38. Seeking Counsel

“I have packed my things. I am giving up. I almost lost my wife today. I had only just discussed funding a larger expedition with Brolli, when she came to tell me she was leaving. To tell me that she was taking the boy and heading back to Timilir. I had to beg her just to take me along, to allow me even a chance at redemption.

I have promised her that I will stop my search for the Hall. But I cannot stop.

I cannot watch her decline when there may be a secret in those mountains that will save her. I will return to Timilir, make my peace with Jarl Thrand, and have Brolli seek out the Hall of Hrothgar in my stead. Once Sibbe returns from the lake with Hjorvarth, we will leave Horvorr and be a family again.”

Isleif sat wrapped in a long pale blanket, nestled amid nets and baskets that lay huddled in the corner of Linden’s home. He had narrowed his owly brows, watching while husband and wife went through the preamble of a meal.

Isleif thought there was something different about the ritual today. Linden wore the same sweat-stained shirt as the days before, but he now sat hunched at the table with a tenseness to his muscular shoulders. Anna wore a clean dress, pale blue with a plain tunic, but Isleif dismissed the change of clothes, thinking her choice to stand apart by the oven was odder, thinking it odd, as well, that she kept such a tight grip on her wine cup. He suspected a tacit agreement between husband and wife, where they had decided to only look at one another with a frown or scowl.

“Secret,” Isleif murmured, staring down at a woven basket as if in deep trust.

Anna walked over to an open fire, fitted with a frame for a cooking pot, which simmered with the smell of onions and fish stew, joined by the wholesome scent of fresh-baked, if not slightly burnt, bread. She drank from her wine, and used her free hand to pick at her fingernails.

Linden sighed. “I just…”

Anna watched the blackened cooking pot. “Just?”

“That you would murder a woman, Anna.” Linden’s shook his head in frustration. “How could you—why would you do that?”

“How many times are you going to ask?”

“You haven’t answered it. Not once.” Linden stared at his wife. “I understand that Gudmund was going to die. That none of his guards could help him. What I don’t understand is why that meant you had to help him? Why you thought it would be a good or reasonable idea to cut a woman’s throat in his defense?”

Anna’s cheeks were flushed, her blond hair slick with sweat. “It wasn’t her place to use a bow in a duel.”

“Is that it…?”

“She killed a man that wasn’t even fighting.”

“And that man was a close friend of yours, was he?”

“She,” Anna said, slowly, “had no right. None of them did. They didn’t even wait to hear Gudmund out. Didn’t want to. They came there to murder a man and take what was his, without even the courage to fight fair. They weren’t even going to finish him, just pin him in and have the woman stick him with another arrow.”

“Gudmund chose his odds,” Linden reminded. “And is it really your place to enforce rules of a duel in a town like this? What do you think happens when Gudmund dies at someone else’s hand? Someone who is friends with the men and woman you helped kill?”

Anna scowled. “Hard as it might be for you to fathom, husband, there are people in this world who would hold to honour, rather than grapple for a few more meager years.”

“I’ve lived quite long,” Isleif mentioned, his eerie voice throwing them both. “Meager years. Maybe I should have held to honour instead.” He sighed. “The bread is burning, I think. And you both seem very odd today, very off, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Anna turned to the smoking oven. She scrambled for a cloth and a flat-ended iron tool, and then scooped up the burnt mound of bread.

Isleif craned his wrinkled neck to look over the table. “It is burnt,” he confirmed.

“You’re not wrong, Isleif,” Linden said. “Do you want to come sit up here for something to eat?”

Isleif narrowed his milky eyes in suspicion. He stared at Linden for a long time, while Anna set the bread on the table, cut it and let the steam rise out, while she moved over to the cooking pot to spoon bowls of fish stew.

“Do I have something on my face?” Linden asked.

Isleif offered his broadest smile. “Knock at the door.”

“What?”

A wooden thud sounded from the door.

Isleif struggled up. “I’ll answer.”

Twin knocks, louder than the first, rattled a pair of cloth- and bone-adorned strings that hung near the door.

“No need,” Linden said, rising, stopped when his wife rested a hand on his shoulder. “Anna?”

“Eat your food.” She set a wooden bowl ahead of him, floating with strips of pale flesh, billowing with steam. She walked by the oven, reached up to the rafters for her sword, and waited for the old man to dodder over to the door.

Isleif carried forward as quickly as he could, struggling not to trip himself on his pale blanket. “I’m almost there!” He glanced nervously back at Linden and Anna, worried they might steal his duty, relieved now he entered the doorway’s short corridor. He struggled with a length of wood that sealed the door, but eventually lifted it free and let it clonk to the ground.

He pulled the door inward, squinting now his eyes adjusted from hazy light to the cleaner noon day. He wasn’t sure what he saw when his vision had settled, a thing made of metal perhaps, made of plates that shined red, with a monstrous metal face, with great horns, and an iron-hafted axe at its gilded belt.

“This Linden’s house?” Gudmund asked, sweating beneath heavy armour. “By the gods I bet I look a fool in this. Last time I listen to that mouthy prick,” he muttered. “Well, old man? Do you think this makes me look… imposing?”

“Shiny, is the word.”

“Shiny?” Gudmund’s eyes narrowed. “Well you look like a pale old ghost. Who are you?”

The frail man offered his hand. “Isleif.”

“Isleif the Bard?” Gudmund leaned closer. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“I don’t think so. My son looks after me… I haven’t seen him in a while. Have you?”

Gudmund met the question with a pause. “He’s not called Ottar, is he?”

Isleif shook his head, wispy hair floating in the air. “Hjorvarth.”

“Really?” Gudmund asked, laughter in his voice. “Maybe Grettir was right when he said I don’t know enough about the folk who live here.” He shrugged under his armour. “I’m surprised a man as rail thin as you had a son as big as that. Though that’d explain why Brolli took him under his wing.”

Isleif frowned. “Hjorvarth’s only a small lad.”

“What? Well, maybe I’m thinking of someone else.”

“Maybe you are.”

“Maybe you’re a distracting old fool.”

Isleif beamed. “Where’s Linden’s house?”

“If you don’t know just tell me, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Is that blood on your armour?”

“No, you old fool, it’s been… painted? Stained. I don’t know. It’s the metal plates.” Gudmund shook his helmeted head. “If you really are Isleif the Bard, then the gods are a lot crueler than I thought.”

Isleif furrowed his owly brows. “I thought you didn’t believe in the gods, Gudmund?”

“What?”

“This is Linden’s house.” Isleif bowed and stepped back. “Would you like to come in?”

“Fine… but if you’ve some foul trick in mind, then you might want to wait for a man that isn’t armed and armoured.”

“Come and sit at the table, Isleif,” called Anna, placing her sword back on the rafters

Isleif ambled over, holding his blanket above his ankles. He sat down opposite Linden, where a plate, mug and bread had been set.

Gudmund stood outside the door, looking into the hazy entryway. He kept a grip on his axe as he entered, letting it go when the three seated turned to look at him. He jangled with metal, ready for war.

“Gudmund.” Linden stare had no warmth. “Odd clothes for autumn. Any season, really.”

Gudmund grunted. “I’m dressed for the weather where strangers try to kill you.”

Anna sipped from her wine. “Here I was hoping you were going to tell us you were dressed for swimming.”

“He would drown,” Isleif cautioned.

“I think that was the point, old man,” Gudmund said. “Bit of an odd one given the other night.”

“Oh.” Isleif nodded. “Did you two sleep together?”

Linden raised an eyebrow. “She killed a woman for him.” He frowned at Gudmund’s shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”

He sighed. “The armour is red.”

“A little.” Linden nodded. “Not as red as that. Just take off that fool helmet and look at your shoulder.”

“It’s a good helmet.” Gudmund lifted it up with both hands, revealing pale cheeks and sweat-slick red hair.

“Because who wouldn’t want horns that get caught when you try to duck? Or used as handholds by whoever tries to kill you next.”

“If you’re so damn good at making helmets, why are you pissing your days away making horse shoes?”

“Aye.” Linden rolled his eyes. “All that time I’ve wasted making shoes for the two horses in this town that just got stolen.”

“Well I’m sorry for not knowing every detail of your life,” Gudmund muttered. “I swear, everyone in this town has turned into a rude bastard overnight.” He frowned at Isleif, who stared and smiled. “Except for him. And I don’t much like the way he’s acting, either.”

Anna laughed with false sympathy. “Have they hurt your feelings, Gudmund?”

“Aye, as it happens, they have. I came here to ask you whether you wanted to help me save this town, and you and your husband only want to insult me. This old man seems bent on making me feel uneasy, and that cook fire is making me sweat.” Gudmund shook his head, hair plastered to his creased brow. “Whys it so gods-damned hot in here, when it’s always freezing in my hall?”

Isleif shrugged under his blanket. “It could be a sign of a haunting.” He noticed the stew before him, and then his spoon.

“The only ghosts in this world are men like you,” Gudmund replied. “Is this bastard really supposed to be Isleif the Bard?”

“That depends.” Linden scowled. “Is the rude cunt bleeding on my floor Gudmund the Wolf?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Gudmund met the sentiment with baffled laughter. “Fair point. Now are you going to help me or not?”

“You haven’t even told us what you want.”

“I need someone to make horse shoes.” Gudmund smiled. “Or helmets, or nails or whatever I happen to need for the battle. It turns out the old bastard that tried to kill me was Horvorr’s blacksmith. What kind of luck is that?”

“So you’ve come to me because I’m better than a dead man?” Linden asked.

“Don’t go making boasts just yet,” said Gudmund. “And, no, I came to see Anna, but then you started mouthing off about my helmet and I remembered you can work a forge.” He shrugged and armoured plates scraped. “So I thought since I’m here, I better ask. Thought you’d have nothing better to do since there’s no work coming in. And you’ve a bit of a vested interest, as well, given that if I don’t have a horseshoe maker we’ll probably both end up dead.”

Linden raised his blond brows. “To think I used to wonder how you made all your neighbours hate you.”

“If you’re working for me you’ll need to be less cryptic than that.”

“And what is it you came here to see me for, Gudmund?” Anna asked. “Other than to ruin our meal, and give us all a headache?”

“It’s this damn heat giving you headaches.”

“No.” Isleif looked up from his meal. “It’s good to be warm.”

“What?” Gudmund scowled at the old man. “Wait… I remember what happened to you. And now I feel like a fool for not just sending you off to Jarl Thrand. If I’d have known you’d turned this cracked, I’d have took the coin with a smile.” He chuckled. “Must be in your family’s blood, old man. Pissing in Jarl Thrand’s porridge, I mean. Your boy Hjorvarth killed his son.”

He laughed again, but one memory followed another and he was soon dwelling on the deaths of his own children.

“Gudmund.” Anna snapped her fingers. “Much as I think you’d make good company for Isleif, what is it you want?”

“Ralf wouldn’t lead Horvorr’s Guard,” Gudmund said. “I want you to.”

Linden coughed as he drank his ale.

Anna’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to lead Horvorr’s Guard?”

“Did I stutter, or are you hard of hearing? Because I don’t want you leading if you’re deaf.”

“I heard you. It’s just a terrible idea. If we’re about to be attacked then I don’t have time to deal with restless men that don’t know or respect me.” She fixed him with a cold look. “So how’s about you stop being a lazy prick and just do it yourself?”

“No need to act like I stabbed your sheep,” Gudmund chided.

“Is that a joke, Gudmund?” Linden growled, rising from his chair. “Are you a complete idiot, or did it slip your mad man’s mind that you sent our son off to die?” He reached for the knife at his belt. “My wife might think this town needs you, but I don’t.”

“Where’s your faith?” Gudmund asked, taking a step back. “They’re on a quest for Tomlok. He wouldn’t have been any better off in Horvorr. There won’t even be a town for him to come back to if you’re not making—”

“Say horseshoes, and I will stab you in the throat.”

“Enough, husband,” Anna urged, but Linden walked forward.

Isleif stepped up from his chair and blocked the way. “Finish your food, Linden.”

Linden glared. “This man sent my son to his death.”

Isleif held Linden’s hateful gaze. “And mine as well, I think.”

Anna paid the two men no mind. “If you want my help you can have it,” she said to Gudmund. “But I won’t lead this town for you. You lost your children, and that’s sad, but it doesn’t give you the right to be a useless bastard for the rest of your life.”

“Fine.” Gudmund smirked. “But I was a bastard before I lost my sons, you know.” He put his horned helmet back on. “Everyone seems to have forgotten that.”

“I haven’t,” Linden assured, before returning to his seat.

Gudmund suffered sudden desperation now he departed. “Horseshoes.” Straining old wounds trying to close the door, he growled in agony.

‘Bleeding,’ he thought. ‘Had to be bleeding. What the hells am I even doing? Lost too much blood. Too much of my damn mind. Even got corpses telling me I look a fool. Too damn simple to remember sons and fathers. So simple, so hated that I go to the parents of Engli the Coward asking for help. Should have let that old blacksmith kill me. Should have just stood there and let him stab me in the back. Get it over with a clean cut. Instead of feeling so feeble, bleeding grey and shivering to death.’

“Gudmund.” Isleif stood ahead of the open door. He offered a warm bowl of fish stew. “You forgot this.”

“That’s your dinner, old man,” Gudmund assured. “I don’t even like fish. So go back inside and swallow it down.”

“I poured and brought this bowl for you.” Isleif bent down and placed it on the dirt road. “Take it or leave it.”

“Old man, you’re—”

Isleif ambled back into the house, his blankets lifted above bony ankles.

Gudmund sighed. He had to bend down on one knee and cause more pain in his shoulder to scoop up the bowl. “I don’t like fish.”

He walked back towards his hall, then turned back to Linden’s house, not noticing the ginger youth in pursuit. That man slid back behind a storage shed. He listened to heavy metal footfalls and risked a glance around the corner when they paused.

Gudmund had taken off his helmet and stood looking down at his hands.

Frodi shifted his aim from chest to head. “Laykia hold my aim.” He bit down on his tongue, and watched the arrow hum loose. “Muradoon take his soul.”

A wooden crack startled Gudmund, ripped the bowl from his lips and showered his cheeks with splinters and stew. He frowned at empty hands, then noticed the ginger man by the storage shed, aiming another arrow.

Gudmund sighed with wry disappointment.

He closed his eyes.

He remembered a day in his father’s hall, near Weskin. He could feel Brolli standing at his left, Grim standing at his right. They wore fine clothes in those days, and they were young, and didn’t know enough about life to care. He saw the stone walls at night, saw Brolli crying, saw the girl bloodied, saw the hate in his eyes. He had tried to stop his little brother, had meant to, had helped him take revenge in the end.

Gudmund wondered whether the dead would be glad to see him. He wondered what was taking so long.

“Told you not to walk about on your own,” chided Eirik’s high voice from behind.

Gudmund opened his eyes to see Arfast near the storage shed, standing over a decapitated corpse.

***

A snowflake floated down to land on a young woman’s broken nose.

Sybille opened her eyes to a world blurrier than she remembered.

Her breaths sounded louder and stony ground now seemed to grow in doubles and fold back in on itself.

She winced at the sudden aching in her face.

“Gressir?” Sybille’s swollen lips marred her words. She probed with her tongue and tasted blood.

The horse beneath her spluttered, brown fur glistening with sweat and powdered with snow.

Sybille tried to turn. She slipped, fell, and landed on her elbow. Her teeth clacked together in abrupt agony. She crumpled to the floor and sucked in harsh breaths, trying to remember what had happened, seeing Grettir’s determined gaze before… nothing. She could hear him shouting words in his harsh voice, unclear and unintelligible.

“Syb’,” Agnar’s voice said from above. She looked up and saw her roguish brother, clad in a green shirt and fine dark trousers. “You need to get up, little sister. You’re not safe here.”

“He’s not wrong, Sybille.” Geirmund stood beside him, taller and broader. Sybille’s oldest brother reminded her of Grettir and Gudmund both. “You need to have someone see to your wounds. It looks like you took a hard hit, and you’re still bleeding.”

Sybille frowned at her brothers. “You’re both dead.”

“Exactly.” Agnar offered his wolfish grin. “And we don’t want you to end up like us.”

“Get up off the floor, Sybille,” Geirmund commanded, his voice like iron. “Your horse is done, you’ll need to walk.”

Sybille struggled up, her brothers seeming more real than the barren ground around them. “Where’s Grettir?”

“We don’t know,” both answered.

Agnar reassured her with a smile. “I do know you need to get away from here, Syb’.”

“Check the saddlebags,” Geirmund said. “Grettir wouldn’t leave without some supplies.”

Sybille stumbled over to the saddlebags and the horse huffed at her approach.

“Careful,” Agnar said, walking over. The animal dipped its head under his palm. “I used to love this horse. Fed it every day. I even named it Marlo.”

“Ignore him, Sybille,” Geirmund suggested. “What’s in the bag?”

“Rope.” Sybille pulled it out from the open bag, coiling in a pile by her feet. “Just rope.”

“Did Grettir leave in a hurry?” Geirmund asked. He looked to Agnar. “There might not be any water.”

“Snow’s falling, anyway,” Agnar said. “Just stick your tongue out, Syb’.”

Sybille pawed at the horse’s flank to get over to the other side, grabbing its tail as she passed.

“Easy, Marlo.” Agnar brought his head close to the horse’s own. “It’s just Syb’.”

“I don’t understand,” Sybille’s voice shook with grief, tears welled in her eyes. “Are you two really here?”

“No.” Geirmund shook his head. “Agnar is just saying things that you already know.”

“Maybe.” Agnar smiled. “Maybe we made a deal with a one-eyed god, and he told us not to give the game away. Saddlebags either way, Syb’. You don’t want to test Geirmund’s patience. He hasn’t had the stomach for that ever since the troll swallowed half his torso.” He squinted up at the snowy sky. “I just had a thought, you know, Geir’. I sent Hjorvarth away, and then I died. He ran to you, and you sent him away, and then you died.”

“What?” Sybille asked. “How would I know that? I didn’t know that. I was in the—”

“People hear and see things they don’t understand when they’re waking,” Geirmund said. “But now you’re hurting, Sybille, and your mind is playing tricks on you.”

“Moral of the story, Syb’, if you’re in a fight, stand next to Hjorvarth.” Agnar laughed to himself. “Really though, saddlebag.”

Sybille blinked at the leather saddlebag ahead of her. She untied it, and reached inside.

“Careful,” Geirmund said. “If it hasn’t been packed by Grettir, then there’s a knife in there.”

Sybille matched stares with her brother over the horse. She thought that he seemed sad, despite the stillness of his proud face. She probed into the saddlebag, feeling the long hilt of a knife, and the softer fabric of a pouch.

“The suspense is killing me, Syb’. What have we got?”

Sybille reached in with her other hand and took both items out.

Geirmund’s eyes narrowed on the knife. “Father must have really annoyed Grettir to have him leave without thinking.”

“Yeah.” Agnar shrugged. “Also, father? Gudmund is a cunt. Call Grettir uncle by all means, but I won’t have you giving credit where credit isn’t due.”

“If he is…” Geirmund gritted his teeth. “A cunt. Then like father like son.”

“That’s awfully honest of you. Good that you know yourself.”

“Enough,” Sybille pleaded. “Are you just here to upset me? To fight like you always did?”

“Boot your knife, Syb,” Agnar suggested. “Scoop up some snow and put it in your mouth.”

“Open the pouch, Sybille.”

Sybille sighed and fumbled with the string that sealed the pouch. She took her knife and cut it open, hearing the rasp of glass amongst the tearing. She saw a scrap of paper, not paying attention to her brothers.

Agnar and Geirmund exchanged serious glances.

“What’s in there, Syb’?”

“I can’t read it.” Sybille pulled out a short letter and a glass vial, murky liquid sealed with wax and blocked by a stopper. She started to scrape the wax away with the knife, breaking the seal. “I’m thirsty.”

“Don’t drink that, Sybille. Go and find some snow, like Agnar said.”

“I say go for it, Syb’. It looks nice and… green.” Agnar watched her struggle with the stopper. “Use the—” It popped free. “Good work.”

Geirmund stepped forward. “Sybille, you don’t even know…” She swallowed the liquid. “…what that is.”

Sybille’s throat burnt as it went down, but it made her feel stronger, made her vision straighten. She blinked and Geirmund was gone.

“He had to go, Syb’.” Sybille looked over to Agnar, her panic fading now she saw her younger brother’s familiar grin. “Time for you to ride your horse.”

“But Geirmund said—”

“Can you just trust me this once? It hurt me you know, every time you took his advice instead of mine.”

Sybille thought he was trying to tell the truth as a joke. “I…”

“I trust this horse with my life.” Agnar stroked the mane of Marlo. “That’s probably not much of a marker. I trust him with your life, Syb’. So get on.”

Sybille took a few long breaths to steady herself, sour taste still clinging to her throat. She walked over to the horse, thought it odd that Marlo stood so calm. She clambered up and over, seeing where her blood had stained the fur.

“Good work.”

Sybille looked down at her melancholic brother. “I miss you, Agnar. I miss you both.”

“I know you do.” Agnar smiled sadly. “That’s why we came.” He waved his hand to the grey and white horizon. “Ride that way. There’s a village up there. You’ll see it when you reach it. You’ll know it by the smoke.”

“All right.”

“Don’t ride too hard.” Agnar watched as she began at a slow trot. “And, Syb’—” Sybille turned to him. “Look for my journal when you get back home.”

Sybille frowned, but her brother was gone. She shivered with the cold. The wind swept a cloud of dust past where Agnar once stood. Marlo carried his rider for nearly an hour, as the snow fall grew thicker, at times close to blinding.

Sybille sagged forward against his neck, tired and exhausted, her red hair and broken cheek flecked by fat flakes of snow. Then they came clear of the weather all together, and Sybille’s clothes clung to her aching skin, trickling with cold water.

Marlo’s powerful strides sent spray flying from his own coat, and helped to dry her.

Sybille saw smoke in the distance, at least a dozen dark columns. She worried she might be seeing double again, but carried on towards it. She thought that Grettir might be there, remembered that he had said he would meet her somewhere, or she had told him to meet her.

Dizzy and nauseous as she was, she paid no mind to the burnt walls or the remnants of fire. She didn’t worry that some of the men appeared to have misshapen bodies, darker skin, and stood twice as tall as the others.

She didn’t question why the villagers were walking in an orderly line, away from their village despite the cold weather.

Marlo reared up amid dozens of imprisoned villagers and a savage goblin clan.

An old man raised his chains. “Run, girl! Run!”

Sybille barely heard the horse’s horrific squeal. Her world tumbled around her.

She saw her brothers as she fell.