60. Landing Day

“Landing Day commemorates when our ancestors came to Tymir. Some believe that they first settled in Horvorr. In that way I suppose we have reversed our ancestor’s ways. They moved on to more fertile regions that were not populated by goblins and we all followed a man who was set on conquering a barren land plagued by innumerable clans.

My wife and child have finally arrived in Horvorr. They joined me at the Landing Day feast, though I wish I had never taken them. It was snowing, and bitter, and miserable. Sibbe already hates it here. Hjorvarth was at least glad to see me and Brolli, but I think the novelty of the snow wore off when he started to shake with the cold. I suppose I can take heart that none of us will be here for long.”

Engli sat in his narrow room, still bruised and bandaged from the battle. He had always thought his home too small for three people. Cluttered with useless things. The table enclosed by cupboards, the pot, and the stove. But now it seemed too big. He watched his mother doing as she always did, cooking and cleaning, but her determination seemed more conscious, as if this was something she forced herself into so that she didn’t have to look at the empty seat at the table.

Engli gazed at the plain boards of the wall, then pulled on an itchy shirt, dyed black and woven of wool. He paused in the archway before stepping into the kitchen. “Maybe we should move to a warmer region?”

Anna paused so briefly that he wasn’t sure she heard him, then she stared at him as if forlorn. “I am exiled, Engli.” She shook her head. “Why else do you think I would live in a place like this?”

Engli smiled in confusion.

“I murdered a man that raped me,” Anna spoke with a quiet venom. “Your real father. And to think all those years you put the myth of him above the man that raised you… and yes, he was a fighter. But by the gods do I wish you had the calm or humility of Linden, or that he’d had the sense to wear a gods-damned helmet when he so laughed at Gudmund for his own.”

Engli stared dumbfounded, trying to master the sickness broiling in his stomach. He shook his head, and staggered towards the door. “My real father was a blacksmith. As he always was and always will be. But you have my thanks for telling me of a man that had no more part in my life than the making of it. And my gratitude for sparing me that truth as long as you did.”

He opened the door to a chill night, and sucked in a calming breath that made his lungs itch.

“Son… I—”

Engli pulled the door closed behind him, listening to squealing hinges that Linden had always spoke of oiling. He wandered forwards down the shadowed streets, deciding he would go and sit at the embankments with Hjorvarth.

***

Hjorvarth sat with his legs crossed at the embankments of Horvorr’s Great Lake. He sat where he had often sat, putting creaking fisher shacks behind his back. He sat in his place. Yet it did not feel the same.

Earth had been relaid to bury goblin corpses, which left the embankments humped and uneven.

Hjorvarth himself did not feel the same. He was not the man that had sat these shores in the seasons past. He would never again help old fisherman bring their boats from land to water. They were all dead. Their small vessels had been replaced by a scattering of abandoned rafts that floated aimlessly atop the dark expanse.

This place was not Horvorr. No more than a corpse was a man, a friend, or a father. Food for trolls that could not be eaten, beyond by the slow encroach of the elements themselves. Horvorr’s Guard had been disbanded. Because the town did not stand to be guarded. It had been hollowed out like the ribs of an ancient beast.

Grettir’s home, looming to his left as a rigid shadow in a darkening night, lay unclaimed. Walls broken through, stairs missing, so that only the upward half of the fighter’s life remained. He had died outside the walls of Horvorr, in defense of Sybille. They had left the town on the very same night as Engli and Hjorvarth.

Hjorvarth wondered if they, the town, would have been better served by all four folk traveling together. He dismissed the thought.

Things that did not happen, would not happen, were beyond consideration. He could convince himself of every choice made, bad as each may have been, save one.

Hjorvarth had attacked his foster father without good reason. And it was that one act that had lead to all else. Scores of miners slaughtered within sight of the walls of Horvorr. Asgeir’s band dead to the last man. Bjorn dying for a cause in which he had no faith. Hjorvarth should have lead Asgeir’s band straight to Horvorr, been ready for the defense, instead of turning back to save villagers trapped in the mountains, because in the end all he had done was lead them from one bad death to another.

Yet he could not have known that. What he did know, what he should have known, was that Brolli would not be so rash, so tactless, as to force a confrontation. The Autumn Trip had been canceled. Hjorvarth would have had no choice but to agree to go back to working for him, to lead a caravan into the Low Lands.

Or perhaps the true mistake was not paying the debt in the first place.

Hjorvarth had paid the death price owed by Ivar. He had given four winters of coin to the wife of that guard who died outside the walls of Timilir. A woman, Frida, who had openly admitted her suspicion that Hjorvarth was the murderer, for why else would he want to pay the debt.

She had said, as well, that Hjorvarth had made no great change in deciding to work for Brolli’s brother. But there were good men in Horvorr’s Guard, Hjorvarth was sure of that, and they held to stricter standards than those of the Black Hands. The Snake Basin Path had exposed cowards among them though. Had shown men that ran to a young woman, instead of defending the elder son, in the hopes of gaining favour.

Hjorvarth had so wanted them to admit their fault. He had beaten them senseless while watched by the dead gaze of Geirmund, by a son trapped in the maw of a troll, his mouth open and hands reaching as if he screamed for aid in his attempt at escape.

But the body beneath that grim scene had been shredded by hundreds of teeth. It was a sight that Hjorvarth would never forget. He still dreamed of Geirmund’s struggle, of his screams. How stoic and silent the oldest son of Gudmund had seemed. How that cruel death had stood so far apart from the man’s quiet life.

Yet that was another choice that could be justified. Geirmund had eight men with him. Engli had been struck across the skull, bleeding and pleading and netted as he was dragged towards shadowed trees.

Hjorvarth had saved his childhood friend. He had saved the man who had no chance to survive. He could not be blamed for the lax action of those that stood with Geirmund. Those same men who stood idle by Sybille’s side and watched while Engli was captured.

Hjorvarth rose slowly to his feet. He stepped closer to the embankments.

A gentle wind urged him forward, caressed his ears and cheeks. Cold water seeped into his shoes and the black expanse wrinkled. He had been in that darkness before. He had kicked and fought as hands grappled at him. He had sealed his foster father’s fate.

Hjorvarth could not abide that, nor could he change it. Brolli’s body would languish at the bottom of the water for all the winters to come. None that drowned had ever floated up from Horvorr’s Great Lake. Those that went below the surface never rose to swim to safety. The fishermen had to row out in boats because they claimed that no life, no catch, was to be found near the embankments.

Fish were afraid of spirits. Isleif had said that. Fish were kin of Tomlok the Helmsman. He who had betrayed Muradoon the Spirit Talker. He who had fled in fear of the One-eyed God only to be brought down in a maelstrom conjured up by Bruma Stormcaller.

Hjorvarth was no fish. He did not believe, or fear, malicious spirits.

But he knew, as all men did, that one could not be truly freed from the waking life unless their body was burned. He could not allow his foster father to be trapped as all winters passed, as the folk he knew turned to ash.

Hjorvarth had built the pyres for Arnor and Isleif. He had watched them burn. Brolli would have wanted, deserved, a chance at being judged by the gods. Even the Lady’s Shadow had an end. One way or the other, he would find company among old friends, so long as someone dived into dark water to drag his body up from the Lake.

“You’re standing a little close to the edge,” Engli’s words were edged with worry. “Hjorvarth…? Are you listening to me?” Boots scuffed now he drew close. “You should step back. The Lake is spirited. You know it is.”

Hjorvarth stared down at blackness. “I need to save the man who raised me.”

“By taking your own life?” Engli asked. “You’ve done all you can. Isleif didn’t die from wounds. I’ve told you this. Lovrin was sure that he would have passed whether war had come or not. He was an old man. You could not have saved him. And I don’t see how you drowning in the Lake is going to bring him back from the dead.”

“You misunderstand me.”

“Then explain,” Engli rebuked. “You have sat on these embankments for days. You have spoken no words. And now you talk only to justify why you mean to take your own life. You voice reasons that I find lacking beyond measure.”

Hjorvarth glanced back in anguish. “I have failed. My oaths and vows shattered like ice.”

“You swore to protect me and I still stand. Had you not saved me I never would have reached the gathered hunters. They would have never saved Fenkirk. Sam, who you also swore to protect, would have likely died. You did all that you could.”

“I have done that all I can,” Hjorvarth echoed, his words low and sorrowed. “There remains but one last task.”

“Isleif is not in that Lake!” Engli’s words thundered through the night.

“Isleif did not raise me. He is my father, and I love him, and I mourn his passing. But I was raised by my mother until she died. By Sam after that. Then by Brolli and Arnor both. Those same four served to help me care for my father. Sam is safe. My mother has long since passed from the waking life. Arnor burned alongside Isleif. Only Brolli remains,” Hjorvarth added in a trembling voice. “In an eternal torment of my making.”

Hjorvarth gazed up at a bronze-hued moon, choked by clouds of iron. He stepped forward.

“Wait!” Engli shouted. “What will you do if you die?”

“Nothing at all.”

“What will Brolli do? How does your death serve him? And how do you know that he is trapped? He might be having grand feasts with all the other drowned men and women.”

“I expect then that I would try to take a seat at the table,” Hjorvarth answered at length. “Though it must be a pain to pour ale at the bottom of a lake.”

“Do you think is a joke?” Engli snapped. “You’re going to die, Hjorvarth! There’s no coming back from that.”

“My friend, I have nowhere else to go to. I am a man without purpose… beyond this last task that calls to me.”

“So find a new purpose, then,” Engli insisted. “Or at the very least get a gods-damned rope. Decide whether you’re trying to free Brolli or whether you simply want to die. Because I’ve seen men try to swim the Lake before, and I’m sure as Broknar’s wise that you’re going to see their rotting faces when you get down there.” Engli paused. “Why don’t you make it your purpose to have someone else fish the lake? You can break up the whole feast. You can spare them all.”

Hjorvarth grunted in consideration. “And what if I die before I manage that?”

“Have I not just been saying the very same thing about your planned dive?”

“There is no shame in failure, Engli. I would have at least then made best effort.”

“You speak like a man gone mad.”

“I speak as I always have. You should make a better effort to listen.”

“Well, listen to this. If you’re worried that you’re going to die before you have a chance to… take the bodies, then I’ll swear to you that I’ll do the same in your stead. And I will find any men I can to make the very same oath. So that one day, one of us, will come back here and do just that.” Engli sighed. “But if you jump in that Lake… I swear, Hjorvarth. I swear by the all the gods, I’ll let you rot. I’ll let them all rot just to spite you.”

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Hjorvarth regarded him with a level gaze. “I do not believe you.”

“Then your choice is clear. You can jump in. Prove me a liar. Curse me to the Lady’s Shadow. Or you can show some sense.”

Hjorvarth’s brows furrowed. “How will you convince men to swear to such an odd pact?”

“I don’t know.” Engli upturned his palms. “We could form a fighting brotherhood and have a rule of shared oaths.”

“A fighting brotherhood…?” Hjorvarth pondered.

“It was only a suggestion. My point is, is that you haven’t thought this through.”

“A fighting brotherhood.”

“Is is really that unlikely? There are plenty of men in Southwestern Tymir that spent the past season fighting monsters and now have no work. I still know the way back to that lodge in the mountains. If we could gather enough coin, then maybe we could use the place to house those with us.”

“There is coin already there. A room full of treasure.”

“Treasure?”

“As I said.” Hjorvarth nodded. “But I begin to think we risk stepping into shoes ready made for us.”

“Better that than dive into spirited water,” Engli replied. “Is there enough treasure to hire a dozen men?”

“I would guess at over a thousand.”

Engli raised his brows. “We’ll found a brotherhood, then.”

“That sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

“You won’t have to do anything. Unless you want to come up with the name. I’ll handle everything else.”

“That sounds simple enough,” Hjorvarth conceded. “As to the name… Brotherhood of Brikorhaan?”

Engli smiled. “Are you sure people won’t think that’s a bit presumptuous or arrogant? What about Hoarfrost Heroes?”

Hjorvarth shook his head. “They would think we’re frozen old men. And it might be worse to call yourself a hero without doing anything heroic.” He shrugged, thinking for a name that might make him reconsider the first. “The Golden Men are the most renowned… so we call ourselves the Men of Silver. That way folk know we’ve humility.”

“Maybe we should stay with the Brotherhood of Brikorhaan.”

Hjorvarth nodded in consideration, then upturned his heavy palms. “If you’re sure.”

He looked out on the walled settlement of Horvorr: dilapidated shacks and huts that creaked with the night wind; rowed sheds and clustered homes shrouded in darkness. Gudmund’s Hall, Brolli’s place, and Grettir’s home towered amid the shadowed structures; one scarred, one rotting, one broken.

Distant flames painted the furthest corner of the log wall, where loomed the many-roofed Ritual House of Muradoon.

Hjorvarth remembered his thirst and hunger. “I suppose we should go to the feast.”

“You go on ahead,” Engli said. “I need to speak with my mother.”

“Ah.” Hjorvarth nodded. “My sympathies for your loss. Linden was a good man, worthy of respect.”

“He was,” Engli agreed in a quiet voice. “I only wish I could have told him that.”

Hjorvarth’s brows furrowed. “I think a man that truly is, would truly know.”

“And are you a good man?”

“With a certainty, no, but I hope one day to change that. For now, I will simply aim to become no worse.”

Engli smiled in confusion. “You are the best man I know.”

“Then I must endeavor to find you better friends,” Hjorvarth replied, strolling off down the uneven embankments. He waved without looking back. “Ilma’s Heart, Engli. I will meet you at the feast.”

***

Sybille wore a thick dress, with fur trimmings on the skirt, wrists and hood. It had all been stained black, but the dress was once red. Her hair retained that colour, but it was short and boyish. She pulled at the ragged ends of it as she watched herself in her silver mirror. Sybille had only noticed how symmetrical her face had been when she took the bandage off, when she saw how her cheek and jaw had healed out of alignment, leaving her with a permanent appearance of cocking her head.

She had the thought that she had sat here so often before.

Her room was the same slew of browns, broken by colorfully woven blankets, by her own hair, and by the deep colour of her black dress. Despite the similarities, the room, and her own face, felt strange and unwelcoming. Cold had a hold on the air, which still ferried scents of dried blood and burnt wood.

“You know what I regret?” Arfast asked in his old, graveled voice.

Sybille startled and he laughed. He stood by the open door, so silently that she had all but forgotten him.

“All the hours I’ve spent looking at myself.” Arfast rubbed at his bald head. “Seeing if my hair was falling out, or if my skin had turned too wrinkled. Seeing if I was still pretty… and you are, from one old man to one young woman, you are.” He shrugged, scarred and sinewy under his thin shirt. “I don’t know about you but I think days can be better spent doing things other than hiding in rooms and staring at mirrors.”

“I stare more for appearance than vanity.”

“Those are similar words to my mind.”

“How I appear to other people. Would you not think me more odd if I were to stare off at the wall?”

“I take your point.”

Sybille frowned up at him. “Who are you?”

Arfast met the question with a grin. “I’m either a man that folk forgot. Or the unknown guard of a well known woman. I suppose which I end up being is up to you.”

Sybille turned back to her mirror, then laid it flat against the desk. She sighed, and pushed up from her chair. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Your father’s made mention I’m a draugr.” Arfast grinned, then narrowed his grey eyes. “An honest answer would be that I think folk who don’t believe in ghosts are fools.”

Sybille nodded thoughtfully. “And do you think they can talk to the living?”

“I’ve heard of it happening… mainly when folks are in haunted homes. Or of the dead trying to talk in dreams, but then that might just be wrought of grief.” Arfast regarded her with his steady gaze. “You mean in the open day, in an open place? I would worry for the man that claimed to do that, but I’ve heard that done, as well… mainly from folk who are mad or who’ve been cursed. I’ve also known others to claim to see their loved ones for a while, only to realise they had dreamed them up to cope.” He studied her for a long while. “Have you been seeing your brothers?”

Sybille swallowed, and shook her head.

“You asked me who I am, Sybille. I’m the loyal man. I was loyal to Gudmund and he swore me to watch over you.” Arfast straightened, and smiled in apology. “Not that I mean to accuse you of lying, but—”

“Yes.” Sybille winced at her own admission. “I saw them after I got hurt.” She probed at her own unfamiliar cheek. “I didn’t think that they were real. Geirmund told me that he wasn’t. And Agnar… well, he was Agnar. But then I had a dream that a man tried to rape me, and Geirmund grabbed him and killed him… but it wasn’t Geirmund,” she added worriedly. “It was a man with a corpse face and green eyes, that only had his voice. Then he sent Agnar away, and he touched me, and I woke. I woke in the same tent, only it was dawn and I was alone.”

Arfast nodded slowly, his aged face taut. “Which man was it?”

“Gorm of Kollkleif… they found him in his tent.” Sybille shook her head. “All black and shrivelled and surrounded by hoarfrost.”

Arfast grew more relaxed. “Well I was never one for interpreting dreams.”

Sybille looked at him with conspiratorial eyes. “I don’t think it was a dream.”

“I gathered that, Sybille,” Arfast kindly answered. “And I’ve no reason not to believe you… I did hear whispers of what happened to Gorm, after all. Still, there are people that would kill you if you spoke openly of that,. Or worse, they would press you into the service of Muradoon. All I can suggest is to keep in mind any warnings they gave you, but beyond that to treat it as a dream.”

“Oh.” Sybille nodded in defeat, but then leapt up from her chair. “Agnar told me to read his journal.”

“Before, or—”

“After he died.” Sybille swept towards the door. “Let’s go look for it.”

Arfast stood blocking her way. “Gudmund wants you at the Landing Day feast.” He held her frustrated stare, before relenting with a shrug. “I suppose finding a journal won’t be too long of an effort.”

***

Gudmund sat in his fine black shirt, his white cloak long lost to him. He had left his bronze circlet at home and hadn’t bothered to comb his unruly red hair which made it more a match for his bristling beard. He still had the same proud face, but now held to a sobriety that made him appear more noble and solemn in the firelight.

He had ordered and helped to array a mismatched gathering of furniture ahead of the Ritual House. He could seat up to a hundred, which he would readily admit was an optimistic effort. He sat at the very same table where they had found Odi and his two old friends, all three of them long dead, torn and bled out as if Lazarus had been through the place.

Gudmund wondered whether one of them had lived and lifted two old men to the table as a final gesture of friendship, or whether they had all ambled into their seats out of a long established habit. He found it odd either way, because the rest had more or less died where they stood, even Arnor, though he had slumped forward onto the bar.

“Something wrong?” Ralf asked. The stout guard sat opposite, his bulbous nose and chubby cheeks redder with the firelight.

“I was half mad at that trial.” Gudmund scrutinised his own worn hands. “I had this thought that I was living in a town full of hollow people… and now I’m living in a town that’s hollow.” He frowned. “I don’t think that was an answer to your question. What did you ask?”

“There’s not many people coming,” Ralf noted as an aside. He searched the empty tables around him, each warmed by the glow of two blackened braziers that had been dragged out from the hall’s yard. “Maybe a feast wasn’t a good idea.”

Gudmund glanced up at the Ritual House roofs. Carved crows stared back at him. “Isn’t that what Landing Day is about? The first folk didn’t exactly have an easy time of it. Most of them were dead before they ever got to the anniversary of their landing.”

“Agreed,” Hjorvarth’s low tone startled both men. “They had lost most to monsters or the cold before they were ever settled within the safety of walls. People will come. I’ve seen them in the streets.”

Gudmund squinted up at the grey-cloaked man. “Aren’t you meant to be holding to a vow of silence?”

“Not to my mind.”

“Oh.” Gudmund nodded. “Then why didn’t you come to my hall? You missed out on all the back clapping.”

“Mostly because I didn’t want to.” Hjorvarth shrugged his huge shoulders. “And because I barely fought in the battle. By the time I crossed into Horvorr there were only scrawny goblins left.”

“Didn’t you kill two huge ones? One not far from the walls, and another—” Gudmund waved his hand towards the darkness beyond the flames. “Somewhere over there?”

“By the throw, and by the fact that none other claimed the kill, I would swear Isleif did it. As to the other, I do not truly know what happened.”

Gudmund narrowed his eyes. “That old ghost killed one, did he?”

“He was a man living before you let your gate be broken.” Hjorvarth met his suspicion with no humour. “And, yes, as I said, I would swear to it. If I ever had a mind to lie, I would have done it when you talked, and talked, and talked in your trial.” He raked at his thick beard. “Speaking of words… I would like to give a speech, after you have offered your own. I would think that much is owed me. By truth of you being a bastard, or by myth of me being a hero.”

Gudmund chuckled. “I think I can manage that much. Though I doubt there will be many folk to hear it.”

Hjorvarth walked away to find another table, watched all the while by carved crows and the wooden visage of Muradoon.

***

Arfast squinted into the dark, dusty, once resplendent room that had belonged to Agnar. It had been neat when they’d found it but now looked close to ransacked. Clothes lay strewn across the bed, chair, and desk; they covered the twin lounging seats opposite the door, those that took up a full corner.

Sybille was bent under the dark-curtained bed, which had been layered in clothes and blankets before they arrived.

“We should be going,” Arfast said. “We’ve checked the cupboards, draws, and desk. And you’ve been under the bed for a while now… I don’t see—” He cut himself off, and walked towards the bed. He reached up to the fabric roof, fingers brushing against leather. “My mistake. Found it.”

“Wh—” Sybille thudded into wood. “Ow. Really?” She crawled out from under the bed, almost thankful that she had cut her hair so short, because now she wouldn’t have to comb it. “Let me see it.”

Arfast considered the misused journal. “So long as you understand that you could have guessed he had a journal, without him bringing you word after he died.”

“I know that,” Sybille assured, prying it from his calloused hands. She sat back on the mattress, flipping through the pages, seeing scrawled letters in inks of red, blue or black. “Would you like me to read aloud?”

“Would you like me to read in silence?” Arfast countered. “He may have written things that you aren’t meant to hear.”

“He was the one that asked me to read it.” Sybille cleared her throat. “‘Brother, I can only hope that it is you reading my words. I doubt that I made mention of my intent, but know that it was not my mind to embarrass our family, or to make things difficult with Jarl Thrand. I had to kill Thorfinn… because he murdered the woman I loved,’” she read in a voice made ponderous by confusion, “‘and he murdered her little boy. And I was sworn to her.’

“‘I’m sure you’ll ask me about the ring on my finger and I’ll tell you that it’s nothing, and you’ll accept that nothing answer. But it was a token of my love. And Thorfinn took that love and he twisted it into a hatred I cannot contain. So I can only hope that it is you reading my words. I can only hope that Thorfinn is dead, and that you and Sybille and Grettir and Gudmund are safe. Have I succeeded then I will have taken my own life. But I want you to know that I was left with no true life when he took her from me.’”

Sybille blinked tears from her eyes. She let the journal drop to the dusty floorboards. “He meant to murder Thorfinn and end his own life.”

“What a man means to do,” Arfast stressed his words, “and what he does do, are two very different things. I was not with you or your brothers at Timilir… but if I truly wanted a man dead then I would run him through as we shook hands. And if Agnar was set on this course, then he had golden opportunity to kill Thorfinn in the duel. Is that not so?”

“I suppose that’s true,” Sybille said with surety. “I’ll read the rest of it.”

“No.” Arfast shook head. “If your brother claims some sort of blood feud with Jarl Thrand or one of his family, then your father is the one that needs to read the journal.”

Sybille scowled. “Did you not just say that you were loyal to me?”

Arfast held her gaze for a long moment, then looked away. “I humbly suggest that you take this to your father, and, being loyal to you, I would remind you that Gudmund means to give a speech at the Landing Day feast he has arranged… and he might feel a man abandoned without his only blood relative there to witness it.”

“True.” Sybille bent down for the book, and tiptoed to place it back on the fabric roof. “Lead the way.”