Gods of the Ragnarok Era Omnibus 1: Books 1-3 Page 2

  Hadding rubbed his chest. “Maybe. But as yet, men speak of other things. They speak of war. We face dangerous times, and when winter breaks …”

  When winter broke, Hadding would no doubt have any of the other eight tribes trying to seize Halfhaugr from him. Did he think Odin would do aught to protect him? Odin fixed the useless old man with a level stare. At the moment, the Wodanar themselves had no reason not to claim the fortress.

  “What about the foreigner?” Frigg said.

  Odin looked to her. “What foreigner?”

  “A man came to us recently, someone from far away. Somewhere in the South Realms, maybe, he didn’t say. But rumor claims he is a masterful tracker, wise in woodcraft, and nigh as learned as any Miklagarder, as well.”

  Hadding waved his daughter away. “The man is full of himself. You can’t trust a man who talks like a vӧlva and fills his mind with South Realmer learning.”

  That earned him a scowl from Frigg.

  “Tyr already searched Unterhagen for tracks. With the snows, he found naught.”

  “Maybe,” Frigg said. “But this man might know something else. He has a strange urd about him.”

  Urd? What did some jarl’s daughter know of a man’s fate? Still, he had naught else to go on.

  “Then I will go back to Halfhaugr with you, meet this foreigner,” Odin said. “If he can do as you say, you and he shall both earn my gratitude.”

  Almost as one, a number of the hounds perked up and stared at the doors to the feast hall. A moment later those doors crashed open. Then even the people began to fall silent. Men rose from their benches to move toward the newcomer.

  A crowd quickly surrounded her, and she took each into her gaze. When her eyes met Odin’s, he stumbled. She wore her long, brown hair loose, flowing around her shoulders. Her skin was rich, deeper in color than any he’d ever seen, and now that he’d drawn nigh, he could see the flowing red gown she wore beneath her furs. The material shimmered in the light of the braziers and was sheer enough to give a hint of the delicate flesh beneath. Odin had no doubt that every man in the circle eyed her with lust, even as he pictured himself carrying her off to his own bed in the back room of the hall.

  “Dangerous lands to walk alone,” he said. “Especially at night.” Especially for an unarmed woman.

  Visitors from another tribe were not uncommon, but no one traveled in the dead of night unless desperate. The deathchill was the least one needed to fear at night, and that could easily bring down a man. Beyond that, trolls and vaettir, especially the vilest ones like draugar, often grew more active at night. Sunlight thinned the mists and tended to drive its horrors into hiding.

  The foreign woman smiled at him—or rather, she crooked half her mouth in a smile. “You are Odin.” Her voice was light, her accent lilting and odd.

  “I am,” he said. “And who are you, my lady?”

  “My name is Idunn.”

  A murmur rose through the crowd. Someone scoffed and someone else gasped. Odin caught himself glancing at Gungnir where it rested against his throne.

  “Idunn?” The goddess of spring? One of the Vanir here, among them? The same who had given the spear Gungnir to his great-great-grandfather?

  “Yes,” she said, flashing a bit of teeth in her smile now. “Do your people still remember me? I’d hoped they would.”

  How coy. Every Ás remembered Idunn—assuming she was who she claimed to be. Beautiful, no doubt, but a goddess? Since when did gods come strolling into Aesir halls in the middle of the night? Though that was exactly where his ancestors claimed Gungnir came from. Regardless, there was only one thing a jarl could do when a guest came calling.

  “Lady Idunn, I extend to you the full hospitality of the Wodanar.”

  With that smile, she’d have any man in the tribe eager to do her bidding.

  2

  Odin had taken Idunn out into the night despite the cold. Tyr assumed he wanted to speak with her without prying eyes. Keeping others from following was probably the only reason he had allowed Tyr along. Hand resting on the sword over his shoulder, Tyr followed several paces behind the pair. One of the elkhounds walked at his side. Always best to take a dog if you could. Hounds smelled foulness in the mist. Let you know when aught went creeping about.

  Like Odin, Tyr carried a torch. A man needed fire. Without it, the mist would seep into his body. Into his soul. Tyr had seen men go mist-mad. They’d lose themselves. Have to be put down or banished for the good of the tribe. Besides, the mists sheltered ghosts, trolls, draugar, and other vaettir. All waiting to prey on the world of men as soon as the fires dwindled.

  “So,” Odin said after walking through the town awhile.

  The Wodanar were spending the winter at Eskgard. Reinforced old houses not used in a decade. When summer came, they’d abandon this place for better hunting grounds. Migrating in winter was left to the foolish and the desperate.

  “So,” Idunn answered. “Here we are.”

  This woman was like none Tyr had ever seen. Dark brown hair, exotic skin like some South Realmer. Graceful movements, confidence. And she had wandered the wilds alone. Did that make her a fool—or desperate? Or could she truly be one of the Vanir? Nigh to absurd. If the Vanir existed at all, they no longer walked the lands of Midgard. Not in ages. But then … most would have said the same of jotunnar. And Tyr knew better on that count.

  “Yes, here,” Odin said. “Where you would have me believe a Vanr has come to call upon my people.”

  She shrugged. “Oh. Well, yes. I think so. I mean you should believe me. You still have Gungnir, don’t you?”

  Odin grunted. “What do you want of me?”

  Tyr knew he ought to keep more careful watch, but he could not tear his eyes from the two of them. The one, a self-proclaimed goddess. Beautiful and outlandish enough that he could not quite dismiss her claim. And the other … Borr’s son. Borr had been a hero to many. He had saved Tyr from a wretched life as a raider enslaved to a more wretched master. Had taken him in. In time, Borr made him first a thegn and then his personal champion. Had even trusted him to help instruct his own sons with weapons. If naught else could be said for him, Tyr knew his way around a battle. Blade, axe, or bow, Tyr had mastered them all.

  And Odin had grown up quite skilled himself, at least in weaponry. But he was not his father. Not by any measure. The young man had fire. But that fire stoked his pride more than his honor. Rage consumed him. Tyr did not blame him for wanting to avenge his father. Indeed, Tyr himself would have gone to great lengths to do so. But Odin was allowing Borr’s legacy to splinter around him while he quested for revenge against unknown enemies. Tyr had helped Borr forge this peace. Had waded through rivers of blood to do so. And Odin and his brothers saw none of that. Would not listen.

  Idunn giggled. What kind of goddess giggles? “What a question. What do I want from you? Let me ask you—what do you think your father would want of you?”

  “Vengeance.” The man didn’t even hesitate.

  Tyr stifled a groan. Barely. The hound cocked one of his ears at Tyr. Asking if he had sensed danger. He had, though no danger he could explain to the animal.

  “Truly? Don’t you think he’d care about maintaining all he was building? Just maybe he’d want you to continue on the path he’d begun?” Goddess or not, Idunn had the right of it. Maybe she could talk some sense into Odin. If she did, his brothers would fall in line. Odin was eldest, and they looked to him.

  Odin groaned, cast a glance back at Tyr. Tyr offered him a nod. “What of it?”

  “You are jarl now. What would it take for you to be something more? To be a king?”

  Tyr’s foot snagged in the snow. King? Not even Borr had held such a lofty goal, despite the claims of other jarls. Mist-madness, if he’d ever heard it.

  Odin stopped there and turned on her, forcing her and Tyr to pause as well. “We’d have to call an Althing, put it to a vote among the nobles of all nine tribes. Which is not going to happen. No Althing, no vot
e, and if there was, not one man everyone could agree on to be king. Least of all me.”

  “Oh? Can you think of some better way to honor your father?”

  Odin folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. “What do you hope to gain from this?”

  “Hmmm.” She reached inside her fur cloak and pulled something out. It looked like an apple. A golden apple glittering in the torchlight. “Do you know what this is?” Odin shook his head. “This is immortality, my dear Odin. This sweet fruit tastes of creation itself. And I bring it to you, even as I once brought Gungnir to your ancestors.”

  “Wh-why?”

  Tyr’s mouth hung open. He could not quite manage to shut it.

  Idunn withdrew the apple and stuck it back within the folds of her cloak. “This ultimate gift I could grant you. The power to live forever, to lead your people—all of the Aesir—forever. But you must do two great services for me.”

  Odin licked his lips. “Live forever? How am I even to believe such a thing?”

  “The apple comes from the World Tree, Yggdrasil, the heart of Vanaheim, the source of all life. But then, you wouldn’t really know until you tried it, would you?” She shrugged. “It’s a puzzle. Sometimes you have to have faith. Sometimes you have to take a chance.”

  Tyr’s heart pounded against his ribs. What she spoke of sounded impossible. Sounded like the prattling of a mist-mad vӧlva. And yet … he wanted to believe. Her voice, like music, offering such temptations. And Odin had not quite leapt at the chance. Had Tyr underestimated his new jarl?

  Odin released a shuddering breath. “Your terms, Vanr?”

  “You must make yourself king of all the Aesir.”

  Odin spread his hands wide. “I’m not fucking Vingethor. And do you really think my father intended to become king? Do you think he could have? The other jarls wouldn’t have bowed before him, and they sure as Hel will not bow before me. In any event, why do you care?”

  “Mankind is dying, Odin. Slowly, yes, but with each generation humanity’s numbers dwindle. The mist suffocates the world, and the cold creeps ever closer, while petty kings and jarls fight each other for scraps. It’s why I gave your ancestors Gungnir. Back then, I thought it might prove enough. It did not. If naught changes, there will be but a few more generations of life left in Midgard.”

  Her words left Tyr shivering. Vӧlvur stories claimed that long ago, maybe thousands of years ago, the world was warmer. Before the mists. Now, each passing winter claimed more lives. Men froze. Murdered each other over scraps of food. Or because they could. And out in the mist, those who fell lingered. Grim, wakeful. Caught between life and death. Idunn spoke of the end times as a nigh certainty. And worse, as fast approaching.

  Odin pressed his palms against his forehead, shaking his head. “And if I would or even could do such a thing, claim this throne … what of your other request?”

  Tyr had almost forgotten she had asked for two services. As if becoming king of nine tribes on the brink of war were not enough burden for the brash young man.

  “Once you are king, I will come to you with another task. You will owe me then, and I will have your oath you’ll do all in your power to grant my final request.”

  Odin scoffed. “You still have not told me what that request is.”

  Idunn giggled again. “I suppose I haven’t. First make yourself king.”

  The jarl held up his hands. “No. No, I will not give an oath to any task without knowing what you ask. A man would have to be a fool to do such a thing. If you care so much about mankind’s fate, goddess, you attend to it.” With that, he shook his head and stormed back toward the feast hall.

  “I am trying,” Idunn mumbled.

  Tyr took a few steps closer. “You truly believe that man would make a good king?”

  Idunn grinned now. A half smile, like a wicked child. “I think he could be the greatest king the Aesir have ever known. Beyond Vingethor, beyond even Loridi. Maybe. If he can see past his own petty desires. And stop staring at my tits.”

  Tyr realized what he had been doing and flushed. Maybe she couldn’t tell in the torchlight. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. What did a man say to a goddess? Particularly one as odd as this. “I … er.” He cleared his throat. “Borr worked his whole life to win and keep peace between the tribes. Everyone respected him.” Or feared him. “But Odin is right. The other nobles wouldn’t have supported Borr as king. They certainly won’t support his son.”

  Idunn scratched the hound’s head—and the animal let her. “Hmmm. Well—not yet.”

  3

  The snows ran deep, five feet at least, covering all the North Realms. Farther north, men said it never melted. At least a thousand years of it, the vӧlvur said. Once, long ago, they said, there was a time of warmth. A time of true summers, where green covered the world. A time before the mists that blanketed all Midgard and stole the minds and memories of men. Vӧlvur said a lot of things. Odin suspected they knew far less than they pretended.

  Crossing Aujum in winter meant sledges drawn by dogs, yipping, barking, surging forward as if they also knew it. The fewer nights in the wild, the better. Cowardice sent you to Hel’s table. But if you forgot to fear the mists, you’d find yourself dead or worse.

  If they pressed hard enough, they might make Halfhaugr in three days. Three days—but the nights, oh, the nights they had to huddle around the largest fires they could manage, desperate to ward off not only the cold, but the mist and the fell vaettir it brought with it. The Hasding thegn with Hadding—Agilaz was his name—he knew his woodcraft. Each night he found a sheltered campsite and got a blazing fire going. And then Odin and the others would gather round, trying to stay warm, trying to pretend they did not hear the fell whispers far out in the night. Shades or vaettir, no doubt, watching them, waiting for the fires to die. Waiting to consume their flesh or souls. Vaettir despised men, even as they envied them their warmth, or so vӧlvur said.

  One such fire crackled this night. Tyr sat across from him, roasting a squirrel Agilaz had shot. Odin had consented to bring his own thegn on this trek, had left his brother in charge of the Wodanar in his absence. No sense dragging half the tribe along with him.

  A man had to be mist-mad to travel in winter. A night without shelter was apt to drag a man into the deathchill, leaving naught but a draug behind. The cold could freeze a body solid in an hour—and those who met such a fate without fire would find no peace even in death. The damned wandered the mist for all eternity, preying on the living in a futile effort to divert their own agony and rage.

  Odin knew about rage. About its futility. Some things which had been stolen could never be regained.

  He spat out into the darkness. His vengeance would not be denied. If ghosts or draugar or aught else stood in his way, he would cut them down with Gungnir and send them screaming down to Hel.

  “Jarl Borr called upon us several moons back,” Hadding’s daughter said.

  Odin glanced at her. Frigg looked a few years his junior, but she carried herself with the refined elegance of a born noblewoman—head high, back straight, and eyes sharp. He looked back to the fire. Father had oft called upon all the tribes, endlessly working to avoid war, always making plans. Trying to save everyone. Except himself.

  Head torn from his shoulders.

  Body mangled beyond recognition.

  Father.

  A corpse, rent in half.

  “He was a hero to many people,” Frigg said when Odin didn’t answer.

  He grunted. Yes. Father had been a hero, sure enough. A master warrior, a good man. Generous with his allies, implacable to his foes. And always there for his sons. Odin clenched his teeth so tightly they felt apt to crack. And still he could not release his bite. The pressure would keep him going while his fury kept him warm, simmering, boiling. The waiting ate at his guts. No, he need not worry overmuch about deathchill. Not with such heat consuming him from the inside out.

  Borr the hero. The warrior. The father.


  Head torn from his shoulders.

  “I understand your pain,” Frigg said.

  Odin snorted at that. His brothers—Vili and Ve—they could understand. Perhaps Tyr might begin to. The thegn had been closer to Borr than any man, probably looked at him as a kind of foster father. No one else could know.

  “You see, I lost my mother two winters back. I remember the hollowness, the consuming apathy toward life that threatened to bury me like a blizzard.”

  Apathy. No, Odin knew naught of apathy. His heart was an inferno, blazing with the need to act, to destroy and wreak revenge upon the entire world. So hot did he burn, he wondered that fire did not seep from his eyes, having no other outlet. He glared at the woman who dared think herself capable of knowing his loss. Apathy!

  “He left a legacy behind. A very fragile hope of peace between the nine tribes. In recent years, he had been helping arrange marriages to tie every tribe to every other. A web of alliances that …”

  Odin stopped listening to her. She meant to ask whether he was worthy of his father’s legacy. How could he be? How could anyone? Father had walked with the purpose and stature of one like Vingethor, like Loridi. A legend in his own lifetime, his fame spread across Aujum like a winter storm, touching every living Ás. And Odin, a mere man, had naught to offer next to such grandeur. Naught save vengeance. Father’s ghost could not be allowed to suffer as others did, trapped on Midgard, trapped in the mists.

  “And you must continue what he began,” Frigg was saying.

  “You fear for Halfhaugr,” he snapped. “So you feign empathy for me in the hope I will protect you.”

  Frigg stiffened and Tyr growled, poking the fire with a stick. Hadding and Agilaz had turned to him now, both watching him.

  “Was that my father’s legacy?” Odin asked. “To guard those too weak to help themselves?”

  “Boy!” Hadding coughed, choking on his own outburst. “I fought in the Njarar War while you were barely off your mother’s tit. Agilaz fought beside me. And you …” Another hacking fit of coughs interrupted him.