28. Honour Bound

“I march from Fenkirk with over ten score men. There are those with us that think we are bound for honour. Both boys of The Mayor of Fenkirk are along. Sam the Storyteller and Hakon the Hero. I gave them no credit for their names, but the boy that had hopes of being a bard reminded me too much of his namesake, and I could not help but feel that I have betrayed my own son by abandoning him.

In my desperation, I visited an old crone who reads the future from bones. When I asked what path I should take, she handed me a knife and spoke the word throat. I lost my courage, but I can still feel the grimy blade pressed against my neck.”

A squall swept down and blasted Hjorvarth and Engli with snow. They trudged forwards through a white haze, their hands kept close to frozen clothing, their faces fixed into scowls. They made their way up a large hill, towards a huge structure silhouetted through the snowfall.

“Don’t you think it’s odd?” Engli shouted through chattering teeth. “A house near as tall as Gudmund’s Hall. Made of stone, and standing atop a hill.”

Hjorvarth nodded, not hearing the words. He cared more for the pain of his frozen ears.

Engli risked his hands to rub the snow from his aching cheeks. “And do you think this Jorund will just welcome us with open arms?”

Hjorvarth offered no answer, but he grew wary and paused. He squinted at the distance, seeing little more than dreary, fat flakes.

Engli walked on ahead, repeating his question more loudly.

A proud warcry rang across the snowy hilltop.

Startled, Engli turned to where he thought Hjorvarth stood, and instead saw another man, dark and broad and tall, charging forwards through the snow with an axe raised above his head.

Engli reached for his shield, and then remembered the weight of it on his frozen arm, so set his feet instead.

He braced himself while the roaring man brought his axe down.

Engli realized the blade would arc clean over his shield. He had to wait for it to hew through his neck now the second stretched—a heavy blow to his shield righted time, sending him tumbling back as the axe sliced through his cheek.

The dark-haired man stood dumbfounded.

“Drop your axe!” Hjorvarth shouted so viciously it sounded close to a scream.

The mountaineer studied the shield on the floor, bear and wolves fighting upon the face of it. “You threw your shield?”

He let the wood axe drop to the snow, and turned to face Hjorvarth.

Fear flickered across the man’s weathered features.

“Step back from your axe, and from him!” Hjorvarth brandished his own, shorter axe. “I’ve little practice throwing a shield, but I’ve thrown this countless times.”

He walked forward to pick up the axe when the mountaineer stepped back. Sunlight shone down from above, golden shafts piercing through the grey as snow gave way.

The brightness did the two men of Horvorr’s Guard no favours.

They had not slept since leaving the town and the exhaustion weighed their haggard faces, which had been bruised, scratched, and stained black by troll waste. A medley of grim stains darkened the torn fur and tattered leather of once brown trappings to leave them looking more dangerous than desperate.

“I meant no harm,” the mountaineer spoke in a steady voice. “I rarely get visitors, and I knew that you were not my family.”

“Not your family?” Engli coughed in pain, and pushed up to his knees. “Is that all the reason you need to cut a man down?”

“No.” The mountaineer shook his head. “In truth I had thought your friend to be a yeti, and I had thought you a yeti as well.”

Engli’s eyes narrowed. “A yeti?”

“You walked towards my home in the snow, towards my youngest daughter and my wife.” The mountaineer brushed cold water from his weathered face. “The gods know the guilt I would have felt had your friend not knocked you clear of my swing. But I stand by the act,” he added more firmly. “And I would remind you, as well, that this is my land, and I have clearly marked it as that for miles around.”

“How should we see your gods-damned signs through the snow?” Engli snapped.

The mountaineer clenched his teeth. “You are angry. And you have every right to be. But unless you mean to murder me in your wrath there is no use discussing it out here. And if you do… then I only regret handing over my axe.”

Hjorvarth stood silent, snow melt cooling his wrath and slowing his misty breaths. “We’ve no mind to murder you.” He offered the wood axe by the handle. “Nor do we go around snow blind, swinging our axes on gamble. So I expect you’ve nothing to fear.”

The mountaineer remained cautious. “Your name?”

“Hjorvarth.”

He took the axe back. “And why are you here?”

“I am looking for a man named Jorund,” Hjorvarth replied. “And I’ve been told he lives on this hill.”

“I am Jorund.” The mountaineer seemed a decade older at the mention of his name; grey streaks glistened in his beard and cold water trickled through the creases of his skin. “But I won’t treat with you out here. And I won’t let you in my home carrying axes.”

Engli laughed a baffled laugh. “So you want us to offer our weapons up to the man who just tried to murder us?”

Jorund nodded, resting the wood axe between his feet. “Or go back the way you came.”

They each met his gaze, eyes black as obsidian, no doubt resting within. “And you’ll return them when we leave?” Hjorvarth asked.

“Of course,” Jorund spoke solemnly. “And I will vouch safe you for the night. Guests are honoured in my home.”

Before Engli could counsel waiting for the Sage, Hjorvarth handed over his weapon.

***

Engli and Hjorvarth sat cross-legged beside one another in Jorund’s main room. They both faced a low stone table, layered with long and colourful cloths of patterns and animals. All the walls, roof, and furnishing were of a light grey stone, white-veined and smooth, that appeared yellow by the small stone fireplace built opposite the main door. Engli looked at Hjorvarth, who seemed no less at ease than he did at Sam’s tavern. “You’re not the least bit worried?”

Hjorvarth was rubbing the cloth between thumb and finger. “About what?”

“About the axe swinging man that lives in a house of stone, on the top of a hill in the middle of the mountains?”

Hjorvarth kept his focus on the cloth, sharing his companion’s concerns but not voicing them. He had only come inside because Jorund didn’t seem like a man who would brook armed strangers waiting outside his home for an unknown arrival, which left an easy choice between murder or trust.

“Look at how low the doors are.” Engli gestured towards the doorway. “The table, as well. Everything here is smaller than it should be. How do we know this is his house, and not just one he stole? What if there is a Jorund—was a Jorund—and what if our friend confused him for a yeti?”

“Unless he tries to kill us,” Hjorvarth said, “it isn’t worth worrying on it. Are you sure your judgement isn’t clouded, given that he almost murdered you?”

Engli smiled in disbelief. “Oh, do you think so?”

“I could be wrong.” Hjorvarth shrugged. “But I would consider it.”

“Consider what?” a softer, quiet voice asked.

Both men frowned at each other, then turned to face the door across the table. A pale young woman stood there, wearing a black dress that looked too long and heavy for her slender frame. Engli thought she looked sickly, while Hjorvarth thought her elfin and fey.

She brushed black hair clear of her dark eyes, and smiled as if nervous. “I’m Astrid.”

Hjorvarth’s brows furrowed. “Is Jorund your father?”

“He is.” Astrid nodded, and smiled again.

“Then I was telling Engli he is over-worrying,” Hjorvarth said. “And that I think it’s because your father tried to kill him not long ago.”

“Oh.” Astrid knitted her fine brows. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to… I mean, he wouldn’t usually—I’ve never known him to hurt anyone, that—”

“It’s fine.” Engli waved it away. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

“It was heavy snow,” Hjorvarth explained, “and Jorund thought he was a yeti. Or he thought that I was a yeti, and that Engli must have been another monster, as he stood in my company.”

“Ah,” Astrid said. “That makes a little sense… you do look like a yeti—in size I mean, and, well, your face, as well, I suppose…” She walked closer, and dropped to one knee on the other side of the table. “If you had more hair I mean, and sharper teeth, and if your hair were white, and if you had uglier eyes.”

Engli looked elsewhere as she gazed at Hjorvarth. He noted a set of small wooden figures stood atop an oak drawer, dark and gleaming, to the left of the stone fireplace. One figure stood alone, an unfinished bear, upon the mantelpiece. He looked back to Hjorvarth, who blinked and turned from the young woman’s stare.

Astrid’s gaze grew deeper even though he had edged away.

“Are you all right?” Engli asked. Hjorvarth and Engli exchanged worried looks. Both men moved to rise when she teetered.

Astrid blinked. “Sorry.” She offered a small laugh, exhaustion weighing her face. “I do that sometimes.”

“Fall asleep with your eyes open?” Hjorvarth reasoned.

She shook her head, looking down at other wooden figures that stood atop the vibrant tablecloth. Those animals wove matched figures that stood atop it, a wolf for a wolf, a bird for a bird, and on like that. There were no hangings along the walls, or from the ceilings, only firelight and those vibrant tablecloths adding any colour to the grey place.

“See the future.” Astrid looked up at Hjorvarth. “Or so Edda says…”

“Edda?” Engli asked.

“My father’s mother,” Astrid answered.

“Oh.”

“So,” Astrid said. “I suppose I should ask what you’re both doing here…”

“Aren’t you going to tell us the future?” Hjorvarth asked.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“You don’t believe in prophecies, though… do you?”

Engli smirked. “Why would you think that?”

“Edda told me,” Astrid explained. “Some other things as well, but that’s how I knew you were here. So I sneaked past my father, and now he’s looking for me outside. Well, he was. Edda said that he would go and find my brothers when he didn’t find me. In case something had happened, or in case you were bad folk after all, and he’d misjudged you.”

“She told you all that?” Engli asked.

“She whispered it.”

Hjorvarth studied the young woman. “Would I be able to speak with her?”

“No.” Astrid smiled sadly. “I think she might like to… but she only speaks to me. Father says he hears her voice at night, but no one else.”

Hjorvarth matched her smile. “You speak to her ghost, then?”

“First yetis, now ghosts,” Engli murmured.

Astrid pretended not to hear him. “Edda speaks to me, mostly, but sometimes I speak to her.”

Hjorvarth nodded, disquieted as he looked at her unwavering black eyes. He glanced down at snow melt puddling beneath his legs.

“Is something wrong, Hjorvarth?” Astrid asked.

“In a sense.” Hjorvarth looked up at her, dissatisfaction about his hard face. “Would you be able to tell me your prophecy?”

“It isn’t anything like that, just flashes really. A picture here and there, and words, like Edda’s, only an older voice. A voice that sounds tired of speaking… cold.” Astrid gave a small shrug. “I saw you, Hjorvarth, only you were old, and I saw Engli, not much older, but crying, and the voice said: ‘They mourn—or maybe it said they will mourn—each other’s deaths.’”

“Isn’t that cheery,” Engli remarked.

“Not really,” Hjorvarth and Astrid answered together. “I find it curious though,” Hjorvarth said alone. “You’re a little young to be a charlatan.”

“Hjorvarth.” Astrid feigned seriousness. “I hope you’re not suggesting I would lie to, or attempt to mislead you.”

“No suggestion.” Hjorvarth shook his head. “All prophets are liars. I’ve just no clue what it is you hope to gain.”

“Hasn’t she already said?” Engli asked. “She’s distracting us while Jorund goes to get her brothers. What choice did he have, but to let us in? Weapons or no, he knew he wasn’t a match for you alone.”

“I see we’ve got a spirited visitor,” an older woman then declared, ducking under the leftside doorway now she entered the room.

“Hello, mother.” Astrid looked back at the brown-haired woman standing behind her. “This is Engli.” She gestured to the blond man. “And, this is Hjorvarth.”

“And I am Brenna.” She looked at each of them, her green eyes doubtful. “But what are they are doing in our home?”

“We’re here to see Jorund,” Hjorvarth said. “Do you know when he will return?”

Brenna shook her head, her hair barely shifting. “What do you wish to speak to him about?”

Engli and Hjorvarth looked to one another, waiting for the other to answer, only knowing that they had been told to come here.

Metal screeched and intricate copper mechanisms that lined the main door began to shift and click together like beetle’s legs. A clunk of stone preceded groaning, then wind began to whistle when light poured in through the opening door.

“—going to stop speaking just because we have strangers on the other side of the door?” a young man said, and a disapproving laugh answered it.

“Show some respect, Gunnar,” a deeper voice replied.

“Ah, see.” Gunnar shook his head, though all Hjorvarth and Engli could see were silhouettes amid sunlight. “But that’s what I’m doing, Bjorn,” Gunnar went on. “I don’t want to pretend that we weren’t just talking about our visitors before we opened the door. That would be disrespectful.”

Jorund entered with his youngest son and oldest daughter. Gunnar and the daughter each had the trappings of a hunter, and both shared a likeness to their mother, with their lithe frames, narrow faces, and rough brown hair.

“I think you’re right,” Hjorvarth said. “It’s better that a man knows the truth.”

“You.” Gunnar pointed at the huge man. “I like you. That’s how you make friends… are you watching, Dagny? Just agree with the first thing someone says.”

“The truth?” Astrid asked icily of Hjorvarth. “You must find life troublesome, then. Given that everyone is lying to you.”

Dagny smiled slyly at her brother. “Clearly, little sister is not as impressed.”

“Ah.” Bjorn entered to make all those in the crowded room seem smaller. He looked greatly like his father, only broader and younger. “Has he offended you, Astrid? Should we cast him out into the harsh, yet temperate tundra?”

Astrid answered with a sheepish shake of her head. Gunnar and Dagny exchanged bemused glances.

“I do,” Hjorvarth answered, quite soberly. “I find life troublesome.”

Astrid seemed concerned while the rest of her family met the sentiment with indifference or confusion.

“Jorund.” Hjorvarth looked up at the mountaineer. “Can we speak now?”

“Later.” Jorund held up three strung fowl. “Can either of you cook?”

Engli shrugged. “My mother says I’m not a bad cook.”

“His mother,” Gunnar and Dagny said together, brows raised and eyes wide.

Brenna glared. “And what do you two mean by that, exactly?”

“Not bad, is good enough,” said Bjorn, leading his mother into the left corridor. “Come on, Engli.”

Engli pushed up from the wet stone and stumbled with the fatigue in his legs.

“Impressive,” Dagny said, ducking under the doorway.

“I bet—” Gunnar picked up a wet sack of fish. “You have trouble getting out of bed in the morning.” He waited for someone to laugh, then shrugged and followed after his siblings. “Come on, Engli!”

Engli paused at the corridor to look back at his companion.

Hjorvarth appeared worse for wear, his rugged clothing damp with the weather and black with troll waste. He nodded his assent and assurance. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Twins caught a goat.” Jorund waved towards the sunlit snow outside. “I’ll need your help to carry it.”

****

Hinges squealing overhead, Jorund angled his shoulders to open the cellar’s double door with his back. He threw them open, letting winter light into the small stone space.

Hjorvarth shielded his eyes with one bloody hand, and held the skinned goat in the other. Both men carried the fresh meat onto the snowy ground above.

Jorund tugged the goat as if to take the weight. “Could you bring me some herbs and honey from the house? We’ll cook over there.” He nodded towards the shadowed passage between the square-made, silver-plated home and a squat tower of stone and brass.

“I am a guest,” Hjorvarth admitted. “But would it not be simpler for you to fetch it?”

Jorund took the goat. Blood pattered down to the snow. “Right, when you enter,” he instructed. “Left down the corridor, until your third right. Then down the stairs. You should be able to follow the noise of cooking from there. Tell Gunnar or Dagny what you need.” He kept a level expression, no tiredness showing in his weathered features, his black-and-grey hair glistening in the light.

Hjorvarth regarded him for so long that Jorund thought he suspected deception, but then the huge man offered a small nod, hinting to dissatisfaction, and turned to walk towards the copper-worked doors of the masterwork stone home.

Hjorvarth had not delayed from suspicion though, he was simply trying to commit the instructions to memory, and had managed to remember none of it. He glanced back at Jorund, thinking to ask him again, but saw that the man had already turned towards the circular tower.

Hjorvarth thought it an odd structure, because it had no walkway to look out from. The dome roof appeared fully enclosed, save for a giant looking glass, gleaming golden in the light. Hjorvarth shook his head, dismissing thoughts of giant birds that it might have been made to look for, then stepped into the warmth of the low-roofed meeting hall.

The flames of the stone fireplace licked desperately towards the half-carved figure of a bear on the mantel. Thinking to move it, Hjorvarth realized that the bear was not unfinished, but instead partly broken. One of the four paws had been snapped off.

Hjorvarth ducked into the corridor. He squeezed his way through, shield scraping against each side of the wall, his shoulders pressed hard into his chest. He grumbled, and turned to the first door he saw. It had been inlaid with silver and small gems, purple and blue, so that it depicted a scene of a short, ugly woman bathing by a lake.

He pulled it open, thinking the air smelled like the odd girl he had met.

A thick blanket lay on the stone bed, woven colourful with animals like that of the main room. The stone walls, and the wooden desk, had been carved and etched with mad swirls and cruel-eyed animals. Littered all about the room were the broken stubs of chalks and pale pages, drawn over with well-detailed portraits of men and women, all of them seeming solemn or menacing for the blackness or redness of the chalks used.

Hjorvarth felt a little guilt for his snooping, so he turned to leave, knocking a stack of drawings from a stone bookshelf. They rasped against one another, coming apart and sailing to the floor. He watched them fall, his gaze following a crisp sheet as it came to land between his damp fur-trimmed boots.

A man’s stony visage had been drawn in red chalk: hard lines for his heavy jaw and squared face, softer marks for his handsome beard and combed-back hair; most care had been given for his pale eyes, their hollow gaze shadowed beneath thick brows.

Hjorvarth frowned down at his own reflection, then he lifted his gaze to the other drawings, seeing that they were all of his likeness, though those in black painted him as uglier, scarred, with no hair at all.

He stepped back into the corridor, and his shield clipped both sides of the doorway.

Hjorvarth struggled to settle the worry rising in his chest. He angled his stride so as best to move quickly through the narrow walkway. He passed more doors, marked with scenes of small men and women in forests, until the corridor opened out to a square-wrought stairway at his right.

He descended the stairs, hearing the distant sounds of chopping, of water, boiling and steaming, and of quiet conversations being spoken. He crossed onto another landing that gave access to a silver-inlaid door, then followed more steps down, glancing up at those he had just descended. He passed another silver door, but paused at the steps when he saw they ended in darkness.

He frowned, realizing then that the whole stairwell should be dark. He found a small brass-and-glass worked box on the wall that housed an odd flame. Hjorvarth pried that from the stone, snapping its fixings, and the light shifted. He carried it to the stair, peering down into gold-bled blackness.

“Is someone down there?” Hjorvarth asked, but all he heard in reply was the bubble of water and the hiss of steam.

Hjorvarth let out a rumbling sigh, and gritted his teeth. He stepped forwards, keeping a careful watch on shadows that melted away under gentle light. The stairs ended just a little below him, so he approached more slowly, until he could see the outlines of stone counters. “Engli?”

A muffled shout answered, followed by a resounding slap.

Engli watched the huge man’s approach with teary eyes.

He had been strapped to a chair, gagged, and now cold metal pressed against his neck. “Another word,” Dagny hissed. “And you’re dead.”

Hjorvarth crossed into the kitchen, shifting his golden lantern to his shield hand. Engli tried to scream again as Bjorn stepped out from the shadows behind Hjorvarth, but choked on his gag instead.

Bjorn brought down a huge rag-wrapped club, but Hjorvarth twisted clear—hooked the man’s leg, grabbed him by the shoulder—and shoved him onto his back.

Gunnar rushed out from the kitchen with a smaller club of his own.

He leapt forward to swing at Hjorvarth’s head, but the huge man dipped and the club only struck his shoulder.

Gunnar tried to grapple with Hjorvarth, but got elbowed in the gut and staggered backwards instead.

Hjorvarth paused now Dagny drew her bow beside Engli. She loosed as he stepped back, bringing the lantern into the arrow’s path.

Grass cracked and shattered, followed by an odd whir that left them all in darkness.

“Put your weapons down,” Hjorvarth ordered. “Find me a light, and—”

Engli breathed through his gag, struggling to listen as Dagny loosed arrows that splintered against stones, as she cursed beside him. He heard Brenna scream, grunts of effort, people hissing pain, and blows being struck.

A knife clattered. A man crumpled to the floor.

“Must we fight like rats in the darkness?” Hjorvarth roared. “I swear by the gods this does no good for my anger or for my nerves, and if I fear for a second that you might have any advantage, or if I hear Jorund’s steps come down that stairs, then I would have no choice, but to cripple every one of you. Oldest son of Jorund,” he declared. “I have my boot on your brother’s head. Bring your family to reason, or I will crush his skull underfoot.”

“If you kill my brother,” Dagny warned, training her bow towards sounds to ill effect for the clatter and whistling of boiling pots. “I will make you suffer.”

“My suffering will make him no less dead,” the huge man assured.

“Hjorvarth,” Bjorn said. “You must understand, the men that come here are often vagabonds or murderers. We needed to be sure you could be trusted—”

A heavy fist brought an end to his explanation.

“Bjorn?” Brenna asked. “Bjorn!”

“This is not a boast,” Hjorvarth said. “Gunnar and Bjorn are down. And given how poorly you fared before, I do not see that you can succeed, whether to trap me or to kill me. So set me a light! Set Engli free! Or this will end very badly for all of us.”

Brenna screamed past, her knife flashing dully through the blackness. She swung blindly towards the space beside and under the stairs.

“Mother?” Dagny asked.

“He’s gone!”

Hjorvarth made his way to the rattling pots and pans, puzzled as to how they could be heated with no light, save for a subtle glow. He took a heavy metal top from one, then stumbled back when steam billowed up to half-blind him.

An arrow whistled past and cracked into stone. He threw his weight to one side and hurled the pan-top into the darkness. Metal rang out as it struck a wall, then resounded again upon hitting the floor.

Dagny fitted another arrow, turning her bow this way and that, still standing behind Engli’s chair. She turned sharply to a sound behind her—something touched her shoulder and she jerked away, loosing her arrow into the wall.

The grip hardened and a cold line pressed against her neck.

“Daughter of Jorund,” came a whisper so full of venom that her blood froze. “Cut him loose.”