The Apples of Idunn Page 6

  From the shadows cast by her hearth, Borr looked on with shame. Judged him for such a breach of all honor. He was doing this for Borr, for Borr’s sons. Doing what? Murdering a hunter? Growling as much at himself as the woman, he slammed her against the wall then dropped her. She lay still on the floor.

  “You wronged her,” Borr said.

  Not his ghost. No, just the delirium. Tyr snatched up her sword lest she wake and attack him again. Odd. Woven iron with an over-keen edge. No modern smith could make such works. Something from the Old Kingdoms or the dvergar, maybe. But how did a simple hunter woman claim it?

  “You are like Hymir.”

  Tyr spun at the ghost. “Hymir would have fucking raped her and then eaten her!”

  Of course, naught stood there. He knew that. It could not be. “And you want to do the same.”

  “Shut up! Silence!”

  “How had you such strength, Tyr? Strength to heft her with one hand, to squeeze her unconscious. Strength like the very jotunn who forged you.”

  No! Anger, pain. They had given him strength. Naught more. “Go to Hel.”

  “She holds me because of your failure.”

  The words hit him like a blow, and he stumbled against the wall. “I … I didn’t … You didn’t tell me your plans …”

  “Petty excuses. No wonder your woman left you.”

  Tyr screamed in wordless rage and flung the woman’s sword at the shadows. It clattered against the wall. He was done arguing with shadows. It was not Borr.

  It was not Borr.

  This huntress would have food, something he could use for fresh bandages. He’d tie her up, treat his injuries. Manage a few hours’ sleep. And go.

  A darkness settled in this lodge. One he’d best be free of soon as he could.

  10

  Toward evening, the Godwulf town came into view. They had made good time, Agilaz riding beside his son and Sigyn sitting behind him, pressed against a foster brother she might soon never see again. Snow Rabbit had carried them far each day, and they had needed spend only a few nights in the wild, to everyone’s certain relief. Shortsnout trotted behind them all without complaint, though the aging hound collapsed with exhaustion each night. Agilaz had already convinced Hermod to keep the animal, saying he’d need a friend in his new home.

  The Godwulf lands lay on the eastern reaches of Aujum, nigh unto where the Jarnvid formed much of the border with Bjarmaland. The tribe wandered, however, migrating with each passing summer, never wintering twice in the same place. Always, however, they remained around that accursed forest. They raided into Bjarmaland by skirting its edges, though no man, not even varulfur, would dare enter the Jarnvid. Skalds claimed trolls dwelt there in ancient burrows, and their tales engendered nightmares in every woman in Midgard. Trolls ate men, on that, every skald agreed, debating only on whether trolls cooked a man first. But they took women as wives, as some people referred to the abomination that befell such a woman. If she survived the rapes at all, she was like to be torn apart when an infant troll clawed itself from her womb.

  And did trolls really exist, or rather, were they figments conjured up to frighten the gullible and keep women in line? Sigyn had spoken to no man—at least no man not swaying from drink—who had seen such creatures with his own eyes, and she had asked. In many a skald’s tale, trolls were the misbegotten offspring of the equally fanciful jotunnar, the beings of chaos beyond the edge of Midgard. But then, she knew of no one who had seen Utgard, either.

  A wolf howl rang out as they drew nearer the town of Kaldlund, drawing a growl from Shortsnout. Agilaz spoke softly to the hound, eyes locked on the direction the howl had come from.

  The Godwulfs claimed to guard the Jarnvid lest the trolls emerge and threaten all the North Realms. Perhaps they even spoke truth, had indeed faced perilous fiends of the mist. More like, though, they used it as an excuse for their never-ending raiding, their own rape and plunder of foreigners and other Ás tribes alike. And varulfur did exist. They could plant their seed in a woman’s belly, and, oft as not, the child would bear the traits of the father. Such were the men Hermod had been sent to live among.

  She had drawn a little closer to him now. How could she not? Varulfur and berserkir could barely contain their aggression and lust when they tried, and most of them didn’t bother, from what she heard. Agilaz had warned her against coming here, but she would not let go of Hermod without seeing him safe. If he was lost from her life, he ought at least to be able to live his own, even if it was among such savage brutes as these.

  “Don’t worry,” Hermod said. “We are guests here. No harm will come to you.”

  “Mmmm.” How was she to tell him she feared as much for him as for herself? Such a sentiment would insult his honor. And Olrun had spoken the truth—they did need peace with the Godwulfs, lest Hadding’s varulf brother come to take Halfhaugr from them. If that happened, anarchy would fall upon the Hasding town. Frigg, their father, and everyone else Sigyn cared for would face a bloodbath.

  Kaldlund had only a spiked wooden wall around it, no ancient stone wrought in times past. Scant protection against the mist and its denizens. A fur-swathed man met them at the gate, axe in his hand. He nodded at Agilaz, and her foster father rode up and dismounted before him.

  “Agilaz Farshot.” The Godwulf man beckoned them inward with a wave. “Jarl Alci bids you join him for the night meal.”

  “How did they know we’d be here today?” Sigyn whispered into Hermod’s ear.

  “Scouts have followed us for hours,” he whispered back. The Godwulf had turned to stare at them. “And he can probably hear us.”

  Varulf hearing was that good? A fine blessing, though she’d not have wanted the savagery that accompanied it.

  The guard pointed toward the largest hall, and Agilaz started off that way. Hermod helped her off the horse, then climbed down himself and began to lead the animal after his father.

  “I want you to keep her,” Hermod said when they neared the jarl’s hall.

  “What?”

  “Snow Rabbit. I won’t have so much time to ride or hunt now, I think. She deserves someone who can give her the attention she needs. So when you go from here, take her with you.”

  Her mind raced through a dozen responses, none of which seemed sufficient rejoinder to Hermod bestowing upon her his most prized possession. “Thank you.” Brilliant. With such ingenious lines, she need not worry about outsmarting a potential husband. Freyja! Why wouldn’t her tongue work properly when she actually needed it? It certainly got her in enough trouble when she ought to have stayed silent.

  He handed the reins to a slave who had already taken Agilaz’s horse. Hand on her shoulder, Hermod guided her toward the hall. Inside, thick smoke clogged the air, wafting among the rafters and choking her. None of the raucous men and women seemed bothered, all noisily boasting, feasting, drinking. Some of them wore almost no clothing, despite the chill creeping into the hall. A woman, shieldmaiden perhaps, sat on a bench, topless, paying not the slightest attention to a man sucking on her breast as she downed great swigs from a drinking horn. Two men wearing not a stitch took turns punching each other in the face while others laughed and shouted encouragement.

  Even through the smoke, the Godwulf hall stank of wolves.

  The bare-chested jarl lounged upon his throne, one leg thrown over an armrest, his long hair flowing like a red river over his shoulders. Maybe Hadding had looked thus twenty or twenty-five winters ago, though she found it hard to imagine him with the sheer pompous, self-assuredness of his brother. Still, they shared enough in common, the set of their eyes, that calculating look in them, that she would have known him even had he not sat upon the throne.

  Alci had seen them, though he gave only the slightest inclination of his head to Agilaz and none at all to her or Hermod.

  Another man rose, his own brown hair streaked with gray, and beckoned them over. “Come. I am Hoenir, thegn to Jarl Alci.” And father of the woman now intent on stealing
Hermod away. Agilaz and Hermod sat on the bench where Hoenir indicated, and Sigyn squeezed in between them, rather than find herself wedged against any of the abhorrent warriors at the table. Hoenir pointed to a blonde woman across from him. A vicious scar ran down from her forehead, split the bridge of her nose, and reached the edge of her cheek. The woman had arms thick as a young man’s. “This is my daughter, Syn.”

  A shieldmaiden. Hermod was marrying a fucking shieldmaiden. Of course he was. Olrun had been a shieldmaiden, won glory for herself and her family, so why would her son want any ordinary woman?

  The woman licked grease from her fingers and stared at Hermod with greedy little eyes but offered not a single gesture or token of respect. A barely controlled bitch who ought to be kept with the elkhounds. Sigyn forced a pleasant smile to her face and nodded at the scarred shieldmaiden. Not a varulf, or she wouldn’t have such a pronounced scar. She’d have to thank Freyja for small blessings.

  Agilaz exchanged pleasantries with Hoenir and his men, introducing Hermod all around and even Sigyn, though she found herself with little to say to any of these people. How many of them were varulfur? It didn’t matter, she supposed. Even could they ever have turned back, that time had passed, and they were trapped here. Whether these men and women were varulfur did not matter, not when dozens, maybe hundreds, in this tribe clearly were. They had walked into the den of wolves, and one of them would not walk out.

  Hoenir gave the three of them a room in his own modest house. After long hours of drinking that left Sigyn warm and swaying, they had retired there. She had almost let one of the warriors lead her away and ease her pain and frustration, if only for a moment. But she was not quite that drunk, nor would she let herself be. Not here.

  Her foster brother had collapsed on the floor and now lay snoring in front of the brazier, their hound curled upon against his side. Agilaz, however, watched her, expression grave.

  Fine. So he wanted to talk. She could talk. Maybe not as well as usual, but why should she fucking care anymore? She spread her hands, welcoming in whatever carefully placed shot he had planned for her.

  Agilaz, however, never spoke quickly, never rushed. He believed in having a plan and sticking to it, and he had told her as much. Repeatedly. “I spoke to Olrun before we left. She believed you should not have come here.”

  “Yes, I guess she does. None of us should have. What good do you think sacrificing your son will bring the Hasdingi?”

  Agilaz looked to where Hermod lay, then shook his head. “I am not sacrificing him. Olrun and I chose to make our lives in Aujum, with your father, because I judged Hadding a good man.”

  Did he now? “A man who would have exposed his own daughter.”

  Her foster father frowned. “Hadding made many mistakes, but such is life. He trusted King Nidud of Njarar, borrowed gold and finely wrought weapons to fight his enemies.”

  Sigyn shrugged. She knew of the Njarar War, of how it had torn the tribes apart. Two and a half summers of murder and revenge, war and discord, that engulfed half of Aujum before it ended.

  “Nidud’s son Otwin has called in those debts, Sigyn, called for payment Hadding doesn’t have. And so, our enemies multiply, while our friends dwindle. We need Hadding’s brother turned to our cause lest the Sviarlander king march against us. If word reaches the king of renewed love between the brothers, he would be like to turn his eyes elsewhere.”

  So it was not only the other Ás tribes her father feared, but foreign kings as well. And because of that fear, he’d make any bargain, cling to any hope, no matter how ephemeral. Just as Frigg, in her own desperation, sought to call upon Jarl Odin for aid, so had her father sent Agilaz to befriend Jarl Alci. The trouble was, neither of the jarls had overmuch reason to offer loyalty. That Hermod was not betrothed to a varulf girl came as a welcome relief on one hand, but on the other, it meant Alci had given up the daughter of one of the least of his thegns. She rubbed her eyes.

  “If you are wrong, if Alci turns on us, who do you think the first to fall will be now?”

  Agilaz sighed and looked again at his sleeping son. Did Hermod even realize the danger he had placed himself in? “Get some sleep, Sigyn. We’ll have to leave in the morn.”

  Oh, but she did not think sleep would come easy this night.

  11

  The mountain had no name. Not among any of the Ás tribes, not that Odin knew. The vӧlvur said that to name a thing was to evoke it, and none would dare evoke the soul of such a behemoth. Least of all as they tried to scale it.

  The slope they climbed disappeared into the night sky, the peak still a mile or more above them. None of his tribe had attempted aught like this. Such wild places housed vaettir, trolls, and Njord knew what else. Ahead, his brothers trudged upward, their steps not nearly as certain as those of their guide. Snow crunched under their feet, snow that reached gods-alone-knew how deep. On these mountains, maybe it had never melted.

  “Just how big is this jotunn?” Vili asked. Vili was the only one smiling during this whole endeavor. Men said berserkir knew no fear. Perhaps he simply had the brains of a bear as well as the courage of one.

  Loki paused, crouched atop a boulder like a bobcat ready to pounce. The pelts he wore only enhanced the image. He turned slowly to look at Odin’s brother. “Six times the size of a man. This one is, at least. As they grow older and feast upon the flesh of men, they can grow larger. And Ymir is ancient.”

  And they were hunting it. This would be a long night.

  Vili grunted, then looked pointedly at Ve. “Which man? Some men are larger than others. Ve’s barely the size of a dverg.”

  In truth, Ve stood some perhaps five and a half feet tall, and his thick muscles, braided beard, and battle scars would hardly let anyone mistake him for tiny. As usual, Ve simply glowered at Vili. The burgeoning skald would have his revenge over campfires, Odin had no doubt.

  “That’s enough,” Odin said at last, pushing past the rest of the group. This jotunn would be nigh. And soon it would know the bite of his spear. He ran his fingers over Gungnir’s runes. Power seeped into him whenever he held the weapon. The power to rule his tribe. The power to destroy his enemies. “We’re here to avenge Father, not bicker like lovesick maids. Shut your mouths or go home.”

  “Not large enough,” Loki whispered as Vili passed him.

  Odin smirked. None of the others could see his face anyway. With the damnable snow flurries, they probably couldn’t have seen it even had he been facing them. It was as if Hel herself had stirred the winds of Niflheim to thwart his quest.

  His torch sputtered in his hand. The firelight would give away their position before they were halfway up the damned mountain. Four little specks, advancing closer on Ymir, announcing their intent. “We have to douse the flames.”

  Everyone paused, turned to him.

  “Brother, are you already mist-mad?” Ve asked. “Skalds and vӧlvur alike agree, fire banishes darkness, mist, and cold. It is the first and last gift of man, one to never be squandered.”

  “If Ymir sees us coming, we lose our one advantage.” Odin scowled, staring up at the peak, barely visible through the snow. The storm was growing worse. “I will not allow Father to go unavenged over some vӧlva’s tale of the mist. A man doesn’t go mad in one night.”

  Loki drew up close to him now, shaking his head. “Your brother speaks truth. Fire is life, and it was given to mankind at great cost to the giver. It is our only ally out here. And as a frost jotunn, Ymir abhors the flames. If you cast it aside, you lose a shield and sword both.”

  “I will not be denied!” Odin snapped. “Not over some petty fear of the wild. What happens if he sees us coming a mile away? The jotunn can hurl boulders down upon us.”

  Loki sighed. “Or worse. These snows may well respond to his beckoning. Jotunnar can reach into the Otherworlds for the power to change the Mortal Realm. No easy choices lay before you, nor are any like to lie in your future, Odin.”

  Odin waved the foreigner’s no
nsense away. “Douse the fucking flames. Now.” He drove his torch into the snow then grasped Gungnir with both hands. Odin’s spear, handed down through countless generations, bore an engraved dragon coiling around the shaft. But it was the blade, an undulating point like a flame, that truly made the weapon a thing of the gods. Etched on one side of the blade, another faint dragon swiveled, not worn away despite the immeasurable age of the spear. His father claimed the blade had been forged with a dragon’s soul, in the time before time. Now it would be forged anew, drunk on the blood of the frost jotunn Ymir.

  Odin kissed its blade. “Gods above and below, grant us victory.” Four men against a jotunn. And before this night was done, it would know fear. He pressed on, pushing out ahead of his brothers.

  One by one, torches hissed out in the snow behind him.

  The flurries pounded them with the ferocity of a blizzard. Perhaps Loki spoke truth, and Ymir had some fell sorcery with which to turn the mountain against them. Or perhaps it was a mere winter storm. Either way, Odin couldn’t see far.

  Arm shielding his face, he grunted, driving against the blinding snows. The slope had turned steep, and even using Gungnir as a walking stick, his progress had slowed nigh unto a crawl. He glanced back. Vili growled, pushing on, but Ve was actually having to use his hands to pull himself forward. And where had Loki gotten off to? In the darkness, the damned foreigner had disappeared. Slipped away like a craven? It didn’t matter. The foreigner had brought the brothers far enough.

  Odin pushed on, but not five steps farther, his foot slipped on the ice-slickened rocks. The ground gave way, snow skidding down past him. Odin twisted while trying to shout a warning to his brothers. The movement cost him what remained of his balance, and he plummeted down the slope.

  Rime-covered rocks tore through his fur trousers, ripping gashes in his shins. The ice scored a long gouge into his thigh, searing him like a burn. His pack tore free and plummeted back down the slope. His fingers grasped the edge of a rock, but they were too numb. His grip faltered. In an instant, Loki leapt onto the rock and snatched Odin’s arm.