A Dynasty of Giants (Viking Sagas Book 1)

by J. A. Snow

  With total darkness approaching soon, for Kvenish days were very short in winter, Logi looked toward the woods for shelter, despite the troll’s warning. He trekked across the wide field of snow and searched beneath the trees for a cozy place in which to sleep, building a small fire from pinecones; lighting fires was the one thing Logi was good at. The orange glow from the flames quickly shone brightly in the sea of stark white all around him.

  Where are the wolves? Logi wondered; the troll had warned him about the wolves, but he had not seen a single creature all day, except for an occasional bird flying overhead. Finding no branches on the forest floor large enough to be a suitable weapon, he settled for a cache of rocks which he piled at his side and he leaned against the tree trunk to guard his back. The night ahead was going be long and cold, even though his clothing had finally dried. He had no choice; he had to sleep no matter how cold he was!

  He didn’t remember when he drifted off, but he must have slept for he awoke with a start just before dawn at the sound of howling from somewhere in the bowels of the forest. The wolves were out there in the shadows. Had they sensed his presence? Were they salivating over the smell of him? He filled his fists with rocks and waited. The howling got closer. The snow crunched. Suddenly, two sets of golden eyes emerged from the blackness beneath the trees and stared at him. Logi’s heart pounded in his chest. He began throwing the rocks at the eyes and screaming at them. “Go away, you beasts!” he shouted; his breath was hot against the cold air. “Go away!”

  The wolves did not approach him but remained in the darkness a short distance away; he could hear their eager breathing beyond the dead fire pit. More pairs of eyes joined them, two, three, four or more, Logi counted silently. He could not move; his body was frozen with fear. In the morning mist that hung all around him and the dim light of the rising winter sun, he could finally see the faces to which the golden eyes belonged, a pack of giant grey wolves with yellowed fangs and mangy, matted fur. Logi thought about Odin’s promise to keep him safe on his journey. Where is Odin now? he wondered dismally. Am I going to be sacrificed to satisfy these creatures’ hunger? Will I be just be a meal to fill their worm-infested bellies?

  “Odin!” he called out in anger and he jumped to his feet to hopefully scare them away with his impressive height and convince the wolves he was not afraid. He knew he could never out-run them. The beasts remained in the shadows, watching him, perhaps waiting for him to bolt, for the inevitable chase to begin. Logi’s chest heaved with fear. “Go away, you beasts!” he called again. The eyes of the wolves locked with Logi’s in the faint light of the daybreak and, yet, they did not attack.

  Slowly and cautiously, Logi took a step, then two, then three, summoning all the courage he possessed to turn his back on the wolves. He emerged from the woods and made his way slowly through the snow all the way to the rocky shore without looking back; his body trembled more from fear than the cold. His stomach was rumbling from his hunger now, making him even more determined to reach his destination. Perhaps, he would be lucky enough to find some winter berries on the bushes or mollusks among the salty rocks. He had to keep moving to keep his body warm; he must reach the Trondelag or perish!

  When he finally stopped, and turned to look back, the wolves were nowhere in sight but he knew they were lurking out there somewhere, watching him….and waiting to strike at any moment.

  Chapter Fourteen “The Kite-Boat”

  They labored for weeks on the new kite-boat, waiting for spring to come, when the Gandvik’s blanket of ice would roll back out to sea and the harbor would once again be open for business. With Snapp’s skills and the boys’ unbridled enthusiasm for the project, every available moment was consumed with the details of their new vessel. Fornjot paid no attention to the project taking place in the boathouse; his interest in the boats had waned since the disappearance of Logi. He drank and slept and tormented poor Hildi while the boys busied themselves in the boathouse.

  When the snow finally began to melt with the coming of warmer weather, the village seemed suddenly overrun with new faces, a never-ending hoarde of merchants and traders, dealing in everything from thralls to spices and precious metals. The boys were ecstatic as they prepared to embark on the most exciting venture of their young lives. They had begun with a small, experimental craft, bigger than Aegir’s miniature fleet, with room for two rowers, cutting and shaping the keel from a single log as Snapp had showed them. When Aegir had finished the keel, he began to lay on the strakes and a single snaelder beam across the very center with a bored-out hole to secure the mast for the kite.

  Kari had worked furiously on the kite; he had never put together one so large; its mere size made it impossible to make from leaves glued together. “We need animal skins,” he had told Aegir. “I will go into the village to see what I can find.”

  When he had collected as many skins as he could find he went back to work and soon his “kite” looked like a giant patchwork of the dried hides of white elk and Saami reindeer, which the thralls helped him stitch together. He traded and bartered with the villagers for bits of twine and rope, using as currency anything of value he could salvage from the boathouse that his father had not sold already. It had been a hard winter and trading had been slow in the village for months, leaving little in the merchants’ pockets to pay Fornjot’s tributes. Food became less plentiful in the longhouse and Hildi tried to make do with whatever was available. Fornjot complained endlessly as if, somehow, the shortage was his wife’s fault. But the boys were so wrapped up in their project they soon began to skip meals with their parents altogether, taking their supper with the thralls instead and climbing into their beds, exhausted, late in the night, escaping again before dawn to the boathouse.

  The day finally arrived when they planned to test the new boat on the waters of the Gandvik, when the last of the ice in the harbor had finally receded. They awoke together in the longhouse, grinning at each other with sleep-filled eyes, eager to reveal their project that was waiting in the boathouse. Kari’s eyes narrowed in the shadows of the darkened room; the fire had gone out in the pit and he searched for kindling and flint to stoke it back to life. Even after the snow had melted outside, the longhouse always remained drafty and damp if they didn’t keep a fire burning night and day to take away the chill.

  “Where is Moder?” asked Aegir, when he joined his brother, for it was unlike Hildi to linger in bed in the morning.

  Kari walked softly toward his parents’ room, peering in at an empty bed. “Aegir!” he called out. “They are gone!”

  Aegir approached his brother and peered over his shoulder. His brother was right! The bed their parents shared was empty!

  “That is why there is nei fire this morning!” said Kari. “Where do you suppose they could be, I wonder? It is not like Papi to go into the village so early! And Moder too? What is going on here?”

  “We will have to share breakfast with Snapp, I suppose,” said Aegir. “There is nothing here to eat except last week’s venison. I hate cold venison.”

  They threw their cloaks over themselves and made their way across the yard to find Snapp and the others already eating their cold breakfasts that were not as filling and appealing as what Hildi cooked over the fire. Some of the thralls had begun to complain; Aegir ate sparsely enough but sharing their food with his older brother was becoming a nuisance. “That giant boy eats twice as much as we do; there is never enough for second helpings when he is around!” they told Snapp in secret, for they would never tell Kari and risk his father’s wrath.

  But, neither Kari nor Aegir was ravenous for food that morning; their minds were full of wonder and excitement at the prospect of testing their new boat in the waters of the Gandvik. They packed the oars and the mast inside the rolled-up kite and marched out into the sunshine with the hull of the boat resting on their shoulders.

  “Good fortune, Lads!” Snapp called after them. “Slay the serpent!”

  Aegir’s eyes narrowed. When they had pas
sed through the high gate, he looked at Kari warily. “What did he mean by that?”

  “Slay the serpent?” asked Kari. “It’s just an old saying. The name Gandvik means sea of serpents. Have you never heard that before?”

  “Nei,” mumbled Aegir. “I thought the great serpent was supposed to live under the rainbow bridge where Logi nearly drowned.”

  “That tree in the woods was not the rainbow bridge just because Logi wanted it to be. And, there are serpents everywhere,” said Kari. “The fishermen in the village talk of great fish too, bigger than boats, and of oceans bigger than the Gandvik. Who knows what we will find?”

  Aegir was silent. The sea excited him but the thought of the giant creatures that lived in it frightened him. He forced a half-smile with his lips, thinking he would never be as brave as his older brothers.

  The road was muddy and slippery from an overnight shower and the air was still moist with the morning dew and hung around them like a shroud. They were surprised when their father suddenly walked out of the mist toward them, coming from the village.

  “I say,” said Fornjot to his sons as soon as he saw them. “What have you got there?”

  Aegir let Kari do the talking. “Our new kite-boat, Papi. We have been working on it all winter. Now that the ice has melted we are going to test it!”

  Fornjot walked up beside them and studied the craft they had resting on their shoulders. “Where did you get the wood to make this? Did you waste my wood?” he grumbled, running his hands along the smooth strakes, admiring his boys’ handiwork. He knew a sound boat when he saw it.

  “We only borrowed pieces that were going to be firewood anyway,” said Kari quickly, worried that his father might go into a tantrum and destroy all their hard work. “And we felled the piece for the keel ourselves. It is a fine little boat, Papi! If this one proves sea-worthy, Snapp says we can sell them for a goodly price!”

  Fornjot eyed the roll of animal skins in the belly of the boat. “And this? A kite made of animal skins? Is that going to make your toy boat fly?” He laughed then and shook his head. “Go on with you, then. Drown yourselves just like your brother did.” He turned away from them with disinterest and started up the hill toward the palisade.

  “Where is Moder?” asked Aegir after him. “She is not in the longhouse. Did she go into the village with you? We wanted her to see our boat!”

  Fornjot kept walking. “Needed money, that’s all,” he mumbled under his breath.

  Aegir looked quizzically at Kari.

  “Papi!” Kari called out, suddenly worried about their mother. “Where is our moder? Has something happened to her?”

  Without turning around to face them, Fornjot waved his hand just as he reached the palisade. “She’s on the way to Eistland by now,” he said. “Someone else can listen to her complaining from now on!”

  With that said, he disappeared behind the palisade, slamming the high gate and leaving Kari and Aegir standing in the middle of the road with their jaws wide in disbelief.

  Chapter Fifteen “A Rescue Mission”

  “What did he mean?” asked Aegir innocently. “Why is Moder going to Eistland?”

  “Don’t you see, Aegir?” Kari replied. “Papi has been selling the thralls. He has been selling off everything else of value, now that times are hard. Now, he has sold our moder too! Most likely to the thrall-merchants in the harbor!” He shifted the boat to his opposite shoulder. “Come on now! We have to go and find her!”

  He broke into a jog and Aegir could barely keep up with him on his uneven legs; the kite-boat pitched and lurched and came near to falling off their shoulders several times. “Slow down, Kari!” Aegir pleaded. “Your legs are stronger than mine!”

  “Quit your sniveling,” snapped Kari, picking up his pace. “We have to hurry!”

  By the time they reached the harbor, the dock was already bustling with buyers and traders, with boats moving in and out, making way for others to take their place alongside the dock. Kari scouted for a thrall-ship unsuccessfully. Leaving their kite-boat on the shore and his little brother behind to guard over it, he ran up and down the dock inquiring about a ship leaving for the Eistland marketplace.

  “It’s gone,” said one ragged old fisherman who was resting against a stack of crates. “If you’ve got thralls to sell, you’re a little late, Boy.”

  “I have nei thralls,” Kari replied sadly. “I am looking for my moder.”

  “If your moder was a thrall, then you’re a thrall,” the old man said. The man was a stranger to the village and did not recognize the jarl’s son. “You best be heading back home to your master, then.”

  “Did you see the ship before it left?” Kari asked politely. “Did you see a very pretty woman with dark hair go aboard?”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe I did,” he said. “And, maybe I didn’t. Saw a lot of thralls being traded this morning. You might as well go home, Boy. Yer moder’s most likely long gone by now.”

  “But, I have to know!” Kari said, nearly shouting at the old man. “Don’t you understand? I must find her!”

  “Go ask the witch,” said the man, pointing to the street of shanties beyond the dock. “They say she sees everything. Maybe she can help you.”

  Kari shuddered. All his life his mother had warned him to stay away from that side of the village, the dangerous side. What would the village witch know about his moder anyway? he wondered as he went back to where Aegir was waiting for him on the beach.

  “I have to go speak to the witch, Nordrana,” he told his little brother.

  Aegir’s eyes bulged. “You can’t go down there! Moder forbids it! They’ll murder you and drink your blood!”

  Kari grimaced. “Moder is gone. We have to find her. I don’t care what they do to me! You can stay here and mind the boat if you’re afraid!”

  While Aegir lingered, guarding their kite-boat, Kari made his way up the narrow alleyway that led to the shanties. The air stunk of fish guts and something else equally repugnant that his nose did not immediately recognize. Curious, suspicious eyes peered out from windows and doors as he passed and he could hear whispering in the shadows. He knew the place where the witch lived; everyone in the village knew the place Nordrana called home. When he knocked on the door, he held his breath until it opened.

  Standing there was the most decrepit person he had ever seen; even his grandfather, Kaleva, who had been very grey and wrinkled, never looked this old, even on the day of his death. He had expected her to look ancient; from the stories that his grandfather had told him, she must have been hundreds of years old by now! The skin on her neck hung beneath her chin like waddles on a chicken; her face was like pieces of broken pottery, scarred and jagged.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I am looking for my moder,” said Kari. “I was told you might know where she had gone.”

  Nordrana opened the door wide and studied his face. “You are Fornjot’s son, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Ja,” said Kari. “That is who I am. Do you know how I can find my moder? My papi says she is on the way to Eistland.”

  Nordrana retreated into the shanty and Kari took a step inside, hesitant to venture any further. She took a seat in an old chair by the window that faced the dock and peered into it, as if it were a looking-glass. “She left on the morning tide,” the hag mumbled, so low that Kari could hardly make out her words. She spotted Aegir sitting on the beach below. “You will never catch her in that little boat, if that is what you are planning.”

  Kari sighed deeply. So, it was true! His papi had sold his moder to the thrall merchants and now she was out there on the Gandvik somewhere, cowering in the hold of a boat, probably afraid for her life. He had to get to her and bring her home! When he returned, he would deal with his papi! “Thank you,” he said to the witch, anxious to get away from her, and ran back to the beach and Aegir. “Help me get the boat into the water. We have to catch up with that ship!”

  Aegir�
��s eyes grew round in awe. “You can’t mean it, Kari!” he protested. “We haven’t yet tested the boat to see if it will actually float! We can’t just shove off across the Gandvik in it! We’ll drown for sure!”

  “You haven’t much confidence in your own work,” said Kari, picking up his end of the keel. “Help me get it into the water. You can stay behind with Papi if you wish. I am going to find our moder!”

  Aegir hoisted his end onto his shoulder. Of course, he was worried about their moder, but the prospect of returning to the longhouse where he would be alone with Fornjot was equally as frightening. Their papi had gone mad over the previous winter; he had become more cruel than ever. He had sold off a few more thralls as soon as the traders came back and every day Aegir worried that his friend, Snapp, would be next. His heart ached in his chest for his mother but fear was there too, fear of drowning in the bitterly cold Gandvik!

  They reached the water’s edge and Kari pushed the oars through the openings on the side of the boat and laid the rolled-up mast to one side to make room for himself. “Make up your mind, Aegir,” he said. “Come with me or don’t.” He pushed the bow of the boat into the water and took his seat, gripping the oars in his hands.

  Aegir hesitated only for a moment before climbing into the boat with his brother. “I will come with you,” he said, with a weak smile on his face. “If we drown, at least we will go down together!”