The Children of Wrath

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  “Wait,” a male voice called from behind her, the accent indecipherable.

  Skögul’s head swung upward and beyond Kevral. The Renshai spun to face a wall of Einherjar, including the Northman who had so casually watched her battle with Mundilnarvi.

  A handsome, slender blond in a light leather tunic and breeks spoke, his voice matching the previous command. “We want her to stay.”

  The spears of the Valkyries rattled downward, menacing the mortals outside the gate more than those they intended to intimidate. Herfjötur stepped forward. “We choose who stays.”

  Kevral recognized the next Einherjar, a sinewy woman with long, golden hair knotted at the back. Ranilda Battlemad was Colbey’s mother. “No, you choose who enters.” She whipped her sword out in a single swirling kata that Kevral scarcely had time to admire before it returned to its sheath. “We decide who stays.” She smiled sweetly at Kevral. “And you may stay, young Renshai.”

  Kevral could not control the grin that all but wrapped itself around her face. She pictured herself exchanging graceful Renshai maneuvers with their inventors, learning age-old tactics lost to time and obscurity, forever locked in combat with the greatest swordmasters of every era. Though she had pictured the scene a million times, since her mind could first grasp the idea of such a place, the scene gained a perfection and beauty that the certainty of losing her soul had stolen these last several days. Like a man burdened by months of pain finding pleasure in the simple cessation, she reveled in the possibility of regaining the ultimate reward, so recently lost to her.

  A massive warrior with dark blond hair and piercing green eyes studied her from amidst the others. Though similar to the first man’s accent, his tone contained a heavy solidity the other’s had lacked. Likely, they had lived in the same time, but the first tainted his speech with a musical touch of Northern while the second did not. “You can refuse, of course, Kevral.” He turned his companions warning looks. “Your competence and courage will surely bring you here eventually anyway.” Now his attention rolled to the Valkyries, as if to warn them not to discriminate against her in the future because of this incident.

  Ra-khir made a pained noise, but he did not speak. He would not attempt to influence a decision wholly Kevral’s, though she knew he had more than his love for her at stake. Her children had the support of many, but they would still suffer for her absence. Her companions might find a way to finish the mission without her. If she turned down the Einherjar, she felt certain the Valkyries would not allow her back in Valhalla while alive. Dead, she did not have the means to return.

  Kevral sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Finally, she allowed herself a view of the world every Renshai sought. Beyond the group in front of her, warriors battled with a skill and speed only the most practiced and gifted accomplished on Midgard. War cries drifted, and the patternless chime of steel filled her ears. She looked out over a massive battlefield interrupted only by the barracks where they partied through the night and the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the area. Every eye held a permanent spark of excitement or blazing battle joy. No man or woman of courage could tire of such a place. The decision should prove easy: a few more years or decades on Midgard versus an eternity in the haven for the bravest warriors. Yet, the best course of action eluded Kevral. Never before would she have believed she could allow anything to get between herself and Valhalla, yet the love of her family mattered at least as much.

  Kevral chose to explain her hesitation. “I have no soul.” She had intended the words to emerge in a matter-of-fact tone, but she choked on them. “I can’t return.” Angrily, she fought rising tears. One more question begged answering. “If I die here . . . ?”

  Brows knit and heads swayed. A few whispered exchanges resulted before the massive, green-eyed man spoke again. “We don’t know. It’s never come up. But we can keep it under consideration.”

  The first speaker said, “Without weakening your battles, of course. Your wounds would still heal by nightfall. We’d just have to pull the killing strokes.” He grinned. “If any.”

  “Rache,” someone challenged down the line. “You insolent son of a bitch, you’ll get yours today.”

  “Promises. Promises.” Rache clarified, “Colbey’s the only one to kill me in over a hundred years, but every day someone swears they’ll take me out.”

  Kevral glanced at her companions. Ra-khir had steeled his expression, but his teeth gnawing his lower lip revealed the discomfort he otherwise hid. Tae shook his head, dark eyes locked on Kevral. The elves seemed more curious than concerned, and Darris kept his hands wrapped around the bars, committed to documenting, not influencing, history. Again, Kevral looked at the Einherjar, plucking Renshai from their midst by their lack of armor, their grace, and their swords. She had never heard of Renshai using other weapons, though she recognized Rache by his name and he carried a small flail as well as two long swords thrust through his belt.

  “Leave!” a Valkyrie roared. “The living do not belong here!”

  The words all but clinched Kevral’s decision to stay, but she refused to bow, even to her own defiance. She dared not complicate the situation by mentioning the baby. Born here, it could surely stay; and she would prefer that over surrendering it to Pudar.

  Finally, the Northman who had waited for a turn against Mundilnarvi spoke. “Kevral.” His blue eyes glimmered with the usual zeal, but they also held a deep intelligence and sorrow. The hawklike nose gave him a predatory look, and broad lips diminished the size of his cheeks. Straw-colored hair hung in war braids tied with ribbons more appropriate for women, yet they did not diminish his masculinity. Apparently, in his day, men wore them in this fashion, too. “May I tell you a story?”

  Kevral discarded a dislike that stemmed wholly from Mundilnarvi’s association with him. “All right,” she said carefully.

  “Centuries ago, I lived in Nordmir. And I, too, participated in the battle that ended the Renshai bloodline in the North.”

  Unlike with Andvari, Kevral did not quibble over the word “battle.”

  Rache cleared his throat. “Kirin . . . ?”

  The Northman dutifully amended, “Aside from Rache, whose line, unfortunately, did not survive either. For other reasons.” He confronted Rache with raised brows over a friendly expression. Clearly, his original assertion had not required contradiction. The end result was the same.

  But the detail explained much to Kevral. Renshai named their children after warriors believed to have earned Valhalla, and the Renshai tribe of Rache descended from a man who had lived in King Sterrane’s era. This could only be the namesake of that Rache. She listened with guarded interest to a self-confessed enemy of her people.

  “At the time, it seemed right to devastate those enemies to the North who slaughtered our kin and damaged their bodies to bar them from Valhalla.”

  “But . . .” Kevral interrupted, only to find her own words suspended by Rache’s.

  “Renshai were a tribe of Northmen, like the others, but we did deliberately hew off body parts.” Rache pursed his lips, dismayed by that aspect of his heritage. “Though never from our most worthy opponents. It broke the morale of those who dared to attack us and eventually led to the tribe’s banishment.” He oriented Kevral to the proper time. “Colbey was twenty-nine when the Renshai returned to the North. The attack occurred twenty years later, when I was ten.”

  Only at that moment, it struck Kevral that she faced ancestors so distant who had participated in making the history they now studied. She had known it intellectually of course, but true understanding struck with gale force.

  “The current Renshai descend from two sources: Those few of our people who remained in the West when the others returned North.” Rache glanced through the ranks, apparently seeking anyone he might offend, then added, “Whom the returning Renshai viewed as traitors. And those trained into the tribe.” He gestured toward the dark-blond. “Santagithi’s daughter, Mitrian, who married a Western Renshai na
med Tannin.”

  Tannin. Kevral recognized the name of the second tribe of Renshai.

  “And her son from her first marriage, named for me.”

  The tribe of Rache. Kevral finally put the last detail into place, already knowing that her tribe, that of Modrey, descended from full-blooded Western Renshai.

  Kirin cleared his throat. “If you’re finished with the lesson, my brother, I’d like to finish my story.”

  The words stunned Kevral even more than the realization of their beginnings. She knew the two could share no heredity, but a pact of brotherhood between a Renshai and a slayer of Renshai seemed nearly as inconceivable.

  Rache laughed. “Sorry.”

  Kirin paused a moment longer, apparently seeking the lost thread of his tale. “I earned the name Valr, Slayer, during that war. I killed my share of Renshai in the most glorious battle of my mortal existence.” His expression went pensive, never shameful. “For that, my greatest honor, I am also remorseful.” He gave Kevral a sincere nod.

  Rache could not help interjecting, “You will notice that I, not Mundilnarvi, am his chosen brother. Valr Kirin and Colbey negotiated the peace between Renshai and the other Northmen.”

  Kevral could not recall Renshai ever being referred to as Northmen, though most knew of their Northern origins.

  “Kirin’s all right,” Rache finished.

  Valr Kirin turned Rache a stare that contained barely the tolerance the Renshai Einherjar had attributed to him.

  Kevral tried to help. “But missing a body part doesn’t bar a warrior from Valhalla, so the whole reason for banishing Renshai and, later, obliterating them from the North loses any merit it might have had.”

  Kirin swung his hard gaze to Kevral. “Exactly . . . not my point.”

  Kevral tried to return a stare as fierce.

  “It’s easy to judge centuries after the fact. And difficult to account for disparity in knowledge and societal morals.” Valr Kirin caught and held Kevral’s gaze without malice or regret. “We all believed absolutely that a missing body part barred even the most courageous warrior from Valhalla.”

  Every Northman in the group, Renshai or otherwise, nodded. Kevral expected Kirin to next defend the Northmen’s actions or Rache to explain the Renshai’s version, so the Slayer’s next words caught her off guard.

  “Which placed any living warrior who lost a major body part into your exact situation.”

  Kevral’s first instinct, to deny the analogy, passed quickly. Valr Kirin’s point remained valid. Amputees once believed, with the same certainty she did, that they could never reach Valhalla.

  Kirin waited for understanding to sink deep within Kevral, while those around him remained deferentially silent. Finally, he said, “My brother was a high-ranking officer in the army of the Northern high king. He lost a hand in the Renshai War.”

  Kevral froze, suddenly feeling a kinship with a Northern warrior centuries her senior. “What did he do?” she asked, surprised to find her mouth dry. The answer mattered more than she would have imagined.

  “He learned to live with it.” Valr Kirin gave the simple answer first. “He remained the bravest warrior I’ve ever known.” Kirin made a subtle gesture to remind her of the comparison, scores of Einherjar. “Those who had once hailed him as the greatest of leaders refused to follow a man the Valkyries would spurn. Even that didn’t stop him. He changed his style of combat and remained a competent warrior. Eventually, he became a general in the Great War between the East and the West, fighting and strategizing alongside Colbey in what remains history’s most magnificent war. He died a hero, maintaining to his grave that courage was its own reward, that dying with honor mattered more than Valhalla.”

  Kevral caught herself about to ask if the brother did find Valhalla. The whole point of the story was that it did not matter.

  Courage is its own reward. The words seemed to echo through Kevral’s head. Dying with honor matters more than Valhalla. The words seemed sacrilege, yet the immortal she had worshiped since infancy personified them every bit as much as the unnamed brother. Colbey planned to surrender his soul to rescue the world from Odin’s destruction. For her, the ultimate sacrifice was neither death nor the loss of her soul, which had occurred without her choice or knowledge. The ultimate sacrifice was losing Valhalla. She only needed to decide whether her children, her husband, and her friends were worth that price.

  Kevral looked back at Ra-khir. He held his head low, the disarray of his red-blond locks out of character yet strangely attractive. All their arguments over honor seemed to culminate in that moment, and for the first time she understood. Knights of Erythane rarely spoke of the afterlife. Like Renshai, their valor and bravery remained absolute; but the knights dedicated themselves solely to personal honor. They required no eternal reward, finding their peace in the morality they displayed during their lifetimes. When a man believes he lives only once, Kedrin had once said in a quiet moment, he becomes obligated to make that one life virtuous. At that time, Kevral had paid little heed. Now, she thought she had discovered the source of the knight’s integrity. Not only did it prove their only means of immortality, but they wished for everyone’s single chance at life to be happy.

  Ra-khir glanced up, meeting Kevral’s sapphire eyes. “I love you,” he said, his soft voice miraculously reaching her through the clamor of war and the murmurs of the Einherjar. “Do what’s best for you. I’ll learn to understand, and the boys will, too.”

  Tae opened his mouth to speak, then turned away, shaking his head. He would never fully comprehend warriors and their ways.

  “Thank you,” Kevral said to the Einherjar. “It’s an honor I’ll never forget. But my friends and family need me.” She managed only a slight smile, certain regret would ebb and flow over time. “And I need them, too.”

  Gradually, the Einherjar dispersed back to their skirmishes and battles, until only Rache remained. He unsheathed one of his swords, a slender blade tempered to demanding Renshai specifications. Kevral found a defensive stance, certain he sought one last battle with her before she left Valhalla forever. But though Rache approached, he did not attack. He offered the hilt.

  Kevral stared, uncertain of the Einherjar’s intentions. A Renshai would not willingly sacrifice his sword. Even Colbey had surrendered the one she now carried reluctantly; though, without it, mankind could not hope to battle the demons the svartalf had called against them.

  Yet a moment later Rache stated the impossible. “I called it Tisis.” Kevral recognized the Renshai word for retaliation. “I don’t need it anymore, and you can rename it.”

  Most people, Renshai or otherwise, did not name their swords, and Kevral was unfamiliar with the concept of requiring a new owner for a renaming. Likely, the practice had ended long before her birth, its significance lost on later generations. “This is a great honor. Are you sure . . . ?”

  Rache pressed the hilt into Kevral’s hand. “I’m sure.” He gave the oiled blade a gentle kiss, speaking a version of Renshai little changed over the centuries. “I’ll call you Motfrabelonning.” Literally it meant Reward of Courage. “And I expect you to return it when you’re finished.”

  “Return it?” Kevral’s shoulders slumped even as she accepted the weapon. “I can’t—”

  Rache made a brisk, silencing gesture. “Never surrender,” he said.

  Rache’s words startled Kevral, leaving her to wonder whether Colbey had defied Odin and braved Valhalla once more. It never occurred to her that he had simply overheard Ra-khir, seen the significance of the catch phrase to Kevral, and repeated it at the opportune moment.

  As Kevral turned her back toward him, Ra-khir and the ancient Renshai Einherjar exchanged careful smiles.

  CHAPTER 17

  Unbelonging

  Many mortals preferred to shun me as demon-spawned than believe my skill born of a daily effort they were too lazy to spare. To the gods, I am simply and forever human.

  —Colbey Calistinsson

 
; THE instant the shard-seekers returned from Valhalla, servants rushed Kevral and Ra-khir away to prepare, while Darris and the elves handled the shard. Rascal trotted off to her own business, trailed by two stewards who, experience taught, she would soon exhaust or lose. Discovering Mior in the corridors, Tae followed the cat to Matrinka, seeking details of the business that demanded Kevral and Ra-khir so swiftly, without even the time to rest.

  Swept to a tub room, Kevral suffered women stripping off the sweat- and blood-soaked clothing and easing her into the bath. The warmth of the water eased the deep ache of her arms, especially the right shoulder, but accomplished nothing for her headache. A healer arrived before it became clear that little of the blood had come from her, and that only from cuts so tiny she had not noticed them. The healer handled those with a cloying salve that stung worse than the injuries ever could. By the time Kevral managed a protest, they had bustled her into an overlong tunic that flared enough at the thighs to pass for a dress, her arm in a high sling.

  “My swords,” Kevral insisted as the maids whisked her toward the door.

  “No swords, Lady Kevral,” said a rotund woman nearly as tall as Ra-khir. “Not politic.”

  Kevral dug her heels into the floor, only then realizing she wore fancy slippers. “Not possible.” Before anyone could stop her, she jerked free of her many assistants to grab her sword belt.

  “My Lady,” the huge Béarnide pleaded as another whipped a comb through Kevral’s wet hair. “Please don’t. There’s no danger. It could cause trouble—”

  Kevral ignored the warning. “Let’s go.” She paused to allow the servant to sweep her short locks into proper feathers. “Where are we going anyway?”

  “Nowhere with those weapons, Lady,” the speaker insisted, even as two of the women ushered Kevral to the door. Her voice escalated as she addressed her companions. “Did you hear me? Those swords do not leave this room.”

  One of the two, a short grizzled Erythanian turned on the leader. “The day my job includes disarming Renshai, I quit.”