After the incident, I was generally sent alone to scout. It was good, quiet work. No one pushing me into briars, or calling me a changeling… it was boring work. We’d left the Spire-Branch, finally, and were heading to meet up with Ragnhild and Vidar.

Njord and Asotall appeared. Njord was never allowed to be alone with me, on Stonebear’s orders.

“Are the pitons in tight?” Njord put teeth in the question.

“Very,” I answered.

Njord would probably like this new version of me better, if he wasn’t so set on hating me.

A shadow overtook us, putting us in near darkness, despite us standing in a clearing during the middle of the day. We had gotten close to the Trunk of Yggdrasill. I have mentioned the Spire Branch; how you could walk around the base of it in five minutes. Yggdrasill, if you could find a place to walk, takes about sixty times longer to circle. Five hours, half a day’s march… and its shadow covers mountains.

Walking under the holy tree’s darkness, we eventually came to the trunk. There were a lot more people and more activity here, near the centre, near Blábýr... but you could still approach it quietly through the lesser thickets. Moreso on the layer we chose to approach from, as there were many trolls around this area. Trolls being one of the leading causes of tapper deaths, behind elves, and… falling, of course. In the shadow of the tree, both falling and trolls became greater dangers.

Moving cross-limb, we tried to keep to thinner twigs where trolls would be afraid to climb—or at least the larger ones. It took almost a day to get to the trunk, in the end, but that was fine. We had ascended for two days, and the thin air at this height was taking its toll. Keeping ourselves at the same level would give us a day to adjust. Asotall found it quite hard, coming from a low-lying country instead of being native-born to the tree.

Now that we were at the trunk, though, it was time to contact Vidar and Ragnhild. We listened for a coded birdcall….

Njord, pulling out a whistle, made a strangled noise that sounded more like a duck.

“What are you laughing at!?” Njord rounded on me.

“Thinking it’ll be funny when the álfar come looking for the poor, wounded duck.”

Njord grabbed his dagger and Asotall caught his arm.

“It seemed a good enough birdcall to me, Crow.” Asotall’s moustache said. Come to think of it… with Asotall’s long hair, I couldn’t be sure he had ears, either.

Stepping to the edge of the twig—Njord considering pushing me off—I said: “cha-cha-cha-cha-chiAAAAH chiAAAAH!” And I didn’t even need a whistle.

The two of them stared, mystified. Even Asotall’s moustache looked impressed.

“You really are a changeling.” Njord contemplated how this was another wicked sign against me. “Stupid trick, all the same. I’ve seen people make sounds as good as that before, with the right whistle. What good is doing it without a whistle?”

“Can you stop squawking? I’m trying to hear the reply.” It was hard for me to hear anything over the sound of steam coming out of Njord’s angry ears. Ah wait, there it is. That feminine little whistling Ragnhild makes.

Continuing this, calling from clearing after clearing, we were probably a bowshot’s distance. Climbing to a high place, I waved a flag for them to approach.

Looking down, I saw Vidar removing his arm from Ragnhild just before her brother, Njord, came into view. Leaping to a twig and shuffling along it, I got close enough to hear Ragnhild say. “Did anything happen?” She looked to Asotall, likely wondering where his eyes were pointed, beneath those thick eyebrows… but also wondering why he was accompanying Njord. “Where’s Birger?”

Njord lowered his head. “He was out with Crow… and….” He paused, as if trying to be melodramatic. “He fell. He’s gone, Ragnhild.”

Her mouth opened in a little O. “Oh… that’s a pity. Is Crow all right?” She flinched, cowering a step as her brother changed from downcast to intent on killing.

“He’s just fine… for now.” Njord’s concerns about my present and continual health were touching.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

But I was more attentive to the facts she had learned from Blábýr. Far from being a good recruiting ground… the álfar were rounding up and cracking down on tappers and other illegal organizations, there, much to the chagrin of the local king. What’s more, some little bird apparently heard of our cache and told the elves about it… as it was empty. Njord doubted this, saying other tappers probably stumbled upon it and stole our gear.

Then we made camp. Ragnhild got an earful the next morning from her brother, for trying to sneak away from their pair of hammocks for some wicked ends. He also kept glaring at me extra much, for some reason. After that long day of restful hiking without ascending, the tappers felt… well, pretty awful, still. But we weren’t being paid to just sit around, so it was off to climbing the tree itself.

Climbing the trunk is much like other bark climbing... but the ridges can get so huge that rather than pinching them with your hands, you scale them like large gaps in cliffs, via chimneying; like little chimney-sweeps ascending with their hands and feet on opposite walls.

We had to be more purposeful about climbing from cover to cover, as quickly as we could, as the trunk is much more exposed. Still, it was utterly massive with lots of places that were unwatched. The shadow was also our ally in concealing our movements; the shade of the tree making parts of the night pitch-black this close to the trunk. Lantern flowers were critical for the terrifying night-climbing… but also risked giving us away to deadly night-predators and patrols alike.

On the fourth day of our journey, our camp stayed where we put it on the third day, allowing us to acclimatize and rest until the fifth and final day; when we would claim the sap.

Stonebear was of the Khazâd Rakhzân tribe of Dwarves. They live at the top of mountain peaks, so he found the change in altitude quite tolerable and was joining me on this scouting run.

Stonebear raised a hand. “Hold on… let’s rest in that thicket.” As you got higher, the thickets became very valuable. Not just for shelter from the cold, but because their leaves gave off fresh, woody air, making it easier to breathe. Stonebear rubbed his centuries-old limbs, happy to be out of the ceaseless gales that stormed the upper tree.

“You take this well, for a newcomer.” Stonebear rubbed his hands for warmth

I practically sparkled at the compliment; those being a rarity since the incident with Birger. “I was born in the upper tree, after all. So high, in fact, that I considered climbing up to Asgard.”

“Do you still have your reður...?” Stonebear asked, unamused.

I blinked, considering the question. Chuckling, I answered, “I do.”

“Then your future children will thank you for not being so stupid as to climb up to Asgard.” Stonebear said.

“Have you ever been to Asgard?” I asked.

He gave me a sharp look. “No.”

And no matter what I tried, he would scarcely say a word after that.

Not much later, we were preparing to travel crosslimb, setting up a bow and grapple. Just like Birger’s. I tried sitting on the rope… and could not for the life of me make it work. But what was interesting, as we prepared to cross to the second limb… there was a mighty stomping. One of the twigs in the thicket walked up to us, on two stumpy tree-stump feet. It was one of the etnar, towering high above us.

“Remember!” Stonebear whispered with no pretense of calm, “we’re just pilgrims!” He stepped forward, seeing it was too late to hide... and for an old dwarf like him, too late to run.

Killing an etunn with a dagger wouldn’t be easy. It would require cutting many, long and deep cuts into its bark, letting it bleed sap until it collapsed in exhaustion.

“Heill ok sæll o holy child of Yggdrasill, may your branches forever flower, and may Thor rain upon you with gentle showers and never thunder!” Stonebear spoke more words in that one sentence than in my entire time knowing him. Probably a tenth of the words he’s spoken across his centuries of life.

More surprising, was that he knew the greeting of the Northern Etnar, which they only used amongst themselves.

The tree-giant regarded us. It bowed, slowly. “Heill, Little Ones.” It spoke with a slightly creaky voice, its mouth hardly looking capable of movement, much less speech. It tried to smile, but couldn’t. “May the sun love you like a mother-tree’s shade. Do you need help?”

Stonebear pointed up to the twig. “If you could lift us up a bit, child of the World Tree, so that we may cast our line—we will be much obliged.”

Nodding, very slowly, the tree lifted us up high above its head. From there, we easily shot our grapple arrow, and could even see what it was secured to. The etunn waited very patiently, never asking if we were done or even moving.

Stonebear shouted down to the tree, unsure of its hearing. “Thank you, etunn of Yggdrasill! Let our feet taste the earth below again, or at least the embrace of Father Yggdrasill.”

Some people just talk and talk…. Sadly, I had made the mistake of not being a woman or a tree; so Stonebear wouldn’t gossip with me.

Slowly, we were lowered down again. “May Yggdrasill keep you forever in its shade, little ones.”

What a nice tree.