Sons of Ymir

by Alaric Longward

  “I know,” I snarled.

  She held her hands around her, afraid. “He worships the old gods and seems to have an uncanny luck on his side. Lok’s Bend is where he has been brewing his trouble from. It is a land filled with ruins and misery, and woods and swamps … a veritable hold of shit. Whoever tries to catch him finds his command in chaos, his supplies stolen, his officers at odds and even murdered. They have hanged thousands of this Caru's following. He claims to lead god Lok’s depraved people, but only lately has there been a rumor this Caru is finally dead. Old age, you see, not sword. That’s why they don’t speak of it. But King Sarac’s son has been holding a feast for his nobles in Xal Cot. King Sarac died in Dagnar?”

  I nodded. “Where do we find Lok’s Bend, then?” I asked her. “Let us forget this adopted horse. We could—”

  She lifted a finger and shook her head. “Now, now. Let us not be hasty. Can you be a dear, girl…Princess, and lock the backdoor and the front one. I need time.” She smiled. “As it happens, I was on one tour in Xal Cot, chasing rebels. I got to know the land and this filthy cult. They love tricks. They play deadly tricks, and they rarely speak their mind straight. They think they are mimicking their filthy god, but they truly cannot match him. Their tricks, jokes, and evil are paltry in comparison to the tales of Lok. You know of Lok?”

  I shrugged.

  Quiss rolled her eyes at me as she was barring the front door.

  Tris looked up at me with disbelief and sighed. She leaned on the wall, holding her wrist. “The Aesir and the Vanir. Gods, they said, hated Lok. Tricky god, ever causing turmoil that threw the gods themselves into battle and despair. See why Caru might seem a pitiful thing. Calling himself the Mouth of Lok? Hah! The gods … well, they don’t say that anymore. No gods, eh?” She winked. “Is Balic truly dead?”

  I nodded. “He won’t go to Malignborg in a coffin. His bitch queen is the one running the family business. Always has been. They are dead, Tris. They want all of you dead, as well as us. Jotun, man, woman, man, old, young. Hel is real, the gods are, too, and Balic is the product of a cursed spell.”

  She looked at me with worry, then her friends.

  I shrugged. “They got unlucky. You might be lucky.”

  “Yes, thank you,” she muttered. “Tell you what. I told your lady I have an idea on the horse puzzle. I shall share that idea with you, for my life.”

  Quiss grinned as she came to sit on the bar and helped herself to ale. “At least she is cheap. The last one who negotiated with him managed to get Nallist and became a queen.”

  “Is that possible?” she whispered. “I mean, not becoming the queen, but—”

  “She gave me an army,” I snarled, and shook my head. “My bed is full, my heart is full, my body is full of wounds, my kingdom is much harmed, and I need answers, Tris. If you give them willingly, your status as a living, breathing woman will be continued.”

  She grinned, an impish, clever woman, and I felt she was already calculating how many cities she might rule. She was much like Nima. She leaned forward. “I told you. They are tricky. Their tricks are evil, like poison in your ale, or crude, like stealing the general’s horse and replacing it with a goat. They are, simply said, secretive and childish. Lok, as I was saying, is a god. He is an evil god, kin to jotuns, and everyone says the prophecies tell us that when he is finally released—”

  “Lok be damned,” I snarled. “I—”

  Quiss smacked my head. “He was imprisoned for tricking Hodur the Blind to kill Odin’s son Baldr, who now sits in Hel’s hall.”

  “When he is released,” Tris said with some asperity, “it will be Ragnarök, and the end of all.”

  “Jotun kin?” I asked. “Lok?” I smiled. “All the gods are jotuns. So I have been told.”

  Quiss looked at me oddly. “Maskan?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Get to the point, Tris.”

  “I?” Tris said with little patience. “Sure. Lok is a tricky god and cannot help himself. He meddles in the affairs of the Nine Worlds; he travels the lands causing chaos. He sometimes helps people, and sometimes harms them, but the price is always there.”

  “I hear all the gods charge for favors,” I murmured.

  I felt, perhaps I did, Bolthorn laughing in my head. It was distant and still real. It made me sweat with fear. His price would be terrible, and I feared it.

  She looked at me like I was an idiot and nodded. “Fine. Whatever. Lok tricks are spawned by god’s evil mind, and his followers?” She shrugged. “They are idiots. They are dangerous idiots, but idiots nonetheless. Caru is their Mouth and has been silent for months, but this business of you finding an adopted horse?” She rolled her eyes. “They have done this before. They simply scramble the letters in the words, so that if someone reads their text, it takes them forever to realize what is says. King Sarac found many such letters on his victims, and usually Caru simply had penned down scrambled words for a lamb roast or an ale recipe. This could be different. It is a damned anagram, or I am a fool. Here.”

  She leaned forward, hesitated, and dipped her finger in the tavern keeper’s blood. Quiss grinned at her.

  She drew the words in the dust.

  Then, she mulled it over and we leaned over her. “Adopted horse,” she said softly.

  She was at it for a long while.

  Finally, she drew again. “Adopted Shore?”

  I looked at Quiss. She pushed me back and went to sit with Tris. Together, they were whispering, looking at each other like the best of friends, and then leaned over the words.

  I sat back and let them work.

  Then, Tris was nodding, and when they straightened their backs, I saw two words. “Deadtop Shore,” Tris said. “It is a remote smuggler’s bay and has a small fishers hut and nothing else. Ten miles out of Aten.”

  I nodded and smiled. “Tricky, and still, not too tricky.”

  “All right,” Tris said and shrugged. “I know they have been rounding up scholars and people who are well versed in Lok. They are no fools.” She gave Quiss an approving glance. “We are not, either.” She turned to me. “And now? Will you let me live?”

  “Aye,” I told her. “You are coming with us. We need a guide.”

  “Wait,” she said. “How? The city is locked down.”

  “Is there a roof to the building?” I asked. “I’ll make one.”

  CHAPTER 15

  We flew through the night. I beat my wings, and Tris, holding her eyes closed, and Quiss, eyeing the night, dangled from my claws. I held on tight on their arms, and we flew east along the coast. Soon, very soon, I heard Tris calling and saw her pointing. We saw the end of a small peninsula. It jutted out to the sea, and I saw the waves crashing majestically into high rocky walls. Then, when we were close, circling the peninsula, she pointed to a small bay on the eastern side, below the high sides of the peninsula and under a larger town.

  I banked and glided down for the beach. I skimmed the waves and dropped both to the surf, landed, changed, and avoided trampling them.

  Both were sitting waist deep in the water, drenched. A wave broke over them, and they struggled to stand.

  I was looking around the beach. “Where?”

  She nodded. “The cabin? Over there.”

  I turned to see where she was pointing at and found, indeed, a house hidden behind a set of bushes. It was twisted on its side, looked ready to collapse, and still, there was a bit of light shining on one of its windows. I pointed a finger at Tris and then at the shadows of the rocky wall. “Do not run, and I shall take you back home in the morning.”

  She frowned, got up, curtsied with mockery, her breeches dripping water, and gave Quiss a smile as she walked off.

  “She is odd,” she decided. “We killed her friends, and she thinks you are her best friend.”

  “She hopes I shall spare her,” I said, “and hopes to profit. And perhaps she is bored and needs an adventure. Shall we? She won’t be trouble.”

  We went forwar
d, and the stones crunched under our feet. I went past two huge boulders and led Quiss forward for the door.

  When we got close to the doorway, it opened.

  A man had opened it, and he held an old shield and a thick spear. He smiled crookedly and was missing a few teeth. He had a dark-blue mask tattooed on his forehead, and his hair was white and black, long to his chest and back. He was in his fifties and had a limp and looked odd, dangerous. His eyes were on Quiss. “Come in, then. King Maskan?”

  I nodded and stepped in after him. A large hall was lit with candles, and there were chairs, benches, and it smelled of fish.

  “I am not sure if a jotun approves such rustic setting,” the man muttered. “But then again, you have probably been sleeping in ditches during this horrible war.”

  I nodded again and looked at the place. The corners were dark, the walls hung with nets. Old barrels and a cold fire-pit were filled with straws and wood.

  Caru turned around like a prince and crashed into a seat. “This, here, a smuggler’s paradise. They have a cave nearby, and its filled with fish rot and bones. Behind that, a cave to the city above. Smugglers and pirates, see, do—”

  “We have such in Red Midgard,” I agreed. “I have much to ask.”

  Caru nodded. “I have much to tell. I never thought I’d tell it to Morag’s son, but I will. I am so happy you found me. It wasn’t hard, was it? I hear someone else has been seeking that horse as well.” He looked down, bothered, and brushed a speck of dust from his leg. “It is unfortunate,” he murmured. “But we shall see. Do sit, King.”

  I sat next to him and leaned on my head. The ax dangled in my hand, and then, I took out the shield from under my cloak and put it on my lap.

  Quiss stepped fully into the hall. She looked at Caru in silence.

  “So, ask away, King,” he said. “It is high time we find some common ground.”

  “What were you doing in Aten?” I asked.

  Caru was looking at his fingers. His eyes went to Quiss. She looked uncomprehending.

  Caru spat and spoke. “That’s for you.”

  Quiss Atenguard turned to look at me, puzzled.

  I snarled and spoke. “Yes, that was for you. What were you doing in Aten? When I was escaping from Balic’s clutches and found you in the dungeon, what were you doing? Why did you stay, after Balic decided to make you into draugr? You could have left anytime. And what happened to the real Quiss?”

  Caru lifted a blue book from his side. “The older sister Quiss died in Malignborg, during the siege and rebellion that killed many of the loftiest royals in the land. It was twenty years ago. Back then, Balic had died during the Cataclysm, and Hel’s servant had come back to Midgard, as had few very special humans seeking to restore the gods to the Nine, but it all ended terribly.” He shook his head, deep in his thoughts. “Quiss. She died with her father, Aten-Sur, in the Necropolis of the Eye Keep. She wasn’t raised. Sometimes, they just cannot be called back, not even by Balic, Mir, or …” He licked his lips. “Her younger sister took the mantle and name of Quiss and was deemed too young by the draugr-mother Raven and draugr-father Aten-Sur to be turned into one of them. So, the young Quiss lived on until this one took her place.”

  Quiss looked at him and the book with trepidation.

  “Where she is?” Caru muttered. “I don’t know.”

  “Did you kill the girl?” I asked. “What did you do with her?”

  Caru cleared his throat, but I watched Quiss. She said nothing, and her eyes were dark with fury. I knew that fury well.

  “Why?” I asked her.

  She lifted her eyes and looked outside. I heard a noise. Then another.

  Caru shifted in his seat. “She has lost her voice,” he said. “Emotions. They do that to one.”

  “Tell us a story,” I told Caru. “Make it a good one.”

  We both looked at Quiss, but Caru spoke. “Hel’s War. It was fought over the Eye of Hel, stolen by two gorgons, First Born. Hel blamed it on an elf lord, instead. It all resulted in that elf stealing away the Gjallarhorn, the Horn that closes and opens all the gates in all the Nine Worlds, that the gods and mortals used to travel. The gates were closed, the elf kept the Horn, he kept the eye, and the gods and Hel, both, lost the war and were abandoned. The elf turned into a lich. The gorgons, who had hoped to conquer worlds while Hel destroyed others, waited.”

  Quiss was walking back and forth, her hand on her sword’s hilt. “You know much,” she said.

  Caru nodded. “I was told much. I have learned much. I have had two decades, you bitch. I have learnt it all from one of your kind.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  He cleared his throat. “And then, humans, very special humans,” he whispered, almost reverently, “came to Aldheim, the elven world, summoned by one of the gorgons. They could see the great power, and she, that gorgon, employed them to regain the Horn and the Eye. Many died. Aldheim was in war, and in the end, Shannon, the greatest of the humans, died in battle with the lich. The gorgon took the Horn, but Shannon, holding the Eye of Hel, died. She found herself with Hel, in Helheim, after crossing the bridges, carrying her Eye.”

  He rubbed his face.

  “Hel rewarded her with a title and power. She was the new Hand of Hel. She was given Hel’s dagger, Famine, a terrible weapon, and sent back for Hel’s and Shannon’s revenge. The gorgon, meanwhile, had made war on Aldheim, had opened a gate to Svartalfheim, and it looked dire for the elves. Shannon changed all that. She defeated the gorgon, and the gorgon’s newly arrived sister. She defeated the armies. All of them. Both elven and svartalf. She did it with Hel’s magic. She created draugr by tens of thousands of the fallen. Others. Not all are draugr. The spell resonated across the Nine Worlds. The Cataclysm in Midgard was part of that.”

  “Twenty years ago?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  He went on. “Hel had a purpose for Shannon. Hel wanted the Horn, she wanted the worlds to feel her pain, and Shannon led Hel’s draugr after the Horn, which …” He took a deep breath. “Her fine sister, Dana, who had conspired against her earlier, causing her death, took to Svartalfheim. There, Shannon conquered Scardark, and only goddess Nött, the lady of the night, could stop her. Dana, and one Anja, and their guard, a dragon, used Nött’s secret magic to come to Midgard. You see, only a god of a First Born, like all the three gorgons are, may blow the Horn and open a gate. Here, there was another, one—”

  “Baduhanna, trapped,” I said.

  “Baduhanna,” he agreed. “Trapped by your filthy father.”

  I swallowed the rage. Quiss was pacing back and forth, shaking her head.

  Caru sighed, and went on, his eyes on the doorway. Shadows moved there. “They tried to find Baduhanna. Hel’s minion followed them and brought forth the dagger Famine and deviously turned the kings and queens against each other. A great calamity, rebellion, and battle in Malignborg followed. Vittar, Aten-Guard, Harrian, Bellic … So many deaths occurred, so many high ones fell; a great magic was granted to Hel’s minion by those deaths. From Famine was recalled ten terrible beings, who had died on it before.”

  Quiss held her face and leaned on the wall. She spoke. “Ten from the Stone, so they called themselves. Seven were vampires. You have not met them. Rhean is not one of these. They are elsewhere, doing their own evil, those that survived.”

  “Hel’s plans on plans,” I muttered as I looked at her.

  Caru smiled. “Indeed! Seven vampires. Some fell. Few remain. I killed one, once. The three beings that were not vampires, were the most terrible curse on Midgard. See, Hel wants many things. She wants to punish the gods and their worlds for her deformed existence. She wanted her Eye back. And then, she wanted one more thing, and that thing can be found in Midgard, in Mara’s Brow.”

  “What is this thing?” I asked.

  He leaned forward. “Wait. See— “

  Quiss looked at him venomously. “This is not your business to share, Urac. Aye, it is Urac, and not Caru, becau
se the imbecilic fool really thinks he is Mouth of Lok, instead of that Dana.”

  Caru, Urac, shook his head. “You keep your mouth shut, traitor. Hel seeks vengeance. That is why she attacked Midgard ages ago. Her Hand of Hel fought for her vengeance. These Ten from The Stone, twenty years ago, as well. The vampires I mentioned. Two others were Stheno, and Euryale, the gorgons Shannon killed with Famine, and the latter one is your current bane, jotun. She is the one evil that remains in Midgard, and is causing all of this. She is trying to get in to Mara’s Brow, into a room sealed by your father, because Shannon, who came out of the stone last, set Euryale the Lich, the Serpent Skull in charge of a long-term plan. She was to take Midgard, and Euryale invented the One Man. Shannon set out north, for a short-term plan. If she were to fail to finish what Lok’s first Hand of Hel failed to do, Euryale was to come and release her.”

  I stared at him. “Euryale set to do so? This is all about that? And how would she have gotten in there? The Black Grip only works with one of our kin holding it.”

  He laughed. “Euryale would chew down the mountain, for Shannon’s order is powerful. However, Euryale knew one of the special humans had a skill. She could open anything by touch. Anja, her name is. Shannon had captured her, she went after Dana, and the Horn, raised the northern dead with Stheno, the other undead gorgon, and found Medusa, who knew Mara’s Brow and the location of the sealed room where their goal was. Dana and a warrior named Gutty aided Morag to fight them. What followed,” he said sadly, “was terrible. Morag and her kin,” he said, nodding at Quiss, “made a pact to fight the enemy, but in the end, Morag put down both the dead army, and their kin, and I hear sealed Medusa, Dana, Shannon, the brute in a chamber before Lok’s prison. He took this Anja away and hid her.”

  I was nodding. Quiss looked down.

  “Morag was never a good king,” he said. “He made laws to protect his greed, his gold, his power. He abandoned old jotun gods, and sent them no treasure. A jotun of old blood, I know, is powerful when he serves his kings, or if he is of a royal blood, he serves his true gods. Morag hated men, he hated laws, but used both to cover himself in gold. He looted their Golden City,” he said and looked at Quiss, “and sealed the Horn, Famine, and the heroes in, and took Anja, so they couldn’t escape.” He shook his head. “The dead have Anja now. Morag told them, the poor draugr. He will guide them to the door. Euryale will want to get in. She is plagued by Shannon’s command.”