It grew tired of the hunt after another week. It would follow them, sometimes trailing many miles and other times waiting less than a hundred yards behind. They were quiet enough but the snow betrayed them.
The stockier man was their leader. He barked and the others scurried. The creature thought about this for many days. It had never met another creature like itself. What must it be like to have companions and follow the command of one?
The leader wore thick furs over his shoulders and always walked with a long leaf-bladed spear wrapped in silver twine. The spear was a dangerous thing. With it, the leader could reach out and cut, hurt. The golden-haired man held a short spear but it hung loose at his side. He focused more on his leader than the hunt. The smooth-faced man, smaller than his companions with twin ropes of hair braided down to his waist and odd splashes of darkness colored into his neck, carried a kind of curved spear with another small, straight spear laid across it.
The creature knew what it was but could not remember. Did he throw the smaller spear? It, too, could be dangerous. He held the weapons ready. The creature watched him draw the smaller spear across the curved spear and point it at his leader’s back one morning, and the creature remembered. It was an arrow. It was more dangerous than the spear.
He stopped following the hunters. They would return to their home when their supplies ran as low as their patience. The creature needed to find that home.
Thar was before. The sun was setting now. A cold wind howled from the nearby southern shore, bringing with it the raw tastes of fish, seaweed, and salt. Had the creature ever seen the ocean? It knew it had, but when? The wind blasted through the creature’s dense furs, forcing it to shiver. It looked north to the nearby peak where it could watch the gods play with their lights again tonight. That would be a good place to go. It began to descend from its rocky spire. The girl child squealed somewhere below. The wind whistled. The creature paused.
In the distance, buried in the layers of wind and voice, was another sound. The wind faded. The creature heard nothing else. It began to descend again, gripping a rock ledge in one paw and letting itself swing down to a waiting landing.
The new sound rose from a murmur to a whistle to an unmistakable growl. The creature froze in mid-descent, hanging from the mountain. It was the black wolf. They had chased it here from the other side of creation.
The girl squealed again and when the creature looked to her, it found her pointing not to the distant sound of wolves but up to its rocky spire. The creature looked back to the waiting ocean, expecting… it did not know what it thought would be there. Then it looked down and saw itself hanging in silhouette against the evening sky.
The wolves howled again. The wind shifted, carrying their heinous song, and the creature let itself plummet from its ledge. The signal fires raged in the darkening air. Their choking smoke filled its nostrils. The child could wait. It needed to leave.
◆◆◆
The half-blind girl was squealing again. Einhar Nameless scowled and stalked from his platform atop the fort’s western wall. The shifting wind carried harsh voices. He needed to know who owned those voices. The small camp thought itself be alone here at crown of the world.
“Gretta Bjorsdottir, there ought be a reason for this wailing.”
He tried to sound disappointed but could not muster the outrage. She had been a pleasant child before her accident and was now somehow even more pleasant despite the eyepatch covering the right side of her face. She was not even afraid to tend the watch fires, despite their theft of her young eye.
She tugged at his spear. He gripped it tighter.
“What, child?”
“Up there on the mountain tower!”
He turned to the spire that lay to their south. There was nothing there. It was more a pile of boulders that this damnable ice held together in precarious balance than a mountain. He had the Grimarsson forbid the children from trying to climb it during their scant idle periods.
A giant dangled from the mountain. It hung by one outstretched limb, its lengthy body and legs frozen in an impossible hold. Einhar blinked away frost as his sharp eyes focused. It was as large as their small hall, or at least too large for the main doors, and stitched together from many creatures. The limbs belonged to the shaggy bear, the head to a bull with a bottom jaw that protruded out from its flat face, and the body to the race of giants except for the coat of fur that whipped in the wind. Its glinting eyes were, by the gods, larger than his whole fist, and they were staring at the setting sun.
The wind howled again. Einhar gripped his spear tighter. It was more than wind. Wolves were coming. He looked back to the dangling monster. It was gone. Had it been staring at the sun or had it, too, heard the howls?
“What do you see, Einhar Nameless?”
“Go… go inside. No, first stoke your fire to blaze and then tell the Grimarsson you’ve sighted his ice bear.”
The little girl beamed. He snarled.
“What?”
“You said I sighted it…”
“Of course you did, little Odin-child. With one good eye you see more than those with two. Now go. Time is short.”
She dragged two logs onto the fading fire and ran inside, careless to ensure that the frozen wood caught flame. He used the butt of his spear to rearrange them. Their pleasant steam rose to warm his face and he smelled a tease of spring rise from their heartwood.
The howls called to him now. Their dire screams were unmistakable. In what foul place did they live that the very wind conspired with the wolves? But Gretta had seen the creature, he had traced its sight, and they would be ready. Thank the Aesir, the Vanir, and the new King Christ for the gift of his vision.
The sun was gone when the Grimarsson stumbled from the hall. His drinking horn sloshed precious mead on his fur cloak as he struggled with the massive timber doors. He stumbled to Einhar.
“Oh watcher, what isth it you send thisth child to share? Show me.”
He swung the horn around to the distant spire that was almost invisible in the dying twilight. Night was moments away.
Einhar pointed with his spear.
“The beast you hunted. The isbjorn. It hung there from the cliff for all the world to see.”
“It spies upon us!”
The Grimarrson dropped his horn. The mead stained the snow as he drew his short sword. The drink’s ruinous sweetness floated to Einhar’s nose. He allowed a single taste of air before he turned away. His hand slipped to the sigil on a string around his neck. Now was not the time to cry off.
“Aye, it did but now is gone. There is a direr problem. There are…”
“Nothing could be more serious! This beast is from the tree of all worlds. It is a living Fenrir, sent by the gods to test me! You…” the Grimarsson took Einhar’s neck in his hands and pressed their foreheads together and all Einhar could taste was the man’s rotten breath and the sweet, delicious mead that had lost Einhar his name, “You must understand more than all others… To lose your name, Einhar! We are nameless brothers! Brothers. Where are Isi and Grettir? They should see it. Show me again…”
“It fled at the sound of the wolves.”
The Grimarsson’s face contorted. He was too drunk to stand, a remarkable feat for the son of a raiding lord as fearsome as Ongul. The boy had been drinking since before he could even stand. All life spun in circles.
“Wolv… wolves?”
“Listen. They are on the wind. The beast fled from their fury. We must prepare.”
“There… they…” Crackling flames hid and then lit the Grimarsson’s wild eyes as he brandished his sword at his watchman. “Then we will be prepared. By your great vigilance, we will be prepared. I name you then on the bond of my father. You are now Einhar Bevakare, for your sight and vigil… vigilance. Vigilance. May your children carry your name and your sins be washed away.”
The Grimarsson’s sword wobbled too close to Einhar’s neck as he struggled to make the sign of the King Christ.
“There. Now prepare. I will find my lazy cousins. Go now.”
He stumbled back into the hall. Einhar stood for several long seconds, rubbing his stubbled face. The wind had blasted it raw and red. He tasted mead again, this time letting its imagined flavor run over his tongue to warm his cold stomach. Just a draught, a single horn, and he would be complete. It was the sweetest mead, rotten in that peculiar way that the southerners’ wine could not match. It tasted like green fields and buzzing bees and the sun. Surely this renaming meant he was strong enough to control himself.
He realized his fists were clenched. What had they been holding? It was the neck of the man he had found in his wife’s bed so many years before. He unclenched. This was not a time for manly strength. It was a time to think.
He slipped the horn from his shirt, wet his lips, and blasted the warning call to the fort. His other hand found his sigil named vegvisir and gripped so tight that his hand ached. Its runes would help him if his new god could not.
Warriors poured from the hall. Had they ignored their drunk lordling? He blasted again, again, again, until his cracked lips stained the horn’s bone grooves red. They raced to the walls. He saw Isi and Grettir heave a timber beam across the gate’s iron braces. That, at least, would hold.
Yellow flame burst to life as his clansmen touched their torches to fresh tar. Soon a ring of flickering lights surrounded their frontier fort. A wicked wind whipped across the fort and nearly half the torches extinguished. They were relit before he could give the command. He saw Gretta Bjorsdottir standing with her short spear in hand by the hall’s hearth fire. The womenfolk sealed the hall’s great door. They would be safe from the wolves for this night.
Einhar Bevakare raced up the stairs to the battlements. There was nothing to see except darkness. The fates knew the treacherous moon would choose that night to hide. Even the aurora would not appear. The gods themselves had withdrawn the Bifrost. There was only faint starlight high above the driving snow and struggling torchlight below.
The wolves howled again. They were close enough that he could hear distinct voices among the pack. Their chilling calls were those of simple wolves, though, except one. It was a snarl unlike any he had heard. Whatever creature’s throat made this awful noise surely killed what it pleased for its whole life.
“Bring more torches to the western wall!” he yelled over the rising wind as snow stung his eyes.
It blew inside the walls. The torches became faint distant globes as their carriers struggled against the wind. He turned back to the waiting world outside and found the wolves.
They were as white as the snow, and they were silent. Had they not howled, he thought, his people may never have known. They circled the walls, pawing at timbers they could never dig beneath. Thank the Allfather that the Grimarsson forced them to bury the posts so deep. That, at least, had been wise. The sharpened posts rose fifteen feet from the snow.
Men notched arrows and waited. The wolves would not leave once blood was drawn. Where was the devil wolf?
A withered black thing bounded from the west. It was too gnarled for the Norseman to recognize as a wolf. Long years spent in this wilderness reduced it to its essence, a hateful hungry thing. Another howl rumbled from its chest and Einhar felt his groin clench. Where was the Grimarsson now? This thing was worse by far than whatever distant beast climbed mountains to watch them.
The black wolf never slow as it charged at and then leapt over the wall. It flattened as it landed, vanishing for terrible moments as the snow surged and the torchlight failed, and became a demon in the night.
The Grimarsson appeared from the nearest watch fire. How had Einhar missed him standing there? He was many things but not a coward. The lordling held his sword in front of him, its frantic tip slicing wild figures in the frigid air as the black wolf inched closer. It did not bother to snarl. The prey it stalked was already terrified.
Thunder rumbled from the sky. The savage western wind parted sagging pines. Another thunderclap sounded from among the trees as a monster leapt from the nearest pine. The new challenger slammed into the ground beside the wolf. Sheets of ice snapped from its clanging furs.
The Grimarsson and his dancing sword froze but the wolf did not. It launched at the intruder’s throat. A paw swatted and the wolf dropped, mid-flight, to the hard ground. Its ruined chest heaved. Hot blood dribbled from its biting mouth. It sighed and silenced.
Einhar heard a sword drop into the snow. The Grimarsson was stumbling away from the fire. Coals smoked at the hem of his cloak. The leather grip of his sword sizzled in the flames. He stumbled and snatched his spear from the snow. He held it in the crook of one arm between him and his long-hunted quarry while he fumbled for a torch.
Every warrior in the camp waited, some atop the wall with arrows notched, others on the ground with spear and axe in frozen hands. None bothered to carry a shield. What good would it do against monsters such as these? Humans did not belong here.
Einhar’s eyes darted to the warriors. They waited on their lordling. This was his destiny, or so he had told them every night and day for months while they starved and froze and suffered here in what must be Ymir’s corpse. Had not this man just named him, though? No. This was the Grimarsson’s destiny. He must face it. Einhar retreated to the battlements.
The beast was prodding the dead wolf’s corpse when the Grimarrsson hissed.
“Isbjorn, I will take your name as my own.”
He thrust the torch into the monster’s face. Something vaguely human stared back. Unlike all the wild things Einhar had even seen, the beast did not recoil from the flame. Its forehead sloped high and back while an overdeveloped jaw protruded like a shelf. That jaw held a cavernous expanse of karst-like teeth too large, too ragged even for the Grimarsson’s liquid courage. He stumbled away. The creature curled down from its stance on its forelegs but still towered above the man.
“This is the isbjorn! I hunted this beast with Isi Bjorsson and Grettir Thorhallson! The gods bring this gift to us!”
The torch hissed in the snow as the Grimarsson thrust his spear into the monster. The beast swatted and the ash wood shaft splintered. The spear tip clattered into the fire with the Grimarsson’s burning sword. He retreated and drew his knife.
“Grimarsson, no! This is madness!”
The words surprised Einhar. He knew better than to interrupt his chieftain, the son of Ongul Grimar, and the will of whatever gods may be. But was it not their will for him to protect, too? Had he not spent many years learning that it took more strength to protect than to harm?
The Grimarsson’s wild eyes found him in the shifting darkness. The lordling looked to his other warriors. They had retreated.
“This is my fate! This is my… Einhar.”
He stopped shouting into the storm and focused on his old watchman. His voice was broken.
“This is my only chance.”
The Grimarsson lunged. The knife sliced the monster’s tough hide where its foreleg connected to its chest. The tip plunged. The monster’s arm shot out a final time to swat the life from another foolish animal. The lordling collapsed in the snow near the black wolf.
Einhar watched as the warriors approached the monster. They laid their spears and axes at its feet and retreated. First Isi Bjorsson and then Grettir Thorhallson surrendered their weapons to their new god. Einhar watched the beast puzzle through the pile of tribute. The others understood.
It was Einhar’s turn. He descended from the wall and tossed his spear into the pile. There was no arguing with the Aesir and the Vanir and the Christ. This was their fate. Ongul would be angry.
◆◆◆
Spring brought a dragon across the thawing ocean. The creature’s stiff neck slipped between choppy waves as whitecaps slapped its armored flanks. It seemed to dance atop with the raucous sea. A single billowing wing striped crimson and gray surged in the wind.
Jernbjorn watched the sea dragon approach his home. He could swim out to the beast.
The ocean was not too cold. It might turn away if challenged early. But the sleepy giant remained on his perch high above the inlet’s narrow mouth. He loved it here. The ocean sparkled during the brief sunlit gaps between spring storms. It was pretty.
He knew that was a thing. Isi Goldenhair had taught him. He shivered. Maybe the ocean was too cold after all. He had lost much of his personal permafrost with the warming spring. It was more than that. He was losing fur as he learned more about humans. He almost, in brief moments when he woke or as he sat around the fire with his grateful new tribe as they feasted on fish from another of his successful expeditions, felt… No. That was not real. He had always been Jernbjorn and there was nothing like him.
There were other words he knew. He tested himself as he watched the longship slip into the fjord. Tree, he knew well and loved. Roots were the tree beneath the dirt. Earth. Fire. Sky. Stars. He wrapped Grettir in a rib-cracking hug when his friend taught him what those twinkling treasures were. Tattoo, like the stain rubbed into Grettir’s neck. Odin, the god who made the night sky blaze. He did not know what a god was, though. Ship, as the thing that swam below. But it was also a dragon. Woman, child, ice, snow, cold. Ymir… another god but not so much?
It was all confusing. He could hardly make the sounds they taught him. Their meaning rattled around his juvenile mind as he recited a silent rosary each morning to remind himself of the holy world waiting above his ignorance.
He had forgotten words, too, and their meanings. Jernbjorn rubbed his oversized thumb against the burn on his forearm. Einhar had not wanted to hurt him but he needed to remember… remember something. It was about how strong he was. No, how dangerous.
Jernbjorn grinned at the ocean. Yes, he was strong. He was the thing that cratered the frozen river and let his good friends Isi and Grettir capture more fish than they could carry. He was the monster who wrapped the many silvery speckled fish in a bear skin and carried the haul home. The villagers had all squealed and chattered. The little girl with one eye had even hugged the pillar that was his foreleg.
The Sin Eaters Page 10