‘That weapon kills gods,’ she said. ‘It was forged to do so. The gods die many deaths. That can finish them eternally. Kill this goddess. Kill this aspect of Freya and let the waters have her divinity, as they now have old Odin’s.’
‘And my Hals?’
‘He is dead and cannot be reborn.’
‘Why not?’
‘I will not let him go and you, lady, for all your might, have nothing to give. Now send the goddess to the mire, let Odin live, or go and keep the world in torment.’
Tola weighed the Moonsword in her hand.
‘Do as she says,’ said Freydis. ‘I am ready to die.’
The weapon felt light and shone under the starlight like a curved moonbeam.
Then she struck, not at Freydis but at Hel, sinking the sword deep into her neck. The lady howled and twisted, her head lolling, and she collapsed into the mire, the Valkyries sweeping down upon her like crows from a black sky, tearing at her as she fell into the water.
‘What have you done?’ said Giroie. ‘What have you done?’
Tola struck him too, cutting off his head with a single blow and the rune burst out of him, splashing into the waters of the mire, which bubbled with blood, seething as if a mighty host of fish snapped for bait inside it.
The god stood from the mire, his peat-stained skin sparkling, his long, sinewy limbs levering himself from the water.
Spectre women rose from the water, flying up on wings of shadow to surround him. The god looked weak, standing on bog-blackened legs like a newborn foal.
‘Fourteen runes with the god in the water. One from the dead man! Nine more runes to gather!’ shrieked the Valkyries.
The god put out his hand towards Freydis and Tola saw bright shapes stream through the air towards him. Freydis coughed and fell. The god had simply sucked the runes into him.
‘Twenty runes in the dark god’s orbit, four more and the debt will be paid!’a dead man shouted.
‘Odin is near to life! Hel is struck down. We sail to sacrifice the god on earth so he may please the Norns and live again in Valhalla!’ screamed a tall Viking with a huge wound in his chest.
Tola pulled Freydis from the wet ground but the black shapes were all around her. Valkyries, sweeping her up.
They grabbed at Tola, and at Freydis, flying them back over the dark fields and through the dark woods to the beach where the ship still burned. The God flew with them, borne by his Valkyries, his skin leather, the noose at his neck streaming like a banner, his great spear shining but limp in his hand. They carried him as if he were a warrior, newly dead on the field of glory.
Tola jumped into the ship, the flames catching all over her body. There was an intense sensation of heat, a brief agony, and then the pain disappeared, as quick as it had come. A dead man took the tiller and the boat slid into the black water, a thousand other ships igniting behind it, the warriors calling Odin’s name.
The black water was cool and deep, the flames reflecting within it, turning the mass of boats into a constellation of blazing stars. The river’s mouth disgorged into a black sea and Tola felt the rocking of the boat, tasted salt on the breeze. The boat steadied and the sea was no more. She was floating with a thousand other ships in a night of sharp stars.
The ship turned and rose, the others following it. Below them light shone in the three colours of the rainbow, gold, red and blue. The ship fell into the beam and now the stars rushed like comets, fans of light stretching out over it.
Still falling, falling into blackness. Then a lurch, a jolt, a noise of creaking timbers and it sank towards the island, towards grey seas, a grey sky.
57 A Blow Against Fate
Styliane made the top of the ridge and stood beside the burning ship, its heat almost welcome after the cold of the journey.
‘You have killed her?’ she said to the ragged woman she found there. The story was unhealed, the god could not be born! Styliane’s mouth felt dry. Had she achieved what she had set out to do? Was this the right place, where the girl’s sacrifice would please the Norns?
‘I have sent her on a journey.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Odin’s servant.’
Styliane looked hard at Célene.
‘I have seen you before, I think. You are weathered and you are old but it’s your mother’s eyes that you use to look at me. It’s a gaze I have remembered for a century. You are the child of blood.’
‘I am the child of blood. I sang my long song and called you here.’
‘Do you mean to kill me?’
‘This is not a place of death.’
‘It is the grave of a god, I think.’
‘The grave breeds life. All things contain their opposites. Listen to the flames. They speak with the voice of the rain.’
It really did seem that the sound of the flames was the sound of a great rain in the hills.
The ship creaked and groaned, its mast collapsing in a cascade of sparks. Styliane caught her breath as she saw figures taking shape in the fire – two women, one slender, the other squat. Around the squat one runes sang and spat, crackled like meat cooking on a pan, whistled like a log in the hearth.
‘And now what?’
‘The god is coming. His army of dead men is sailing on ships of fire. The girl who bears the wolf rune is with them.’
‘Will I die?’
‘I saw you in my dreams. You lived so long because the story shattered and the end was never told. Now the story is whole again. Odin will die forever, the wolf will be killed, the Norns’ will obeyed, the runes will go from the earth.’
‘No. The wolf will live! I will live!’
Now lights appeared in the sky, floating flames, descending to the island. The figures in the longboat pyre moved. She saw the god, his huge form in the fire, black against the flame, twisted like a hazel tree. Inside, she saw the runes sparkling.
Styliane tried to count them but could not.
‘The god is on his way,’ said Célene. ‘But where is the wolf? Your time is gone, lady, your story told.’
Rage, so strong she could taste it, iron in her mouth, sprang up in Styliane. ‘Kill her!’
Five dead warriors with axes and swords came towards Célene. The ragged lady smiled to see them.
‘Twenty,’ she said as an axe struck her in the back.
‘No!’ shouted Styliane, realising too late what her anger had made her do. A dead man struck again and Célene lay dead on the floor, her rune shrieking through the night to join its sisters in the flames. The god must not come until the wolf was there to kill him.
Tola stood before Styliane, her back to the great fire, a charred spear in her hand.
‘You have done this,’ she said. ‘You have gathered the runes. The god played his trick on you even in death.’
‘I have played a trick on him,’ said Styliane and she drove her little knife into Tola’s chest. ‘You will never kill the wolf. The story will remain unfinished!’ The knife stuck there and Tola sank to her knees, looking at it as if she didn’t quite recognise what it was.
‘Kill her!’ said Styliane. The dead men pounced as the wolf struck.
58 A Hero’s Death
The boats of fire hung in the air and on the sea all around the island, lighting the night. Gylfa watched as Tola grasped for the knife in her chest. The wolf tore at Styliane’s dead men, their arms and legs, heads and entrails flying into the night. Spears and swords struck it uselessly, the fall of the point, the slash of a blade only serving to alert the wolf to the presence of an attacker; a second death at the teeth of a god who was the end of all magic.
This was death’s kingdom, come to earth. This was Hel rising up into the realm of men, Gylfa was sure.
The wolf was a giant, the height of two men, its eyes green fire, its teeth red with gore. Loys. What a warrior, to transform h
imself so. The company of such heroes would guarantee Gylfa his own place in a saga. His kin would need to respect him then.
For a while he thought he was in a fever, dreaming. But the runes had been quieted by the presence of the wolf and he felt not nearly so sick.
Three dead men leaped upon the wolf but it shook them off as a dog shakes off rainwater. When they came again they were torn apart, the wolf throwing back its head to guzzle down a still-writhing arm or driving its snout into a belly to break the dead warrior in two.
The legions of Odin watched on, their fire ships bobbing on unseen currents in the dark air.
Gylfa felt bold. He had come through great trials, faced great enemies and now he was at the centre of his own story. The last of the dead men struck the floor, the wolf howling its victory song above the slithering remnants of its enemies. It was as if it stood in a boiling pot, the ground bubbling with flesh around it.
The wolf stood and took something from his mouth. The wolfstone? He held it up and looked long at it.
In the fire Gylfa saw a huge figure, a dark twisted shape like a root in the hearth. The runes inside him, so timorous in the face of the wolf, pulled and stretched. They wanted to go to him. How to let them? How could he be free of this sickness? He couldn’t think.
Styliane threw something into the fire. It sparkled briefly against the light before exploding with a flash of bright flames, sharp as thorns. He saw a rune flicker in the flames and the dark god extend his hand to take it, thorns curling around his arm until it disappeared within him. Styliane approached the wolf but a great roar from the beast drove her backwards.
Other shapes moved within the flames, monstrous women, creatures of shadow, their bodies long, wavering in the heat of the fire. He wanted to let the runes go.
‘This is the place,’ said the wolf to Tola. ‘The god is not yet here. Make the sacrifice. Defy fate. End the story.’
Tola staggered, clutching at the knife in her breast, but she raised the Moonsword.
‘What happens if you die?’
‘The god will go back to Hel, his bargain to the fates unfulfilled.’
‘I am fate,’ said Tola. ‘No one, not even the gods, can escape the fate the Norns have set for them.’
‘If you kill me, you can,’ said the wolf. ‘You are one of the sisters who spins the fate of all men. Finish spinning for me.’
Gylfa did not really understand what he was hearing but he knew that the wolf had saved him many times and that, in his presence, the runes were quiet, he was not sick. The woman had the sword ready to strike the wolf. She was a witch and had subdued him. He would repay his friend, save him.
He leapt upon Tola, driving his dagger down into her breast. For an instant before he struck, he saw her smile. Then a black swirl leapt from the fire. He saw a woman, or the corruption of a woman, leather skin, fireblack spear, strike at Tola and she died. Styliane ran to the corpse, her eyes wide with delight.
‘I have saved you,’ said Gylfa. ‘My friend and guide, I have saved you!’
The wolf threw back its head, howling to the cold night.
Voices were all around Gylfa. More of those tattered women and another that he knew. Freydis, the half-man.
‘Three runes, three runes before the god will step from the fire,’ shrieked the women.
‘How shall I release them?’said Gylfa.
‘I will show you.’ It was a woman’s voice. The warrior Freydis, her sword drawn.
She hacked at Gylfa, cutting a deep wound into his neck.
‘You are parted,’ said Freydis.
Gylfa collapsed, his hand trying to stem the flow of blood from his neck.
Desperately he drew his sword and slashed at Freydis. She stepped away from his blow and he had no strength to follow her.
He felt the runes going, sucked into the fire, and he saw the great god step from the boat, his skin smoking, his one eye mad, his spear high, renewed, ready for the fight. Above Gylfa the hag women shrieked.
The god came roaring at the wolf and the wolf went wild.
59 Life Eternal
Odin fell, his spear jabbing into the wolf ’s flanks, but the animal had him, its jaws about his neck.
A great music filled the air, a discordant pipe, a tormented drum. She saw images of hail, of fog, smelled the stink of animals, felt a cold wind blowing, then a blast like the breath of a furnace. The runes were all around her.
On the ground she saw the wolfstone, where the wolf had thrown it. She grabbed at it and the milling, spinning, crashing, thumping runes fell but did not touch her, as rain falls on the hull of a boat turned over for shelter.
Styliane, though, stretched out her arms, casting back her head in the runefall like a farmer welcoming rain to the drought-blighted land.
The runes entered her, Sowilo, Dagaz, Othala, while others were sucked away over the ocean like leaves blown by a storm.
Odin was dead and the wolf tore his body, ripping out entrails like silver ropes.
‘My love!’ Styliane fell into Freydis’s arms.
Freydis held her.
‘My magic is returned,’ said Styliane. ‘We are immortals together.’
‘My magic has gone,’ said Freydis. ‘If you live forever it will be without me.’
‘Come to the boat,’ said Styliane. ‘We will get away from this monster before he finishes his feast. The story is not finished. There is no one left to kill him! Come to the boat and let us speak of these things when we are safe.’
Freydis went with the lady to the longship, its sail limp in the windless dawn.
‘We cannot sail this alone,’ she said.
‘Get in.’
Freydis did as she was bid.
Styliane gestured to the sail and a wind sprang up. She heard a rune say its name, whispered as if in the breath of a horse. Ehwaz. The travel rune.
‘Go to the tiller,’ said Styliane. ‘Our life begins again today.’
But Freydis did not go to the tiller. She stood looking at Styliane.
‘Will you not do as I say, my love?’
‘I thought I could serve you in anything,’ said Freydis. ‘I thought I could die for you.’
‘You have died and returned.’
‘But my love is not selfless. A goddess looks through my eyes and she is wilful. You betrayed me. You offered me to the god in the mire. You grew your love for me like a cook grows herbs, cared for me like the shepherd the sheep he will slaughter.’
‘My love was genuine.’
‘Your love for yourself greater.’
‘I wanted to live.’
‘Without me?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I found I could bear death but I could not bear the parting. I found you again, I thought because of magic. No. It was destiny. We are meant to be together,’ said Freydis.
‘As we shall be.’
‘As we shall be.’
‘What do you mean to do?’
Freydis took a pace closer to Styliane.
‘I would not use the runes against you, Freydis. It is right that you gave them to me. I am the master, you the servant.’
‘I am no one’s servant. I am a goddess.’ Freydis stepped forward and the runes sprang up around Styliane. Sowilo burned with its cleansing fire.
‘I will strike you down.’
‘Then strike. Send me to the afterlife. Show you can live without me.’
A tongue of fire shot from the sharp S of the rune towards Freydis but the flames did not touch her. She was shielded by an invisible force.
She saw the fear in Styliane’s eyes. Freydis held out her hand, showed her the wolfstone.
‘It is a bane to magic,’ she said.
‘What will you do?’
‘I will leave you beautiful,’ said Freydis.
She put the wolfstone into her mouth. All Styliane’s runes now raged. Fire, ice and hail drove towards Freydis but the warrior was untouched.
She put her hands around Styliane’s neck. The lady tried to fight her but it was useless. Styliane was light, delicate, and had never had to lift a thing for herself. Freydis, a warrior, strangled the life from her and the runes flew up into the grey sky.
The wolf still gnawed on the body of the god.
Freydis spat out the stone.
‘I would take you with me if I could,’ she said to the wolf. ‘Our story is over. You live on, your enemy dead, his bargain unfulfilled. You face forever alone.’
She lifted Styliane and carried her up to the burning ship. At the tiller was Célene, alongside Gylfa, proud as a lord, sitting on a wooden box, his hands on an oar. On the other side was Hals, he too ready to row along with the crew of dead men. There at the prow was Tola, smiling. In her hand was a distaff and with it she spun the dull wool she bore around her neck into a golden thread.
Freydis laid Styliane in the flames and kissed her.
‘Soon you will wake and live forever with me,’ she said, ‘in my hall, in my lands, doing my bidding.’
‘Row,’ she said to the others. ‘Row to the rainbow bridge and from there to my hall in the fields of Fólkvangr.’
The boat lifted from the shore, leading the fleet of burning longships behind it, floating up into the cloudy sky, beyond the clouds, to find the rainbow.
Below them the wolf howled, alone on the island, gazing out over the grey ocean, seeing nothing.
Also by M.D. Lachlan from Gollancz
Wolfsangel
Fenrir
Lord of Slaughter
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © M.D. Lachlan 2015
All rights reserved.
The right of M.D. Lachlan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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