A Dynasty of Giants (Viking Sagas Book 1)

by J. A. Snow

Logi thought for a moment. “Why, to prove that he is as powerful as his legend claims!” said Logi.

  The man’s huge mouth twisted upward in more of a sneer than a smile. “Very well, then,” he said. “But, you must go out on the limb by yourself. I fear this branch won’t hold us both!”

  Logi studied the limb just beyond the man’s back; it continued out from the trunk of the tree, disappearing into the clouds. “What is beyond those clouds?” he asked the man. “Will I fall off and break my neck?”

  The man laughed. “Are you afraid of a few clouds?” he asked.

  “Nei,” replied Logi. “But, I don’t fancy falling out of a giant tree. Tell me, what will I find in them?”

  The man stepped aside. “Why, beyond those clouds is Asgard, where my papi lives. You have nothing to fear, you being a giant and all,” he said with an ominous snicker.

  Logi squeezed past the incredible hulk of a man, so close he could smell his sweat, and began his walk along the limb, holding his arms out to balance himself. He could see nothing ahead of him, neither beside him or below him, only a white cloud of nothingness. When he looked down, he could see that his ankles were disappearing into the mist as well, but he could feel that his feet were still firmly planted on the branch. He walked deeper into the cloud, feeling the cool dampness on his face, until he could no longer see his arms and legs at all. He sunk down to his hands and knees cautiously, and continued along the limb at a crawl, grasping tightly with his fingers. Suddenly, he felt the wood beneath his knees crack and he reached out for something to stop his fall just as he tumbled into the abyss below.

  Chapter Four “Odin”

  Logi opened his eyes and blinked. In the dim light, he could see that he was back in his bed in the longhouse; his brothers were asleep on their mats beside him and he could hear his father’s snoring from the next room. The fire in the middle of the room had dwindled to spark-less, glowing embers, piled in the pit like a nest of molten eggs. Had it all been a dream? he wondered. How could a dream feel so very real? He stood up and stepped softly across the earthen floor, so as not to wake his brothers, and hurried outside.

  He was greeted by the sun just breaking over the mountains to the east, casting its pink glow on the valley below and a crisp breeze was blowing over the little village, bringing with it the fleeting fragrance of the last of the wildflowers that were still blooming in the fields beyond the palisade. Logi climbed up and sat on the rock wall with thoughts swirling through his head. The breeze felt cool on his neck and tingled against his scalp; he touched his tunic, feeling its dampness. It was not a dream! He really had dove into the lake! But, for some reason, he could not remember making the long walk back home with his brothers. That part of his memory was a blur.

  “You certainly made a fool of yourself yesterday,” said his brother, Kari, who came up silently and seated himself beside Logi on the wall. Young Aegir was close behind him, still wiping the sleep-crust out of his eyes. “You were lucky you didn’t drown.”

  Logi shook his head defiantly. “How did I get home?” he asked. “Surely you two couldn’t have carried me all the way!”

  “Nei,” replied Aegir. “When you did not surface, we ran home to get Papi. He dragged you out and pumped on your chest until all the water came out. You must have swallowed half of the lake!”

  Logi leaned closer to his brothers and whispered in their ears. “I am going back tonight,” he said. “I found the Yggdrasil! I must go back tonight to find Odin. The ravens showed me the way! I was so very close!”

  Kari’s brows lifted in a skeptical glance. “Are you determined to kill yourself? Why would you want to go back there?”

  “You won’t believe this, Brothers,” said Logi. “The ravens, the bats, the giant with one hand! They were all there! All the strange creatures that Kaleva told us about! They’re real! I swear to you! You must believe me!”

  “I do believe that you have lost your mind,” said Kari, shaking his head. “The water must have soaked into your brain! I’ll not be a part of it. You can drown on your own this time!”

  “You are such a coward, Brother!” snapped Logi. “I will go alone if I must!”

  Kari and Aegir left Logi sitting there and returned to the longhouse where, by that time, Hildi had begun to prepare their morning meal; they could smell the freshly-baked blood cakes and muikku sizzling in the long-handled pan over the fire, causing their stomachs to rumble.

  “Where is your brother?” she asked when they entered the room. By this time Hildi had learned the language of the Kvens and she spoke it quite clearly.

  “He is sitting on the wall,” said Kari. “He is delirious from his near-drowning, I think. He believes he found the Yggdrasil at the bottom of the lake.”

  Fornjot had just risen from his bed. He took his place at the head of the table, clearing his throat and spitting on the floor. “Your grandfather told you boys too many stories!” he remarked. “He told them to me, too, but I was not fool enough to believe them!”

  “He says he is going back there tonight,” said Aegir.

  “I’ll not allow it!” said Fornjot, pounding his fist on the table so hard that he overturned his trencher. “I will give him the lash if he leaves this house!”

  Outside, Logi overheard Fornjot’s loud voice. He could tell his father was angry and, although Logi wasn’t afraid of many things, evoking his father’s wrath was one thing he dreaded. He knew it was going to be difficult to slip away, now that his brothers had betrayed his confidence. He went in to breakfast with a casual air to hopefully calm his father down.

  “Did you hear what I said, Boy?” Fornjot bellowed. His eyes flashed and his nostrils flared. “If I catch you or your brothers in the lake again I’ll whip you silly!”

  “I was only teasing them,” said Logi. “I don’t fancy getting myself drowned again. You needn’t worry on that, Papi.”

  Fornjot was not convinced. His eyes narrowed suspiciously and he studied his eldest son between bites of his breakfast. “Well,” he said, “See that you all stay out of the lake, at least.” He glared at Logi. “You are not a fish. Next time, I will just let you drown!”

  When they had finished their breakfast, Fornjot wrapped himself in his animal skins and sheathed his battle axe under his belt, before he went off to the village to collect his tributes from the town merchants. Logi usually followed, hoping his father would have to whip someone for non-payment; he enjoyed watching his father’s fury unleashed, as long as it wasn’t directed at him. For now, however, he had other important business to attend to and he let Fornjot leave without him. Kari and Aegir lingered inside, licking the last of the lingonberry jam from their trenchers.

  “Please keep an eye on your brother today,” Hildi pleaded with Kari, when her husband had gone. “See that he doesn’t get into more trouble.”

  Kari shrugged. “My brother has a mind of his own, Moder,” he replied. “Don’t blame me if he tries it again. He is obsessed with the Yggdrasil and finding Odin.”

  “Forest gods and talking serpents!” mumbled Hildi. “At least my people follow a living creature! You boys should be learning a trade, not fantasizing over Kaleva’s stories. His business will belong to you one day. You mustn’t squander it like your papi has.”

  Hildi had long since given up hope of changing her cruel husband. She had grown tired of watching him drink himself into a stupor every night but, for her, there was no way out. Fornjot owned her now, as much as he owned the thralls who built his boats and cared for his livestock. She knew he would never let her go. Her heart cried out, however, when she thought of her three sons following in his footsteps. There was still a glimmer of hope she held out for Kari, the most sensible of her boys. But, Logi was headstrong and spoiled and little Aegir seemed to have no ambition at all. Oh, if she only had some say in the way her boys were raised, thought Hildi, she would force them to work, to learn an honest trade, to become respectable men! If only she could take them to live with her people, s
he wished silently every year when her family returned to the village. But, she knew Fornjot would never allow her to leave with his children.

  But, Hildi’s sons listened more to her words than she knew. After they had finished their breakfast, the two younger boys hurried to go outside into the brisk morning air. Unbeknownst to their mother, they knew more about building things than she or their father knew. Aegir frequently spent his days watching the thralls whittle and plane the raw wood; he studied how they stretched and bent the strakes to mold to the keels of the unfinished vessels. He was fascinated by the whole boat-building process and he was learning more every day. While Fornjot would not allow his sons to work side-by-side with the thralls, thinking it was beneath their dignity as the sons of the jarl, Aegir began to build small model boats in secret, mimicking the construction of the larger boats. Then, he would sneak off to the lakeshore to test them in the water. That was where he was headed today; to test his tiny boats he kept hidden in the animal barn behind the house, buried in a corner of the straw.

  Young Kari had a project of his own; while not so interested in shipbuilding, he was fascinated by the power of the strong winds that blew across Kvenland. He had a collection of kites he had made from the dried leaves of fall, glued together and stretched over thin strips of pinewood, that he liked to fly over the water. While Aegir tested his boats, Kari would sit nearby and work on his kites. Although their status as the jarl’s sons gave them time to be lazy and idle, their active imaginations never rested.

  But, no sooner had the two younger boys stepped out onto the longhouse steps that morning, when Kari’s stride was broken by a stinging blow to the face and he felt blood trickling from his nose.

  “Don’t you ever tell on me again, Kari Fornjotsson!” yelled Logi, with his fists still balled and ready for battle, “Or I will destroy those stupid kites of yours!” Then he turned his furor on young Aegir. “And, how would you like it if I told Papi about your little fleet of boats you keep hidden in the barn and how many hours you spend with the thralls every day?”

  Kari wiped the blood from his face and spat red onto the ground, while Aegir hid behind his brother’s back. He was tired of Logi’s intimidation. “Tell him if you must, Logi,” said Kari. “I don’t care.”

  The two younger boys continued to walk across the yard, with Logi in close pursuit. “Come with me to the lake tonight, Brothers,” he said. “I want you to see what I have found under the old tree!” Logi had changed his demeanor, without a break in his stride, almost like a chameleon changes its colors, showing no remorse for striking his brother. It was as if the boy had no conscience.

  “Have you lost your mind?” asked Kari. “You bloody my nose and threaten us and then you expect us to follow you and get ourselves drowned? Your time underwater has left you daft!”

  Logi threw up his hands in exasperation and stormed off down the road, away from his little brothers, toward the village and the shop of Weyland, the village smithja. Next to his fascination with Odin and the Yggdrasil, Logi loved to watch the master of metals work at his fiery furnace. Something about fire excited Logi. He could sit there for hours, feeling the heat of the forge on his cheeks and playing with the sparks that were dancing through the air. It brought him a strange satisfaction to see things burn. Today, it would occupy his time until darkness fell.

  And, that very night, after the boys had all retired to their mats on the longhouse floor, Logi waited for the sound of his father’s snores, while silently planning his next adventure; this time he would leave his tattling brothers behind. He would follow the well-worn path to the lake and retrace his steps of the night before. The summer was already drawing to a close and he could hear the night winds that were beginning to howl down from the fjords. There would not be many more nights before the snows came. He fidgeted and rolled over on his bed, kicking at the robe of animal skins that covered him. He was growing weary. Was his papi never going to fall asleep? He closed his eyes for just a moment but his ears remained wide open.

  The next thing he knew he was outside. Dark clouds hung ominously over his head, making the night blacker than usual, without the nororijos to guide him. He slipped through the high gate and stumbled along the path to the lakeshore until he found the old tree again. This time he remembered to remove his shirt before he dove into the water.

  Something was different about the lake tonight. The water was colder and had a peculiar odor to it. When Logi surfaced again inside the great tree, there was no light from above, only a glimmer of a single candle burning on the surface of a nearby rock that had melted down to a flickering, lopsided stub. There, sitting beside the rock was the same giant man whom he had met on the tree limb. He was whittling away on a piece of wood. Strangely, the man now had two good hands. At his feet, were two enormous wolves that bared their yellow teeth and growled as Logi approached.

  “So, you have returned,” said the man, without looking up from his whittling. “Did you have a pleasant visit with my papi?”

  Logi’s nose flared and anger puffed up his chest. “You!” he said accusingly. “You almost got me killed! You knew that branch would break under my weight!”

  The man snickered. “Do I look like a common soothsayer to you, Boy? How was I to know the branch would not hold you?”

  “Take me to Odin!” demanded Logi. “And, this time you will show me the way! I will follow you out onto the limb! If it breaks this time it will be you who falls to the ground!”

  The man looked up and stared at Logi. In disbelief, Logi watched as the man’s golden hair slowly turned white; his dusky skin contracted into deep fissures and his beard grew longer right before Logi’s eyes. Transformed into an old man in the space of seconds, the giant put down his whittling knife and crossed his arms across his silver chest plate. “You have more courage than you have brains, Boy,” he said, looking up at Logi with one vivid, blue eye; the other was nothing more than an ugly, hollow socket. Logi recognized the blue rings that had been on the feet of the ravens; the rings were now adorning the ends of the man’s long mustache.

  “You!” Logi said again, this time in awe. “You are Odin!”

  “Ja, Boy,” said the old man in a crackling, decrepit voice. “I am Odin. Now, what is it you wanted to discuss with me? Why do you persist in your quest of me?”

  Logi could not speak for a moment. He studied the giant before him, his grotesque features, the forged armor in which he was cloaked. “How did you…...?” he began.

  “How did I change my shape?” Odin asked. “I am a god. I can be whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want.”

  “I want to be like that,” said Logi. “Teach me to be a god too!”

  Odin began to laugh. His heavy steel protector shuddered and squeaked with every heave of his massive chest. “You want to be a god, do you? Do you think it is as simple as that?”

  Logi refused to feel foolish. “If you are a true god you can grant me the power also!”

  Odin’s one good eye narrowed. “But, if I make you a god, I may one day have to kill you.”

  Logi paused to think about that. “Why?” he asked.

  Odin grew thoughtful too and he did not speak for several seconds. “Very well,” he replied, without answering the question. “I will make you and your brothers lesser gods, subject to my will, of course.”

  “My brothers? You know of Kari and Aegir?”

  “You forget who I am, Boy,” said Odin.

  Then, he snapped his fingers and disappeared.

  Chapter Five “Aegir’s Fleet”

  Aegir ate his breakfast in haste the next morning, not bothering to wipe the jam from his face, before he escaped outdoors. For once, his brother, Kari, preferred to linger in the longhouse where their mother was putting up the last of the fruits of summer, for she always let them lick the spoon, and Logi was still sleeping off his adventures in the darkness the night before. For that Aegir was glad. His brother Kari was no fun at all, always so logical and pragmat
ic, and, yet, Logi’s wild adventures scared him. Aegir much preferred to be alone, where he could work on his little fleet of boats. With his sharpened knife in his pocket, he limped off to the barn and climbed up the ladder above the animal stalls to his hiding place, a place that only his brothers knew about.

  He uncovered his prized fleet from beneath a covering of straw and went to work; with tiny pieces of pine wood, stripped of their bark, and some sticky tree-resin for glue, he entertained himself for over an hour in the loft, stopping only occasionally to pull a splinter from his fingers. When enough time had passed that he could be sure his father had departed for the village, Aegir quietly climbed down from the loft and headed up the path to the boathouse. Aegir loved the place where his father’s ships took shape, the smell of wood shavings in his nostrils, a layer of soft sawdust under his feet, a perch on the scaffold where he could sit and study the thralls as they labored and then copy their techniques on his miniature fleet later.

  His fleet had its casualties, of course. Some of the tiny pieces of wood were so thin and fragile they would break under the pressure of his fingers, forcing him to start all over again. Sometimes the glue wouldn’t hold and, when he would take them down to the lake to test them, the water would soak right through and sink them quickly. But, his skills were improving. If only his father would allow him work alongside the thralls, he knew one day he could be a great boat-builder like his grandfather. But, Aegir knew it to be an idle dream; he knew his father would never allow it.

  Today, however, there was grumbling in the boathouse. Fornjot had, over the years, squandered away most of Kaleva’s silver and there never seemed to be enough left to purchase the quality materials they needed to finish the boats properly. They had to make do with grainy, knotted wood and cheap pig-iron, whatever bargains Fornjot could find, for he did not take the pride in his boats that his father had. With fewer boats to build, he needed fewer thralls, and he had begun to sell them off too until their number had become few. Their jarl had gone into the village and they had watched him lumber down the road, with his battle-axe hanging from his belt. Now, Aegir sat on the scaffolding that surrounded their current project listening to their conversations.