A Dynasty of Giants (Viking Sagas Book 1)

by J. A. Snow

  “The king will be saddened if we all perish,” Valdar told Logi as they tried to sleep that night, when they had made it half-way down the mountain. There, on a rocky shelf above the fjord that was frozen now, they hunkered down to shelter themselves from the wind. “He certainly must have affection for you, Logi, putting his men and horses at risk for you like this. You should be very grateful to him!”

  Logi pretended to be asleep and did not answer. He was not grateful to anyone, least of all King Alf. Everyone had let him down, Odin, Dagstorp, Grim, Glod, even his own brothers, who had cheated him out of his birthright. Besides, he knew it was his blood he shared with Kaleva and his relationship with Grim that was the reason behind his support.

  By the time the tired, hungry army finally reached the cave at the foot of the Kjolens where Logi had camped over the winter with Dagstorp, they hardly looked like a threatening force to be reckoned with. Thin and weak, the men and their horses appeared on the verge of collapse. Logi was beginning to believe he was going to have to take Kvenland back all by himself. No one had his size. No one had his ambition. No one had his determination.

  No one else had kept up his strength by feasting on Dagstorp’s frozen flesh, hidden beneath his fur robe, all the way down the mountain!

  Chapter Thirty-Nine “The Demon Seed”

  Dansa recognized the telltale signs that she was carrying another child. Her breasts began to swell and there was a fluttering, like butterflies, in her belly. Kari had not noticed; he had not touched his wife intimately since the birth of little Frosti, so he would not have realized anything was different about her. Her husband was still haunted and confused by his brother’s attack on his wife. And, he waited, nobly, for her to come to him while his desire simmered inside of him. Kari did not realize anything was amiss. But she knew. And, she dreaded what she knew she had to do.

  She had confessed her secret to her mother-in-law as soon as she was sure herself, when the men were away working in the boathouse. Hildi put her arms around poor Dansa and they wept together. “I am so sorry,” Hildi whispered. “My first son has inherited his papi’s need for cruelty. Have you told Kari yet?”

  “Oh, nei,” replied Dansa, breathlessly. “I am almost sorry I ever told him about what Logi did to me. I was hoping they would finally realize they were brothers and stop this needless fighting.” She sighed. “But, I see now that there was nothing I could do.”

  “Nei,” said Hildi. “Their war began a long time ago and their papi made it worse, with the way he favored Logi over his brothers. It broke my heart.” She paused and swallowed deeply, as if summoning the courage to say the words in her mouth. “Surely, you know what you must do.”

  Dansa nodded. “Ja, I know,” she said. “But it is very hard for me to do.” She bit her lip. “It is my baby too.”

  “And, my grandchild,” said Hildi, sadly. “Nei matter. It will be cursed just as Logi was. Under the circumstances, it would be unfair to ask Kari to raise his brother’s child as a constant reminder of what Logi did to you.”

  “It’s not a baby,” Nordrana mumbled, when Dansa and Hildi took the problem to the village witch. “It’s a demon seed that’s been planted in you and we must pluck it out before it grows.”

  Dansa sat in the shanty near the water, with Hildi at her side, staring at the room around them and the collections of strange items she used in her sacrifices and offerings. She breathed in the peculiar odor of the place, watching the old crone searching through a basket for something to perform the procedure the two women were requesting.

  “Ah,” said Nordrana, pulling her hand from the basket with a very long, sharp, rusty needle. “Lie down on my cot, there,” she said, motioning with her bony fingers. “And, we will rid you of the devil’s spawn once and for all.”

  Dansa laid down on the crude cot and Hildi took a chair and sat beside her, holding her hand.

  “Will there be pain?” Hildi asked.

  “Some,” said Nordrana. “But, not as much as birthing another giant. She will feel cramps and blood will flow.” She yanked at Dansa’s dress roughly. “Now, hold still,” she said. “And, try to think of something else.”

  The witch began to probe inside Dansa’s body with the filthy needle, jabbing hard when she felt the barrier within her womb. It was over quickly. With a sudden gush, the bloody fluid spread out on the blanket beneath her. Dansa winced when the first pain hit, as her body began to shed the tiny being that had been inside her. Nordrana whisked the fetus away, wrapping it tightly in a rag, and put it aside in the corner of the room. She rinsed the blood from her hands in bowl of water. “Go home and rest,” she told Dansa. “The worst is over now.”

  Feeling suddenly weak and frail, Dansa leaned on Hildi’s arm for support and they returned to the longhouse. “You must rest and let me make supper,” said Hildi. “We will tell Kari you are not feeling well. He needn’t know what we have done today.”

  Dansa curled up by the fire, clutching at her belly and little Frosti toddled over to her and snuggled against her, sucking his thumb. “Moder is not feeling well, little one,” she said. She tried to smile at him. “Take him to the boathouse, Hildi. He likes to watch his papi work.”

  Hildi took Frosti to the boathouse. The little boy had been all but forgotten in the excitement of battle preparations. Kari hoisted him up upon his broad shoulders and the boy squealed with delight. “Where is my wife?” he asked.

  “She seems to have a touch of the fever,” Hildi replied, careful not to meet Kari’s eyes with hers. “She is lying down until her strength returns.”

  Kari’s face took on a look of concern. “Fever? I know of nei fever going around,” he said. “Are you sure that is all it is, Moder? Perhaps we should ask Nordrana for a potion.”

  “Nei,” Hildi assured him. “With everything that has happened to her, I am not surprised she has fallen ill. She has been through a lot and her body is still very weak. You must give her some time, Son, to gain her strength back.”

  She left little Frosti playing in the boathouse and returned to her daughter-in-law who was sleeping peacefully by the fire. She stroked the girl’s face with affection, gently pulling a stray wisp of brown hair from her eyes. Dansa’s face was warm to the touch, warm and dry. Her eyes opened briefly, groggily, but she drifted back to sleep. Hildi sighed, thinking about Logi and what a monster she had given birth to, wondering what she would say to him when she saw him again, if she saw him again. Perhaps her son would want to kill her too, his own mother. It tugged at her heart and her emotions were raw.

  When it was time for supper, Kari and Aegir came in with little Frosti in tow, laughing for the first time in a long while. Frosti was like a soothing salve to them, a tonic for their weary hearts. At first, the boy ran to his mother, tugging at her blanket and pulling at her hair.

  “Come, Frosti,” said his father. “Let your moder sleep. She is very tired.”

  They ate their supper, all glancing back at poor Dansa periodically, hoping she would awaken and join them. When it was time for bed, Kari lifted his still-sleeping wife up gently and carried her to their cot, lying down beside her, encircling her in his huge arms. He could feel the raging fever in his wife’s skin burning through her robe. Hildi kept the boy in her bed. Not knowing what the dawn would bring, her eyes refused to close. The firelight danced in them until there was no more fire.

  And, by morning, there was no more life in Dansa.

  Chapter Forty “A War Delayed”

  When, at last, they reached the shores of the Gandvik, and were finally able to build a great fire from driftwood, Valdar’s men managed to augur a hole in the ice and they gorged on fish for days like starving peasants. The men and their horses rested and ate and slept, trying to recoup their strength before the last lap of their journey. They were quite a bedraggled-looking bunch, hardly the formidable army they had once been. Their once-virile bodies were thin and gaunt and the horses were weak and showing their ribs. Logi looked at them wit
h disdain. It is a good thing I am strong! he thought haughtily. He and Valdar were sitting at the edge of the camp while the others slept, and Logi was anxious to discuss how they would lay siege to the village, to map out the strategy they would follow.

  “The men and the horses need to rest, Logi,” Valdar said. “Before we can go forward with any battle plans. They are as weak as newborn foals and the strain of a siege right now would be too much.”

  “You said yourself they were the finest horses in the Trondelag!” Logi countered. “Surely, if they can make it over the Kjolens they can make it a few more miles!”

  “Nei,” said Valdar. He was growing tired of being ordered about by an arrogant youth who had no knowledge of leading an army. “We will rest here, until we have regained our strength!”

  Logi brooded and acquiesced but he was seething on the inside. “Can we at least make our plans, while the men are resting?” he asked mockingly. “Would that be too much to ask?”

  “Very well, Logi,” said Valdar. “What plan have you in mind?”

  “There is a palisade all around my homestead,” Logi told him, drawing a map in the snow. “I had hoped to wage an attack in the dead of winter, but, now that it looks like it will be spring before we reach the village, I think we should attack at night, when they are sleeping. I know the lowest spot on the wall, where we can easily slip over and surprise them.”

  “How many men will be there?” Valdar asked. “And, what weapons do they have?”

  Logi laughed. “They will be armed with nothing but simple wood axes and pitchforks,” he said. “They are hardly a formidable army! I expect we can overtake them very quickly.”

  “Some of our horses have gone lame and may have to be replaced,” said Valdar. “Has your family a good-sized herd?”

  “We have nei horses,” said Logi. “Only boats. Anyway, the horses in Kvenland are dwarves compared to the ones in the Trondelag. They would never get you back over the mountains!”

  “Well,” replied Valdar, “I have nei use for boats. We will just have to make do with the poor, half-starved beasts we are riding. I think we will camp in the woods until the snow has melted. We can hunt and fish and replenish our supplies there and there will be new spring grass for the horses. The men will be in a far better condition for fighting then, as will the horses.”

  “Dagstorp and I made it over the mountains on foot without any horses!” boasted Logi, pausing in thought, remembering how anxious the troll was to get back home to his wife and baby. Now, he was buried on the mountainside under four feet of snow and ice. Well, at least some of him was; Logi had picked off the choice pieces. Poor, old Dagstorp! Logi almost felt sadness for a brief moment, but guilt was not part of his nature and battle-plans soon consumed his every thought. “That is the plan, then,” he told Valdar. “A surprise attack in the night while they sleep!”

  A month passed and the season was changing. The horses were regaining their strength, consuming everything green in sight, and the men were becoming restless, eager to be on the move again. Logi was so persistent, Valdar agreed to resume their mission, if only to have the battle over with and be rid of him. They travelled through the woods, following the path Logi knew well from his youth until, as night fell, they reached the spot where he had nearly drowned. Logi was prepared to entertain the commander with the story of the great Yggsdrasil, but to his shock, the tree was gone, chopped down to nothing but a fat stump nestled in a still- unmelted bank of snow, the wood most likely hauled away for firewood and kindling. He stared at the stump, which looked much smaller than he remembered and it was solid, not a hollowed-out stairwell to Asgard. Had it been so long he had forgotten the spot? he wondered as he gazed out over the lake that was still partly frozen over with shimmering ice. He was sure this was the same place, the same lake, the same tree, his mind was confused. Was this another of Odin’s tricks? Who had destroyed the great tree? His brothers, no doubt! he thought. They never did believe his story of Odin and the great Yggsdrasil. It made him grow angry all over again.

  “We haven’t far to go now,” he told Valdar. “Just follow me.”

  Valdar held Logi back. “Nei,” he said, “you will stay at the rear of the army. I have not brought you all this way to have you be the first to die. I don’t want to return to the Trondelag and tell Alf the mission was a complete failure.”

  Logi opened his mouth to argue. No one could speak to the giant of Kvenland in such a manner! He was to be jarl as soon as they overtook Kari and his followers. He was not used to opposition and he didn’t like it. “You needn’t worry about me, Valdar,” he said. “I can take care of myself.” Logi had stopped referring to himself as the giant of Kvenland, being surrounded with men of equal stature, but his ego remained strong.

  “Listen to me!” shouted the commander. “Stay behind and let me do my job. We didn’t come here to play boyish games. We are here to take Kvenland back for you. You know nothing of warfare, Logi. You might end up dead.”

  But Logi would not listen. He mounted his horse and galloped off into the darkness, ahead of Valdar’s men.

  “Stupid boy!” Valdar muttered under his breath as he pulled himself up into his own saddle and the army began to move again.

  The night was still and silent; the lake spread out like a slate of ground sapphires in the moonlight. Logi reined in his horse when the palisade came into his view and he got his first look at the fortifications his brothers had built. Ha! They think a few spikes will stop me! he thought smugly. His blood rose and the veins in his neck pulsated with adrenaline. Finally, he would put an end to the brothers who had always disapproved of him, who laughed at him, who thought they were better than him. He turned to see if the army was close behind and spotted two new grave mounds in the shadows of the mountains, just as Valdar and his men emerged from the woods. Fornjot was, no doubt, in Valhalla now. Was he looking down on him with Odin, expecting him to fail, or worse, die at the hands of his weaker siblings? This is for the both of you! he whispered in the night air with nothing but the wind to reply. You will see what I am capable of now!

  He turned his horse and retreated to meet Valdar in the open field. “We should encircle the palisade and form a net, to be sure my brothers do not escape. They have built it up to keep us from getting over, but I have another plan.”

  Valdar silently motioned for his men to spread out around the wall and he rode along with Logi to the high gate, which they found secured with newly-forged iron locks. “They cannot thwart me this easily,” said Logi. “I will set fire to the village. That will surely bring them scurrying out like rats from a burning ship! Have the men watch the wall. Very shortly you will see a fire unlike anything you have ever seen.” He rode on in the darkness toward the village leaving the army circling his family homestead like a hangman’s noose.

  Logi knew the perfect place to start; he knew Weyland’s foundry well. He rode up behind the village and dismounted, leaving his horse tied to a tree, while he made his way softly through the alley way behind the sleeping houses and let himself in through the back door, prying the lock open. There, within the rock walls, where he had spent so much of his childhood, was the old fire pit, still smoldering orange and hot in its belly, waiting for morning when Weyland would stoke it back to life. Logi looked around the room for a piece of wood and some bits of cloth to tie around it. He took his torch and lit it on the coals just like he had done dozens of time as a boy. Once the torch had a strong flame, he armed himself with his instrument of destruction and began his reign of terror by setting fire to everything combustible in the room. Then he crept out through the back door and ran for his horse.

  The horse was startled by the torch, and spun around, making it difficult for Logi to mount. “Stand still, you beast!” he whispered. “Or I will set your tail afire!” The horse froze in fear and planted its hooves in the dirt, its eyes darting backward to the burning stick in its rider’s hand. Logi kicked it into a gallop through the streets, pausing to i
gnite every thatched roof and kindling box along the way. It wasn’t long before the flames came to life, glowing and growing in the darkness. Logi rode down the alley that led to the dock where the strange kite-boat was tied and resting. Having no doubt that the boat was one of his brothers’ inventions, he threw his burning torch into the belly of it, where it caught quickly to the cloth kite and went up like a funeral pyre. Then, he turned his horse sharply and galloped back to Valdar and his army.

  Now, thought Logi, all they had to do was wait.

  Chapter Forty-One “A Firestorm”

  Inside the longhouse, Hildi stirred. She looked around the room in the smoky haze, where Kari and Frosti were sleeping together peacefully and her son, Aegir, was slumbering on the other side of the fire. Dansa’s mother, Rolleka, who had come inside the palisade for protection while Weyland guarded the wall, slept nearby. She heard the sound again, outside there was rustling and footsteps then a rapid pounding on the door. “Jarl Kari!” someone called. “We are being attacked!”

  Kari and Aegir awoke simultaneously and leapt from their beds, opening the door for Snapp and Weyland who were standing wide-eyed on the front step. The other men who had been on guard duty were rallying across the yard, grabbing their weapons and taking their positions on the wall.

  “They are beyond the reach of our arrows,” said Weyland, “and, they have formed a complete ring around the palisade. This was planned, Kari. Your brother has not been idle over the winter.”