by Matt Larkin
He strode away from the fires, out into the night. Some would celebrate. Some would mourn.
Tyr had the stomach for neither. Was this truly what Borr would have wanted? Back in Halfhaugr, Idunn waited, urging Odin to become king of the Aesir. To guide them all to a better future. Like this? Through blood and treachery?
Men became no better than jotunnar.
Someone chased after him, footfalls crunching the snow as he ran. Hermod drew up short as Tyr turned, glowering.
“Your wife must be pleased.”
Hermod nodded. “She just became daughter of the jarl.”
“And we murdered a great many men to make that happen.”
“Neither of us has to like this road, Tyr. But we did what we had to, what men like Alci and Hallr forced upon us. Neither one of them deserved to rule.”
Did Odin? The eldest son, the heir of Borr. Tyr cracked his neck and groaned. For Odin, Tyr had become a monster once more. For the son of Borr, he had cast aside the honor and teachings of Borr.
Tyr advanced on Hermod until he stood close enough to feel the man’s breath. “Very soon, Odin will call for the Althing. He will seek kingship of all the tribes.”
“My sister thought as much. First king since Vingethor …”
Sigyn was too clever. Much like her lover.
“You and your father-in-law will support his claim.” Tyr’s fist clenched, daring the man to deny it.
But Hermod did not deny it. He bowed his head. “You saved us all from war. Odin may count on us.”
At last, something turning his way. “Ride back to Halfhaugr with me. Tell Odin yourself. And convince your gods-damned sister to agree. She has the ear of Frigg and Hadding.” Tyr raised a finger in warning. “It is best for all.”
Hermod murmured something under his breath.
“What?”
“I hope you’re right.”
By all the gods, so did Tyr.
49
Out over the river, the boat carrying Hadding’s body burned, lighting the night with an eerie glow. Sigyn stood apart from her half sister, who watched from the shore alone, the wind flapping her dress about her legs. Ice had built inside Sigyn’s chest—a cold ache that naught seemed to fill. And though she knew Frigg probably needed her, Sigyn had not been able to comfort her sister, nor even to speak.
Her father was gone.
And he had died saving her. The daughter Sigyn would have sworn he cared less than naught for. Her whole life she’d thought herself a burden to him, a reminder of an indiscretion that was like to sour his marriage bed, and later, a child too willful to find a husband or do her family proud.
And when she was in danger, her father—old, crippled, and in pain though he was—had rushed out like a man half his age, glorious and valiant in a fight he’d known he could not win. Her father had died for her.
A tear streaked her cheek.
She’d thought she knew everything. She’d thought she was so good at reading people, so gods-damned clever. So how had she missed something so very basic? Had he … loved her? The father who had never favored her with even a smile had not hesitated a moment to attack a troll for his daughter.
The dozen small fires in the boat grew into one mighty conflagration. The river would carry her father’s ashes far away, and maybe—if all the other stories proved true—maybe valkyries would take his soul to Valhalla. For such a death, he deserved to feast alongside his ancestors, rather than rot beneath the heel of Hel.
If Odin had given her father an apple, would he still live? Perhaps not. Perhaps naught would have let him survive such injuries, but they would never know, and Frigg was never like to forgive her husband for denying her that.
Sigyn could not blink as the boat vanished into the mist. Her father had vanished with it, gone forever, taken from her before she had ever known him. And with his departure, she could now never ask him the truth of his heart, the truth she had so long feared.
The Wodan warriors stood apart from the Hasdingi. It would fall to Frigg now, deciding whether the alliance would hold. Odin’s people had fought with valor against the trolls, and many who lived today owed them their lives. If not for those warriors, many women—Sigyn included—would now be troll-wives, ensnared in a fate worse than death.
But then, those trolls had come for Ve, of that Sigyn no longer had any doubt, even if she would not share the thought with others. The trolls had come for one of their own. It would be too much a coincidence for the creatures to attack the town after years of silence, on the same day Ve became one of them, if they had not somehow known. The implications were disturbing, and severely so. Did that mean all trolls had once been human? Were they now possessed by vaettir, or were they something else, something corrupted by the mists themselves? Or … were some trolls created as such, and others born of troll-wives?
She wanted to hate Odin and his brothers for all that had happened. Maybe part of her did, though it almost meant hating his blood brother Loki as well, and that man had been the best thing in her life. He was the one person she’d found who could truly understand her, match wits with her, and more, be grateful for it. Perhaps Ve was the victim here as much as the rest of them. And if Frigg’s vision was true, and Odin’s quest was something more than a madman playing god … then could the mists be banished? Could the world know the true spring of children’s stories? Could these men-turned-trolls be saved?
Sigyn thought she loved mysteries. Now she just wanted some answers. None lay on the riverbank. She hugged herself and went to her sister, taking Frigg’s limp hand to lead her away.
Neither spoke.
The procession had marched through the town and back to the fortress. The now-silent great hall where once her father had ruled.
For a time, Frigg stared at her father’s throne. Then she sat in it. A murmur rose among those in the hall at her presumption. And yet none rose to challenge her. She looked every bit the queen.
“Our people have been taken by trolls,” Frigg said at last. “Who will go to rescue them?”
“Go to the Jarnvid?” someone asked. “That’s suicide. Not even the Godwulfs venture within.”
Tyr strode forward. “I will go, my lady.” He and Hermod had returned only this very morn, while her foster father had remained to help ease Jarl Hoenir’s first days as ruler.
Odin’s brother Vili joined him a moment later. “And I.”
“And I.” Odin’s voice boomed through the hall from where he stood at its threshold.
Frigg rose from the throne at his entrance. Then Sigyn noticed Loki in the shadows behind Odin, watching her.
She drifted from Frigg’s side to meet Loki, even as Odin approached to converse with his wife.
“I should never have left you alone,” Loki said.
“Did you know about Ve?”
“Yes.”
Son of a troll. She raised her hands to slap him, though he didn’t flinch. “You don’t think that was something I should have known?”
“Perhaps. I’d hoped to have more time … Things are progressing more quickly than I anticipated.”
What in Freyja’s name? “Well, that’s a shame. Does it bother you that I was almost raped by a fucking troll?” Others turned toward them at her outburst.
In answer, Loki placed a palm against her cheek, his eyes pained. “That would not have happened.”
“If we’re going to spend eternity together, you’d better start trusting me!”
“Sigyn, I—”
She silenced him with a finger pointed at his nose. “Don’t think this is over, either.” She spun on her heel to stalk back to Odin and Frigg, even as she realized what she’d just said. Eternity. Even angry as she was, she could not imagine spending forever with anyone save Loki, and perhaps that boded well for their future. That thought made her boil even more inside. Damn him. He deserved her anger, and she was not going to let it go because of some warm coziness he managed to engender inside her.
She found Odin and Frigg le
aning into one another, whispering in tones no one should have been able to hear. Yet Sigyn caught their words, her ears seeming to filter out the rest of the noise of the hall.
“I’m sorry,” Odin was saying.
“My father is still dead, husband. And where have you been?”
“I was … detained.”
“Detained? Is that what you will tell our child, Odin? You failed to save his grandfather because you were detained?”
“Our … child?”
Frigg pulled his hand by one finger, placing it over her abdomen, her face grim.
“You mean the child we will one day have?”
She shook her head. “It’s a boy. A vӧlva knows these things. We will have a son. What kind of father will you be?”
Sigyn tapped her finger on her lip. That explained Frigg’s earlier emotional state. To carry Odin’s child while he’d ridden off in anger …. She hoped never to face such a situation. And how keen her ears had grown. Would she one day be able to track scents like a wolf? See in the dark? The possibilities seemed so intoxicatingly endless she felt giddy.
“I will be a father our son can be proud of,” Odin said at last, his voice sounding hoarse.
Frigg leaned closer still. “I will never let you forget that promise, husband. You’ve failed your family once. You will not do so again.”
To Sigyn’s surprise, Odin didn’t challenge her claim, instead nodding with utmost sincerity. “This I swear.” Then he spun and strode down the hall. “We ride for the Jarnvid! We ride to save our people!”
50
No words escaped over the lump that rose in Odin’s throat as he rode toward the Jarnvid. A son. His own child. Frigg was right. This child would hear tales of all Odin had done in his life, the good and the bad. And his son would know the world through those deeds even as he would learn right from wrong by lessons Odin never intentionally set out to teach. The boy would learn honor, as Odin’s father had tried to teach his own sons. Odin’s son would be worthy of the line of Borr.
A grandson Borr would not see, unless he looked down from Valhalla. Odin prayed he did.
And Odin hoped his son would learn to be a better husband than Odin himself had been. He had betrayed Frigg, and he would have to live with that, though the knowledge he had been ensorcelled did offer some slight comfort.
Tales had spread of the troll attack even before Odin had reached Hadding’s hall, tales that spoke of trolls bursting into the village. And Ve was gone. Odin knew that before he’d even spoken to Vili. He was gone to the Jarnvid, gone to his own kind, and he had taken women with him. Odin would warm Hel’s bed before he let those women suffer such a life. He would get his brother back. He would save them all. He had made an oath, and though Gudrun’s games had cost him much time, he could still make it to the Odling castle if Tyr’s reckonings were right. There was another day, at least, before the solstice. He’d make it. He had to. He had to break this curse.
The Jarnvid was the long-rumored home of the trolls, and thus Odin’s destination. If past experience was any guide, these monsters would be like to sleep away the daylight. With sunset they’d wake, they’d feed, and then they’d fight over the women. Odin could not change what had already passed, but if he could spare these women even one more night of it … And judging by the sun, time grew short.
He glanced back over his shoulder, at the war party behind him. It was comprised of Tyr and Vili, and the others, as well as several Hasding hunters. But they could never move as swiftly as he could. And those women—and Odin’s brother—had no time.
“The Jarnvid, Sleipnir!”
The horse twisted his head around, watching Odin with his inky black eye. It lasted only a moment before Sleipnir again took off at a gallop.
Miles blurred by until he and Sleipnir passed into the Jarnvid. The trees here twisted back on themselves, their roots grown in a tangled mess of crisscrosses that often resembled spider webs. Legends said the bark was hard as iron, and trolls sometimes sharpened the edges of the roots into razors. This was not a place for mankind. Not even the Godwulfs drew too close to this cursed place, much as they claimed to ward Aujum against it. Sleipnir’s pace slowed to a walk inside the wood. The sharpened foliage was simply too dense to allow a faster pace. Ravens perched on the branches watched his every move.
Odin glowered at Gjuki’s spies.
The horse climbed a hill, at last stopping before a tunnel dug into the hill. It must have been a troll burrow. It was too low for him to ride through or even bring Sleipnir, which was a shame, since his mount would help even the odds against the trolls’ superior size and strength.
Troll hide would deflect most weapons, but not Gungnir. Odin dismounted and hefted the spear, immediately feeling its power flow through him. His legs had healed, and his strength returned. All that remained now was the task at hand. This weapon, this spear born of dragon’s blood, would give him the strength for that task. Naught in Midgard, not even trolls, could stand against it. Ymir had fallen, and so would these monsters. Odin lit a torch. He would have preferred having both hands for his spear, but he needed light more than the trolls did. Maybe it was pride that made him come alone. Maybe he would find naught but valkyries waiting for him this night. But he’d made so many mistakes … he could not let this become another.
He crept forward. The burrow delved deep, perhaps fifteen feet down. Ahead, deep snores echoed off the walls. The tunnel opened up into a central chamber accessed by a maze of side passages. Odin knelt at the entrance, taking stock of the scene. Huddled masses that looked like mossy boulders slept, piled atop one another. Six trolls perhaps, though it was hard to be sure given their sleeping arrangements. More might well dwell deeper in the burrow.
In the center of the room, iron roots had ripped through the ground like claws rising from the dust. Those roots bent into a cage where a half-dozen naked women lay huddled in each other’s arms, bruised and bloodied. The nearest he recognized as one of Frigg’s maids. Her hair was fiery red, even in the torchlight—probably what had led the troll to choose her in the first place. The root cage had sprouted thorns that looked sharp enough to shred skin and sinew if the women tried to slip through the cracks. Troll magic? It didn’t matter. One way or another, he would set them free.
No sign of Ve … unless he had become indistinguishable from the other trolls. Odin refused to believe that.
Odin laid the torch on the ground and rose, both hands on Gungnir as he snuck forward. The red-haired maid looked up abruptly at him and started to whimper, drawing the eyes of the other women. Odin silenced her with a finger to his lips and continued toward the largest mass of trolls. Three of them in here—it had looked like four from the entrance. So with the two on the other side, five trolls occupied this warren. And gods knew how many beyond.
Too many. But the only other choice was to wait for Tyr and risk them waking. He could be here in less than an hour, most like. No. The element of surprise was an advantage he couldn’t surrender. He just needed a way to diminish their numbers … They lay sleeping in a pile. All three of them lumped on top of one another in a mass, like dogs in a litter.
There.
He hefted his spear over his head and slammed it straight down, roaring with the effort. Gungnir sank through one troll’s skull, into another’s chest, and apparently through the arm of the third. And it kept going, embedding right into the stone. The wails of the wounded trolls were a nigh-deafening cacophony.
The other two leapt to their feet. Odin grasped his spear but didn’t pull it free. The first troll was dead, the second dying, but the third was just pinned under them. If he removed the spear, he’d free that troll.
“Fuck.”
The troll’s flailing became frantic as it tried to dislodge itself from its fallen brethren and the spear.
Odin spun to face the remaining two. He drew his sword—a sword given to him by Frigg to protect their family—and readied against the charge. He could only pray the sword hel
d true to its promise.
Trolls had weak spots, albeit not many. The joints, the eyes, the noses …
Odin stepped in front of the cage. The first troll rushed at him, all fury and animal aggression. Odin leapt to the side and rolled as the troll swung a meaty hand at him. The creature slammed its palm into one of the roots, a thorn punching through its flesh.
It wailed in agony, bending the root as it yanked its hand away, further shredding its palm and spraying the women with black gore. Odin came up swinging at its knee with enough force to cut to the bone. The troll toppled forward, clutching its wounded hand, howling like a fiend of Hel. A heartbeat later the other troll slammed into Odin.
The impact knocked all wind from his lungs and sent him flying backward. He crashed into the burrow wall and fell, smacking his chest on the ground. Vision blurred, he gasped. Fiery surges of pain rocked his body with each ragged breath. Broken ribs.
Dimly, he heard the troll bellow. Odin pushed his face up, half expecting to see the troll ready to rip his head off. Instead it grabbed him by his tunic and slammed him up against the burrow wall, sending fresh jolts of pain coursing through his body. Distorted as the troll’s face was, he recognized it.
“Ve!”
Again the troll slammed him against the wall, knocking all wind out of him, before flinging him away. Odin crashed along the floor and rolled up against another wall. Pain blinded him. He couldn’t rise.
For a moment he’d matched strength with a snow bear and fought through the pain of his wounds like a berserk. That power was in him. He reached for it, falling inside himself, desperately grasping for it. Something inside him seemed to rupture, filling his limbs with more strength than he’d ever known. The troll—his brother—charged forward and swung a claw down at Odin.
Odin flung himself out of the way. The pain of his broken bones faded in the surge of power rushing through him, and he drank that power like mead. Before Ve could turn, Odin charged him, wrapping his arms around his brother’s midsection. His momentum and enhanced strength allowed him to heft the troll’s weight and charge forward, slamming him into a wall. Rather than grant him respite, Odin rained blow after blow upon his brother.