The Crusaders made their camp half a mile from the ravine, at the edge of a fallow field. Here, amid the stubble of last year’s barley, sprang a city of tents, with well-ordered avenues and cross-streets, plazas where cook fires blazed, and alleys that led to earth-cut privies. At the center of this web stood the chapel tent, with its three-meter-high crucifix, and the pavilion complex of the lord of Skara.
As night fell, the pavilion was the center of activity. Messengers bathed in sweat came in bearing reports and left out again bearing orders. Clerks—in actuality merely soldiers of the household guard who had their letters and a steady hand—took in requests and wrote out requisitions, using waxed boards and horn-shaped styli made from carved wood with an iron tip. Quartermasters dispensed food and drink, and makeshift markets bloomed in the plazas where merchants from Eiðar who’d followed the Crusader army offered everything from preserved vegetables to barbering.
And the heart of this city, the arbiter of its laws and keeper of its customs, was Konraðr the White. The albino lord of Skara sat stripped to the waist in a plain chair, listening as a messenger reeled off a report from Pétr on the status of his war machines; as he sat and listened, Father Nikulas saw to his injured arm and shoulder—wrenched and rope-burned after the incident at the bridge. Konraðr winced as the bearded priest rotated his arm in its socket, and then applied a soothing oil to the kinked muscles.
“Tell Pétr,” Konraðr said, stopping the messenger in mid-spiel, “I appreciate his attention to detail, but I simply do not have time to care how he gets this done. I only care that he has my drawbridges ready by daylight. Go!” Konraðr waved the rest of the clerks and messengers away. “All of you: leave me. Not you, good Nikulas.”
The priest wiped his oily hands on a rag before taking up a stone jar of salve. This he daubed on the rope burns. Konraðr hissed at the touch of Nikulas’s fingers.
“God watches over you, my lord,” the priest said. “The business at the bridge could have ended poorly for us.”
“Is that your way of chiding me, Father? Of telling me I should place more value on this broken vessel?”
“God spared you for a reason.”
“And Arngrim?” Konraðr replied with more bitterness than he’d intended. “Did God take him for a reason, too?”
Nikulas answered him frankly: “Yes. But only God knows what that reason might be. As for you, the reason is clear: you have great works left to do. Don’t squander it with games of one-upmanship and cheap theatrics.”
The lord of Skara shifted in his seat, uncomfortable now. “I should have you flogged.”
“I have borne the stripes of a good lashing for speaking truth to power before.” Nikulas shrugged. “And I expect I will, again, ere the Almighty sends for me.”
“Let us hope He waits many years to send that summons, my friend,” Konraðr said, rubbing his eyes. “My tincture, if you please. I am weary, and tomorrow is set to be a day of red slaughter.”
Father Nikulas nodded. Both men lapsed into silence as the priest went to a sideboard. There, in a small mortar, he crushed together a selection of dried herbs. For a long moment, the only noise inside was the soft rasp of the pestle. Konraðr’s chair creaked as he shifted his weight. Then: “You’re a learned man, are you not, priest?”
“Not so learned as some,” Nikulas replied, “but more learned than others.”
“Do you know what the word skrælingr means?”
The priest stopped, his pestle falling silent. Konraðr heard the sharp intake of breath, faint but distinct—the sound of a man caught off guard. Slowly, the pestle resumed its task. “Where … Where did you hear this word?”
“On the wind. What is it?”
Nikulas pursed his lips. “It described a hate of the Elder World. A race of night-skulking sons of Cain who would come among men by the dark of the moon, to tear their limbs off and drink their blood.”
“Was, you say?”
“Yes, thanks be to God. They are no more.”
“And you know this, how?”
Nikulas said nothing, at first. He finished his grinding, dusted off the pestle, and set it aside. “When my novitiate ended,” he said, after a moment, “my first years as a monk were spent in the scriptorium at Kincora. I had a fine hand, you see, and the Abbot wanted a suitable gift produced for the Holy Father in Rome—an illuminated manuscript, a copy of Beatus Vivere, the Life of Our Lady of Kincora, blessed St. Étaín. A noble endeavor, this, and I focused all my efforts on it. But as I copied, I read. It was an old habit of mine.
“The saint was not a native of Ireland, you see. No, she came to us from Glastonbury, via Denmark—where she was kidnapped and her companions killed. Her captor snatched her screaming off the road of pilgrimage and made her lead him back to the south of England, to Badon on the eve of its destruction at the hands of Almighty God, and thence to Ireland. There, she fell in with partisans of Brian Mac Cennétig, and witnessed the old king’s murder at the Battle of Chluain Tarbh.”
“Fascinating,” Konraðr said, a hint of sarcasm shading his tone. “What does any of this have to do with night-skulking sons of Cain, my priest?”
Nikulas put the ground-up herbs into a cup, added warmed wine, and stirred the mixture with a silver spoon. “Her captor,” he said, bringing the cup to Konraðr, “was the last of that accursed line. The last skrælingr. The blessed Saint tried to bring him from the darkness and into the light of Christ, but the creature refused. After Chluain Tarbh the beast vanished, never to be seen again. That chapter of the Beatus Vivere ends with,
“Away sprang Bálegyr’s son, | across the Ash-Road
With shoulders cloaked | in the skin of the wolf-father;
The Æsir gave chase, | goaded by Alfaðir,
And with him | came the Twilight of the Gods.”
“How was her captor called? This skrælingr?”
“Grimnir,” Father Nikulas replied.
“The Hooded One,” Konraðr whispered. “He is here. Your saint’s captor, her skrælingr—”
“Impossible!”
Konraðr drank the concoction Nikulas offered him, grimacing. “Are not all things possible under heaven? We face not only this heathen taint, my good priest, but also a cursed son of Cain. God watches.” Konraðr handed the cup back and rose to his feet. He made the sign of the Cross. “The Almighty tests our hearts and our souls ere he allows Saint Teodor’s sword to be revealed to us. We must prove ourselves worthy!”
For a moment, Nikulas’s faith lagged. If half of what he’d read as a young monk was true—and he more than any would never dare accuse Our Lady of Kincora of so base a sin as lying—this sudden revelation was not so much a test of faith as a warning not to test God’s good will. “How? How will we do this?”
The lord of Skara cocked his head to one side, adopting what had become to Nikulas a familiar stance—that of a man listening to his demons. Slowly, Konraðr nodded. “Yes. That is what we must do.”
“My lord?”
Nikulas saw flames kindled deep in the albino’s eerie eyes as he turned his head toward him. “God demands a sacrifice. A night-skulking son of Cain…”
BEHIND THE WALLS OF HRAFNHAUGR, the mood was subdued. There was no feasting, no merriment; the songs men sang were dirges for the dead, and they drank to forget rather than to buoy their tempers. Under the eaves of Gautheimr, muttered voices accompanied the meat and ale. They raised their drinking horns to Jarl Hreðel, praised Bjorn Svarti for his quick wit, and thence sought their beds—or else the silent companionship of their kin.
Úlfrún walked the circuit of the walls. It was the eve of battle. She could taste the coming blood and slaughter on the night breeze—a coppery tang that reached into her soul, taunting with promises of a gift denied. On these nights, surrounded by a host willing to die for her, she nevertheless felt alone. A chill no wolf fur or bear skin could abate seeped into her limbs. Old wounds ached. She massaged her hand where flesh met iron …
She runs. Her breath steams in the cold air as she pants from exertion. Fear hammers through her brain as she draws up, but she knows she cannot stop. Behind her, she hears the crunch of hobnailed boots, the sound of pursuit. The girl runs. Snow swirls down, through drifting smoke. She runs, and she calls upon the Gods for succor. “Help me!” she cries.
One god answers.
Ahead, a figure waits. It bears the shape of a man, though hunched and as twisted as the staff he leans upon; he is clad in a voluminous cloak with a low-brimmed hat. A single malevolent eye gleams from the shadow.
“Niðingr,” the stranger says in a voice colder and deeper than a chasm of ice. “The Grey Wanderer, I am; the Raven-God; Lord of the Gallows; the shield-worshipped kinsman of the Æsir. Why do you call upon me?”
“Help,” she says, choking on her fear. “Help Mama and my old da! Men … men have come! Men with axes!”
“They, too, call upon me. Why should I choose you over them? They offer me gold and blood. What do you offer me, little worm?”
The girl is silent. Then, “Save them. Please! I’ll do anything you ask!”
The sky ripples and burns with green fire.
“Then you will serve me.” The stranger raises his head to look at the eerie lights of heaven. “Without question. I have a task for you. When it is done, you’ll be free. Serve me and I will spare your kin. Or refuse, I care not. But if you refuse your kin will die and you will die, and your name will be lost until the breaking of the world. Decide.”
“I will serve you,” she says, her voice quavering. “You have my word.”
The stranger smiles, then. There is no humor, no warmth. “I have no need for your word, niðingr. Give me your hand, instead.”
His touch is like ice, but the kiss of his axe-blade is colder still.
The girl screams …
Laughter drew Úlfrún from her reverie. She looked up and saw the light of a fire on the second terrace. It was in the lee of the Raven Stone, and around it sat a few of her lads and a few Geats. Auða and another Daughter of the Raven, Rannveig, drank from flasks and diced with Herroðr, while Forne regaled dark-haired Laufeya with tales of his home in Tróndheimr, on the Norse coast. Bear-like Brodir dozed by the fire, and across from him sat Bjorn Hvítr, drinking ale from a horn and staring thoughtfully into the fire’s heart.
Herroðr caught sight of her and waved her over. “Make a space, make a space,” he said. Auða slid closer to Herroðr, and Úlfrún took the proffered seat. “How fares the world tonight, my Jarl?”
She could tell Herroðr was in his cups, but she offered no reproach. Merely a smile and a wink. “It is cold as a witch’s tits and full of cursed hymn-singers,” she said. Bjorn Hvítr stirred at this and passed his ale-horn to her.
She tossed back half the horn’s contents and handed it back to him with a murmur of thanks, then wiped her lips on the sleeve of her good arm. “What is the game, and what are the stakes?”
Herroðr picked up the dice. They rattled in his palm. “High roll wins, best two out of three,” he said. “And winner takes his pick.”
“Or her pick,” Auða said, elbowing him in the ribs.
“Why not winner takes all?” Úlfrún glanced from Auða to Rannveig. Both women turned scarlet, but Auða met her gaze with a wolfish smile.
“I like that better,” she said. Forne glanced their way, eyebrows raised, but Laufeya grabbed his chin in her fingers and returned his attention to her. Even Bjorn Hvítr chuckled.
Though among friends, Úlfrún felt her melancholy deepen. Their lives were like flickers of a candle’s flame to her. Soon they would drift away. Forne would find his way into the dour girl’s sleeping furs, while lusty Herroðr would surely make off with both Raven Daughters. Brodir—who was the most even-tempered man she’d met in her many years—would sleep here, under the stars, and dream of a home long since turned to ash by the dynastic wars of the Norse. And what of her? A part of her thought to take Bjorn Hvítr by the hand and lead him away, to spend herself before the spear-shattering on the morrow—to remind herself what it is she fights for. But that’s not what she wanted. Úlfrún wanted to crawl into the big man’s arms and fall asleep, and sleep so deep and so soundly not even her dreams could find her.
Her dreams were thorns. Constant reminders of the life she’d left behind, of the life she might have lived had she not made her oath to the Grey Wanderer. She dreamed of her mama and her old da, who never saw her again after that night; of her brothers and sisters, who mourned her as one who’d died. She dreamed of the husband she’d never love, of the children she’d never bear, the grandchildren she’d never see. Thorns, every one. Pricking her, reaching beneath the flesh to pierce what remained of her soul.
No, Úlfrún reckoned. No, she would not sleep this night, either. She’d merely doze, quiet and alone and as lightly as a cat. That would keep her mind from wandering down the paths of memory. And, upon waking, she would be rested enough to kill.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. Across the fire, over the heads of Forne and Laufeya, Úlfrún saw the Hooded One emerge from the shadows, Dísa Dagrúnsdottir in his wake. They slipped through the postern gate, which yet stood ajar. “Ymir’s blood,” Úlfrún said. “Is there no one on guard, this night?”
“The Hooded One wanted it left open,” Rannveig said. She sat with her leg touching Herroðr’s thigh, and Auða, who sleeked herself like a cat in heat, added: “Besides, we discovered the hymn-singers can’t fly.”
Herroðr and Forne howled with laughter; Rannveig buried her face in Herroðr’s shoulder as Bjorn Hvítr shook his head, a broad grin on his craggy face. Brodir stirred, chuckled in his sleep. And even Laufeya—dour Laufeya—cracked a rare and radiant smile.
“But they can swim,” Úlfrún replied. She rose and went to the gate. The steep trail, a mere shadow in the darkness, wound down the side of the bluff to where a ramshackle dock extended into the star-flecked breast of Lake Vänern. “Why would he want it left open? What are they on about?”
Auða came up behind her. “With the Hooded One, who can say?”
Úlfrún followed the path down to the water. Though she could not see far into the night, her ears picked up the faint clack and hiss of oars in their locks. “Curious. Is there anything on the far bank?”
“Aye,” Auða replied. “A beach and a trail leading inland, to where the Hooded One dwells.”
“Gautheimr is not his home?”
“Gautheimr?” Auða shook her head. “No, for as long as I’ve been alive he’s dwelt apart from us. The priestess—Dísa, now, and old Kolgríma before her—acts as intermediary. Our folk can go from cradle to grave and never lay eyes on the lord of our lands. We gave offerings to him through Kolgríma, a bauble here, a bit of mead there, and wrote out our grievances. He answered through Kolgríma. Whatever else can be said of him, the Hooded One is not a harsh lord, and he has kept us safe from the Nailed God’s folk.”
“Until now,” Úlfrún said.
Auða sucked her teeth. “Aye, until now.”
“I would see this lair of his,” Úlfrún said. “Do you know the way?”
Auða, though, begged off. “Hard blows have taught me not to meddle in his affairs. But look here. Yonder is the Leidarstjarna, the Guiding Star.” She pointed to a bright star in the Northern sky. “Keep the bow under her…”
Úlfrún held up her iron hand.
“Bollocks,” Auða muttered. She chewed her lip. “Right. Get in. I’ll row you across, but I’m not waiting around.”
ROCKS SCRAPED THE HULL OF the feræringr as Grimnir drove the boat ashore with one last surge of the oars. He’d said nothing on the journey across Skærvík, and Dísa had been glad for the silence. She could see the lights of the Crusader camp gleaming across the water, and its nearness to the borders of Grimnir’s land worried her.
“Will Halla be safe with that lot lurking about?” Dísa nodded in the direction of the glow, some miles distant.
Grimnir spared it half a glance. He’d stripped off his mask and headdress and left them on the boat’s rowing bench as he sprang for the shore. Dísa followed. “Halla?” he said. “She’ll not let herself get taken in by the likes of them. Leg it, little bird! We’ve not got all night!”
They ran. Dísa found herself not even winded as they reached the boundary stone a quarter of an hour later; nor did they pause before descending into the hollow where the longhouse lay, dark and ominously quiet. But halfway down the trail to the bog, Grimnir drew up. His spine bent double, he snuffled along the ground like a hunting wolf. His good eye blazed like an ember in the darkness.
“Nár!” he hissed. “I know that stench!”
Dísa heard the rasp of steel as he drew his seax.
Around them, the woods bristled with unseen menace. They went warily, Dísa watching the trail at their back. Nothing stopped them from reaching the corduroy of logs that crossed the bog, or from gaining the base of the stairs leading to the longhouse doors. A greenish glow descended from the heavens as the eerie northern lights kindled, swirling curtains that flickered and undulated. By that thinnest of lights, Dísa could see a familiar silhouette waiting at the head of the stairs.
“Halla,” she said, and made to move past Grimnir.
His arm blocked her; his growled curse caused her hackles to rise.
“What is it?”
“Not Halla,” he snarled. Dísa felt waves of hate radiating from him—red wrath like the coals of a forge. The figure did not move. Grimnir reached the top of the steps and came abreast of it. His black-nailed hand clenched and unclenched in an unconscious desire to kill. He reached out with his blade hand, tapped the figure on the shoulder with the flat of his seax. Steel scraped and rang as from a boulder.
Dísa saw it clearly for the first time: a stone effigy, standing facing the east, flinching; its eyes were averted, and it held one arm high and crooked as though fending off an attack. Its other hand showed fingers splayed. It was not Halla, true, but once it had been.
Dísa reeled as though someone had punched her in the gut. She fell to her knees. Grimnir circled the stone troll-woman. He snarled something in the tongue of his people, a curse or a prayer, she could not say; he sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his blade hand.
“What … What was she doing outside?” Dísa said. Grimnir looked as though he wanted to stoop and stab and kill; she could see him unleashing a string of oaths, invoking forces best not mentioned in the dark and lonely places of the world. She could see him embarking on a new journey of vengeance.
But he swore nothing. It took untold force of will, but he merely ducked his head, spat, and turned away. “Off your knees, wretch,” he growled, sheathing his seax. “We don’t have much time.”
“Are we just going to leave her?” Tears dampened Dísa’s cheeks. More so than Hreðel, and even more than Flóki, this death pierced her soul. She’d had little kindness shown to her in her life, but this woman—though she was neither mortal nor human—had shown her just that: kindness. Genuine warmth. “That’s not right!”
Grimnir stopped. He stood a moment, his spine rigid, and then turned back to her. When he spoke, his voice bore the sibilance of a serpent. “Right? What would you do, little fool? Cart her back to the boat? Haul her across Skærvík and set her up next to your precious Raven Stone? Faugh!” Grimnir caught her by the nape of the neck and hauled her to her feet. “More than six hundred years, she’s dwelled on this land! Now she’ll stand here till the world breaks…”
Grimnir trailed off. Sharp-eyed, he saw something on the ground at her feet that should not have been there. Chestnuts. Four of them. He crouched and gathered them up in his palm. Each one bore a mark, a rune.
“What?” Dísa said. “What is it?”
Grimnir shook the chestnuts, wondering what they meant. Halla had left them, he was sure of it. But why? “Ansuz,” he muttered, flicking the chestnut bearing the letter A over. Another bore the letter I. “Isaz. And a pair of Naudiz.” Meaning two with the letter N scratched on them. A-I-N-N? That made no sense.
Grimnir’s eyes narrowed. He flicked one of the chestnuts around, spelling out a new word: N-A-I-N. Náinn? Now that was a name he knew. A memory welled up from the unplumbed depths of Grimnir’s past. The Ash-Road. Two hundred years ago. A struggle, steel-biting and shield-breaking between the worlds:
The glow in Náli’s eyes | was like forge-gledes,
As bloody revenge | for his brothers burned deep;
Under the ash he waited | and gathered his strength,
His teeth he gnashed | and his breath was venom.
“No,” Grimnir hissed. “That beardling wretch died.”
“What did you find?” Dísa leaned over where she could see what it was he was doing.
Grimnir clenched his fist over the chestnuts and stood, tucking them inside his mail. “Get on! Grab what you need and let’s get back. I’ll have to sort out this Witch-man of yours on my own.”
INSIDE, THE LONGHOUSE’S FIRE PIT was nearly cold. Dísa stirred it, digging deep to find the few embers remaining. They flared to life as the air hit them and by the resulting glow she looked around the great room. Nothing was amiss. There was no sign of a struggle. The only thing out of place was a chair by the door and a horn cup beside it.
“She had a visitor,” Dísa said.
Grimnir glanced sidelong at the chair. She thought he would descend upon it with the same fury he’d shown outside, snuffling the air and revealing clues she could not fathom. But to her dismay, he merely curled his lip into a sneer of contempt—as though he knew already who the culprit was—and passed through the room. Dísa did not follow.
She stood in the center of the room and described a slow circle; with each step she tried to gather the edges of her thoughts and emotions. Dísa reckoned she’d never return here again. The place’s heart had been cut out, turned to stone. Without Halla … the girl swore. Why so maudlin? In a matter of days none of this would matter.
In a matter of days, the world would end—or be forever changed.
Dísa found an old sack made from thrice-stitched leather, and into it she shoved an extra gambeson, tools for repairing mail, whetstones, and a few odds and ends that might come in handy after a battle: Halla’s sewing kit, herbs, jars of unguents and oils, linen bandages, a jar of cobwebs. Among the detritus, she found an old shawl of Halla’s. This, Dísa folded carefully and placed inside her mail.
That sack, plus a couple of axes, a sheathed sword, two spears, and another shield, she dragged out to the portico. She piled it together, turned back to the door, and nearly came out of her skin when a voice hailed her from the darkness.
“What goes, Dísa?”
The girl whirled, her hand falling to the hilt of her seax, as Úlfrún came into view, stepping around the stone figure that had been Halla. A frown creased the older woman’s forehead. “What is this place?”
“How…? Did you follow us?” Dísa said. She risked a glance over her shoulder; saw no sign of Grimnir. “You can’t be here! You have to go!”
“It’s not safe, not this far from the walls.” She brushed past Dísa and peered through the open door. “And when one of the Cross-men’s patrols stumble across this—and they will—you don’t want them to find you here.” A low whistle escaped Úlfrún’s lips as she glimpsed the hoard of coin and plate, the cast-off weapons and armor, the tapestries and trophies. “Ymir’s blood! Where did all this come from?”
“Please,” Dísa replied. “You have to go.”
“I’m not afraid of your Hooded One,” Úlfrún said. “He can’t hurt me.”
“Then you’re a precious little fool, if you believe that.”
Dísa stiffened at the harsh and grating voice rising from behind her. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and then turned. Inside, cloaked in shadows not entirely natural, Grimnir sat on his throne-like chair.
“Don’t harm her,” Dísa said, quietly.
Grimnir chuckled. “I let you have Auða, that fool, Bjorn, and those two idiots. This one is mine.”
Úlfrún put a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It is all right, I promise.” To Grimnir, she said: “Stop me if this sounds familiar, you whoreson dog! A thief and a liar, born from some Norse slattern’s thighs, partners with a woman whose reputation is one of witchery. Together, they hatch a scheme to gull the folk of a village by claiming the spineless thief is … what? ‘The Tangled God’s immortal herald’? The pair of them fleece the good villagers, and raid the surrounding steadings until they amass … well, this.”
As she spoke, Grimnir’s good eye blazed like the coals in a hearth.
Úlfrún continued: “The woman dies, or is throttled by her confederate and he recruits a new partner—one who has lived all her life under the so-called compact forged by the thieves. Such a partner would be easy to mold.” Úlfrún looked at Dísa with a mixture of pity and scorn. “You can’t even see it, can you? This charlatan is playing the lot of you for fools! And what a charade it is! He claims his divine blood protects you from enemies you never see, while collecting payment from you—and, by the look of things, making a fair bit of coin from preying on your neighbors, as well. You’ve been gulled, child. He will try to kill me now. But I know something he does not. I—”
Steel flashed. Dísa heard the dull thud of impact, the wet crack of bone; blood splashed the piles of coin. Faster than Dísa’s eye could follow, Grimnir had snatched up an axe and hurled it across the fire pit. It struck Úlfrún in the chest, splitting her sternum and cleaving the heart beneath. Her good hand clutched at the haft, pulled it free from the wreckage of her chest; eyes as hard as the grinding ice stared at Grimnir as she let the axe fall. Úlfrún swayed, fell.
“Gods below!” Dísa muttered. “What have you done?”
“You heard her! The rat predicted it,” Grimnir snarled. “It must have been fate. She—”
At Dísa’s feet, Úlfrún stirred. The girl gave a bleat of terror and danced away, eyes wide with fear. Úlfrún groaned. Impossibly, her limbs moved; she pushed herself to her knees, rocked back on her haunches, and smiled at Grimnir through the blood spotting her face. “I told you,” she said, her voice thick. She fingered the rent in her tunic, still wet with blood. “I cannot die, you stupid man. But I can kill you!”
“What deviltry?” Dísa drew her seax, while Grimnir merely leaned back in his seat.
“A fine trick,” he said. “But let me let you in on a little secret of my own…” Quick as a snake, Grimnir shot forward. He cleared the pit, snatched Úlfrún up by the throat, and slammed her against the longhouse wall hard enough to split open the back of her skull. “Everything you’ve said is wrong!”
Úlfrún glimpsed Grimnir’s face for the first time—sharp and saturnine, his cheekbones heavy and his brow rough-hewn, with a jagged scar crossing the bridge of his nose, through his missing left eye, and into his hairline. It was the face of something far from human.
“S-Skrælingr!” she managed around his vise-like fingers.
“Yes!” Grimnir hissed. And with a savage twist, he snapped her neck.
He let her body slide down, a smear of blood following her to the floor, then turned and resumed his place on his chair. Dísa edged over to stand near, her seax trembling in her fist. She was pale and sweating despite the night’s chill.
“What … what is she? A draugr?” The thought of those undead barrow-dwellers made Dísa’s skin crawl.
“Someone’s laid a geas on her. Reckon she can’t die till she’s seen some task through,” he said. “Watch.”
And as they looked on, broken bones grated and knit back together; Úlfrún spasmed, gasped, and sat up. She winced at the pain lancing through her head and neck, but did not try to rise. “Perhaps I was wrong,” she said after a moment.
Grimnir sniffed in disdain. “Who put this thing on you, this geas, and how long have you borne it?”
“One hundred and eighty-seven years,” she said, raising her iron hand. “I was nine years old when the Grey Wanderer put it upon me, saving my family from raiders and taking my hand in exchange.” The iron fist fell, striking the floor with a dull thump. “I have died twenty-seven—no, twenty-nine times since that night. All because I did not wish to die once.” She coughed. “Have you anything to drink?”
Dísa sheathed her seax and fetched her and Grimnir both a horn cup of wine. Grimnir sipped his, but Úlfrún took the proffered cup with a murmur of thanks and drained half its contents.
“And what does that one-eyed wretch ask of you, eh?”
“I am the she-Wolf,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sworn enemy to the Wolf of Christ, that bastard out there, Konraðr the White.”
“Can you not just walk through his lines and kill him, then?” Dísa asked.
“Not that simple,” Úlfrún replied.
Grimnir chuckled. “It never is where that one-eyed starver of ravens is concerned.”
“In a matter of days, a barrow will rise from Vänern’s embrace. From it, from the skull of a dragon, I must fetch forth the sword of my ancient kinsman, Sigfroðr the Volsung. Sárklungr, the sword is called, and with it he slew the beast, Frænir. Only when I have that in my hands can I strike a last blow against the Nailed God’s champion, and usher in the ending of the Christians’ world.” Úlfrún finished her wine, leaned back, and closed her eyes. “Only then can I die.”
Dísa glanced from her to Grimnir. The girl started to say something, but Grimnir pursed his lips and gave a small shake of his head, as if to say: let her labor under her false beliefs, no doubt put into her head by the Grey Wanderer. Instead, he said: “I’ll make a wager with you, wolf-mother.” She opened one eye. “I will bet you the coin you see that your precious Konraðr is after the same thing—though he doubtless calls it the sword of some wretched saint or other.”
Úlfrún scowled. “But that would mean…”
“Aye,” Grimnir said, causing Úlfrún to belt out a stream of salty curses.
Dísa looked from one to the other. “What would it mean?”
“Think, little bird,” Grimnir said. “Say there’s something you’re after, and you want to guarantee it winds up in your hands. Do you trust the dice those weavers of fate, the Norns, hand you, or do you sneak around and weight the knucklebones in your favor? Nár! The Grey Wanderer wants this sword, so he’s playing sleighty and false—fire up the hymn-singers by telling them there’s a pile of saintly bones and a sword out in the godless wilderness. Meanwhile, you gird the heathens’ loins by telling them the same damn story, but with a twist: a storied kinsman’s bones and a sword that’s needed to slay these wretched kneelers.”
“So, no matter who wins, he’ll have his sword,” Dísa said. Grimnir tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. “Is this the source of the Witch-man’s sorcery, then?”
Grimnir shrugged. “You say he hears voices?”
“I sent Forne into Eiðar to gather news,” Úlfrún said. “The rumor is, Konraðr the White is haunted by the deeds he’d done away in the East. His priest is all that keeps him from cracking like an egg, they say.”
“Haunted, eh?” Grimnir lapsed into silence, his eye darting as he sought to recall every scrap of lore he’d learned from Gífr, about how to command spirits and how to banish them.
Dísa stirred. “So, what now?”
“It’s nigh to cock’s-crow,” Grimnir said. He drained his wine and shied his cup into the fire pit. An explosion of sparks billowed toward the ceiling, forming constellations of ash and ember. He stood. “Time we’re getting back. Hymn-singers will be trying to cross the ravine soon. Throw up a bridge or something.”
Úlfrún clambered to her feet. She stretched, rolled kinks from her shoulders, and stared wistfully at the blood-crusted tear in her tunic. “Looked like they were dismantling a few outbuildings and cutting timber. A gallery, perhaps. Maybe ladders?”
“Ha! They’ll try a drawbridge, first. Mark my words.”
Dísa went out first, then Úlfrún. Grimnir lingered a moment. He looked around, from the ancient ceiling beams to the hammerscale and sawdust covering the floor; from the drifts of coin and weapons to Halla’s sleeping niche with its pillows and furs. “Nár, you gobby old hag,” he muttered. “I’ll make sure he pays.”
And without a backward glance, Grimnir went out the door and into the rising light.