Like most men who fall under the civilizing influence of their women, Voldar grumbled and put up a fuss and even kicked the furniture a bit, but eventually he saw that his wife was right. One summer after snowmelt, he and twenty other fathers built a circle of thatched-roof homes in a lush, flower-dotted meadow that lay between the base of a mountain and the waters of a coastal inlet. And it was this very heathland—near a freshwater stream and a forest rich with game—that Dane had come to know as home.
“Father?” Dane asked now. “Do Vikings ever lose?”
The fire crackled as Voldar paused to reflect on this.
“Well…there have been one or two defeats,” he answered, “but nothing too ignominious, and nothing I’d tell your mother about. The unofficial record, I believe, is Vikings five hundred and three, enemies nil. But some stories may vary.”
The older men chuckled. Dane had another question.
“Father, when a Viking dies in battle,” said Dane, “where does he go?”
A gleam came to Voldar’s eye. He rose and gestured to the sky with a flaming stick from the fire. “He goes to a place more glorious than man can imagine. He goes to Valhalla, a shining palace above the clouds. The Valkyries—great beauties who ride cross the sky on winged horses—come down and take the spirit of the fallen warrior up to the heavenly Hall of Heroes, where he sits beside the gods in glory forever.” Voldar paused. “But it’s not dying that brings a man honor—it’s how he lives that counts. What most defines a man isn’t the sword he carries; it’s the beliefs he carries in his heart.”
For a long moment, the men stopped their work on the bear and gazed up at the stars, their eyes full of wonder.
Drott spoke up. “Can we eat treats up there? Honeyed nuts and sweetmeats?”
“Of course,” Voldar said, indulging the boy. “All the sweets you can stomach!”
Then Fulnir had a question. “My father says Odin is always watching us, so we had better do our chores and mind our elders, or Odin’ll smite us and smite us good.”
“That’s right, boy,” said Voldar, giving Fulnir’s father a smile. Odin, it was said, had lost his own eye in order that he might see with a more godly sight, and thus he became the god of prophecy, poetry, and war. And it was to Odin, Father of the Battle-Slain, that the Valkyries would bring the fallen heroes of war.
Voldar raised the sacred Shield of Odin, and the boys were instantly mesmerized by the flickering firelight reflected in it. It was a circular disk forged of a secret alloy, and it held in its center a precious stone. The stone, known as Ó inn Auga, or Odin’s Eye, was reputed to give the Shield special powers, making whoever held it invincible in battle. In times of peace, Voldar and his tribe believed that Odin’s Eye watched over the village, protecting them from invaders, and that if the Shield were ever lost, his people would be without protection from famine, disease, and widespread tooth decay. (Toe fungus was another much-feared pestilence, but easily cured with a poultice of yarrow root.) “The Eye sees all,” Dane had oft been told, and having nearly lost his father that very night, Dane was comforted to know someone so powerful was watching over him.
Voldar laid down the Shield. “But Thor,” he said, his eyes boring into the boys, “Thor is the mightiest of gods, for he has Mjolnir—Thor’s Hammer—the fearsome weapon he hurls across the sky, unleashing lightning and thunder to smite our enemies.” At the mention of Thor’s name, Dane noticed Lut and other elders touch the charms they wore round their necks. Of all the gods in Valhalla, Thor was the mightiest. He could topple mountains with a single blow of his Hammer—a weapon so large, it would take a score or more of Norsemen to carry if it were ever to fall to earth. Though said to be the son of Odin, Thor possessed none of his father’s cunning; but when it came to brute battle strength, Thor beat all. So men prayed to father Odin for wisdom and to Thor the son for power. And as father-and-son combinations go, a man was believed to be unbeatable if he had both on his side.
Transfixed, the boys gazed at Voldar as if he were Thor himself. They’d heard the tales of Thor and Odin many times over but never tired of hearing them told again. And Voldar never tired of telling them, dancing about, eyes alight, gesturing grandly with his hands. Then he narrowed his eyes and spoke in a hushed whisper. “But that’s not all, boys! Did you know that far, far to the north, there are known to live giant men made entirely of ice?”
Dane’s eyes went wide with wonder. “No!”
“Ah, yes, frost giants, they are! Hrím ursar! Marvelous magical creatures, they say, some over twenty feet tall, who dwell atop the highest snow-capped peaks of Mount Neverest—a place so terribly cold and remote, no Norseman has ever reached it, nor likely ever will.”
Voldar towered over the boys, waving his torch, his war necklace of wild boar tusks jangling on his chest.
“It’s the cavorting of these very creatures,” he continued, “that causes the deadly avalanches that bury entire villages. The mountain they live on is so high, some say, frost giants can reach right up into the clouds—into the halls of Valhalla itself!—and wrestle with the gods! Legend has it that someday a frost giant will steal Thor’s Hammer—and the man who steals the Hammer back for Thor will bring his people a hundred winters of peace and prosperity, give or take a few years.”
An elder spoke up, saying he thought the story was a prophecy, not a legend. Voldar replied that if memory served, he was fairly certain it was a legend. There was more disagreement back and forth. Finally they looked to Lut the Bent for a decision.
As Lut had oft explained to Dane, there was a distinct difference between a legend and a prophecy. A legend was a story created by men about the gods. A prophecy, or spá, was just the opposite: a story created by the gods about men. And it was the seer’s belief that Norsemen should take prophecies far more seriously than man-made legends, given that the prophecies came directly from the gods and legends from mere mortals. But as tales got handed down from one generation to the next in the mind-numbing cold, the Norsemen flat out forgot which stories were which and came to believe in all of them just to be safe.
“Truth is all that matters,” Lut said gravely, “and if we seek it, we shall prosper.” The men nodded, Lut’s wisdom ending the discussion and reminding them all of the higher things. The boys fell silent too, staring up at the stars, visions of dwarves and elves and giants made of ice alive in their minds, the only sound the crackling of the fire.
Later that night at home, as his father put him to bed, Dane’s mind was still astir with questions. “Does Thor’s Hammer really exist?”
“Of course, Son.”
“And the giants made of ice?”
“So they say.”
“Tell me another story, Father,” said the boy.
“No, no, it’s time for bed now, son. Go to sleep.” And he kissed his son good night and rose to leave.
“Father, are you angry with me? For getting lost?”
“No, not angry,” his father said. “I feared for your safety, boy. Because you’re so dear to me.” Dane saw the shine in his father’s eyes, and it made him feel a special kind of warmth inside.
The old man turned to leave again, but the boy had one more question.
“Father?”
“Yes, Son.”
“When I grow up, will I be as brave as you?”
Voldar smiled and looked deep into his son’s eyes. “When you grow to be a man, you will be twice as brave as me, son. You’ll be a Rune Warrior.” Dane knew this to be the name Norsemen gave to those whose deeds were so great and selfless, their exploits were carved on giant granite slabs called rune stones in celebration of their heroism. And hearing Voldar speak these words gave him a sense of deep tranquility, for he knew his father never lied and was the wisest man in the village, perhaps even wiser than Lut.
Lut the Bent couldn’t sleep. The stories round the fire and the celebration of Dane’s first hunt had stirred feelings and brought forth images long buried. But now, as he lay alone in the da
rkness of his hut, it all came flooding back: haunting scenes from the boy’s earliest days passing through his mind—memories most awful.
The Winter Longer Than Odin’s Beard, it had been called. Six miserable months of blizzards and ice storms the villagers had endured, without a glint of sunlight, the skies so gray, they seemed to be made of impenetrable ice, the people weak with hunger. Then one bleak morning, a baby had been born to Voldar and Geldrun, the boy who would come to be known as Dane. Lut remembered visiting the hut that first morning and being struck by the thick tuft of red hair atop the boy’s head and his tiny smile. Lut remembered, too, the joyful shine he’d seen in Voldar’s and Geldrun’s eyes. As was Norse custom, Lut had then taken the newborn outdoors and raised the fur-swaddled infant to the sky to present him to the gods. And as he began to pray, asking them to look with favor on the child, the wind abruptly died, the air grew still—and then there was light! The clouds had parted and a shaft of golden sunlight shone down from the heavens. Lut had felt the warmth of sunshine on his cheeks as the villagers danced in merriment, cheering the child’s every squirm and squall. “Is this a sign?” they asked Lut. A tegn, or omen? “Is the boy a gift from the gods?”
“Every child is a gift,” Lut had told them, not wanting any burdensome pressure placed upon the boy. There was no significance whatsoever to the baby’s arrival, he’d said. Spring had finally come and their long ordeal was over. But later that very night in his hut, he’d had a dream, a terrible nightmare so disturbing that thinking of it now, so many years later, made his insides churn in dread. Women with their hair and limbs on fire…decapitated human heads impaled on spikes…an ever-widening shadow hole devouring the huts of Lut’s village one by one…and at the center of all the destruction, a red-haired warrior, a demon resembling Dane.
As the village seer, he had a duty to alert the elders of ill omens his dreams might foretell. But the possession of foreknowledge was a dangerous thing, and often it was best to keep silent until certain a thing was true. And so he had told no one, especially not the boy’s parents, believing that the dream had been nothing but the foolish ravings of his aging mind, or perhaps caused by a bad batch of mutton stew. And besides, the boy was but a baby! What harm could come from a wee infant?
But now, awake in his hut after the celebration round the fire, listening to the wind sighing in the trees and the high, lonely whine of a wolf howling in the distance, Lut had an uneasy feeling that all was not right. Something about the firelight dancing in Dane’s eyes. But no, he told himself, how could he think such things about someone so beloved? And to banish any further doubts, he thought of the boy’s hearty laugh, his delightfully inquisitive nature, and his uncanny talent for mimicry. And in the warm glow of a teacher’s pride in his favorite pupil, Lut’s mind wandered back to his own now-distant boyhood, to faded memories of his mother and father and other Norsefolk he had known and loved. And soon, adrift on a new sea of memories and growing drowsy, he sank back into the comforting arms of sleep.
CHAPTER THREE
THE BOY DISCOVERS GIRLS
One morning, soon after his first hunt, Dane was play fighting with his wooden sword in the livestock pen behind his family’s hut. He leaped about, dispatching a dozen Goths, shouting, “Hie, skum-bøtte!” and “Death’s too fine for swine like thee!” when the sound of laughter startled him. He looked up to see his father standing over him.
“Defending the village, are we?” his father asked. Dane nodded, afraid he was soon to be scolded for not having milked the goats and mucked out their pens. But his father grinned and said, “Well, why not do it proper, then, eh?” and unbuckling his leather-belted scabbard, he handed it, sword and all, to his son, nodding for the boy to take it. Dane could scarce believe it: his father’s own sword! Dare he even touch it? The worn silver of the hilt gleamed in the sun, seeming to hold the secrets of a thousand battles. Dane gripped the hilt, the steel icy cold in his hand as he drew it free of the scabbard—the blade so heavy, the sword point fell to the ground. Dane used his other hand to lift it, and his father then showed him how to hold it aloft in both hands, and how to thrust and parry without losing his balance. And then, taking up the wooden sword as his own, Voldar encouraged Dane to fight him one-on-one, man to man. Much to Voldar’s delight, Dane barely hesitated. Hard he came, bringing down the blade so quickly, Voldar scarce had time to raise a defense, and backward he stumbled, falling through the fence, wood splintering on top of him, a bit of blood appearing on his arm.
For a moment Dane thought Voldar was dead. I’ve killed my own father, he thought, panicked, and burst into tears. But then he heard his father chuckling as he rose and brushed himself off, showing Dane that there was nothing but a scratch on his arm, nothing serious at all. And then Geldrun came out and began scolding Voldar for fighting with the boy, and as his parents argued, Dane scurried off to join his friends and brag about what his father had let him do.
As skilled as he was at play fighting, Dane was even better at making friends, Drott and Fulnir being two of the closest. The times he spent with them were the very best times of all. One winter, before the lake had fully frozen, the boys not yet nine, Dane, Drott, and Fulnir went fishing without permission. Drott, not the sharpest of blades, ventured out too far and, being of generous girth, fell through the thin ice into the freezing water. Unable to climb out, he thrashed about, crying for help until Dane, afraid his friend might drown, crawled out onto the ice and pulled him back to safety. After the boys had been scolded and told never to do it again, the villagers laughed at Drott’s stupidity—for this wasn’t the first time he’d shown ridiculously poor judgment—and he was ever after known as Drott the Dim, a name he himself found amusing.
Dane’s other boyhood chum, Fulnir—who loved to play in mud and filth, rarely bathed, and loudly and frequently emitted farts so dense with stench, they made bystanders want to retch—naturally became known as Fulnir the Stinking. But this nickname in no way gave a full measure of the boy. For Fulnir, son of Prasarr the Quarreler, was a solid sort, loyal as the days were long, and as strong of heart as he was of scent. And, in truth, Dane was comforted by the odor, for he knew these other virtues came with it, and it was these strengths that most defined his friend.
Then there was Astrid, the fairest in the village, but every bit as tough as the boys. While other girls sat home with their mothers, learning to cook and sew and wait on their fathers hand and foot, Astrid was out playing with the boys, having fistfights and snøballkrigs, with tightly packed balls of ice. Once, after getting hit in the face with one of Dane’s iceballs, Astrid had run home in tears and Dane had felt a pinprick of pain in his heart, the first stirrings of love. Days later, while sitting in a tree together, Dane had stolen a kiss and she’d punched him in the face, which only made him love her all the more. Soon after, Astrid discovered an affinity for playing with axes, and the boys pretty much left her alone. And though the sight of a girl hurling hatchets at high speeds may have seemed odd to some in the village, her father, Blek the Boatman, having no sons, encouraged her, and over the years she grew to be quite handy with them, using trees for target practice and only occasionally threatening to throw them at one of the boys.
In the spring of Dane’s eleventh year, Dane, Drott, and Fulnir left the village just after dawn to hunt with their bows and arrows. The mist rose off the early-morning frost as they moved through the forest, talking of game they might kill, and of girls. Though the high grasses were thick with summer quail, Dane could think only of Astrid.
Whenever she was near, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. What was happening to him? He could think of her and her only. And there were things about her he’d never noticed before. Like the way she chewed her bottom lip when thinking. How the sunlight put a kind of glowing halo round her golden hair. And her scent! Ah, sweet as wildflowers after a summer rain. And her eyes. Her smile. “The greatest beauty in the fjordlands,” her father oft proudly said of Astrid. And it was true.
A loud skreek! interrupted Dane’s thoughts. He saw that Drott was taking aim at a black bird perched high in a tree. “Don’t,” said Dane. “It’s a raven.” Lut had oft said that ravens were the kin of Odin, and that killing one would bring ill fortune. Drott lowered his arrow, and the boys turned away to continue hunting, and that’s when Dane spied them. Wolves. Five big grays had come out of the trees behind them and quickly circled the boys, yipping and howling. Dane caught flashes of their yellow eyes and long dark tongues through the high grass.
Dane let fly an arrow. One wolf fell, the arrow sunk in its side, a spurt of blood staining its fur. But the four other wolves crept closer, and the boys, shooting the rest of their arrows and missing, scrambled to find what weapons they could. Fulnir drew a knife and waved it, hoping to keep the wolves at bay. Dane jabbed his bow at the beasts as they lunged, growling back at them in a vain attempt to scare them off. The wolves stood their ground, dancing back and forth in the grass, easily ducking the stones the boys began to throw. And then the biggest of the four sank its jaws into the end of Dane’s bow and pulled it from his grasp.
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