Days of Frozen Hearts

by Matt Larkin

  “I have no need of games,” Starkad said.

  “Just as well … you are not the player … but the piece …”

  Hervor frowned. She had not thought anyplace could prove more miserable than Thule. But Jotunheim …

  “Where you walk, they die … and die … and die.”

  Starkad drummed his fingers on his knee. “There is blood aplenty on my hands. But I do not answer to the likes of you.”

  “But you will … When you find her lurking in the shadows … Until you beg for your own end … and find even that wanting … Until you beseech your enemies to extinguish the pitiful flame of your existence … and find Hel waiting.”

  Starkad surged forward, sweeping the torch at the woman.

  She broke apart into mist, washed over Hervor, and disappeared.

  “Spare me your premonitions, snow maiden!” Starkad shouted at her.

  Hervor hugged herself. A snow maiden. Fuck.

  Had the vaettr spoken of Starkad’s future, as he seemed to think … or something more immediate? And more literal.

  They die … and die … and die …

  Was that, then, the urd that awaited Hervor at the end of this journey?

  7

  These mountains had no end, so far as Starkad could tell. Maybe all of Jotunheim was mountains.

  Snow continued to fall from the sky, as it had for days. It was heavier than Starkad would have called a flurry, but not quite bad enough to impede travel. Here they were in the midst of summer, and he was trudging through snows that must have reached down ten feet, maybe twice that. He should’ve brought skis.

  But who’d have considered it during summer?

  Besides, the mountain passes were not always easy. Often, they had to tread with extreme care or risk falling into a gorge or plummeting off a cliff and down into a mist-shrouded death.

  He walked as lightly as he could, but still, the snows crunched underfoot and he sank down to past his ankles with each trudging step. Hervor was lighter and managed to keep from sinking as far down. They were both lucky the stuff way down was packed so tightly, too dense and old for them to drop down through it.

  The shieldmaiden huffed, panting, as she tromped along behind him. “Just. Like. Hel-cursed. Thule.”

  Worse, maybe. Not quite so cold as Thule in winter, true, but here, there was no sea. Just the frozen wastes that stretched on and on. Perhaps forever … beyond the Midgard Wall, they had left the mortal world. The wall encased the human realm, but who was to say how far Utgard might reach around it? This place was the outer chaos that even the Vanir had feared.

  Part of him wanted to tell Hervor that. It was hard to speak freely with her, even when he tried. She was not Ogn.

  She was not Ogn.

  Still.

  She was a woman. Stubborn, and clearly with secrets.

  Besides, to tell her that even Odin and his predecessors knew not what they’d find out here would have frightened her, whether she’d admit it or not. And so he said little. He should never have agreed to let her come along. Why had he? Her company made the trek more enjoyable, mostly, but … He was going to get her killed. Just like everyone else.

  Maybe like all men, he was thinking with his cock. Better to control himself. To stay away from her, not think like that. If he lusted too much, if he allowed himself to see her as more than his fighting companion … It put her at too much risk.

  Though it hardly helped that she’d demanded he fuck her every night of the Sumarauki. On the second night, she’d jumped atop him and fondled his stones right through his breeches. It was hardly fair to expect a man not to respond to that.

  And now … well, that time seemed so far behind him, and here he was, rising again at the thought. It had been rather too many days.

  “You’re so damned quiet,” she said, breathless behind him. “What are you even thinking of?”

  “The weather. Mostly.”

  “Yeah. Damn snows never seem to stop. Just like. Fucking. Thule.”

  He couldn’t quite suppress his smile, though she’d never see it.

  If not for his curse, maybe, someday, maybe they could have …

  He paused. Something was off. Evening was drawing nigh, yes, and they’d need shelter soon. But there was something more than that. Something … Slowly, he turned about.

  Ever since Wudga had given him that draught, he’d had sharper instincts. That and more vivid, horrifying dreams—as if his prior nightmares of Vikar and Ogn were not enough. But if Volund’s son spoke true, the eitr draught had awakened the latent Sight in Starkad. He was relying on that now to guide him to Glaesisvellir. Instincts he had to trust.

  And now those instincts were insisting something pursued them. Up here, in the mountains. Vargar? They’d heard wolf howls here and there.

  Hervor drew up beside him, hand on Tyrfing’s hilt. “What is it?”

  He shook his head. Between the mist and the snow, he really couldn’t make much out. The perfect setting for a predator. “See the gorge down there?”

  “Hmm.”

  “We need to make for it.”

  “You want to go in that place?” She peered forward, though little was visible of the drop-off from so far out. “Looks like the crotch of Hel. Why the fuck would we do that?”

  He grimaced. “Something pursues us. I want to limit how many sides our foe can approach from.”

  Hervor grumbled something under her breath, then blundered forward at twice the speed of before. She had the right of it.

  They pushed hard, and soon the slope began a steep descent. Rather than risk falling, they had to brace themselves on the ice-slicked gorge walls. If the slope had been more sheer, it might have stopped pursuit, though climbing in the mist and snow carried its own dangers. Still, this was the only place they had available to escape their foes—or to make their stand.

  The mist grew thicker as they descended, heavy above their heads, cutting off most of the sunlight and forcing them to rely on their torches just to make out where to put their feet. His heart was racing.

  He lived for this, Hel take him.

  Deeper they pressed into the pit, until steep walls cut down on the snow pounding them and limited the bite of the wind.

  Icicles grew down from every overhang. They spread over the rock walls like mold, the rime encasing everything. He turned about. No obvious caves. No hiding places.

  If they could find a recess to crawl into they might—

  A long, loud howl echoed out above them. Just one.

  A lone wolf.

  A very large lone wolf.

  8

  Odin’s balls. Hervor couldn’t see more than five feet ahead of her. If that.

  Starkad had led them down here, and now they were fucking trapped. And it was getting darker. The sun starting to dip down. In the gorge, darkness would fall even faster. And deeper.

  Left hand on Tyrfing’s hilt, she backed up until she bumped into the icy wall. “I hope there’s more to your plan.”

  The mist was everywhere. She waved the torch around in front of her. Every instinct demanded she draw the blade, but unless she could slay a foe with it, she’d be forced to turn it on herself or Starkad. Neither option much appealed.

  “I do. You’re not going to like it.”

  She glanced at him. He stood several feet away, just a shadow out in the vapors. “What makes you think I liked aught about this to begin with?”

  “Fair enough. Stand in the middle of the path and face the oncoming foe.”

  “That’s your fucking plan?” She spat in the snow. “Stand shoulder to shoulder and face down a giant wolf? We’re both dead.”

  “Not shoulder to shoulder. Just … you.”

  What? “And where are you going?”

  “To hide.” He stepped back into the mist and vanished.

  Wait. Was that a jest? Surely he could not be serious. “Starkad? Starkad!”

  No answer. And here she was in the midst of this frozen trench, waiti
ng for …

  Another howl. This one too close. Very loud. It echoed off the gorge walls and set her teeth chattering.

  Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. It pounded against her ribs so hard it pained her. Her breath came in spurts. Oh, fuck. Fuck. Damn it. Damn Starkad.

  Swallowing, she trudged back toward the center of the canyon, torch out to her side. There, she squinted into the mist. She couldn’t see …

  Snow crunched under the feet of something large. Very large. Coming down the path, straight toward her.

  “Starkad?”

  She sucked painfully cold air in through her nose. He must have a plan. He must. But at the moment, she had to defend herself. And a foe drew nigh, of that she had no doubt.

  Slowly, she urged Tyrfing free of its sheath. Pale flame sprang up along the blade, shedding light that reflected off the mist and did not overmuch enhance her vision.

  But a shadow moved out there. Closing in. It was like smoke, out in the fog. Smoke, taller than a jarl’s hall, in the shape of a wolf with hollows of light for eyes.

  A low snarl escaped the beast, washing over her with hot breath, even from ten feet away. The brute was larger than any mammoth.

  Torch in one hand and Tyrfing in the other, she faced it down.

  The varg paused a few feet before her. Hervor couldn’t say whether she was grateful for the swathe of mist obscuring its true form or not. Any heartbeat now could be her last. It would lunge forward and then …

  A smaller shadow dropped down onto the wolf’s back.

  At once the creature reacted, leaping backward with shocking agility and with strength that carried it far off into the mist, beyond her view.

  He’d climbed above it.

  He’d fucking … jumped on it?

  Hel.

  Hervor bellowed a war cry and raced forward, Tyrfing raised. Starkad had to be the most fool, most reckless, bravest … bastard she’d ever met.

  Ahead, in the darkness, a great form crashed about. Snapping and yelping and howling. It smashed into the gorge wall, sending a cascade of icicles showering down.

  Through the mist all she could make out was shadows, but it sounded like someone had thrown open the gates of Hel.

  She ran as hard as she could, but the snows tugged at her feet. Damn it. Move! Starkad was going to wind up in the belly of this beast and she’d …

  The varg came into her light then, limping and yelping. Blood ran down its snout in rivers, seeping from a mighty wound on its nose and other unseen injuries on its head and neck.

  It snapped and snarled at another shadow that dove between its legs.

  Starkad.

  Shrieking, Hervor charged in and swiped at the wolf with Tyrfing. The blade tore through the flesh of a foreleg and sent the varg yelping away. It was so damned big, the blade hadn’t cut through bone, had only scraped it.

  Would that poison fell such a massive beast?

  Starkad grunted, clearly struggling to rise. She ran to his side, and held up Tyrfing, scanning the mist for further signs of the wolf. It had vanished.

  Finally, she spared her companion a glance. He was bleeding, holding his side like it hurt. Multiple injuries … but none large enough to have come from the varg’s jaws. Those teeth would have shattered bone and crushed him to a pulp. So Starkad’s wounds must have come from being thrown off the varg after he landed on its back.

  “Are you all right?”

  He stared off into the mist. Then grunted. “Get up. Move. We need to find shelter somewhere in this gorge. Have to find somewhere narrow enough it cannot pursue.”

  He thought it would come back?

  Hervor sheathed Tyrfing, then pulled Starkad’s arm around her shoulders and heaved him up. She tromped through the snow as fast as she could manage, almost at a limping run.

  Deeper and deeper into the gorge.

  After a few moments, he shrugged out of her arm to walk on his own, allowing her to move more quickly.

  “Where is it?” she mumbled.

  “I don’t know. Just keep moving. Pray the poison of your blade does its work quickly.”

  He had not even asked her for Tyrfing this time. When he went to hunt the wolf, he had not asked—because she had always refused before. If she had granted him the blade, might he have already slain the varg?

  Well, none of that mattered now.

  “There,” Starkad said, pointing at an alcove.

  Hervor shambled over to it. Snow had built up around the entrance, so she had to drop to her hands and knees to crawl inside. “This only goes back about five feet. It might be able to claw us out of here.”

  “If we push on, who is to say we’ll find better?”

  Hervor moaned, but beckoned him onward. Starkad crawled into the little alcove with her, then Hervor drove the butt of the torch into the snow. They both backed up against the alcove wall, neither speaking.

  It would be a long night, and she doubted either of them would sleep well.

  In the morning, they pressed on. Beyond the gorge, the varg’s corpse lay, its blood staining the snows.

  Hervor glanced at Starkad. They both gave the body a wide berth, neither eager to draw nigh enough to get a clear look through the mists.

  The creature was a collapsed mountain of fur, of death.

  “I wonder what these normally hunt?” Starkad mumbled, seemingly to himself.

  Hervor shuddered.

  She hated this fucking place.

  Part II

  Second Moon

  Year 29, Age of the Aesir

  9

  Hervor adjusted Tyrfing’s strap on her shoulder before pressing on through the endless snows. The mountains had at last given way to tundra, one they had followed now for what seemed an age. Nigh to two moons, she figured, though time became hard to track out here.

  So much of what she’d seen of Jotunheim was wilderness—forests and mountains and fields and lakes all far beyond the size of aught she’d ever seen. All beyond the likes of aught any human had seen—pristine and terrible, teeming with overlarge beasts and Odin alone knew how many vaettir.

  And through it all, Starkad pushed on like a man gone fey, driven by some uncanny insight. Like he might somehow know where they were bound.

  That almost frightened her more.

  The mist kept her from making out much in the plains. She heard the voices first, the sounds of people talking, though not a language she knew. The sounds of hammers beating on leather, of metal scraping stone, of craftsmen about their trades.

  “Glaesisvellir …” Starkad said. And the man just kept walking.

  Hervor blew out a breath, and paused long enough to tuck her hair back inside her helm. When walking into an unknown situation, she’d rather be Hervard than Hervor. It diminished the chance of strangers trying to take advantage. Lessened the need to draw Tyrfing.

  Starkad glanced at her. “I like you better as a man.”

  “Fuck you.”

  As they approached, spires peeked through the mist. Numerous towers, all sharp angles and spiked buttresses and rugged architecture, like someone had tried to build mountains and trees out of mighty stone blocks. “What in Hel’s frozen crotch?”

  “I’d not mention her name out here,” Starkad said without looking back at her.

  Hervor flinched at the reprimand. Did Starkad think the dark goddess actually closer to them in Utgard? And why not? They had trod beyond Midgard itself.

  A spiked wall four times her height ringed the town. Many of those spires she’d seen at a distance were actually outgrowths of the wall. Beyond, what looked like a lord’s hall, itself also featuring four surrounding towers, and then a slightly taller one in the center. Rime crusted over every bit of the stonework, glittering and fell. Starkad was right—she imagined the gates of Hel might look little different.

  But these town gates stood ajar—themselves also wrought from stone and carved with intricate designs depicting monstrous faces. The centerpiece of each might
have been a varg.

  Atop the walls, archers watched their approach, but none called out to bar their passage, nor did the guards at the gates block them, though they held spears at the ready. Odd weapons, with points carved from stone. Not enough iron in these lands?

  Hervor leaned in close to Starkad as they walked past the guards. “I thought there would be …”

  “Jotunnar?” he whispered back. He cocked his head to one side and she turned to look.

  A man watched them, only he was taller than a man, maybe almost eight feet tall. His features were too sharp, too angular. Thick hair covered his skin, too much, like the thing had a beast for an ancestor. Perhaps not so far from the truth.

  Hervor’s heart clenched in her chest. Threatened to stop beating.

  Jotunn.

  Odin’s thrice-damned balls.

  Jotunn.

  They ate men, talk said. They were the spawn of chaos, banished beyond the Midgard Wall in times lost to history. The creature strode toward them now, great strides she couldn’t have made by jumping. It bore a spear—one seeming big enough to skewer a bear—but did not threaten them with it.

  Instead, it came to a stop a few feet away. It rumbled something at them, but the words made no sense, a sharp guttural language.

  “We seek your king,” Starkad said in Northern.

  The jotunn grunted, nodded his head. “King …” He pointed at the lord’s hall toward the center of town. “Walk …”

  His pronunciation was odd, closer to what little Hervor knew of Old Northern—and she’d scorned her tutors back then. She supposed they were lucky the jotunnar could understand their words at all.

  The creature led them to the lord’s hall and inside, into a massive stone chamber upheld by great curving arches that met at central pillars spaced throughout. No obvious sign of the king himself …

  They walked forward, around the pillars, and then Starkad turned about slowly. Hervor did the same. Twenty-five feet above them, a balcony rimmed the entrance to the hall. Upon this sat a jotunn king on a mighty throne. The king had a thick white beard that hung halfway down his chest, and white braided hair to match, framing his face like a mane. His eyes almost wolf-like, his skin tinged faintly blue.