She broke off, her eyes straying to the girl at her side, and then out across the faces watching her. “Ivar told me to get back as he drew his sword. The screams grew louder. The workmen all stood at the edge of the pit with tools and ropes. Some wanted to go down to help their friends, and others wanted to run, but they stayed at the king’s side. They stayed, right up to the end. The beast came up from the tunnel, and, well, you’ve seen them. Fenrir is a reaver, like the others, only worse. He’s larger, and darker, and faster. He’s…”
Skadi swallowed and gripped the arms of her chair tightly. “Ivar ordered Leif to take me back to the city, and we fled. Over my shoulder I saw the demon tearing the men to pieces, scattering their limbs on the mountainside and spraying their blood into the air. I saw Ivar fall, and I saw the beast lift his broken body to feed on it.” She pressed her lips tightly together and stared down into one of the braziers.
“When we returned to the city, I called out the house carls to kill the beast,” Leif said. “We searched the mountain for hours, but found no trace of Fenrir, and no survivors either.”
“Yes, and a great pity that you didn’t stay to fight the beast when you had the chance,” Halfdan said. “Or Ysland would have surely been rid of its vermin that day.”
The black-haired youth and the bearded man exchanged vicious glares, but neither one moved or spoke.
The queen cleared her throat. “In the months that followed, we began to hear the stories of a creature attacking the farms in the north and the fishing villages along the coast. And soon it became clear that there was more than one reaver running loose. The plague had begun to spread. Almost every day we would hear of another village completely destroyed by the demons. So we built up our walls and sharpened our spears, and now we live at war with Fenrir and his beasts. Halfdan keeps our walls safe, and young Leif leads one of our war parties to patrol the hills. The reavers give us a wide berth now, and we have few attacks near the city. They seem to prefer easier kills.”
The queen fell silent for a moment, and then looked up abruptly at Wren. “You have Gudrun’s ring? The rinegold of Denveller?”
Freya stepped back so that Wren could stand before the queen between the braziers. The girl said, “Yes, I do. I’ve been learning to speak to Gudrun and the other dead valas of Denveller. It’s a very strange thing, seeing their faces and hearing their voices all the time, but I suppose I’ll get used to it eventually.” The girl paused to glance down at the ring on her finger, and then she looked up through her tangled, dirty hair. “Do you want the ring, my lady? Would it help you cure the plague?”
Skadi smiled as she gazed down at the slender girl, and for a moment Freya thought she might say yes, that she might take the ring. And she felt the sting of knowing that there was no such ring for the valas of Logarven, as there wasn’t for most of the small villages of Ysland. The rinegold was rare and precious, and greedily sought by both valas and thieves.
But instead the queen sighed and shook her head. “No, that ring is for you, for Denveller. I’m already wearing the ring of Hengavik, given to me by my second mistress, Sigrid. I don’t think I could manage two of them. But…” Her eyes widened. “…but there is another ring that might help us. The ring of Rekavik is very old, perhaps older than all the others in Ysland. And now we know that the den of Fenrir was just to east of Rekavik under Mount Esja.”
Wren stepped forward eagerly. “Then perhaps the vala of Rekavik, an ancient one, perhaps the first one, maybe she knew about the den! Maybe she was here when the Allfather sealed Fenrir under the mountain!”
Skadi nodded slowly. “Maybe.”
“Where is the ring?” Wren asked. She looked from the vala queen to her apprentice and back again.
“When the last vala of Rekavik died, her apprentice was too young to wear the ring.” Skadi gestured to the girl Thora beside her. “So the king took the ring for himself. I didn’t think it wise or proper, but it was his right. I thought that when Thora was older she would take the ring, but he never offered to return it. And Ivar died before I could ask the question of him again.”
Freya shivered despite the heat. “So the ring of Rekavik is lost?”
The queen shook her head. “I thought as much myself, until last autumn. We hadn’t seen or heard of Fenrir in many months, but one day a group of farmers came into the city, describing a giant reaver that attacked their wagons on the road from the northeast. Leif and his hunters went out to search for him, and they found him.”
“We found him in the hills to the east of Mount Esja,” Leif said softly, his eyes flashing with a cruel bloodlust. “I had twenty young carls with me, all fast runners and faster blades, and we chased the demon up into a rocky crevasse in the mountainside. We thought we had him trapped in the dark ravine. But it was he who trapped us. The demon climbed the walls, circled around us, and fell on us from the rear.”
The youth hesitated and licked his lips. “He tore two of my men in half before we realized what was happening, and soon the ground was swamped with blood and flesh and piss. The screams echoed so loudly in that place that my ears rang with meaningless noise. We could barely stand on the slick rock, and every time the demon killed a man he would fling the body at us, knocking down two or three men at a time. But we stood our ground and cut the beast, made him bleed, made him howl, and after a few minutes, we made him run as well. We stood our ground and we taught that animal to fear us. We earned more than mere songs that day. It was an hour for greatness, for glory.”
Freya watched the youth’s face as he spoke, his eyes wide and fixed on her though he seemed to be staring straight through her. His lips barely moved, and a strange smile lurked in the corners of his lips, twitching as though eager to blaze across his face with wild and furious joy at the memory of the battle.
“Thirteen died,” Leif said. “All in a moment, a few terrible breaths, a few last heartbeats. Fenrir shreds and grinds men as a miller grinds grain, and he paints the earth in blood wherever he goes. He is a flesh eater and a blood drinker. And even the survivors are victims. Two of my men were bitten, and began to change on the march home. I killed them myself.”
“The ring, Leif,” the queen said loudly.
“Yes, the ring.” Leif blinked and the dark revelry faded from his eyes. “I saw it on his finger, as did my men. Fenrir wears scraps of clothing around his shoulders and waist, like most reavers, but his arms were bare and we could easily see the golden ring on his claw. It shone in the light against his dark fur. He must have taken it from the king, along with the silver torques he wears on his arms. The reavers seem to like silver. But the gold was unmistakable.”
Freya found it all too easy to imagine the demon, a reaver larger than all the ones she had seen before, tearing grown men to pieces, the air sick with blood and piss and fear. She steadied her hands by gripping her knives. “Lady Skadi, is there really nothing you can do for my sister?”
The woman on the throne shook her head. “I can ply her with herbs to keep her calm, to make her sleep, to dull her madness. But nothing more. I have tried everything I know to cure the plague and I have failed at every turn.”
“But with the king’s ring, the rinegold of Rekavik?” Freya stepped forward again. “Do you believe there is some knowledge in that ring that can help my sister?”
“It’s possible, but I can make no promises. The ring of Rekavik holds the souls of countless wise women, and if the reavers once roamed these lands in ancient times, then one of those dead valas may know how to cure them.”
Freya nodded. “All right then. I’ll go. I’ll get the ring for you. I’ll do it.”