It would be foolish not to use this opportunity to demonstrate the power of Vanadís.
“Summon the chieftains. Then we will hold a Thing where the heretic will face legal judgment,” Sigrid instructed.
Olaf nodded.
“An execution will bring people in from far and wide, and if the cross worshipper dies in a memorable way, everyone will know which gods prevail,” he said.
Sigrid smiled contentedly at her son.
He truly was a ruler.
The oars sliced through the water as the oarsmen moved the ship rhythmically forward. The new day was still just a quiet whisper in the dark of night.
Sweyn stood at the prow of the ship, watching the veils of mist hovering over the water. In that borderland of time between light and dark, the gates to the afterworld stood open, and only the most courageous dared travel.
They would strike the village at dawn, and the men’s boredom from a winter of rest would be broken by battle and the pursuit of loot. They would attack like a pack of wolves and take what they wanted as they hunted for more silver.
Swallowing the contempt that burned in his throat, Sweyn pulled his hand through his beard, which was tied in two thick braids. Having been expelled from his kingdom through heinous treachery, the king of Denmark now lived by raiding poor farmers on outlying English farms. His fall from the Jelling throne tormented him night and day. His own brothers, whom he had held in such high regard, had betrayed him. The Svea with their feckless king were able to occupy Denmark while he, the legitimate king, was forced to flee—after everything he’d done for them and the kingdom. He had lowered taxes and mollified the dim-witted chieftains and aldermen who were entangled in ancient clan feuds.
He had secured peace with Emperor Otto, Rome’s catamite, who had sworn his loyalty to the church and ruled half the world all the way up to the Danish border. To keep from being swallowed up by the superior power, Sweyn had been forced to convert and become a simple tributary king, paying Peter’s Pence to the church. He had been forced to give up his religion, his honor, and the only woman he had ever loved for the sake of Denmark.
Sweyn put his hand on his sword hilt and clenched his teeth so hard, his jaw hurt.
And what had he received in return? Betrayal, the murder of his men, his brothers’ treachery, and the theft of his kingdom. He was cursed among men and forsaken by all the gods.
“You bring shame to the family, father killer.”
The ghost of his birth father, Harald Bluetooth, appeared beside him, a pale gray figure whose face was contorted with scorn. The mortal wound Sweyn had dealt him at the battle in Trelleborg was bleeding from his gut through his decomposing clothing.
Tormented, Sweyn turned away from his father’s ghost.
“Get out of here,” he muttered, receiving a taunting laugh in response.
“You murdered your own father in cold blood, thinking you’d make a better king than me. Just look at you now, you worthless bastard. You’ve accomplished nothing. You’ve lost everything. You’re in exile without honor or glory.”
Sweyn looked guiltily at the wound in Harald’s belly. Fifteen years had passed since he’d killed his raving father, and for just as long the man’s ghost had been tormenting him from the afterworld.
“These raids will give me the silver I need to retake what is mine,” Sweyn muttered.
Sweyn had been forced to flee into exile, leaving his silver and wealth behind in Jelling, and he was as poor as a pup when he reached his foster father, Palna, in Jómsborg. Gunhilda, the wife he’d been forced to take and make his queen in order to secure the Scanians as allies, howled and whined incessantly about this matter and had practically driven him out of his mind.
When Olav “Crowbone” Tryggvason came to see him and asked him to go raiding in England, Sweyn immediately said yes. Without riches he couldn’t hire the warriors he needed to retake his kingdom and his honor.
Skagul Toste and his Geats soon joined them on their Viking raids, and they had ultimately sailed west with ninety-three ships.
Their successes in battle and their spoils were now so great that King Æthelred’s power was faltering. After they conquered the king’s men at Maldon, Sweyn and Crowbone received sixteen thousand pounds of silver in Danegeld for swearing to leave the island and never return. That was foolish, because neither Sweyn nor Crowbone had any intention of keeping their word. Instead, they set up camp for the winter in Wessex. The winter had been filled with infighting and growing enmity among the men. There was a rumor that Crowbone was going to break his alliance with Sweyn, but no one knew whether there was any truth to it. Mortals and gods alike, they were all fickle, and you couldn’t depend on any of them, not even your own brothers-in-arms. Sweyn had certainly learned that much.
“No one wants you as king, you father killer,” Harald’s ghost hissed. “You squandered the power our family has wielded since ancient times with your incompetence. Now our kingdom is ruled by a foreigner! Listen to the furious agony of your ancestors. Hear their legitimate anger.”
Sweyn couldn’t let his father’s all-consuming ill will get to him. He rubbed the back of his neck and stared into the mist. The oars splashed quietly as the ship moved through the still water, toward destruction and death.
Then he caught a glimpse of her in the mist, first just a hint of her and then very close. Sweyn smiled sadly as Sigrid reached out her hand to him; he could almost touch her fingers before the mists swallowed her up again, and all that was left was the unhealed wound of longing. My beloved. That lone night they spent together in Lejre was the highlight in the accursed darkness he had been wandering through.
“She wouldn’t want a good-for-nothing lout like you,” Harald’s ghost said with a laugh. “She turned down your marriage proposal, twice!”
Sweyn refused to listen. He wouldn’t hear another word. He walked between the rows of oarsmen over to Farman, who was at the rudder.
“We’ll be there soon,” the scarred warrior quietly affirmed.
Sweyn nodded and watched the dragon ships sliding noiselessly through the gathering dawn, filled with the promise of death and slavery.
“May the gods grant us abundant spoils.”
The beast was shrouded in a black fog and stank of death and decay as it raced up the hillside toward Estrid, its teeth bared. Garm was free from the chains that normally bound him by Gnipa Cave, the entrance to Hel’s realm of the dead, and now the man-eating hellhound was chasing her under the bloodred sky.
Her legs trembled with exhaustion as she ran uphill toward the ridgeline, but no matter how hard she ran, she never got any closer to safety. With each step, she slid back down the grayish-black mountain, and the beast’s claws struck the rocks as it came rushing forward, howling in its thirst for blood.
Fear threatened to burst Estrid’s chest as she fought her way up the steep incline. Hel’s hound was going to pull her down into the caverns of the kingdom of the dead, and she would lose everything she held dear.
“Save me!”
In desperation she prayed to Vanadís, concealed by the bloodred clouds that undulated sickeningly back and forth. But the dís was nowhere to be found in this place where Hel reigned. Estrid toiled, scraping her fingers raw as she climbed up the rocky incline, but her legs kept getting heavier and heavier, every breath tearing at her chest. The ridgeline still towered high above her.
It was all in vain. Exhausted, Estrid sank to her knees among the rocks, awaiting her fate.
Claws struck stone, and shrill cackling echoed over the slope as the beast of many names came ever closer.
Estrid looked back. She knew she was going to die. No one could escape their fate. The beast’s claws pierced her shoulder, and warm blood gushed down her back.
“Hel, guide me to Niflheim’s nine worlds. Drink my life force, O Terrible and Eternal One. I will willingly serve you in the kingdom of the dead because you chose me.”
Just as she finished the last words of th
e death hymn, the mountainside was bathed in a radiant light, as sharp as a thousand suns, and everything went still.
Estrid squinted. She’d never seen anything so beautiful as the smiling young man who stood before her, holding out his shimmering hand. He must be Balder, the fairest of the gods.
“Come,” he said, his voice as strong as the roar of a wild animal and as gentle as a summer breeze.
Trembling, Estrid reached out and took his hand. She was enveloped by the dazzling light and felt a giddy serenity, infinitely unfamiliar and ethereal.
Estrid rested in his arms and floated through the cosmos as he carried her away from death in Hel’s borderlands and back to her room at home.
“Who are you?” she whispered as he set her down on her bed.
The radiant god looked at her, mute and majestic.
This is a dream, she thought, squirming at his gaze, filled with a boundless longing. He is my light and liberator.
The god’s face remained still as he lowered himself over her, and a rivulet of light trickled into Estrid’s body. He is the beginning and end of everything. The light heated up within her until it grew into a white-hot, all-consuming flame that burned up everything she was and everything she would become. Shrieking with pain, she tried to pull free, but he held her firmly while excruciating pain tore her vagina apart.
“You belong to me,” he said.
The next moment he was gone, and she was falling through the darkness to die and rise again.
“Wake up! You’re dreaming.”
Estrid gasped for air, wheezing, and sat up in bed, her heart racing.
“Calm down,” Katla said, gently rubbing her back. “You’re scaring the wits out of people with all your screaming.”
Estrid took another wheezing breath while the images slowly faded. It was only a dream. Her pounding heart gradually slowed in her chest, and reality resumed. The day was so young that there was only a hint of dawn light in the darkness. The other kinswomen were sleeping under the fur pelts, breathing softly, and in the distance she heard a dog’s echoing bark.
“The beast chased me again,” she said.
The beast had been chasing her more and more during the nights. It had gotten to the point that she dreaded going to bed.
Suddenly a cough tore through her chest, a cough so bad she could hardly get any air.
Katla eyed her tenderly through her blond curls.
“You know what it means.”
Estrid wiped her mouth and then looked at the blood on her palm.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The worlds had started sliding together, and she was descending deeper and deeper toward the shining splendor of Hel’s black halls. Estrid swallowed sadly.
Those who traveled to Niflheim to serve the queen of the dead for all eternity were blessed. She lay down next to Katla, so close she felt the heat from her body.
“Swear that you won’t leave me.”
“Never,” Katla said calmly, and kissed her cheek. “I swore an oath to Hel about the threefold death, and that can’t be broken.”
Estrid took her kinswoman’s hand and squeezed it hard. Her maidservant was the best.
When Estrid died, Katla would take the poison she carried on her belt, and Estrid’s mother had sworn to slit Katla’s throat while she was being strangled so that she was certain to die the sacred threefold death. Side by side, they would be placed on the funeral pyre with all the gifts, and then they would live with riches for all eternity in the quiet of the afterworld.
“I’m looking forward to Hel’s shining halls,” Katla said. “We won’t be going to Náströnd, the shore of the dead, where the dragon Níðhöggr devours murderers’ bodies and the north-facing great black hall overflows with snakes.”
Estrid wriggled away, laughing as Katla started playfully pinching her belly.
“Cut it out.”
Katla’s shift slid down off her shoulder as she straddled Estrid and pinned down her hands. Her eyes twinkled behind her blond curls that tumbled forward, covering her face.
“Not until you tell me who you had sex with in your dream,” Katla said.
The memory of the white god caused Estrid to blush with shame, and she turned away. Katla slid off her and lay beside her, pleased to be onto something that Estrid was trying so hard to keep hidden.
“Well?”
There were no words to describe his radiant beauty and her uncontainable horror when he filled every part of her body.
“A god saved me from the beast,” Estrid said with a gulp.
“Which god?” Katla asked eagerly. “What did he look like?”
“He was full of light and the most attractive man I’ve ever seen.”
Estrid was swept up in a wave of bliss, and when she closed her eyes, she saw the ribbons of light the god had left behind, like shooting stars in the night.
“Did he have sex with you?” Katla asked anxiously.
“Yes,” Estrid whispered, her crotch still sore from the excruciating pain and pleasure.
“Damn it!” Katla jumped out of the bed. She started pacing back and forth, barefoot, her fair hair like a curly cloud around her head. “It must have been Balder. It must have been.”
Estrid sat up, surprised at Katla’s uneasiness.
“It might not mean anything.”
Katla stopped short and looked at her as if she were a fool.
“You know nothing good can come of a god lying with a mortal. Pray to Hel that it was Balder who came to you and not someone else.”
They stared at each other, and the hair on Estrid’s arms stood up when she understood what Katla meant. The cross worshippers’ God had visited a young virgin at night and fornicated with her so that she bore his son. That couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be that.
Just then the door opened, and Soot casually stepped into the room.
“I saw the cross worshipper this morning, my lady. He wasn’t the beast I had expected.”
As she did every morning, she handed Estrid a cup of warm milk to drink.
“We have to go to him, see if he’s the same one who came to you in your dream,” Katla said quietly, watching Estrid.
Estrid nodded.
The fire giants had warned of a wicked one coming to the farm. Though his hands were bound as a prisoner, he was far from harmless. What happened in the realm of the dead also happened among the living, but in reverse. Life was death, light was dark, and a sharp sword in this life was bent and useless in the next.
“Dress me,” Estrid said, sitting up in bed.
The room went quiet, and Katla and Soot regarded her with horror.
The shift she had slept in was covered in blood and clung to her thighs. It hadn’t been a dream. Everything had happened for real.
Estrid pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from vomiting.
“Mighty Hel, have mercy,” gasped Soot.
Estrid had seen the dead wandering around the estate as if they were alive, and she had heard their tales of times long gone. She had seen the dísir dance in the dawn mists and the giants’ destruction, but never before had a god descended to her bed.
Grayish light lay forebodingly over the empty courtyard as she hurried to the earthen cellar where the cross worshipper was confined. The straw roofs of the longhouses were covered with a thin layer of snow and smoke from the hearths, billowing out of the smoke holes on top. Out in the moorlands the cattle huddled together for warmth in the wet snow.
Estrid didn’t feel the cold wind that whipped her cloak or the mud oozing into her shoes as she hurried toward the only one who could give her an answer.
“Turn around, my lady,” Soot pleaded, sounding choked up.
The aging servant woman had been protesting loudly since Estrid and Katla had left the bedroom, and now she hurried after them, carrying an extra cloak in her arms.
“The wicked one killed a child and ate her body,” Soot said.
“If only she would keep her objectio
ns to herself,” Estrid muttered.
“She’s your maidservant. Command her,” Katla said.
Estrid gave Katla a critical look as they proceeded between the four longhouses, all facing one another across the courtyard, and over to the cellar that sat at the far end of the courtyard, a good distance from man and beast.
She stopped a few paces from the sturdy wooden door and wrapped her cloak tighter around her body. There was a small opening in the door, just half a hand’s width across, but it was enough for her to smell the stench of evil.
“What do I do if it was him?” she whispered, nausea again filling her gut.
The very idea that it might have been the prisoner’s God who had possessed her drove her crazy. She had never felt so dirty and sullied.
Katla’s face was contorted with disgust as she looked at the door.
“I’ll kill him if it was him,” Katla said, moving her hand to the hilt of her dagger. “Just walk up to the door and look him over quickly. Don’t talk to him, not one word.”
Estrid put her hand on her stomach and gulped.
The Christian God possessed people and controlled their desires. His worshippers were forced to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and this contagion was spreading over the world like wildfire.
Two chilly-looking cloaked warriors from the hird walked by, each with a spear over the shoulder. They seemed surprised to see Estrid and Katla out here, but they didn’t say anything, just hurried onward toward the smithy.
“Do it,” Katla urged. “Do it now.”
Estrid took a deep breath and walked up to the door.
At first it was so dark she couldn’t see anything, but soon she saw a man in a filthy tunic with a shaved head kneeling on the ground. His hands were pressed together, and he looked skinny in his soiled tunic. Estrid sighed with relief. The cross worshipper was as nasty as a slave, and if she squinted, she could see the curse of his God like a dingy shadow over his skinny shoulders.
Estrid (The Valhalla Series Book 2) Page 3