When Thor arrived at his grove, the three newcomers were already being seen to by Aderyn, Sunniva and Selinda at her sides. The girls were working carefully at a number of darts in the side of one man, taking great pains as each was removed. As they dropped each dart into the dirt, Thor saw why - they were cruelly barbed, made to do more damage on the way out. The wounded man did not so much as flinch with each one, only shivering madly.
“They barely made it to the gates,” Ingrid said. She had been the one to fetch him after calling for aid. “Whoever did this to them ran them hard.”
“Did they say anything?” Thor asked. He played at his beard as he took them in; they looked familiar but he could not place them.
“The other two were babbling, but this one didn’t say a word,” Ingrid said.
“Different poisons,” Aderyn said without looking up. She was grinding something to paste in a small mortar, dabbing a finger in the mix and licking it now and then. “A hallucinogen for him and her, and I don’t know what for this one.”
Thor bent down to take up one of the darts. They weren’t bone as he had first thought, but metal, stained almost yellow by something, perhaps whatever substance they had been coated in. He sniffed at it, and there was the expected copper tang, but beneath it there was something else, something that he had encountered before.
Footsteps approached, heavy and slow. It was Bjorn, and across his shoulders he carried a length of wood, a heavy cauldron hanging by a rope from each end of it. Both were filled with water, and steam rose from one.
“Just here,” Aderyn said, only pausing in her work for the instant it took her to glance at Bjorn and take in his condition. He had recovered well since Helka, his wounds scarred over and his strength returning, but he was not returned to rude health yet.
Bjorn bent to set the cauldrons down, shrugging off the wood, and Aderyn immediately scraped the paste she was working on into the hot water. “Take a fallen branch of ash, and stir it well,” she directed the Aesling, and he made to do so.
“Do you expect them to live?” Thor asked. He recognised the man with the darts in him now - he was from Harad’s village, a warrior by the name of Eadric. The others were the same.
“I would have lost this one already, if not for your grove,” Aderyn said, massaging her hand, the one missing parts of fingers. “Instead it will only be difficult. These two-”
She was cut off as Eadric gave a sudden gasp, body arcing and bowing. Sunniva and Selinda flinched back at the sudden movement, the dart they had been working on torn out by his movement.
“None of that,” Thor said, and he placed a hand on the man’s chest, pinning him in place. He glanced at the other two, but they were hardly breathing, let alone stirring.
Eadric was going nowhere, but his limbs continued to thrash. Bjorn was there a moment later, clamping down on his forearms and putting his weight on them. Legs still kicked, but no longer could he throw himself around. The man wheezed, eyes rolling back in his head, and Thor copped a full blast of the rancid breath. He snorted it out, but his brows shot up as he recognised it.
“The poison, it sets its victims to unthinking anger and fight,” Thor said quickly.
Aderyn didn’t question his knowledge. “Selinda, I need the rabbit’s heart broth. Sunniva, the silver knife.”
The apprentices were quick to obey, scampering over to an unfolded leather pack that sat nearby, holding all sorts of tools and materials. A pot sealed with tallow and a small knife were brought back, and it seemed they knew what their master intended as they opened the pot and used the knife to stir its sludgy contents.
“Ingrid - yes, thank you,” Aderyn said, seeing the gate guard stirring the cauldron that Bjorn had left. She held her hand out to her apprentices, and they handed over not the broth, but the silver knife. She took it, and stabbed Eadric.
Thor watched, brow rising steadily higher, as Aderyn gently inserted the knife into the same wounds made by the darts, slowing only to reapply the broth. She did not insert it deeply, only enough to make the barest of new cuts, but it was still not something Thor had expected of the Shallyan. Not after what he had seen of her almost scientific practices since her arrival.
“This is a method of last resort,” the healer was telling her apprentices. “The poison is in his blood, and we do not have time for him to digest an antidote.”
“Rabbit heart?” Thor asked, keeping the man pinned. Were it not for his hand, he would be thrashing around wildly. “Not quite what I had expected of you.” He would not say it was what he would expect from Helka, but it was what he would have expected from a wise woman.
“There is some craft to it,” Aderyn said, focusing on her task. “I’ve yet to see a mortal poison that will have such an effect so swiftly.”
“Do they teach this in the south?” Selinda asked. She had taken to tying her hair up in a braid around her head, using it to hide behind less often.
“Altdorf would not teach this,” Aderyn said, not quite snorting. She discarded the bloody knife. “Poisons of rage oft have something of a predator in them, so the essence of fearful prey can disrupt them,” she said to the girls. “But that is only part of the work.”
The sisters shared a look, nodding. “Does it have to go into the same wounds?” Sunniva asked.
“Those who taught me claimed it did,” Aderyn said, “though I suspect that so long as it is carried through the blood system, it would not matter.”
“You are correct,” Thor said. Trying to explain how his people ensured that antidotes were guided to target poison would be an exercise in futility. “You might consider using a hollow needle to inject it into a vein, rather than through cutting.” It was all quite barbaric to his mind, but that same simplicity meant he knew little about it; he would likely have better luck explaining how to divert an asteroid than to impart useful knowledge of the body’s systems.
“I see,” Aderyn said, pausing slightly as she thought it through. Her gaze shifted to fix on him. “You have knowledge of such things?”
Thor suddenly felt some sympathy for Leifnir. “Little that would be useful.”
“Hnn.”
Eadric’s struggles ceased suddenly, the man going limp. His breathing was ragged, and his muscles trembled minutely, strained by great effort. He coughed, almost choking, and Thor and Bjorn were quick to release him.
“Quickly now,” Aderyn said.
Sunniva helped her roll him onto his uninjured side. He coughed again, hacking, and the phlegm that sprayed out was a garish yellow. They watched him for a long moment as he struggled to breathe, but then the fit passed, and he eased. Sunniva immediately began to tend to his wounds once more.
“The paste has dissolved,” Selinda said from the cauldron, gesturing for Ingrid to cease her stirring.
“Good, fetch the cloth,” Aderyn said, and soon they had a pair of clean rags to dip into the still steaming cauldron. They twisted and strained them after, removing most of the liquid, and then they were laying them over the faces of the other two patients.
“What is this treatment?” Bjorn asked, leaning over to sniff at the steam wafting from the cloth.
“The vapours will excite their hearts, and help them throw off the torpor they are in,” Aderyn said.
“Is that springsap?” Bjorn asked.
“A small plant with long, narrow leaves and purple flowers?” Aderyn asked, pushing a lock of ruddy hair from her face.
“Aye,” Bjorn said, satisfied. “I had only known it as a way to help sentries stay awake.”
As they watched, the shallow breathing of the two comatose patients began to deepen, and the cloths were doused and strained once more, before being set over their faces again.
“Well done, girls,” Aderyn said, a smile crossing her pock marked face. “I think they will sur-”
The woman gasped, sucking in a huge breath despite the cloth over her face. She jerked, trying to rise, and Thor reached out to keep her in place, but it was not the rage poison that affected her. She tore the cloth from her face, and her eyes roved around, before coming to a rest on Thor as he grasped her shoulder, steadying her.
“Skaven,” she said, voice hoarse. Her hand found his. “Harad, skaven, help.”
After biting out the words she fell back, the combination of the journey, the poison, and the vapours draining her of every last bit of strength. She was able to keep her eyes open long enough to see Thor nod in silent promise, and then they rolled back in her head as she passed out.
The rising mood that came with death averted was stripped away, leaving only a grim worry. Thor had known that trouble had befallen Harad’s village when he had recognised Eadric, for why else would they have come to Vinteerholm, but the pale fright on Sunniva and Selinda’s faces and the poorly hidden fear in Ingrid told him that it was more than simple trouble.
“What,” Thor asked slowly, “are Skaven?”
There was a moment where none seemed to want to speak.
“Is that not a name for a variant of beastman?” Aderyn asked. She was smoothing the hair of the woman who had fought to warn them, and she seemed more unsure than anything.
“Skaven are Skaven,” Bjorn said, sitting back on his heels, face blank. “Rats the size of a man, they are foul things, scum, deserving only of death.” His words earned a raised brow from Thor; the god could not recall him having such harsh words for any other.
“They steal into towns, and disappear families,” Ingrid said, holding back a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. “Sometimes they take entire villages.”
“Helka would always keep a rat in a cage,” Sunniva said as she pressed a poultice into Eadric’s wounds, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “She said it would warn her if Skaven were about.”
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“She tested poisons on them,” Selinda said quietly. “The old chief asked her to.”
Aderyn frowned, opening her mouth to speak, only to hesitate with a second look at the Norscans.
“I was told of ratmen living under the earth, during our voyage to Skraevold,” Thor said. The spectre of their presence had put a worry into even the bold warriors who had sailed with him. “Are these Skaven those same people?”
“They are not people,” Bjorn said. There was a coldness to his eyes. “They are vermin.”
“If you go into their pit, you never come out,” Ingrid said, swallowing. “Not…not the way you went in.”
Thor swept his gaze across those with him in the grove. There was true fear in them, and it drove a hatred before it as a whip did a slave. Asgard in all its millenia had never seen a species that marched in lockstep into evil, but he knew that words alone would not free them. Not against such fearful hate.
“If they have targeted Harad’s village,” Thor said, thinking about the region to the west that had so concerned Tyra and Wolfric, “then they are no army. A large force would have come for a larger place, like here, and I would have slaughtered them.” His reasoning did not seem to reassure them. “I will go to them, and find out for sure.”
“They are cunning,” Bjorn warned. His ire was settling, though it was a case of a leashing rather than a fading. “It might be that they have let these three reach us to divide us, and make this place an easier target.”
“I can be there and back again before the afternoon is come,” Thor said, “but I take your meaning. I will take-” he paused for an instant to consider “-Bjorn and Kirsa.”
“I am ready, Lord Thor,” Bjorn said. He stood tall, ignoring the stiff stretching of his new scars.
“I take you not to fight, but to advise,” Thor told him. He was not recovered enough to give battle, but such a thing would not be necessary. Not in his presence. “Ready what you need.”
Bjorn bowed his head. “I will tell Kirsa,” he said, and he put word to action as he left to seek her out.
“Ingrid, take word to the gates,” Thor commanded. “Heighten the watch, call back the workers, and deny any hunting parties who wish to leave. It is likely that the Skaven who harried them so are still out there.”
“Aye, Lord Thor,” Ingrid said, touching a hand to the axe amulet at her throat, before hurrying off.
He turned next to Aderyn, ensuring that the healers would have all they needed, and then he left the grove behind, setting all to rights that needed setting before he could be away. He could not simply leave the town, but giving orders and informing the right people would not take over long. The warriors of Vinteerholm were warned of the situation, and Wolfric stepped forward to lead them. Word spread quickly of the threat that had come to their neighbour, and many were of mixed feelings as they heard that Thor meant to go to confront it.
The mood that Thor watched sweep the town did not sit well with him. He had seen the hatred they had for the raiders of other tribes, and the wariness they held to those that worshipped Chaos too deeply, but this was something else. Word of the Skaven had put a fear in them, bridled but unmistakable. The people of Norsca were not cowards, would spill blood for suggesting it - but every man and woman there, Baersonling, Sarl, or Aesling - were fearful all the same. The Nordlanders did not share in it, wary of lurking beastmen but confused by the insistence that Skaven were not the same. Grigori did, the Kislevite paling at the news and falling into black muttering, and he seemed to take it upon himself to explain the danger and difference to the people of the Empire.
Thor would need to take the time to ask after the whys and wherefores, but not then. Not while Harad and his people were assailed by an unknown enemy. Kirsa and Bjorn met him at the north gate, packed and ready. She had her dress and red cloak, and he had mismatched chain and leathers claimed from Skraevold. Selinda was with Kirsa, handing over a pouch and speaking quickly, while Bjorn waited quietly, a morningstar hanging at his hip.
“Are we ready?” Thor asked, drawing eyes. They had a small audience to see them off, the watchers atop the newly placed wall, the massive trunk a sight more stable than the palisade it had replaced, but also a goodly number of townsfolk. Aslaug was amongst them, and she bit her lip in concern as she met his eye for a moment.
“We are, Lord Thor,” Kirsa said. She had set aside her usual pair of braids, instead putting her hair up around her head, almost like a crown.
Bjorn nodded, and no more needed to be said. They made for the vessel that would see them safely to Harad’s village.
It was no ship, at least not one that would ever be carried by water. Amidst the flurry of carpentry that had overtaken the town in recent months, Thor’s flying tree platform had not been spared. Where once it had naught but a trunk with sections carved out for a person to sit within, young hands in need of distraction or instruction had been set loose upon it. Now it had an interior hollow, with rough shuttered windows and even the start of what might be called a prow. It was there that Thor placed himself once his companions were safely inside, where a section had been carved out for him to both hold the body of the ‘ship’ and keep an eye on the horizon. Perhaps one day something finer would be crafted, something more suited to a son of Asgard, but for now, it would suffice.
They took to the air, leaving Vinteerholm behind, bearing north-east.
X
From the sky, there seemed to be nothing wrong with Harad’s village. Smoke still curled up from the longhouse chimney, warriors still watched the walls, and folk still walked the village…but a closer look hinted at troubles. The gates were closed and barred, and there was no sign of activity beyond the walls - not just of the villagers, but nor of enemies, either.
There was space within the walls to set down, but Thor misliked the thought of letting any Skaven in the area know what they were about to face, and he picked out a spot in the forest nearby. The vessel set down gently on a patch of stubborn snow, and a wary family of rabbits watched from their burrow as Bjorn and Kirsa extricated themselves from it.
“There is trouble?” Bjorn asked, eyes roving the trees around them with just as much wariness as the rabbits had for them.
“The village is locked tight,” Thor said. With the vessel ‘designed’ as it was, there was no way to talk with the passengers as he carried it in flight. “We shall make the final approach on foot.”
“Kirsa should stay between us,” Bjorn said. “Skaven will take their prey from the end of the line without the man in front of them any wiser.”
“Not if Thor is that man,” Kirsa said, lifting her chin in challenge. Even so, her gaze still strayed to the forest, flitting from shadow to shadow.
“Skaven are cunning, and full of foul tricks,” Bjorn said. It was all too clear that he spoke from experience. “We must not-”
“Peace,” Thor said, raising one hand. “You are safe as you walk by my side, but that is no reason not to take precautions. Bjorn will lead, and I will bring up the rear.” He did not fear their tricks, for they could not hope to compete with those of his brother, but taking precautions would hurt none.
Perhaps it was his words, or perhaps it was the way Stormbreaker hovered at his back, but Bjorn subsided. “Aye, Lord Thor,” he said, giving the trees around them one last scowl.
At Thor’s direction, Bjorn led the way through the forest, stepping over gnarled roots and old mast. The trees there were not the same enormous old growth as those near to Vinteerholm, but they were well established all the same. For long minutes they trekked through them, and Thor found himself scanning the shadows and watching heavy boughs despite his surety. He could still hear the chatter of squirrels, still saw the occasional bird lifting into flight, but the nerves of his companions affected him still.
They reached the edge of the forest without incident, and a distance away there was the village, the river to its west. They would cross the open field where Gunnhilde had slain the raider Reket, freshly covered by a late snow, and then enter through the gate. The path was exposed, but nor would any foe be able to sneak up on them.
They were hardly out of the forest’s grasp when a sentry standing in the narrow gate tower noticed them, leaning forward even as he put an arrow to string. Thor called his axe to hand and raised it high, and at the sight of it the sentry seemed to sag in relief. He turned to the side, calling something to someone below, and waved them on, urgency in his frame.
Bjorn hurried forward, still casting glances over his shoulder at the treeline, as if it would reach out to pull them back. He picked up the pace, even after seeing nothing.
Something sharp pricked at Thor’s neck, an irritating bug bite, and he clapped his hand to it by instinct. It was no bug he found, however.
A dart sat crumpled in his palm, bent by the force of his slap. It had the same yellow sheen as those taken from Eadric, and there was a tiny dot of blood on its tip.
Thor didn’t hesitate. He took one stride forward and collected Kirsa under one arm, then another to collect Bjorn in the other, and then he was skyborne, making a huge leap across the field and over the palisade wall. Stormbreaker kept him from making an undignified landing, and he released his companions to recover from the sudden movement. Shouts came from the sentry tower behind them.
“Thor?” Kirsa asked, stumbling as she righted herself on the frozen ground.
“The foe is cunning indeed,” Thor said, revealing what he held in his palm.
“You are poisoned?” Bjorn asked, concerned, likewise righting himself. “Is that-?” He gave Thor a wary look.
“It will take more than a pin prick of such a small poison to affect me,” Thor reassured him.
Kirsa was less sanguine, reaching quickly for the small pack she wore. “Selinda gave me a powder, you must drink it-”
“Kirsa,” Thor said, taking her hands in his. “Fret not. A poison for mortal men will not touch me.”
“If you are sure,” she said, tension leaving her slowly as her surety in him warred with her worry for him. Reluctantly, she allowed her hands to slip from his.
Movement drew the eye, and they turned to see Harad himself approaching swiftly, though he slowed once he realised who it was he was seeing. The axeman had his weapon in hand, and there was a healing cut across one cheek.
“Thor,” he said, deep voice holding a kernel of relief. “My people reached you.”
“The three of them arrived this morning,” Thor said. “We came right away.”
Bristly white brows furrowed deeply. “I sent a dozen by ship five days ago.”
Thor shook his head, a grim cast to his features.
“Skaven,” Harad said, the word sounding like a curse. “They arrived a week ago, and we’ve not had a moment of peace since.”
“They attack regularly?” Thor asked. He looked around, but could not make out any signs of battle.
“Were it so easy,” Harad said, shaking his head. “They have not the numbers to assault us, but to leave the walls is to find a lonely death and if we do not watch them constantly, they will try to slip in.”
“There is at least one in the field beyond as we speak,” Thor said, showing him the bent dart.
Now it was Harad’s turn to eye him warily. “Did you pull that from your flesh, or your clothes?”
“Fear not,” Thor said again. “I will not be driven to rage by such a paltry thing.”
“Eight of mine have been, and we lost two of them to it,” Harad said.
“The rest live?” Kirsa asked, stepping forward.
“Some have endured, some still suffer,” Harad told her.
“I have a treatment for them,” she said. “Something to help calm them.”
“That would be welcome,” Harad said. “We have them in an empty granary - Audun!” A moment passed, and then a middle aged man emerged from a nearby house, a handaxe in one hand and mistrustful eyes on the roofs. “Show our guest to the sick. She has something that may help.”
Perhaps Aderyn would have been able to aid them for sure, but that would have meant her leaving the patients they had known about behind, and she was not a fighter nor one of Thor’s besides.
Audun turned and left, not looking back to check that Kirsa was following. After a last look to her god, she did so, and Thor grasped the small frisson of worry that came with her leaving his sight. She was not defenceless, and his aid was only a prayer away.
“It is a small infestation then?” Bjorn asked of Harad. “If they have not attacked outright?”
“So it would seem,” Harad said. “They thought to ambush me, brought a black rat near as large.”
“It did not go well for them,” Thor said.
“No,” Harad said, and he flicked his thumb across the cut on his cheek, a satisfied look on his face. “After I slew the big one, the rest fled. A night later, they began their harassment.”
“Helena is well, though,” Thor said, probing. He could not imagine she was anything else, given Harad’s mood, but he had to ask.
“She guards the last granary while I am not there,” Harad said, frustration and anger bubbling up now that he had something close to peers to speak with. “If the shits get in, that will be their first target.”
“The last granary?” Thor asked. Last time he had visited, he had spied more than one in use.
“The rats in the food stores weren’t just rats,” Harad said, a bitter frown on his face. “By the time we realised, they had ruined a whole granary.”
“They seek to kill you slowly then,” Thor said, resting his chin on one fist as the situation became clear.
“Their cunning is only matched by their cowardice,” Bjorn said, again his hatred rising.
“Aye,” Harad said, “but with you, Bjorn, we have three warriors who could hold the town.” He looked to Thor. “And then there’s you.”
“Do you know where they camp?” Thor asked. With the balance shifted by their arrival, their cause could only be weakened by a hesitance to strike - especially since his display in entering the village.
“We know where they likely make their lair,” Harad said. “There are some foothills nearby that were once mined for iron. My Helena and I could not leave the village to strike them, but now…”
But Bjorn was frowning, tugging at one side of his braided moustache. “If you know their lair, they likely wanted you to find it. Did they let you follow them to it?”
Harad scowled, face thunderous. “No. That damn fool boy slipped out and hid in the forest one morning. He claims they departed east, and returned from the same direction the next evening.”
Thor could only think of one person that would stir such a reaction from the old warrior. “Stephan?”
“Aye.”
“The skald?” Bjorn asked, startled. “Surely he has not the craft.”
“Damned fool luck, and his damned laughing god putting his hand on the scale,” Harad said.
“Where is he now?” Thor asked.
“Scrubbing and washing,” Harad said flatly. “I thought I was free of his bloodline causing me trouble, yet here I stand.”
Thor smoothed over his beard, hiding a smile. “The eagerness of youth,” he said, like he had not done a dozen things more foolish on a single adventure when he was of a comparable age.
“Pah.”
“If you know their lair,” Bjorn said slowly, “then Lord Thor could deal with it before the day is out, no?”
“I could,” Thor said. He was not sure if the dart had drawn his blood on its own merit, or if it was his slap at it that had done so, but he did not think the foe to be a threat to him, even should they ambush him in such a mundane way again. He was perhaps too used to Loki’s seidr in any potential mischief, for all that he had assumed the Skaven incapable of tricking him. “The only choice is in the how.”
“They cannot stop your flight,” Harad said, considering now. “You could be on them before they could prepare.”
“I could,” Thor agreed. “I have not faced Skaven before, but where there is one rat, there is another, yes?”
“There is always more,” Bjorn said.
“I mislike leaving for their lair when some still lurk around the village,” Thor said.
“They could not overcome us when it was but Helena and I,” Harad said. “Now there is Bjorn and Kirsa as well.”
“Even so,” Thor said. He drummed his fingers against his hip as he thought. The village was still quiet, but word seemed to have spread as to their arrival, and more than one villager found a task that required them to drift within view of the gate. “I would feel better if I knew the danger here had been dealt with.”
“Deal with it we shall,” Harad said. He glanced to Bjorn. “How are your wounds?”
“Better,” Bjorn said, though he grimaced.
“Then I will ask you to hold the gate in my absence,” Harad said, and Bjorn hefted his morningstar in response.
“You wish to join me?” Thor asked. “I would not dream of denying you the fight.”
Harad grinned, but there was nothing nice about it. “One of the rats out there gave me this little cut.” It was closer to his eye than most would be comfortable with. “I will return the favour.”
Thor answered his grin with one of his own, and the two axemen turned for the gate. There were Skaven to slay.