by Matt Larkin
So close she could almost have touched him. Could almost feel his arms around her back, feel her legs wrapped around his waist. Because she knew the truth—he might blame the love potion she’d given him, but it had only made him more pliable, allowed him to forget a woman he’d never loved at all. It had freed his heart to do what it really wanted. And Gudrun knew he wanted her just as much as she did him. He had told her he loved her, and he had meant it. And if she were to reveal herself now, to step into the light, would he take her back? Wrap her once again in his embrace and offer her the peace she had—almost—found with him?
Gudrun ground her teeth. The Ás belonged to her, had always been meant for her, whatever Grimhild may have thought. If only she could make Odin see that, make him realize how much he needed her.
Maybe soon he would see. The Sight had opened him up to knowledge she would not have expected—certainly more than Grimhild would have predicted. He’d known or intuited that Rerir, desperate for an heir, had turned to a sorceress, never imagining the price might prove his own life. Sorcery always had a price, exacted from the body, mind, or soul of both the caster and the recipient. But had Odin known that Grimhild had been that sorceress, that Volsung owed his very existence to the Niflungar? Perhaps not. Had he known such truths with any certainty, he might have struck out against Volsung more directly, instead of cowing him with tricks of the Sight.
Rerir’s oath to Grimhild bound his son as well. Favors owed were sometimes the most valuable treasure one could collect. Like most Hunalanders, Volsung came from a line of the Niflungar’s enemies, descended from the Siklings, a kingdom Gudrun’s people had crushed centuries ago. Now, though, his once-glorious ancestry stolen by the mists of history, he had come into her service. And she would use him to drive Odin back to her side.
Gudrun slipped back inside Volsung’s hall, giving a slight nod to a raven perched atop it. Father watched her. Maybe one day he would help her. Not against Grimhild, though. Never against her.
Fires inside kept the mist at bay and prevented her from relying on magical concealment. Just as well, given hiding behind an actual wall protected better against one with the Sight. Like all mortals, the Hunalanders rightly feared the mists of Niflheim blanketing Midgard. Those mists could steal away memories and transform a man from within, leaving him ripe for possession by spirits or hollowed out as a draug. Or they could bring out the darkest parts of a man, transforming him into a troll, as had happened to Odin’s own brother.
But Gudrun was a Niflung, a Child of Mist, and the Mist spirit bound to her prevented such fates for her. Even if it came with its own risks and agonies. The Mist spirit—or snow maiden as mortals oft called them—was one of two vaettir she kept bound. The less loathsome of the two.
Volsung rose from his throne as she approached and inclined his head in respect. He may not have liked the oath that bound him, but he was not fool enough to deny it. Grimhild would have had Volsung destroy Odin and the Aesir in her rage over Guthorm’s death. The Queen never forgave any slight, and the murder of her favored son counted as more than a slight. She might not have loved any of her children—probably was not even capable of the emotion—but she had valued Gudrun’s half brother.
To save Odin from her wrath, Gudrun would have to get him to declare himself for the goddess Hel of his own free will. Only then might Grimhild be forced to stay her hand. Because Hel did want Odin, of that Gudrun was certain, though not why. Her father still sent his ravens to watch the Ás king. Her father wanted Odin, which meant Hel wanted Odin. And whatever Hel wanted, Hel got. Her power had swept over Midgard and given rise to the Fimbulvinter. Snow maidens and draugar, jotunnar, and even wraiths all trembled before the Queen of Death.
And Odin would be far better off as Gudrun’s lover than Hel’s enemy. He had to see that—she would make him see it.
But not just yet. The time was not right. Gudrun would have to wait. Hel rewarded patience. The queen of the dead had waited for long millennia to spread her reign over Midgard. Deathless, she knew naught but patience. There would come a time when Odin would need Gudrun, and then she would be there. Too many horrors lurked out in the mist, dangers the Niflungar alone understood. And when Odin faced those dangers, when his people began to fall in droves, he would gladly cast aside his frail vӧlva wife. He had to. Gudrun needed only to find a way to expedite the process.
Gudrun clucked her tongue at herself. She was not some lovesick maid to sit here fawning over a man—even one such as Odin. She was the princess of the Niflungar. This king would come to her. As Volsung’s armies broke the Aesir, Odin would have nowhere left to turn.
“Princess,” Volsung said. “You heard the Ás’s words?”
“I heard.”
“And what does the Queen wish of me?”
Gudrun struggled to keep emotion from her face. Queen Grimhild wanted every last Ás erased from the face of Midgard, wanted them left naught but frozen memories, if that. But Gudrun spoke for her here, even if she did not speak the words Grimhild would have wanted. “Let the Aesir pass—whatever they offer, accept the tribute.”
“So we will not war with them?”
Gudrun ran her tongue over her teeth before shaking her head. “My dear king. Once they have crossed your borders, they will remain trapped with a strong enemy behind them and fresh enemies ahead. Trapped, they may grow desperate.”
“So you would have me break faith with them?”
As Odin had broken faith with her? Perhaps. “I would have you heed my advice lest advice become commands. Let Odin and his people through your lands. And await my further … advice.”
The king sighed.
4
“All I’m saying,” Fulla said, “is if you didn’t take so much mind about the doings of others, you’d have more mind for the minding of yourself.”
Sigyn rolled her eyes. Forests covered so much of Hunaland the Aesir had no real choice but to break up into bands. They walked in one such band, guards on all sides. Geri wiggled in Sigyn’s arms, but they had no time to let the varulf girl walk about on her own. “You seem to be intimating that the mind is some finite thing, as if my having studying some small portion of Hunaland’s history prevented me from learning something relevant to the Aesir. Forgetting for the moment that, as we are now in their lands, the history of Hunaland is relevant to us.”
Fulla huffed, no doubt more exhausted from holding Freki. The maid hadn’t had an apple, after all. “There now, you see that there? I’m not intimidating anyone, am I now? But you don’t mind yourself, so I have to do it for you. If I left you by your ownness, you’d probably be emptying your chamber pot without warning the alfar afore you toss it. Sure as sure, a way to vex an alf is by tossing hot piss on them.”
Sigyn snorted. “I think that’d vex anyone. But that’s just folk superstition. If the alfar exist at all—”
“How can you still doubt it?” Frigg asked. “After everything we’ve seen, after tasting the very fruit of Yggdrasil, how can you yet doubt the reality of the Otherworlds?”
Sigyn shrugged. “I’ve seen golden apples, and I’ve seen trolls. Agilaz has seen draugar with his own eyes. Not many”—she looked pointedly at Fulla—“not many reliable men claim to have seen an alf. But let us say your Alfheim exists and the alfar live in it. You think they spend their time standing about, invisible, waiting to have piss thrown on them so they might have a reason to take offense? Does that seem a likely use of a vaettr’s time?”
“Oh, Sigyn,” Fulla said. “Sure as sure, they’re not just awaiting having the chamber pot thrown. But you can’t rightly know what business they may be about. Could well be a dozen vaettir in these very woods, watching us carry on about them. All listening close-like to your non-respecting tongue.” At that, the maid looked around the trees and frowned, as if she might suddenly spot these invisible watchers.
Before Sigyn could form an appropriate answer, Frigg spoke. “So these lands belong to Volsung. And you were saying Agilaz
knew his father.”
“Knew of his father, anyway, yes. Rerir’s uncles murdered his father, Sigi the Swift, and stole the kingdom. A wanderer—some say a friend of his father’s—came to him and helped him retake that castle we saw a few days back, all in one bloody night. But Rerir didn’t sit overlong on the throne. He fell ill while campaigning against his neighbors, and he died before the birth of his son.”
“Hmm.” Frigg didn’t seem to be truly listening. The Queen of the Aesir often remained preoccupied—hardly a surprise—but she ought to have paid attention to such details. A great many kings reigned in Hunaland, and Sigyn did not have tales of all of them, but they should use what knowledge they could.
“Something else troubles you?”
“Oh.” Frigg cradled Thor in her arms, looked to his face a moment. “Naught at all.”
Sigyn scoffed. If Frigg didn’t want to talk, she should not have asked Sigyn to join her band. Right now, Sigyn could have walked beside Loki, who surely would have engaged her in interesting conversation. No matter how many hours they spent talking, Sigyn could never quite figure the man out. There was always at least one more secret. Loki never lied to her—not that she could tell—but he cultivated mysteries and half-truths, manipulating Odin and the Aesir as effortlessly as breathing. To what end? He seemed to genuinely care for all of them, to want to save them. And yet, her lover still concealed so many things.
And Loki had shown her something she could not shake from her mind. He had reached into fire and commanded as though it were a part of him. Such sorcery would have sounded a skald’s fancy, had she not seen it with her own eyes, but the man’s only explanations had been evasions that revealed naught.
A sharp, brief scream rang out in the woods to her left. Followed by another.
Sigyn reacted on instinct, grabbed Frigg, and pulled her low to the ground. Fulla dropped down as well. An instant later, arrows thunked into nearby trees. Several of their guards fell the same moment. Shafts jutting from their chests, throats, legs. The whole band exploded into chaos, drawing weapons and racing off after hidden attackers.
Fulla had begun to shriek.
Sigyn glanced back at her sister. She could help, use her bow—but she couldn’t do so and protect Frigg and the babes.
Another Ás warrior fell as an arrow pierced his eye. His blood splattered them.
Dripping with it, Frigg screamed.
Sigyn grabbed her sister’s arm. “Get up! Move!”
They had been outflanked. Of course she had heard people moving about, but with a band this size she’d thought … well she should have paid more attention. She shoved Frigg behind a tree, then went back for Fulla. The maid still knelt on the ground, her body shielding Freki, trembling like a sapling in a blizzard. Sigyn jerked the woman to her feet and ushered them away.
Footfalls, screaming, fighting. So many people, it was hard to tell who was on which side. But the Aesir had lost a lot of men already. Sigyn could run to the sound of people, but with each passing moment it grew less likely they would be her people. No. She had to get Frigg and the babes away from the enemy, even if that meant also getting them away from their allies.
She’d trust her own abilities over those of the Ás warriors in this forest. Agilaz had taught her well. She paused a heartbeat, filtering the sounds. The fewest people were to her right.
“Follow me and stay low!”
She rushed forward, darting between trees as swiftly as she could while running in a crouch. The Hunalanders had archers stalking these woods. She couldn’t let them get a clear shot. Geri had begun to wail. Sigyn pressed the girl closer to her chest.
“Shhh. Not now. Please, please not now.”
Fulla cursed and stumbled, and Sigyn glanced at her. Rising from a root she’d tripped on, hidden by snow.
“Keep moving,” Sigyn said. “Walk where I walk.”
The maid’s breath came in ragged gasps that, to Sigyn’s ears, sounded loud enough to draw every scout within a mile. They didn’t have her hearing, though, thank Njord. Footfalls sounded ahead, snow crunching underfoot. Sigyn made an abrupt turn. She didn’t even know which way they were heading anymore, not after the chaos, and she couldn’t see the sun through the mist and tree cover.
Even if they wandered deeper into Hunaland, she could get them back to the Aesir eventually. Right now, she had to get the other women away from here. Anywhere was better than here.
She pushed on, through the forest.
They had gone another half hour before Fulla toppled over. The maid tried to rise, then slumped down again, panting and sobbing.
“I c-can’t. I can’t … I …”
Sigyn looked around. “I think it’s all right. I haven’t heard sounds of people in a good while. We should be safe.”
Frigg slumped down, holding Thor even tighter against her. “Places without people are where vaettir most thrive. A forest like this might house askafroas—ash wives. They take human sacrifices, carry them back to their heart trees and consume them.”
Fulla wailed.
“Without a sacrifice, an ash wife might work terrible damage upon the locals. The only way to face such a foe would be to fell her heart tree, and that is nigh unto—”
“Frigg,” Sigyn snapped, “shut up. We’re alive for now. If your vӧlva knowledge can help us stay that way, share. Otherwise, save it for later.” She looked up at the sky. “It’ll be dark soon. We need to find a grove, an overhang, somewhere we can shelter for the night.”
“We don’t have fire,” Fulla whined.
Sigyn had been worrying over just that problem for some time now. A fire might give them away. On the other hand, Fulla and Thor were mortal, and could not afford to keep breathing in the mist. “All the more reason we need a secluded place, somewhere the light won’t carry as far. Now. I need you both to get up and follow me. I’m going to find a way to get us through this.”
Frigg trembled as she rose, but her sister nodded. “I … I trust you.”
Sigyn hoped that trust would not prove misplaced.
5
The bastard Hunalander had betrayed him! After accepting gold and silver plundered from his neighbors, Volsung had agreed to grant the Aesir safe passage through Hunaland. And then he had sent dozens of raiding parties against the Aesir, preying on the weakest groups in the back and middle lines.
“Where is my son!” Odin bellowed.
Tyr shook his head. “The queen’s band seems mostly fallen, but we found no sign of her or your children.”
Hel take Volsung. Odin would bring those castle walls crashing down around him. He would burn that hall and Volsung’s precious tree to cinders and leave naught for their line but ash. His grip tightened around Gungnir, and the dragon’s anger fed his own. Forged with a bit of the mighty beast’s very soul, the spear always awoke such primal rage in him. And sometimes, as now, he welcomed it.
“I’ll go,” Agilaz said. “I love Sigyn as though she were my own daughter.”
Odin glowered at the thegn. He’d had few enough dealings with Hadding’s former hunter, though Agilaz’s son Hermod had more than proved his worth according to Tyr. And men said no finer woodsman lived among the Aesir, though Agilaz hailed from some land farther north than Aujum. “Do not fail to bring back my children. Or my wife.”
“I’m going with you,” Loki said.
Odin jerked. As did everyone else. None of them had even noticed the foreigner’s approach. Agilaz leveled his stern gaze on Loki. If he objected to his foster daughter sleeping with Loki, he had not said so in front of Odin.
Nor did he offer any comment now, save to nod. The pair of trackers took off into the woods, their pace swift.
“I ought to be going myself.”
Tyr grunted. “Can’t. The men need you. Already the jarls are calling for a Thing.”
A Thing. Now. While his family—his son, his father’s grandson—remained in danger. While Volsung sat in his accursed hall, toasting the men who had slaughte
red Odin’s people.
Odin clenched his fist at his side. Yes, a Thing. For at a Thing, the king could declare a war. “Gather them. Call them all.”
Eight jarls—for Odin still held the title of Jarl of the Wodanar in addition to being king—stood in a circle around him. They had no hall nor tent large enough to hold them all, so they had gathered in a clearing. Jarls toward the center, their thegns around them, and others—warriors, shieldmaidens, vӧlvur, and elders—all watching, straining to hear the inane debate as grown men bickered like children. Whined over what to do when they found themselves trapped in enemy territory.
Tyr had estimated their numbers nigh to twenty thousand when they had left Aujum. In the two moons since, they had lost no few of those people, and already the numbers included the old, the very young, and others who could not fight.
Some of thegns bickered among themselves as well, men from different tribes spoiling to redress old wrongs, to revive feuds best left buried.
“You have no idea what we’ll face in Vanaheim,” Arnbjorn said. The jarl of the strongest tribe of the Aesir, the Itrmanni, had stopped addressing Odin with any form of honorific not long after the Thing had begun, but Odin had stayed Tyr from acting with a raised finger. Despite his own flaring temper, Odin needed these men. Though he’d have preferred to wring Arnbjorn’s neck and demand to know why the man had abandoned his father. “You march us across unknown lands in a vain goal to seize the home of the gods. Now here we fall to mortal foes.”