by T L Greylock
Outside the gates, Raef gave the horse to the wind, letting her run. They skimmed along the edge of the fjord, weaving through the trees, until the way grew rocky and unsafe to take at high speed. Settling to a walk, the horse carried Raef deep into the pines and bare-branched trees of summer, through narrow glens running between hills. At last, Raef brought her to a halt and dismounted. Fractured sunlight, fallen to the snowy earth, split the world into shadow and light. Rabbits had passed this way since the last snowfall, and a deer had stripped bark from a lone birch. His mind was clear, as unblemished as the untouched snow around him, all questions and doubts fled and gone. There, deep in his beloved forest, Raef dropped to his knees, raised his face to the sky, and made a new vow.
“Odin. Allfather. Hear my words. I am the serpent-breath, I am the wolf-song, and I bring you a promise of death. I name Hauk of Ruderk murderer and he will die by my hand. His is the blood I seek and I will stain the snow red with it. This I swear, in sight of all the gods.”
His oath faded into the air, witnessed only by silent trees, but Raef felt as though he had branded the words into his skin, never to be forgotten. Yet the turmoil had passed, leaving behind only resolve, and Raef turned the horse toward home.
Vakre was right, he knew. There was no guarantee that Hauk had conspired with Jarl Thrainson. Their shared birthplace could mean nothing, but to Raef it was the key to all. He thought back on Hauk Orleson’s actions in the days since the gathering, his gesture of alliance with Einarr, his place beside the Hammerling, the words that had passed between them now imbued with more meaning. It was the answer he had been looking for and his every thought was bent on how he would enact his revenge.
Upon returning to the hall, he tolerated Isolf’s objections to his wandering off and promised not to do it again. Finnolf and Yorkell had returned with their warriors, and Raef heard their reports. Yorkell had observed a small party of men, no larger than his own group of twenty, taking a path through the northern hills. He had seen little else. Finnolf had been more fortunate and was certain that Thoken was holed up near the border with Silfravall with eighty spears at his side. The young captain was eager to return, but Raef had no ready order for him. As he sat in his father’s chair, the faces around him earnest and proud, he searched in vain for the faces he most wished to see. Eira had slipped from the hall not long after Finnolf and Yorkell had arrived and of Vakre and Siv, there was no sign, not that evening, or the next. Once he thought he caught sight of Siv’s red-gold braid in the crowd, but the face it belonged to was not hers. Raef did not ask after them, did not look for them. Instead, he told himself he did not need them and he drank mead with Isolf, telling his cousin of Hauk of Ruderk’s treachery.
“Let us secure Vannheim, first, brother,” Isolf said. His face and orange beard were lit with candlelight as they shared a skin of mead in Raef’s chamber. “Once Red-beard and Thoken are brought to heel and punished, we can turn to Orleson and bring justice to your father.”
“I do not wish to wait any longer,” Raef said. “I have failed my father for long enough. It is time I acted.”
“It is not my place to challenge your will, only hear my counsel. War is upon us. Here, in the heart of Vannheim, and out there. And what is out there will soon spread here, for the Hammerling and Fengar will not tolerate another contender. Yes, they snap at each other’s throats and bleed each other, but one or both will ready to strike as soon as word of your naming as king reaches them. We must take care of your lands and we must reach out to allies, those who have not yet chosen a side and those who question their choices. Meet the Hammerling in battle, and bring Ruderk to his knees there, but only when Vannheim is safe.”
“Your words are wise, but I must follow my heart.”
“And what will your people think when their king abandons them, slips into the wild to fulfill his private need?” Isolf voice rose and his face was stiff with anger. “Red-beard will cut a path to your hall, lining it with the bodies of your people, and Thoken will spill their blood, bit by precious bit, until they collide, head-on, here in this very hall, their destruction complete. Is this what you want?”
“I will leave Vannheim in your care and I will trust you to keep my people safe.” Even as Raef said it he knew the folly in his words.
“If this is your decision, I will do all in my power to protect Vannheim, but I am not the king, Raef, I am not the one your people have chosen. It is you who must keep them safe, keep their lands unburnt, their children alive.”
Raef was silent. In his heart he was already riding, swift-footed, across the distance between him and Hauk of Ruderk, or, faster yet, hurtling through the sky on the back of a strong-winged dragon-kin, but his mind could not ignore the truth behind Isolf’s words. Vannheim needed him.
“What would your father want you to do?”
Raef closed his eyes, silently asking his father for yet more patience. “My duty as Vannheim’s lord.” He emptied the mead skin and got to his feet. “It is time we showed the vultures what it means to defy a Skallagrim. Find Finnolf. And Dvalarr. We must make plans. I wish to ride tomorrow.”
The pre-dawn fog was thick and damp, turning blazing torchlight into murky glowing orbs and muffling the sound of horses. Two columns of warriors snaked away from the hall and village, one to the south and one to the north, fifty in each. A small portion of Vannheim’s strength, meant to move and attack with speed and without the encumbrance of larger numbers. In their wake, Raef steadied his horse, which danced away from shadowy figures moving through the nearly deserted camp, and relayed his final instructions to Finnolf, who would lead the southern-bound group.
“There will be no burning or looting or raping, Finnolf. This is our land, our people, and I will not bring destruction to those who are innocent, no matter how close their ties to Thoken and Red-beard.”
“And those who are not innocent?” Finnolf’s face was masked by the fog but Raef could see enough to know the young captain was eager to carry out his charge.
“I have no mercy for them.”
“Shall I take Thoken’s head myself?”
“You or any other man. I make no claim to it.”
“It will be done, lord.” Finnolf wheeled his horse and disappeared into the fog, riding to reach the head of his column.
Raef looked next to Isolf. “The Vestrhall is yours in my absence, brother.”
“You need not fear.” Isolf gestured to the camp of warriors around them. Another fifty warriors remained behind, and Isolf’s own men, too. “We are too well protected and the enemy too few in number. They will not dare to attack.”
Raef turned his horse but then looked back over his shoulder. “Keep an eye out for Tulkis Greyshield. Red-beard and Thoken are warriors, hard like steel and strong, but not clever. With them it will be battle and little else. When Greyshield rears his head, and he will, that will be a different matter.”
Isolf nodded and raised a hand in farewell. “May Thor guide your sword and keep your shields strong.”
Again, Raef made to depart but a voice calling through the fog held him back. Hoyvik the smith burst into the torchlight, panting and bearing something wrapped in linen. Gudrik followed the smith, limping forward on his crutch.
“As promised, lord.” The smith handed his bundle up to Raef, who unwrapped the linen with care to reveal a simple leather scabbard, undecorated but for a single silver tree inlaid near the hilt. Yggdrasil. Raef ran his finger over the metal, curled his hand around the familiar hilt, and then drew the sword from its sheath.
The blade was beautiful death and felt as though it had been an extension of Raef’s arm since the forging of the nine realms. The length, the balance, the weight, all tuned precisely to Raef, an instrument to sing the song of battle. It was the finest sword Raef had ever held.
“This will rival the famous blade of Torrulf Palesword. My thanks, Hoyvik. You have outdone yourself.” The smith smiled and Raef knew he did not need to be told of the virtues of
the sword. Raef exchanged it with the sword borrowed from the armory and strapped the new one to his belt. The smith withdrew, leaving Gudrik alone to look up at Raef.
The poet opened his mouth to speak but his words failed him and Raef knew what was on his tongue.
“I cannot take you with me, Gudrik.”
It was the truth and Raef could see that Gudrik knew it. But he could also see the hope die in his friend’s eyes. “I know.”
Raef leaned down from the saddle and put a hand on Gudrik’s shoulder. “The gods know your strength.” The skald gazed up at Raef with empty eyes. Raef tightened his grip. “I know your strength. You do not need to prove it to me.”
Gudrik nodded, his eyes brimming with tears of frustration, and stepped back. With a heavy heart and a nod at Isolf, Raef turned his horse, looking over his shoulder for one last glance into the fog in the hopes that a shadow might step forward in the shape of Vakre or Siv. Raef put his heels to his horse and they were away, the fog turning to water on his cheeks as they raced to catch up to his men and Eira, who had reappeared in Raef’s chamber the night before, eager to join him as he traveled north.
His chosen path took them to the sea, and when dawn broke they had reached the coast, which they would follow until the next fjord split the land. The fog burned off quickly once light spilled over the eastern horizon, and they were left with gentle morning waves that seemed at odds with the brisk, winter breeze that came off the sea. The men rode with hoods pulled up or fur collars tucked tight around their necks and they kept a quick pace.
By mid-day, they had seen nothing but gulls wheeling overhead and they turned inland to trace the edge of the narrow, short fjord on the gentle southern shore. When they reached the apex of the fjord, they turned north again and began to climb into higher hills, passing a farm here and there, the stone walls crisscrossing the slopes but enclosing nothing except snow. Smoke could be seen rising from each farmhouse, but Raef did not disturb his people and they made camp in a small, curved valley that night.
The farm of Rudrak Red-beard was another day’s ride north, if they held to their course, and it seemed likely that Red-beard would stick to the land he knew best until he was ready to strike. But as Raef warmed his hands over a fire that night under the stars, his thoughts were on lands to the west, rugged lands that hugged the sea and were the home of Tulkis Greyshield. To reach them would add another day of riding and Raef did not think he could spare so much time, not when Greyshield had made no threat. And yet he did not like the idea of passing up an opportunity to determine Greyshield’s mind. Raef wrestled with his thoughts that night, the stars above offering nothing but their cold light, sleeping only a little. He half-hoped Eira would ask what troubled him so that he might speak his thoughts out loud, but she seemed tucked into her own mind, as he had so often seen her. When dawn came and the camp began to stir, he had made his decision.
Five men turned west when they broke camp, charged with being Raef’s eyes and ears. “Under no circumstances are you to engage Greyshield,” Raef told them. “You are shadows, nothing more. I want to know who he meets with, if has gathered men to him and, if so, how many. When you have done this, return to the Vestrhall. I will look for you there.” Raef watched them ride away, five warriors he trusted not to be reckless, who were less bloodthirsty than others, and yet still he wondered if it was a mistake not to send more.
The day was dark, the dim, grey light of dawn staying constant even as the faint shadows shifted under the passing of the distant, shielded sun. Raef kept them to higher ground as much as possible so they might, as an eagle, catch early sight of their prey, but the land they crossed, one of the least fertile and least populated parts of Vannheim, remained empty. As they drew closer to Red-beard’s home, they fanned out, splitting into three groups to cover more territory and yet all three parties converged on Red-beard’s farmhouse with nothing to report.
The four buildings that made up Red-beard’s farm were nestled against a stand of trees and built into the side of a rocky hill. Raef observed them from a vantage point across the valley while his men stayed out of sight. The farm was quiet and no smoke drifted from the roof of Red-beard’s house. Raef watched until the sun dipped below the hills, then approached on foot with Eira and a handful of men as darkness gathered in the trees.
A closer inspection showed the farm was deserted, bereft of both people and livestock. The hearth was cold, the cupboards devoid of food, the house stripped of anything of value.
“Lord,” a voice called to Raef, “over here.”
Raef followed the voice around the side of the southern-most of the three buildings and wrinkled his nose against a foul odor that hung in the air.
The horse had been dead two, maybe three, days, it was hard to tell for the cold had delayed the rotting, but it was rotting nonetheless. The carcass lay in the snow, its neck black with blood where the axe had severed the head from the body. A crow had been at work there, tearing flesh from the wound in bits and pieces, and it took to the air now, cawing, as Raef and his men disturbed it.
But it was the head that drew the eyes of the warriors and caused many to reach for the Thor hammers they carried around their necks. Even Eira was not immune, her face paler than usual and her mouth tight.
The head was impaled on a spear, mouth gaping, teeth bared in a hideous, deathly grin, tongue flopping to one side. The eyes had been pecked out and the cheeks torn by savaging beaks. It was a grisly scene, but it alone was not what had made Raef’s men stop in their tracks, unwilling to come closer.
The horse head faced south and just a little west and Raef knew this was not a matter of chance. If he flew, like a raven, in the direction the empty eye sockets were staring, he would come directly to his own hall.
“The nidstang,” muttered the warrior closest to Raef.
Raef stepped close to the spear and its gruesome prize. The words were roughly carved into the spear shaft, but Raef read them aloud. “I curse the line of Skallagrim, the ancient dead, the unborn children. Darkness and death shall haunt them, Thor shall punish them, Odin shall keep them from Valhalla.”
The crow, perched now on the roof of the barn, squawked, its call ringing in the air. The men were still, their faces betraying the fear the nidstang curse had unleashed in their bellies.
Raef drew his axe and hacked the spear in two. The horse head tumbled to the ground and came to rest by his feet while the spear splintered and scattered the words of the curse in the snow. The men drew back, unwilling to touch any part of the nidstang, but fury and Rudrak’s barefaced threat had made Raef bold. Using his axe to hold the skull down, Raef wrenched the point of the spear from the horse’s neck and held it out to the men. “Piss on these words. I will shove Rudrak Red-beard’s curse up his ass.” He removed his axe from the rotting wreckage and wiped it in the snow. “Burn it all.”
In the growing dark, Raef’s men went to work, distributing the supply of firewood Red-beard had left behind, and soon the farm was in flames. Raef himself held the torch to the horse carcass and the leering head, and the stink of rotting, burning flesh filled the night. The men, even those who had not seen the nidstang for themselves, were nervous, the curse having worked under their skin. Raef admitted to no one his own discomfort at seeing the dead, empty sockets staring toward his home, their meaning and intent clearer than Mimir’s well. The nidstang was an ancient curse, well-known but seldom used, and Raef could not help but wonder if some hand other than Rudrak’s had carved the words, some hand that had the means to discover that it was not Raef’s fate to go to Valhalla. The gesture reeked of the priests of Odin and yet Raef did not think even Fylkir, for all his discontent, would have reason to invoke such a malevolent threat. He would have to seek out Josurr upon his return to the Vestrhall and learn what he could.
The blaze was high and bright, leaping to the sky, sparks flying. Raef watched it burn, a beacon in the night that sent a clear signal if Rudrak or any who followed him were watching,
but the satisfaction of destroying Red-beard’s home only fueled his anger and left him wanting more.
“What now, lord?” The question came from a warrior called Elthane. He rested on his spear, his eyes moving from the fire to Raef’s face, and other men turned from the fire, one by one, until all eyes were on him.
“I do not need a curse to bring down Rudrak Red-beard. He has shown his hand, he has shown the depth of his treachery. He has broken the deepest oaths a man can make and we will tear him apart.” The men did not cheer, but their faces were grim and hard and Raef knew they felt as he did.
Wolves sang to the stars that night. Raef and his men camped in sight of Red-beard’s burning farm, and the pack was close, their voices calling and answering from all directions.
“They are hungry,” Eira said as she and Raef shared dried meat and cold, hard bread. They had lit no fires, wanting to keep all attention on the blaze on the next hill for Raef was certain Red-beard was watching.
Raef kissed Eira’s forehead. “So am I.” He tucked her against his chest, for warmth, if nothing else.
“When this is done, who will you march on first, the Hammerling or Fengar?”
“Neither. I will seek Hauk of Ruderk and finish what he started. If he is at the Hammerling’s side, then so be it.”
“Would it not be better to ally with the Hammerling once more and finish off Fengar together?”
“I have been named king and he will hear of it. Even if I dispute that, Brandulf Hammerling will never accept me back into the fold. He will regard it as a deep betrayal. I will be an enemy, just as Fengar is, perhaps even more so for having once fought at his side.”
They were quiet for a moment until Eira spoke again. “My shieldmaidens fight with the Hammerling,” she said.