Three times more did Askr’s horn sound before Dísa reached the end of the forest trail leading to the stony shingle. A niggling voice in the back of her mind preached caution, and her gut followed suit. So, rather than burst forth in full view of Askr and whomever made the journey with him, Dísa held back. She left the trail and crept silently through the undergrowth, keeping to the shadows beneath the towering evergreens so she’d have time to take the measure of what awaited her.
Askr, she saw, and Hrútr. Both were clad in wolf skins and mail. Hrútr leaned on a spear while Askr had his horn poised for a fourth blast. Auða paced alongside them, her hair drawn back in a long black braid; it twitched like a lion’s tail with each sharp turn she made. She kept her gaze fixed on the trail head. Auða muttered something to Hrútr, who merely shrugged. The fourth man waited by the boat. Dísa recognized the white-haired bulk of giant Bjorn Hvítr, Bjorn the White. A bear skin hung from his shoulders, its great paws clasped around his neck. He cradled an axe in his arms.
They are clad for war, she reckoned. Not a good omen.
Auða nodded to Askr, who drew a deep breath and blew a thunderous note on his silver-chased horn. He held it for a moment, letting the sound echo across the ridges and into the hollows. It ended, and as that echo died, Dísa stepped from the shadows of the tree line and onto the shingle.
Her sudden and savage appearance took them by surprise. Auða’s eyes widened; Hrútr cursed and leveled his spear at her. Askr dropped his horn to his side and clawed at the hilt of his sword. And even Bjorn Hvítr, whose temper was as mild as his curiosity, scowled at the pale-skinned apparition conjured by the horn-song.
“Cease your racket,” Dísa said. She drove her spear’s butt-spike into the ground, stripped off her helmet and hung it from the lug behind the broad-bladed head, and leaned her shield against it. She approached the four slowly. “I’m here. What goes, cousin?”
“We’ve been worried about you,” Auða said. “You left Hrafnhaugr over a month ago and none have seen hide nor hair of you since. Are you well?”
Dísa stopped a dozen feet from the four; by newfound habit, she kept her distance, her carriage loose and poised to move. Though Auða was her kinswoman and she’d known the other three all her life, there was nevertheless a gulf between them. Dísa felt like a pet they’d turned loose in the wild, a dog gone feral; one that recognized her former master’s smell but remained skittish. “You came all this way to ask after me? I am flattered, cousin. Truly. As you can see, I am hale and in good spirits.”
“What has he done to you, girl?” This from Hrútr, who cast a scornful eye on her war-rags and ironmongery. She was lean and hard, her flesh mottled with bruises, purple fading to yellow; she looked like some fey spirit summoned from the fences of Hel’s icy realm.
“What do you mean?”
“He doesn’t know what he means,” Auða snapped, glaring at Hrútr. “But since we can see with our own eyes that you are well, there’s another matter we must discuss. The matter of Flóki. He’s not back, either, and Jarl Hreðel is beside himself. The man is not well, cousin. Food stores run low and he does nothing to replenish them. His temper is unchecked. Even Sigrún gives him a wide berth. He wants you, Dísa. He wants you to come back to Gautheimr and explain the Hooded One’s inaction. Jarl Hreðel—and a lot of us with him—feels the Hooded One has much to answer for.”
Dísa bristled. “And what does Hreðel have to answer for, eh? He should have thought of this when he was busy coddling his son. Flóki seeks to be a man, his own man, is all. The Hooded One bears no blame in this, and he certainly doesn’t answer to the likes of a bench-hugger like Hreðel!”
“That’s enough, girl,” Hrútr said. “He is your chief, and respect must be paid. Time is short. We must return.”
“Then go.”
Askr took a step toward her. “Auða is more patient than we are. Hreðel wants you to attend him. That was not an invitation. We will drag you back with us, if we must.” The others nodded, even Auða—though she seemed reluctant.
Dísa’s lips peeled back in a smile identical to Grimnir’s—cold and humorless and brimming with scorn. Her dark-rimmed eyes never left Askr’s as she ducked her head and spat at his feet. Dísa watched as anger suffused his features; watched as he took another step toward her … until Auða put out a restraining hand.
“Why are you being like this, cousin?” said the older woman.
“Why am I not abasing myself before that idiot, you mean?”
Auða’s face hardened. “No! Why you are not doing your duty to your sworn lord is what I mean!”
“Oh, but I am,” Dísa replied. “I am not the priestess of Hreðel, am I? No, cousin. I serve the Hooded One, and the Hooded One has spoken: let Jarl Hreðel dry his tears and act like a man whose son has fared forth to earn his war-name, not like a sulking old harridan whose lord has taken a younger wife! Go! Tell him what the Hooded One has commanded.” Dísa turned away.
The gesture was calculated. She meant to draw out their true intent, to force them into playing their hand. “Call the tune,” Grimnir would say, “and make your enemy dance to it.” And Auða danced. Dísa could not see the sign she made to Askr, but she knew she made such a sign. She could not see the snarl of pleasure that writhed across Askr’s bearded visage, but she knew he wore such a snarl. And though she willingly blinded herself by turning away, Dísa’s other senses were as sharp as a fox’s. She heard the crunch of stones as Askr shifted his weight to his lead foot; she heard the creak of tendons and the hissing of his breath as he committed fully to a lunge that should have ended with her hard in his grasp.
This, she heard. And, a heartbeat before Askr’s fingers clamped down on her shoulder, Dísa Dagrúnsdottir moved. She sidestepped and spun; steel hissed on leather as she aired the blade of her seax. She could have killed him, then. She saw it; by the sudden fear gleaming in his eyes as he passed, Askr saw it, too. But quick as a serpent, Dísa lashed out with the pommel. Her momentum added weight to the blow, and it connected with the back of Askr’s skull. There came a dull thud. Askr stumbled. His eyes rolled back in his head as he pitched face-first onto the snow-spotted shingle.
Dísa did not stop to crow. She came around and leveled her seax at Hrútr, who took a step toward his unconscious kinsman. “Raise that spear,” she growled, “and you will join him! Look at me, cousin!”
Auða, her sword half-drawn, lifted her stunned gaze from Askr to the length of razor-edged steel in Dísa’s fist. Behind them, Bjorn Hvítr watched all this unfold with a thunderous scowl across his craggy brow.
“He’ll have an aching head and a bruise upon his pride,” Dísa said, her gaze flickering between the three. “Now take him and go, lest one of you comes to harm!”
Auða shook her head. “We have our orders, cousin. You’re coming with us.”
“Think again, cousin!”
“Enough!” Bjorn Hvítr roared. The giant Geat stalked across the shingle, axe in hand; he shouldered past Hrútr and Auða and rolled toward Dísa like an avalanche of muscle. A thrill of fear raced up her spine as she eyed his great bulk, the slabs of meat like iron plate, legs like tree trunks, and the hard-boned head tilted toward her. His brown eyes bore no trace of anger. Still, Dísa backed away. She edged toward the safety of the trees as Auða and her bedmate fanned out to either side.
“Come, girl,” Bjorn said softly. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
Dísa bared her teeth; she stopped moving and dropped to a fighting crouch.
Suddenly, an arrow hissed from the tree line. The wind from its passing fanned the fey tangles of Dísa’s hair. It pierced its target, tearing a bloody furrow through Bjorn Hvítr’s flesh and taking off most of his right ear. The giant Geat howled, clutching the side of his head. Auða and Hrútr froze; Dísa risked a glance over her shoulder, and then loosed her pent-up breath in a sigh of relief when she saw a monstrous figure emerge from the trees.
She knew it was Grimnir, but he did not look like himself. Gone was his old brigandine coat. Now, he sported a hauberk of blackened mail that hung to mid-thigh, and a broad belt strung with human scalps. A wolf-skin cloak hung from his shoulders and an eerie mask and headdress hid his face from casual view. The headdress, Dísa reckoned, was made from the age-blackened skull of a huge stag. Over time, Grimnir had trimmed the antlers and carved them until he had two curling horns that came down—one on either side of his face. The mask was fashioned from a wolf’s skull, rune-carved and streaked with red pigment. From one cavernous socket Grimnir’s red eye gleamed even in the pale light of morning.
He stalked across the shingle, a great black bow in his hands; he had a second arrow already on the nock and the string half drawn. The hilt of his seax jutted from its scabbard on his left hip. Fear crackled before him like the lightning that presaged a storm as he drew himself up to his full height. “Are you thieves or fools?” he snarled, his voice made deep and hollow by the mask. “Either way, touch her again and I will send you as a beggar down the road to Hel!”
Dísa straightened and offered Grimnir an awkward bow. “My lord, I—”
“Be silent, little fool! We will have words later, you and I! For now, you louts will answer my question: are you thieves or fools?”
Dísa took his rebuke to heart. She kept silent and shifted her attention to Auða and the others. Though they’d never seen him, they knew they faced the Tangled God’s immortal herald, the inscrutable Hooded One. Hrútr’s tongue froze to the roof of his mouth. He trembled and averted his eyes. Bjorn Hvítr clutched his ruined ear and stared at his feet. Only Auða had the courage to raise her eyes to meet Grimnir’s wrathful gaze.
“We are neither,” she stammered, then added as an afterthought: “lord.”
“Then what are you, eh? If you’re not fools or thieves?”
“I am Auða of the Raven, and these are Jarl Hreðel’s sworn men. He sent us to fetch her.” Auða nodded at Dísa. “She must come with us. The Jarl commands it.”
“Must she now?” Grimnir said. Dísa winced at her cousin’s choice of words. “Hreðel commands it, does he? Am I to bend myself to Hreðel’s will, then? Am I to let you and these so-called sworn men of Hreðel’s just march up to my door and take what is mine, without so much as a ‘by your leave’? Tell me, you miserable sack of bones, who is Hreðel?”
Auða frowned, plainly confused by the question. Blooms of color tinted her cheeks, her anger causing her blade hand to twitch. She glanced sidelong at the men but neither could meet her eye. “Who … who is Hreðel?”
“Aye, that’s what I said, Auða of the Raven!”
“He’s th-the Jarl … the Jarl of Hrafnhaugr and Chief of the Raven-Geats.”
“Hrafnhaugr, eh?” Grimnir handed his bow to Dísa. She heard him take a snuffling breath as he walked closer to Auða, Bjorn, and Hrútr, smelling their fear, their anger. “So, this Hreðel: he was there when the foundations of Hrafnhaugr were laid? And when the wretched Norse tried to burn the walls and enslave the Geats in that first year, it was Hreðel’s blade that cut down the Norse war-chief, eh?” Grimnir reached Askr, who groaned and struggled to rise. He caught a handful of Askr’s hair and hauled him to his feet, fairly shoving him into Hrútr’s grasp. Both men staggered back. “For twenty-three miserable generations of your kind, it’s been Hreðel whose had the thankless task of keeping you Geats safe, is it?”
Auða licked her lips. “No.”
“No? Well, if it’s not Hreðel, then who was it, little bird?” Grimnir glanced back at Dísa. “Who has done these things?”
“You, lord.”
“Aye, me.” Grimnir rounded on Auða. Crossing the interval between them in two long steps, he put the eye sockets of his wolf-mask close to her face, his hot breath steaming in the chill air. She recoiled, her hand dropping to the hilt of her sword. “Tell me, Auða of the Raven, why should I give a Swede’s fart what your precious Hreðel wants?” His gaze dropped to her hand, wrapped white-knuckle tight around her sword’s leather and wire-wrapped hilt. “You think you can take my measure? The lot of you, you filthy swine, think you can take me?” His head moved slightly from side to side. Hrútr had passed his spear to Askr, who leaned heavily on it; Hrútr, too, had a hand on his sword, loosening the blade in its scabbard. On the other side of Auða, Bjorn Hvítr fingered his axe haft with a bloody hand. “You going to hew me down with that log-splitter, you dunghill rat?” Grimnir’s laugh bore the chill of the grave. “Four against one, little bird! Are these fair odds among your kind?”
Dísa shrugged. “Fair enough, I think. I would ask a favor, lord. Don’t kill them.”
“A favor? You think you’ve earned that right, eh? Why did I have to find out from old Halla that their wretched Hreðel threatened to—how did she put it?—‘come for my bastard head’ and ‘burn even the memory of me from this land’?”
“Because I knew this is what would happen!” Dísa caught the hint of movement as Hrútr bared a hand-span of steel. “Hrútr, damn your ignorant hide! Keep that up and I’ll skewer you before our lord has the chance!”
“Bastard’s not my lord,” Hrútr said.
“Hrútr!” Auða snapped. The man stopped moving.
Grimnir swung around to face him. “I have borne the insults of your kind for long enough! It’s high time I remind you lot who is the servant, here, and who is the master!”
Hrútr must have seen his doom in Grimnir’s shadowed gaze, for with a curse he dragged his sword the rest of the way from its scabbard. His movements galvanized the other three—all veterans of Odin’s weather, of the fume and broil of the shield wall. But as quick as they were, as skilled and as fell-handed were these journeymen of war, here they faced a master of the killer’s art.
Dísa shouted a warning; before its echo reached a crescendo and died away, Grimnir was in motion. Hrútr and Askr stepped back to gain room to maneuver. But ere they took a second step, Grimnir’s taloned hands knotted in each man’s hair. He slammed their heads together. The crack of impact and both men went down, stunned.
Auða’s sword rang as it cleared the mouth of its scabbard. Grimnir twisted, sidestepped the blow, and drove the hard point of his elbow into the woman’s temple. She staggered. Grimnir seized her by the neck and shoved her into Bjorn Hvítr’s path, her sword scraping the ground as it tumbled from her nerveless fingers. Bjorn tried to catch her with his left arm; with his right, he swung his axe. Grimnir caught that thick wrist with one hand. Hissing, he drove the first ridge of knuckles into the hollow of Bjorn’s throat.
Bjorn staggered, gagging for breath. Auða’s weight dragged him to his knees.
Grimnir ambled on by, deaf to their groans and slurred curses. He went to their boat, leaned over the gunwale, and drew out one of the oars: spruce-carved, its grain gone dark with age and cracked by the elements. Dísa could tell he wore a broad grin despite the concealing mask. He retraced his steps, swinging the oar to get a feel for its weight and heft. Bjorn struggled to stand; near him, Auða rolled onto her stomach and fought to get her legs under her. Dísa willed her to stay down. Of the kinsmen, Askr and Hrútr, only the latter had any fight left in him. He clawed for the fallen spear, and had risen to his knees when Grimnir reached him.
The oar whistled through the air, its tight arc ending in a dull crack as Grimnir broke the blade against the back of Hrútr’s skull. The man pitched face-first onto the shingle and did not move.
Grimnir reversed the broken oar; a quick jab—driving the butt end into the side of Bjorn Hvítr’s head, just behind the ear—took care of the thickly muscled Geat. That left only Auða. She glared up at Grimnir. “Don’t—”
Grimnir kicked her in the face.
“Next time, I won’t be so gentle,” he said, then turned to Dísa. “And next time, you little wretch, you’d best tell me when the likes of Hreðel is running his mouth and making threats!”
“I thought it was best—”
“Nár! You didn’t think, little bird! You had your eye fixed on the prize and wanted nothing to come between you and it!” Grudgingly, he added: “I can admire that, to a point!”
“What will you do?”
Grimnir fell silent. Turning, he hooked one thumb in his belt; the other he draped over the pommel of his seax. He looked out over the choppy waters of the Skærvík, lost in thought. His black-nailed finger tapped the cross-guard—a tuneless rhythm that punctuated his annoyance. Finally, he stirred and looked askance at her. “It’s high time we put your newfound skills to good use. Get over here and grab this sack of bones. I’ll get these other rats…”
UNDER A VEIL OF THICK gray clouds, night descended swiftly on Gautheimr, the Geat-home, which perched atop its bluff overlooking the leaden waters of Lake Vänern. The air under those carved eaves was as dark and foreboding as the twilight. A fire crackling on the stone hearth afforded little in the way of heat or light. Around tables, near braziers filled with sullen coals, the Jarl’s sworn men sat in small groups; some mended or polished their war gear while others merely drank from the dwindling stocks of ale and brooded.
Closer to the doors, the Daughters of the Raven sat in a knot around Sigrún, who warmed her hands over a brazier, glaring up at the figure draped across the high seat with undisguised contempt. Hreðel drowsed in a drunken stupor, surrounded by a carpet of broken crockery jars—the last of Hrafnhaugr’s stores of wine. The Jarl had not washed in days; his beard was tangled and stiff with spilled food, his hair unkempt, and he stank.
“You’d think the bastard was in mourning,” Sigrún hissed. She accepted a bowl of barley stew and a wedge of coarse bread from one of the younger Daughters.
“Maybe Auða will bring him good news,” Geira said. She was a scarred and knotted figure, a few years Sigrún’s junior; Kolgríma had been her sister.
Sigrún sniffed. “If that fool girl, Dísa, would do her duty, we’d need not send Auða hunting for word of Flóki. Gods know, I should have drowned that one at birth and told her mother she was stillborn.”
“Listen to yourself, Sigrún.” Geira looked up from her meager stew. “The rest of us, we’d be proud to have a granddaughter taken to serve as the Hooded One’s priestess. But you? You grouse and nitpick everything that poor girl does.”
“I don’t recall it being your business, Geira.”
“It’s all our business, old woman,” Geira replied, gesturing with her spoon. “You are the eldest, but you are not our chief. Dísa is, as Kolgríma was before her. Speak civilly of her, no matter how badly it galls you, or cut that mark from your cheek and join the other old crones!”
Sigrún’s face darkened; a gleam flickered in her eyes, presaging violence the way distant lightning presaged a storm. But her retort was lost when the door to Gautheimr slammed open.
A man stood on the threshold, barrel-chested and bandy-legged and sporting a bushy gray beard that flowed like moss down the craggy face of an oak. Old Hygge’s son, he was, called Hygelac. He stared up at the high seat, lines of care and worry etched deep into his broad forehead as he saw the state of the Jarl. He let his gaze roam over the faces of those in attendance. There was a growing sense of urgency about him. Finally, his eyes settled on Sigrún. “Something’s happened, down at the dock,” Hygelac said, pointing back the way he’d come. A builder of ships and boats, Hygelac stank of the decoctions of his trade, of tar and brine, resin and oakum. “Rouse the Jarl. He needs to see this with his own eyes.”
“What goes?”
“The ones he sent out? They’ve returned. Rouse him, lady. He needs to bear witness.”
Sigrún stared at the shipwright a moment longer before motioning for Bjorn Svarti. “Wake him, if you can.” Nodding, Bjorn Svarti strode up to the high seat and ascended the steps.
“Jarl,” he said. Then, louder: “Jarl Hreðel!”
Hreðel stirred; he groaned and opened one eye. Suddenly, both eyes flew open. Hreðel started forward, rank breath hissing between his teeth as he grasped Bjorn Svarti’s wrist. “Flóki!”
Bjorn caught him by the shoulder. “No, Jarl. It’s Svarti.”
“Svarti?” Hreðel blinked back tears. “I—I thought you were…”
“Jarl.”
Hreðel cleared his throat. He nodded. “What is it, Svarti? What goes? Have they brought the girl back?”
“Hygelac has found something. He says you need to follow him to the docks.”
Hreðel waved that notion aside. “I am too tired for games, Svarti. You go as my eyes and ears.”
There was a resolute set to the saturnine Geat’s jaw. “No, Jarl,” he said. “Hygelac Hyggesson bids you rise and follow. He does not call for Bjorn Svarti.”
Behind them, murmurs of concern rippled through Gautheimr. Had some ill befallen Auða and the lads? Hreðel listened; finally, he nodded. The Jarl grunted and heaved himself upright. “Lead on, then.” He pushed away Svarti’s attempt to steady him, and staggered along at the head of a procession—the Daughters falling in alongside the Jarl’s sworn men, servants, and other hangers-on. On Hygelac’s heels, the lot of them filed from Gautheimr.
It took less than a quarter of an hour to negotiate their way down to the dock—the same dock they’d sent Dísa off from. Heavy flakes of snow swirled down from the heavens, sizzling in the torch flames or sticking to cloaks and hoods. The woods around them seemed alive with unseen menace; hands clapped to sword hilts, and men drew their axes tighter.
“Aye,” Hygelac said, shivering. “It’s like Odin himself has his squinty eye upon you.”
“Not the Allfather,” Sigrún whispered to those Daughters in earshot. “He’s watching us.”
Old Hygge met them at the end of the trail. “Before sunset,” Hygelac said, “we heard Askr’s horn, my old da and me—but it was weak, like it wrenched the last breath from his lungs to sound it. We followed the noise and yonder is what we discovered.”
The folk of Hrafnhaugr arrayed themselves behind their Jarl, craning to get a better look. In the trees along the water’s edge, from the heaviest branches, four figures hung by their ankles. Auða and Hrútr, it was, and Askr and Bjorn Hvítr, all strung up like suckling pigs. “We did not touch them,” Hygelac said, “but came to fetch you, instead.”
“Ymir’s blood,” Sigrún said, shouldering past the Jarl to reach Auða. Bjorn Svarti followed.
“Did … Did he kill them?” Jarl Hreðel licked his lips; blood had drained from his face, and sweat beaded his brow. “Did the Hooded One do this, may the Gods ever blacken his name?” The same fear echoed from a dozen throats: “The Hooded One killed them!”
“Keep your blasphemous tongue between your teeth!” Sigrún snapped; she spun Auða around and looked her over for injuries. “She’s not dead. Geira, lend me a hand!”
“Nor are these three,” Svarti said. “Took a good beating, but they’re breathing. Quickly, lads! Cut them down.” Geira helped Sigrún while the Jarl’s men saw to their own. In short order, the four were loosed and upright, groggy but alive. Auða leaned on Geira’s shoulder. She spat blood.
“He … He wouldn’t let us have her. Dísa, I mean.” Auða looked over at Hreðel. “She protected you as long as she could, Jarl. She didn’t tell him you’d made threats. But he found out anyway, and he means to settle the score.”
“Settle?” Hreðel said. “Seems he’s upped the stakes rather than settle any scores!” He turned and looked back at the folk who followed them out from Hrafnhaugr. Some were nodding; others looked petrified, as if the fabric of their world was slowly unraveling. “I say it’s the Hooded One who crossed the line! We give and we give, and when we ask a simple favor we’re rebuffed, our folk attacked, and we’re made to live in fear? No more! I say we burn that bastard out!”
“Then what?” Sigrún said. “Say you do this thing, what then? Will you turn to the White Christ for protection from the Swedes or the Norse?”
“Why not?” Hreðel made a clumsy sign of the Cross. “What interest would the Swedes or the Norse have in us if we were like them, eh? If we knelt and prayed to the Nailed God, why would they seek to do us harm?”
“You’re a fool,” Auða said.
Spittle flew from Hreðel’s lips as he thrust his face next to Auða’s. “Am I? All he had to do was help me! Help me get my son back!”
“Dísa was right. Let Flóki go and earn his beard.”
“That little traitor will pay, alongside her wretched master!” Hreðel straightened. “Men of Raven Hill! It is high time we took back what is ours! I’ve had my fill of being lorded over by women, and living under the threat of that devil they worship! It ends now! Tonight! Arm yourselves! I mean to cut this thorn from our side, and if that means we take to our knees and sing the hymns of the Nailed God, then so be it! I bid you, my sworn men, to stand by your oaths to serve me!”
“You’ll not have the Daughters of the Raven at your side, you weak-minded fool!” Sigrún said.
Hreðel turned and stared hard at the old woman. There was a newfound purpose in the set of his jaw; his eyes glittered with righteous fervor. “Then get back to the spindle where you belong, you useless old hag! Who’s with me?” The Jarl ascended the path to Hrafnhaugr without a backward glance.
Though reluctant, most of the Jarl’s sworn men—some seventy-five strong—fell in behind Hreðel, Askr and Hrútr among them. Auða felt the sting of her bedmate’s betrayal, but said nothing. She looked at Bjorn Hvítr, who shook his head. “I’ve had his measure, and I’ll not take up arms against him.”
The other Bjorn, Svarti, gave a solemn nod. “I must. My oath compels me, even if my heart does not.” He turned and followed the cortege back to Gautheimr. The Daughters of the Raven came last; the youngest, Bryngerðr, snuffled and wiped tears from her eyes.
“What must we do?” she whispered to Geira.
“Hold to our faith and pray this madness passes.”
“And look to our steel, in case it doesn’t,” Sigrún added.
The Daughters walked into a Gautheimr transformed. Bright flames licked the top of the hearth; torches burned in sconces, and lamps upon table. The Jarl’s men were donning their war-gear, their mail and leather, wolf-headed cloaks and iron helmets. All around the hall echoed the clash and rattle of harness. Their sudden flurry of activity drew villagers from the lower terraces; they clustered around the door to watch the arming.
“Don’t do this, Hreðel!” Sigrún motioned to the Daughters, who brought her mail from its stand. Another carried her round shield, its white face bearing a stylized raven in black. A third brought her spear and her raven-winged helmet. “Don’t force my hand!”
“It is done!” Hreðel replied. He sat in his seat, his sword in its scabbard laid across his knees. “We’ve been ruled from the shadows for too long! It ends tonight! You villagers, take up arms! Unlimber your oars and draw your keels from their sheds! This night, we cross Skærvík and rewrite our destiny! Go! Spread the word! Tonight we fight for freedom!”
“No, Hreðel. Tonight you die!” Sigrún drew herself up to her full height. “I am Sigrún of the Raven, Eldest Daughter, Captain of Shield and Spear, and I challenge you, Hreðel Kveldúlfsson! Fight me, and let the Gods decide who is right!”
Ragged cheers and shouts erupted. Men paused in their arming, torn, like Bjorn Svarti, between their oaths and their hearts; their eyes flickered from Sigrún to Hreðel. The Jarl looked like a man stricken with palsy. His hands shook. To hide his tremors, he grasped his sword by scabbard and hilt and held it tight.
Before he could answer Sigrún’s challenge, however, a voice from behind the villagers clustered in the doorway roared a single command: “Stop!”
All heads turned. The throng parted; gasps and whispers punctuated the scrape of hobnailed boots on stone as Dísa stalked into the heart of Gautheimr. Gone was the moody girl of fifteen summers who left here over a month before. The figure who returned was ageless, as fey and feral as a wolf, hard-eyed and snarling; her lean torso and muscular limbs bore the scars and forge-marks of the Gods’ own anvil. Like Kolgríma before her, Dísa passed through the fires of an Elder World and came out the other side—its light burned in her gaze, enough to make men tremble. She reached the center of the hall.
“There is our traitor!” said Hreðel, glad for the distraction. “Come to gloat, eh? Come to witness the strife you’ve caused by not standing by your own people? I’ll say this much for you, child: you have nerve coming here alone!”
“That is where you are wrong,” Dísa replied. “I did not come alone.”
A shadow rose up from behind the high seat; men had the impression of a swirling cloak, a horned and masked silhouette. A single red eye blazed as a black-nailed hand curled around Hreðel’s throat and wrenched his head back. Screams erupted from the doorway of the hall.
The Jarl’s sword clattered to the ground.
Led by Bjorn Svarti, a half a dozen of the Jarl’s men started forward, blades rasping against scabbard chapes, spear shafts clattering. They all stopped short as the shadow drew an ancient long-seax and balanced it point-first on the heart’s path, that soft hollow of flesh between Hreðel’s left collarbone and neck. The threat was clear: one more step and he’d send their Jarl down the icy road to Hel’s gates. The figure leaned over him and laughed, soft and menacing. “I hear you’ve been threatening me, you fat fool!”
AMID CRIES OF ALARM, THE Hooded One dragged Jarl Hreðel from the high seat, flinging him bodily down the short steps to land among his sworn men. Bjorn Svarti helped him to his feet; another Geat fetched a bench as Grimnir kicked away shards of crockery and settled himself into the Jarl’s seat. Dísa joined him; she stood at the base of the steps, a little to Grimnir’s right.
Grimnir drove the point of his seax into the arm of the seat. “Every blasted day, I walk the fences of Geat-land—through forest and fen, hill and hollow—killing any I find and leaving their heads for their mates to stumble across. Those heads tell the tale of a savage folk, you Raven-Geats, who make the piss-ant Swedes and those miserable Norse think twice before trying to raid this land! I kill and I kill and this is my thanks? You threaten me, threaten my priestess, and send an armed rabble to violate the ancient compacts? Faugh! Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand, Hreðel Kveldúlfsson!”
“If the compacts are broken, it’s you who broke them!” Hreðel sputtered. He sat heavily on the proffered bench. “We asked for a simple boon! A small thing! But you could not be bothered even to check on the well-being of the future Jarl of your followers!”
“I could not be bothered to fetch your wayward son, you mean? Who am I to stand between a lad and his war-name? Did I drag you back kicking and screaming when you went off to raid the Norse against your father’s wishes?”
“That was different,” Hreðel muttered. Whispers arose from the onlookers—now numbering almost three hundred, all jammed cheek by jowl in the tight confines of Gautheimr or else standing outside, listening as others relayed what was said.
“Aye,” Grimnir said, leaning forward to point an accusing finger at Hreðel. “Your old da was a man about it! If the Norse got you”—Grimnir made an expansive gesture—“such was the will of the Weird Sisters, the Norns. He’d just make more sons.”
“I do not have that luxury,” Hreðel said, bitterly.
“And how is that any of my concern, you wretch? How is that your lad’s concern?” Grimnir gestured at Dísa. “This one tells me you coddle him, is that so?” Color stained Dísa’s cheeks. She looked away.
Hreðel’s gaze had an edge to it. “She speaks out of turn.”
“Does she?” Grimnir leaned back, directing his question to the throng of onlookers. “Does this little bird speak out of turn when she says the Jarl’s son is coddled?”
Murmurs arose. But it was Sigrún who stepped forward. “She does not, lord.”
Hreðel snarled and shot an accusing glance at the old woman—who moments before had been ready to spill his blood.
Sigrún met his hate-filled gaze evenly. “It is our custom that a boy on the cusp of manhood can only grow his beard after he’s felt the warm and bloody rain of Odin’s weather. Flóki is well into his eighteenth year and remains beardless.”
Grimnir sniffed. “By what lights do you think I’d choose a beardless, unblooded boy to be the Jarl of my village? You think me that foolish?”
Hreðel’s eyes snapped up, narrowing with suspicion. “The Jarl’s mantle is hereditary,” he said. “It passes from father to son.”
“It passes from father to son, aye,” Grimnir said. “But only with my blessing and only if I think the son worthy. The compact is clear. I choose who sits on this seat, not you!” Grimnir slapped the armrest. “This is a gift I choose to bestow, or not! You think the blood in your veins is noble and pure? That you and your sons are destined to be Jarls? Bah! Kveldúlf’s grandfather was a swine-herd ere I chose him to take up the high seat!” Grimnir looked askance at Dísa. “This is what I was talking about, little bird. You lot have forgotten even what’s in the cursed compact!”
“What will become of my son if he is barred from following in my footsteps?” Hreðel said. “All his life, I’ve groomed him to wear the wolf-mantle. I’ve protected him, taught him to read the runes, to sacrifice and find wisdom in the entrails; I’ve taught him what we recall of the compact between us.”
“And you’ve tried to find him a wife, haven’t you, you sly dog?” Grinning, Grimnir glanced from Hreðel to Dísa.
The girl knew enough not to rise to his baiting.
“It matters naught if he’s to be cast adrift and forgotten.”
Sigrún growled, “Then you should have better prepared him for the world out there!”
Grimnir touched the side of his bone mask. “The old hag is right. Ymir’s blood, man! Where are your balls? You’ve dogs aplenty! You want your brat back?” Grimnir gestured to the ranks of the Jarl’s sworn men. “Send one of them after him and quit grousing to me about it!”
“I’ll go,” Dísa said suddenly. And like a curtain, silence fell over Gautheimr. Sigrún’s eyes narrowed; Hreðel snorted in contempt. But Grimnir … Grimnir rubbed the pommel of his seax, contemplating and calculating. He knew what drove the girl—and it was more than her admiration for Flóki. She, too, was unblooded. “You said it yourself: it’s time to put to the test what I’ve learned from you. Send me after Flóki and the others.”
Hreðel could not contain himself. The Jarl laughed and shook his head. “You? No doubt it was you who put him up to this.”
“He’s his own man, even if you’re blind to it!” Dísa snapped. “He needs no encouragement from me.”
“Svarti,” Hreðel said, turning to look at the saturnine Geat. “I’d consider it a favor if you’d pick a couple of good lads and bring my son back to me.”
Bjorn Svarti’s face was impassive as he looked from Hreðel to his cousin, Bjorn Hvítr, before turning to the Hooded One. “By your leave?”
Grimnir chuckled. “You’re a quick one, lad.”
Hreðel spluttered. “You would seek his permission? Am I not your Jarl, dog?”
Grimnir came to his feet; he loomed over the assemblage, his shadow made greater by the flaring cloak, by the carved horns on his headdress. His eye blazed from the depths of his wolf-mask as he wrenched his seax free in a shower of splinters. “Jarl? You are nothing, swine!” he roared. “A drunkard and a fool! I take back the wolf-mantle! If you think me unkind, if you think me unfair … then draw your steel and we’ll settle this the old way!”
Hreðel blinked. He sniffed and stared at his feet, hands trembling.
“As I thought, you dunghill rat!” Grimnir glared at the sworn men and beyond, at the throng of villagers watching this spectacle. “Any of you dare dispute my right to sit upon this seat? Step up, dogs! Step up, or keep your tongues between your rotten teeth!”
For a moment, it looked as though Hrútr might step forward, but his kinsman’s hand on his arm stopped him. Askr shook his head.
Satisfied, Grimnir sat. He nodded to Dísa. “Go after him, little bird,” he said. “I will decide after I meet this Flóki if he’s fit to take up his father’s mantle.”