Gods of the Ragnarok Era Omnibus 3: Books 7-9 Read online

  What would she say if he told her he remembered a time before the Aesir had taken Asgard? If he said he’d been there, when Odin first convinced men that the Aesir were gods? More to the point, how would she answer if he were to admit he came here in the probably vain hope of finding any clue where the king had gone?

  Most Aesir now thought Odin dead, but Loki had sworn it otherwise. Hermod knew better than to believe the king heard the prayers of these scattered cultists, but, still, he dared to hope Odin might somehow be aware of these groups that invoked his name in their sacrifices.

  “I offer no mockery. I’m a foe to the Deathless faith, which, I suppose, makes me an ally to followers of your old ways.”

  “You worship the Aesir?” Didrik asked.

  “No.” Hermod sheathed Dainsleif over his shoulder. “Rather, I respect them.”

  The varulf and völva exchanged looks, before she turned back to Hermod. “Be welcome, then. We must return to the village before daybreak, but you can stay for the sacrifice and then share our ale.”

  It was a start, and by now he knew better than to get his hopes up. Wherever Odin had wandered, he seemed not to want to be found. But the world grew darker with each passing year. Asgard needed its king.

  2

  The raucous din of Ingjald’s feast hall threatened to overwhelm Hödr. The stench of hundreds of men all pressed together melded into an equally overpowering assault on his enhanced senses. Centuries of practice let him filter such things if he had to, but still, he avoided the greater press of the crowd, preferring to keep to the fringes.

  Indeed, he wasn’t sure why he even bothered to come to Upsal. Or, he knew why, only he wasn’t sure it was worth it.

  Ingjald celebrated his ascension to the throne, and Baldr had insisted on attending to keep Asgard’s presence felt here. In Upsal, the old faith remained strong, but Deathless priests had already begun to spread their ways south, in Skane and Ostergotland. It wouldn’t take overmuch for people to start listening to their lies here, too.

  But Baldr himself, favored son of the Queen of Asgard, attracted all the attention. Even from across the feast hall, even through the commotion of a hundred conversations, Hödr could make out the other Ás’s boisterous laughter. When Baldr laughed, men laughed along with him. Even Hödr. The man had that easy radiance about him, an aura Hödr could feel more strongly than most.

  Next to him, no one noticed the eyeless man in the corner who never lowered his hood. Or if they noticed, they avoided him, made uncomfortable by the burnt-out, empty sockets where his eyes should have been. They tread with care, thinking, perhaps, that he could not feel their stares just because he could not see the way they did.

  Decades of work with Mother had ensured Hödr had no such problem, though. He could feel the shift in air currents as a fly buzzed around the rafters. He could pick out an individual voice amid the cacophony—though doing so took effort—eavesdropping on a whispered conversation on the far side of the hall. He could even sense the intangible energies that permeated and surrounded living beings—their auras, ancient Vanr writings called such things.

  Men thought him a cripple, but Hödr saw things others could not begin to understand.

  Too, he felt it as Baldr plowed his way through the crowd, bearing a horn of too sweet mead in his hand.

  Hödr nodded as Baldr approached.

  The other man handed him the drink. “You’re the only man in here not drunk, my friend! This cannot stand.”

  An exaggeration, if not by much. Hödr took the proffered horn and sipped at it. The stuff tasted even sweeter than it smelled. More to the point, Hödr avoided growing drunk because it dulled his senses and left him apt to walk straight into a pillar, an embarrassment he’d prefer never to experience again.

  Baldr, though, never really listened to what others said. He was kinder than his brother—Thor made no secret of his seething hatred for Hödr—and smarter, too, but, in his own way, almost as oblivious.

  “Are you a maid of ten winters?” Baldr demanded. “Come on, upend it. Relax a little!”

  Hödr took another sip, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and returned the horn to Baldr. “I’m plenty relaxed. Enjoy the feast.”

  The other man leaned in to whisper in Hödr’s ear, as if Hödr wouldn’t have heard him whispering from twenty feet away. “Then at least get about and remember your purpose here.”

  “I have not forgotten.”

  Even if he might have wished he could. No, Baldr had insisted he come along because the prince knew Hödr had a knack for uncovering secrets, even if Baldr didn’t quite know how. Mother claimed Hödr’s enhanced senses worked in concert to generate intuitive abilities in regard to the intentions of others, an explanation that seemed fair enough, though another existed: while Hödr lacked his father’s prescient abilities, perhaps some vestige of the Sight manifested in him—his ability to perceive auras.

  Either way, Hödr found it easy to uncover the truth in men’s hearts. And Baldr wanted to know who, if any here, had sympathies for the Deathless. Hödr was under no illusions about that, either. If Baldr thought men being swayed to the southern faith, he’d have them eliminated. In Skane, he’d ordered Hödr to murder two thegns of Jarl Canute.

  No one ever suspected a blind man.

  Mother believed that thwarting the advances of the Serkland Caliphate had actually left the North Realms more vulnerable to the spread of the Miklagardian religion. Ordrerism, officially, though everyone called it the Deathless faith after their supposed promise of immortality to some of the chosen few. Over the years, some Aesir had gone to Miklagard to try to murder the Patriarchs, maybe even the god-emperor. All had failed.

  Now, all they did was claim the lives of pawns.

  Baldr clapped him on the arm, then trod back to the center of attention.

  Hödr sighed. Best be about it, then. He skirted the edges of the hall, listening in on inane talk, mostly men trying to impress women, or the other way around in some cases. Baldr would care most about the attitudes of kings and jarls, so Hödr made his way to the table where King Gevarus of Gardariki sat with his daughter and a few thegns.

  How must he look to them, a man concealing his face? It was for their benefit, of course.

  The king raised a goblet in his direction, sweet smelling mead sloshing around inside it as he did so. “Is it true you’re one of the Aesir?”

  So men did know who he was. “I’m Prince Baldr’s cousin. Our mothers are sisters.” And their fathers were blood brothers, though that held little bearing here. What mattered was, that, oft, a few truths admitted thus would put men at their ease. Men too comfortable were more like to give away the real feelings in their hearts.

  Gardariki lay in Bjarmaland where the Deathless faith had taken a firm grip on the population. If the king himself had fallen under the sway of the Patriarchs, Baldr would almost certainly have him killed. Chances seemed good it would be Hödr’s blade that did the killing, though not until the king was well away from Ingjald’s hall. Not even Baldr would tarnish a king’s reputation by killing his guests.

  How strange, to sit across from a man and know that a turn in the conversation, even a subtle one, might lead to the speaker’s death. To know, in fact, that the life of Gevarus and perhaps everyone in his retinue, now lay in Hödr’s hands.

  “So you’re related to King Odin himself?” Gevarus’s daughter asked.

  “Forgive Nanna, she forgets herself sometimes,” the king said before Hödr could even answer.

  Hödr smiled anyway. She had a soft voice, filled with unfeigned wonder which—besides being endearing—meant she must truly still hold the Aesir as her gods. What of her father? “There’s naught to forgive. But no, I’m not related to Odin by blood, only by marriage. His wife’s half-sister is my mother.”

  “Oh,” Nanna said. “Hmm, but can you say why he no longer visits men? The king, I mean.”

  Hödr forced his face not to fall at that. The questio
n did reveal a certain impertinence. While Hödr took no offense at such things—unlike some fool Aesir who truly thought themselves gods—still, the Deathless had partially undermined the faith by claiming the Aesir were just men and women. Rightly claiming, of course. But did Nanna’s question mean she questioned her faith, or merely that she saw the declining state of Midgard, the same as anyone else with a brain should have?

  Wars raged constantly, in all lands. Miklagard included, in fact. A drawn-out struggle between several Patriarchs was about the only thing that had limited their expansion, and no one was sure how much longer than the god-emperor would allow his vassals to play their games. Elsewhere, things grew even worse. There were no more great kings left in the world. Only petty ones, oft scarcely able to hold on to a few cities or towns. Thrones changed hands more oft than coins did.

  And with winter having drawn on far too long, there was already talk of famine. Some claimed men in Nidavellir and Kvenland had begun eating their own dead. Hödr believed it. Starving men would do most aught.

  So, what answer to give her then? The truth? Not even Asgard knew where Odin had gone. Such an admission would undermine the Ás faith more surely than aught the Deathless priests could accomplish. Hödr idly scratched behind his ear.

  The motion must have revealed the burns around his eyes, for Nanna drew in a sharp breath. Other men would never have heard it in the noisy hall, but Hödr missed little. Still, the woman did a good job of hiding her dismay, for she didn’t pull away.

  “Did I ask something wrong?”

  “No,” Hödr said, too quickly. “No, it’s just … I’m not permitted to tell you what goes on in Asgard nor what plans Odin makes. I’m sure you understand.”

  “We do,” Gevarus said.

  All at once, the crowd fell silent. They were staring at someone in the center of the hall, though from this distance Hödr could not make out who. “What’s happening?” he whispered.

  Nanna moved from her seat to sit beside him. Though she wasn’t touching him, her warmth too pleasant. “Ingjald has raised a bull’s horn.”

  Instead of a drinking horn? If it was time for him to claim his throne, he ought to have distributed mead to all the other kings present. So what was this about now?

  “Sviarland is broken,” Ingjald proclaimed. “Divided by our wars.”

  “He’s hefted the horn up high,” Nanna whispered.

  “Even once-mighty Upsal has fallen into decline. But I swear, on my life, I will restore the glory of my forebears and increase the lands of Upsal in all quarters.”

  “He points the horn in each direction,” Nanna said. “Now he is climbing up to his throne.”

  Angry murmurs melded with grumbles of shock, men quietly objecting to the improprieties of it all.

  “Was that a declaration of war?” Nanna asked.

  “Yes,” her father said. “He says he’ll make war on all the other kings.”

  “He pointed east as well. The only thing east is the Gandvik Sea.”

  Gevarus grumbled. “And beyond it Gardariki.”

  Hödr grimaced. A declaration of war against three, perhaps four other kingdoms … No, that bespoke utter madness. No matter how great Ingjald’s dreams, he could not hope to win such a fight with no allies. So either he had allies currently unknown or he’d gone mist-mad. Allies … Miklagard?

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me,” Hödr said.

  “But …” Nanna said.

  “Daughter!” Gevarus snapped. “Of course, Lord Ás. You’ve honored us with your presence.”

  Hödr rose abruptly then made his way among the crowd. He didn’t like wending amid so many, especially when they were drunk and like to make erratic moves. Even his senses could grow befuddled when bombarded with such a crush of body heat and so many smells.

  But he needed to get to Ingjald and get a better read on him, and he couldn’t pick up on his aura from halfway across the hall. Was Baldr wrong in thinking Upsal secure against the Deathless? What if the greatest threat to the Aesir was where they thought themselves most secure? Once the center of the faith had lain in Dalar, but those days had passed, and besides, Ingjald had just threatened Dalar.

  Hödr picked up on Prince Baldr’s presence from well away. His aura was flush with pneuma from the apple of Yggdrasil, making him easier to notice. Hödr moved to his side, which fortunately was close enough to get a read on Ingjald.

  The new king of Upsal was whispering to one of his thegns.

  “What is it?” Baldr asked, without actually looking at Hödr. “Find a traitor?”

  Hödr held up a hand for silence, not because he couldn’t filter out the prince’s words, but because it was better Baldr understood he was eavesdropping on someone else.

  Hödr jolted at Ingjald’s words. “He … he plans to wait until everyone is drunk, then burn the hall with his rival kings inside. We have to stop him. Such a breach of hospitality is unbelievable.”

  “But necessary.”

  Now Hödr turned on Baldr. “You knew.”

  “Ingjald is correct.” Baldr still wasn’t looking at him, just whispering while pretending to follow another conversation. “It’s not just Sviarland, but all of Midgard is drowning in corruption. Too many worthless cravens seeking a throne. This land had always been the center of father’s plans, and now we’re losing it to the Deathless priests and their insipid followers. “We need a strong leader to unite the people and guide them back to the old ways.”

  “By murdering anyone who opposes them? By violating the sacred traditions of hospitality?”

  “Peace, Hödr. Some things must be. This is no different than you murdering those who have betrayed us, only now it happens all at once. Which is why you are here to identify those loyal to us, but who are also not a threat to Ingjald’s supremacy. We need a united Sviarland. One kingdom to strengthen the faith.”

  While it made sense, still it left a bitter acid roiling in Hödr’s gut. Such callous plans. Had Queen Frigg approved of this? She allowed Baldr free reign over Midgard, so she might not even know. Either way, as the prince, it was Baldr’s decision, whether Hödr liked it or no.

  Pushing down his distaste, he made his way back to Gevarus’s table.

  “Lord Hödr,” the king said, rising. “I had not thought—”

  “We need to leave, now.”

  “What?”

  “Get your daughter and your thegns and meet me out behind the hall. Don’t all use the same exit. Some of you should take the servants’ way through the kitchens. Do it now.” Not waiting to see if he was obeyed, Hödr slipped away from the table.

  The change in air currents and temperature warned him as Nanna’s hand shot out for him but he allowed her to grab his wrist. “What’s happening?”

  Hödr took her hand and drew her away, toward a side exit. Anyone who saw them would no doubt think him taking her off for a romp. Given his status as a noble of Asgard, no one would say a damn thing about that. Either way, it seemed the easiest way to get Nanna clear from this mist-madness.

  She didn’t resist, actually clutching his hand tighter. “I want to know what’s happening.” She was speaking too loudly.

  “Later.” He guided her through several corridors, not quite sure where he was going. Sensing people was easier than understanding buildings, though he could manage when he needed to. As now.

  Once they drew nigh to the door, he could feel the coolness outside, hear the slight whooshing of wind. Hödr flung the door open, turning a smirk on a guard who spun on him. The man glanced from Hödr to the princess and back, then chuckled knowingly.

  Nanna stiffened, but her indignation didn’t make much difference under the circumstances. Hödr led her away, behind the hall.

  “Please, Lord Hödr. What’s going on here?” Genuine fear laced her voice.

  If he told her the truth, she might try to save others. Baldr wouldn’t stand for that. “We’re meeting your father and then heading into the Fyrisvellir. We’l
l be safe within the wold, then we’ll make our way back to your ships at the harbor.”

  “Safe from what?”

  He was saved from having to answer that by Gevarus and his men making their way over.

  With a nod, Hödr took off to lead them into the Fyrisvellir. Nanna refused to let go of his hand.

  The wold was marshland, and even a sighted man could easily blunder into bog water if he wasn’t careful. The plop of footfalls was enough to give Hödr a good indication of the closeness of pitfalls, making him more confident than the others. “Step where I step.”

  A fair portion of the wold was open plains, but if Ingjald had ordered his men to hunt down any survivors … No, they needed to be where the trees were denser.

  “There’s a strange light in the distance.”

  “A will-of-the-wisp.” Hödr had never seen one—obviously—and couldn’t sense them, but he’d heard plenty of tales of the odd lights leading men to their deaths. “Don’t look at it. Just focus on me. I won’t let aught befall you.”

  “I trust you.”

  Her words were like a shock of cold water. No woman had ever said that to him. Most could not help but shy away from his disfigurement. And, of course, those on Asgard still disdained him for the things he’d done while possessed by the Fire vaettr, so very long ago. Most of all, Thor hated him, and the others followed their prince. Hödr was lucky Baldr did not.

  Behind them, a crackle sounded, flaring up and growing in intensity.

  “Is that …?” Gevarus asked. “Fyris Hall is aflame.”

  “I know,” Hödr answered. “Keep moving. We go south.”

  All of their breaths had become ragged, as if none of them could even believe that Ingjald would dare to betray his guests nor burn his ancestral hall. Maybe Baldr was right. Maybe the Aesir needed someone to unite Sviarland.

  But Hödr couldn’t help but fear the prince had chosen poorly.

  3

  On the edge of the Fyrisvellir, Fyris Hall blazed, an inferno that lit the night sky while Baldr watched. He’d wished he could have spared more of the people inside, but any sort of evacuation of slaves would have alerted the fallen kings.