Sigrid could hardly breathe. Ulf’s weakness threatened to drag the whole family down, so she had to be strong for the sake of her children, the clan, and the gods.
“No, this is the punishment for my weakness,” she said flatly.
If only she hadn’t let those Anund women and children go, no one would have come onto her land to retrieve the heads. If she’d let the women and children be killed, the Anund people would have feared the Scylfings more and stayed away. She was being punished now for the goodwill she had shown their enemies. Never again.
“I swear by Odin and Vanadís that every man, woman, and child of the Anund clan will die screaming in torment.”
The men bowed their heads.
“You have my sword,” Edmund said.
“And mine,” Ulf said, putting his hand on his sword hilt. “I won’t rest until it’s done and Estrid is back.”
The smiling Sól rose from the depths. Dazzlingly beautiful, she gently drove away the mists around them.
To Sigrid and the Scylfings, the daylight was not a blessing. Erik awaited the Scylfings’ answer about the ships, and she had to persuade him not to kill them.
Grant me strength, Vanadís.
Sigrid undid the pins holding her hair up so it fell down over her shoulders.
Aud, Drott, Bera and Hedna Hövadsdotter, Yrsa, Gauthild and Alfhild. She was descended from an unbroken line of powerful queens, closely affiliated with the gods, who stoically fought enemies and beasts to protect their dynasty. Yrsa had not yielded when it came to light that her husband was actually her father. Aud the deep-eyed didn’t collapse in grief when her husband murdered her daughter. She got her revenge by killing the evildoer.
Sigrid undid her cloak and then took off her shoes, which she threw on the ground. She wasn’t planning to let herself be subsumed with grief when the fate of her family line rested on her shoulders. She would fight to the death. She started walking toward the moorland without looking at the men.
“Where are you going?” Ulf demanded.
Sigrid smiled joylessly at her brother.
“I’m going to sacrifice myself to the gods.”
Come, my child, come to me.
Estrid walked barefoot through the slate-gray mists, guided by the voice that drew her. She’d never been in a place as foreign as this, and yet she felt no fear or sadness as she wandered deeper into the mist with Katla by her side.
Liberated, they walked through the afterworld toward the beginning and end of all things.
The mists thinned, and she could see that she was wandering through a valley bordered by tall mountains. People, pale and evanescent like shadows, wandered around her. They stared vacantly straight ahead, and Estrid saw that they were as blessed as she. There was nothing to fear here, for they were wandering along the river to Hel and the nine worlds of Niflheim.
Then a shadow fell over them, and the mists thickened into darkness.
Estrid dropped to her knees as a bloodred sky loomed above them.
“Queen of Niflheim, princess of darkness, I serve you,” she whispered as the ground burst into flames with a roar, and the whole world was burning.
“There she is,” Katla whispered, her eyes shining with bliss.
Estrid turned her head and saw Hel finally step through the fire, the powerful Æsir goddess who was the daughter of Loki and the protectress of graves. Her clothes were black, and her hair, too, as it fell in waves over her face, was one-half burned black, one-half corpse-pale.
Her eyes were filled with all the fires of night and the lights that twinkled in the dark sky.
Estrid burst into tears, overwhelmed by the death goddess’s beauty. Her dark power filled the universe and burned away everything that was and everything that would be. The mother of eternity, the beginning and end of everything, the mercy of the void.
“Thank you,” Estrid whispered through her flowing tears. This was what she had been born for, the fate the Norns had given her in their weaving. “Let me serve you, my queen.”
Hel floated before her, unknowable in the dark power pulsing around her like stardust. Then she raised a hand and held it up to Estrid, and at that moment Estrid was hurled backward, away from her, backward through dark narrow valleys and into the mists. Helplessly she screamed in horror.
Pain bit into the back of her head. When Estrid reluctantly opened her eyes, she was met with a bloodred mist undulating over a clear blue sky. She lay in a boat rocking its way forward over the water. Two men were rowing. They sat with their backs to her.
In vain she tried to understand how she’d wound up here, but everything was a fog that dissolved as soon as she craned to see it. The cross worshipper was the last thing she remembered. She had talked to him in the middle of the night.
Red-hot metal cut through her head when she turned. She was relieved to see Katla lying beside her, alive.
“We’ve been kidnapped,” her kinswoman said.
Estrid stared blankly at the two men. Their dirty gray tunics were wet with sweat as they silently rowed with all their might. Beyond them she spotted a third man in the bow.
Now she understood what had happened. She was dead, and Hel had sent her a dream as a premonition about where she was going. Estrid smiled happily as she remembered her mistress’s beauty and the relief she had felt.
She and Katla were being ferried down the river Gjöll to Niflheim. Soon she would cross Gjallarbrú, the covered bridge thatched with gleaming gold, where Móðguðr would ask which family she belonged to before she let her cross and enter Hel’s realm, where there was no pain or sorrow.
A stormy joy swept through her body.
“Row faster!” she called to the oarsmen.
She couldn’t get to Hel soon enough.
Battle-Fire struck right in the gap at the base of the enemy warrior’s neck, between his byrnie and helmet, so he fell overboard, dead, landing on the burning wreckage of a boat. Immediately a burly warrior attacked, and Sweyn managed to raise his shield at the last minute to be splintered by the blow. The valkyries howled out their rage as Sweyn circled the enemy fighter, waiting for the blow from the screaming warrior, but none came. Instead he slumped down, lifeless, with an arrow through his eye.
“Pull back,” cried Finnvid, who had shot the arrow, while the hird protectively closed ranks around Sweyn, his sword drawn.
The ship rocked beneath their feet as Sweyn took a step backward and surveyed the twenty-foot-long ship. Æthelred’s feeble noblemen weren’t much in the way of opposition for Sweyn’s battle-ready Vikings.
“Not yet,” he ordered.
Sweyn looked for a new warrior to fight. He had never before wielded a sword like Battle-Fire, and he planned to enjoy it until the last enemy soldier fell.
The valkyries’ shrieks filled him with tempestuous life force. His senses were as sharp as a hawk’s as he rushed toward a helmetless warrior who was raising his ax.
This was what Sweyn was born for—battle, honor, and victory—and Battle-Fire made him invincible.
The fighter with the ax fell to his sword. And the next man. Battle-Fire sang in his hands, as loudly as the valkyries in the skies. Another warrior with an ax rushed at Sweyn, and he raised the sword again.
Sweyn missed with his first swing but quickly crouched down and thrust the sword into the Saxon’s throat from below so the man fell wheezing onto the bloodstained deck, where he suffocated in his own blood.
He wasn’t old. He looked like a nobleman who could scarcely grow a beard.
“That was the last of them.”
Sweyn grinned as his hird formed a closed ring around him, their swords drawn and their shields raised.
Winded, he removed his helmet and mopped the sweat and blood from his face with the back of his hand. Smoke from the burning ship drifted over the water, which was filled with the splintered debris of ships and dead bodies floating between the sinking wrecks. The sail of King Æthelred’s ship fleeing was visible in the distance.
/>
“Seems like things didn’t go that well for the king of England and his boys,” Sweyn said slowly.
Finnvid laughed loudly and moved his ax up to rest on his shoulder.
“Maybe Crowbone isn’t as good a lifeguard for the king as he thought.”
“Poor little coward king,” Farman mocked, his scarred face contorted with anger.
Sweyn took a deep breath, strength surging through his body. He had suspected that Crowbone’s visit to Hemvick wasn’t solely to retrieve the last of his wealth but also to ascertain how many ships supported Sweyn’s cause, and how many were on their way home. He must have been terribly disappointed to find that quite a large army was sailing with Sweyn. Most of the men who served Crowbone had sworn their loyalty to Sweyn’s sword, willing to serve the bearer of Battle-Fire, the rightful king of Denmark. All seventeen of the Geatish steersmen now bore his colors. Sweyn grinned to see Toste’s ship, which had only just reached them now. The old pig was most definitely disgruntled at having missed the sea battle.
“Did anyone see Crowbone’s sail?” Toste asked, but received only shaking heads in response.
The enemy had come at them from two directions. Æthelred’s men hadn’t been strategic enough to wait, but rather attacked the first wave of ships Sweyn sent. Once the rest of Sweyn’s fleet got there, most of Æthelred’s ships fled the battle like cowards. The few that stayed to fight were crushed by the Vikings’ iron fist, and two burning ships sank to the bottom where Rán’s nine daughters feasted on the bodies.
Sweyn’s forces had captured the ship that rocked beneath their feet, and now they set to plundering everything of any value from it. They took the silver from their enemies’ necks, and pulled the weapons, armor, and helmets off their bodies before tossing the corpses overboard. The slaves chained to the oars sat with their heads down, waiting for their fates to be decided.
Sweyn rolled the Saxon he’d just killed over with his foot, but couldn’t be bothered to remove the thin chain he wore around his neck. Instead he turned to Ax-Wolf.
“Who’s next in line to be given command of his own ship?” Sweyn asked. The ship they’d conquered wouldn’t go to waste.
“That kid deserves his own ship,” Ax-Wolf said, pointing to Ragnvald.
Sweyn disliked the idea of losing his best and most reliable man, but the other men present nodded.
“You do me a great honor,” Ragnvald said, putting his hand on his heart. “But I’m not steersman material, and that has never been my ambition. I will serve my king better by remaining by his side.”
Sweyn smiled at his hirdman in relief.
“Then it’s Farman,” Ax-Wolf said.
“I will gladly take this ship,” the burly warrior said, humbly bowing his head in gratitude.
Sweyn nodded.
“I greet you, steersman, the owner and commander of this ship. May you fight well for my sake and for Denmark’s.”
With those words Sweyn stepped over the gunwale and onto his own ship, which was pulled up alongside the enemy vessel.
Sweyn raised his bloody sword to the sky and gave Knut Danaást, who stood by the mast, a contented smile.
“I’ve never held anything like it,” Sweyn said of the blade. “Battle-Fire seeks out the enemy to kill on its own.”
The old man’s pale gray face colored, and he smiled contentedly at Sweyn.
“The sword’s strength suits you.”
“Fear not, Uncle,” Sweyn said, washing his hands in the bowl a slave held out to him. “Soon you will stand again on Denmark’s fertile soil, and the first of my promises to you will be fulfilled.”
“It’s uncanny how similar you are,” Knut Danaást said with a sad smile.
“Who am I like?” Sweyn said, drying his hands.
“Your father.”
Sweyn’s eyebrows shot up.
“I thought you said I reminded you of Gorm the Old?”
The old man laughed. “My father was short and ugly as a troll, and he had buck teeth.”
That’s not what Sweyn had heard, but he didn’t give it any further thought, turning instead to the laughing men who were yelling his name.
On the enemy ship, Ragnvald was dragging a scrawny monk wearing a gray cowl, his head shaved.
“He was hiding behind the water barrels,” he said, taking a firmer hold of the monk’s collar.
Several of the men gathered around him.
“See if he can walk on water,” Finnvid suggested.
“Does he have a cock in his clothes or not?” Valdemar of Fauske yelled.
The pale-cheeked monk tried in vain to hold on to his dignity when he spotted Sweyn.
“My name is Claudius, my king. Please don’t kill me. I studied in Rome, speak several languages, and am skilled in construction and art.”
He spoke so quickly, his words were tripping over one another, but his pronunciation was that of a nobleman, and his eyes were keen and alert behind his fear.
Sweyn rubbed the back of his neck, amused.
“Are you a Saxon?”
“My mother was an Angle, my father a Frank.”
“Should I dispatch him to Rán?” Ragnvald asked.
Sweyn shook his head.
“No, bring him along. Maybe we can use him for something,” he said, and then took a deep breath of the salt-saturated air.
Rán’s daughters were playing in the sea, so vast that it stretched all the way to infinity and even beyond that.
“Thank you, my blessed master and king. I swear to serve you with all my strength,” the poor monk said. “Do I dare ask where we’re headed?”
“Home,” Sweyn called out, and then laughed, looking up at the sky.
Truly, it was time to go home.
The ground was freezing cold under Sigrid’s feet as she walked through the Svea camp, astonished warriors staring and gaping at her, while others pointed and laughed derisively.
She found the king sitting outside his white tent with Axel and his highest-ranking men. His banner fluttered from the top. He leaned back in amusement, scrutinizing Sigrid’s naked feet and unkempt hair.
“It doesn’t look like you’re taking your daughter’s disappearance very well,” he remarked.
Sigrid stopped in front of the man she hated more than anything else in this world and swallowed her pride. Humility was the only viable approach, however much it stung.
“Husband, I beg you for your assistance,” she said, kneeling down and kissing his shoe.
Erik laughed.
“I thought I would see my horse fly before you came groveling through the dirt before my feet,” he said without signaling for her to get up again.
This was what he wanted. Her strength and pride were what he hated most. Calling him husband even though he had repudiated her was like stroking his sick, twisted mind. Then he pushed her away with his foot.
“You don’t need to make a spectacle of yourself for me, Sigrid of the Scylfings. I don’t know who stole the girl.”
Sigrid put her hand on his knee and humbly looked down at the ground.
“She’s your daughter, your own flesh and blood. Stealing her is as big an insult to you as to me. Surely you can’t just turn your back on her.”
Then the trap snapped shut.
“If you had protected your daughter, she wouldn’t have been running around in the dark like a bitch in heat among all the soldiers and trash,” Erik said.
Sigrid looked up at him as he scratched his beard, his eyes filled with hatred.
“Estrid’s maidservant was watching over her, but she was killed by the men who kidnapped our daughter.”
Erik stood up so fast, he almost tipped her over. He furiously stomped over to the table where his highest-ranking men were eating breakfast. The warriors around them were following everything they said. It wouldn’t look good if the king turned his back on his own flesh and blood on this point of honor.
He grabbed a tankard of water and drained it.
&nbs
p; “She probably just ran away, pining for some rural farmer,” he said with a shrug.
“That is likely, my king,” Axel said obsequiously.
Sigrid carefully hid her loathing of the kingmaker and looked pleadingly at Erik.
“The Anund clan took her. Their tracks have been found. Those brutes you want to form an alliance with despise you so much, they stole your own daughter. Go get her back, I pray you, in the name of what’s honorable.”
Sigrid looked down. She played the part of the weak woman, humbly begging for Erik’s favor, because sometimes groveling was the price of power. This was the only way she could think of to persuade Erik to honor the pact they had once agreed to: to join the Geats in pursuing the enemies who had stolen Estrid instead of attacking them. If things went well, she would get her daughter back alive, the peace would continue, and the Anund clan would be wiped out. Her pride was a cheap price to pay for all of that.
“If they stole her as a bride, you’ll end up with blood ties to the lowest of families,” she said ominously, concealing her revulsion at the words. “Bride stealing is punishable by death, according to the law. You are our ruler and king. Surely you will uphold the law in your own kingdom for your own daughter. Save Estrid, I beg you.”
Sigrid bowed until her forehead touched the ground in the most subservient of gestures, and she cast a cautious glance at the men gathered around them. She discerned displeasure among several of the warriors at the king’s curtness. A king was a father to his people, and if he wouldn’t protect his own daughter or stand by his own word, what kind of job was he going to do protecting the Svea?
Erik realized this as well, because he reached his hand out to Sigrid.
“All right. I won’t be unreasonable about this.”
Sigrid carefully curbed her triumph as he pulled her to her feet.
“Most esteemed ruler of the Svea, most powerful of kings, I thank you,” Sigrid said calmly.
“Where’s my son?”
Sigrid clenched her teeth, because she realized right away what he wanted.
“In my hall, under the supervision of trusted men,” she finally said.
Estrid (The Valhalla Series Book 2) Page 14