by Derek Nelsen
“Ragi is already packed, and he will lead himself. I will not have him showing up at Jarl Adar’s as a subordinate to Toren.”
Tor did not have time for Pedar or his politics. “Fine. I have the boys packing light. Magnus can help Ragi get the weight down. Too much gear will just slow them. It’s going to be dangerous enough just getting there this time of year.” Cold air poured into the entry as Tor opened the outside door.
“What happens if you lose?” Pedar shuddered. “You promised your sons to Vidar.”
“Regardless of how it ends—win or lose, live or die—we send the boys. My sons will not break their backs rowing Vidar’s ships—or his father’s.” Tor plodded toward home with a sack full of food and a heavy heart. Today had been a big day for Erik. Tomorrow was a big day for everyone.
Weight of the Soul
Vidar ambled through the hall as if the sacrifices that morning had been made for him. He nodded and raised a cup to each guest as he passed. Everything he did had become a spectacle, drawing attention like a fish jumping in a placid lake. With every step he made a splash, and a larger and larger ripple.
With a wide smile, he approached the table of young folk celebrating and put his cup down in front of Kiara. “Get me a refill, will you, dear?”
Erik sneered as he watched her shoulders fall, slinking away from the table to do as she was told. The sweet scent of mead wafted across the table on the giant’s breath as he waited.
“Ragi said you might have something to say to me today, Erik, something that might be able to help you, and your father.”
Toren glared at Erik, and Erik’s eyes cut to Magnus, who shook his head toward Ragi.
“No,” said Erik, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
Vidar scowled at Orri, and Orri at Ragi.
Ragi looked like he might piss himself and hid his face in his cup of glogg, a woman’s drink if there ever was one.
Vidar’s attention slid back to Erik. “Didn’t you want to be a Viking? I was told you would be offering me your ring.”
Toren looked at his brother as if he was going to throw his drink in his face if he didn’t move this Viking along.
“No.” Erik peered into his soul ring. “I just got it today, I don’t think I know what I want to do with it just yet.” Erik emptied his beer, put down his cup, and steadied his eyes on Vidar’s, thinking he would just stare him away. Inside, he felt like he might lose the contents of his stomach onto the planked floor. No doubt that floor had been painted with beer soured in the stomachs of better men than he on their ring day. Someday—he burped—he was going to stab Ragi in the face with an icicle for this.
Vidar began to laugh to himself. “You’d be well served to consider giving it to me.” As the smile wore off, Vidar spoke quieter, more thoughtfully. “If you did, we might be able to save your father from a lot of embarrassment tomorrow. Or worse.”
“My father’s honor is what’s at stake tomorrow. There’s only one way to repair that,” said Toren.
Vidar kept his attention on Erik. “Forget about your father and your brother. Join me, like your friends.” He pulled the leather thong full of soul rings from under his shirt. Some of them were stained with blood, cut fresh that morning.
Erik looked around the room for the other boys who’d received their rings that day.
Vidar stepped between him and the hall. “You know as well as I do that I’m the only one who can rescue you from your...”—pausing, he looked high and low around the hall as if searching for some redeeming quality that might temper his words—“your circumstances.”
Toren tried to sound unimpressed. “How many of those rings belong to dead men?”
Vidar did not let Erik get distracted. “These men, and even some of your friends, pledged themselves to me because they knew I could make them more than they could become on their own. And I can do the same for you.” Vidar shifted his gaze to Toren. “What is here for your younger brother? You are the eldest son—are you not?”
Erik’s brother tried to keep his face as chiseled stone, not wanting Vidar to know he was speaking to his very soul.
Vidar smiled as if he knew he had found a weakness. “How could you understand? Everything your father has is yours. Your way is easy. But I do. I am the younger son, and so is Erik. He must make his own way in this world. He has no inheritance. Magnus is the same. He already has everything he’ll ever get from his absent father. What wealth did your father leave you, young Magnus?”
Magnus looked down at his still blood-stained, hollow soul.
“It’s easy for the eldest son to tell you what you should do. He has Anja, already a woman ready to wed.” He looked at the girl, lingering. Toren began to stand. “Calm down, boy! You know what I say is true. You have a new house waiting for you. You don’t need to adorn your dirty ring in gold to impress her.” The giant cleared his brow of sweat with a quivering hand. “But these two have nothing to offer a woman. They will have to make something of themselves before they can marry. I’ve lived in Anja’s house. The dowry she will bring to your marriage will be more than Erik or Magnus will ever know if they stay here.”
The giant looked up to the ceiling. “Am I the only one telling these boys what they already know to be true?” Then he looked at Erik, and then Magnus, too. “You will have to make your own way. I’m sure your father has told you that much.” He looked at their faces before going on. Without a blade he had still found a way to cut them. “My men live a life of adventure, not one of cleaning up after goats. With me a man can have more wealth by the time he is twenty than Toren will ever see from your father.” He stared through Toren. “You may think you have everything figured out right now, eldest son, but you too should consider the Viking life as well. What your father has can easily be taken away before any of it comes to you.”
Toren looked at Anja’s worried face, then at Erik and Magnus to see past this man’s silver tongue.
Vidar was visibly shaking. “Kiara! Where is that girl?” Then he reached in his coat and pulled out a flask and gripped it so hard his knuckles turned white. “Ever since I was left behind in England, ever since I found myself stranded on foreign soil without the support of my father, whom I would’ve followed to the ends of the earth, I realized I was on my own. He had nothing for me.” He looked around frantically, “Kiara! Where have you been?” He grabbed the pitcher and the cup out of her shaking hands. She had been crying. “I think I’ll make a gift of you to Orri. Maybe he can make some use of you.”
Erik glanced at Kiara who looked like she might cry again, and he took her hand. Then he sternly shook his head to let her know that he would never let that happen.
With hands quaking, Vidar filled his cup and took a swallow of the mead, winced, then took a swig from the flask. After hiding it back into his coat, he filled his cup with mead and emptied it once more. “Again.” He pushed the cup toward Kiara and turned his head down. His breathing slowed, and his hands steadied.
As soon as she pushed the cup his way, he grabbed it up and emptied it again. After a few seconds, he regained his composure. Then he smiled. The wide gap between Vidar’s front teeth made the giant seem almost friendly. It was disarming—the power a genuine smile could have. But it didn’t seem like it was for them. It looked like it was for a return to clarity—the smile was for Vidar.
Vidar exhaled heavily and continued as if everything was normal. Erik glanced over to see if Toren had noticed. He had.
“Anything I expected was my folly, not my father’s.” Vidar seemed to be talking to himself now. “He never promised me anything more than he promised to any of his men.” He took another drink. “What’s his is his, and if he’s lucky enough to hold onto it then it will all pass to Egil.
Vidar raised his voice. “My elder brother slaves at my father’s side, always fearful the old man will lose what isn’t even his yet. And so did I. But no longer.” He pushed his cup in front of Kiara to fill again. “Landing her
e has awakened my senses, and I see the world for what it truly is. I must learn from my father.” Vidar’s eyes had grown distant. “To be like him I must leave him.” Vidar’s eyes sharpened, and he lifted them from his drink. “When my father hears of my triumphs on the lips of his men, then he will respect his youngest son.” He confided in Erik as if they had been just two farmers talking over a couple of cups of beer. “It’s time I lift my sword for myself, not for my father, nor my brother’s inheritance. It’s time we live for ourselves.”
Leg Breaker
Maybe it was the familiarity he showed with Anja in front of his brother, maybe it was the beer, or maybe receiving his soul had also made his balls drop, but Erik reached up and tugged on Vidar’s shirt.
“Vidar, your words are very touching, indeed.” Erik smiled as he took another drink. “Before you leave,”—he winked at Toren—“why don’t you show me what my father is up against?”
Vidar turned to Erik, unamused. “Let me tell you boys something your father should have taught you long ago. Never touch a man to get his attention, unless of course, you are a woman.” Vidar smiled a gap-toothed grin toward Anja. “Do you understand, farmer’s son?”
Toren put his arm around her and squeezed tight. Though a noble gesture, Toren thinking he could protect Anja from Vidar was like a rooster pissing in front of a chicken coop to try to keep a wolf away.
“Vidar,” Erik hugged Magnus wildly before raising his cup and taking another drink. “Come show us how strong you are.”
The giant put his hands down on the table. “You wouldn’t be the first one to try me, boy.”
“I don’t want to try you, sir.” Erik removed the leather thong from around his neck, slipped his newly garnered soul onto the table and slapped his hand down to settle the ring before it took to rolling. “I will give it to you if you can pick it up.” Erik had never known the limits of his own ego, and now he knew it did not end at eight feet tall. It was safe to say that he was pleased with himself, again.
Vidar clenched his jaw and his face turned a shade of red that caused Erik to sober and reconsider whether he should’ve had that last drink. Then Vidar started to laugh. “Ahh, you have spirit,” he said. “You’re going to make a good Viking—I swear to Odin you are. It must run in the family.” Then he winked at Anja.
Toren had been sitting quietly, but at that last insult he started to stand. Anja pulled him in tight to mask any hint of an advance on the giant. She cast Erik an angry look, as if Vidar hadn’t been the one who started all of this in the first place.
Who did she think she was anyway?
Everyone at the table leaned in closer. They knew that the weight of a soul cannot be borne by another unless it is freely given.
“I know you think you’re testing me.” Vidar furrowed his heavy brow. “But you’re really testing yourself. And I like that. I can work with a man who is brave. You do not seem to fear me as the others do,”—Vidar looked teasingly at Toren—“maybe as you should.”
“You are right to not fear my fists, for I do not want to hurt you.” He filled Erik’s empty cup. “Fear me because of what I represent, a man who can open your eyes to so much more than you have in this place. I do not challenge your father—I challenge everything his beautiful little village symbolizes, an anchor far heavier than that soul you so foolishly put on the table as if it’s a toy for a boy to play with. You do not respect its power, nor its worth. There are those that would have you dead that they might have that ring.” Vidar looked at the young faces and exhaled as if wanting to start over. “I am merely a man trying to get my strength back and get home, where the world can be mine again.”
Vidar smiled at Erik, then reached down to pick up the ring. It did not move. Somewhat dramatically, the goliath stuck out his tongue as he tried putting his thumbnail under it to pry it up off the table, but it did not shift.
Erik hated him for trying to make him feel small. It worked. He’s patronizing me. He hoped his father would stick his axe between Vidar’s big, gapped teeth.
“Well, now you know. I am just a man,” Vidar smiled. “Like your father, I can never take your ring from you. But if you ever want to be free, just come find me. Put that ugly trinket in my hand, and I’ll show you there’s more to seek in this world than just gold and silver.”
The giant leaned down and put his face in front of Erik’s, so close Erik could smell the sweet mead on his breath. “I don’t know what to do about you. You’re brave, I’ll give you that. Whether it’s from being principled, stubborn or stupid, well, only time will tell. May not even matter.”
Vidar put one of his large mitts on the tabletop next to the ring, then grabbed one of its legs with the other. Smiling, his face tensed, with a large crooked vein bulging along his temple, he gave a quick and mighty yank. Crack! The sound echoed through the hall as the thick leg snapped like a dry twig. With the power of his smile and a strong grip, the giant easily broke what had stood firm for generations.
Erik could only watch as the table crashed to the floor with a force that shook the hall’s foundations. Cups flew, and beer spilled, and amidst the chaos, Erik’s soul fell, first bouncing, then rolling along the floor toward the door. The ring seemed no different than one forged in fire rather than inside the kiln of Erik’s chest.
Erik knocked Ragi and Magnus off the bench as he lunged and chased it down to the floor. He was single-minded, focused, forgetting all else for that brief moment. When he found his ring, he picked it up and held it to his heart, surprised at his own reaction to seeing it leave his reach.
To him it was not heavy. It was everything.
Erik lay there, belly in a pool of spit and beer and mead, elbow and jaw burning from a lunge to the floor he didn’t remember making. He was soaked, embarrassed, and burning with a hatred for the Viking in a way he hadn’t known before.
Field of Play
The lines had been drawn, the shields had been made, and the weapons were sharp enough to shear sheep. Vidar had chosen Ice Breaker, Tor's own sword, the one he had gotten from his father. That was the first cut.
The other weapon Vidar chose was a seax he got from his host, Pedar. The only time Pedar dulled that blade was to pull it from its sheath so he could use it as a mirror. Tor himself had honed it to a razor’s edge the week Pedar came home with it. Though untested, it would be a fine cutter, but Tor doubted Vidar would use it. To choose it was a show of confidence, for even Pedar knew there was no honor in winning a holmgang with a seax.
Tor’s bones felt very old lately, and he loosened them up by swinging his old two-handed wood axes from side to side. His cracked rib still bit his side with every stroke, as if the fight at the harvest festival had been just last week. After he realized his warm-up was not helping, he focused on something that could.
He prayed in whispers as he methodically ran cuttings of pine along the patterns he’d carved in the handles of his axes and shields. The pine was heated over the fire to draw out the frozen resin. Then he worked it in until the tack stitched his hands to the axe and shield handle’s sweet spot for balance and power.
“What ‘ave you there, Tor? Planning on cutting the wood for the pyre before the fight’s even started?” scoffed Halfdan the butcher. Tor noticed his soul ring was out on his coat like Erik or one of the other young ones that just got theirs cut out.
But there was something different that made Tor want to test the axe on his old friend. Halfdan’s ring framed a shiny silver coin straight out of the giant’s treasure box. Tor saw a lot of rings exposed and glimmering about his neighbors’ necks and could only assume this audacious display meant they’d already been bought.
“I wonder, Halfdan,” said Tor, “does that coin mean if I win today that you won’t help me make the Vikings leave in the spring? Or does it mean you’ve sold Vidar that nice piece of land you’ve got down by the river so he can start building a summer home?”
Like a good dog, Halfdan huffed but took a good look around
as he started back over to his master, Vidar. No doubt he was sent over to look at Tor’s weapons. Tor hoped Vidar had paid him double for stabbing his neighbor of thirteen years in the back because there wasn’t much for him to report. No one got what they paid for when dealing with Halfdan, unless they were asking for half the meat and twice the fat, or fish that was only half cured, or steaks cut from a horse that was already dead. What would he tell him, that Tor was using axes and shields?
Of the shields Magnus made, Tor picked his three specifically for their balance and weight. They were left unpainted and unadorned, except each were marked with coal dust, numbered 1, 2, and 3, heaviest to lightest. Tor figured if he made it to the third shield, he’d be too tired to carry the heavier, and hoped Vidar would be too tired to break it anyway.
He personally reworked the handles of the shields and axes and had Magnus reforge the heads to narrow the blade and draw out short beards so they would fare better at breaking shields and arms than their original purpose of cutting branches and downing trees. Magnus gave similar treatments to his own two-handed axe, and Toren and Erik’s hatchets, in anticipation of having more trouble with men than trees after they left the village.
Ivar, the villages most talented carpenter, made Vidar’s shields. Before the Viking arrived, Ivar had helped Tor work on Toren and Anja’s house. Now he stood with the Vikings examining his handiwork, wearing a gold arm ring. Like Magnus, he had no experience making shields, but he was a master craftsman, and it looked like he had already become an expert in the craft. Tor could imagine that he’d already been consigned to help fix their ship.
Ubbi was leaning against two of Vidar’s shields, and Orri had one strapped to his back, making him look like a turtle with that bald, tattooed head of his. Each was as big as a wagon wheel and painted red as blood with a black serpent around the iron boss. Shields that big would cut down on Tor’s striking zone and be much different from what he faced when sparring with his sons. But there would still be plenty of Vidar to draw blood from. No shield could completely hide that monster.