent, their song of triumph echoing into the gulf of darkness in the sky.

  “Hati has come.”

  Thirty-Four

  Raef waited. Waited for the gaping hole in the sky to descend and swallow him. Waited for the wolves to strike. Waited for the stars to fall. Waited for the end of all things.

  But there was only silence. The earth grew still, the vibrations diminishing into nothing, leaving Raef pressed against the ground, waiting, his fingers reaching for Siv’s hand. The fever held tight; Siv did not stir.

  “Skoll will not be far behind his brother,” Vakre said.

  “We ride together.” Raef stood and went to quiet the horses. He dared not look at the hole in the sky where the moon should have been lest he lose his resolve; instead he fixed his attention on saddling Vakre’s horse and tried to ignore the fear storming through his heart. “No one should be alone.”

  To Raef’s relief, Vakre did not argue and they were soon mounted once more, Siv on Raef’s lap. They rode hard, as though if they went fast enough and far enough they might discover the moon in a different part of the sky, but there was no escaping this, Raef knew.

  As the dark hours passed and the ground flew under them, Raef did not look to the sky, did not look over his shoulder, though he longed to see the first glimmer of dawn behind the eastern hills. In his mind he saw the sky grow bright with the sunrise, saw the first lining of gold spread over the horizon, saw the waves of pink and purple, faint and timid at first, then bold and brilliant as the light danced with the clouds. Raef clung to the hope of sunlight as a dying warrior does his sword, but he did not pray, did not ask Odin to bring the sun once more. Odin had his own battle.

  The relief Raef felt when the sky grew light behind them was profound. So strong was the light, so sharp, it seemed to him a show of defiance that lifted his spirits.

  “If this it to be our last sky, at least it is clear,” Raef said to Siv, hoping she might hear him through the veil of the fever.

  The day grew warm, softening the top of the snow they rode through. Snow fell from tree branches in wet clumps and sweat beaded on Raef’s spine under his warm layers.

  “A breath of spring,” Vakre said. They stopped to let the horses drink from a narrow stream. With one arm still wrapped around Siv, Raef rummaged in his pack until he found the last strips of dried meat. He handed Vakre two pieces, kept two for himself, and returned the rest. “It will grow cold before the end.”

  “Do you think the Einherjar are gathering on the field of Folkvangr? Or do they squabble still over mead and old quarrels?”

  Vakre managed a small smile as he urged his horse onward. “I think they will fight among themselves until Fenrir comes for the Allfather.”

  “I wonder if my father and his brother will stand side by side.”

  Vakre had no answer.

  “And Cilla. I wonder what Cilla will do.”

  “Her duty. She is of Asgard now,” Vakre said.

  “Yes.” Raef was quiet for a moment, his mind skittering here and there. There was so much to consider, so much that might be said. And so little time. “I kept Ulthor Ten-blade alive for you.”

  Vakre frowned. “For me?”

  “You had more right to send him to Valhalla than I did.”

  Vakre’s eyes narrowed and Raef saw the feral look he had come to know so well, the look he had first seen on Vakre’s face. “You should have killed him.”

  “Raef.” Siv’s murmuring voice was so quiet that Raef was not sure she had spoken until her eyes opened, green and golden in the newly risen sun. Raef kissed her forehead. The fever still burned hot.

  “How do you feel?”

  Siv did not answer, but the look in her eyes was answer enough.

  “Sleep.” Raef kissed her again. “Sleep and get well. Do not leave me here alone.” Siv closed her eyes but Raef could see that sleep did not claim her.

  She grew worse even as the day grew bright and Raef shed his cloak to savor the light. Her rest was fitful, punctured by spasms of pain, but when Raef asked her if she wanted to stop, she refused. He did not tell her of Hati’s victory over the moon.

  But when the twilight came and the moon did not appear in the sky, her gaze, though clouded with pain and fever, roamed the stars above Raef’s head and he could see understanding come to her.

  “I am not blind, you know,” Siv managed. The grin Raef might have expected did not appear. He smiled for them both, even as his chest constricted and her hand found his on the reins and held tight. “How far?”

  “Too far.”

  **

  Two days moving northwest through the hinterlands of Vannheim, desolate and deserted. Two nights of darkness that chilled Raef more than the cold and two sunrises that brought him a measure of strength. When the sun was high on the second day, they passed two farms sharing one valley, abandoned, the sheep left to huddle in the barn, a cow desperate to be milked. The animals would not survive much longer. It was not starvation that would take them, for there was fodder enough in the barn. But wolf tracks rimmed the open fields and Raef knew the pack would come again, bolder this time, and sure of an easy meal.

  They took what food they could find. Fresh cheese. Dried apples. A sack of nuts. Grain for the horses. Vakre discovered dried flowers preserved with care, including one that might chase away Siv’s fever. Raef released the cow from distress and searched for evidence of what had driven the families away from their homes, finding nothing.

  A third farm passed late on the second day seemed just as empty but when Raef pushed open the door, he startled a young woman, upsetting the cream she was churning to butter. She jumped away from Raef as it spread on the packed dirt floor, her back pressed against the wall, her eyes darting around the small house in search of escape. An old dog in the corner struggled to get to its feet, its movements slow and limited. It made a brave attempt at ferocity, though there was no fight in its eyes.

  Raef held up his hands and came no further. “Forgive me. I do not come to hurt you. I thought there was no one home.”

  The young woman swallowed. The dog watched Raef. “Then you came to steal.”

  “No.” Raef took a small step through the doorway. “Do you
know me?”

  “Once I might have thought you the lord of Vannheim. I saw him once, a few summers ago, before he was lord. We took maple syrup to the Vestrhall to sell that year. But he is dead in the south.”

  “I live. The war is over and I am returning to the Vestrhall,” Raef said, summoning the lie quickly.

  “Then what do you want?” The young woman shushed the old dog, who grumbled still at Raef’s presence, but she remained wary of Raef.

  “Your closest neighbors have left their homes,” Raef said, choosing his words carefully. “I was looking for answers and thought this one, too, was abandoned.”

  “It will be soon enough.” She gestured to the dog. “We are the only ones left. We will have to leave soon. Go to my sister’s, if she will have me.” Dropping her eyes from Raef, she grimaced at the cream she had spilled and got to her knees with a cloth to soak up what she could.

  Raef stepped forward and bent to retrieve the bowl, righting it. “The only ones?” He remained at eye level with the woman.

  “My husband’s brother went out three days ago. He likes to set snares for rabbits and we were eager for fresher meat. He came back at dusk, raving, saying the trees had chased him, saying there were shadows where none should be, saying a squirrel had spoken to him and sung a song of death.” The young woman shook her head, but her dismissal was tinged with fear. “We put him to bed and hoped the morning would make it right, but he slipped away in the darkness and did not come back.” She stopped and Raef could see unwanted tears brimming on her lower lid. “Though I begged him not to go, Karvol went looking for him the next day,” she continued, fighting to keep her voice level. “I have not seen either of them since.”

  “And your neighbors?” Raef asked. The other farms were set in separate valleys, but the families would still have known each other well. “Did something similar happen there?”

  The young woman shrugged. “We had not visited in some time. Karvol and Ferrun did not always get on well.