At the edge of a clearing bright with moonlight they stopped, breathless. He glanced around, his heart thumping. The trees here were closely grouped—old gnarled oaks, their branches and boles green with mosses and lichens that grew even on the rocks, soft cushions, sprawling yellow splashes.
In the wood, something breathed. Like an echo of himself he heard it, rasping, strange and heavy.
A branch swished. Stones clattered.
“What’s that?” Inga whispered.
In the silence the whole wood murmured and creaked and stirred in the rising gale. Pale cloud dragged across the moon.
Hakon grabbed her. “Up the tree. Hurry!”
“I don’t want to!” She began to cry with terror and he shoved her fiercely up into the branches, wishing he could lift her. “Hold tight! Now, Kilmund! Move!”
But the boy was staring into the breathing darkness. “Is it the troll?”
“Get up there!” Hakon jerked him off the ground. “Hold your sister. Hold her tight!”
Above him the branches swayed, dropped leaves on him. Legs and arms moved in a flurry of snow that had begun to fall slowly, like ash drift from a fire. Inga’s cry came down from the dark.
“Come on, Hakon!”
“Quiet!”
He turned, his back against the tree, clutching the sword that felt hot and heavy in his hand. And then, among the undergrowth, among storm-stirred leaves and snow, something shifted, and he knew he was looking at a face, a narrow, inhuman face among splintered branches and shadow. It watched him, its small eyes pale as ice, a big, indistinct shape, and he swore for a moment that the snow drifted through its body.
Like a man, but bigger. Like a bear, but … not. As it watched him he knew that it thought, that it hungered, and he felt a sudden pulse of terror that he squashed at once, deep down.
Barely opening his lips he said, “It’s here. Don’t move, Kilmund. Don’t speak. Whatever happens don’t let her make a sound.”
But it could probably smell them. Best not to think about that. Facing into the dark he knew his own life was lost. Nothing could get him up that tree in time, not with one useless hand. If he turned, it would come, crashing out…
Odin, he thought, if you love me, do something.
The branches moved. It was coming; snow blurred it but it was coming out, toward him. And at that instant the moon leaked from its cloud and lit the wood with sudden bars of silver.
Breathless, Hakon pressed himself back. He saw a gray pelt, a thick, heavy body, eyes lit with savage hunger. His sword glimmered like frost; the air before him was a whirlwind of white, dissolving flakes.
The creature made a sound, wordless, tense.
Sweat running, Hakon raised his sword.
And then, from above, came a screech that made him jerk his glance up; the night fell on him in two black pieces, flapping and screaming. As he ducked, they stabbed at the rune beast’s face, scratching, fluttering, and it clawed them off, roaring, swinging away.
In an instant Hakon was scrambling up the tree, hauling himself up clumsily, dragged by small invisible fingers, torn, scratched, shaking all over with unstoppable fear. “All right!” he whispered. “It’s all right!”
Below they heard the roars of furious anger. In a whirlwind of shadows the thing crashed back into the under-growth, slashing and splintering. They heard it howl and stagger through the wood, farther and farther off into the rising gale.
His arm around Inga, Hakon tried to stop shaking. He stared into the dark, listening, intent for the distant sounds. Soon only wind shook the wood. Snow gusted about them.
After a long time the little boy whispered in his ear, “What was it? What scared it away?”
For a moment Hakon could not speak. Then he managed a word.
“Birds.”
“Birds?”
“Ravens. Two great ravens.”
“Where did they come from?”
Dazed, Hakon watched the moonlight glitter on his rusty, useless blade. Then he said, “Odin sent them.”
Ten
At the speaking of the wise
… the hall was silent.
Jessa shuffled her feet. It was cold, standing out here in the growing dusk. Far off to the west the sky was a deep velvet blue, slowly being marred by a great pile of purple swelling cloud. The first stars glimmered, almost too faint to see unless she stared hard at them.
Out there on the hill above the fjord the beacon was burning, blazing over the black water, its reflection rippling like a dragon’s tongue, the explosions of wood at its heart loud even from here. Miles away another fire burned, a mere point in the sky.
The fires burned for the god’s journey. The image of Freyr, keeper of the harvest, lord of boars and horses, was coming to the Jarlshold last of all, as he did every year, on his gilded wagon. All through the last of the winter, the god had traveled, bringing spring with him, dragged from hold to hold, village to village, over the snowdrifts and through the dense forests, rowed on boats to the ends of the narrowest fjords. Every year Freyr visited his farmers and brought them luck, and heart—the promise of plenty. And last of all he came to Wulfgar’s hall.
She scuffed her feet impatiently against a tussock of grass. Around her the crowd waited—women and thralls, bondsmen, freemen, children, warriors, some laughing and talking, some silent. Skapti came pushing through them.
“Well?” she said at once.
“Nothing. The patrols went a day’s journey to the north and east—the last came back a few minutes ago. Nothing. Though they said the woods were strangely silent.” He scratched his ear with a long hand.
“Do you believe it?” Jessa asked.
“They believed it, didn’t they? Those men were terrified. As for trolls and mere dwellers, who knows? Something killed the stock, that’s sure.”
“And the man.”
He pulled a face. “Wulfgar will have that looked into. Men are mostly killed by other men.”
She stared at him. “You think that?”
“I’m a hardheaded poet, little valkyrie, and I think appalling things. But don’t worry, Wulfgar believes in this creature. A bear, he thinks, a big one, driven south by hunger. He’s put men on all the approaches. And he says he’ll ask the god about it.”
Uneasy, she turned away. But those men had been gripped by terror. And there was still that little rat-thief somewhere about. She clenched her gloves into fists. She couldn’t let that rest. Vidar would have to be followed again, and more closely.
She could see him now, waiting down there on the shore, a dim figure on the beach. And as the crowd around her murmured and pointed, she saw the boat.
A longship, blazing with torches. It slid out of the dark mist without a ripple, and shadows moved on its deck among the flare light, as if it truly came from a realm beyond the world—Asgard or Niflheim—a ship of spirits. As it ground into the shingle, the figures on deck and beach became a mass of black and scarlet, confused flickers, lifting something among the smoke and flame crackle. Then in the growing dark they moved up the hill toward her and the muddle became a long line of torchbearers, escorting the wagon of Freyr to the Jarl’s welcome.
Six men pulled it; as they drew near she saw their masks: boar, horse, the black holes of their eyes. These were men who had given a year to Freyr’s service, to guard his image. When their time was up, others would take their place; there were always eager men. Farmers would send their sons—it would bring them a good harvest.
And hauled behind them, dragged with thick ropes that had frayed and worn against the wood, came the great gilded wagon, swaying and rattling, with the crowd pushing it and holding children up to touch it and laughing.
In it sat the god himself. The image was unknowably ancient, centuries old; a crude, wooden shape, seamed and split with time and the rain.