Date: 2017-11-27 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: Norse mythology retold - Tyrfing CycleIn the frozen wastes, all warmth dies.In pursuit of a runeblade, Hervor and Starkad travel beyond Midgard to a fabled kingdom. Here, they find a cursed valley lost by time.The ghosts of long ago walk the night, playing out the final moments of their tragic lives.Now, even if Hervor can claim the runeblade, she faces a worse danger. For those who enter the valley can never leave …Buy it now to enter a grim fantasy set in the Ragnarok Era.For even more dark Norse adventure, don't miss the tie-in series Gods of the Ragnarok Era, starting with The Apples of Id
Publisher: Incandescent Phoenix Books
Rights: Copyright 2017 Matt Larkin. All rights reserved.

Days of Frozen Hearts

Matt Larkin

DAYS OF FROZEN HEARTS

Runeblade Saga: Book Three

MATT LARKIN

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2017 MATT LARKIN

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Published by Incandescent Phoenix Books

mattlarkinbooks.com

For Juhi. Thank you.

Contents

Maps

Prologue

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part II

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Part III

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Part IV

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Epilogue

Skalds’ Tribe

Author’s Ramblings

Books by Matt Larkin

Prologue

Atop a rocky knoll, a small fire crackled, holding back the mist. Odin’s knees creaked as he climbed that hill, most of his weight upon Gungnir’s butt. For the midst of summer, the night was brisk, though the cold mattered less to Odin these days than it had in times past.

Loki waited for him here, in the southern ranges of Sviarland, where Odin so oft found himself these days. Oh, Odin wandered all of Midgard, of course. But in Sviarland the chaos of war seemed almost as eternal as the battles waged against Serkland in the far south. And here, thanks to Gylfi, nigh to all the people worshipped the Aesir as gods. The faith had spread far beyond Sviarland, but this land had become a crux, a focal point for events that would decide the fate of mankind. It meant Odin had to lend his hand more oft here, had to ensure events proceeded in a way he could use them.

His blood brother did not turn around at Odin’s approach, though Loki no doubt knew Odin was here. He always seemed to know.

“What do you see in those flames?” Odin asked, settling down across the campfire from the other man.

Loki sat with his legs folded beneath him, hands on his knees. The flames reflected off his crystal blue eyes, dancing in the night. Loki’s faint half-smile might well have been a grimace for all Odin could tell. Despite the many years he’d spent in the man’s company, Loki remained hard to read.

That should have come as no surprise, really. Though he looked decades younger than Odin, Loki was the elder. Much, much older than any Ás. Older even than any of the Vanir had been.

“I see chaos and death,” Loki said at last.

“Mmmm. So naught much changes, really. Chaos and death are all we ever expect from the future. Naught I have achieved thus far has averted Ragnarok.”

Loki offered no answer, other than a deepening of the set of his mouth. As if any answer pained him to so much as think, much less to say.

Well enough, in any event. Odin had other things on his mind this night. “I find long walks give one much time to muse on the past and future.”

Still no answer, but then, that hadn’t been a question.

Odin cleared his throat. “These days, I walk a great deal.”

“And have you learned much from it?”

“I’d like to think so. Though I find I am left with a puzzle, a mystery I cannot unravel.”

“Only one?”

Odin grunted in acknowledgment. No matter how far he wandered, how much he learned, his knowledge remained a blade of grass in the vast plains of the unknown. Still. One could but continue to try. “You taught the Lofdar pyromancy—the Art of Fire.”

“Some would draw a subtle distinction between the two.”

Odin waved that away. “Faced with the Children of the Mist, you armed my ancestors. Created the first pyromancers. Is that not so?”

Loki hesitated a moment before nodding.

“And now the Aesir are faced off against those same foes, and yet you do not, have never, introduced a single one of us to your Art.”

Loki sighed, rubbing his palms against his knees. “That was another time. Another age. And I cannot say, even now, in hindsight, whether I acted as I ought to have. Sorcery was more common back then. It is best we leave the mistakes of the past dead and buried.”

“Would that I could. Remnants of the Old Kingdoms wake once more into the world of men. I contend with sorcerers.”

“There are fewer of them, lesser in power than they were in those days. And either way, I cannot risk repeating my mistakes. I notice you raise the subject of where the pyromancers came from, yet do not bother to ask where they all went.”

Odin paused. The Old Kingdoms had died out, the Lofdar among them. But true, he had not quite considered what had happened to the pyromancers specifically. “So, then, where did they go?”

Loki rose, shaking his head. “When you find the answer to that question, you’ll know why I no longer bind man and flame together.”

Odin too stood, less gracefully, perhaps. “One way or another, I must claim the legacy of the Old Kingdoms. I must have all the weapons possible to face this final battle.”

“The runeblades? Seek them if you must. Just remember, like the Art of Fire, such relics wrought from the Art can burn both foe and wielder.”

Odin grunted. As long as his enemies burned first, naught else mattered.

Part I

Tenth Moon

Year 28, Age of the Aesir

Four Moons After Days of Bloody Thrones

1

After passing the winter here, the Yngling hall at Upsal had almost started to feel like home. Strange thought, given that Hervor had sworn an oath to bring down the Ynglings at any cost. And here she was, sipping mead and leaning back against the table, cheering the spectacle with the rest of them.

Benches had been pushed aside in the center of the hall, making way for the contestants. Ecgtheow the Tiny had both arms locked around Starkad, bearing him down to the ground. It looked like the big man was finally going to pin his opponent. Despite all Starkad’s speed, Ecgtheow was larger and stronger than … well, almost anyone.

Ecgtheow grunted, driving Starkad down. Starkad tilted over backward. As he did so, he twisted around so fast Hervor barely followed. Suddenly Ecgtheow was in midair, flipping over Starkad’s shoulder. Hervor’s mouth fell open the instant before the big man hit the dusty ground. A horrendous oomph escaped Ecgtheow and the man lay dazed.

Huh. Hervor had trained at wrestling since she was seven winters old. By the time she was nine, she could beat boys her age, a few even older than her. She still couldn’t have pulled off what Starkad just had. The man never ceased to amaze.

King Aun raised his drinking horn. “Eightarms!” The others echoed his cheer throughout the hall. Everyone was in good spirits, what with summer now underway. Summer meant time for crops and safer fishing and, of course, raids. Well … except Aun refused to send his people raiding. The new Yngling king claimed Upsal had lost enough men in the wars.

Man was a craven, no doubt. These Ynglings were like weeds. Yngvi and Alf were dead. Alf’s son Ochilaik was dead. Yngvi’s sons Jorund and Eikkr were dead. Hervor had helped most of them to the grave. And now here was Aun, some cousin to the slain who popped up in the western reaches of Upsal, almost into Dalar.

Man had come to claim the throne when there was no one left alive to challenge him.

Maybe Hervor ought to have killed him too, but … She’d already held her oath fulfilled.

So much blood.

Yngvi’s man had slain Hervor’s father, but she’d killed the murderer and the king’s son both. What more could Father expect from her? Was she to scour every snowy mound and bog in Sviarland to make sure not a single Yngling pest survived?

No, she had seen enough of war in any event. War had cost her friends, family, even her own body … her right arm might never again be as strong as it had been. She’d spent the past moons trying to heal, trying to train to fight left-handed.

And by Odin’s balls, that was an ordeal.

Besides, she’d given her new oath to Starkad, promised to help the man recover a runeblade from Jotunheim. Odin preserve her against such folly.

Starkad helped Ecgtheow rise, and the two plodded over to join Hervor on the benches. Each took a turn with the drinking horn. A long turn, in fact.

Finally, Starkad wiped his mouth on his sleeve and tossed the empty horn on the table. “So, then. What brings you to Upsal? Should you not be seeing to that wife of yours?”

That drew a wry grin from the big man. “Oh, she’s been well seen to. Thick in the belly already, you know, and no complaints, far as that goes.”

“And so you left her alone, and with child?” Hervor asked. “How courteous.”

“She’s not alone. You said it yourself, she’s with the child.”

Starkad snickered and Hervor frowned. Naught amusing about the situation she could see.

Ecgtheow groaned and rolled his eyes. “You were more entertaining as a man, I think. Ylva is with her parents. Actually, that’s why I’ve come. See now, the throne of Ostergotland lies vacant since the death of Haki. Don’t suppose it’s like to stay that way overlong, though.”

Starkad leaned on the table, frowning. “Still no one has risen up?”

Ecgtheow snorted. “More mead, wench!” he shouted at one of the slaves. “As yet, no one has held the throne. Men have tried though, and more than a few. Haki made himself king by force of arms and force of character.”

“All kings are so made,” Starkad said. “It is only their heirs who think themselves entitled to aught simply for being born.”

Hervor took the horn when the slave brought it, sipped it, then handed it on to Ecgtheow. “I heard the tales of Haki. He was fearless back then. That’s why I joined him.” One of the reasons.

“True enough. Haki, he earned his fame, no mistake.” Ecgtheow paused to take another swig. “But. Now he’s dead, his brother’s dead, and his sons lack the strength to hold the throne. And now, more than one man had risen, blood of old Gauti and all that.”

Gauti was well-famed, though Hervor had little memory of him. She’d grown up on stories of how Haki had overthrown the old king. Tossed him off his own walls, down into the sea, where the man had broken on rocks. Haki claimed he’d ended the man’s whole dynasty.

But Ecgtheow was no doubt right, plenty of men yet lived from Gauti’s line. And women. Through her mother’s side, Hervor would have been a distant relation herself, though she had no ambition to try to become queen of aught.

“Then shouldn’t you be in Ostergotland where the action is?” she asked.

“True enough, and so I should. And you two, as well. Hervor, if you convince Jarl Bjalmar to join with Hrethel, we’ll have the strength to take the throne without overmuch bloodshed. And Starkad … the jarl will pay you a horde of riches and more to fight for him.”

“I can’t,” Starkad said before Hervor could answer. “I have a prior commitment to Gylfi. You of all people know one does not keep him waiting longer than necessary.”

Ecgtheow grunted. “Fair enough. And you, Hervor? Will you speak with your grandfather?”

She sighed, then shook her head. “I go with Starkad and we plan to leave in but a few days for Holmgard.”

“Bjarmaland! What in the gates of Hel do you want with that awful place? Have you not seen enough of far-flung lands?”

Indeed, she truly had. But her oath to Starkad bound her. “What claim does Hrethel even have to Ostergotland? He was a jarl under Jorund, was he not?”

“A position he inherited from his father-in-law, Swerting. But he was born a man of Ostergotland, and kin to Gauti, same as the other claimants.”

And now Hrethel thought being a jarl under Aun not enough for him? Well, for all that, Hrethel seemed a good enough man. Maybe he’d make a good king. Still, it meant joining in more wars, and surely Sviarland had seen enough of war this past year. Under other circumstances, Hervor might well have asked Grandfather to side with Hrethel.

Of course, Grandfather would do as he damned well pleased. He took counsel only from Gunther, if even him.

Hervor hated to see this matter settled without her … And she had no business being in Holmgard, especially given what her other grandfather had done there. But she’d never break her oath, least of all to Starkad.

Never.

So where did that leave her?

Fucked, more or less. Having to trust Tiny to handle things here. And the big man would put his own fame and glory high above concerns like sparing the kingdom another war. He always put his own fortunes first, same as Hervor, same as anyone with half a mind.

Hervor shook her head. “Just … just remember. Grandfather sheltered us all when things turned against us with Jorund. Take care to recall that friendship.”

Ecgtheow nodded. “I never forget such things.”

“Go with care, my friend,” Starkad said, and clasped Ecgtheow’s arm.

Hervor repeated the gesture.

Ecgtheow smiled as he stood. “May Odin watch over you both.”

“And you,” Hervor said.

Starkad said naught else, but then, that was oft his way. When Ecgtheow had left, the man turned to her. “We can be ready to leave in a few more days. Are you still certain you wish …”

“You don’t have to ask that. You’re not like to get a different answer than you did the past twenty times.”

She’d go with him, beyond the bounds of Midgard and into Jotunheim. She’d go, because she’d sworn it. She’d go because he was doing all this because of her. She’d go … because some part of her couldn’t stand the thought of him not coming back.

And here, in her absence, the wars would continue. But they were a small worry. Small compared to the truth she left behind.

Orvar-Oddr, the Arrow’s Point.

He was still out there.

And he had promised to make her suffer before he killed her. Would the draug pursue her as far as Jotunheim? If he did, how could she ever explain his presence to Starkad?

Sooner or later, Starkad would discover the truth.

Over the course of the winter, that fear had coiled around Hervor’s heart like a constricting serpent. Crushing it. Leaving her in such constant terror all else felt far away.

Numb.

He was still out there.

2

As a jarl under the Ynglings, Hrethel had done well for himself, no mistake. He owned numerous islands off the coast of Upsal, as well as a stretch of land across from them. Three of those islands he had granted to Ecgtheow, the largest of which Ecgtheow had lived on with Ylva, briefly.

Now she was with child and had gone to live with her mother while Ecgtheow was away.

When he returned to Hrethel’s hall, the woman flung her arms around his neck, pulled him down, and nibbled at his ear, drawing a gasp from him and a chuckle from those nearest.

“Ah. Someone seems to have missed me, then.”

“Should I not miss my husband when he ventures far from home?” The woman was so small, she had to crane her neck to look up at him.

Ecgtheow grinned and squeezed her arse cheek. “Where’s your father?”

She cocked her head toward the door. “Off by the ships, with my brothers. Where else?”

No surprise, that. Little else seemed to occupy anyone’s minds these days. Ecgtheow chuckled. “If we make your father a king, suppose that’ll make you princess.”

She leaned in closer. “Oh, indeed. And does the thought of bedding the princess of Ostergotland get you hard … Tiny?”

By Hel it did. He cleared his throat. “I think I’d rather shed that name.”

She shrugged. “Once a man fastens his name, it’s not like to come off him easy, now, is it?”

“Maybe I just need to fasten another one.”

“Have something in mind?”

“Could be. You’d best get yourself some food. You’ll be needing your stamina when next I see you.”

She winked at him. The bulge at her belly just barely showed, but still, he loved looking at it. Knowing his babe was growing in there, warm and strong. By all the Aesir, he’d make sure that, when the babe arrived, his—or her—mother would be a princess already. Yes, if Ylva bore a son, that son might one day have a claim at being King of Ostergotland. That was a future worth shedding a bit of blood for, even if Hrethel’s other sons had better claim.

Even if, after Thule and Jorund and all that, Ecgtheow no longer fancied bloodshed as he once had.

With a last look at Ylva, Ecgtheow strode outside and down to the docks. A great many longships had gathered in the harbor, and more would no doubt be on the way, even now. Sailing in from all the isles, along with mercenaries hired from around the North Realms. Hrethel had wanted Eightarms and wanted him bad, but there was no help for it. The man had his own urd to follow and rarely seemed much inclined to change his mind once he’d set it.

Actually, Ecgtheow was just glad no one else in Ostergotland would be able to hire Eightarms. He did not fancy clashing blades with him in any sort of real match, not even armed with Naegling.

Jarl Hrethel stood on a pier, watching as another ship drew nigh, his sons there with him. Herebeald was debating his father, gesturing about wildly to make whatever point he was on about. Ecgtheow had fought beside the man in the war against Haki and again against Jorund. He was brave, maybe even rash.

His younger brother Haethcyn had fought too, but Ecgtheow barely knew him. The third brother, Hygelac, was just a boy, though, younger than Ylva. Too young for fighting, though he didn’t seem keen to accept that. Boy was waving a sword around, trying to impress a father that wasn’t so much as glancing his way. Shame, that, but the boy would be dead in the first battle if he went to war.

Herebeald’s brow raised as he turned, as he finally spotted Ecgtheow. He waved a greeting. “Tiny! Come!”

When Ecgtheow did approach, Herebeald gestured to his father. “Tiny, my friend, please explain to Father the value of a surprise attack.”

Hrethel snorted. “Boy here thinks we ought to strike out against Helm Wulfingson before even staking our claim and giving him the chance to acknowledge it. Says surprise matters more than honor.”

Probably not far from the truth, but then, Hrethel always had to act rightly before the eyes of gods and men. Maybe Odin cared, maybe not. From the tales Ecgtheow heard of the Ás, Odin seemed to favor trickery, even unmanly schemes. Then again, Hrethel was a man, not a god. Different rules, Ecgtheow supposed.

So Ecgtheow rubbed his palms together, taking in the boats, the gathering warriors. Like as not, Herebeald had the right of it. A swift strike could eliminate their strongest foe before he even realized Hrethel was involved in the struggle. On the other hand, Hrethel would be the one to name his heir, and Ecgtheow wanted his and Ylva’s son to have as fair a chance as any at that. That meant earning the jarl’s respect. “We have to give them the chance to acknowledge Jarl Hrethel as king. No sense in killing good men who aren’t yet our enemy.”

Herebeald threw his hands up. “Mist-mad, the both of you! Helm won’t swear fealty to any man, not while he has the strongest army in Ostergotland. Sure as the gates of Hel not while he has his nephew to champion him. You heard of this Headolaf the Red? Man fought for Haki Seamaster, raiding and pillaging up and down the coast. Now he’s back, and in service to his uncle.” He paused, looked to Ecgtheow. “And, alas, I don’t see Starkad Eightarms standing beside our friend here. Whom do you think ought to fight Headolaf if it comes to it?”

Ecgtheow slapped his palms together. “I’ll fight, if need be. I don’t fear the Red, nor any man.”

Hrethel’s son snorted, then shook his head. “Be it on you then. We could have done this the easy way. If we find ourselves mired in troll shit, just you both remember that.”

Now Hrethel chuckled. “Boy, we find ourselves in troll shit, I’ll be looking out for trolls, not worrying over who said what. Now see to the other ships. I want to launch with the tide tomorrow.”

* * *

As expected, Hrethel hosted a feast that evening. A lord had to, if he wanted his warriors to go to battle in high spirits. Everyone knew they were not like to eat this well again for some time. They’d be living on dried, salted fish, barring whatever they might catch along the way.

Ecgtheow was no exception, of course. After a good romp with Ylva—and Ecgtheow never got enough of the way she’d cry out when she finished—he’d come to the hall to stuff himself. Pike and salmon and fresh carrots, all well-cooked. No, he wouldn’t have missed such a meal for a pile of gold.

Speaking of gold … “More mead!” He slapped his palms down on the table.

The slaves were running about, trying to keep the horns filled. Probably meant he’d be waiting longer than he’d have liked. His throat was feeling parched already.

Ylva sat beside him, poking at a fishbone, as if she couldn’t decide if she needed another serving. Her appetite had quite grown in the past moon. Good sign, that.

A cloaked man settled down across the table from him and slid a goblet across the wood, sloshing mead in its passage.

Ecgtheow looked down at the cup, then up at the figure, who had still not removed his wrapping. The hood concealed the better part of the man’s face.

“Little warm this time of year for such an outfit,” Ecgtheow said.

“For a man who does not … wish to be recognized by all … it serves.”

The voice was harsh, a little raspy even. But it seemed somehow familiar. “Do I know you?”

“You know me well enough, Tiny. We fought together.”

“I’m not overfond of that name these days.” He picked up the cup but didn’t drink. Much as he wanted the mead, what man came concealed to the feast, and offering a drink? “I fought a lot of battles. Had a lot of allies. Even more enemies. Maybe you can narrow the list a little.”

“I can … How many allies fought beside you … on Thule … How many did you leave for dead … out in the cold …”

“What is he talking about?” Ylva asked.

He was talking about something impossible. “A lot of men died on that island. Don’t see how any of them could be here now.”

But he knew that voice.

“Surely you know me … Ecgtheow. But I am not ready for all of Sviarland to hear of my return. Thus I come to you in secret.”

This was fucking impossible. “Orvar-Oddr?”

“Yes …”

“Hervor said the draug prince slew you.”

“Oh … The princes of the Old Kingdoms are mighty foes, indeed. They were masters of swordplay and learned in the dark Art. But he did not quite slay me.”

Well, fuck. “Had we known you lived, we never would have left you behind. Hervor must have … she must have thought you dead.”

Orvar shrugged. “She had good reason to think me dead. Now, I ask you for your aid in a task.”

Ecgtheow rubbed his palms together and shook his head. “Would that I could. But we are bound in the morn for Ostergotland, there to press a claim for the throne. It is an urgent matter we must settle before someone else manages to.”

“Ostergotland. Yes … it is well enough. I will travel with you, then, and aid in your task as best I might. And when it is done, you must aid in my task.”

Fair enough, Ecgtheow supposed. He stuck out his arm and Orvar clasped his wrist with a gloved hand. Despite the warm hall and the man’s cloak, Orvar’s skin felt chilled, even through his shirt. “You do not seem quite well.”

“Well enough for the task at hand.”

Indeed. The Arrow’s Point was a legend across the North Realms. Even knowing he sided with them might have been enough to get some men to back away from the fight. Shame Orvar wanted to remain concealed. Still, Orvar was almost as fine an ally as Eightarms would have been.

This night had turned out well enough.

When Ecgtheow looked back at Ylva, his wife was staring at Orvar, gnawing her lip, and looking far too dour.

Ecgtheow elbowed her gently. “Come. Eat, drink. Let us enjoy ourselves. I may not see you again for a moon or more.”

3

Even in the midst of summer, the Gandvik Sea had a chill about it. Mist wafted over the waters and obscured the view of much beyond the ship, though scouts had called out land spotted ahead. Old Bragi Bluefoot had once told Hervor that plentiful serpents—the spawn of Jormangandr—lived beneath these waters. In her days as a raider, she’d heard tale of ships brought down by sudden storms, or vanishing without reason.

This voyage had gone smooth enough, though. She counted herself lucky. Men chanced the Gandvik, for it was the only real way to the lands beyond Sviarland.

And Starkad, well, he wanted to go far beyond.

The man himself drew up beside her where she stood, leaning upon the gunwale. “Holmgard, the town, it’s a small port, but there’s a fair-sized kingdom of the same name around it. The only civilized realm left in Bjarmaland. Gylfi founded it decades back after …”

“After Odin came to him in his dreams?”

Starkad jerked. “So you know.”

Hervor nodded. She’d spent quite some time asking after this land. After all, Gylfi had sent his own son-in-law Sigrlami here to establish the colony. And from what Hervor could piece together of the past, her grandfather Arngrim had slain Sigrlami and taken Tyrfing. Along with the sword, he’d claimed Sigrlami’s daughter, Eyfura, who became Hervor’s grandmother.

Of course, if she told Starkad all that, he might work through it, unravel the bloodlines. Might realize she was Angantyr’s daughter. Might then understand what she’d done, how she’d murdered his friend Orvar-Oddr. And lied about it ever since.

And then he’d fucking kill her. Or worse still, turn his back on her. And so she bit her tongue and wallowed in silence, as ever. Choked on it.

The ship drew up to the pier.

Gylfi’s colony had grown, flourished into its own small kingdom, despite constant threat from the jotunnar in Bjarmaland. Holmgard … in a way, Hervor had claim to this kingdom. A claim she could never press nor announce, but still, she’d longed to see it. Maybe even to lay eyes upon a jotunn.

Stories aplenty had reached her about them. Chaotic beasts from beyond the Midgard Wall. Supposedly cast out by the Vanir in ages past. Like everything else, even that protection was failing. And now, they built their own kingdoms in Bjarmaland, while the folk of Holmgard claimed it was only a matter of time before the jotunnar pressed into Sviarland and Kvenland.

Who was to say if they spoke truth or merely their own fears?

Hervor worked her right arm as the men unloaded empty crates from the ship, eager to re-provision here. The wound in her shoulder had not fully healed, probably never would. Made fighting with her right hand difficult, though it had gotten better. And her left, well, it had gotten easier. Still not easy, though.

Having had a draug bite off one of her fingers on that hand hadn’t help much, though.

“Come,” Starkad said, and clapped her on the shoulder. “Hrethel sent word ahead of our coming to King Rollaugr and he’s offered us a guest hall for our use in town.”

Hervor knew little of the king of Holmgard, save his father claimed the throne after her grandfather had slain Sigrlami. And would the king thank her if he knew the crimes of her family? Or her own crimes?

Hervor swallowed. She had grown too maudlin of late. Maybe it was the knowledge that Orvar-Oddr remained out there, deathless and hunting her. Eager to revenge himself upon all she held dear.

While Starkad dragged her off beyond the edge of Midgard.

* * *

The guest hall was hardly worthy of the name—a house, really, with a well-stoked fire pit and not much else about it. And still, it suited Hervor well enough, especially when Rollaugr’s men brought them hot soup and warm mead.

Starkad reclined near the fire, empty drinking horn dangling from one hand, staring off at naught she could see. He’d become even more … Otherworldly … since Wudga had given him that draught of eitr. The man she’d known was in there, somewhere, but changed.

Then again, she wasn’t who she’d been before, either.

In the winter, once, he’d come to her chamber and lain with her. And she’d expected him to come to her again.

He never did.

No matter how cold the nights grew.

Now, they had a house all to themselves. It should have been right, but everything was off. Or maybe she was overthinking again. She kept doing that. Naught she ever did seemed to quite bring them to where she wanted. And whose fault was that?

She leaned back on her elbows, legs spread as provocatively as possible.

Bastard didn’t even glance her way.

His fault, then.

“I’ve been asking after this place we seek,” he said after a few moments. His voice was thick with the mead, far away. Not lustful, though. “There are legends of a valley in Glaesisvellir … a place beyond time or death. A place where reality becomes … fragile.”

Hervor shut her eyes. She wanted to moan. To complain. After the horrors she’d gone through with the Art, if she never saw aught else born of the Otherworlds, it would be too soon. Yet she could hardly object after so fervently insisting he take her along.

He had agreed to retrieve the runeblade Skofnung for Gylfi in exchange for that bastard king using his Art to save Hervor. Starkad had given up his own desires for her sake. So didn’t that mean he should have fucking wanted her? Hel take him anyway. Man had no idea what was right in front of him.

Finally, Hervor leaned forward and folded her legs beneath her. “It can’t be worse than what we faced on Thule or beneath the mountains back in Sviarland.”

Starkad rubbed his hands on his trousers, then patted them together. “I hope you’re right. I truly do.”

He doubted? Odin’s balls, what were they walking into? But Starkad had given his oath.

And no one felt the power of an oath more keenly than Hervor.

When he said naught more, Hervor pushed aside her bowl and curled up to sleep by the fire.

Alone.

4

On the outer edges of Holmgard, they came to a village. A desolate place Hervor misliked the instant she saw it. In her raiding days, she’d have bypassed it without stopping. No one here had aught worth stealing.

Since snow had already fallen—and in the middle of summer, no less—Starkad had traded for a dogsled for them. The locals had no food to spare, forcing them to stop and hunt every so often. Still, the sleds helped, and they made good time.

Or she’d have thought they would.

And yet, Bjarmaland stretched on and on, bigger than any land Hervor had ever seen. They traveled east from Holmgard, toward a realm the villagers had called Qazan. They spoke of it in angry, hushed whispers, mumbling about needing Odin’s protection. Simple folk were given to wild fears, of course, but the sheer scope of their trepidation about the next kingdom over did not sit well with her.

Still, the days were mercifully long, so long they must be approaching the solstice. Starkad insisted they use that daylight, pressing hard, until when at last the sun began to dip and he agreed to make camp, she found herself sore and more than ready for night, much as she detested the dark.

The moment she untied them, the dogs trotted off, probably in search of snow rabbits or other game. Hervor set to building a fire while Starkad pitched their tents. The tree cover was light, but still enough remained out here she had built up a fair size pile of tinder before Starkad finished.

The man slouched down across from her as she worked at sparking the flame.

“We’re going to miss the Sumarauki festival.” She wasn’t really looking at him, focusing on her work, but she spared him the barest glance.

He was staring at the sky. “I think it may have started today.”

“W-what? Today?” Odin’s balls. The new year had crept up on her and instead of drinking and boasting and fucking she’d spent the day freezing her arse off, riding across an empty wasteland. To get to Odin-alone-knew what.

“Think so. Hard to keep precise track of the days out in the wilds.”

No kidding. Hervor rubbed her brow with her palm. “Don’t suppose you have any mead left?”

He grunted like the lack of it physically pained him.

And that was it. Here was Sumarauki and he wasn’t saying a damned thing to her. Not really. Well, what the fuck did she want from him, anyway? She’d murdered his friend, and no matter how she turned and twisted that truth, it always came back to her. She’d never quite be able to be honest with him, would she?

And why should she? Starkad was a worse murderer than even her if all the stories about him were true. Man had left a swathe of carnage in his wake everywhere he went. Now here he was—here they were, since she was still with him, Hel knew why—off to try to find a way through the godsdamned Midgard Wall and beyond.

So she’d given her oath to help him, because he’d made his oath on her behalf. That was honor, right? What little honor she could manage.

“If you find this last runeblade …” she began. “If you find it, then what?”

“It’s not the last. There are nine, not counting Wudga’s.”

“No, I know. But I mean … what comes next?” The spark caught and finally the flame took, spreading quickly into a thankfully warm blaze.

Starkad turned to look at her now, shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe … maybe I’ll have to find another of the things.”

Hervor groaned.

“Well, it’s not like you have to come along if that happens. Your urd is your own, Hervor.”

Well, fuck him too. What did she even want from him? Did she want to share an urd with the cursed, self-loathing vagrant? Did she?

Maybe.

There had to be some way to bridge this gap between them. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. She was no simpering maid to get caught up in fool notions of love or aught else, but … but they had something. Or they had almost had something, at some point.

Blood and lies and murder notwithstanding.

What did she want from him? She wanted to not be alone during the damn festival.

“So back in Upsal,” she said. “Over the winter. How many slave girls did you bend over?”

“What?”

“Maybe it got you through the cold moons. But we haven’t seen another human being in a while now. Long while. Your stones hurt? They about ready to burst?”

He snorted, but his face didn’t quite manage to conceal his sudden interest. “Sounds like you’re the one ready to burst. Throbbing down there? Need it, do you?”

Oh, she had him now. Maybe it just took the direct approach. She brushed her hair back from her face. “Here’s the solstice and we’ve got no mead. Hardly got a feast. Got naught really, except …”

Each other … Did they?

He crawled over to where she sat. Pushed her down by the shoulders, hard. Tore at the laces to her tunic.

5

Hundreds had gathered near the great Lake Vättern. Jarls and their thegns, other nobles, warriors and craftsmen, all to see the Thing. Ecgtheow almost would have preferred war, come down to it. All these people standing about arguing and boasting. Well, that last bit might have been more enjoyable, circumstances being different.

As it was, Ecgtheow stood by Hrethel’s side as the jarl faced down Helm Wulfingson, the other man joined by no less than three other jarls. Including Jarl Bjalmar, urd be damned. Hervor’s grandfather had refused to so much as speak with Ecgtheow in private once learning he was here with Hrethel, and then, that had been all there was.

And now … Well. Every man here surely knew how it would be. Bluster and threats. Warnings and brandishing of arms. Then, either Helm would put forth a challenger, or else there’d be war. And if Helm did call for a challenge, well, Ecgtheow would have to fight Headolaf.

Not that he was scared.

Least not that he was about to let on. Men thought you were scared and they’d be on you like wolves.

Ecgtheow rubbed his palms together. He wasn’t scared, anyway. He was ready for this.

He was ready.

Helm spit in Hrethel’s direction. Not on him, Odin be praised. That might’ve started a massacre here and now. But close enough.

Ecgtheow hadn’t caught whatever Hrethel had said to provoke that. Nor did it much matter now.

Helm took a menacing step forward. “If you will not swear your oath on my ring, I offer you one chance to live. Have your champion face mine in the holmgang this very day. And may the loser’s lord swear his oath to the winner’s.”

So. More or less what every single man here expected. More or less what every man save himself and maybe Headolaf wanted. The ones who had to fight and bleed and maybe even die in the circle, they maybe didn’t look forward to it overmuch. Smart ones, leastwise.

Course, if you died in the holmgang—died well—they said valkyries would take you to Valhalla. Maybe Ecgtheow would get to meet Odin himself, dine with the Aesir. That would be something worth dying for, he supposed.

Besides, he wasn’t scared.

After a bare hesitation, Ecgtheow stepped forward. “I, Ecgtheow the Tiny, offer to champion Jarl Hrethel in this holmgang.”

Hrethel clapped him on the shoulder as if it was a sudden thing, as if they hadn’t discussed this very outcome three times already. As if it wasn’t, more like than not, the way Hrethel had hoped this would go. The jarl probably supposed the man with the runeblade would be the safe bet in any duel.

He was probably right.

Another man strode up beside Helm. He was almost as tall as Ecgtheow, and even more muscular, with a shock of bright red hair woven into a long braid. Thick braided beard to match. Huh. Ecgtheow had figured Headolaf had fastened the name “the Red” because of the blood he’d spilled. Not so much because of his hair.

“I, Headolaf the Red, champion Jarl Helm in this holmgang.”

Already, men were backing up, forming a circle.

Ecgtheow glanced around. What? Here and now? Usually these things happened on an island. Except, from the looks on the men’s faces, they sure as the gates of Hel thought a duel was about to happen sooner rather than later.

A pair of men broke through the circle, laden down with a mammoth-skin rug. They rolled it out into the dirt, forming a rough boundary maybe twelve feet across.

“Rules?” Hrethel asked.

Helm looked Ecgtheow up and down a moment, as if weighing him in his mind. “The holmgang shall go until one combatant can no longer continue or yields.” Not the death then. Not intentionally to the death, at least. A small relief. “The combatants shall use … bare hands.”

Shall … what now? The crowd murmured, clearly as dumbfounded as Ecgtheow felt. Troll shit. The man knew he bore a runeblade. So he’d turned this into a wrestling match … Except, fighting for the throne of Ostergotland, it was like to be the roughest, bloodiest wrestling match any man here had ever seen.

It was like to hurt.

Grumbling under his breath, Ecgtheow unstrapped his sword baldric and handed it to Hrethel. The man gave him a knowing nod. Jarl knew why Helm had played it this way.

“Can you still beat him?” Hrethel whispered.

Ecgtheow didn’t have any fucking idea, but he wasn’t about to tell his father-in-law that. No. Ylva was going to be a princess, and Ecgtheow’s son would be in line for a godsdamned throne. If that meant he had to beat a man senseless, well, that was a damned unlucky man standing in his way. So he just nodded. “Don’t suppose I have much choice. Got to be done, right?”

Hrethel clapped him on the shoulder again, then helped him out of his armor. This Haethcyn took for him, folding the mail over his arm and offering a stern nod.

“This is all folly,” Herebeald mumbled.

His younger brother cuffed him for it, saving Ecgtheow the trouble. Ecgtheow glared anyway. Who in Hel’s icy crotch tells a man going into a duel that it’s folly?

Finally, Ecgtheow doffed his tunic and tossed it aside.

Headolaf had done the same, exposing a chest covered in so much red hair he looked more bear than man.

Huh.

Actually, Ecgtheow truly hoped the man wasn’t one of the legendary berserkir. That would make for an awful short duel.

The man in question stepped out onto one side of the mammoth skin, fell into a slight crouch and clapped his hands together.

Right then. Time to be about it.

Ecgtheow came up to the other side of the skin and mirrored Headolaf’s posture, rubbing his palms together. “You can yield as soon as you’re ready.”

Headolaf snorted. “Talking to yourself, boy? Not a good sign.” And he began to close, half circling, half coming forward.

Ecgtheow did the same, closing in, but not too fast. It took a special kind of folly to rush in straight ahead in this kind of situation. Last thing you needed was the other man knowing what you were about. Instead, as he drew nigh, Ecgtheow feinted left, then lunged right.

The big bear of man wasn’t falling for that, though. He caught Ecgtheow’s arm on his own, and then they were locked together. Shifting their feet, grunting, faces so close Ecgtheow could feel the bear’s hot breath and caught a bit of spittle in his eyes every time Headolaf grunted.

Twisting round, Ecgtheow strained, tried to bring the bear toward the ground. Headolaf must’ve had muscles made of solid oak, though. He just kept fucking pushing and pushing, driving Ecgtheow downward. A hairsbreadth. Another. Always down. Bending over backward.

Ecgtheow turned, or tried to. His knees gave out, and he and his foe pitched over onto the mammoth skin. One good thing about the fur—the impact didn’t hurt half so much as it would have. Ecgtheow rolled with it, managed to keep Headolaf from landing right on top of him.

And then they were both on the ground and he could hardly keep track of what was going on. Everything was all elbows and knees and locks and twists. Their heads bashed together and Ecgtheow couldn’t even have said who started that. Just that his head felt like a godsdamned troll had slapped it. Blood was trickling into his eyes.

Headolaf had a hand up under Ecgtheow’s chin. Pushing it away. Pressure in his neck just kept increasing until it felt like his head was like to pop clean off his shoulders. Grunting in pain, unable to see much at the angle, Ecgtheow slapped about with one free hand. He managed to get a grip under Headolaf’s thigh and heaved, flinging the man off balance.

Another twist, and he pulled his head free, landed atop the bear. Gasping from the effort, Ecgtheow flung himself down, bringing his elbow straight into the other man’s gut. That earned him a massive oomph as Headolaf doubled over in pain.

Wobbly, Ecgtheow managed to rise to his knees while Headolaf recovered. Couldn’t afford to lose the advantage here. Had to keep attacking … Ecgtheow snared his fingers up in the bear’s bright red hair, pulled Headolaf’s head up. And let his fist connect straight on with the man’s nose. Cartilage splattered under the blow. Ecgtheow’s knuckles split open, stinging like Hel had spat on them.

Well, Headolaf was no doubt the worse off. Blood oozing down his face, reeling like a man with too much to drink. Naught for it, then, except to continue.

Ecgtheow slammed his fist forward again, right in the same spot, further ruining the man’s face.

Had to be damn sure, though. One more blow, this time to the jaw. Headolaf pitched over sideways. The bear lay on the mat, groaning, half coherent, if that much.

Ecgtheow spat out a gob of blood, only half of which was probably even his own. He stared at his right hand. His knuckles were covered in blood. His bones hurt. He’d be lucky if he hadn’t cracked any of them like that.

Men and women were cheering on one side, cursing and gasping on the other.

When Ecgtheow looked up, Helm stood above him, glaring down, shaking his head like he couldn’t have guessed it would turn out like this in a hundred winters.

Ecgtheow spit again.

“It is done,” Hrethel shouted, silencing the crowd. “It is done and the house of Hrethel claims the throne of Ostergotland. Honor the terms, Helm Wulfingson.”

The other jarl looked like he’d rather spit himself, but instead, he raised a hand, clutching his arm ring. “I swear on my blood and my honor, I am your man … King Hrethel.”

All worth it then, Ecgtheow supposed.

Now he just needed to find a private place to fall over and pass out.

6

The Midgard Wall rose up out of the mountains, a behemoth of unimaginable size. Wrought of stone and encased in years of ice, it disappeared into the mist above Hervor, stretching out to either side beyond all reckoning.

The better part of two moons they had trod across the frozen stretches of Bjarmaland. By dogsled as long as they could, and then on foot, up into the mountains. Signs of civilization had been few—other than a couple of villages—and Starkad had avoided most of those they did encounter. The people of Bjarmaland were now mostly slaves to jotunnar, he’d said, and neither of them wanted aught to do with the monsters unless they were left with no choice.

And now, here, at the edge of the world, she stared at the structure raised to encircle and protect Midgard from those creatures. It ran in an arc, Starkad said, encompassing most of the world, out to the farthest shores in the north and around. All the way to the Middle Sea beyond the South Realms.

The edifice had stood for millennia, he’d told her, keeping out the chaos. And it was breached. A ragged rift tore through the wall, creating a narrow but passable tunnel that vanished into darkness.

“It’s where he said it would be,” Starkad said. “The breach.”

“Who?”

“Orvar-Oddr.”

Hervor stifled a groan. Starkad spoke of his dead friend on occasion during their trek here. Once, on a long night, he’d told her stories of their prior encounters together. He did not admit it, but he clearly missed the man. And she’d clamped her mouth shut, saying naught at all for the rest of the night. A single misspoken word could reveal her crime and destroy … whatever this was between them. Assuming he didn’t just kill her for it.

Nor, in truth, did Hervor have the slightest desire to tread beyond this wall. How any runeblade had left Midgard and entered Jotunheim she could not guess. Given the passing of so many years, perhaps aught was possible. Regardless, staring into that breach was like gazing into chaos … into a world man was never meant to walk.

“Odin preserve us,” she mumbled.

“I do not think even Odin has crossed this wall. But if you are frightened, there is no shame in turning back.”

She affected the most withering sneer she could manage under the circumstances. She’d be damned if she’d admit to being afraid. Instead, she pushed past him and slipped into the breach, torch out ahead of her. The wall was thick. Thicker than she’d realized.

She had to turn slightly sideways to pass through the crack. A larger creature would have struggled to push its way through. But still, this must explain the rise of jotunnar in Bjarmaland.

Or … shit. What if there were other breaks? She blew out a breath. Best not to dwell on such thoughts. Concerns for the Aesir, not for mortals.

The confines of the tunnel forced her to hold the torch closer to her body than she’d have liked, spilling too much heat onto her face. It was that or wander around without being able to see her footing and that sounded like the most foolish—

The ash-man’s face appeared into the stone of the wall, leering at her.

Hervor choked on a scream, gasping. Unable to breathe. Unable to press on or turn back.

He came to her in her nightmares. Whenever she thought them past, thought the horror of what she’d seen in her dreams finished, he came back. To rape and torture her once again, this vaettr.

And she’d never know if it was even real or drawn from her own mind.

“Hervor?” A hand fell on her shoulder.

She blanched.

“Hervor!”

Starkad. He was shaking her. “Keep going. Just keep walking.”

Guiding her forward. Gentle. Slow.

When she looked back, the face was gone. Naught in here but her and Starkad.

Gylfi’s Art had done this to her, and no matter how many moons had passed, still, sometimes … it came back.

Odin’s fucking balls.

Finally, outside light reached her. Nigh to blinding, reflecting off snow, especially as she stepped out into the wasteland. Beyond the wall spread yet more mountains, all covered with unbroken snows. Snows that seemed as though they could not have melted in a thousand years or more. Snows and ice and cold like mankind had not dreamt of.

Like Niflheim.

“Orvar said the land was wilder here,” Starkad whispered in her ear. “Very few humans. More large predators. Beasts. Tread with care and make as little noise as you can manage.”

Hervor frowned, but nodded. Neither of them had ever walked in such a place, and now they were relying on the words of Orvar-Oddr to keep them safe?

Urd was strange, cruel even.

* * *

As evening settled, Starkad knelt on the mountain’s slope. When Hervor drew nigh, she was left with little doubt of what he’d found, hard as it was to credit. Wolf tracks … big as the prints of a mammoth, almost.

“Uh … dire wolves?” she asked.

“Dire wolves don’t get this big.”

Indeed, dire wolves were only slightly larger than their gray wolf cousins, if much stockier. So what did grow this large?

“Then … ?”

“Vargar.” He rose, shaking his head. “Legends … I was not certain they truly existed.”

“What are vargar?"

Starkad pointed to the tracks like she was a fool. Probably not far off the mark. “Tales say they hunt man, beast, and even vaettir. I think it best we find shelter before dark, at least while in these mountains.”

And yet there was no fear in his voice. Almost … excitement? Odin’s balls, the man had gone mist-mad. Hervor shook her head.

Starkad had already started off toward a crack in the slope. A cavern? Hervor did not much like the thought of spending the night in a cave … but staying out here with whatever had made those tracks sounded even worse.

She followed as he trod down there.

The opening was larger than it had looked from afar—a crack rent into the mountain side, taller than she was and twice as wide. Torch out before him, Starkad pressed forward, beckoning her to follow.

In the distance, a wolf howled. Another took up the cry, and another.

Wolves the size of mammoths.

Humans had no business on this side of the wall. If she made it back, she swore she’d never come to Utgard again. Never.

The crack delved far back into the stone, the ceiling dropping down after a dozen feet. It became so low, she was forced her to duck and hunch over. Starkad had fallen to his knees, crawling. Lovely place.

He paused, however, ahead of her. “Who are you?”

“What?” she asked.

“Shhh,” he hissed back at her. “Speak, woman.”

Must already be someone in this cave. That seemed … monumentally unlikely. At least if that someone was human.

“Enter if you wish,” a woman’s voice answered, wispy and hollow-sounding.

Starkad hesitated, then crawled forward, giving Hervor a view of a small cavern. A rough circle, wide enough for her to stretch out, though still not tall enough for her to stand. At the back of this circle sat a white-shrouded woman, hunched over and staring at Starkad’s torch like it was a venomous serpent.

“You are … vaettr,” he said.

“Death … follows in your shadow … and now you race toward it, as well … your aura is so thick with it. Succulent and bloated, ready to burst. And leave … so empty … as it all runs dry …”

Hervor crawled forward until she could sit beside Starkad. Very close, in fact, giving the strange woman as much space as possible. Outside, more wolf howls welcomed the rising moon.

“I have no need of games,” Starkad said.

“Just as well … you are not the player … but the piece …”

Hervor frowned. She had not thought anyplace could prove more miserable than Thule. But Jotunheim …

“Where you walk, they die … and die … and die.”

Starkad drummed his fingers on his knee. “There is blood aplenty on my hands. But I do not answer to the likes of you.”

“But you will … When you find her lurking in the shadows … Until you beg for your own end … and find even that wanting … Until you beseech your enemies to extinguish the pitiful flame of your existence … and find Hel waiting.”

Starkad surged forward, sweeping the torch at the woman.

She broke apart into mist, washed over Hervor, and disappeared.

“Spare me your premonitions, snow maiden!” Starkad shouted at her.

Hervor hugged herself. A snow maiden. Fuck.

Had the vaettr spoken of Starkad’s future, as he seemed to think … or something more immediate? And more literal.

They die … and die … and die …

Was that, then, the urd that awaited Hervor at the end of this journey?

7

These mountains had no end, so far as Starkad could tell. Maybe all of Jotunheim was mountains.

Snow continued to fall from the sky, as it had for days. It was heavier than Starkad would have called a flurry, but not quite bad enough to impede travel. Here they were in the midst of summer, and he was trudging through snows that must have reached down ten feet, maybe twice that. He should’ve brought skis.

But who’d have considered it during summer?

Besides, the mountain passes were not always easy. Often, they had to tread with extreme care or risk falling into a gorge or plummeting off a cliff and down into a mist-shrouded death.

He walked as lightly as he could, but still, the snows crunched underfoot and he sank down to past his ankles with each trudging step. Hervor was lighter and managed to keep from sinking as far down. They were both lucky the stuff way down was packed so tightly, too dense and old for them to drop down through it.

The shieldmaiden huffed, panting, as she tromped along behind him. “Just. Like. Hel-cursed. Thule.”

Worse, maybe. Not quite so cold as Thule in winter, true, but here, there was no sea. Just the frozen wastes that stretched on and on. Perhaps forever … beyond the Midgard Wall, they had left the mortal world. The wall encased the human realm, but who was to say how far Utgard might reach around it? This place was the outer chaos that even the Vanir had feared.

Part of him wanted to tell Hervor that. It was hard to speak freely with her, even when he tried. She was not Ogn.

She was not Ogn.

Still.

She was a woman. Stubborn, and clearly with secrets.

Besides, to tell her that even Odin and his predecessors knew not what they’d find out here would have frightened her, whether she’d admit it or not. And so he said little. He should never have agreed to let her come along. Why had he? Her company made the trek more enjoyable, mostly, but … He was going to get her killed. Just like everyone else.

Maybe like all men, he was thinking with his cock. Better to control himself. To stay away from her, not think like that. If he lusted too much, if he allowed himself to see her as more than his fighting companion … It put her at too much risk.

Though it hardly helped that she’d demanded he fuck her every night of the Sumarauki. On the second night, she’d jumped atop him and fondled his stones right through his breeches. It was hardly fair to expect a man not to respond to that.

And now … well, that time seemed so far behind him, and here he was, rising again at the thought. It had been rather too many days.

“You’re so damned quiet,” she said, breathless behind him. “What are you even thinking of?”

“The weather. Mostly.”

“Yeah. Damn snows never seem to stop. Just like. Fucking. Thule.”

He couldn’t quite suppress his smile, though she’d never see it.

If not for his curse, maybe, someday, maybe they could have …

He paused. Something was off. Evening was drawing nigh, yes, and they’d need shelter soon. But there was something more than that. Something … Slowly, he turned about.

Ever since Wudga had given him that draught, he’d had sharper instincts. That and more vivid, horrifying dreams—as if his prior nightmares of Vikar and Ogn were not enough. But if Volund’s son spoke true, the eitr draught had awakened the latent Sight in Starkad. He was relying on that now to guide him to Glaesisvellir. Instincts he had to trust.

And now those instincts were insisting something pursued them. Up here, in the mountains. Vargar? They’d heard wolf howls here and there.

Hervor drew up beside him, hand on Tyrfing’s hilt. “What is it?”

He shook his head. Between the mist and the snow, he really couldn’t make much out. The perfect setting for a predator. “See the gorge down there?”

“Hmm.”

“We need to make for it.”

“You want to go in that place?” She peered forward, though little was visible of the drop-off from so far out. “Looks like the crotch of Hel. Why the fuck would we do that?”

He grimaced. “Something pursues us. I want to limit how many sides our foe can approach from.”

Hervor grumbled something under her breath, then blundered forward at twice the speed of before. She had the right of it.

They pushed hard, and soon the slope began a steep descent. Rather than risk falling, they had to brace themselves on the ice-slicked gorge walls. If the slope had been more sheer, it might have stopped pursuit, though climbing in the mist and snow carried its own dangers. Still, this was the only place they had available to escape their foes—or to make their stand.

The mist grew thicker as they descended, heavy above their heads, cutting off most of the sunlight and forcing them to rely on their torches just to make out where to put their feet. His heart was racing.

He lived for this, Hel take him.

Deeper they pressed into the pit, until steep walls cut down on the snow pounding them and limited the bite of the wind.

Icicles grew down from every overhang. They spread over the rock walls like mold, the rime encasing everything. He turned about. No obvious caves. No hiding places.

If they could find a recess to crawl into they might—

A long, loud howl echoed out above them. Just one.

A lone wolf.

A very large lone wolf.

8

Odin’s balls. Hervor couldn’t see more than five feet ahead of her. If that.

Starkad had led them down here, and now they were fucking trapped. And it was getting darker. The sun starting to dip down. In the gorge, darkness would fall even faster. And deeper.

Left hand on Tyrfing’s hilt, she backed up until she bumped into the icy wall. “I hope there’s more to your plan.”

The mist was everywhere. She waved the torch around in front of her. Every instinct demanded she draw the blade, but unless she could slay a foe with it, she’d be forced to turn it on herself or Starkad. Neither option much appealed.

“I do. You’re not going to like it.”

She glanced at him. He stood several feet away, just a shadow out in the vapors. “What makes you think I liked aught about this to begin with?”

“Fair enough. Stand in the middle of the path and face the oncoming foe.”

“That’s your fucking plan?” She spat in the snow. “Stand shoulder to shoulder and face down a giant wolf? We’re both dead.”

“Not shoulder to shoulder. Just … you.”

What? “And where are you going?”

“To hide.” He stepped back into the mist and vanished.

Wait. Was that a jest? Surely he could not be serious. “Starkad? Starkad!”

No answer. And here she was in the midst of this frozen trench, waiting for …

Another howl. This one too close. Very loud. It echoed off the gorge walls and set her teeth chattering.

Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. It pounded against her ribs so hard it pained her. Her breath came in spurts. Oh, fuck. Fuck. Damn it. Damn Starkad.

Swallowing, she trudged back toward the center of the canyon, torch out to her side. There, she squinted into the mist. She couldn’t see …

Snow crunched under the feet of something large. Very large. Coming down the path, straight toward her.

“Starkad?”

She sucked painfully cold air in through her nose. He must have a plan. He must. But at the moment, she had to defend herself. And a foe drew nigh, of that she had no doubt.

Slowly, she urged Tyrfing free of its sheath. Pale flame sprang up along the blade, shedding light that reflected off the mist and did not overmuch enhance her vision.

But a shadow moved out there. Closing in. It was like smoke, out in the fog. Smoke, taller than a jarl’s hall, in the shape of a wolf with hollows of light for eyes.

A low snarl escaped the beast, washing over her with hot breath, even from ten feet away. The brute was larger than any mammoth.

Torch in one hand and Tyrfing in the other, she faced it down.

The varg paused a few feet before her. Hervor couldn’t say whether she was grateful for the swathe of mist obscuring its true form or not. Any heartbeat now could be her last. It would lunge forward and then …

A smaller shadow dropped down onto the wolf’s back.

At once the creature reacted, leaping backward with shocking agility and with strength that carried it far off into the mist, beyond her view.

He’d climbed above it.

He’d fucking … jumped on it?

Hel.

Hervor bellowed a war cry and raced forward, Tyrfing raised. Starkad had to be the most fool, most reckless, bravest … bastard she’d ever met.

Ahead, in the darkness, a great form crashed about. Snapping and yelping and howling. It smashed into the gorge wall, sending a cascade of icicles showering down.

Through the mist all she could make out was shadows, but it sounded like someone had thrown open the gates of Hel.

She ran as hard as she could, but the snows tugged at her feet. Damn it. Move! Starkad was going to wind up in the belly of this beast and she’d …

The varg came into her light then, limping and yelping. Blood ran down its snout in rivers, seeping from a mighty wound on its nose and other unseen injuries on its head and neck.

It snapped and snarled at another shadow that dove between its legs.

Starkad.

Shrieking, Hervor charged in and swiped at the wolf with Tyrfing. The blade tore through the flesh of a foreleg and sent the varg yelping away. It was so damned big, the blade hadn’t cut through bone, had only scraped it.

Would that poison fell such a massive beast?

Starkad grunted, clearly struggling to rise. She ran to his side, and held up Tyrfing, scanning the mist for further signs of the wolf. It had vanished.

Finally, she spared her companion a glance. He was bleeding, holding his side like it hurt. Multiple injuries … but none large enough to have come from the varg’s jaws. Those teeth would have shattered bone and crushed him to a pulp. So Starkad’s wounds must have come from being thrown off the varg after he landed on its back.

“Are you all right?”

He stared off into the mist. Then grunted. “Get up. Move. We need to find shelter somewhere in this gorge. Have to find somewhere narrow enough it cannot pursue.”

He thought it would come back?

Hervor sheathed Tyrfing, then pulled Starkad’s arm around her shoulders and heaved him up. She tromped through the snow as fast as she could manage, almost at a limping run.

Deeper and deeper into the gorge.

After a few moments, he shrugged out of her arm to walk on his own, allowing her to move more quickly.

“Where is it?” she mumbled.

“I don’t know. Just keep moving. Pray the poison of your blade does its work quickly.”

He had not even asked her for Tyrfing this time. When he went to hunt the wolf, he had not asked—because she had always refused before. If she had granted him the blade, might he have already slain the varg?

Well, none of that mattered now.

“There,” Starkad said, pointing at an alcove.

Hervor shambled over to it. Snow had built up around the entrance, so she had to drop to her hands and knees to crawl inside. “This only goes back about five feet. It might be able to claw us out of here.”

“If we push on, who is to say we’ll find better?”

Hervor moaned, but beckoned him onward. Starkad crawled into the little alcove with her, then Hervor drove the butt of the torch into the snow. They both backed up against the alcove wall, neither speaking.

It would be a long night, and she doubted either of them would sleep well.

* * *

In the morning, they pressed on. Beyond the gorge, the varg’s corpse lay, its blood staining the snows.

Hervor glanced at Starkad. They both gave the body a wide berth, neither eager to draw nigh enough to get a clear look through the mists.

The creature was a collapsed mountain of fur, of death.

“I wonder what these normally hunt?” Starkad mumbled, seemingly to himself.

Hervor shuddered.

She hated this fucking place.

Part II

Second Moon

Year 29, Age of the Aesir

9

Hervor adjusted Tyrfing’s strap on her shoulder before pressing on through the endless snows. The mountains had at last given way to tundra, one they had followed now for what seemed an age. Nigh to two moons, she figured, though time became hard to track out here.

So much of what she’d seen of Jotunheim was wilderness—forests and mountains and fields and lakes all far beyond the size of aught she’d ever seen. All beyond the likes of aught any human had seen—pristine and terrible, teeming with overlarge beasts and Odin alone knew how many vaettir.

And through it all, Starkad pushed on like a man gone fey, driven by some uncanny insight. Like he might somehow know where they were bound.

That almost frightened her more.

The mist kept her from making out much in the plains. She heard the voices first, the sounds of people talking, though not a language she knew. The sounds of hammers beating on leather, of metal scraping stone, of craftsmen about their trades.

“Glaesisvellir …” Starkad said. And the man just kept walking.

Hervor blew out a breath, and paused long enough to tuck her hair back inside her helm. When walking into an unknown situation, she’d rather be Hervard than Hervor. It diminished the chance of strangers trying to take advantage. Lessened the need to draw Tyrfing.

Starkad glanced at her. “I like you better as a man.”

“Fuck you.”

As they approached, spires peeked through the mist. Numerous towers, all sharp angles and spiked buttresses and rugged architecture, like someone had tried to build mountains and trees out of mighty stone blocks. “What in Hel’s frozen crotch?”

“I’d not mention her name out here,” Starkad said without looking back at her.

Hervor flinched at the reprimand. Did Starkad think the dark goddess actually closer to them in Utgard? And why not? They had trod beyond Midgard itself.

A spiked wall four times her height ringed the town. Many of those spires she’d seen at a distance were actually outgrowths of the wall. Beyond, what looked like a lord’s hall, itself also featuring four surrounding towers, and then a slightly taller one in the center. Rime crusted over every bit of the stonework, glittering and fell. Starkad was right—she imagined the gates of Hel might look little different.

But these town gates stood ajar—themselves also wrought from stone and carved with intricate designs depicting monstrous faces. The centerpiece of each might have been a varg.

Atop the walls, archers watched their approach, but none called out to bar their passage, nor did the guards at the gates block them, though they held spears at the ready. Odd weapons, with points carved from stone. Not enough iron in these lands?

Hervor leaned in close to Starkad as they walked past the guards. “I thought there would be …”

“Jotunnar?” he whispered back. He cocked his head to one side and she turned to look.

A man watched them, only he was taller than a man, maybe almost eight feet tall. His features were too sharp, too angular. Thick hair covered his skin, too much, like the thing had a beast for an ancestor. Perhaps not so far from the truth.

Hervor’s heart clenched in her chest. Threatened to stop beating.

Jotunn.

Odin’s thrice-damned balls.

Jotunn.

They ate men, talk said. They were the spawn of chaos, banished beyond the Midgard Wall in times lost to history. The creature strode toward them now, great strides she couldn’t have made by jumping. It bore a spear—one seeming big enough to skewer a bear—but did not threaten them with it.

Instead, it came to a stop a few feet away. It rumbled something at them, but the words made no sense, a sharp guttural language.

“We seek your king,” Starkad said in Northern.

The jotunn grunted, nodded his head. “King …” He pointed at the lord’s hall toward the center of town. “Walk …”

His pronunciation was odd, closer to what little Hervor knew of Old Northern—and she’d scorned her tutors back then. She supposed they were lucky the jotunnar could understand their words at all.

The creature led them to the lord’s hall and inside, into a massive stone chamber upheld by great curving arches that met at central pillars spaced throughout. No obvious sign of the king himself …

They walked forward, around the pillars, and then Starkad turned about slowly. Hervor did the same. Twenty-five feet above them, a balcony rimmed the entrance to the hall. Upon this sat a jotunn king on a mighty throne. The king had a thick white beard that hung halfway down his chest, and white braided hair to match, framing his face like a mane. His eyes almost wolf-like, his skin tinged faintly blue.

Slowly, he lifted himself up from his throne and strode to the edge of the balcony, leaning on the rail and staring down at them. Only then did it become clear just how fucking huge this creature was. He could have crushed her skull in one hand. Eleven feet tall? Bigger?

Hervor couldn’t swallow.

“King Godmund, I presume,” Starkad said.

The king smiled, baring teeth that seemed overlong and sharp like wolf fangs. “They say you slew one of my vargar.” His voice was heavy as an avalanche, his accent strange, and again, flavored with the sounds of Old Northern.

Starkad shrugged. “Your varg roamed far indeed, and thought to devour us like prey.”

The king chuckled, the sound rumbling through the hall. “Are you not?”

“Were we prey, the varg would be sated and we’d be dead, instead of the other way around.”

Hervor worked her jaw. Every instinct told her to grab Tyrfing, but that was like to arouse the anger of this ancient, massive lord. Not that she overmuch liked listening to Starkad banter with such a being.

Godmund drummed his fingers upon the rail. “Do you have names, humans?”

“I am Starkad Eightarms. This is Hervard.”

Huh. Next to his name, that sounded rather plain. She’d need to fasten a name to herself sooner or later.

“And what is your purpose in my lands, Starkad Eightarms?”

“I am seeking something, brought here long ago from Midgard. Something of the Old Kingdoms.”

Godmund snorted. “So you call them, I have heard. Not so very old to us. Back in the days of my father.”

The creature’s father had been alive when the Old Kingdoms fell? Eight hundred years ago? Odin’s balls. What had Starkad dragged them into now?

Starkad cast a glance about the hall. “We do not come here as enemies.”

“No, but you come through the wall. This is my land, and unlike many of my brethren, I have not intruded into your middle world. Yet you dare come into the outer world.”

Starkad shrugged. “You may find me quite daring. Either way, we might part in friendship, my king. If it suits you.”

Now Godmund straightened, and—thankfully—nodded. “So be it. Stay with us a few nights. Let neither man nor jotunn call my hospitality lacking.” With that, he waved a hand, and a pair of humans approached them.

The humans—slaves?—guided her and Starkad to chambers in one of the spires. Inside, they provided her with a water basin to wash, a mirror, and a fur-covered shelf for a bed. Comfortable enough, though chilly, given the open window. A tiny brazier burned in the corner, perhaps a concession to human needs against the cold and the mist.

Hervor dropped her gear in the room, then trod over to Starkad’s chamber and slipped inside without bothering to knock. He had doffed his shirt and was scrubbing himself with water from the basin and a woolen rag.

“I cannot say I much love this place.”

He snorted, not looking up from his task. “Would you prefer we sleep another night in the wilds?”

“Not in the least. But something feels off about this kingdom. About these halls. A darkness creeps in, not unlike a barrow.”

“Hervor …” He glanced at her now. “Shut the door.”

She did so, then turned back to him.

“The jotunnar may be able to help us find what we’re looking for. These creatures are not necessarily evil—if such a word even has meaning. But they are wild, savage, from a world not like our own, and thus we call them incarnations of chaos.”

“Some look more human than others.”

Starkad set the rag down and turned to face her. “The tales say … those who feast on the flesh of men can extend their life, their power. But it changes them, makes them grow larger and more bestial.”

“You mean Godmund does eat people?” That was fucking wonderful. And he’d invited them to dine with him. She already hated Glaesisvellir.

“He must have at some point. But he did not have us seized immediately, so perhaps he has changed. Either way, most of the other jotunnar I saw here did not seem so altered. I take it, then, if he does devour human flesh, he reserves that right to himself.”

Hervor blew out a breath and sank down on Starkad’s bed. “Have you considered our return journey?”

“Not without the runeblade, Hervor.”

“If we left now, we might reach the port in Holmgard before winter settles in. The summer grows short already.”

“I did not come all this way to turn back without the prize.”

She rubbed her face. No, and neither had she. But traveling across this frozen wasteland in summer had been a nightmare. To chance it in winter …

“If you wish to clean up, do so. We cannot afford to antagonize our host by not appearing at the night meal.”

She wanted to groan. Starkad was probably right, but then, had he listened to her, they’d have never come here. She could now only pray they did not end up regretting it any more than she already did.

* * *

Slaves brought Hervor to the night meal. A feast of mammoth was spread out over two tables, each easily thirty feet in length. The slaves led her to the one where King Godmund sat, along with Starkad. A few other jotunnar, and many humans. So … even in a jotunn kingdom, the humans seemed to vastly outnumber the jotunnar. Why? Did they not breed enough?

Or did they wind up killing one another and keeping their own population low? Didn’t seem to be a tactful way to ask that question.

A thick-bodied man sat across from her, easily seven feet tall. A shock of pale blond hair hung down to his shoulders, strung in a dozen braids. He nodded at her, flashing a too-wide grin.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Höfund Gudmundson.”

“You’re the prince? But you’re … human?”

He chuckled, snatched up a hunk of mammoth flesh, and bit into it, shoulders still bobbing with mirth. He sucked down juice and spoke without finishing chewing. “Half, I suppose. Mother was human.”

Hervor almost flinched at the bits of grease dribbling down his chin as he spoke. But then again, everyone else ate the same way here. Human manners did not seem overmuch a concern in this land. They ate like wild animals.

“Scared, boy?”

All the lands of Hel would melt before she’d admit to that. She glanced at Starkad, who was engaged in conversation with the king, already inquiring about his lost treasure.

Hervor looked back to Höfund, then tore her own hunk of meat from where it lay in the center of the table. “I don’t fear many things, prince.”

He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “No surprise there. Young men are oft fools. Out here, little man, very few things not worth a bit of fear.” He pointed to a jotunn woman at the other table. She was nigh to as large as Godmund, and equally feral-looking. “See her? That’s Hyrrokin, visiting from Thrymheim. Rode here on a varg that took down the mammoth you’re eating. Wolf tore the beast to bits, all by its lonesome. Animal is mean as the fires of Muspelheim are hot.”

Now he pointed off in another direction. “Up north, gets so cold your spit’ll freeze afore it hits the ground. Caught out alone in winter, even a half-jotunn like me might catch the deathchill. Maybe you think it’s better in the south?” He turned, waving a hand. “Whole dead kingdoms, whole countries there that up and died when the mists came. Thousands of draugar, just waiting for someone to wake them, rile up their anger again.” He shrugged. “Push on, then. Where it’s not so cold. Where the southern empires call upon the vile flames of Muspelheim and the eldjotunnar to burn away the world. Take my advice, boy. Go back to Midgard. Shit, one day, one day I hope to see it myself. Maybe find me a better home than this.”

Höfund was right, she supposed. Utgard sounded like a realm of nightmares torn between primordial forces of chaos. Then again, Midgard was drowning in blood. Everywhere she looked, she saw only her dark past and an even grimmer future.

None of it left her with overmuch appetite.

10

King Hrethel hadn’t wanted to claim the towns of any of the other jarls in Ostergotland. Ecgtheow supposed Hrethel thought the jarls like to be more favorable toward him if he didn’t steal their homes. Instead, the king insisted on raising up a town on the shores of Lake Vättern, not far from where Ecgtheow had fought Headolaf.

Actually, Ecgtheow supposed, in Hrethel’s mind, the spot was probably where he’d become king. He walked along the lakeshore now, inspecting the growing town. Had to be almost two hundred people living here now, and more showing up every few days.

In the past moons, tents had grown into shanties and then full houses, all while Hrethel was having his great hall raised. The man had some fool idea he needed to outshine the halls of the Ynglings in Upsal, and so he insisted on large foundations. With men needing to see to their own shelters first, the hall was taking rather long in building.

Ecgtheow wouldn’t much have cared, save that Hrethel had sent for his wife and for Ylva and all their people. Now that he had a kingdom of his own, he didn’t plan to hold on to his jarldom in Upsal. Made sense, Ecgtheow supposed. It wasn’t like Hrethel could well defend both of them, especially with Njarar wedged right in the middle there.

’Course, it also meant Ecgtheow lost his islands and his hall. He wrestled with the idea of asking that Yngling king, Aun, for Hrethel’s old title. Being a jarl himself would have been a fair step up … But Ylva wanted to stay close to her family, and in Ostergotland, their child would have more chance to one day sit the throne himself.

Besides, Orvar-Oddr—man showed up some nights with long stretches in between—advised sticking close to Hrethel for now. Sound advice, Ecgtheow had to admit. The king owed Ecgtheow his kingship, and Ecgtheow had a mind to make certain no one forgot. As yet, though, Hrethel had not decided to bestow more lands on him.

That would have to change soon.

The hour was growing late now, and Ecgtheow supposed the slaves would have the night meal almost ready. Still, he liked walking. Not so much of summer left, and he meant to enjoy it while he could.

Near the outskirts of the town, a man came riding toward him at a swift trot, enough that his horse looked half ragged. Poor animal was huffing and heaving when the rider pulled it to a stop. The man didn’t look so very much better off, covered in a sheen of sweat and panting himself.

Ecgtheow caught the horse’s muzzle and led it to the lake to drink.

The rider paced beside him, still trying to catch his breath. “Lord … they set upon our people in the east, by the sea.”

“Who did?”

“Jarl Bjalmar’s men, and more. Too many for just him, though we … we saw no other standards.” He shook himself. “They came at us with longships. Hit the village and razed it.”

Ecgtheow groaned. Well, that was some ripe troll shit. And here Hrethel had thought he’d subdued the whole kingdom without having to fight a war. It seemed Jarl Bjalmar didn’t feel overly bound by Jarl Helm’s oath of fealty to Hrethel.

Ecgtheow shook his head, then spat. Troll shit. “Suppose the king best hear about this.”

* * *

Hrethel, as was to be expected, did not take the news well. The king sat on his throne inside his half-covered hall, hands clutching the armrests like he intended to squeeze the life right out of them. Ecgtheow half expected the wood to crunch under the man’s fingers.

“They betray us,” the king said at last.

Hrethel had sent the newsbearer away to rest. That left Ecgtheow and the king’s sons here, plus his wife and daughter, and a few other thegns. The king’s most trusted circle all here now, all wondering over what to do about this pile of troll shit.

Especially Ecgtheow. Jarl Bjalmar had sheltered him once, had helped them all. Seemed like a good man. Having his people raid Hrethel’s seaside towns tarnished that image a bit, true enough, but still. Still, he was Hervor’s grandfather, and the shieldmaiden had fought beside Ecgtheow in some of the toughest battles he’d ever faced.

He’d have liked to have called her a friend.

Though, he supposed, a friend might’ve stayed when he asked and helped to prevent her grandfather from going to war against Ecgtheow’s father-in-law. All these politics always turned his stomach.

He preferred a clear-cut battle. Your foes straight ahead of you. Of course, after Thule and that mess with Jorund, Ecgtheow supposed he’d seen about enough of battle for one lifetime. So maybe he’d have preferred to avoid the war all together. Thus, more fucking politics.

“We have no choice but to strike back,” Herebeald said. “He has openly defied our authority. If we don’t make an example of him, we risk the other jarls getting ideas.”

Hrethel shook his head. Maybe thinking the same as his son. Then again, maybe remembering how Bjalmar had been his ally just a few moons back. Ecgtheow wouldn’t have wished that choice on anyone.

“Bjalmar betrays us,” the king repeated.

Like that was the only fucking thing to say about all this. Shit. Maybe it was.

“Maybe …” Ecgtheow said. “Maybe we ought to send an emissary, try to get him to relent. If need be … another damned holmgang.”

“After he’s already murdered people loyal to us?” Herebeald said. “You cannot be serious. Now is the time to strike. There is naught left to discuss.”

Hrethel rose, face stern as a rock. “My son is correct. Bjalmar had his chance to cooperate. Now, all his lands and titles are forfeit.”

Ecgtheow grunted. That was not like to please Hervor. Sure, she had her chance to avert this, but still … He didn’t much like having to fight her kin. Nor take her birthright away. That sort of thing tended to rile up even the most even-tempered of men—and Hervor was aught but even-tempered.

The king looked to him. “Forget your previous allegiances, my son. They were built on water. You are tied to us now by blood.”

“Suppose I am.”

Hrethel nodded. “And we must plan how we are to strike back.”

“They’ll be expecting it,” Haethcyn said. “So we have to hit so hard and so fast their guile won’t matter.”

Ecgtheow grunted again, shaking his head. Damn it. Damn Bjalmar for forcing this upon him. Damn Hervor for not being here to prevent this. Hel take the whole damned family. Ecgtheow looked back at Hrethel. “Think I need a bit of air first. I’m more inclined to the leading of raids than the planning of them in any event.”

The king favored him with a long, heavy look. Ylva too stared at him—her belly now beautifully thick—with undisguised worry.

Ecgtheow offered his wife a nod. “You’ve naught to fret over. I’ll be back within an hour. Just got to clear my head, spend a bit of time alone.”

Obviously reluctant, still she nodded. She was getting good at telling what he needed. One more reason to be glad of her. He ducked out of the hall and wandered away from the town, following the lakeside a long way.

It was all troll shit, was what it was. Hervor had asked him to recall the friendship Jarl Bjalmar had shown them all. Well, sacking towns wasn’t friendship … So now what was Ecgtheow to do? He had an oath to Hrethel, and besides which, like the king said, blood joined them now. Ylva was his wife, and here she was, carrying his child, Hrethel’s grandchild.

So?

So he was well and truly fucked. No way around it.

Faint footfalls sounded along the beach. Ecgtheow whipped his torch up and turned slowly, scanning through the mist.

There. A silhouette approached, the mist seeming to coil about him and obscure his cloaked form.

Ecgtheow held his torch higher over his head. “Orvar?”

“Yes …”

“Hel’s crotch, man, you move like a vaettr. What’re you about now?”

The man pushed through the mist until he stood beside Ecgtheow, then turned to stare out over the lake. With the mist, you couldn’t see too far out there. Odin alone might know what vaettir lurked beneath those still waters.

Either way, Ecgtheow supposed men had to build in such places. You had to have water, even with the danger.

“You will go to war …” Orvar said.

Ecgtheow grunted. “Can’t say I much like the idea. Any way I turn it about, seems like I’ll be breaking faith with either my king and father-in-law or with my friend.” He turned to Orvar. “Oh, damn, but I suppose you wouldn’t know, would you? Our own dear Hervor, she’s the granddaughter of Jarl Bjalmar, noble-born and all.”

“So I’ve heard.”

He did know? Odd, that. Ecgtheow hadn’t thought it common knowledge. “Right, well, that’s the rough bit I find myself in. King Hrethel wants to storm Bjalmar’s hall and seize his lands, make an example of him—and not without cause. Still, it doesn’t sit well with me, and I’m not sure I want to be in any war band that heads that way. I … Well, I’ve got a wife thick with child, you know? Maybe a good reason for me to stay behind, watch over the town, protect the king.”

“Is it?” Orvar turned to him now and almost seemed to growl. “Is that cowardice that stays your hand?”

Well, shit. Nobody talked to him like that. Ecgtheow leveled a glare at Orvar that ought to have sent him falling back a few steps.

Not the Arrow’s Point, though. He just rasped and grunted. “You think Hervor so worthy of your loyalty? That she deserves the smallest hair of your mercy?”

“What else are friends for?”

“Friends? Friends … who lie to you? Betray you?”

“What’re you on about?”

Orvar did take a step back now, lowering the hood of his cloak as he did so. Beneath lay pale, sallow skin stretched a bit too taut and marred by old scars. His eyes gleamed red in the torchlight. He pulled away his tunic, revealing a gaping hole in his ribcage, one that showed clear down to bone. Rather than oozing blood, that flesh had turned putrid yellow-green, surrounded by gray. A whiff of rot seeped off that wound.

“Vileness …” Ecgtheow fell back, one hand over his mouth and nose, the other wrapped around Naegling’s hilt. “Draug.”

“Yes … Murdered. On Thule. By … Hervor.”

“No. The dead lie.” Ecgtheow lurched Naegling free of its sheath and held the blade between himself and the monstrosity before him.

“Why would I lie?” Orvar let his shirt fall back into place, covering the wretched sight. “Clearly someone murdered me. Who did you last see me with?”

“The draug prince, a prince of the old kingdoms … he slew you.”

“No.”

“She told us … she told us the tale.”

“And that woman never before deceived you over aught, has she? Never pretended to be a man in order to lie her way onto the boat? Never failed to mention she was the blighted daughter of the berserk Angantyr and Bjalmar’s granddaughter? That she had come aboard our vessel with the sole purpose of murdering … the Arrow’s Point.”

Ecgtheow tried to swallow but couldn’t get past the lump in his throat. “I …”

“You know I speak the truth … I have returned from the grave for but one reason.”

Skalds said most draugar focused on it, on vengeance. They wanted to avenge themselves on all who wronged them. It consumed them.

“I cannot trust you.”

“Oh, you can. Because you know I am not the one who deceived you. That bitch played us all … and lied over the murder she committed on Thule. And you praised her for it.” He took a step forward. “Did. You. Not?”

They had. All called her a champion for slaying the draug prince, while raising a horn in Orvar’s honor. Orvar, the famed warrior, champion out of Nidavellir.

“Starkad …”

Orvar waved it away. “You think he has any idea what kind of monster he travels alongside?”

Doubtful. Starkad wouldn’t have taken it well, learning someone murdered his old friend.

Ecgtheow spit. “Fuck.” He shuffled his feet along the shore. “Damn it!”

Well, there was not much else for it, then. Hervor had done what she’d done.

And now Ecgtheow would have to do what he had to do.

11

Godmund’s hall had a small balcony rimming the roof, accessible from the towers. Along this, Starkad walked with Höfund, the chill wind nipping at his face.

“I like to come up here,” the prince said. “Look out over the kingdom.”

“And gaze upon that which will one day be yours.”

Höfund chuckled, then spit over the railing, narrowly missing a man passing below. Rather than glare up as expected, the man scampered away and hid his face. No one wanted to challenge those living in the king’s hall, eh? After a moment, Höfund grunted. “Me? Never gonna be king of aught. I’m half human, I look human—”

“A little large for it.”

“And no jotunnar would follow me. Besides, Father sustains himself from time to time. He’s like to outlive me unless …”

Starkad barely stifled a groan. “Unless you taste the flesh of man?”

Höfund rubbed his mouth with his fingertips. “Mother didn’t want that. Said doing that made Father a monster.”

They passed behind one of the towers, then Höfund pointed away to the south. “This place you’re seeking, I’ve heard tale of it. There’s a valley … far to the south, the farthest reaches of Glaesisvellir. They say the passing of winters don’t even touch it.”

“So someone from the Old Kingdoms settled there?”

Höfund spit again. “Not much of a historian, me, but I heard a few tales from skalds, here and there. Your Old Kingdoms were set to fighting one another, fit to choke all Midgard on blood. Calling up the Art on one another like mist-mad fools.”

Starkad folded his arms against a sudden chill wind. “If the royal family of one of the Old Kingdoms did retreat here, they’d have thought themselves safe, beyond the wall.”

“Safe? Ain’t no fucking safe in Utgard. Sure as shit not safe for humans, runeblades or no. But you have the right of it. Some few men sailed around the wall, if you can believe that. Chanced Jormangandr, I’d wager, and came to the court. And Grandfather, he gave ’em that valley … reckon they must have given something damned valuable in return.”

Valuable to a jotunn? The Old Kingdoms were famed for their treasures, so it could have been jewels, fine-wrought weapons, gold. Maybe even some masterwork wrought with the Art itself. More like, though, they’d given up some of their number for the jotunn king to devour or do aught else with.

It seemed a rather inconceivable coincidence if the runeblade had come elsewhere in Glaesisvellir besides where this Old Kingdom had fled to. They’d have brought Skofnung and probably a hoard of treasure beyond. And all Starkad had to do was take it from their corpses.

Unless … what if they had escaped the wars that destroyed their kin?

“Do they … yet live?”

Höfund shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. Heard men call that place deathless, whatever that means. A man escaped from there, years back. Not right in the head, he seemed. I thought we ought to have put him down, but Father had him locked up in the tower. Brings him out now and again … I don’t know, maybe the madman amuses him.”

Madman … That did not sound promising. Still, if this man had seen the valley, he knew the way, and like as not, had some idea what might lurk there, living or otherwise. “I need to see him.”

Höfund chuckled. “Sure, why not? You’re like to have more success asking a troll’s arse for aid, but seeing either sounds entertaining enough. Father keeps him in one of the towers. Otherwise, he screams on about the dark.”

Starkad frowned. “Take me to him. Please.”

* * *

Höfund led Starkad up a winding staircase that the half-jotunn’s father probably could not have fit through to save his life. These upper towers must have been intended for human guests only. Or human prisoners. Starkad could not say which category the man he sought fit into. Maybe both.

The prince paused at the top of a landing and spoke briefly to a guard there, his words thick and unintelligible. The jotunn tongue.

The guard unlocked the tower door, and Höfund slowly opened it, then beckoned Starkad to step inside. Few adornments graced the room. A simple bed shelf padded with straw. A trunk in the corner. Discoloration on the wall indicated that something must have once been fixed on it—a picture or mirror maybe—but it had been torn down roughly.

The sole window was thrown open, letting in the chill. In the corner a man huddled over a candle, mumbling to himself and rocking slowly back and forth.

Starkad frowned.

Chances seemed good Höfund was right, and this stranger was beyond useless. But Starkad was here, and he needed all the information he could get on this valley.

Slowly he approached, hands raised in an effort to keep the man calm. “Who are you?”

The figure looked up. Half his face was melted off, flesh twisted and sagging. His gaze darted about the room, focusing on naught Starkad could see. “Bumbling … falling down … and down.”

Starkad cast a glance at Höfund, who shrugged. “Who’s falling?”

“Everything … everything … everything …” The man broke into a fit of weeping, shaking himself. Before Starkad could say aught to comfort him, his tears gave way to a raspy chuckle. “All is fallen …”

With a grimace, Starkad knelt beside the madman. “Do you have a name?”

“Oh. Oh. Oh, no! No, they take that. Take it and keep it for themselves! Keep it … keep it forever … until oblivion swallows without mercy. We … are falling. In the dark.”

Starkad moved to grab the man.

Höfund cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t touch ’em if I was you.”

Now Starkad looked back at Höfund. “I see.” He considered that a moment. Then he seized the madman by his shoulders, just now noticing one of the man’s hands was burned as well. “I need to know what you know.”

The man looked up sharply, firelight reflecting off his eyes in a faint red gleam.

Starkad lurched away, gained his feet, and put a hand to a sword. “He’s a fucking draug?”

“Uh,” Höfund said. “We can’t quite say, as such. Something wrong with him, that’s a sure thing. Partway there, maybe?”

What did that even mean? Either a man was living, or he was dead, and then, perhaps, risen as a draug. But Höfund seemed to think this man caught between the two states. Naught Starkad had ever heard should have made such a horrendous fate possible.

“In the dark … falling …”

And Höfund had been right to suggest putting this creature out of its misery, long ago. What game did Godmund play, allowing it to … live? Was that even the right word?

“A draug …” Starkad muttered. “Or something nigh to it …” Afraid of the dark. But not in the direct path of sunlight, so fearing that too? Afraid, always, of everything. What could possibly so afflict a man? Starkad released his grip on his blade and held his hands up again. “I do not mean you harm. They tell me you saw the timeless valley to the south.”

Now the man looked directly at Starkad. “You came? Oh, you came. I see it. Oft … see it … sees me. Watching. Me …? It’s watching … Scyld.”

Right. Starkad scratched his beard. “Scyld? Is that your name?”

The man chuckled. “Close enough … close.”

“Can you take me there, to the valley?”

The madman cackled, his laughter soon again becoming sobs that set his shoulders bobbing. “No coming … no going … always watching.”

“I must find this valley.”

“Heh, heh. Urd is … cruel to us all.” The wretched figure jerked into motion, patting himself down as if insects were crawling all over his body. This he gave over as suddenly as it began, then scrambled along the floor to where the trunk rested.

The creature flung open the trunk and began to hurl bits of cloth about the room. Finally, he pulled a wrapped parcel from the trunk. Eyes wide, he stared at the dirty cloth. A stream of drool slipped down from his mouth as he began to unwrap it.

Starkad tensed, fingers twitching. If the draug-thing had some kind of weapon Starkad would lop his head clean off and put an end to this.

Instead, though, Scyld unwrapped a silver arm ring, and patted it. “Oh so many times … I cast her … away. Always, she comes back to me. She wants to go home …” He looked up sharply at Starkad. “We’re not quite whole, you see?”

Swallowing, Starkad took a step forward to examine the arm ring. It was shaped like a serpent and decorated with intricate engravings that might well have been wrought in the days of the Old Kingdoms. Masterful in craftsmanship, and bearing runes he could not read. “You took this from there?”

“She wants … to go home.” Eyes far too wide, the half-draug offered Starkad the ring.

So, this must have come from a hoard of the kingdom that fled here. And this man had stolen it … and died on the way back? Either way, he found no peace. But an object taken from the hoard—whether or not it might truly desire to be reunited with that treasure—might serve as a catalyst for Starkad’s limited Sight. It might help him find the valley before winter set in.

Taking this treasure had clearly cost the creature before him. But then, Starkad had to find the valley. No choice remained to him. None ever did. The runeblades demanded he find them.

Fingers trembling ever so slightly, Starkad snatched up the ring.

The madman cackled weakly. “You’ll … take me home?”

“Never saw that before,” Höfund mumbled.

Starkad ran his thumb over the ring’s engravings. Yes, this ought to help him find the valley. He looked back to Scyld, this weak, pathetic wreck of a man. Perhaps facing the sight of his horror would break whatever madness had taken hold of Scyld. The journey might prove his death … but then, even that might be a mercy.

Slowly, he nodded. “Yes, Scyld. I’ll take you back to the valley.”

12

It was early in the afternoon, too early for most men to have started drinking, and only a few lingered in the great hall. Hervor sat there on a bench, watching the jotunn king, still uncertain what to make of him. Eating the flesh of man had made him a beast, if Starkad had the right of it.

Yet here he sat, playing tafl with this Hyrrokin of Thrymheim. Godmund had his chin in one massive hand, staring at the board, drumming the fingers of his other hand on the tabletop. The handful of other courtiers in the hall also watched the game.

One across from Hervor—one of Hyrrokin’s slaves—leaned forward. “She’s got him now. He’s lost too many pawns.”

Hervor cast another glance at the board, then shrugged. She had Tyrfing in her lap, polishing the pommel. Father’s legacy ought to have received better care than she oft had the chance to give it. This brief respite offered her a small opportunity to rectify that. “Maybe. Pawns are made to be sacrificed. The king has a few moves left to him.”

Godmund grumbled something in his own language, then turned to her. “Tell me, then, Hervard, can you offer counsel as to how a king might extract himself from this situation?”

Hyrrokin snorted. “So you seek wisdom from a human now? My, have the fortunes of Glaesisvellir fallen since the days of Gothmundr.”

Godmund snarled and spat on the floor. “My father knew the value of humans, from time to time.”

Hervor shrugged. “If my king so wishes, I can advise him.” She rose and drifted over to the board, examining it a bit longer. It was oversized for a human, though the pieces still looked small in the hands of the two jotunnar.

Grandfather had favored the game, and she’d learned to play by watching him overcome many a visiting noble in her youth. Tafl was about long-term strategy, of course, and that was hardly Hervor’s strongest arena. But … she remembered plenty of tactics Grandfather had used to turn the tables on overconfident young men who’d thought his mind must be growing weak.

She pointed to a piece. “First move your king, or she’ll have you in but a few moves.”

“How would she have me from …” Godmund grunted. “Oh. Damn.”

Now Hyrrokin grumbled. “Getting advice from human boys. Fool old man.”

“Hervard,” Godmund said, “come and tell me what else you see on this board.”

“I see …” She glanced up as more people entered.

Starkad walking beside the half-jotunn prince, both seeming oddly vexed, and followed by a man in rags, his face badly burned.

She looked back to the board, then pointed at one of Godmund’s few remaining pawns. “This one, forward one space.”

“Eh?” The old jotunn stared hard at her a moment before taking her advice.

Starkad and Höfund settled in at a table, the former locking his gaze on her. Now the man wanted to talk? Well, now she was fucking busy. She pointed at another piece. “Pull that free to threaten her king.”

“Ho ho,” Godmund said, then snorted. “Seems to me Hervard knows tafl better than you, Hyrrokin.”

The jotunn woman glared at Hervor, who averted her gaze. A smart warrior didn’t challenge a bear or wolf by looking it in the eyes. The same no doubt held true of jotunnar. “My king is too kind.”

“Hervard,” Starkad said.

Hervor ignored him, examining the board. Things had already swung back into Godmund’s favor and he might well win the match without further guidance. And yet, the chance to actually use some of the tactics she’d picked up from Grandfather … well, it didn’t come along too oft. “Close the gap there, my king.”

A bright gleam of light fell upon the board, as if a ray of sunshine had broken through the clouds and somehow pierced the roof.

“I knew it. A runeblade!”

Hervor spun to see Hyrrokin’s slave holding Tyrfing. Drawn. She hadn’t even realized she’d left it laying on the bench. Father’s legacy … in the hands of that cur.

A fell instinct settled on her gut. She moved before realizing her intent, slammed her elbow into the slave’s ribs. He toppled over, and she caught his wrist, snatched up Tyrfing, and swung. The runeblade lopped the slave’s head off in a single blow.

“Oh, fuck,” Starkad said. Already he was on his feet, blades drawn.

Panting, Hervor scrambled away from the corpse she’d just made.

Bellowing, Hyrrokin flung the table and tafl board up in the air, scattering pieces in every direction. “How dare you! How dare you, human, strike a man of Thrymheim?”

“Hervor!” Starkad shouted.

She scrambled to join him at the doorway, where he’d taken up a defensive stance. Whipping Tyrfing round in a twirl, she backed away.

More slowly, Godmund himself rose, and Höfund moved up to stand beside him. The burned man stared at them dumbly, hardly moving a muscle.

“Go about,” Hyrrokin spat at the gathered warriors. “Avenge the fallen struck down in this very hall!”

Many had jumped to their feet and drawn blades at the initial outburst. Now a few exchanged glances and began to close in.

Godmund cleared his throat noisily. “Be still. This slave of Thrymheim took what was not his to lay hands upon and paid for it same as any would have. Besides which, I think your vengeance against Hervard will seem a small thing earning you little fame. I reckon him not a man at all, but a woman. And while she wields that blade, you may find vengeance comes at a hefty price.”

He knew about her?

Hyrrokin seethed, bits of spittle flying from her mouth. “You may be a guest of Glaesisvellir now, Hervard, or whatever your name is … but that will not always be the case. And my vargar will have your scent, bitch. And then they’ll have your blood.”

Tyrfing still in hand, Hervor backed out of the doorway. A human foe she might have taunted in return, but any threat against this massive jotunn sounded hollow in her own ears. So silently she ducked away, Starkad just behind her.

“Scyld!” he shouted. Then waited for the burned man to come along.

If Godmund was letting them leave, they needed to do so before the king changed his mind. And she wanted to be as far as possible before Hyrrokin could call up those vargar.

13

It was far later in the day than Starkad would have liked to have made a start. Thanks to Hervor, they had no choice.

“You ought not to have killed the man,” he finally said.

Hervor spat. “You’d have done no less.”

“Maybe.” Probably. Starkad had a great deal of blood on his hands, after all. More than most people could imagine. Blood of those he’d loved. So what was the blood of strangers compared to that?

Scyld trailed on behind them, mumbling under his breath about darkness and flame and a long fall or some other such nonsense. His prattle grew more wearisome with each passing hour. Starkad ought to have left him behind. Or maybe he ought to just kill the poor, ruined bastard and be done with it.

They walked on, past sunset, and still he saw no real shelter out here. The small copse of evergreens was the closest he’d seen to any break in the tundra, and maybe the only choice still open to them. Marching across Jotunheim in the dark was simply not an option.

Instead, they drew up, and Hervor set to making a fire while Starkad raised the tents. By the time he’d finished, she had a small blaze going. Enough to keep out the mist and hold back the cold, which was growing worse by the hour.

Scyld sat in front of that fire, staring at it like a man transfixed.

Starkad trudged over to join Hervor, then paused partway. The snows beneath that tree seemed darker than they ought to.

Hervor was now heating up what little meat remained of their stores, paying him no mind. It was better that way, in any event. Everything between them was always too muddled.

Starkad trod over to the spot he’d seen. It was hard to make out, with the fire behind him … but … the snows were stained crimson. What the fuck? Had an animal died here?

With his fingertips, he brushed away the first layer of snow. It was sticky, the blood fresh. He scraped more away with his palm. The crimson stain sank deep, half a foot down or more. Now he was dragging snow away in great scoops, flinging it aside.

What was this?

What was going on here?

His fingers brushed something bulbous and fleshy.

A … face?

Gasping, Starkad flung more snow away. A human body lay there, face exposed, preserved by the cold. And Starkad knew her. Ogn.

She opened her eyes, revealing empty sockets. Judging him.

“Fuck!” He stumbled onto his arse, then scrambled backward. Impossible.

Another nightmare. Impossible, Ogn had died long ago and far from here.

A nightmare … except he was awake.

Hervor was at his side, one hand on Tyrfing’s hilt, the other holding a burning brand as a torch. “What is it?”

He shook his head. He didn’t know, couldn’t have put it into words if he did. What in Hel’s icy crotch had that been?

Slowly, he pulled himself forward again. Hervor joined him, and he looked into the hole he’d dug. Within lay a misshapen tree root. The recess might have looked somewhat like a face … if one wasn’t looking closely.

“What is it?” Hervor said. “What’s wrong with you?”

He had no idea.

Unless … unless his nightmares had begun to seep into his waking life.

“Falling in the … dark …” Scyld sang.

* * *

“I do not much care for all the secrets you keep,” Hervor said when they’d finished eating the night meal.

Starkad snorted. “Coming from a woman who disguised herself as a man and uses a false name more oft than not, such a complaint carries little weight.”

She shrugged. “I had thought we …”

“Thought we what, Hervor?”

She shook her head. “Naught. Naught that matters.” She coughed, then sniffed. “Do you even know where to find this valley?”

He glanced at Scyld. The madman probably couldn’t have found his own arse. “I have the general directions from Godmund. And …” Well, what harm, really, in her knowing of the arm ring? He dug it from his satchel and handed it to her. “This was taken from the hoard gathered by one of the Old Kingdoms, whichever one fled here. Scyld brought this from the valley and now claims it wants to go home.”

Whether at hearing his name or at the arm ring itself, Scyld perked up. Stared hard at Starkad, then scrambled away and hid behind a tree. “Burning … burning in the dark.”

Hervor shook her head in Scyld’s direction, then looked the serpentine arm ring over slowly before handing it back. “So you’re counting on a piece of jewelry taken from an imbecile to guide us there? Cursed jewelry, I might add, assuming Scyld has any portion of his wits left. Which I doubt.”

Scyld surely had gone mist-mad, though certainly something terrible had befallen him to leave him in such a state. Maybe his condition was how any who had their madness unchecked would wind up. At that thought, Starkad stoked the fire. Best keep the mist away as much as possible.

He glanced at Hervor, but she was lying on her side staring at the tree Scyld hid behind. “Cursed or no …” Starkad said, “it is the only lead I have. I must trust it and my instincts to guide us. Had you not acted as you did, I could have sent you back to Godmund’s castle.”

“Sent me? Fuck you, Starkad! You don’t fucking send me anywhere. I came here to help you!”

He grimaced. “I did not ask for your help.”

“Because I’m a woman? Is that it?”

“Because I need no help! Not from any man nor woman.”

Now she was looking at him, glaring at him. “You think naught scares you, but I think you are scared all the time. Afraid of trusting anyone because of whatever darkness lies behind you. That’s what really bothers you, right? That you and I … that we started to become …”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Become what?”

“Become naught. Not a damned thing.” She rolled over on her other side, looking away from him.

With a groan, he did the same. What the fuck was he supposed to say to her?

Yes, so maybe Hervor wasn’t Ogn. But the longer she insisted on sticking by his side, the more likely she was to share Ogn’s urd.

Starkad’s curse would not give him peace.

His was a path of blood and war and death.

And anyone who walked beside him would find naught but those rewards waiting for them.

He never should have let Hervor come along for this. Never.

14

In the southern reaches of Glaesisvellir, the plains began to give way to hillocks and greater numbers of trees. Those few hardy enough to survive this unending snow. Hervor’s breath crystallized before her with every painful step she took.

Actually, she had left painful behind a while back. Now, her legs and feet felt more numb than aught else. Starkad pushed on ahead, hardly ever slowing and only on rare occasions even sparing her a glance. He spoke less and less these days.

And Hervor … well, she was choking on her own words.

Almost every godsdamned night she considered telling him the truth about Orvar-Oddr. The draug was still out there, waiting to make her suffer. Plotting a long revenge. Odin alone knew what the creature would do.

And Hervor couldn’t tell Starkad. Couldn’t tell anyone.

Her oath had forced her hand … forced her to murder the man. Hadn’t it?

With her legs only half responding to her will, Starkad had drawn far enough ahead she could barely make him out through the mist and the flurries of snows obscuring the way. She wanted to call out to him … but what would she even say?

It meant Scyld was her only companion, and him ambling along beside her, mumbling on, occasionally singing tunelessly. How he was even still alive after such a trek, she had no fucking idea.

Maybe Starkad was right. Maybe Hervor never should have come here, never should have joined him on his mist-mad quest to recover these cursed blades.

She shifted Tyrfing uncomfortably on her shoulder. One runeblade was enough for her.

Maybe if she just—

Snow crunched behind her. Hervor spun, hand on Tyrfing’s hilt. She squinted into the mist, searching for a sign of aught there.

Naught.

She waved the torch about, dissipating the vapor a bit. No one she could see.

“Starkad?”

No answer.

Scyld was humming.

“Shut up!”

The madman fell silent. The only sound now the howl of wind.

Damn isolation out here. Playing tricks on her mind. She’d have sworn someone followed them, but … but maybe mist-madness was taking her.

Pleasant thought.

She spun back around and tromped off after Starkad, shoving Scyld with one hand to start him walking again. He immediately began to mumble once more.

A chill wind swept over her, stirred her cloak. And she’d have sworn someone was back there. She spun again. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

“Hervor?” Starkad called out from far ahead.

And still no sign of aught in the mist.

She was losing her grip on the real world. Maybe that was the problem. They’d gone well past the real world now. Utgard seemed to exist in some liminal state, halfway to the Otherworlds.

“I’m back here!” she shouted.

A moment later, his torchlight shone ahead, silhouetting him through the flurry. Hervor trudged over to him.

Starkad glanced past her. “What is it?”

“I thought I heard something, but …”

He took a few steps in that direction, waving his own torch about, then shook his head. “We need to move more quickly.” At that, he turned and set out once again.

Hervor glared at his back for a bare instant. Not long enough to let him out of her sight. Not nearly. And then she was off after him.

The day seemed to stretch too long—she’d never have thought herself feeling that—and by the time evening drew nigh, she was ready to collapse.

Starkad pointed to a hill. “We might take shelter below there. It ought to cut down on the wind.”

“Fine. Anywhere, just—”

A faint cry echoed over the hills. The sound of a woman sobbing?

Hervor turned about, still not able to make out much. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes.” Starkad pushed forward, more slowly now, hand on the hilt of a sword.

The sobs continued, growing louder as they approached the hillside. In its shadow rested a tiny hut. Someone lived out here? The place looked too small for any jotunn, but no plumes of smoke rose from the dwelling … no fire. Without fire … naught human could still be alive inside.

And yet, again, that weeping from within, like a woman in mourning.

“Darkness …” Scyld sang. “Calls us … Home …”

Hervor exchanged a glance with Starkad. Then the man moved in, toward the hut.

Oh, damn it. Did he really have to? What possible good was going to come from going down there?

Hervor put a hand to Tyrfing’s hilt. This did not bode well. This whole fucking land was one long nightmare of the kind you only got after eating spoiled fish.

“Who’s there?” Starkad called out at the threshold.

At once, the crying ceased.

Hervor hesitated. The hut had no windows, just a wooden door, and that half fallen off its hinges. She wanted to speak, to tell Starkad to leave this place. She could barely form the words.

Starkad pushed the door open to reveal an undecorated single room within. A tiny fire pit in the center. A bed shelf where the straw had rotted away. A couple of dishes, clay pots. A thick layer of dust covered everything.

No one had been in here in years.

Hervor tried to swallow. “We … we are chasing a ghost.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“So it appears.” Starkad backed away from the hut, ushered her away with one hand while holding up his torch in warding toward the hut. “Behind us there is another hill. We will pitch our tents there.”

Hervor had no objection to getting as far away from this hut as possible. In fact, her feet no longer even seemed to be bothering her.

As they walked toward their new campsite, still she could not shake the sensation of being watched. Being followed. A lump built in her throat and would not go. Her heart raced, pulse pounding in her ears.

Maybe something was watching … from the Otherworlds. Unseen, but aware of her. Aware of them.

“We need to gather wood for a fire,” Starkad said once he picked a spot.

He was looking at her. Odin’s balls. He meant for her to go and get it … alone? And here she was, trembling like a maid.

“The dark has already settled in …”

Starkad grunted. “Then you set the tents. I’ll get the wood. But we must have fire, Hervor. You know this.”

“Fire is life …” Scyld whispered to no one in particular.

Grimacing, she nodded, and set to pitching the tents.

Starkad disappeared off into the darkness.

The moment he was out of sight, her every instinct pled with her to call him back. As if the mere presence of another living being—Scyld barely qualified—might discourage whatever fell presence watched them here.

She looked for him, but saw naught. In the mist, a shadow passed by the corner of her eye. Before she knew it, her hand was on Tyrfing’s hilt. She’d had a long time to practice not drawing the runeblade until a foe was in sight. Its curse necessitated no less. But still, its light would have helped …

Turning about slowly, she peered into the darkness. Naught out there, but then, she could not see more than a few feet. Darkness, mist, snow … this place was ruled by Hel, she had no doubt.

Odin’s damned balls.

Focus. She had to focus on the task at hand.

She unfurled the tent rolls and then began driving a stake into the snows. The wind tore at the sheets, threatened to yank them right out of her hands. It had begun to howl like some fell beast.

“Go to Hel,” she whispered to the darkness, not certain whether she was cursing the weather, the ghosts, or the world in general. All of them, maybe.

The wind began to whisper about her now, incomprehensible words. The dead watching?

“I faced down the ghosts of my ancestors,” she mumbled. As if that might impress whatever vaettir lurked in this place. “I do not fear you.” Could they taste her lies?

Snow crunched nearby, and she leapt to her feet, waving the torch.

“Whoa,” Starkad said. “Just me.” He dropped a bundle of sticks at his feet.

Desperate to control her breath—to not let him see the sheen of cold sweat on her face—Hervor turned away and set back to working on the tents.

Behind her, Starkad began to kindle the fire. “I think we draw nigh to our destination.”

“Because of the ghosts.”

“Scyld said this arm ring wanted to return to its hoard. If it bears a curse, maybe the effects of that grow stronger as we come closer.”

“What?” Hervor paused and looked back at him. He had his back to her, sparking the flame. “You mean we’re seeing things because of the fucking ring?”

“Just a guess.”

“Well, then get rid of it!”

Starkad snorted. “I still need this to find the right valley.”

Assuming they didn’t wind up just as mist-mad as Scyld before that.

15

They must’ve known how bad they’d be outnumbered. Must’ve had an idea before they raided the first seaside town. They did it anyway.

And here Ecgtheow was, leading men—five men for every one Bjalmar had with him—on bloody revenge. Oh, and there was a lot of blood. Blood and guts, strewn across the village, turning all of it to muddy slush.

At his side, Haethcyn flung a torch into another building, third one they’d lit, but already half of Bjalmar’s town was aflame. Before that, they’d razed the fields. Herebeald was sacking villages along the coast. Hrethel said if he was going to make an example of Bjalmar, he was going to make sure no one forgot.

Ruthless is what it was. Ruthless in a way only a man who feels betrayed can stoop to. Good men pushed too far might make the worst kind of enemy, Ecgtheow supposed.

Across the bloody street, a woman screamed for help inside a building. Not likely help was coming to her, though. Whatever warrior was having his way with her, the best she could hope for was being manacled and sold as a slave. Otherwise, she’d be one more corpse.

There were a lot of corpses this day. And the day had been long. Already the sun was dipping below the horizon. No man wanted to continue the fight at night, but Bjalmar’s walls were just past this town.

Ecgtheow supposed they’d have to breach them now. Let it all be ended sooner rather than later. They all knew how it had to end, after all.

More of Bjalmar’s warriors—thought they’d got them all, but more kept cropping up—came charging around the corner, these bearing swords and proper armor. The last lot hadn’t had that much, just clubs and wooden stakes and whatever they’d found at hand. Those had died real quick.

This group though, they moved together, had clearly trained together. Haethcyn took a force of five men and charged out to meet them.

Orvar slipped up by Ecgtheow’s side, come from Odin alone knew what shadow to whisper in his ear. More harsh truths, Ecgtheow supposed. No matter how tired he got of hearing them.

“That one …” the draug said, pointing to an older man among Bjalmar’s warriors. He’s the champion, Gunther Blueshield. Once a master warrior … Still Bjalmar’s most trusted … And you … must slay him.”

“I …”

“Destroy him.”

Oh, and Ecgtheow could see it in his mind. Him cutting down the aging champion, Naegling glistening with blood. Body hung as a warning to all not to question the rightful king. He could see it … He shook his head. Awful visions he wouldn’t have wished upon anyone.

“Destroy … him. Cut him … to shreds.”

“I …” It did seem the fitting thing to do. Sounded like … justice. Bjalmar had started this fight, no doubt using Gunther or men like him on his own raids. No one was innocent, anyway. An old warrior was just one who was better at killing than those around him. A hot anger began to rise up from Ecgtheow’s gut, settling in his chest, scorching his lungs. “I … probably ought to … destroy him.”

He hefted Naegling and advanced on Bjalmar’s thegn. To his credit, the man caught his gaze, and instead of backing away or calling for aid, he strode straight to meet Ecgtheow.

The thegn bore sword and shield, both held like a veteran of many battles. As Ecgtheow drew nigh, Gunther fell into a fighting stance, moving with caution, care. Not too hasty. Yes, here was a worthy opponent. One who needed destroying.

“I will be proud to send you to the valkyries.”

Gunther sneered. “And I’ll send you faithless dogs to the gates of Hel.”

Faithless. Ecgtheow shook his head. Bastard had serious stones on him, considering they had struck first. Well, now he would strike first. Ecgtheow came in with a series of rapid slashes.

Gunther caught each on his shield, then recoiled, clearly shocked as the runeblade carved out chunks of his protection with every blow. Ecgtheow didn’t slow his advance. He had size, strength, and youth over the old man.

Ecgtheow had to destroy him. The thought was a red hot iron in his mind. A seething rage that made it hard to even draw a damn breath.

Gunther turned a parry into a riposte so masterfully his blade scraped along Ecgtheow’s mail and even cut his cheek. A faster, stronger man might’ve opened his throat with that move. And they both knew it.

Roaring, Ecgtheow swiped viciously with Naegling. Gunther fell into the defensive, unable to stand up to such a relentless assault. The old man fell back, losing ground fast.

And then his foot slipped on someone’s intestine. The thing squelched as Gunther’s footing gave way. He flailed his arms a bare instant, then pitched over backward, onto his arse.

Destroy him. Rend him.

Bellowing with fury he could not explain, Ecgtheow swiped down, severing Gunther’s right arm at the elbow. It gushed blood as the old man screamed. Feeling himself almost in a dream, Ecgtheow brought the blade up again, then chopped off the man’s other arm.

The simmering anger dimmed, just a hint. Troll shit, it felt like the mist was inside his skull, floating around, obscuring his thoughts.

And here he was, dragging this old man’s corpse through the mud and shit, pulling him by the hair. Huh. Where was he taking him?

Oh. Of course. A twisted tree loomed up before him. Just outside the town. Had to have the warning …

Ecgtheow grabbed a rope from some warriors watching to make sure no one escaped, tied a noose, and then flung it over a thick branch. The noose he pulled around Gunther’s neck—man was long dead now—and then heaved him up to where the corpse could swing in the breeze. The rope he tied off on another tree, then stood blinking at what he’d wrought.

Seemed like the right thing to do. Didn’t it?

Why did he feel apt to retch?

Huh.

So much fog in his head.

“King Hrethel wants Bjalmar brought to him in chains,” Haethcyn said. The young man was also staring up at Gunther, shaking his head.

Everything seemed so far away. What rage had so taken him that he felt the need to hang this corpse here? It just … seemed the right thing to do. That was all he could think of it.

Haethcyn guided him away, toward the walls surrounding Bjalmar’s hall.

It took the men a while to climb those walls and get the gates open. Ecgtheow stood there with Haethcyn, watching. Why in Hel’s frozen underworld had he felt so enraged at Gunther? Part of him wanted to look back, over his shoulder, to see if he could still spot where he’d hung the thegn’s mutilated body. But … He didn’t really want to see it.

Instead, he kept his eyes locked on the burning wall. On the men screaming, dying, on both sides of the fight.

Lot of blood. There was always so much blood. And then the shit, the gore. Battlefields always turned into these putrid messes.

The wooden gates creaked open, revealing a small inner town with a few houses as well as the jarl’s own hall. Flames had already spread inside, engulfing the houses nigh to the wall. Chaos spread in war. Ecgtheow shook his head. No help for it, and Hrethel had wanted to send a message.

Suppose it was sent now.

Leave naught but ash.

Ugh. His head hurt. The damn mist … all rattling around in his brain.

Ecgtheow shook himself again, then joined the charge through those gates. A woman came up on him, shieldmaiden maybe, though she didn’t have armor, just a spear. Ecgtheow’s blade opened her throat and he left her lying in the dirt, blood seeping through fingers that would never staunch its flow.

Could’ve been Hervor.

Destroy.

Lying, murderous bitch would have deserved such an end.

More warriors came on him, and too, common folk and slaves, armed with tools as oft as actual weapons. Ecgtheow and his men carved through them in the space of a few heartbeats, littering the courtyard with corpses.

How fast men went from living people to dead things, still and rotting.

The jarl himself stumbled from his flaming hall, shaking his head. His gaze finally came to rest on Ecgtheow, and he pointed his sword at him.

Before Ecgtheow could stride toward him, though, a hand fell on his shoulder.

Haethcyn, shaking his head. “Let me do this, champion. As Father’s son, grant me this honor.”

Ecgtheow supposed there was sense in that. Bjalmar had wronged Hrethel most directly, so maybe it ought to be Hrethel’s own son to bring the jarl in. So Ecgtheow stuck Naegling’s point in the bloody dirt and watched.

Watched, as Haethcyn stalked forward with utter confidence. As the jarl lunged at the young man. As Haethcyn batted away the clumsy attack with his shield and slammed the pommel of his sword into the jarl’s jaw.

And that was it.

The old man dropped to his knees in an instant, weapon falling from his limp grasp, blood gurgling out of his broken jaw.

Awful wound, really. A broken jaw meant a man couldn’t speak, could hardly swallow, sure as fuck couldn’t chew his food. Ecgtheow wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. But then, Bjalmar had betrayed them all.

Haethcyn smirked and turned away, beckoning to his men. “Strip him naked and bind him in manacles. We’ll find a cart to drag this troll shit back to Lake Vättern.”

Huh. Ecgtheow frowned. Something seemed off about that, though he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the reason. Something was … Huh. “You strip the old man naked he’s like to catch the deathchill long before we get him back to the lake.”

The prince rolled his eyes, then threw his hands up. “Very well. Leave the jarl his trousers. No one wishes to look upon his shriveled cock anyway, I am quite certain. Ah, but take the boots. Make sure we walk him through the battlefield on the way to the cart. Make certain any of his people who yet live see their jarl.”

Ah. Well, Hrethel wanted to make a point.

Ecgtheow supposed this would do it.

Part III

Third Moon

Year 29, Age of the Aesir

16

Winter had grown very nigh. Soon, the land would grow even colder, and Hervor had no idea how they’d make the return journey. Assuming they ever found Starkad’s mysterious valley.

No, she supposed she did know what would happen.

They’d both die out here, beyond the Midgard Wall. Die, and see their souls sucked down to the gates of Hel. She had grown so numb, so tired, that the thought no longer frightened her as much as it once might have.

And then, at last, they crested a severe hill, and Starkad pointed down into the valley below. The downward slope was almost a sheer drop, a crater ringing a mist-filled hole in the earth.

“Is that … Niflheim?”

Starkad chuckled. “Hardly. There lies our destination.”

“Falling down …” Scyld mumbled from somewhere behind them. “Down … down … deep in darkness.”

That pit of mist? “Oh, Odin’s balls, Starkad!” Hervor threw up her hands.

“Odin’s … what?” He shook his head. Snorted. “Gods … Hervor. You are a strange woman.” He pointed to a spot on the cliff some twenty feet away from them. “That looks rough enough we might make out some handholds. We can scale down into the valley from there. Besides, best be out of the chill before night settles.”

Hervor glanced up at the sky. Yes, and it was like to take hours to climb down that route, assuming they could do so safely at all. But Starkad had a point. Up atop the hill, the wind was even bitterer. Best get this done and get out of Jotunheim.

She glanced at Scyld. “He’ll fall and break his neck.”

Starkad looked over the madman, who had now settled down into the snow and was tracing circles around with one finger. “Leave him, then. I agreed to bring him here and I have. Aught more is up to him.”

Callous, but … what choice did they have? Scyld clearly wasn’t making any climb. Grumbling under her breath, Hervor trudged over to the area Starkad had selected. There, she peered down into the void. She could only guess at how deep it was down there, what with the mist. What if the valley descended below the level of the ground like an abyss into Niflheim? Despite Starkad’s reassurances, that looked an awful lot like a pit to some Otherworld to Hervor.

On hands and knees, Starkad swung over the ledge, already beginning that painful-looking descent.

“I hate you sometimes …” Hervor muttered after him. Then she knelt, and swung herself over the ledge as well. On the way down, she cast a last glance in Scyld’s direction. The madman was gone, must’ve wandered off somewhere. Fool would freeze out here …

Not her problem.

Not her godsdamned problem.

“Scyld?”

No answer.

Fuck it. Starkad was right. She couldn’t afford to risk her life for the half-dead madman.

Ice crusted over the jutting rocks, made them slick. Hardly secure. She was going to fall and break her neck. She was going to fall. And if she did, she was sure as fuck going to fall right onto Starkad. Bastard.

Her boot skidded along the too-slick wall, searching for purchase she already knew wasn’t there.

A dusting of ice crystals showered down onto her face.

Damn Starkad.

She’d made it down ten feet, maybe, and her chest was heaving with the effort. Had to take every step with agonizing care. Couldn’t afford a single mistake.

Another ten feet.

Her throat was burning with the cold. Chilling her lungs. Made it hard to catch her breath.

Bastard was probably loving this too. Always chasing after some life-threatening adventure. Couldn’t get rich by plundering coastal villages like a normal person. No, he had to go out and challenge the fucking Otherworlds just to prove he had the stones for it …

Her hand slipped.

Hervor screamed as she slid down the cliff. Ice-covered rocks tore open her cheek, her brow, her arms. Her foot caught on a rock below and turned her ankle the wrong way. Another scream, but she managed to snare a handhold with her right hand.

The better part of her weight fell upon her bad shoulder, and she shrieked at the pain. Her grip faltered and she tilted backward, slapping the cliff wall with her good hand before finally finding a rock that would support her.

Gasping in pain, she pressed up against the wall.

“Hervor!”

She didn’t dare lean away from the cliff to even look at him.

“Hervor! Are you all right?”

No. No, she was not fucking all right. If he wanted adventure, they could have gone pirating. They could have raided in Hunaland. They could have done aught else save this mist-mad troll shit.

She huffed in another painful breath. Then she eased her injured foot off the rock. Slowly. Very slowly. Try to find another … A fresh jolt of pain shot up her leg as she put weight on a lower rock. And now the other foot.

“Hervor?” Starkad called again.

“I’m coming, damn it!” Every time they went somewhere she wound up doing this. Every single fucking time. How was that even possible? Did he plan it somehow? Was Odin taunting her?

One painful step at a time, she continued down, until, at last, she managed to join Starkad at the base of the valley.

The steep cliffs did indeed cut out the wind chill, and even the snow seemed lighter here, though it still blanketed all she could see. Which, given the mist, was less than a dozen feet ahead. Starkad had kindled a pair of fresh torches and handed one off to her.

Hervor shot him a glare he didn’t even seem to notice, snatched the torch, and pushed forward. Walking on her bad ankle hurt, but not as much as it had. Not sprained then, praise Odin. Just a twist.

“Happy now?” she mumbled when Starkad moved in beside her.

He grunted, not quite denying her accusation. Right. Well, all she had to do was tell him the truth about what she’d done and … and watch him turn on her.

Instead, torch out just to her side, she made her way forward. Soon, they came to buildings wrought from large stone blocks. The designs lacked the scale or glory of Godmund’s hall, but still, these structures surpassed aught built since the fall of the Old Kingdoms. It lent credence to Starkad’s theory about these people’s origins, she supposed.

She passed between the nearest two, trying to find aught resembling a lord’s hall.

Without warning, a shadow settled over the valley, as if someone had doused a torch. Darkness swept in so suddenly her breath caught.

“Sunset,” Starkad said. “Come. Let us hurry.” He took the lead, darting between buildings.

Despite the passing of ages, despite the emptiness, the structures had not fallen into disrepair. Mounds of snow covered them, but the roofs had not caved in. Almost as if someone maintained this place …

From the corner of her eye, a shadow passed beside her.

Hervor spun, waving her torch.

Still naught but darkness and mist.

“Do not let them unnerve you,” Starkad said.

“Them?” So he knew there was something out there.

“They are watching us. But they hold no power over the world of the living save that which we give them. Move steadily and do not look too deeply into …”

She turned to see what had forestalled his words.

An entity drifted out from the mist. A warrior, shrouded in etheric blue flame that glittered off its damaged mail. It bore a chain coif as well, beneath which lurked naught but darkness and a hollow void.

As if from nowhere, the entity hefted a pitted and rusting blade, that too glimmering with blue flame.

Hervor jerked Tyrfing free of its sheath, and it immediately sprang to light, as if lit by pale fire itself. Starkad hesitated. Hervor did not. She rushed in and swung at the ghost. The fell creature batted away her strike with its sword.

The impact jolted her, all too real despite the ghost seeming ethereal. Shrieking, she struck again and again.

The ghost parried with shocking grace, until it turned in riposte, forcing her back. Its own attacks came at her with Otherworldly speed. Starkad pushed her out of the way of one such blow and rained attacks upon the ghost.

One of his blades scraped off its mail. The other tore through what should have been flesh and seemed to meet only air. The ghost shuddered, its form flickering as Hervor came around at it again.

The entity brought its blade around in a counter that forced Starkad to fall back.

Hervor launched herself forward and plunged Tyrfing through mail and etheric form. The ghost flickered again, shrieking this time. It vanished in a puff of blue flame.

Panting, Hervor let Tyrfing fall to her side. It wasn’t pounding in her ears, so maybe it was satisfied with killing ghosts. “What in the gates of Hel, Starkad?”

“I … I have never known ghosts to be able to fight with a man like that … save in fanciful tales.” He looked around, for once seeming as lost as she felt.

Oh, and that did not comfort her in the least. “Starkad … are you certain whatever you seek here is worth such madness? Let us leave this place and tell Gylfi the lengths we went to in order to—”

“I cannot turn back.” Saying it almost seemed to pain him. Was that all part of his curse as well?

He tromped forward a few steps, then paused. Looked around down a street she could not see, shaking his head.

Oh, that couldn’t be good.

Hervor raced over to join him. Another blue-flamed ghost drifted toward them, sword in hand. “Not more of these things.”

“No, Hervor. Not more. Look at the rent in its mail, just where you pierced it. This is the same one.”

She faltered, falling back a step. That was impossible. Tyrfing had struck down that ghost. She had slain it.

“If we cannot kill them …”

Starkad pointed down another alley. “Run.”

17

They dashed down the alley and back out onto a main street.

Here, Starkad stumbled to a stop. Dozens of figures flitted about in a market. The light settled wrong on features ever so faintly translucent, as those people—those ghosts—drifted about. Some looked to be selling wares, though without the merest sound. Others inspected goods or wandered without obvious intent.

Hervor collided with his shoulder, then gasped. “What the …”

Starkad guided her along the street, as far away from the ghosts as he could, his strides just short of a run.

Down the street, another ghostly warrior drifted out from around a corner. Starkad darted behind an empty stall, shoving Hervor in front of him.

The ghost warrior bypassed them without even looking their way. In fact, many of the ghosts seemed intent on aught going on in the east.

Starkad exchanged a glance with Hervor, who sat gaping at the scene. Most of the ghosts didn’t even seem aware of their presence. These shades acted like they yet lived, like they might need to buy supplies to cook the night meal.

But if so, the market was actually rather empty for a town this size. So where were the rest of the inhabitants?

“What the fuck is going on here?” Hervor whispered.

Starkad shook his head. He wished he knew. He was no expert on ghosts, but he’d hardly thought they behaved like this. Nor would he have expected to be able to even see them. Were ghosts not trapped in the Otherworlds, across the Veil?

“Come on.” He guided her up, and they set out down the road again.

Twice more, they had to hide as ghost warriors wandered nearby. The second time, they ducked behind a large stone hall. Beyond this, a greater number of ghosts had gathered toward the center of the valley, standing around a lake.

The mist made it hard to judge numbers, but at least two score of them had flocked there, moving almost in a procession, one led by a robed female ghost.

He pointed. “Whatever is happening here, the source of it lies down by the lake.”

“And you want to go look? Why?”

Despite her tone, he couldn’t quite keep the excitement from his face. Yes, like a moth to flame, he had to know. He just had to. After flashing her a slight grin, he turned away and crept down toward the water.

Behind him, Hervor mumbled some curse under her breath. That only made him smile wider.

Here, he had travelled beyond the edge of Midgard. Yes, he sought a runeblade, but it was more than that. He had to brave this. He had to brave everything. It was the only way he knew he was truly alive.

A sheet of mist rose up from the waters below. Too small to be a lake, this looked more like a natural spring. Certainly this valley must have seemed a well-sheltered refuge. The ghosts ringed the waters, and Starkad had to skirt the far edge, unwilling to draw too nigh to them.

None looked at him, in any event.

All of these shades were intent on a trail leading east from the spring, up toward the rocky hillside. Many of the ghosts trod that path now, though Starkad could not make out what lay at the end of it.

Hervor’s hand fell upon his shoulder. “Are these creatures wraiths?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. The warriors, maybe. Wraiths are the darkest ghosts in any tale. These … I don’t know. We have to see what lies up amongst the rocks.”

“Do we really?”

Offering a wry smile, he shrugged out of her grip and crept forward more, flanking the trail while giving the shades a wide berth. The path grew steeper as they drew nigh to the cliff. Loose rock and snow shifted under his feet, and he had to slow his pace further to keep from making any noise. Hervor kept close behind.

Ahead, the ground rose up in a lip, then dropped away steeply into a path that almost seemed to run under the cliff. On his belly, Starkad crawled up to that lip. A smooth rock tunnel ran down there, boring underground. A lava tube, maybe?

He crested the lip and dropped down to the tube. The path was slick, and his feet immediately slid forward. It took him a few steps to catch his balance. Then he glanced back up at Hervor where she stood, glaring down at him.

“You can stay there if you want.” With that, he trod into the tunnel.

A moment later, he heard Hervor sliding down into the tube as well.

He pushed forward toward where it delved into the mountainside.

The ghosts who had trod this path now continued down the tunnel into some underground chamber. More disconcerting, wet red stains marred the tube walls. Those were runes … painted in blood all around them. The top of the tube was twelve, maybe thirteen feet in the air, and still, someone had painted a great many of those runes.

“Odin’s balls …” Hervor mumbled.

Starkad pushed forward ever so slightly more.

And then a shriek filled the tunnel. It echoed off the tube walls, a cry of pain and damnation, reverberating not only in the tunnel but in his own skull. It pounded so intently he pressed his forearms against his ears to try to still the sound.

Etheric blue flame washed out of the lava tube in a wave.

Starkad flung himself backward, driving Hervor down. They rolled several times away from the tunnel.

When he managed to right himself and look up, the flames were gone. The ghosts were gone. Naught but the tunnel remained.

Grunting, he pushed himself up. “You all right?”

Hervor turned over. Fresh scrapes marred her face and arms. Snow plastered her black hair to her face. The look she gave him might have soured milk.

She spit out a glob of blood to the side. “Having fun?”

He shrugged. Kind of … No sign of ghosts or aught else here now.

“Wait,” Hervor called. “You’re not serious. You cannot actually intend to go in there after that … whatever the fuck just happened.”

Without answering, Starkad crept back toward the tunnel. He lifted his torch to inspect the runes painted on the walls. The symbols writhed in his mind, seeming to defy analysis. Like the angles kept changing directions, even though he never actually saw them move. The longer he looked upon the designs, the more his head hurt.

“Gylfi painted such vile things …” Hervor said. “Back when he …”

Starkad nodded. “Workings of sorcery.”

Torch out to his side, he pressed inward. Another forty feet into the tunnel, an obsidian altar stood in the middle of the path. Around this, even more runes had been painted, this blood too looking fresh.

Starkad raised a hand toward the altar but stopped short of touching it. “If there is a curse holding these ghosts here … I think we found it.”

“They sacrificed something here. Someone?” She stepped around the back of the altar, and he followed her gaze. A skeleton lay there, sprawled against the stone.

“So it appears.”

Hervor turned about, waving her own torch around to inspect the unnerving designs on the wall. “Your runeblade is not here.” She glanced further down the tunnel. “Unless you think …”

“Maybe.” Who could say how deep the lava tube might run? Miles? Farther? Before delving so far underground, he supposed it best to finish searching the actual town.

“Starkad. If you have some idea what happened in this place …”

He shook his head. “Like you said. A sacrifice.”

“This was before the rise of the Aesir, right? So a sacrifice to the Vanir?”

Careful not to touch the blood runes, Starkad knelt beside the altar. It too bore strange markings that sent his mind reeling, these lightly etched onto the surface. “Maybe. There are some few tales of gods older even than the Vanir. Older and darker. And the rumor that sometimes those of the Old Kingdoms turned to these ancient powers.”

“Wonderful … Can we leave this damned cave?”

“It’s not a cave, but yes.” He stood. “Let’s go.”

They followed the slope back up to the hillside, where the ground dropped away into the tube. With the ghosts clear of the actual path, they could simply walk out, albeit at a steep hike.

Even down by the spring, the ghosts had vanished.

Starkad scratched his beard. Some fell curse had surely settled upon this valley.

More etheric blue light flitted up from the town, and as he turned back, a new procession began to head toward the spring.

“Oh, damn it,” Hervor said.

Starkad squinted. No, not a new procession. Those were the exact same ghosts, following the same steps, led by the same woman. All over again.

And heading this way.

He grabbed Hervor and pulled away from the path, away from the spring. Side by side, they crouched, watching the ghosts make their trek again.

18

At the head of the procession walked a woman, pale flame shrouding her hands. Hervor almost gasped at the sight of her. The ghost led these people like a völva—and maybe she was. The witch in charge of this profane sacrifice.

As to who or what the witch wanted to appease, Hervor wasn’t even certain she wished to know.

The ghost-witch drew ever closer to the spring, the people flocking about her as though they at once worshipped and feared her. And why not? Who wouldn’t?

Hervor pointed to the figure.

Starkad nodded. “I see her.”

“Her hands …”

“Yes. I’ve never seen aught like that. It’s like she controls the flames themselves … I mean, I heard a story of a man doing that once. When I was young.”

What was he on about now? Starkad seemed lost inside himself, inside memories he refused to share. And now was not the time.

Hervor rose up as the ghosts passed, all headed back down toward that tube. “It’s like they’re just doing the same things over and over.”

“Indeed. They seem to be damned to relive some moment in their lives.”

Huh. Hervor looked back at him. “Their last moments?”

“Perhaps.”

As she headed back toward the town, another of those ghostly warriors stepped onto the path, joined by a second an instant later.

Before she could even take cover, the ghostly pair was running toward them. Hervor jerked Tyrfing free of its sheath. Not this again.

Starkad intercepted the closest of the ghosts before it reached her. Hervor stepped around him to engage the other one. Without a runeblade, maybe Starkad could do naught but slow the ghost down. Still, if he bought her time to drive off this one …

Hervor waved her torch at the ghost. The spirit recoiled a bare instant. Long enough for Hervor to press her attack. Tight cuts with Tyrfing. High, low. Always advancing. She’d never outlast the dead, so she had to do this fast, before the fight sapped her strength.

But the warrior was a master, parrying and dodging with all the grace of the living and even more speed.

It turned her attack into a riposte that gouged her right arm. A shriek escaped her as the torch fell from her grasp. The snow hissed as the fire hit it, throwing up a cloud of steam. Hervor barely got Tyrfing around to parry the ghost’s next slash.

She’d never be as good with her left hand as she had been with her right. Everything was slightly off, just a little slower than normal. And a little slower was a big difference in such fights. She jerked the blade around, tried to thrust, only to get it knocked out of position.

“Hervor!” Starkad bellowed.

She couldn’t spare him a glance.

Metal clashed on metal behind her.

The ghost whipped his sword back down with startling speed. The blade scraped off Hervor’s mail with enough force to drive her to one knee.

There was the torch, right before her.

As the spirit came around again, Hervor snatched the brand and jerked it up into the ghost. The warrior shrieked and retreated several steps away as if singed.

“Hervor!”

She spun to see what he was about. Just behind her, the ghost völva was reaching out a hand, no longer engulfed in flame.

That hand closed around Hervor’s throat.

Numbness surged through Hervor’s limbs. Tyrfing slipped from her hand. The torch fell back to the snows.

Beyond the witch, Starkad rained blow after blow upon his opponent. Naught seemed to drive the ghost off.

Hervor tried to call out to Starkad, but only a moan escaped her. Her body wouldn’t respond. She’d have fallen over completely, if not for the icy hand keeping her on her knees.

With her other hand—flames still dancing about her fingers—the völva reached toward Hervor’s face.

Hervor groaned, tried to wiggle away, but couldn’t move. Closer those flaming digits drew. Closer.

The witch’s fingertips brushed over Hervor’s lips. The flames were warm, almost a comfort rather than a pain. The ghost pried Hervor’s lips apart with her thumb and forefinger. The warmth danced over Hervor’s tongue, massaged it. Coaxed it into surrender.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

That heat filled up her mouth and began to seep down her throat. It coiled around her gut and her heart. It pulsed through her like blood.

Hervor pitched forward and landed on her side. Even as she hit the ground, the snows began to melt around her, as if her own body were aflame. In a few heartbeats, she lay in a pile of muddy slush.

Choking and coughing, unable to stop shudders from wracking her body, still she managed to coax one eye open.

Starkad hit the ground beside her, rolled over, and came up holding Tyrfing. In three quick moves, he landed a blow against his ghostly foe. Now the ghost flickered and winked out. Starkad spun, coming up on the other ghost—who seemed to be hovering over Hervor as if not sure he intended to strike.

She wanted to rise, but her body wasn’t responding.

Starkad cut down that ghost too, then spun back on her. He sheathed Tyrfing on her back, then grabbed her under her arms and dragged her away from the spot. “We have to move. You know they’ll be back any moment.”

He pulled her further away from the path, away from the town and into the tree line.

A pain built in her chest. Her heart was too hot. Raging like a fire.

It began like a bubble. A pressure building up, growing hotter and hotter. Then the pressure exploded inside her. Convulsions wracked her so violently Starkad stumbled down on top of her.

“Fuck! You’re burning up. Hervor! Can you hear me?”

She tried to retch from the agony of it, but even her stomach refused to obey.

The heat was burning behind her eyes. An inferno in the back of her skull, searing her brain.

Flames … flames dancing in her mind.

Flames in the shape of a life.

19

The crackle of flame was the only sound in the temple. The great fire pit set the shadows at play as Ilona made her way within, drifting between the stone pillars. The fire pit was set in the floor, five feet down, but the flames still licked up almost to the height of her waist. They set her fingers to twitching, enticing the vaettr within her to waken, as it so oft did these days. It whispered in her mind, begged her to reach out and touch the flames, to claim them as her due and bend them to her will …

“The unfortunate reality of life is that not all gifts are suited to all men or women.” The voice came from the shadows behind the fire, but she knew it. Any initiate of the flame would have known it.

“Loge. You sent for me.”

Now the man himself stepped around the edge of the pit, seeming unconcerned with the flames that nearly licked at his flesh. The seidkonur had called him the first of the pyromancers, the one who brought the Art of Fire to the Lofdar in days gone by. The vaettr within him must have sustained him more winters than she could imagine, for still he seemed a man in his prime, his auburn-tinged hair lush, his eyes like sapphires.

Ilona strode to his side, flaring out her slit skirts with practiced ease, exposing her thighs almost up to her hips as she walked. She had waited long for this man to call upon her. The great priest of flame, the lord of pyromancers. With his favor …

But Loge forestalled her with a slightly raised hand and a single shake of his head, those eyes now filled with warning. “That may be how you convinced Prince Audr to see you granted the flame, but it should not have come to you. And now, it burns you up from the inside, consumes you before your time.”

As if ignited by his words, the vaettr she’d bound stirred in her breast, flaring to life. Angry? Or just so eager to touch the fires a mere breath away. Either way, Ilona clenched her jaw. One didn’t argue with Loge. She might have disputed, have pointed out she was counted among the seidkonur many winters before receiving the flame. She might have argued she had been there, fought in the wars against the Niflungar. She had been there when Eynef fell burning in the night, when all his misty Art failed him.

“It is taking you, as has become the urd of so many in the south, and now, too many of your own brethren. And I am left with but few options to spare you that fate. An exorcism might result in your death, but at least—”

“Exorcism!” Surely he could not speak in earnest. No one, priest, king, or otherwise, was taking her flame from her. The Fire vaettr was a part of her, and she’d not let it go. Never! She struggled to keep from shouting. Already, other initiates at the entryway had drawn closer. “I have no wish to surrender my flame, nor to risk my death.”

Loge spread his hands, then let one fall upon her shoulder. The gesture carried no sensuality, rather seeming almost fatherly. Hardly the direction she’d hoped to go with him. “And yet you court a darker urd than death. Surely you were warned not to call upon the flame too oft, Ilona.”

So, time to change the direction. She leaned in closer to his face and lightly traced her fingers along his abdomen. “I’d be more than willing to undertake any task to ensure such measures don’t become necessary.”

Now he pushed her away by the shoulder. Hard, almost roughly. “I will not force an exorcism upon you, not favored as you once were by Prince Audr. But if you cannot control the need that stirs within you, if you cannot stop yourself from calling upon the Art of Fire, it will take you. And once that thing within has control … you will leave your brethren with but one recourse.”

Ilona sneered at him. Well, damn Loge anyway. “I can control myself.” What kind of decrepit old man didn’t lust after a woman? One half-possessed himself, maybe. Trying to hide his own weakness.

“Then prove it.”

Without another word, Ilona spun on her heel and stormed out of the temple. She had not gotten far before a commotion at the shoreline drew her attention. The sun was low on the horizon, behind her, illuminating a ship in the harbor, but not a Lofdar ship. Three foreign ships, in fact.

Prince Audr was there at the shore, along with Loridi and his warriors, all gathered with weapons drawn to see those coming ashore. But their visitors were not Niflungar, not as she’d have suspected, nor even Odlingar—she’d heard the Niflung Art had all but wiped out the Lofdar’s southern neighbors. No, so who were … The foreign warriors bore a crest painted upon their shields, the sign of the sea serpent.

Skjöldungar.

No wonder Audr seemed poised to attack them any instant now. Those island bastards had sided with the Niflungar.

Now, though, their warriors looked worn ragged. Some had blood crusted in their hair and clothes, as if they had not had the time or energy to clean it in all the days it must have taken to come here.

“Prince Seskef,” Audr said. “You trespass upon the shores of Kvenland at your immense peril. Here reigns the flame of the Lofdar.” The prince fingered the hilt of his runeblade over his shoulder. The flaming sword Laevateinn, against whom no man could stand. If he drew that, the battle would be over in moments, though Seskef himself surely bore his own runeblade.

Seskef advanced, stepping around his warriors to face Audr, though not drawing too close. “We seek sanctuary.”

“Sanctuary?” Loridi said. “What, do the Niflungar not keep their beds warm enough for you lot?”

A few Lof warriors chuckled at that.

Seskef glared at the general before looking back to the prince. “Cousin … We are kin through the lines of Halfdan the Old. Surely …”

“We are kin, yes,” Audr said. “To the extent I am unfortunately kin to the heirs of Naefil. No more than that. I see it in you, though. They betrayed you, even as they betrayed the Odlingar. Drove you from your homes?”

Oh. Well, that was interesting. The Niflungar had lost Aujum this past summer, had retreated to the sea. Audr had told them all that their foes must have fled to their allies in Reidgotaland. True enough, it seemed, but … but their new king must have then claimed those lands himself. And when Seskef no doubt refused to be a slave in his own land …

“It was a slaughter in the night,” Seskef said. “Those bastards called upon the Art, turned the Otherworlds against us. None of our sorcerers nor seidkonur were prepared for their unprovoked assault, and so many died before we could even—”

Audr held up a hand. “So our enemies have further weakened themselves in claiming Reidgotaland. That does not make you our allies. Too long the heirs of Halfdan tolerated one another only to find ourselves betrayed by our so-called kin. Now the time has come to bring the flame to light all of Midgard.”

Ilona licked her lips. The vaettr inside reveled at Audr’s words. At the thought of spreading the flame, any flame. Let it all burn. But Audr had grown increasingly warlike, reckless. Some said he turned to aspects of the Art not even the seidkonur would look to, and the witches already employed means that priests like Loge—and now Ilona—were meant to shun. Audr’s obsession with destroying the Niflungar bore its own dangers. Not least among them, he now seemed intent to turn his back upon another prince beseeching aid.

The prince twisted something—she couldn’t see it clearly from here—around his wrist, shifting in obvious discomfort. “What would you have me do?” Seskef asked after the silence had drug on for an overlong moment.

Audr shrugged. “I care not. Flee south, to the lands now emptied by your former Odling allies. They are gone, many slain and raised as draugar by the Niflung Art and their fell goddess. Perhaps you will find shelter in the ruins.”

“You know we cannot escape them there. They have a new sorceress, one mist-mad and …”

Again, Audr forestalled him with a simple gesture. A wave of his hand. And the Lof prince turned his back on Seskef. Without another word, Audr stormed off, followed by Loridi and the thegns, while other warriors stood watching Seskef and his people, waiting for them to board their ships and leave, granted neither sanctuary nor even so much as a meal.

A wasted opportunity Ilona could not afford. Sooner or later, Loge might press the issue with her, or even manage to sway Audr, though the prince listened to the priest less these days as far as Ilona could tell. But either way, maybe Seskef and she could help one another. If one prince did not need her, another might find her indispensable. And Seskef had said he’d lost most of his seidkonur, and surely had no pyromancers …

She drifted among the warriors and they parted around her, allowed her to approach the foreign prince.

All save one warrior who rose up to protect his lord.

“It’s all right, Felman,” Seskef said after the barest pause. “Let her pass.”

“My lord. I think we ought to speak before you make sail.”

Seskef glanced back at an older woman standing upon the ship, who frowned. His wife? Beside her stood a young man, Seskef’s son, perhaps.

The thegn, Felman, whispered something in Seskef’s ear, and the prince nodded and motioned for Ilona to walk along the shore with him. They trod some distance away from the city and Audr’s many ears therein.

A shelf of ice now rimmed the Gulf of Kvenland in all directions, save where the men had hacked it away at the harbor. Everywhere, winter was settling in, and settling in hard.

Finally, Seskef paused at the edge of the ice and turned to her. His eyes swept over her body, clearly appreciative, and Ilona dipped one shoulder ever so slightly, emphasizing her bosom. “Who are you?” he asked finally.

“I am Ilona. Once of the seidkonur, now a pyromancer of the sacred flame.”

“Huh. A witch and a priestess. And what do you wish of the Skjöldungar?”

Ilona quirked a slight smile, the kind that worked on almost any man she’d ever met. It had worked on Audr, after all, when she’d come to him against the witch council’s orders. “There is no shelter for your people in Kvenland.”

Seskef fingered a silver arm ring on his wrist, worked in the likeness of a serpent. “So your prince made abundantly clear. We were fools to think the foes of our betrayers might aid us in our time of need. Perhaps we can find succor in Aujum, now the Niflungar have abandoned it.”

Ilona murmured, then twisted, swaying her hips in the process and staring out over the gulf. She could feel his eyes on her back, all too perfect. “You could try that. You could try the Odling lands across the gulf. Both have much the same problem for such a small force … no friendly faces left.” Now she turned back, again flashing the hint of a smile which she quickly let slip into a sympathetic frown. “No friends at all. Just the dead … the dead of many battles. Some of them … wakeful.”

“You mean the draugar and ghosts and … wraiths …” He all but hissed the last word. “The remnants the Niflungar seem to leave in their wake.”

“So it is.”

“Where would you have me go, then? We are not like to find any more welcome among the Hildings nor Budlungar. And the Dӧglinar … they’d have killed us even before all the wars broke out. Where does that leave us?”

Ilona nodded. “Indeed. And from all I have seen of Audr’s rage and of the Niflungar’s ambition … these wars are far from done. All the kingdoms must either burn or freeze before it is finished, and not one among them is like to love your people now, my prince. So if nowhere safe remains on Midgard … Perhaps you ought to seek solace beyond it.”

“What mist-madness, woman?”

Ah, she had to be careful here, or he would truly think her wits taken by the mist. A gentle prod to guide him in the right direction. “I told you before, once I was among the seidkonur, trusted in their secret circles, privy to their most guarded lore. To tales of kingdoms beyond the wall, where we are falsely led to believe human life cannot endure.”

Seskef faltered. “You believe my people might be safer to leave this world entirely?”

Ilona smiled again. “Faced with impossible odds, sometimes a desperate move is all that remains. You require allies, those who would not turn their backs upon you. Those with no grudges, old or new. And if we can find such a kingdom beyond the Midgard Wall, we might yet flourish.”

“We? You would come with me?”

“I will help you find the way to our new home. A place that might long shelter us from the ravages of the world.”

Finally, Seskef nodded. “So be it. I see we have naught else left to lose.”

20

Hervor’s stomach lurched, and she managed to finally heave up the paltry food still in it. Bile scorched her throat and vomit dribbled down her neck.

Odin’s godsdamned balls! What the fuck was that?

Finally, she managed to roll over onto her side and wipe her face. Starkad was there in an instant. With a wet rag, he wiped away the rest of the mess on her.

All she could do was grunt, groan.

Her eyes felt burned, like she spent days in a fever dream. Maybe she had. “Wha …”

“I have no idea. I was afraid the ghost had … taken your body.”

Was that what the witch had tried? This … Ilona? “I … saw … her life, I think.” Hervor’s throat was so dry. “Bits and pieces … so confusing.”

As if sensing her discomfort, Starkad produced a skin of water and dribbled a few drops into her mouth. Hervor gagged on it, choking and barely able to swallow.

Hands under her shoulders, Starkad pulled her into a sitting position against a tree. She blinked. Still night out. “How long …?”

“Half an hour, maybe. You saw the memories of this witch?”

She tried to nod, but only managed a single incline of her head before dizziness seized her. “Ilona.”

“Do you think the ghost intended you to see this, or was she trying to possess you?”

And how the fuck would Hervor know that? Rather than answer, she favored him with a glare, even knowing it must look pathetic in her current state. Wait. Hadn’t she seen … ?

“Let me see the arm ring again?”

“The one Scyld stole from here?” Starkad fished it out of his bag and handed it to her.

The very same. “In my vision, the prince wore this …”

Starkad frowned and glanced about them, then shook his head. “More reason it might have been drawn back here, maybe. Either way, I need to find the runeblade so we can leave this place.”

“You’re not … leaving me behind.”

“I don’t want to, but … You seem ill-suited to face any more of those ghosts. Let me take Tyrfing—”

“The sword is mine!”

Starkad pulled away his hand, shaking his head. “Damn, but you are stubborn, woman.”

She pushed herself upward, her strength finally starting to return. “Best you just give in, then.”

Grumbling, he gripped her elbow and helped her stand. The effort drew a groan from her.

“You can’t do this, can you?”

Hervor glared at him again. “I just need a bit to catch my breath.”

“Let me borrow Tyrfing … an hour, maybe less. I can search the town and we can get out of here.”

“Fuck you.” She took a faltering step forward.

Starkad released his grip on her elbow and Hervor pitched down to one knee, hands crunching down in the snow.

“You need rest.”

“So you’ll leave me alone out here?”

Starkad threw up his hands. “The ghosts are back in the town for now. You should be fine here. Just stay out of sight and I’ll return shortly.”

So this was it. He would leave her here to pursue his damned runeblade. Worse, he had all but demanded she surrender her sword. Her father’s legacy. The very blade that had murdered Orvar-Oddr.

Did he know?

Did he suspect?

She snorted under her breath. Of course not. He’d not have needed to take her sword to kill her if he did. So … let the man wield that which ought to grace her hand alone, or risk spending yet longer in this cursed vale?

Damn it. “Just take it, then. And Starkad … be quick.”

He offered a stiff nod, then eased her back into a sitting position before helping her unshoulder Tyrfing’s baldric. This he slung over his own shoulder, then paused, staring at her.

Looking deep into her eyes.

If he looked deep enough, would he see the real Hervor? The liar? The murderer? The one who had betrayed him and his friends? Yes, he would see her, if she let him look too deep.

“Just go, damn it.”

At that he turned and trotted off, back toward the town.

Hervor groaned. Odin’s balls, everything hurt. And what was she going to do about Starkad? She’d sworn to help him recover this runeblade. So she’d do that, for certain. But if they got out of this alive, then … what?

Would the weight in her chest forever come between them? What did she even want from the man? Part of her kept seeing them together, as if somehow, someday, there might be more than fighting and fucking between them. As if … as if she was some maid to swoon over a man.

Not that he wanted any woman like that. Oh, he’d made it all too damn clear, time and again, what he thought of women. Starkad trusted no one, least of all females. At best, he seemed to tolerate Hervor. From time to time, sure, he lusted after her, and for certain that filled her with a pleasant warmth.

But could there ever be more than that?

No.

Even were it not for the weight between them, the secrets she kept. The hidden pains he carried. Maybe not … unless … beneath all that … Did he care for her more than he wanted to admit? He had bargained away his precious runeblade to Gylfi on her behalf.

But if he loved her in some way, he hardly showed it.

Hervor grimaced. Sitting and waiting ill suited her. Stewing in her own thoughts availed her naught and was like to lead her to places she did not really wish to go.

She pushed herself up again. It wasn’t too late to go after Starkad. She had to be quiet, stay low and …

A fresh pressure built in her. That heat behind her eyes returned, scorching her brain faster than before.

Again that painful bubble in her chest, like her heart was going to explode. She pitched forward onto hands and knees and gasped.

Flames filled her eyes. And through them, in them, memories of another life unfolded.

21

With her scarf removed, Ilona’s breath turned into ice crystals the moment it left her mouth. At the end of the frozen tundra, the town wall rose, seeming to radiate alienness. Construction wrought by jotunnar after the Vanir had driven them from Midgard. Oft as she had heard the tales among the seidkonur, Ilona had never expected to lay eyes upon this Glaesisvellir.

Felman, ever their faithful protector, trod ahead and called out to the gate guards, pleading for sanctuary, while the rest of them waited, watching.

Seskef drew up beside her, his son—boy had no more than fifteen winters—trailing a few steps behind him. The prince had grown solemn since the death of his wife. Oh, how the woman had glared at Ilona, knowing all too well the games she played with her husband. Well, life was a tafl match, and seduction was a witch’s best tool, after all. Far less dangerous than the Art and, generally, more successful.

A few drops of toxin in the woman’s mead and she had slowly fallen ill over the winter. Not surprising, given the difficulty of the crossing in winter. Ilona had guided three ships’ worth of men across the plains and the fells of Kvenland, and north, where they’d had to claim more ships. One could not, after all, simply climb the wall.

And so, on the White Sea, they’d slain men and taken ships, vessels hardly worthy of such a long voyage. Even skirting the coast, the going had been rough. The storms would crop up without warning, fierce blizzards that all but blinded them.

In such a tempest, the beast had risen from the depths.

Through the darkness and the snows, no one had seen it clearly, though they’d heard its roar. The sound seem apt to sunder eardrums, and all Ilona’s Art had felt like naught more than a petty candle compared to the might of that benthic creature. One of Jormangandr’s brood, Ilona had no doubt, and the serpent had swamped one ship, leaving naught behind but kindling.

Ironic, that the Skjöldungar’s symbol was a sea serpent.

Seskef had grieved their losses, even as his wife fell sicker and sicker. As Ilona complained she had not the supplies to treat the illness. As she fed the woman more poisons in place of healing draughts. And in the end, a bitter and broken Seskef had tossed his wife’s corpse into the depths.

But that seemed long ago now. Now, they had marched long moons across this tundra. Most nights, Seskef came to her tent. The thing about seduction was … you wanted to string it out. Make a man wait for it until his stones were ready to burst from need. But you could not string it out forever. Eventually, you had to let a man taste what he’d been waiting for, or else you’d find all your charms only served to frustrate him.

And so Ilona found ever more creative ways to please him in his bed and, when he pleased her so thoroughly, bits of her energy, her life force, would seep into him. Had he been more adept as a sorcerer, maybe he’d have been able to read those bits, uncover some of her crimes. But either he did not see or he did not understand, for again and again he came to her, desperate in his need.

And now … a pair of jotunnar threw open the gates of Glaesisvellir and Ilona found herself imagining another pair of such mighty gates. The gates of Hel.

No.

Frivolous thought, pointless and detrimental. Fear served no one. They had come this far and there was no turning back, not for any of them. Sooner or later, Seskef would name her his new queen. Before that happened, it was best the prince had a kingdom to call his own. Ilona would see to that.

Felman glanced back at them, then followed the escorts. The jotunnar took them into the great hall. Above them, on an ancient throne, sat an equally ancient-looking jotunn king. His flesh had turned ice blue, and great horns jutted from his head like an aurochs. His hands—fingers claw-like—gripped the rail as he looked down upon them, seeming almost like he saw them as a meal, and a light one at that. “I am King Gothmundr, ruler of all Glaesisvellir. Tell me, little wretches, why do you come to my lands? Do you seek a king to bow down before?”

Seskef stiffened, and took a step forward before Ilona forestalled him with a hand upon his shoulder.

He grunted then and stepped around Felman to address the king. “I am Prince Seskef, heir of Halfdan the Old. Deprived of our kingdom, we seek a new one.”

“A prince. But you rule a kingdom?”

Seskef fidgeted with his arm ring, that serpentine symbol of his house he so loved. “The title of prince is traditional among the heirs of Halfdan.”

Gothmundr chuckled as if all human politics were folly.

Ilona still hoped to be a queen. Restraining herself from using the Art of Fire on the long trek had proved difficult, almost physically painful. But there was more than one road to power, and she needed to see Seskef rise.

So she stepped up beside the prince. “Perhaps, my king, you would deign to grant us a small territory within your realm. The Skjöldungar would happily pay homage to you, and no ally proves more loyal than one offered aid in his most desperate times. You have naught to lose from us.”

Gothmundr leaned over the rail, peering so closely at Ilona she felt herself squirm. Finally, the jotunn sneered, exposing fang-like teeth. “I smell it in you, bitch. That foul thing from the World of Fire.”

He could tell she’d bound a Fire vaettr? How was that even possible? How did he …? No. That was a question for another time. Jotunnar were not men, were already touched by the Otherworlds. The how and why she could address later. For now …

“I have bound it, true enough. I am a seidkon—a witch.”

The jotunn king rumbled, then snorted. “Perhaps one day, witch, I will tell you how the first human sorceress learned the Art.”

From the lascivious look on his face, she could guess. In the end, almost all magic tied back to sex. It tied back to life. A witch, a sorceress, she learned to use it, any way she could.

“And if I allowed you to instruct me in such a lesson, would you then grant Prince Seskef his own domain within your realm?”

Now Gothmundr burst out laughing, the grating sound echoing off his mighty stone hall. The chuckles continued for long moments before he caught his breath, scraping a clawed hand over his face.

“What is going on?” Seskef snapped at her.

Finally, Gothmundr snorted again. His lip curled up into a sneer. Wait … he couldn’t actually be serious? Was it even physically possible?

Ilona opened her mouth, searching for words to withdraw her hasty gambit.

The king spoke first. “My, my, little witch. You are audacious! But if I desired you so badly, I would simply take you right here on the floor. Your precious prince would do naught but watch.” He snickered again. “No, it is a different kind of flesh I find myself craving. You would willingly give up that which so many men have no doubt enjoyed before … but what of a more permanent sacrifice?”

Oh. Oh … Gothmundr wanted her to choose someone for him to devour. A man of power, no doubt … if she offered a sacrifice the king thought unworthy, the jotunnar might well turn on them, maybe feast on all of them. Ilona looked to Seskef, who raised his brow in bemusement.

The best sacrifice would be a man of royal blood, but Ilona needed Seskef. And if she suggested his son … well, the prince would not soon part with Bedwigius. So …

Felman stood beside his prince, hand on the hilt of his blade, gaze darting this way and that, as if not sure where the greatest threat came from. Poor bastard. So brave. So loyal. So … useful.

Her own gaze locked upon Seskef’s thegn, Ilona finally spoke. “King Gothmundr demands a sacrifice in his honor that he might grant us the lands we seek as refuge.”

The thegn stiffened. His eyes met hers. He knew now. Finally, the man nodded grimly, unshouldered the strap of his sword and let the weapon clatter to the floor. Then he strode forward, arms spread. “For the honor of my prince, I offer myself as sacrifice to the ancient powers.”

“Felman!” Seskef snapped. “What are you doing?”

Ilona raced to the prince’s side and grabbed his elbow. “This must happen,” she whispered.

Seskef jerked his arm free of her. “Felman, we will find another way.”

The thegn raised his arms, not looking back. “I go to meet my ancestors proudly.”

The jotunn king bared fang-like teeth and heaved himself forward, sailing over the rail and landing in a crouch that sent a tremble through the whole hall. He rose smoothly, then wrapped a meaty hand around Felman’s neck, hefting the thegn like a doll.

To Felman’s immeasurable credit, he did not struggle in that grasp. Ilona could not say she’d have done the same.

Gothmundr grabbed the thegn’s wrist and bent his arm around. Slowly, he raised Felman’s hand to his mouth.

“What mist-madness …” Seskef murmured. His hand again went to the hilt of Skofnung.

Ilona grabbed him as tightly as she could, though she’d never physically overpower him. “This will buy you your new kingdom. Through blood and sacrifice, you might yet avenge yourself upon your foes.”

A scream ripped out of Felman as Gothmundr bit down on his hand. Ilona had to look away, unable to bear the sight of blood oozing from the mess. Between screams, the sound of crunching bone and torn flesh filled her ears.

Damn her for asking such a sacrifice.

Painfully long it went on, until the screams stopped. Ilona stood there, eyes averted, trying not to retch. But Seskef, at her side—he never looked away. Not once did she see him tear his gaze from the sacrifice his man had made on his behalf.

22

King Hrethel’s hall was finished, finally, and just in time for winter. It stood with two levels, wooden at the top and a stronger stone foundation below that. At the center lay the great hall, which stood open all the way to the rafters. Here, Hrethel held court, feasted his warriors—generously—and allowed his subjects to come and lay their claims before him.

Ecgtheow had not come to lay any claims. Hrethel still owed him lands in this new realm to replace those left behind in Upsal, but Ecgtheow supposed it made sense to wait until after Ylva bore their child. After all, here in Vättern Hall, as they called it, they had nursemaids and wet nurses and ladies to help Ylva with every step she’d face. Völvur, too.

So here he waited, leaning against a rail on the second level overlooking the great hall below. Winter was drawing nigh, the place already bustling with warriors and tradesmen, plus other nobles eager to win the new king’s favor. Everyone wanted to stay in his good graces after what had befallen Bjalmar.

Poor bastard of a former jarl was locked in one of the lower rooms, chained to the wall and still wearing naught but those same trousers he’d had over a moon ago. Last Ecgtheow had seen, the things had holes worn in them.

Ylva was down in the hall too, enjoying a shank of reindeer from the looks of it. Ecgtheow had a mind to join her, though sometimes he just liked watching her when she was happy. Eating reindeer and drinking mead made most folk happy, he supposed.

A shadow drifted over beside him, and Orvar joined him at the rail, still cloaked, though by now Ecgtheow could just feel it was him. Besides, now he knew about it, he fancied a faint odor of decay wafted off the man … or draug, rather.

Ecgtheow turned to him a little, still keeping one eye on Ylva. “I don’t suppose Bjalmar’s defeat and shame would sufficiently salve your need for vengeance.”

“I must have the one who killed me.”

“Ah, you know, she’s well and gone from here, off on some mist-mad errand beyond the Midgard Wall.”

“Yes …”

He chuckled. “And not like to return, I suppose. Maybe you ought to count your vengeance fulfilled and go back to … wherever it is draugar go when their purpose is well and done.”

A slight growl rumbled beneath the cloak.

Enough to make Ecgtheow back away. Clearly, antagonizing a draug was not wise. “I mean no offense, Orvar. Just that naught remains for you here.”

“She will come back. So here I wait, that she might look upon the ruin wrought on her line. I wish to see the look upon her face when she realizes all she has loved has become ashes and dust.”

Huh. “Well, that sounds … like a lofty goal. If you’ll excuse me, I—”

Orvar’s hand shot out and wrapped around Ecgtheow’s wrist. The man’s grip was cold as ice and hard as iron, and he yanked Ecgtheow around to stare into the darkness beneath his cloak. Into his gleaming red eyes. “Your foe approaches … Your foe … who broke the faith … Who must pay for his crimes.”

That same hideous, seething anger built in Ecgtheow’s gut once again. It seeped up like steam seeking release, finding it only in his eyes and ears, and these became flush and heated. His heart beat so rapidly he’d have expected those in the hall below to hear it.

He turned, unable to control the clenching and unclenching of his fists as he stalked toward the stairs.

Blood.

A man had come in. Bright red hair and beard, big burly shoulders. Headolaf.

Blood calls for blood.

He was speaking to Hrethel like he had a right to even stand before the king.

“My uncle would be willing to pay a great sum in ransom for Jarl Bjalmar’s release.”

Hrethel slapped his armrest. “Bjalmar is jarl of naught but rats and rat shit. He broke the truce and attacked our people.”

Making his way down the stairs, Ecgtheow clenched his fists so hard they bled. How dare Headolaf ask for such a thing?

Blood.

“Some tales claim you attacked first, my king.”

“Who dares speak such lies!” Hrethel lurched forward off his throne. “Who dares accuse the King of Ostergotland of lying?”

A redheaded bear monster. Oh, Ecgtheow ought to have killed him back then when they fought. Ought to have broken his neck. Smothered that massive head in the mammoth skin and run him through.

He had not had a sword then.

But he fucking had one now.

Seething, panting, Ecgtheow edged closer to the emissary. Hrethel had the right of it … how dare Headolaf come here and make such claims, such demands? He had a death wish. Well, Ecgtheow would grant it.

He unsheathed Naegling.

Only now did Hrethel even seem to notice him. As did several others, courtiers and thegns backing away in alarm.

“Ecgtheow, what are you—” the king began.

Headolaf turned back to face him. Or started to.

With a roar, Ecgtheow cleaved right into Headolaf’s chest, buried his blade in so deep the tip burst out the bear’s back. A single swift jerk freed the blade and tore a good chunk of the man’s chest out with it.

Ecgtheow hefted the blade high and roared in triumph.

That roar slowly died in his throat, as every face in the hall stood gaping at him. As that anger melted away as quickly as it had come over him, leaving him with naught but cursed mist in his head again. Why had he … what was he doing?

Slowly, he let Naegling fall to his side, its point scraping along the floor. “I … killed him.”

“You started another fucking war!” Hrethel bellowed. “That was Helm Wulfingson’s own nephew! You think—even were I so inclined to indulge such behavior in my own damn hall—that the jarl will accept weregild for this?” He pointed an accusing finger at the corpse lying at Ecgtheow’s feet.

Indeed, it was a bloody mess that made Ecgtheow gag to look upon it. He’d done that? He … remembered doing it. Remembered hating the man. But why? Not much sense in hating a man come to offer money for ransom. Not much at all, really.

“Ecgtheow the Tiny,” Hrethel said, “you leave no choice, much though it grieves me. I must cast you from my house …”

“No!” Ylva shrieked, and began to waddle to her father as fast as her legs would allow. “No!”

Hrethel grimaced and pointedly looked away. “Herebeald, restrain your sister.” Then he turned back on Ecgtheow. “You break my heart to force such a crossroads upon us, son-in-law. But there is no place for you here. Not so long as we war with the Wulfings. Every man we lose in this struggle is lost because of you.”

“Father,” Haethcyn said. “The only reason we didn’t have to fight them before was because of Ecgtheow’s courage and prowess … surely …”

The king held up a hand. “I have not forgotten. That is the very reason I banish him rather than hand him over to Helm in chains. If he can pay the weregild himself and make peace with the Wulfings, he can return.”

Ecgtheow stood, staring at the pair of them, mouth agape. Fuck. What had he done? Why had he done this? None of it made the smallest bit of sense. “I …”

“Take your blade and take your armor and be gone.”

The runeblade. Ecgtheow glanced at Naegling in his hand, blood still streaming off it, settling into the grooves of the runes. His son’s legacy. “I … will not carry Naegling from here. It shall remain with Ylva, to be given to my son when he comes of age. And I swear, I shall not return unless I can set this all to right.”

“Ecgtheow!” Ylva shrieked, caught in her brother’s arms but struggling to get to him.

With heavy steps, he made his way to them and handed the runeblade to Herebeald, who took it and released Ylva. She threw her arms around his waist, and he held her close a long time.

Finally, he pushed her away and put a hand on her belly. “I’m going to give you a legacy to be proud of. Both of you.”

“That’s enough,” Hrethel said, though his voice had gone soft, lacking any emphasis of command.

Ecgtheow nodded. Yes, he supposed it was enough. He couldn’t rightly say what had made him act thus, but one way or another, he’d find a way to make amends to the Wulfings. At least enough to ensure no blood feud arose from this.

As he trod into the night, a dark, almost Otherworldly chuckle echoed from the shadows. But no matter where he looked, Ecgtheow could see no sign of its source.

Perhaps the armies of Hel herself laughed at his misfortune.

But he’d silence them. Eventually.

23

Starkad crept forward, sneaking through the town streets. More of the ghost warriors passed by, and he hid from each. Tyrfing seemed able to dispatch them, but every such victory was temporary. The ones he’d felled already were out again, hunting for him more intently than ever.

If this settlement was indeed the ruin of an Old Kingdom—as seemed nigh to certain now—a prince or other member of the royal lines must have led them. The witch would have acted on his orders, most likely, with whatever vile ritual she was enacting in that lava tube. As to her aim, he could only guess.

The Niflungar had betrayed the other Old Kingdoms and driven them to the brink of annihilation. Perhaps some of them turned to the Art in order to try to save themselves. If so, they’d paid a hefty price for it. This valley might have been safe from the Niflungar, but it was a dire safety that looked a lot like eternal damnation to Starkad.

He pitied these souls, though he could do naught for them.

They had made their own urd and now were bound by it. Not so very unlike himself. And so he must find the runeblade.

Whatever that witch had done to Hervor, it seemed best to get her far from this place without further delay.

He made his way forward. In the southern reaches of the town rose a great hall, blanketed in snow save for the tips of its spires. A hall fit for a lord or a prince, finer than most kings of these days could dream of.

So.

If the prince had come here, had brought Skofnung, this hall seemed the most likely resting place for the runeblade. After allowing another pair of ghosts to pass, Starkad snuck forward, low to the ground, until he reached the front doors. These iron gates stood ajar, allowing him plenty of room to slip inside. Instead of doing so, he crept up behind one and peered in.

In the dark hall within, another pair of ghost warriors stood at attention, enshrouded in blue flame. Bound to eternally watch this place? He looked upon the damned.

And if he went in here, they could not help but notice him.

Starkad slipped backward, then followed the side of the hall. The foundations were built of thick stones, well-cut and well-set. Up higher, though, the builders had used smaller rocks. Set between those rocks, eight or ten feet in the air, wooden lattices crisscrossed over windows almost as tall as he was. How had the wood not rotted away? Perhaps it was simply another aspect of the curse trapping the ghosts in their endless repetition of their final days.

After glancing around to ensure no one would spot him, Starkad scrambled up the wall and caught hold of one of the smaller stones. It didn’t give him much purchase, but he pulled himself up enough to grab another with his other hand. Again, and then he could get a hand onto the windowsill. Grunting, he pulled himself upward until he half-stood, pressed up against the window.

No sign of a way to open it.

Damn it.

He eased Tyrfing free of its sheath. The runeblade flickered with pale light, seeming almost aflame itself. Despite the awkward angle, he slid into the lattice. The blade cut through the wood like it was made of straw. He drew the blade around the edge of the window, carving out the entire lattice. Finally, he tossed the whole thing out into the snow.

It landed with a crunch of powder that made him cringe.

None of the ghosts were looking at him, though.

The hall was filled with unlit braziers and supported by mighty stone columns. Starkad looked around, seeking sign of the runeblade.

His heart had begun to pound so hard it was echoing into his head. Stifling a groan, he slipped through the window and dropped down inside the hall. He landed in a crouch and rose slowly, Tyrfing still gleaming in his hand.

Damn, but his head was throbbing.

Thump thump.

What was that …?

He took a few steps more, but the pounding only intensified.

Thump thump.

Oh.

THUMP THUMP!

Oh, damn it. Hervor had said the blade bore a fell curse. She only ever drew it when faced with a foe. Which meant …

THUMP THUMP!

It meant … he had to engage the ghosts.

Well then.

Starkad made his way back toward the front doors, approaching from behind the guards. He had not gone far when one turned to him, its gaze no doubt drawn by the pale flames flickering off of the runeblade.

So much for surprise. Starkad raced forward, blade raised. The ghost lurched around, bringing his own sword up to parry. Starkad reversed his momentum at the last instant, and the ghost moved his blade to block a blow that never fell. Instead, Starkad jerked the blade in the other direction and cleaved through the ghost’s knee.

At once, the shade flickered and vanished.

The other was on him now. Starkad ducked its attack and scrambled backward to give himself room. The ghost moved with precision and speed, more skilled and more focused than Starkad found in most warriors of the North Realms. No unbridled fury, no trying to overcome him with pure savagery. Just relentless, efficient moves like the paladins of Valland.

But then, Starkad had fought them, too.

He feinted left and spun around, catching the ghost across what should have been its face with Tyrfing. It flickered out.

Huh. At least the pounding had stopped. So Tyrfing demanded it be used against a foe, demanded it strike something. It did not seem to care whether that foe was living or dead.

Good to know—given those ghosts would probably be back in a few moments. Starkad pressed on, trotting down through the great hall.

A handful of skeletons lay scattered here and there, warriors left where they had fallen. How odd. Why would the people here have left their dead unburnt or unburied?

At the back of the hall, collapsed before the throne, rested another skeleton, this one clad in gilded armor. Only half a skull filled out its golden coif, though. By the skeleton’s side lay a rosy-gold blade engraved with runes. Starkad rushed forward to it. Here, finally. He’d found it—Skofnung. This blade he had promised to Gylfi in exchange for saving Hervor. That oath had weighed upon Starkad’s soul for far too long already.

He sheathed Tyrfing, then snatched up the other blade. It too filled him with a profound sensation of power, of strength surging through his limbs. Yes, the dvergar had wrought fine works in these blades. Fine, fell works steeped in the power of the Otherworlds. Perhaps that made the runeblades a blight against the natural order of Midgard. But too, they were the greatest treasures known to man.

And this place had become a tomb to a prince of the Old Kingdoms.

Now just rotting bones.

Starkad turned to leave.

And then he felt the heat rising behind him. He spun, backing away at once.

A figure drifted out of the shadows, passing right through the throne. This warrior was like the others, its body missing beneath its gilded mail coif, a faceless void. But different, too, radiating more darkness and engulfed in crackling flame. Not the ethereal blue fires that had lit the others, but a burning white inferno.

The entity shrieked in rage, the sound like knives through Starkad’s brain. The lattice windows throughout the hall exploded into flame. Every brazier flared to sudden life, burning hotter and brighter than any ought to have allowed.

Starkad continued to back away, Skofnung held out before him. In a few heartbeats, thick black smoke had filled the hall. It choked the air and sent him into a coughing fit.

And drifting through this smoke, the flaming shade drew closer.

“What in the … gates of Hel?” Starkad barely managed to get the words out through his fits of coughing.

He had to duck lower to try to get fresh air.

The prince’s ghost continued toward him, smoke billowing about it, keeping it half concealed. A blade of gleaming white flame shot out of its hand, forming into a sword as long as Starkad was tall.

The fire ghost surged forward with another shriek. Its blade hissed through the air.

Starkad dropped to the ground to roll under it, then scrambled backward, trying to reach the entrance.

He couldn’t see a godsdamned thing in here. Couldn’t breathe … through all the damned smoke …

A rush of heat was his only warning, and he threw himself to the side as the ghost dashed past him, swinging that flaming brand again. The blade sheared into a support column and cut through it like butter, leaving behind molten stone dripping down from where it had passed.

Flames had sprung up among the rafters.

Starkad ran for the doorway.

The ghost spoke something, some foul words in a foreign tongue. The doors shuddered and slammed inward, sealing Starkad inside.

He skidded to a stop, then spun around.

Not leaving him much of a choice, was it?

The flame ghost launched itself forward again, this time swinging low. Its speed was uncanny—but Starkad was still the faster He had to be. He leapt over the molten sword and swung with Skofnung. The runeblade struck the ghost in the chest and sheared through golden mail.

Starkad landed in a crouch.

This ghost flickered as the others had, bellowing in fresh rage, but did not vanish.

Damn. Not good.

He drew Tyrfing with his other hand. Getting so hard to breathe.

The flame ghost spun around, coming at him with an overhand chop. Starkad sidestepped it, and the blade tore out a mighty chunk of the ground, scouring the stone and throwing up chunks of molten rock. A bit of it struck Starkad’s arm, and he bellowed in pain as it scorched his flesh.

He barely maintained his grip on Tyrfing.

Gasping and coughing, he had no choice but to back further into the hall. There had to be a back way out of here. There had to …

The prince rushed at him again, this time swinging his blade in a wicked arc.

Starkad rolled to the side, ducked behind a column, and scrambled to his feet. Wasting no time, he ran toward the back of the hall. People must have … brought in food … somewhere …

Latticework separated the main hall from back rooms. This too was already aflame. Rather than searching for a door, Starkad leapt forward into the flaming wood. Splinters and ash crashed around him, tore his skin and clogged his throat.

He landed facedown on the stone floor beyond.

An instant later, the ghost passed through the wooden wall. It burnt away to cinders at the prince’s touch, though the ghost did not appear to smash through it.

For the space of a heartbeat, the prince had not seen him. Starkad used the moment to thrust both runeblades up into the prince’s gut. The shade flickered, shrieking, and vanished.

Starkad fell forward, landing on his elbows.

He wanted to topple over. Lay there gasping. But … no air …

He crawled along the floor. The smoke had grown so thick he couldn’t see aught. Wildly, he batted around with Skofnung until the blade struck a wall. This gave way, revealing moonlight beyond. Starkad pressed up against the wall and crawled along its base.

They had to have a back entrance. They had to …

His blade clanked against something. A hinge? Starkad felt around, caught the edge of a door, and flung it wide.

The snows just outside the burning hall had turned to mush. Starkad crawled into the muck, as far as he could manage, then collapsed, coughing and panting.

Snow crunched before him. Someone closing in. Someone … he could barely lift his head.

Hervor.

24

Around the back of the great hall, Starkad lay in a heap, making futile attempts to crawl away. With a last look around to check for ghosts, Hervor plodded over to him, grabbed him under his arms, and dragged him.

Bastard was heavy as a bull.

After dragging him several feet away, she raced back to claim the two runeblades. Tyrfing—praise Odin—and the other one as well. He’d really done it.

“There’s …” Starkad broke into a fit of coughing.

“Come on,” Hervor said. “We should get the fuck out of this valley.”

“There’s a … a wraith, I think … but on fire.”

Wait, what? Hervor faltered, staring open-mouthed at her companion. A flaming wraith? Was he jesting with her? If so, she had no mood for it. Ilona’s visions had savaged her body and mind, and the things the witch had done, had seen, they turned Hervor’s stomach.

She’d felt it.

Every pain Ilona had endured. Every agony. And every time she’d lain with Prince Seskef, it had been Hervor’s body.

She prayed to Odin, Thor, and Frigg that leaving this damned valley would put a stop to the visions. Hervor had enough fucked up memories of her own to deal with without being subjected to Ilona’s wretched life.

And now Starkad said there was a flame wraith.

“The … prince … I think …” he mumbled.

“Prince Seskef.”

Starkad pushed himself up. “What?”

“The prince who came here with Ilona was Prince Seskef of the Skjöldungar.”

“If he’s like the other ghosts, I’ve probably only driven him off for a few moments.”

Hervor took Tyrfing’s baldric off Starkad, sheathed the blade, and slung it over her shoulder. “If that’s so, it’s all the more reason to get out of here. The sun should be up soon. Will the ghost pursue us in daylight?”

Coughing, Starkad stood, swayed in place, and then shook his head. “I don’t know. A normal ghost, I would think not. This flaming abomination … who can say? I know of naught like that in any tale I’ve heard.”

Hervor drew his arm around her shoulder and helped him back around the edge of the hall. Inside that building, something shrieked so foully Hervor could not suppress the shudder that seized her.

“It’s him,” Starkad said.

“Move!” Hervor shoved him toward the outer wall surrounding the hall.

Then, without warning, a sudden lightness fell over the valley. One moment the sun was down, and the next, only mist obscured their vision, and less than before as it quickly thinned in sunlight.

Hervor breathed a sigh of relief, cast a look back at the hall, and then redoubled her steps.

Please Odin, let there be no more ghosts. Please let them cower before the light of the sun.

Indeed, they saw no ghosts as they wound their way through the empty town. “I think we got lucky,” she mumbled.

“Perhaps.”

“And too, I’m glad Godmund was not so much like his father.”

“His father?”

“Gothmundr was …” A vile blight upon Utgard. Ilona’s memories of him felt too fresh, too raw, and sent a surge of bile scorching Hervor’s throat. “Starkad. How will we get back across Jotunheim in the middle of winter?”

“One thing at a time.” He eased his arm off from her shoulders and began to walk on his own. He yet looked pale, weaker, but he was regaining his strength quickly. Maybe the runeblade in his hand had something to do with it.

“Even if Seskef cannot pursue us in daylight, he may yet seek us after we leave the valley. He does not seem the type to be easily put off.”

Starkad paused, cast a glance back at the hall. Even as Hervor looked on, the flames winked out as if they had never existed. The hall had not crumbled, had not fallen. “How much do you know about this prince, anyway?”

Hervor spit the bitter taste from her mouth. “His people were in Reidgotaland, I think. They were betrayed by the Niflungar and driven out, sought aid from others called the Lofdar—Ilona’s people. Denied that, they came here. Lost a lot of people along the way.”

Lost to beast and weather and … treachery. Some dead by Ilona’s own hand.

Did that make the bitch pyromancer more like Hervor? More similar than she wanted to dwell on?

“Ilona called herself a … something. An old name for a witch, and then a pyromancer. Said she saw visions in the flames and could control them.”

Starkad pushed on, toward the cliff they’d climbed down to reach this cursed valley. “How did the prince come to be … whatever that was?”

She thought on that a moment. “I don’t know. I didn’t see what …”

A fresh heat built behind her eyes. Hervor stumbled, fell to one knee and pressed her palms into her eye sockets. “Ahh. No, damn it! Not now …”

“Hervor!”

She waved him away, unable to forestall the images as they began to bombard her mind.

Because she knew this place from long ago. From before it was … like this.

25

No mortal kingdom could compare to Glaesisvellir. Its glittering plains of snow stretched on and on. For a fortnight, they followed the directions Gothmundr had given them. Seskef never faltered, driven as if by a fey compulsion Ilona could neither grasp nor control. The prince slept little and came to her tent less often than he had.

Another fortnight, now almost an entire moon they pressed on, until the land began to rise and fall once again, tundra giving way to foothills. More mountains may have lain in the distance, but Ilona could make naught out through the mist.

Finished with his macabre feast, the jotunn king had told them of a valley in the far south of his domain. One which was sheltered from the direst of the winter storms, where crops might be grown in summer. Hel’s breath seemed to have settled over Jotunheim even more direly than it had in Midgard, and Ilona could not imagine this place ever saw aught resembling summer. But the king had promised them, and now Seskef seemed to see naught else before them.

It was not the prince, but his son, Bedwigius, who tromped through the snow to her side now, as she stared into the mist and tried to catch her breath. How desperately she wanted to burn this vapor away. To let loose the vaettr within … The paltry torch in her hand was so small a thing, offering not nigh to enough comfort against cold or mist.

“How much farther, witch?” Bediwigius demanded.

Ilona favored him with a glare that might have shriveled up a full-grown man and sent him shrinking away in search of the strongest mead around.

The boy only folded his arms over his chest and returned her stare. “You know, Felman taught me the better part of all I know of the arts of war. He was the bravest of us, the champion of the Skjöldungar.”

“No one could ever dispute his bravery.” Her words came out raspy thanks to her shortness of breath. She hated that. It always made her sound weak before men she needed to dominate. Men and this damned boy who thought to talk to her like an equal. She was a seidkon and a pyromancer. Her displeasure ought to have sent the boy to his knees, begging forgiveness.

“No.” Bediwigius shrugged. “No one would. But he’s dead.” Thanks to her. The boy didn’t say it, of course, but his meaning was plain enough.

“Then let us hope his sacrifice bought us something worthwhile. Perhaps you ought to scout ahead and see if you cannot find this sheltered valley before we fall to deathchill.”

The boy grimaced, shook his head, and tromped off.

When he was well out of earshot, Ilona let loose a sigh of pent-up frustration. Had she made a mistake, leaving the Lofdar to accompany Seskef out here? She had asked herself the question oft as of late. True, Loge had threatened to strip her of her power and status. Had she remained in Kvenland, under his gaze, she might have lost everything. But she could have gone elsewhere. She’d thrown her lot in with Seskef, thinking she could help him rebuild all he had lost—and gain her own kingdom at his side.

Now … Well, being queen of an empty, frozen plain did not quite appeal.

They pressed on until, as evening drew nigh, a scout returned, shambling toward Seskef like he’d pitch over any moment. Ilona hurried closer to catch his report.

“ … The slope keeps the worst of the snows off … ground is hot, even … don’t understand …”

“What are you saying?” Seskef demanded, once again fiddling with his precious arm ring.

“Gothmundr spoke true. The valley seems protected … kindly vaettir or something else. You must see it, my prince.”

Kindly vaettir? Ilona almost laughed. That vaettir might lock out the worst of the cold and protect a valley, that she could believe. That they welcomed humans … well. If vaettir dwelt in the valley, they too could be propitiated with sacrifices of one kind or another. Such was necessary to ensure the survival of these people.

Seskef barely gave the scout time to drink water and catch his breath before demanding the man show them the way.

Night had already fallen when they reached the place. The hills around it were so steep Ilona had to use her hands to steady herself on the way up. Atop the hill, she joined Seskef, who stared down into the valley. The hillside fell away in nigh to a sheer drop, ringing the valley. She couldn’t see the far side through the mist and darkness, but if it was similar, perhaps the place was more crater than valley.

Mist wafted up out of it, further obscuring her view.

“This is it?” Seskef asked. “I don’t see what … wait. Is that water down there in the center? Unfrozen?”

A crater … a caldera? Ilona sucked in a sudden breath. “That’s not mist … it’s steam.” The Fire vaettr within her stirred, drawn to the flames beneath the land. “The valley is heated from underground.”

Seskef nodded slowly. “Flame spirits.”

Perhaps, though, either way, it suited her purposes for the people to think that. After all, she, the pyromancer, was the expert on flame. “Very likely. If they have kept this place safe for so long, they may require … that we honor them if we wish to partake of their bounty.”

The prince grunted, and she looked to his face. His anger had settled over him like a cloak. The deaths of his wife and of Felman had not sat well with him, nor the loss of his kingdom. He would not require so very much prodding to become hers.

All she had to offer him was the one thing he desired most.

Vengeance, upon those he blamed for all his losses. The Niflungar first, of course, though Ilona suspected Seskef would seek recompense from all the heirs of Halfdan. Those who betrayed him, and those who refused to shelter the Skjöldungar.

“Your people need time to recover,” Ilona said. “This place offers them that.”

“I want more than recovery.” Seskef pointed at the steam rising over the caldera. “I want power. There are Fire vaettir there? Like the one you command? I too wish to touch the flame and ravage my enemies with it.”

“Y-you …” He wanted her to make him a pyromancer? Well. Damn. She wasn’t even halfway certain she could manage the ritual by herself.

He grabbed her by the arms and spun her around. “Do not think I fail to see you, witch. I see your heart … your lust for power.” He leaned in close to her face, until his breath warmed her cheek. “Give me what I need, and I shall satisfy your every lust. Give me the powers I seek, and you shall sit beside me as we retake our lands in Midgard. But we must have the power of the Lofdar. We must hold flame in our hands.”

Ilona forced the slight tremble of her lip to stillness. “I will give you what you seek. I will give you the power of the Otherworlds.”

Seskef kissed her then, roughly, his tongue scraping over hers. Finally, he broke away. “So, let us then take shelter in our new home.”

“Shelter.” She nodded. “And the first steps … of our ascension.”

26

No matter how many times Ecgtheow ran it over in his mind, it never made the slightest bit of sense. He could remember the rage that had taken him when he set upon Jarl Bjalmar’s men. The same rage that had driven him to murder Headolaf. He could remember the feeling, just not the why of it. Why in the gates of Hel had he felt so consumed?

The only answer he could come back to was a simple, unpleasant truth. He was a pile of troll shit. He was a murdering bastard who’d done naught but wrong with his life. He’d raided and pillaged for Gylfi, sure enough, and earned renown, but that hadn’t been enough for him. Being a thegn, fastening a name, it hadn’t been nigh to enough.

And now here he was, wandering the path through the woods of Ostergotland, heading toward the Wulfing lands so he could try to plead with them. Try to pretend he wasn’t that bastard who had gutted one of their sons, purely on account of him not liking the words the man spoke.

Yes, Ecgtheow was a man of honor. Honor worth less than the hair on a troll’s arse.

How many fights had he been in? Hel, he wasn’t sure he could even count them all anymore. Lot of blood, lot of dead men. Maybe a lot of them didn’t have to die, but he’d killed them anyway, all to make a name for himself.

Well and good, but … why Headolaf? And why the fuck had he mutilated and shamed that other thegn, Gunther? What need for that? Odin called men to fight with courage, to die with courage. Far as Ecgtheow knew, the Ás never asked men to massacre nor then to desecrate the dead.

And a man who does like that and can’t say why … well, now he was back to the pile of troll shit, and naught more to say about it.

Ecgtheow spit on the side of the road.

Damn it.

If his father was watching from Valhalla, the man was probably ready to disown Ecgtheow by now.

Only thing for it was to go to Helm and admit his crime, try to pay whatever weregild the man would name and make recompense. That was what a brave man would do. Never mind that he had looked back—more than once—and given many a thought to running off in some other direction. A man could choose outlawry … except, in the eyes of his ancestors, that would mean Ecgtheow was hardly a man anymore.

So, then. On to face Headolaf’s kin and what judgment they’d levy on him.

It was a damn long walk, this.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon when they set upon him.

A dozen men, all come up quiet as woodland natives, on him before he knew it.

Ecgtheow didn’t fight them.

Not when a man smashed him in the face with a shield. And sure as shit not after, when there wasn’t much fight left in him.

They clapped iron manacles around his wrists, tore off his shirt, and pelted him with mud and dung. Slapped the backs of his thighs with clubs hard enough he felt sure his bones would snap in two.

Then they demanded he fucking walk.

’Course, at that point, he’d have called it more of a shamble than a walk. Which was probably the point, Ecgtheow supposed. They marched him dirty, bloody, and stumbling through the town. On past a great crowd that had already gathered, a throng of men and women all hungering for blood.

Clearly, word of his deed had already reached them.

How? Had Hrethel sent a rider to admit the crime ahead of time?

Didn’t matter the least now, Ecgtheow supposed. It was what it was, and for all that, he was maybe better off having them know. If he’d come and had to be the one to deliver the news of Headolaf’s murder himself, he might have faced even more hostile odds. What was worse? Facing the kin when the shock was fresh, or when they’d had time to stew over the murder a bit?

Huh. Neither sounded too appealing.

They drove Ecgtheow down on his knees in the midst of the circle. Helm was there, watching him with cold eyes, fingers twitching at his side. The man stalked over and walked a full circuit around Ecgtheow, came all the way back around, and stopped in front of him.

Then his fist descended.

It cracked into Ecgtheow’s jaw and filled his vision with white light. The force of it sent him crashing down into the dust. Leaning on one arm, Ecgtheow knelt there, blinking, trying to shake the blurriness from his eyes.

Finally, he looked up at Helm.

The jarl shook his head, still pacing in front of Ecgtheow, not three feet away. “You have some serious stones, coming here. I’ve half a mind to cut them off and hang them from my walls.”

Ugh. The mental image of that made Ecgtheow squirm. Good to know what a fine start he’d made with the jarl. “I have come to admit my crime and offer what recompense you demand.”

“Recompense!” Helm looked about the circle a bare instant. Then he spun back and punched Ecgtheow again, fist cracking him right on the nose.

This time, Ecgtheow did fall over backward. The pain of it blinded him, and he clutched his nose, tears welling in his eyes. Fuck! Slowly, he crawled back up to his knees, trying to blink away the tears blurring his vision. Blood dribbled out over his lips and dripped from his chin, but he made no effort to staunch the flow.

“I’ve no excuse for my crimes, save that some madness took me.” His voice came out all wheezy from his broken nose. Might have been funny, circumstances being different. “Still, I’d see this buried before it becomes a blood feud.”

Helm sneered and leaned down level with Ecgtheow’s face. He roughly jerked his fingers under Ecgtheow’s chin and then pulled his hand away, held his fingers before his face, displaying the crimson staining them. “Already a lot of blood, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not a reason to go looking for more.”

“Maybe just yours. I hear you rent one of Bjalmar’s thegns limb from limb.” He turned about to his men. “Does that sound a fitting punishment for such crimes?”

A few shouts of agreement.

“Wait.” The word sounded so weak, pathetic even, wheezing out of him. He was a sorry little shit now, wasn’t he? “Wait. I cannot take back the madness that gripped me … but I would not see this whole country drowned in war. Name a weregild, please.”

“And what will you pay for my dead nephew? Have you some hidden hoard?” Helm scoffed, shook his head. “Fine. Pay me Headolaf’s weight in silver.”

Ugh. A big man like Headolaf, that’d be more than a bit of silver. More than even most jarls could have easily come up with, much less agreed to.

Ecgtheow didn’t bother to answer. If the man was set on executing him, then that was his urd. Ecgtheow sure as Hel’s tits wasn’t going to sit here on his knees and beg for his life. He’d brought enough shame to his ancestors as it was. Least he could do now was die like a man.

Helm paced around, mumbling something to himself. Finally, he turned back to Ecgtheow. The jarl reached down and grabbed him by the back of his head and hefted him painfully to his feet, held his face close to his own.

“Headolaf’s mother was my sister. But she and her husband died when he was young. He came into our other sister’s care and she raised him like her own … at least until she married off to ensure peace with the Reidgotalanders.”

What was he on about now? What did Reidgotaland have to do with aught? Ecgtheow stared hard at the jarl, blood still seeping out of his broken nose.

“I admit … Your courage in coming here astounds me. I am almost inclined to believe your claims of temporary madness. So, if you are so very brave, go then to see my sister. Tell her how you murdered her nephew, her beloved Headolaf. And convince her that we ought to make peace. Do this, and I will end this blood feud and this war. If you speak truth and the Aesir favor you, perhaps you will succeed.”

Ecgtheow wanted to groan. The jarl was sending him from a ring of enraged Wulfings hungry for his blood to … a would-be mother deprived her child? He’d almost be more inclined to face the judgment from Helm. He’d expect more mercy that way.

But then, he’d come here to make amends, so he couldn’t rightly shirk from the way Helm demanded recompense. “Who is your sister?”

“Her name is Wealthow and she is Queen of Reidgotaland.”

Oh. King Hrothgar’s wife. Well … fuck.

“Get her blessing and I will spare you and Hrethel both. Fail … and I will take my vengeance out on your lord even if I must destroy this land in the process. I swear it, thegn. I will call upon my brother-in-law in Reidgotaland, I will call upon the jarls who served Gauti and those who joined Haki. I will take loans from wealthy Siggeir Wolfsblood to hire mercenaries of great and ill repute. And I will bury Hrethel, no matter the cost to Sviarland. That is my oath to you, murderer.”

Ecgtheow straightened to his full height. So if he did not go and throw himself upon the mercy of the queen, Hrethel might fall. And if King Hrethel fell, it meant his family was like to follow him to the grave. Including Ylva and Ecgtheow’s unborn child. That he would never allow.

Never.

There were just some things a man couldn’t bear to lose. His wife, his children. Up until now he might have counted honor on that list. But fuck it all.

“Suppose I go to Hrothgar’s court and they have me killed?”

Helm folded his arms across his chest and sighed. “Then I suppose I will hear of it. If you die well, I will hold your oath fulfilled, and then Hrethel and I can talk of peace once more. But whether you expect life or death, I would urge you to go with haste. Sjaelland is many days away, and much can happen before you reach it, and before word comes back to me.”

Not much of a choice, Ecgtheow supposed.

Not much of a choice at all.

27

“Can you walk?”

Hervor shook her head to clear the vision away.

“Can you walk?” Starkad repeated.

She grunted, pushing herself up. “How long?”

“A while.”

They both sat just outside the town, in easy sight of the buildings. Starkad must have dragged her out here and decided that was far enough … for a little while. Once the sun set, the ghosts would return. The flame wraith and his warriors, be they also wraiths or Hel knew what.

Hervor coughed, cleared her throat. Ilona’s memories were growing more intense. The witch had lost herself in this place, and in Seskef. And now, witch, prince, and everyone else who had come here was dead, trapped forever in their restless procession.

No place for the living.

She rose with Starkad’s help, and they made their way toward the cliff. The mist grew thicker as they walked, until she couldn’t make much out. Hervor flailed around and grabbed Starkad’s hand, and they pressed on.

“The torch should be driving back more of this stuff,” he said.

Huh. Hervor hadn’t thought of it, but true enough, he held a torch, and still the mist swirled about them, refusing to be parted.

“Wasn’t the cliff closer than this?” she asked after a moment.

She could have sworn they’d only had to trek a short distance to reach the town the first time.

Starkad drew her to a stop, swept the torch around in a circle. The vapors blocked her view of his face, of aught really, save the faint gleam of his torch. The sputter of flame and the slow breaths he took were all she could hear.

“I think …” he said. “I think the town is that way. So if we walk in the opposite direction …”

Hervor tightened her grip on his hand then pulled him along. She was beyond ready to leave this place behind. Now she had two lifetimes’ worth of memories in which to loathe the valley.

On and on they pressed, but still the ground did not slope upwards.

“We’ve passed this tree before,” Starkad said.

Hervor drew closer to him until she could see the withered pine he had a hand against. “So we’re going in circles?”

“Something is leading us in circles.”

“What? You’re saying the prince is …”

Starkad pulled her around to look in her face, then shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe not the prince. Maybe when that ghost touched you she … infected you.”

Hervor recoiled at his words and brushed his hands off her. “You mean I can’t leave? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Odin’s fucking balls … “Fine then. You go. Don’t let me hold you back. Go!”

He held up his hands in warding. “Calm down. You’re letting this place get to you. I’m not leaving you behind. Something has tied us here, trapped us inside the same curse as the ghosts.”

Her pulse was pounding in her ears almost as if she’d drawn Tyrfing without a clear foe. Infected her? Ilona had infected her? Had the witch ghost done so on purpose? Hervor pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle her gagging.

Starkad grabbed her arms again and held her still. “Listen to me, Hervor. We must stay calm. We can find a way out of this—”

“Can we? Have you escaped any other curses laid upon you?”

Now Starkad scowled and released her. “Whatever they intended to do with the ritual we saw, it must have taken a lot of power. The princes of the Old Kingdoms were rumored to be sorcerers, so maybe Seskef worked with Ilona to do this. Either way, if we find the source of this power, perhaps we can disrupt it and escape. But none of that will happen if you panic.”

“I don’t fucking panic! I don’t ever fucking panic.”

“Good. Don’t start now.” He turned away, swept the torch about, then began to wander.

Leaving her no choice but to follow or find herself lost without flame. Bastard.

She trailed close behind him, unwilling to let him out of her sight in the mist. After a short walk, the vapors thinned a bit, revealing the town before them, as if they had barely even left.

Starkad turned to her, brows creased and shaking his head. “The key to all of this may lie in Ilona’s memories.”

Hervor spat. “You want me to try to have a vision? On purpose? You got troll shit between your ears?”

“We have to use our daylight wisely. We don’t know what they did or why, so we can’t begin to guess how to undo it.”

Oh, that was beautiful. So the burden was on her to solve this curse? Well, why not? She was the one trapped here. And that did mean … he was actually only staying here for her benefit. Damn it.

“How … even if I wanted to, how would I induce such a vision?”

Starkad led her to the side of a house and sat her down in its shadow. “Last time, you were thinking about the prince, about what had happened to him, to Ilona. Maybe that sped up the process.”

She grunted.

So.

Focus on Ilona, then. They had come to the valley. Back then, it was warm here. Guarded by Fire vaettir, or so Ilona had suspected.

So where had the warmth gone? Had the Fire vaettir left?

“Seskef said he wanted to be a pyromancer. He wanted Ilona to change him, to make him like her.”

Starkad groaned. “So the ritual turned him into that flame wraith?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what …”

Again the pressure built inside her, the heat behind her eyes. It built and built, scorching her brain. And she did not fight it.

Instead, she curled over into a ball and welcomed the visions. It was like falling asleep.

Like falling into another life.

28

Around the hot spring, a spattering of trees and even bushes had sprung up, filling the caldera with more greenery than Ilona remembered seeing in many long moons. Steam vented up through geysers in occasional spouts, further warming the air and making this place seem almost too perfect for their needs.

Gothmundr had not lied.

Nor would a frost jotunn have much loved this land, so she could see why the jotunnar had not settled here.

The Skjöldungar had felled a few trees at first to make quick shelters, but Ilona had warned them not to deplete the plants here overmuch. Now, they carted stones carved out of the hillsides to build more permanent residences. These people—despite the exhausting march—spared no time in building their new home. Perhaps hope energized them, for the first time in longer than they could remember.

Either way, the beginnings of a small town had cropped up in a matter of days. Ilona took to strolling around the foundations, watching the men work. It had grown so warm, many set about their labor shirtless, working together to haul the large stone blocks into place. Ilona did not much mind the sight of it.

Here, they worked to build up the great hall from which she and Seskef would soon rule. The prince took little interest in the hall, leaving its designs in her hands. That suited her well enough, and she took particular interest in ensuring they built a mighty fire pit in the hall’s center. The warding stones around this pit she had carved with runes to protect against the mist and encourage Fire vaettr to keep the flames ever lit.

Dwelling on such things sent a warm ripple through her chest, the spirit within shifting in a not entirely unpleasant manner. It pushed at her more and more, until she’d given in one night and touched the flames, sent them spiraling around her hands and dancing before her eyes.

It had rewarded her with a rush of ecstasy and dreams so vivid she’d woken and climbed into Seskef’s bed just to sate her own needs. And oh, how she so wanted to touch those flames in the pit right there.

Forcing the thought away, Ilona knelt to examine her work on the stones. With runes, everything should be perfect. These symbols meant more to beings on the other side of the Veil than they did to earthly creatures. Why the vaettir cared about symbols, no seidkon had ever quite managed to explain.

She brushed her fingers over them, or tried to. Instead, her hand drifted toward the fire in the pit. She shuddered, jerking her hand backward. Was that her own weak will giving in? Or had the Fire vaettr forced her to do that?

Damn it. It had become hard to say where one ended and the other began. With a shake of her head, she fled the hall and headed toward the waters in the caldera’s heart.

Prince Seskef, as usual, waded in the hot spring, a dour look on his face that kept all others at bay.

Ilona had looked into the Otherworlds, though, and was not easily dismayed by aught born on Midgard. She doffed her dress—a lightweight one was all she needed in this warm valley—and let it fall onto the sand near the spring. The actual water was ringed by a white rock that carried the heat, warming her feet as she drew nigh.

Seskef stared at her during her approach, so she made sure to slow and accentuate her every move. At last, she dipped a toe into the spring, shuddering at the delightful warmth of it. Again, that stirring in her breast as the Fire vaettr welcomed the heat. It knew this warmth came from liquid flames beneath the land. It knew it and loved it, like a taste of its own world.

Fire is life, after all.

Slowly, she slipped down into the waters, arching her back as she did so. Mostly for Seskef’s benefit—though the heat was truly luxurious. She let herself sink down until only her head rested above water, then fixed her gaze upon the prince.

Seskef drifted closer to her, his own movements lethargic as well, though his eyes held no trace of fatigue. They looked almost … Otherworldly. “The men build this place up, as you so desire.”

“Yes, I quite like what we’re building here. This place is a hidden refuge, safe from all the ravages of Midgard.”

“For now.” He moved until he stood just before her, waist-deep in the waters. Steam rose off his skin as the cool air hit it.

“For now,” she admitted. Grabbing his wrists, she pulled him down to sit beside her.

He did not resist her, his gaze locked on her face. “What of the other plans?”

Ilona stifled a sigh. “Peace, my prince.” She straddled him, then wrapped a hand around his cock. As expected, he was more than ready. She eased him inside herself, forestalling any further comment.

Instead, he grasped her hips as she worked, squeezing just hard enough.

Yes, she’d be pleased enough with this man as a husband.

When he’d finished, she drifted away to sit beside him again, flush with relief herself. For once, the Fire vaettr inside her seemed calmed. The sex and the warm waters both soothed it, she supposed. Either way, any reprieve from the pressure it put on her was welcome.

“I have given this much thought,” Seskef said a bare moment later.

What the … ? Really? Shouldn’t the man’s mind have been rather empty so soon after … Ilona barely kept a glare off her face.

“I see but one way to ensure the resurgence of our kingdom. The Niflung sorcerers are nigh to immortal. We need such powers as well, for myself, my warriors.”

Ilona rubbed her face. Now she did groan. “Binding a Fire vaettr might extend your life a little, true, but the brighter a fire burns, the more quickly it burns out. Few with such bindings live exceptionally long lives.” There were rumors about some of the highest of the pyromancers having lived many lifetimes. And then there was Loge, the first of the pyromancers, or so stories claimed. So there must have been a way, even if Ilona had neither the knowledge nor strength to pull it off. “It would require binding spirits of more power than I think your people are like to be able to control.”

“Yes. I have thought long on your complaints about drawing the Fire vaettir from this place and binding them.”

Indeed, she had voiced a great many complaints—warnings it would destroy the warmth of this shelter not least among them. Never, of course, had she come close to admitting she wasn’t even certain she could successfully bind the vaettir.

“If we have the power, we have no reason to care if this valley cools. I need not live for centuries, Ilona. I need but the strength to survive crushing wounds and the power to raze the lands of my enemies and claim them for myself. To burn mist away, as do the Lofdar.”

She folded her arms across her chest. The Lofdar had an army. It had numerous pyromancers, many more experienced than her, to say naught of Loge himself. All guiding the flames, and all struggling to remain human while doing so.

“This place,” Seskef said, “you were right, it does offer us what we need. Except what we need from it is not somewhere to hide. Take the power in this land and make us, all of us, like you. Like the Lofdar prince. Make us strong.”

“You yourself are a sorcerer, are you not?”

“Not strong enough to perform such a ritual without your guidance, and you know it. But yet … if you deny me, indeed, I will still attempt this.”

By the fires of Muspelheim, was that what she sounded like to Loge? Was this madness? Was it …

Somewhere, deep within her chest, her vaettr stirred. It assured her this would work. It would help her accomplish it. After all, its brethren would gladly accept freedom into Midgard.

And like that, Seskef’s plan began to rarify in her mind. In flame, she could forge the last of the Skjöldungar into weapons that might strike down all their foes.

Fire is life.

And she would give these people new lives. Why had she even hesitated before? Cowardice? Weakness? What a fool she’d been to worry over the words of old pyromancers like Loge. She had the strength she needed—locked inside her own breast.

And, too, sealed within a sword—Seskef had brought a runeblade here. Forged by dverg smiths out of orichalcum and the binding of souls, few powers on Midgard could match a runeblade. It could serve as a catalyst, a focus.

“Acts of such power …” She felt her mouth moving, though she could not have said where the words had come from. “They require sacrifices. The greater the sacrifice, the more power one can evoke. What will you sacrifice, my prince?”

Seskef rose to stand dripping before her. “Aught. I will trade aught necessary for revenge.”

“Then you shall have it.” Was that even her voice? “You shall have all the power you could ever desire.”

29

Starkad shook Hervor, but the shieldmaiden only moaned. It was taking longer and longer to pull her out of these visions. Whatever the ghost had done to her, he needed to find a way to break the effect, and fast. Soon, evening would settle upon them, and with it, the ghosts.

“Hervor.”

Her eyes fluttered open but didn’t seem to focus.

Starkad patted her cheek. “Hervor, come on. We’ve lost a lot of daylight. Come on. It’s going to get dark again soon, we have no time …”

She groaned, then scrubbed a hand over her face. Somehow, every time he saw that missing finger on her hand, it still came as a shock. She should have had a better life than this …

Damn. This was hardly the time for him to fall into such moroseness. “Hervor.”

“I’m awake.”

She rolled over onto her side, coughed, and then looked up at him. The way she was looking at him now … like she did sometimes at night, when she came to his tent. But why now?

Starkad cleared his throat and stood. “It’ll be dark soon, so—”

“I heard you the first time.” She pushed herself up, scowling, then rose. “They, uh … Ilona and Seskef, they called Fire vaettir out of the spring and the valley. She intended to use Skofnung to bind these vaettir inside Seskef and his people.”

Starkad unslung the runeblade from his shoulder and pulled it from the scabbard so he could inspect it. It was rosy gold in color, with perfectly etched runes that meant naught to him. “So the sword is the key?”

“Maybe. I didn’t see the actual ritual. I just felt her plan. She said something about a sacrifice to enact it all.”

“The altar.”

Hervor nodded.

Starkad glanced up at the sky. Not so much time left before the ghosts would begin to walk once again. He slung the blade back over his shoulder. “We need to move.”

They plodded back toward the altar, the snows impeding their progress. Starkad leapt over the rise and down into the lava tube. His feet skidded on the ice coating that tube, and he slid along it for several feet before managing to stop his descent.

When he glanced behind, Hervor was climbing down more cautiously, with her back to him. She dropped down into the tube, then moved to join him.

Torch out before him, Starkad led the way down the tunnel. Not far in, the ice gave way to stone, making the going much easier.

Just outside, the wind had begun to howl like some angry beast. Starkad scowled. Ahead, they came to the altar. Hervor trod up to it, ran her hand along the obsidian surface, then looked to him.

Starkad shrugged.

“So we’re here,” Hervor said. Pointlessly.

Scowling, he paced around the altar. This witch Ilona had made some sacrifice upon this thing … but the Old Kingdoms had fallen eight hundred years ago. Any blood spilled had long since turned to dust, and naught he could see marred the altar.

Hervor cleared her throat. “I assumed you had some plan for when we got here.”

He cast her a warning glare. “I am no sorcerer to dabble in the forbidden Art.”

“And yet you know far more of it than most men.”

With a grimace, he looked back to the altar. Cursed as he was, Starkad found himself oft enough embroiled in one mystery of the Otherworlds or another. Nevertheless, those were challenges he bumbled through, not areas he actually knew aught of. Maybe Hervor ought to have realized that, but to speak it aloud would only serve to further enflame her obvious fears. And maybe his own growing dread.

Because despite all Starkad had seen, he had never faced a foe like this flame wraith before. Prince Seskef was an enemy with neither blood nor body to be slain. A power against which Starkad was not certain he could win. And now, they were trapped in this cursed valley with the ghosts. When night fell …

Beyond the tunnel, a mind-rending wail erupted, the gates of Hel themselves sounding breached.

Seskef had awakened. The wraith prince would be hunting them now.

Damn it. He had to focus. There had to be some clue here, some sign of a way to break this curse.

“Starkad ….”

Ilona had sacrificed someone on this altar. Starkad knelt beside it, holding the torch close to inspect the obsidian. It was a single, perfect slab of rock, as tall as his waist and half again as long. The only markings were those runes. He pushed aside the skeleton leaning against the altar. Behind it lay just more of the same runes.

Meaningless symbols to him. Except …

Some of the runes looked a bit like those marking Skofnung. Had Ilona carved it specifically to match the runeblade? Starkad pulled Skofnung out to compare them. There, along that line on the altar, the runes were a match. If only he could read the damned things.

“Starkad!”

He looked up sharply at Hervor’s voice. The ghost witch now drifted toward them. In the darkness of the tunnel, a man might have mistaken her for the living. Sensual in her movements, lithe, her eyes holding a hint of mischief. And a hint of wariness.

Hervor had her hand on Tyrfing’s hilt. “Stay back, vaettr!”

But the ghost came on, unperturbed, save perhaps for a brief glare cast at Hervor. Instead, she came up to the altar. Starkad backed away, giving her space. Skofnung might disrupt the ghost and send it away, but what good would that do if she wasn’t attacking them? What did she intend here?

Ilona ran her fingers along the altar’s surface, much as Hervor had done moments before. Then she looked to Starkad. Looked to the runeblade in his hand.

“I don’t understand.” He shrugged his shoulders.

Again the wraith prince’s wail rang out, this time much closer.

Ilona slapped the altar with the bottom of her fist. Then she repeated the gesture.

She wanted him to destroy the altar? Could it be that simple? Could he break the curse by merely smashing the instrument that had created it?

Flickering flames reflected off the entrance to the tunnel.

“Starkad!” Hervor jerked Tyrfing free of its sheath. “He’s coming.”

Again, Ilona slapped the altar.

Starkad advanced to it.

From the corner of his eye, Seskef appeared, shrouded in flame and yet made of darkness that no light could reach. The fiery specter blocked their escape from the tunnel, closing it. Its smoldering sword again appeared in its hand.

Its eyes lingered on Skofnung, filled with such rage Starkad felt ill to behold it. No mortal creature could contain that much hatred within itself.

Smash the altar and break the curse? Or make it worse?

Hervor shrieked and raced for the wraith prince. The ghost himself dashed for her, covering ground even more quickly.

Fuck it.

Starkad reversed his grip on Skofnung and slammed it straight down into the center of the altar. The runeblade bit through the obsidian like butter, sliding in halfway to its crossguard.

A crack erupted from the altar, black ichor oozing from that rent. At the same time, an enormous pressure built inside Starkad’s head, pushing on his ears. The air around him shimmered.

And then the pressure burst like a wave crashing over him. It flung him backward, through the air, to slam into the wall.

The impact stole all breath from his lungs and filled his vision with bright white light.

And then naught else.

* * *

Groaning, Starkad managed to roll over onto his back. His head was throbbing from where it had hit the wall. Everything seemed to dip and sway as if he stood on the deck of a ship at sea. His stomach lurched, and he retched, spilling what little he’d eaten out over the tunnel floor.

His ears were ringing, his pulse beating heavy in his head. He spit out the lingering taste of bile.

He needed about a barrel-full of mead. That and twelve hours’ sleep without a single fucking dream, if he could manage it.

As the ringing in his ears finally diminished, he heard Hervor being noisily sick herself. He managed to look up, blinking, to see her lying on her side, clutching her temples.

There was light in the tunnel, coming from his own fallen torch beside him but also from a half dozen torches affixed to the walls in sconces. Those hadn’t been there before. What in the gates of Hel?

And the tunnel, it was warm. Hot and muggy even. Grunting, he tugged away the laces of his fur cloak to give himself some airflow. Damn, but it was hot in here.

Hervor groaned, then rolled over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. Tyrfing lay a few feet from her, discarded. Starkad lurched over to where she lay, then offered her a hand.

After a brief moment, she took it, and he pulled her up. She paused, then reached for Tyrfing, but stopped short. Her face a mask of confusion. “I did not kill anyone …”

Tyrfing’s curse.

“If I pick it up now …”

Starkad scratched his beard. “I have no idea. I don’t know what happened. Did we break the curse? Are we free?” He glanced back to the altar. Skofnung was still stuck down in it, though the crack no longer broke the altar’s surface. It was as if the sword had slid smoothly into a slot in the top. “What the …”

Voices rang out from the entrance to the tunnel.

As Hervor scrambled to her feet, a dozen men raced in, their armor clinking as they ran. Torchlight glinted off their spears and blades and axes, and the men formed up, surrounding Starkad and Hervor. Living men, thick with sweat and staring at them with hostile gazes. One of them shouted at him in what sounded like Old Northern.

The Old Tongue?

Were these the ghosts? Somehow alive again? Their armor looked the same … in fact, one bearing a sword looked like one of the very shades Starkad had fought already.

Their words were barely comprehensible, especially with several of them all shouting to each other and at Starkad and Hervor at the same time. Behind them, some of the men beckoned with weapons, ordering them to march out of the tunnel. That meaning, at least, was completely clear.

Hervor moved to snatch up Tyrfing, but one of the men grabbed it before she could.

“You son of a troll!” she roared. “Return my family’s legacy before—”

“Hervor!” Starkad snapped. “Best go along until the situation favors us.”

Now she turned her glare on him. But at least, prodded by a spear, she did walk.

The men led them outside the tunnel and into the town.

The sun above glinted brightly, but that was not the oddest thing. An almost oppressive heat filled the valley, and all the snows had melted, leaving behind green trees and bushes and a town filled with men and women and children, all bustling about.

“What in Hel’s icy crotch?” Hervor managed.

“Hel!” One of the men shouted. That prompted a fresh bout of arguments among their captors, lines that went by far too quickly for Starkad to make out their meaning.

In any event, they gave him little time to dwell on it.

The crowd parted as a woman sashayed toward them. She was all grace and sensuality, with a walk he instantly recognized even before he saw her face.

Ilona.

Alive.

Part IV

The Last Days of the Old Kingdoms

30

One of their captors presented Tyrfing to Ilona, and the witch leaned over the runeblade, inspecting it without actually touching any part of it.

“Siklingar,” she said, among other words Starkad did not catch. “Tyrfing.”

The Siklingar were one of the Old Kingdoms. So the witch recognized the runeblade … and knew it as the legacy of the Siklingar? That was more than Starkad had known of Hervor’s sword.

Now Ilona turned to look in his eyes. Her gaze held so much lascivious promise Starkad found himself fighting not to squirm under it. A woman who looked at a man like that … well, she usually only had one thing on her mind. Under that gaze, a man was like to soon only have one thing on his mind, too.

And yet, her expression did not change much when she turned her gaze on Hervor.

“Give me back my sword, you bitch!” Hervor snapped.

Ilona cocked her head to the side, offering a slight smile Starkad took for bemusement. Clearly she was having as much trouble understanding Hervor’s words as Starkad was with their language.

“Release us,” Starkad said in what he was sure was awful Old Northern. The Old Tongue had changed so much as it became the modern dialects … And Starkad was no skald to study ancient poetry.

Ilona frowned, ever so slightly, then turned to him. “You are … warriors of the Niflungar.” She spoke slowly. He could not understand every word, but her meaning seemed clear enough. One did not mistake the name Niflungar.

“No.”

“Spies.”

“No! We are …” Shit, how would he even explain this? These people should have been dead eight hundred years before he was born.

So what could have happened? Had breaking the curse brought them to life again? Or … Starkad glanced around at the much changed valley.

“This place looks like it did in my visions,” Hervor said, clearly following his gaze.

“Who do you serve?” Ilona demanded. “Are you of the line of Sigarr?”

Sigarr … founder of the Siklingar, wasn’t he? And if these people were Skjöldungar, did that make them allies or enemies? He didn’t have half an idea on that. Where was a skald when you needed one?

Either way, it seemed clear Ilona did not know the Old Kingdoms were long dead. Lost to the mists of time, like this valley.

The valley …

Had been trapped in some kind of repeating loop, playing out their final days over and over. And had breaking the curse brought them all to life again? How? How could that which was dead become alive?

“Siklingar? Or Niflungar?”

“Neither.”

Now she frowned and gestured to one of the men at Starkad’s side.

The man swung at his gut, intent to double him over. Starkad moved faster. He caught the man’s forearm, spun him around, and drove him to the ground, his own arm wrapped around his attacker’s neck.

Hervor took the opportunity to headbutt the man holding Tyrfing. In his shock, she snatched up the sword and opened his throat in a single move.

Damn it. Starkad hadn’t meant to start killing these people.

Alive again …

Like the whole town, back to how it had been in Hervor’s visions.

Well, no choice now. Starkad flung his prisoner to the ground and jerked free his blades. “Run!” he shouted at Hervor.

She needed no encouragement. At once, she set about her, and Tyrfing struck down another man. Starkad spun, whipping his blades in rapidly changing arcs. Most men fell back under his onslaught, but one was too slow and took a sword slash to the face. The poor bastard fell screaming, clutching his ruined nose and cleft jaw.

“Go!” he yelled again when Hervor hesitated, caught in a melee with two men. Starkad fought his way to her, hacked one man at the back of the leg, and sent him toppling over. Hervor scrambled out of the lava tube and up the slope into the town.

More warriors were racing in now. Starkad dashed for the main path out of the tube, but was met by a half dozen more men. Even more than that behind him. Not even he wanted to face off against almost a score of warriors.

And then Hervor was there, lopping the head clean off a man in his way. Starkad pushed through to join Hervor on the street.

“Think we can leave the valley now?” she asked, as they dashed down the street together.

“I’m not certain we should.”

Hervor groaned, then raced off to the tree line around the town. Starkad followed, but those Skjöldungar warriors were right on their heels.

He spun, swinging both swords behind him. His nearest attacker managed to stop one blade with his shield. The other cleaved into his gut and sent him reeling, sputtering blood. Starkad kicked the dying man into his allies, then turned to run again.

Hervor had already disappeared into the wood. Starkad scrambled after her, dashing around trees left and right. It was like to prove a futile attempt to lose their pursuit, but what else was he to do? The two of them could not fight every warrior in this village.

And where the fuck was Hervor? She’d just vanished.

He ducked around another tree, breath coming in gasps. He leapt over underbrush. Something snared his ankle and jerked him down into the dust. He spun around, even as Hervor pulled him into a bush. It grew out of a slight overhang of a hill that created a tiny alcove.

Starkad would never have even noticed this place.

An instant later, a pair of warriors leapt over the same underbrush and kept running in the direction he’d been heading. More followed every couple of breaths.

The alcove was tiny, and he and Hervor were pressed up against each other so tight neither of them could have moved. If a single warrior heard or spotted them … Starkad struggled to still his breathing.

Hervor’s hand tightened around his wrist.

The warriors kept running past, dashing among the trees in pursuit.

Their voices grew farther away.

“How did you even find this place?” Starkad finally whispered to Hervor.

She sniffed. “I spent time as a bandit. Learned to find every hiding place in Deeppine. Every wood is different, but … you get good at finding this kind of place in a hurry.”

A bandit? Huh. “Sounds like a tale worth hearing. Someday.”

“Maybe. Maybe someday.” Her own voice was low, barely audible. “What did you mean we shouldn’t leave, anyway? You mean you still want to go back for Skofnung? We might get trapped again.”

“Have you noticed it’s summer here?”

“Yeah. A relief.”

“This morning we were on the cusp of winter. Now it’s summer.”

“You’re saying … we lost time?”

“I’m saying …” Damn, but he couldn’t believe he was even going to say this. “I’m saying it seems like we somehow … we went back.”

“Back?”

“Back to before the Old Kingdoms died out. Back to when these Skjöldungar were alive, back when they first came here.”

She snorted. “What, eight hundred years ago? That sort of thing is for skalds trying to entertain drunkards and children. It does not happen, Otherworldly magic or no.”

“I’d have agreed with you … but for all we’ve seen here.”

“Ilona.”

“She’s alive, Hervor. They’re all alive—save the ones we just killed to escape. It’s summer. The valley is warm again, like in your visions, not frozen.”

She squeezed his wrist again, her breath becoming a little irregular. He knew how she felt. It sounded like mist-madness … but here they were. “If … you’re right. If what you say is true—and it does look exactly like it did in Ilona’s memories—if it’s all true, then how do we get back to our own time?”

“The witch must be planning a sacrifice. We already know that.”

“Yeah.” Hervor released his arm and twisted around to look at his face, having to wriggle against him to do so. The closeness was almost comforting, despite the situation. Telling her that would only make things harder on both of them, though. She nodded. “So if we stop the ritual before the curse takes place, maybe we can escape.”

He tried to shrug but had no room to move. “I dare to hope so, though I cannot say aught with certainty, Hervor. This is completely uncharted territory we tread in. I have never heard of anyone experiencing aught like this before.”

She snorted again. “Understatement. Wish Odin could see us now.”

Huh. Interesting thought. The old bastard had guided—manipulated—Starkad’s steps for decades. But now here he was, centuries before Odin was even born. So that meant he was free of the Ás’s grasp, at least for the moment. And if Starkad were to stay in the past, could he then lead his own life?

On the other hand, Odin had given Starkad a gift—the gift of glory and long life—along with his curse. Besides, all that he and Hervor knew lay in another time. And what little Starkad did know of this age was far from pleasant. Endless war had destroyed every civilization in the North Realms. The Old Kingdoms had annihilated one another, oft calling upon fell Arts to do so. It was a poor place for him and a worse one for Hervor.

He’d come here to claim Skofnung and grant it to Gylfi on account of what the sorcerer king had done for Hervor. All that meant naught if he couldn’t help Hervor get home safe to enjoy the life Gylfi had returned to her.

“Starkad?” Hervor asked.

“Huh? Sorry.” He shook himself, then crawled out from the alcove. “If my guess is true, Ilona will try her sacrifice after sundown.”

Hervor crawled out after him, grimacing. “Always at night.”

He shrugged. “That’s just when people use the Art. I don’t know the reason, nor truly care. It’ll be dark soon.”

“In my vision, Seskef intended to aid in the ritual, maybe even lead it. They … hadn’t decided for certain, I guess.”

Starkad scrubbed his beard. “Then we kill them both before they enact their curse. Kill them, and dare to hope that alone enough to get us home.”

Hervor nodded grimly.

* * *

As they drew nigh to the lava tube, already a procession of men and women headed that way. Many of the warriors were no doubt still searching the woods for Starkad and Hervor, but several others guarded this march. Indeed, it looked so like the ghostly version they had seen, Starkad had no doubt the ritual lay at hand.

And they were already almost too late.

Hervor grumbled something under her breath, and Starkad rose from where they crouched, blades in hand.

“So,” he said. “We may not have time to try the stealthiest approach on this. Whatever happens, you must find the witch and kill her before she can complete her sorcery.”

Hervor nodded, sliding Tyrfing free of its sheath as she did so. The shieldmaiden cast a final look at him, then slunk off, flanking the tube.

Now all that remained was for Starkad to buy her the time she needed to get this done. Buying time with blood, that he could manage. Years of practice had made him an expert, in fact.

Bellowing a war cry, he charged forward. At once, the procession broke apart. Men and women scattered, several running off, others lurching backward in panic. There were a score or so of people, but not all had weapons. Still, he had to assume all these people mattered to Ilona’s ritual. And given that ritual seemed to trap Starkad and Hervor in the valley, he could not allow himself to pity men and women eight hundred years dead.

His blades flashed, cutting down the two nearest marchers. Starkad shoved the body of a dying man into his companions, tripping up a warrior trying to intercept him. Another warrior raced in on him, leading with a mighty swing of an oversized axe.

Starkad twisted out of the weapon’s path and slashed one sword along the man’s back. He didn’t have time to see if his victim fell. Already more and more people surrounded him. Starkad cut through them like a whirlwind. Blood splattered all over his face and clothes, stung his eyes, obscured his vision.

From behind, a man shoved a woman aside.

The figure who strode forward was tall and proud, decked in gilded chain and bearing a rosy gold blade carved with gleaming runes. The runeblade reflected the light of the setting sun, flashing in Starkad’s eyes. And Seskef himself advanced, his expression as grim and merciless as Starkad’s own must have been.

Where was Hervor? He had to hope she’d gotten past these people in all the confusion. Against so many foes, especially against the Skjöldung prince, Starkad couldn’t say how long he could hold out.

He whipped his swords around and pointed them both at his foe.

And Seskef roared at him, racing forward.

31

Hervor had to hand it to Starkad. When he wanted to create chaos, he created some fucking chaos. People were screaming in pain and terror, fleeing in all directions. Every warrior in the whole damned town seemed to be focusing on Hervor’s … friend. Was he more than that?

Maybe.

And he was like to get himself killed this way.

She hesitated at the lip of the lava tube. If she left him on his own, Odin alone knew what might befall Starkad. But he’d done all this just so she could get in there, kill Ilona and end this mist-madness. Joining Starkad might mean this was all for naught.

Grimacing, she leapt over the lip and landed down in the tube. Her boots slid along the slick stone for several feet before she managed to come to a stop.

Almost immediately, a single guard at the tunnel entrance shouted, racing toward her with spear and shield.

Hervor hefted Tyrfing in her left hand. She missed having a shield, but she had to carry the damned torch. This she flung at the warrior as he drew nigh. The man beat the flaming projectile aside with his shield, but he faltered for a bare instant, out of position. Hervor surged inward, swinging Tyrfing at his spear.

The runeblade sheared through the wooden haft like it was made of straw.

As the warrior stared dumbfounded at his broken weapon, Hervor turned her blade over and thrust. The man reacted at the last instant, bringing his shield up to block. Tyrfing punched through that as well, splitting it with a crack. As she jerked her blade free, the shield split in half. Her foe gaped at her.

Hervor shrieked and came in swinging low and tight. The man tried to jump out of the way. Not fast enough, though. Not nigh to fast enough. Tyrfing opened his thigh and he fell over, clutching the wound and moaning. Hervor cleaved his head in and raced onward.

She ran into the tunnel, not bothering to stop for her fallen torch. This place was lit by sconces in any event.

Given the clamor of battle outside, the strange chanting echoing off the tunnel wall sounded faint. Just as well. The mere sound of whatever that bitch was saying to the vaettir made her skin crawl. The words didn’t belong on a human tongue. They didn’t belong in the mortal world at all.

Ilona spun on her with a fell glare but backed away from the altar, pausing only to snatch up a torch. The witch bore a bone knife in one hand.

A young man was bound there, beside Skofnung still stuck in the altar. The sacrifice. The boy on the altar … she knew him from Ilona’s memories. That was Bedwigius, Seskef’s own son. The witch intended to sacrifice the prince’s own blood.

So. Hervor just needed to free the boy and all this madness would end.

Ilona followed her gaze and then faltered, starting back for the boy. She shouted something incomprehensible. Which was fine. Hervor wasn’t the least bit interested in aught the bitch had to say.

She roared and raced forward, driving the witch back into the tunnel.

Ilona dropped the knife and stuck a hand into the flame of her torch. Hervor balked, almost stumbling over her own feet at the sight.

The witch swung her hand forward in an arc. Flames followed the course of it, leaping out of the torch and surging toward Hervor.

She let her feet drop out from under her and slid along the floor, colliding with the altar as a deafening explosion roared overhead. A wave of heat washed over her. Blinding white light filled her eyes. Ringing sounded in her ears so loudly she couldn’t think.

Moaning—unable to hear it—Hervor rolled over to push herself up, blinking. Slowly, the tunnel came back into focus.

Her clothes and hair were smoldering. This she patted out with her free hand, dizzy from the effort. On the altar, Bedwigius was screaming without sound. Half his face was melted by the fires. His clothes were ash. Blood oozed from the burning wreck of one of his arms.

Chains still held him. Hervor slashed Tyrfing down onto the chains and shattered the links. Bedwigius rolled off the altar and hit the floor hard. He rose to his knees an instant later though, good hand clutched to his disgusting, melting face.

He spared her a single glance. Looked right at her. And then limped off, out of the tunnel.

Odin’s. Fucking. Balls.

That was … impossible. She knew the man … had come here with him.

Scyld?

“What the …?” Her own voice was now just barely audible over the ringing in her ears.

Ilona was bent over double, clutching her head. Flames flickered about her fingers, surged over her head, and cast shadows around the tunnel in a horrifying dance of the Otherworld. One more vileness that belonged nowhere nigh to Midgard or even Utgard.

And Hervor still had a final task here. She stalked closer to Ilona, Tyrfing raised.

The witch looked up. Her eye sockets had become pits of smoldering fire. She roared, exposing a maw of darkness in which radiant flames played. The roar reached even Hervor’s half-deafened ears, shook the tunnel. Every torch sconce exploded into twice its normal radius. Flames dribbled down along the walls, spreading in red-hot rivulets that crisscrossed the tube. Blocked any way out.

Oh, fuck.

That roar went on and on. The flames around Ilona’s hands grew in intensity until Hervor could barely stand to look upon the witch, so bright was the fire.

Screaming herself, Hervor pushed forward, both hands wrapped around Tyrfing’s hilt. “Die!”

A sheet of flame leapt outward from Ilona and soared for Hervor.

Hervor did the only thing she could think of. She threw herself flat onto the ground. The sheet sliced the air like a scythe. It caught the back of Hervor’s mail and melted it in an instant, spraying molten iron over her leathers. She screamed as pain washed over her, rolling along the ground in a desperate attempt to smother the burning.

The effort sent fresh lances of agony through her body. Hervor rolled over.

Ilona’s skin had taken on the color and texture of coal, beneath which simmered incandescent light.

The witch, the pyromancer, was going to roast Hervor alive. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. No chance to escape. Except forward. Hervor flung herself toward the witch, swinging Tyrfing wildly as she did so.

The tunnel trembled around her, as if fresh lava was about to rise up from the earth and fill the whole tube once again. Maybe not far from the truth.

Tyrfing sliced partway through Ilona’s right knee, and the witch fell onto her left one, flaming hands catching herself. Still shrieking in fear, in pain, in rage, Hervor lurched upward. Tyrfing caught Ilona beneath the chin, split her skull halfway back to her spine, and tore out through the top of her head.

Ilona pitched over, her body shuddering, trembling just as the tunnel trembled.

Ash and smoke and flame erupted from the witch’s rent skull, spraying over Hervor and sending her tumbling to the ground, arms over her head in a feeble hope of protecting it. Another explosion washed over her, flung her from her feet, and sent her careening down the tunnel.

Everything went black for a brief instant.

Hervor moaned, then pushed herself up.

Everything was still black, save for a tiny hint of light from outside the tunnel. All the flames had gone out, all at once. A profound darkness and stillness had settled over this place.

As the ringing in her ears faded, she made out other sounds. Battle raging outside.

Starkad.

Troll shit. He was still facing off against Odin knew what. She had to help him.

She tried to stand, but her legs gave out from beneath her and she slammed, face first, into the hard stone of the tube. It was warm now. Warm and beckoning her to lie down and never rise.

32

Seskef roared again, swiping Skofnung around so quickly Starkad had no choice but to parry. The runeblade slammed into Starkad’s sword and snapped the folded iron in two. Starkad lurched backward out of the way of another strike, twisted around to put a Skjöldung warrior between himself and Seskef, and then fell back several more steps.

He used the opportunity to cut down another man who’d been trying to engage him while he fought the prince. Then he flung the useless hilt into the face of a shieldmaiden who tried to charge him. The crossguard caught her head on, blood exploding from her shattered nose as she dropped like a rock.

Seskef shoved his man aside and launched into another series of brutal attacks.

The prince was nigh to as fast as Starkad and seemed possessed of almost inhuman strength and stamina. So this was what the princes of the Old Kingdoms were like. It felt like fighting a fucking draug. Except a draug armed with a damned runeblade.

Starkad retreated further, parrying when he had to but careful not to let the blades clash head on. He couldn’t afford to lose this sword. Vikar’s sword. Not this one.

Another warrior raced in on him.

Starkad twisted, kicked the man in the back of the knee, and grabbed him by the throat as he fell.

Seskef cut right through his own man without a moment’s hesitation. Starkad released his human shield and snatched up the man’s dropped sword as it fell. Before Starkad could do aught else, the prince flung the corpse aside and launched more attacks.

Duck, parry, weave.

Riposte.

Seskef turned Starkad’s counter with ease, continuing to bellow at him like a berserk. Like a man gone fey. Whatever foul Art the Old Kingdoms had called upon, it had made their princes into sorcerer-kings far more terrifying than even Gylfi.

Seskef vaulted over a fallen man, coming down with a mighty chop that could have split Starkad in half. The move was too wild, too savage, though. Starkad had thought the warriors of the Old Kingdoms fought with more control. It was, after all, damned hard to change direction in midair.

Rather than jump back, Starkad stepped forward, thrusting one sword up into Seskef’s gut. The prince’s gilded mail turned the blade, but the impact stole all wind from Seskef, all strength from his attack. He toppled to the ground and smacked his face on a rock.

Starkad spun back around and brought Vikar’s sword down on the prince’s helm. The blade didn’t pierce, but it dented the protection and surely would daze any living man. Indeed, Seskef collapsed into the ground.

Before Starkad could finish him, another man raced in, screaming about the prince. Starkad cut him down.

A figure emerged from the tunnel, but not Hervor. That was … Scyld. Had he come here too? The man lurched, in obvious pain, blood seeping from fresh burns covering half his body. But he looked … younger?

Starkad blanched.

What the fuck?

How was he here, in the past? How was any of this even possible?

The rank stench of carnage was everywhere. The ground had become a muddy slush of blood and guts. How many people had Starkad just slain? A score? More than that?

Starkad turned back to Seskef. The prince was rising, shaking himself. Blows like Starkad had dealt ought to have left him concussed and, more like than not, unconscious. But Seskef stood, bringing Skofnung to bear once again.

Damn it. Starkad took a step back. His foot slipped in blood and he skidded, then tumbled over a corpse. He landed on his arse, sending a jolt through his tailbone. For an instant, he considered the undignified spectacle he presented.

Such a petty concern, really, under the circumstances.

Seskef lurched forward, shaking his head as if trying to loosen cobwebs from it. Blood dribbled down his chin. Bastard must’ve banged his teeth into his tongue.

Rising, Starkad spit blood out of his own mouth. Well, he’d earned himself no few scrapes here too, though he’d been careful not to let Skofnung touch him. Hel alone might know what the runeblade would do if it struck a blow. Still, Starkad’s mail was scratched to pieces, pounded into his leathers, bits of it hanging on by a few chain links.

He bore his own swords up as the prince closed in. Seskef launched forward with renewed savagery and even less control than he’d shown before. His wide overhead chop would’ve split Starkad from shoulder to crotch. Would’ve, had Starkad not leapt backward.

His feet landed in more mush and squelched down. It made his next move a little unsteady as he lunged forward, swinging both blades in opposite arcs. The prince didn’t recover quickly enough and caught both of Starkad’s swords across his chest.

The damned mail turned them again, and they scraped along the golden links without causing serious harm to the man inside.

Starkad barely got his blades back in position to parry Seskef’s counter-strike.

The prince had him on the defensive again. Parrying, dodging, always falling back and giving ground.

If Starkad could but put a little distance between them he might turn the prince’s wild attacks against him, but—

Another wicked stroke sent Starkad stumbling. Rather than give the prince the chance to attack from above, Starkad lunged forward, caught the prince about the knees, and sent the both of them tumbling into the mud. Swords slipped from their hands.

Everything was chaos and bashing elbows and mud splashing up in his face. Over and about they rolled, Seskef bearing down on him with iron-like muscles. Starkad reached for the dagger at his hip. The prince’s fist caught him in the face.

The next instant, Seskef’s iron grip closed around Starkad’s throat. The hand pushed him down, into the mud. Choking. Everything going dim. Couldn’t see …

Starkad flailed about limply.

Seskef’s hand kept closing. Tighter, tighter. Down into the mud. Drowning in blood … Urd.

His final … urd …

Starkad’s palm brushed over a blade. He closed his fingers around it. Jerked it upward.

Skofnung drove right through Seskef’s face. Punched through his lip, teeth, out the back of his skull.

Starkad lurched upward as the prince’s grip slackened. He gasped for air, retching out blood and muck. The wound around Skofnung kept widening. The prince’s face split apart farther and farther. His skull cracked, as if drawing away from the point of impact. Until the entire head inside that golden coif collapsed into gore.

Agonizing pain shot through Starkad’s hand. His palm bore a cut by his thumb, where he’d grabbed Skofnung by the blade. That cut was oozing blood fast. Even as Starkad watched, his skin pulled away from the wound. The cut grew deeper, the wound widening with each passing breath.

He grunted at the pain, doubling over with it as his hand slowly ripped itself in half. Starkad stared at it in utter horror.

No. No. No!

Not his hand …

Not …

The wound spread further, exposing bone. He screamed at the agony.

“Skofnung stone,” someone said in Old Northern.

Scyld … he held Skofnung, trying to touch the pommel to Starkad’s hand. To the wound? The stone in the pommel?

Starkad grabbed the runeblade by the stone, letting it press into his palm. It was cold. At first. Then heat surged through his hand, replaced quickly by burning, as if a red-hot brand were pressed against his flesh. He screamed and tried to drop the blade, but Scyld wrapped his own hands around Starkad’s, clenching his fist.

And the madman smiled. Except he didn’t look mad. Nor even yet full grown. His eyes flashed red, like a draug. Or fire.

He held Starkad’s hand in his own, so tight Starkad could do naught but grit his teeth against the pain. And at last the burning stopped. The young man jerked away from him, and Starkad fell over, back into the muck.

Slowly, he lifted his trembling hand before his eyes. The whole of his left palm was charred, the edges an angry red. And yet, the cut had sealed over, as though burned closed with hot iron. He groaned, almost unable to swallow for the pain.

The boy had moved to the prince’s body and knelt there now, shaking his head. He tore the silver arm ring from the prince’s wrist and stood there, inspecting it.

Starkad gaped.

No.

No.

This was not fucking possible.

But Scyld—young Scyld—slipped the arm ring onto his own wrist and then sauntered away, out into the town.

Grunting with effort and pain, Starkad pulled himself up. How could this have happened? With his one good hand, he dug through his satchel until he found the silver arm ring. The same serpent-shaped arm ring the boy had just now taken.

And had given to Starkad … eight hundred years later.

Starkad doubled over with the pain in his hand, in his body, in his mind. And he lay in the mud.

33

The tube wall was no longer warm as Hervor steadied herself against it, making painfully slow progress back out toward the town. She’d come to with a pounding head, skin blistering from her burns. The sounds of battle had disappeared while she was out. Walking wasn’t so bad, save for the bouts of dizziness that kept washing over her.

She followed the long tube all the way out. Blood had dribbled down the slope and now ran in tiny streams toward the tunnel she emerged from. A few corpses had toppled down into the tube’s depression, too.

Climbing over the lip would be a bitch. Instead, she trudged her way over to where the path descended more naturally into the tube. There she paused, hands on her knees, fighting with a fresh wave of dizziness.

Deep breaths.

Just keep breathing.

Grunting, she pushed on. On the slope above the tube, dozens of bodies littered the field. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn two war bands had clashed here not long before.

No, but it was one war band. And Starkad.

Odin’s balls. He must’ve slain twenty, thirty people this day.

The night had settled down, and, with the mist, it was hard to make out much. Indeed, the mist seemed thicker than before. Heat no longer radiated out of the ground. Beyond, a figure was dragging away a corpse in gilded chain.

Seskef.

Clearly dead and therefore no longer her problem.

Hervor might strike whoever it was down, but Starkad was a more immediate concern. He must be around here somewhere. Please, Odin, let him not be one of the many corpses. If aught had befallen him, she didn’t know what she’d do. She didn’t want to think of …

A groan came from several feet behind her.

She turned, hand on Tyrfing’s hilt, and stalked closer. There Starkad lay, propped up on one elbow, seeming at best half-conscious.

Praise Odin. He yet lived. If they got out of this, Hervor would sacrifice a goat to the Aesir, she swore it.

She knelt by Starkad’s side. “Can you stand? Are you hurt?”

He groaned, unclenched his hand, and then gasped.

Hervor caught his wrist and pulled his palm up to inspect it. It had been scorched, parts of the skin actually turned black and flaking off. “Odin’s balls … How did this happen?”

“Skofnung …”

“It’s still back in the altar, I just saw it.”

“Seskef had it. Different … different version, maybe?” He groaned and sat all the way up, looking at her. Whatever he was thinking, his face had become a mask.

She ran her tongue over her teeth, trying to work through all of this. She’d killed Ilona. Starkad had killed Seskef. So hadn’t they broken the curse now? Ilona had tied the altar to Skofnung. Everything came back to the runeblade. When Starkad had driven the blade into the altar, it had sent them both back here, to when this all started. So …

Hervor cleared her throat. “I think, if we remove the runeblade from the altar, maybe we can get back to where we were. I mean to our own time.”

Starkad grunted his assent, and she helped him stand. “I have to find my weapons. I need Vikar’s sword, at least.” He stumbled about in the mist, inspecting the bloody field, until finally he bent down to retrieve the blade.

A flake of snow fell upon Hervor’s armor. It melted almost at once, but she turned to look at the town. Hard to tell through the mist, but definitely a flurry, snowfall. Weren’t they in summer?

Frowning, Hervor trudged a little way from the path, over to the spring. Steam no longer rose from it. The hot spring had cooled.

A moment later Starkad put a hand on her shoulder. “We should go.”

“What does this mean?”

“It means we don’t belong here.”

She shot him a glare. Either he didn’t care about whatever had changed here or, more likely, he was refusing to let her in on his thoughts. Bastard was always like that. Could he not just trust her?

Perhaps not, because he started back toward the tunnel on his own.

Grumbling under her breath, Hervor followed. After all they’d been through, still this distance from him. Still he could not open himself up to her.

Stupid son of a godsdamned troll couldn’t see what was right in front of him. Shit, maybe they’d have never even lain together if she hadn’t browbeaten him into it. Oh, he’d no doubt lusted after her before that. Had to have. Man had stones and a cock and two good eyes. Had to feel the urge like anyone else.

But he hadn’t done shit about it until she’d forced him to.

So if she was waiting for him to break down and recite skaldic poetry and profess his … what? His fucking love for her? Love was for maids in skalds’ tales around the fire. Hervor was a shieldmaiden, a warrior. She knew lust well enough.

That was it. That was all she’d ever had room for in her life.

You got the need, you could always find a man willing to help with it.

So why in the gates of Hel did she feel like Starkad should be more than that? Why would she even think he could be more than a walking cock when the need arose?

“Bastard,” she mumbled at his back.

He stiffened, like he might have heard her. Maybe he’d just heard her say something but couldn’t make it out. Either way, he just kept walking, right up to the obsidian altar. He paused, glancing at Ilona’s corpse behind it, then nodded grimly.

Hervor joined him. There the runeblade rested, stuck in the altar, runes reflecting the dying light from her torch. “So you drove the thing in, best you take it out.”

He grunted, then wrapped both hands around the hilt. Then he heaved upward, groaning with the strain of it. Skofnung edged its way free, a hair a time. The screech of metal on stone echoed through the tunnel. Then all at once it broke free.

The air about them shimmered again.

She hated this part.

The pressure built inside her head. It burst like a bubble and sent her sprawling end over end, unable to see or hear even when she finally came to a rest on her back.

* * *

Slowly, her vision cleared. The ringing in her ears abated.

The tunnel was dark, the only light coming from the torch she had dropped. Starkad was pushing himself up from the ground, now looking about the lava tube as if in confusion.

Hervor groaned, rose, and stumbled a few steps toward Starkad. Were they back?

The torch sconces were empty, the torches in them long since turned to dust. Ancient bones lay behind the altar now. Crumbling and dusty. Ilona’s corpse … but that had always been there.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. A faint breeze tickled past her.

She turned about.

Ilona drifted out of the shadows, instantly nigh to her. The witch’s face was a mask of rage, eyes gleaming like fire. Hervor fell back a step, but only one, before the ghost’s hand wrapped around her throat.

The hand felt all too solid. Its grasp cut off Hervor’s air and stole her strength, at once burning and freezing her flesh. She flailed helplessly at the ghost’s grip, but seemed unable to gain purchase on Ilona’s hand.

Hervor slipped to her knees, desperate to suck down any amount of air but finding none.

The sheer hatred in Ilona’s eyes was almost beyond Hervor’s ability to fathom. Of course … Because Hervor had murdered Ilona long centuries before. And the ghost had been waiting for revenge for eight hundred years.

Her vision began to dim at the edges.

Starkad’s roar sounded far away, as if from a dream. Skofnung’s blade cut straight through Ilona’s ethereal form, and the ghost vanished in a puff of wind.

Hervor pitched over sideways, clutching her bruised throat and gulping down painful breaths. Each precious lungful of air scorched her throat, but still she couldn’t get enough of it.

Air.

Air!

She didn’t even try to rise. Could barely form a thought.

“We failed,” Starkad said, though Hervor wasn’t even looking at him. “Everything we did … and the ghosts are still here.”

Because … they had created the ghosts. Now. Now, they had. But where had they come from in the first place?

Hervor’s mind was so muddled. So damned hard to think.

And then the pressure began to build behind her eyes. The heat in her chest.

It was happening again.

A flame surged through her, taunting her with its tormented visions.

34

It wasn’t really her voice, though her mouth said the words.

Ilona turned—or felt her body turn—away from the obsidian altar and back to Seskef, who stepped forward to inspect it. The craftsmen had worked the stone, but she’d trusted no one else to carve the runes. No, those had to be precise, perfect, in every way. A single misstep in her plans could result in disaster. After all, the fabric of reality was tenuous, and not even an old vaettr could fully predict the ramifications of unleashing its power without the proper constraints in place.

And Ilona intended to call upon a great many vaettir to perform this feat. She would need to pierce the Veil deeply and pull forth a vast number of Fire vaettir out of Muspelheim. And then …

Seskef knelt beside the altar, running his fingers over the runes. Slowly, he rose, shaking his head. “I cannot do it. Not him.”

Oh, he was so very close. He stood upon the precipice and gazed down into the inferno that raged below. He had but to take one step more and that conflagration would claim him, body and soul. And they would all be freed.

Ilona ran her fingers over the back of his neck. “Would not any warrior among you willingly—nay, eagerly—go to his death in battle against your foes? Would not you or Bedwigius lay down your lives for victory?”

“This is different, this …”

“He would not be the first man sacrificed to cruel and capricious gods in this war. Such is the demand of the greater powers we must invoke if we wish to claim victory. The flames must have fuel on which to feed.”

“He’s my son!”

“And if he is brave, he would willingly offer his life. If he is a coward, afraid to die for our cause …”

Seskef shuddered. “If he is a coward, he is not truly my son. Hmmm.” He cast a heavy glare her way. “Damn you, witch.”

Oh. She was far more than any witch now. Whatever Ilona may have been, Scyld was much greater. She was the incarnation of flame, lighting the darkness and burning away all creation until naught but ash remained. The inevitable end of all life.

And it would begin by burning away the Niflungar and all the other enemies Prince Seskef might choose to turn on.

“Damn you. Bring him.”

“Good … Now I shall deliver vengeance for all you have lost.” She chuckled, the sound bubbling up from some dark recess Ilona could not begin to look into. That was not her voice. It was not her laughter.

* * *

The boy screamed for his father, wailed for Seskef as the men bound him in iron chains. In his own room, no less. The part of her that was still Ilona looked on, grimacing. Bedwigius was frightened and, knowing what the vaettr inside her planned, she did not blame him.

He should be scared.

His suffering would reach beyond the bounds of death and immolate his soul, just to feed the flames.

But it was necessary. Even could she have stopped it, Ilona wouldn’t have. She had promised Seskef his vengeance, and this alone was the way to deliver it. The boy had the blood of Halfdan the Old, ancient, powerful blood. Besides, if the prince wished to reap the powers of the World of Fire, he must be the one to pay the greatest price.

There was an order, even in the primal chaos of the inferno.

“Bring him to the altar and bind him there.”

Grim-faced, the two men exchanged glances with one another. No, they did not savor such a task. Scyld let the fire dance behind her eyes, matching their dark their looks with one yet darker. With the promise of the eternal flame behind it.

Both men quickly lowered their gazes and ushered Bedwigius forward.

“Father!” Bediwgius wailed as they dragged him through the great hall.

Ilona followed and found Seskef resting upon his throne, head in his hand and refusing to look on as the warriors half-carried his son from the room.

She drifted to the prince’s side and rested a hand upon the crown of his head. “Keep the faith. Feed the flames, and they shall feed your vengeance.”

The dour look he shot her made Ilona recoil, though her body moved not a muscle. Scyld cared naught for the petty wrath of a mortal. Human anger was a flickering candle compared to the fiery maelstrom in which Scyld had passed the ages. Her anger would incinerate cities, burn out whole kingdoms. Consume the very world.

“It will soon be time. Wait for the appointed hour, then come, and bring whichever warriors you have chosen to usher in this new age of flame. You and they shall become like gods among men.” Ilona hesitated a bare moment. “Such a transformation must necessarily include pain.”

“Pain of the body does not concern me.”

Ilona wanted to say more. To warn him that not only his body but his very soul would feel the lick of flames. Scyld refused to open her mouth. He would understand soon enough.

After gathering a few supplies, Ilona walked the path down to the lava tube. Very soon, Seskef would follow, his warriors ready to receive their gift. Before they arrived, she needed to have the ritual well underway. Such a casting exceeded the power of most any mortal sorceress, but Scyld had almost total control of her host now. She allowed Ilona a measure of freedom only because the sorceress cooperated and might lend her meager strength to Scyld’s own. In such an endeavor, she could use every bit of power available.

Once the flames took Bedwigius, once his body and soul began to burn, it ought to grant her enough power to pull her brethren through the Veil. They had waited long for the chance to scorch this world. Ages upon ages, waiting for a mortal willing to go so far, to risk so very much for power.

She followed the lava tube into the tunnel.

The two warriors had already bound Bedwigius to the altar, and he had given over his struggles, instead staring defiantly at her. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the redness around his eyes and the streaks tears had left on his cheeks. Just a boy. But then … all mortals were like children, weren’t they?

But … what in the eternal flame? Skofnung already stuck out of the altar. She had expected Seskef to drive it in during the ritual. Had he misunderstood? And had he not had the blade with him when she had just seen him? She tried to think back, but her mind had been elsewhere at the time. Maybe she was just used to seeing him with the runeblade and had not noticed.

“Where did that come from?”

One the warriors shook his head. “Was already here when we came in.”

Ilona murmured. It wasn’t like to cause any problem … She supposed it could be there from the beginning. What mattered was connecting the sword to the altar. She had carved the runes into the obsidian specifically to siphon power from the souls bound within that blade.

Everything had to align perfectly, but connecting the two during the ritual had been as much about showmanship as aught else. She could always use another blade to actually kill Bedwigius.

“So be it. Go from here. You do not wish to remain once I begin.”

They needed no second invitation to flee.

When they had gone, Ilona went to a bladder filled with blood she’d left resting against the wall. She’d had to drain two men already to get so much. Most of the runes she’d already painted, but there remain a few final touches to complete.

First … She dipped her fingers in the blood and walked back to where Bedwigius lay bound on the obsidian.

“I’m going to fucking kill you, bitch! Should have been you we fed to Gothmundr, instead of Felman. You should’ve died.”

Scyld felt the corner of her mouth twist into a smirk. She leaned close to his face. “Do you know … Ilona killed your mother, boy?”

His face went slack with shock for a bare instant. Then he lunged at her, screaming with rage.

With one hand, Scyld pressed on his chest and pushed him back down onto the altar. Then she began tracing runes along his forehead, his cheeks, and his chest. “You may take comfort in the knowledge that Ilona too suffers, denied sovereignty of her own body.”

The boy howled in impotent rage, gnashed his teeth, actually seemed intent to bite her.

Scyld chuckled.

Then she began her incantation. The Supernal words echoed in her mind, reverberating against the walls of reality even as they began to reshape it. In mere moments, she felt them. Others, vaettir, pressing against the Veil. Drawn by her words, watching the Mortal Realm, as they did when the mood took them.

Always, it lay just beyond reach.

Save for times like this, when a mortal sorcerer or sorceress chose to open the way.

The power surged through her as she chanted, rising up like embers rekindled, flaring to life once again. It burned her with glorious flames from within.

Ilona writhed and gasped somewhere inside, overcome by pain and ecstasy.

On and on Scyld chanted, twinning her voice and power and soul with Ilona’s. She could not do this alone, after all.

Across the Veil, the gathered vaettir reached a fever pitch, swirling and bubbling, ready to burst forth. Ilona slipped a bone knife from a sheath at her belt, slowly drawing up beside Bedwigius.

Almost.

Almost …

A shadow fell across her from the entrance to the tunnel. A presence that did not belong drew close to the circle. Ilona spun back to see a woman, the shieldmaiden from before, still bearing Tyrfing. Scyld took a step back. Naught could be allowed to disrupt the ritual.

Not now. Not even she could predict what might happen if she were interrupted. The fabric of reality had already become porous. If she didn’t control it …

The bitch was looking at her sacrifice.

No. “Stay away from him!”

Interrupting the chant to speak carried risk, but if the woman stopped the sacrifice, they were all doomed to the chaos that would soon consume them.

But that woman just roared and charged at the altar.

The shieldmaiden had no idea what she was about to unleash.

35

Hervor pushed herself up off the freezing tube floor.

Immediately, Starkad’s roar of pain hit her, and she stumbled to her feet.

Prince Seskef—the wraith—had clipped Starkad with that blade of fire, sending the man stumbling away. Before Hervor could even react, the wraith dashed forward with inhuman speed. Starkad flung himself to the floor.

The incandescent blade shrieked as it struck the tunnel wall. The tube melted where the blade struck, not so much as slowing the weapon’s passage. Starkad scrambled away, brought Skofnung up to bear, and spun around to face the wraith again.

Already Seskef dashed at him once more. This time, Starkad parried on Skofnung, bellowing as he did so. Sparks leapt off the wraith’s flaming blade, singeing Starkad’s face and arms, drawing a fresh gasp from him.

Hervor lurched toward them, but she was unsteady on her feet. They had never broken the curse. These ghosts were all still here, all trying to kill them, probably still caught in the loop.

But they had stopped Ilona’s ritual. She had saved the sacrifice, saved Bedwigius. Why? What had gone wrong?

She jerked Tyrfing free of its sheath. Unsteady or not, she had to help Starkad. Her friend fell back against the relentless assault of the flame wraith. The prince shrieked and bellowed its unearthly cry. Its brand was carving up the tube in trails of molten rock. A single swipe of that would cut clean through Starkad.

And the man was slowing, exhausted before this even began.

Seskef focused almost all his attention on Starkad. Hervor stumbled toward the pair.

Ilona’s ghost stepped from the darkness once more, before Hervor could reach her friend. The ghost pointed a gaunt finger at Hervor, her face locked in silent accusation. Hervor had murdered her.

Starkad had murdered Seskef.

They had interrupted the ritual.

The ritual …

Ilona had intended to bind Fire vaettir to Seskef and his warriors, make them immortal. She’d called up the vaettir … but had no sacrifice. Died herself before completing the ritual.

The ghost drifted in on Hervor.

They could not die now. No matter how many times Hervor banished them with Tyrfing, the ghosts returned. Trapped in their time loop … But the ritual failed. It was never intended to create a time loop.

Hervor had interrupted it. And left reality broken, as Ilona had feared.

“Odin’s godsdamned balls!” she shouted at Ilona.

They had … always interrupted the ritual. Ilona had no sacrifice, the power she called upon went wild. Cursed herself and her people into the time loop. Hervor had caused all this in the first place … Except … that didn’t make any fucking sense. How did it start? Why was the ritual interrupted before she had even come here?

Shit. Her head was starting to pound.

Ilona lunged at her, perhaps intent to choke the life from her again. Hervor snarled and whipped Tyrfing up, cut through the ghost, and turned it to vapor once again.

She’d always stopped the sacrifice … and Starkad had met Scyld—Bedwigius—at the halls of Godmund. And he’d come here … The Fire vaettir had not gotten their sacrifice.

Starkad gasped, leapt over that flaming brand, and hit the wall with his shoulder. He scrambled to evade the flame wraith’s blade again. Seskef would kill him, very soon.

They were like goats to the slaughter.

Sacrifices …

Well, she wasn’t about to let them become the sacrifices. Oh. And who better to pay the Fire vaettir’s price? The very witch who’d started all this, who’d called upon the dark powers. Hervor dashed around the obsidian altar, dropped to one knee beside the skeleton there.

“I know whose bones you are.” She grabbed the dusty, rotten things and dropped them on the altar.

Starkad cried out again, and fresh flames scorched him.

Flames.

Fire vaettir.

“Starkad!” Hervor shrieked. “Lure him here!” She stepped forward, in front of the altar, Tyrfing up to bear. “Join me! Trust me!”

Gasping, Starkad scrambled along the floor to her side. He’d dropped both his swords in the chaos, but he didn’t pause to grab either. “G-give me Tyrfing …”

She ignored that. “Get ready. One more—”

Ilona appeared again, face a mask of rage as she closed in.

The flame wraith streaked toward them so fast his form seemed a blur. His glowing brand trailed behind him, showering sparks in its wake.

Hervor waited a bare instant and then shoved Starkad to one side, pushing off him to throw herself in the opposite direction. She hit the floor even as Seskef swept that massive brand down on the spot they had occupied.

His smoldering weapon struck the bones and ignited them, sheared through the altar, and carved out a chunk of the floor.

Ilona’s ghost burst into flames, her wail echoing through the tunnel. Seskef faltered. His flaming brand crumbled into ashes and blew away as if a breeze swept through the tube.

The bones ought to have made a tiny fire, but the flames rose higher and higher, becoming a bonfire so bright Hervor had to look away. Other wails joined Ilona’s, all the ghosts shrieking in Otherworldly torment.

Hervor scrambled away from the ever-growing flame where the altar had once stood. The blaze separated her from Starkad. Was he hurt? Had he made it?

There. He was crawling along the floor, making his way back to Skofnung.

All at once, the bonfire dwindled down to embers, leaving them in nigh to total darkness once again.

No flaming wraith. No sign of Ilona. Even their torch was out.

“Starkad?” Her voice almost broke. She sounded like some pathetic wretch. Under the circumstances, he probably wouldn’t even notice.

“I live.”

So … she had done it. She had broken the curse by sacrificing Ilona to her own godsdamned ritual. The ground beneath Hervor felt warm. Given the recent blaze, she hadn’t noticed it at first. But this was … heat. Like she’d felt here in the past.

A torch crackled to life down the tunnel, and she looked up sharply. That wasn’t Starkad holding it.

Starkad rose then, blade in hand. “Scyld.”

The burned man held a torch in one hand, his eyes smoldering with flames within. His smirk was … twisted. Something vile lurked behind those eyes, she knew it did. And with Ilona’s memories, Hervor could too easily guess what.

“Bedwigius,” she said, rising, Tyrfing still in hand.

The man chuckled. “Oh … A dead name for a dead man. Scyld will do.”

Hervor drew up beside Starkad, who glanced back and forth between her and the man before them. “I killed Ilona.”

“A rather long time ago, yes. And I came to the boy, back then. But a part of me was trapped in the same warped agony as these wretched souls. It left me fractured, unable to take full control of the host. And so she had to die again …”

“Host?” Starkad said. “You’ve possessed the boy.”

Scyld chuckled, the sound thick and unsettling. “Not the brightest ember, you, but you get there eventually. He fought me, over the years, the boy, his own mind failing him, but still not ready to surrender. So I needed one who would break the curse and end the cycle, free the better part of myself. And in the end, the witch got all she desired.” He spread his hands as if to indicate himself.

Hervor found it hard to swallow. “An immortal warrior possessed by a Fire vaettr. Not quite how she imagined it.”

“Mortal minds are petty, weak things.”

“Immortal?” Starkad asked. “We’ll see.” He advanced, Skofnung out before him.

“Wait,” Hervor said, or tried—Starkad lunged forward.

Scyld moved faster. Maybe it was Starkad’s fatigue. Maybe the Fire vaettr was just that damned fast. Either way, he caught Starkad’s wrist and twisted, sending Starkad stumbling to his knees. Scyld placed a hand on Starkad’s chest and pushed. The force of it lifted Hervor’s friend off the ground and hurtled him through the air.

Starkad flew several feet before slamming back down to the ground.

Odin’s balls.

Hervor snarled at Scyld, who raised a warning finger. Given what she’d just seen, he’d easily do the same to her. She’d be a fool to try it.

She tried it anyway.

Hervor launched herself forward, whipping Tyrfing in an upward arc that ought to have split Scyld from hip to shoulder. He danced out of the way so fast she barely saw the move. Then he was behind her, a hand on each of her shoulders.

He pushed down with such force she collapsed, slamming her knees into the rock. A jolt of pain shot through her legs at the impact. Blew out all other thought.

Scyld was behind her, hands still on her shoulders. He leaned in close to her ear. His breath was so hot it felt like it scorched her face. “In the end, you have done me a favor, and thus I return it … and spare what is left of your pathetic lives. Perhaps you may yet live long enough to see the end.”

She couldn’t swallow. His fingers were hot irons, boring into her shoulders. Locking her in place more effectively than any manacle. “The end … of what?”

“Man.”

He released her and backed away, then slipped out into the night.

She gasped at the pain in her arms. Only a moment, though. She scrambled over to where Starkad had fallen. He struggled to sit up, rubbing his wrist.

Hervor took his hand in her own, massaging it. “What in the gates of Hel just happened?”

“I think we … just freed something we ought not to have.”

“Freed what? Have you seen aught like that before?”

Starkad shifted to look into her eyes, his face drawn tight, though not, it seemed, only from pain. “Once. A long time ago, I fought with … I was with Vallanders fighting against the Serklanders. We came upon such a warrior, and he tore through our ranks like a killing wind. Stronger, faster than … any mortal.”

“How did you live through that?”

Starkad opened his mouth, then snapped it shut and shook his head.

No. No, not this time. Not after everything they’d been through. “Tell me. Please.”

“Tyr.”

Hervor sputtered. “T-the god of war? You know the Ás god of war?”

Starkad chuckled, then snorted. “I have met him.”

“Is … is it true he trained you?”

He hesitated again, clenched his jaw. Hervor reached out and placed both her hands along the sides of his cheeks.

Finally, Starkad nodded.

Odin’s balls. Oh. Damn. “Have you met Odin as well?”

Again the hesitation. The too-obvious desire to clamp his mouth shut, to say naught at all. “Yes.”

Ten thousand questions surged through her mind. But maybe she had pushed him far enough this day. Maybe it was enough, for now. Besides, they had lingered in this valley too long already. “Shall we go?”

Starkad rose, pulling her to her feet as well. “First, let us see if aught of value remains here. Treasures of the Old Kingdoms might go a long way back home.”

She smiled at that.

36

Rather than pass through Skane, Ecgtheow had take a boat from the western shores of Ostergotland to the island of Sjaelland, where Hrothgar’s court lay. On the cusp of winter, the storms had already begun, and the passage proved a rough one. More so for the churning in Ecgtheow’s gut than the churning in the sea.

Knowing he most like went to his own death didn’t make for pleasant travel, he supposed.

Such was urd.

Hrothgar had a hall so great he’d named the place, called it Heorot. Long and tall, and located not so very far from the northern fjords of Sjaelland, the hall could have comfortably feasted a small army of warriors. It was among the finest Ecgtheow had ever seen.

And why not? Hrothgar’s father Healfdene had managed to make himself king of almost all of Reidgotaland. With such a glorious domain, a king needed a glorious hall. It was only fitting.

Unlike in Helm’s lands, no one seemed to expect Ecgtheow’s coming here, nor know of him. A pair of Hrothgar’s men met him halfway up the path from the fjord to the hall, demanding to know his business.

“I’m Ecgtheow the Tiny, here from …” Well, he wasn’t really from the court of Hrethel anymore. Wasn’t really from much of anywhere, he supposed. “Here from Ostergotland to see the king and queen on an urgent matter.”

One of the men shrugged at the other, then beckoned him to follow. They led him the rest of the way to Heorot, Ecgtheow’s stomach lurching with every step. Best not to think overmuch on what tortures Wealthow might dream up for him. He’d face it all if it meant sparing Ylva and his child. Face it with as much courage as he could muster and maybe, just maybe, he’d get to see Valhalla.

Great oaken double doors to the hall already lay thrown wide and welcoming, and his escort guided him inside the smoky hall. They passed a good many long tables lined with benches, most empty at this hour in the mid-afternoon. A dozen braziers kept the hall warm, even given the brisk wind outside. Mighty latticed windows sat in the upper reaches near the rafters, letting out a good portion of the smoke, letting in a crisscross of sunbeams too.

A king could be proud of such a place, no mistake. Ecgtheow would never see finer, he supposed.

The king and his queen both reclined in their thrones, waiting, as his escort announced him. Everyone at ease, welcoming a guest. Shame how fast that was like to change when he explained the reason for his visit. Great shame.

Hrothgar favored him with a slight smile and beckoned him forward. When Ecgtheow had come closer, the king nodded. “So then, tell us news of Ostergotland. Rumors fly that the peace has broken once again.”

Thanks to Ecgtheow, in no small measure. “It has, my king. I … uh … Well, your majesty …”

Yes, Ecgtheow was troll shit. That’s just what he was. Come all this way to confess his crime and try to make peace, and now he was hesitating. Well then. Best be to it before he embarrassed himself any further.

“There is a long tale of what’s happened, painful to tell, but I have no choice, really. You see, Jarl Bjalmar betrayed the peace, and so we razed his lands and took him prisoner.”

Hrothgar leaned back in his throne. “Reasonable response. But tale of that has already reached these isles.”

“Well, yes. And then, you see, Helm Wulfingson sent his nephew, one … Headolaf.”

The queen smiled at the mention of her nephew. She looked vital still, vibrant, though she must have seen a good many winters already.

Once, Ecgtheow’s father had told him the only thing worse than doing a crime is trying to hide it. A proper man admits to his failings and takes his punishment openly before men and gods. That’s what his father said, and Ecgtheow supposed it must be true.

“Headolaf … A fit of rage took me, I cannot say quite why. But I murdered him in Hrethel’s very hall, without any kind of permission from the king.”

The queen gasped and the king scowled, all hint of friendliness banished in an instant.

Best if he just plowed ahead and got the full story out before someone came along and slapped more manacles on him. “So I came to Helm to offer weregild. He set a price he knew I couldn’t pay and bade me—if I wanted peace, that is—bade me come here and confess to you and the queen. Helm said I was to press your majesties for peace, and if I could convince you …”

“Enough!” the queen snapped. She leaned forward so far in her throne Ecgtheow thought her like to leap up and strangle him herself. That’d be a fitting end to him, he supposed. Throttled by a woman, and him probably unwilling to defend himself. “You …” She sneered, then hissed like a damn serpent. Pretty much the response he expected.

Hrothgar patted her hand, but she snatched it away. The king looked at Ecgtheow. “I admire your bravery coming to these shores with such a message.”

“Bravery!” Wealthow spat. “Bravery! It is brazenness! It is unendurable gall! He mocks us in our own hall! My brother has sent him here that we might show him proper recompense for his crimes.” She hissed again. “Hang him from an old oak. No! No, gut him and leave him alive for ravens to feast on his intestines!”

Ecgtheow flinched at that image. Not much left to say in his defense, he supposed. “If that is truly your wish, I submit to your judgment.”

Wealthow growled unintelligibly, then shook her head. “What is that punishment in skalds’ tales? The bird … the blood eagle!”

“No.” Hrothgar spoke the word quietly, but with the utter firmness of a king broking no disagreement.

“No? No? He slew my sister’s son. He admits the crime!”

Hrothgar nodded, not taking his eyes of Ecgtheow. “He did admit the crime. A criminal would have fled. But this man came first to the lord of the man he slew, then walked, without hesitation, into the hall of kin to the slain, all to try to make recompense.”

Without hesitation was a stretch. Ecgtheow had considered turning back about a score of times. Shit, a score of times today alone. He could have fled anywhere and been unknown. Become a raider or pirate here in Reidgotaland. Gone further, to Hunaland, and found work as a mercenary. But then the war would go on … and Ylva and their child might damn well pay for his crimes.

Not even a pile of troll shit could allow that to happen. Just couldn’t be, no matter his own fears.

“So you will allow him to escape punishment?” the queen demanded.

“I daresay coming here is the bravest thing I have ever seen.”

She scoffed. “I loved Headolaf as though he were my own son. You would have me shelter his murderer?”

“I would have you send to your brother and urge him to end the feud, and with it the war. Before you lose any more members of your family. I, myself, shall pay whatever weregild Helm demands for Headolaf’s murder.”

Ecgtheow’s heart caught in his throat. To hear such words spoken on his behalf left him woozy. Like stumbling through some mead-induced dream. What sort of king was so generous with his wealth? A great man, for certain. Ecgtheow swallowed, trying to find words to express his gratitude, but none came. All he could do was toss Hrothgar’s own words around in his head.

Was it possible he might yet live through this? Was there a chance?

Queen Wealthow seemed less certain, her face a mask, her posture stiff as she looked from Ecgtheow to her husband and back. “Far be it for me to speak out against my husband’s will in his own kingdom.”

“Then it is settled,” Hrothgar said, and slapped his armrests. “I will not see a man of such courage meet an unworthy end. A warrior like this must die on the battlefield.”

Hel’s icy crotch. Had that just happened? Had the king truly spared him? “I … uh … My king. I pledge my eternal friendship to you for this. My line shall forever be indebted to yours. If ever you need aught, but send the word and I shall come. I … I shall come.”

Hrothgar chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, I would expect no less. So, wife, will you send to your brother my offer and request to end the war?”

The queen sat very still, gaze locked dead ahead, seeming not to even see Ecgtheow anymore. “I will.” Barely a whisper.

Oh, Ecgtheow was not like to earn her forgiveness.

One unexpected and favorable twist of urd was already more than he could have dreamed of.

“So,” the king said. “Ecgtheow the Tiny. You will stay in my hall for the winter, until such time as word comes back from Helm. If all goes well, perhaps you may return to Sviarland in summer.”

That would mean missing the birth of his child. Ecgtheow frowned, or started to, and caught himself. He was in no position to refuse Hrothgar aught the king requested. Shit, if Hrothgar asked him to go conquer another kingdom for him, and to do so while blindfolded, Ecgtheow would be obliged to try.

So he just nodded.

Hrothgar had his men take Ecgtheow to a small house in the town, half a mile or so from Heorot, closer to the fjord. They left him there. No guards. ’Course, he imagined the men would spread word about his presence in the town. Plenty of warriors would be keeping their eyes on him, he supposed. Only fitting.

And here he was, stuck in Reidgotaland through the winter. Unable to see through a war he had practically started all by himself. Unable to do aught save sit here and wait, pray Helm accepted Hrothgar’s offer. And if he did, Ecgtheow would spend the rest of his life trying to pay back the Reidgotalander king.

Pride and a lust for glory.

Look what they had wrought.

Had Ecgtheow just stayed a thegn to Gylfi, maybe none of this would’ve happened.

Or, Hel, maybe it would have. Hrethel would’ve still wanted the throne of Ostergotland. Bjalmar would’ve still betrayed them. Not that it made one bit of sense. Why would the jarl attack a foe with many times his strength, especially after his own allies had made peace? Why would he?

Troll shit was what it was. All troll shit.

Ecgtheow settled down on the floor of that house and stared out the doorway at the small town, watched the fjords.

Huh.

Orvar-Oddr had disappeared right about the time Ecgtheow was banished. But that draug, he wanted vengeance on Hervor. Wanted it bad. Revenge, it was all that drove draugar. So maybe he’d have still set upon Hervor’s grandfather, regardless of if Ecgtheow had been there. Maybe he would have …

Maybe …

Oh. “Fuck.”

Maybe he’d have even started a war. Tricked Bjalmar into attacking? The draug did vanish for fortnights at a time, or longer. Or maybe … maybe just even made it look like Bjalmar had been the one to attack.

Gunther had called Ecgtheow and his men faithless. Had acted like they had been the ones to break the peace.

“Fuck!”

A few townsfolk looked in on his house at his outburst.

“Troll shit!” Ecgtheow climbed to his feet and stumbled out to the fjord. “Fucking troll shitter, Orvar! You bastard!” He roared out over the water.

Not that the draug would ever hear it.

He’d played him. Maybe somehow even engendered that rage, worked Ecgtheow up to those murders. The draug wanted vengeance on Hervor, and he’d do aught imaginable to get it.

And now Bjalmar was in chains, Hervor’s homeland was razed to the ground, her friends dead. And Odin alone knew what Orvar might do to get further revenge.

Worst of it was, Hervor had murdered him, betrayed him. And she probably deserved what was coming to her.

37

It was a long road back to Godmund’s hall. Harder now as winter set in. Jotunheim grew even colder, if that was possible. The snowstorms became blinding incarnations of fury that could have buried them alive if Starkad did not always seem to somehow locate a cave or other shelter. And when those storms passed, they oft had to spend an hour or more digging themselves out.

Hervor did not press him then to know how he always knew which way to go, or where to shelter when the storms drew nigh, or where to hunt for game. She did not press on that, but she did force him to keep talking. Every night. Because she knew him now, and knew, too, that if they were to move forward in any direction, she’d have to be the one to take them there.

And at night they’d talk long. Sometimes, she could get him to reveal just a little bit about himself. Most nights—if she thought she had little risk of getting with child—she’d come to him and insist they lay together. He never refused.

And slowly, they made their way back to the jotunn king’s hall.

Starkad offered the jotunn the better part of the hoard he’d claimed from the valley as weregild for the man Hervor had slain, as well as in exchange for shelter through the winter.

Thus Godmund gave each of them a room in his mighty hall, and they passed their days. Hervor no longer bothered to disguise herself as Hervard—everyone knew now anyway. Most treated her with respect regardless. Especially Höfund, who oft asked her for tales of her home, of her adventures at sea, of her life.

Sadly, most of those tales involved Hervor robbing and murdering people. She’d spent so much of her life doing it … and what had she to show for it? Dead friends and not much else. Except maybe for Starkad.

He lay beside her now, naked and breathing heavily. Not surprising, given the fervor with which they’d just had each other.

Hervor traced her fingers along his abdomen. A mass of scars covered almost every spot on his body. So many battles. So many wounds.

She sniffed. Like herself? She bore fewer scars, but she had her share of them. She glanced at her right clavicle. Couldn’t get a good look at it without a mirror, but enough to see where the old wound marred her. Always would.

“It’s not so bad,” he said.

Hervor snorted. Of course he’d known what she was thinking. “Höfund asked me to lay with him this morning.”

He grunted. “Did you?”

“Of course not! I told him I was with you.”

“I lay no claim on you, Hervor. You are free to do as you wish.”

Oh really? She turned over, grabbed his stones, and squeezed until he drew in a sharp breath.

“Not going to … get much more out of those … right now.”

“Maybe I want you to lay claim to me.”

Starkad worked his jaw, fighting with something inside himself. Hervor tightened her grip just a tiny bit. He yelped.

She eased off the pressure, then straddled him, massaging his chest more gently. “Would that be so terrible?”

“I am not …”

“What?” she demanded. “Am I not desirable enough? Not ladylike enough?”

“It has naught to do with you.”

She rolled her eyes. She was going to strangle this oaf. “That’s what a woman wants to hear. Thank you, Starkad.”

He groaned, shook his head. “I mean to say … I am not good for what you want. I cannot remain in one place long and those close to me … they suffer. They die.”

“Then we are not so different.”

“I have done so many … crimes. So much blood.”

And there it was. Because she had as well. She had told him a little of her days with Red-Eyes’ Boys. Told him of her piracy, raiding, murders. All save one.

Orvar-Oddr. The Arrow’s Point.

Starkad’s friend, whom she had betrayed and murdered.

And now, like this, she could tell him. Let him know everything and make a true choice … to stay, or to walk away from her. She opened her mouth. Tried, really. Until she gagged on words that would not come.

“What is it?”

“I … I …”

“Hervor?”

“I killed …”

“Who?”

“Many people. So many, myself.” Damn it. Just let her tell him. Let the words come out. “We are not so different, you and I.”

He was shaking his head again. “I bear a curse that will not be broken. A wanderlust that drives me to the ends of Midgard and beyond.”

“Then I will wander with you!”

“That is no life for a jarl’s heir, nor one I would wish upon a woman I …”

“What? A woman you what?”

He shook his head.

She leaned in close to his face. “Love? A woman you … love?” Could that be what he wanted to say? Was that possible for them? To move past all the unspoken words, the half-truths, and find some kind of warmth in the end?

“I am not free to love.”

Now she groaned and rolled off him. Fuck him. “You know what—whatever you told me about this Ogn, she was an unworthy bitch. And she’s fucking dead! She ought to have no more hold on you. I am alive. I am right here! Or maybe one day you want to be sitting and moaning about how your curse cost you me as well?”

He recoiled. Sat up and pulled away to sit against the wall.

So that was it? Hervor grimaced. “Maybe I’d be better with Höfund, then.”

“He is a king’s son …”

“You are unbelievable, you know that?”

“Do you fancy Höfund?”

She sneered. Odin’s balls, Starkad could be so dense, so damned difficult sometimes. “He’s a damn fine man. Large all around, so I imagine he’d get the job done. Shit, he even suggested that, if I felt tied to you, perhaps all three of us might lay together.”

“And would you want that?”

Hervor snorted, trying to not to look like she’d considered it. Like the idea of fucking the both of them didn’t make her hot.

“You do want it.”

“So maybe I fucking do. What of it?”

“Naught. If you want it, let us do it.”

Oh. Really? Well, just imagining that … No. No, damn it, focus. That was for later.

She lunged at him, wrapped her fingers in his long hair. “You cannot get out of this so easily, Starkad. I am telling you. Clear as the dawn, I want us to be together.”

“You ask … for marriage? I am not fit to be husband to any woman.”

“What do I care about marriage? All I want is your oath that you will stay by my side. That if you feel you must wander, you will do so with me. If you cannot linger somewhere, we shall leave together. And for that, maybe I don’t need Grandfather’s lands or titles. Maybe I just need to get something out of life.”

Starkad worked his jaw, then lurched forward and kissed her. So hard he bore her down. Kissed her until they both broke away panting.

“I …” he finally sputtered. “I cannot give you children.”

“What?”

“Another effect of my curse.”

That was … horrifying. What a fell urd to cast upon a man. To know he was the end of his line? But … still. Her heart wanted what it wanted. “Then I guess I no longer need worry about skipping the nights I might get with child. Suppose that means I must put you to work every night from here on out.”

“You cannot truly choose this urd, Hervor. To bear no children, to never be able to hold wealth, to wander this world your whole life!”

She leaned forward, grabbed his hair again. “It is my choice, and I choose it. I choose it. I want your oath, Starkad. Fuck marriage, fuck convention. I care naught. But if you love me, I will have your oath.”

He hesitated a bare moment. His eyes were wide. His hot breath fell heavy upon her face. “I … I swear it. I swear to stay by your side, then. I give you my oath of love, Hervor. I swear it! I swear it!”

She pulled him close and he lunged onto her, kissing her again and again.

And she dared to hope that, given such an oath, it might be enough. Despite the lies and murders and secrets.

She dared to believe that their oaths would bind them.

Epilogue

“I have seen things … I did not expect.” Odin trudged over to where Loki sat, looking out over the Middle Sea.

“Such goes the Sight. What use for it if it but revealed what we already perceive with our own eyes?”

Odin grunted as he settled down on the beach. The sand was chilly and uncomfortable on his arse, but Loki hardly seemed to notice. “Starkad claimed another of the runeblades. In case the flames didn’t tell you that.”

“I have seen.” Loki turned to him now. “You take little care for the things your puppet brings back into this world.”

Odin frowned. “I care a great deal about the runeblades.”

“I do not speak of blades, as you well know.” He pointed out over the waters. “Beyond that sea lies Utgard, the vast world surrounding our own. And within it lie two realms you ought to concern yourself with. Jotunheim and Serkland.”

“I know them both. We aid the Vallanders in their wars against Serkland. No Serklander army will make it past them, and they dare not attempt the treacherous open sea. As for Jotunheim, I am attending to that problem as best I am able. It is not as if I can simply rebuild the Midgard Wall where it has begun to falter.”

“And would you, if you could? Would that not interfere with sending your pieces on forays into Utgard?”

Odin groaned. “You seem in a foul mood this day. And I have no inclination to be lectured.”

Loki sighed. “In any event, it was not Jotunheim I spoke of. You’re right … the Serklanders do not wish to cross open water if they can avoid it. Though I cannot say that will hold them back forever. And your emissary has granted them another boon, another ally, like them, possessed by a Fire vaettr.”

“They have many such sorcerers. It has not let them break through Valland as yet.”

“Scyld is old and powerful, an asset we have freely handed them. One I had dared to hope would remain lost for long years more. A mistake I made a long time ago … I should never …” He sighed again. “It matters naught now.”

“True.”

Loki looked up sharply at him. “True?”

“True. It matters naught. If the Serklanders have one more possessed flame-spewing ally, so be it. I have more pressing concerns. Would you have me contend against both fire and mist, brother? Fire is life. Is that not the idiom we live by?”

“It is life. But it can also be death, destruction without measure, without boundaries. To be a boon, it must be contained, not unleashed and let run wild.”

Odin clenched his fists at his side. Loki of all people ought to understand the pressures he faced. Finally, he shook his head. “Two runeblades yet remain unaccounted for. Tell my, brother, will you help me find them?”

“You already know that I will.”

Yes. He had known. “So then … It’s time to look into the flames once more.”

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Author’s Ramblings

This book served as a departure from the last in the sense that most of the action takes place away from the political landscape, with the except of the Ecgtheow chapters. Hervor has basically sated her lust for vengeance (and paid a price for doing so) and is now focused on more personal goals, like helping Starkad uphold the oath he made on her behalf. Because of this, it marks a change in her character, one that made this book particularly interesting to write.

Much like Days of Endless Night, we have our characters heading off into a faraway and perilous land filled with both natural and supernatural dangers. Consequently, this one feels a bit more similar in tone to book one than book two did. And while the entire series remains a sword & sorcery / horror tale, this one might not be quite as dark as the last.

In the Hervarar Saga we are told that after getting Tyrfing from her father’s burial mound, Hervor goes on various adventures before eventually coming to the court of King Godmund. There, while she is discussing a game with Godmund, another courtier tries to steal Tyrfing. She kills him for it, and Godmund warns his people not to seek vengeance.

Godmund is traditionally the king of Glaesisvellir, a location in Jotunheim (a kingdom in this case). His son, Höfund, also plays a role later in the story, while Godmund appears in several myths.

Obviously, in the Runeblade Saga, a whole bunch of shit happens between Hervor getting the sword and meeting Godmund. Most of these other stories were drawn from other sources, discussed previously. We’ll call all that her “various adventures.”

This volume allowed me to dive a bit deeper into the lore of the Old Kingdoms, a subject touched on in almost every story set in the Ragnarok Era, but rarely explained in depth. This is largely because most of those alive in the modern age have no access to reliable information about the time of the Old Kingdoms (they all collapsed eight hundred years before the current stories).

While Scyld, Bedwigius, and Seskef are all characters in Norse mythology, the specifics of their tale here are largely an original creation. Ilona is named after a Hungarian faerie queen loosely adapted for the Ragnarok Era. Choosing to incorporate her flashbacks (seen by Hervor) allowed me to create something a little different in this story than I done thus far, and proved very fun to write. I hope you all enjoyed the look into the past, as well.

Coming back around to Ecgtheow … As in the previous book, he receives a smaller section of the story than the other protagonists. Here, he serves as the lens through which we can see what’s going on back in Sviarland while Hervor and Starkad are away. Hervor has left for a prolonged period, allowing Arrow’s Point free reign to ruin her life while she’s away. And it might be tempting to think she’s getting what she deserves: she chose to pursue vengeance, and then chose to murder a man even after he tried to make amends and helped to save her life.

Most of the awful things that happen to her are thus a direct result of her own choices.

On the other hand, through the draug’s manipulations, Ecgtheow becomes a murderer and loses nearly all he has (to say nothing of everything Hervor’s family goes through). Anyone familiar with the original myths will probably recognize all this as a precursor to Beowulf, a story I hope I can eventually get around to incorporating. By the end of this book, Ecgtheow finds himself banished and desperate, turning to Hrothgar for salvation. Finally, he realizes what a bastard Orvar-Oddr has become, but it’s too late.

Which is to say, the Arrow’s Point is far from done with Hervor.

I want to offer a big thanks to Clark and Hanna for the development and editing of this story, and to my cover designer for another fantastic job.

Thank you for reading,

Matt

P.S. Reviews are super important, especially to small presses like mine. Without reviews, small presses cannot get ads. It takes only a single line or two to make that difference. So if you liked this, please leave a review where you bought it!

Want to talk about the book? I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at: matt@incandescentphoenix.com

Books by Matt Larkin

The Ragnarok Era

The Ragnarok Era is a dark fantasy retelling of Norse mythology, chronicling Odin’s rise to godhood. If you love old legends, tragic mythology, and action-packed reads, check out The Ragnarok Era now!

http://www.mattlarkinbooks.com/ragnarok/

Legends of the Ragnarok Era

Legends of the Ragnarok Era expands on the world developed in The Ragnarok Era series by delivering dark tales outside the main series narrative. Fans of mythology should not miss this epic series.

http://www.mattlarkinbooks.com/ragnaroklegend/

Runeblade Saga

The Runeblade Saga is a series of dark fantasy sword and sorcery adventures set in the world of The Ragnarok Era. Filled with plenty of grim action, tragic heroes, and more than a bit of horror, these books are for fans of mythology and sword & sorcery alike.

http://www.mattlarkinbooks.com/runeblade/

The Worldsea Era

The Worldsea Era is a series of historical fantasy tales set in a fictionalized Hawaii. In a world of endless ocean, mankind struggles to survive on a few islands, facing off against mer people, sentient octopuses, and all manner of sea creature.

http://www.mattlarkinbooks.com/worldsea/

Sins of Angels

Co-written with author J.S. Morin, Sins of Angels is an epic space opera series set 3000 years after the fall of Earth. With the scope of Dune and the adventurous spirit of Indiana Jones, it delivers a conflict that spans galaxies and rests on the spirit of brave researcher Professor Rachel Jordan. Follow the complete saga, and watch as the fate of our species hangs in the balance.

http://www.mattlarkinbooks.com/angels/