We moved before dawn. Our route was planned in fine detail, avoiding the places with any of the subtle signs of the álfar: A trodden sprout, a lost arrow, a dead troll… or just the absence of trolls.
Some of our path was truly treacherous, where we climbed on the underside of branches. We painstakingly hid hooks and strings ahead of time. Then, rapidly weaving and unweaving a rope bridge for ourselves, we’d cross the most dangerous places; those that were watched from above by álfar… and dragons.
As we approached the Great Fringes, the ends of the boughs and the greater branches, we had entered dragon territory. It was frigid, the air suffocating so far from the core of the tree and its many dense thickets. The branches, while still grander than any mortal tree, were scarcely warmer than the great icicles that dripped from them like long, dragons’ teeth—the very same that had the tappers desperate to hide.
The shadows of those monsters were like those of mountains, their wingspans enough to blot out the sun. And, while lesser drakes might be defeated by a small army, well paid, led by ferocious huskarls… these immense drekar melt steel with their fiery breath, their impenetrable scales strengthened by the rich sap they feast upon. These were the most terrifying guardians of the tree before the gods themselves, kept by Yggdrasill like symbiotic pets.
They weren’t looking for us, of course; the tappers quavering beneath our camouflage of sprouts we carry with us. Oh no, tappers are like bugs to dragons—we hid because we were fun to squash. Those mighty beasts were searching for other dragons… those foreign from the World-Tree, which attack in swarms and raids. These foreign dragons bite into Yggdrasill’s bark, injecting their venom to make the sap run freely and to paralyse the tree’s defences; then succoring upon the divine sap.
They were like big mosquitoes.
Finally, after the group moved from cover to cover, erasing our tracks in the snow, gasping and wheezing for breath we reached our target: the new green buds of spring. Yggdrasill’s bud vary from those the size of mortal ones on mortal trees, about as big as your þumall… to buds bigger than an ox. Some were the size of houses, and the sap that comes from them is much purer and more plentiful. The dragons guard those very closely, though, and we were not being quite that daring.
Finding a good place to hide, we prepared to wait till nightfall to do most of the work. Birger went and… no wait, he’s dead. It was Gunne that went to check on the taps Stonebear had set weeks or even years ago. It’s a simple enough process, like tapping a mortal tree: you drill a hole with an upward slant, then insert a tap to keep the hole open and allow drips to fall out. You then hang a bucket under the tap. It could be a bit more complicated, as the álfar did look for taps… so this group would actually cut a piece out of the bud, creating a hollow, then hide the bucket and tap inside the bud. It was an incredible innovation, making it far harder for the álfar to find taps—but how did these tappers work it out?
As we hid, we made preparations, stealthily preparing the ziplines we’d extricate ourselves by. We spent all of yesterday preparing some ziplines here and there, since around the Great Fringes it’s harder to find a good place to go down. Thus, the álfar tend to close in on all the good down-routes, to cut you off, surround you and kill you. Ziplines kept them guessing, and were a lot of fun.
While we prepared these, however, the weavers of fate must’ve wanted some excitement today, as we saw a speck in the distance. Quickly, it grew and grew… until it turned into a mighty, elder dragon, painting a new horizon in the sky. It approached the tree, planning to gorge itself on Yggdrasill. The air was soon full of foreign drakes, opportunists ready to strike the tree as this elder did, forming a great Flight of Dragons. The guardian dragons, seeing this attack being mustred, roared with a noise they shook the tree and made brave men’s bones know fear, sounding the alarm for the coming attack. Together, they formed their own Flight, leaving the tree to attack these foreign invaders.
A godlike clash began above us.
Quickly, we moved in two teams while the dragons were so distracted. While Stonebear's team collected from the hidden taps they were checking earlier, ours started a ‘slash-and-drain’.
“Hurry up, changeling!” Njord said, rattled still from the sounding alarm of the dragons. We had specifically planned I would NOT, under any circumstances, be working with Njord… such was the chaos of this advantageous incident.
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We stopped near an ox-sized bud, which was primed to become a new branchling of Yggdrasill… but soon it would be gravely scarred, never achieving its potential. Kneeling a little distance away from the bud, Njord drilled a small, deep hole into the branch we were standing on. Even here, where the branch had thinned out so small it was only a couple of horse-lengths wide, Yggdrasill’s bark protects, and it took minutes for Njord with his strength to drill a hole deep into it. Ragnhild inserted a funnel, very carefully pouring in the dragon-venom. If she touched it, she would die. She forced it into the tree with a plunger, numbing its senses and making the ichor-sap flow like water.
Minutes passed as the venom took effect. It was important to wait for this even as the dragons continued battling, their roars and bursts of flame a red thunderstorm. Because not only did the venom make the sap run more freely… but it stopped the tree from noticing it was hurt. If the tree felt a pinprick, especially with these sensitive great-buds important for its growth: the álfar would feel its pain, and they would come, sneaking past the dragons with great stealth and speed, and annihilate us completely.
“That should be long enough…” Njord’s hands were barely shaking, now, as he picked up and examined the little sandglass—like an hourglass, but for five minutes. Tappers were not the steadiest characters, so no one expected them to keep a good count while dragons soar above them. Ragnhild was clinging to me every chance she could get, not just for attention, but now out of pure fear.
“Ragnhild, get off him! Come on, Crow… take the saw!” Njord and I worked a two-man saw, cutting into the thin-skinned, ox-sized green-bud while Ragnhild set up the catchment system. She heaped clay around the bud, so the sap would pool out of the gash we were cutting and drain into the keg.
Then… it started to flow: the sap of Yggdrasill the World-Tree, the golden, shining ichor that gods and dragons struggle for. She recoiled when the ichor trickled down. To mortals, ichor is a poison like dragon-venom. There are monsters and demi-gods, divine beings that can devour the sap; sometimes in its pure form…. But with the rarest exception, those sorcerers and great heroes and mighty men—a human will die the same day that he touches ichor.
"The argr-Southern-Gods pay a fortune per keg..." I mused, watching Stonebear's team on the other branch.
"And Odinn crucifies whoever his ravens catch stealing his ichor," Njord warned, prophetically.
We had just about filled a second keg from this prodigious, wounded bud—when a young dragon landed the branch next to us. It was some distance away… probably within fire-breathing range. Our terror softened to fear, thankfully, when it disregarded us to rip into green buds like giant cabbages. It made no attempt to paralyse the tree, planning to eat and run. This meant Yggdrasill, sensing a nibbling at his fingertips, would summon the álfar—who, as I mentioned, feel a deadly bias against tappers.
“Curse Odinn!” Njord blasphemed, and I had trouble not killing him. “Grab the kegs and get them down the line! We’ll slash and drain all the buds, and get out of here….” He found his words comforting, hoping they were prophetic.
Tragic waste of the tree, though, to scar all its buds for a few kegs of sap. But when the álfar did investigate the damage, in a few hours, they would notice the slash marks on the buds we sawed, even if we tried to hide it. They’d also check other nearby buds, and find the taps inside. So, it was decided to slash the buds, to get a big payout of sap all at once, and to hide the evidence of this innovative technique—though the álfar were already well aware of it.
We used the ziplines prepared earlier, and began sending kegs to a lower branch, storing them as we got ready to leave. Having slashed the other buds and destroyed the evidence, the dragon battle seeming like it might go on for hours or even weeks… it was time to hurry down the ziplines ourselves then hide our trail. Vidar went down ahead of us… and a bowshot pierced Vidar. He struck many twigs as he fell to his death.
Looking up, we saw where the shot had hailed from. To general bewilderment, the álfar had come early. They were expecting us.
Njord pushed past me and leapt down the zipline, as I followed close behind, arrows whistling past us. Landing, Njord and I ran toward the thicket's shade—but he tripped, arrows pinning him forever in place. Ragnhild moved to save him and was struck in her belly. She looked down at the elegant fletchings of the arrow, sticking out of her narrow waist. Stonebear pulled her away, as she sobbed either for her brother or for the arrow—and they ran straight into an álfr. One had swung down like a monkey, shredding Gunne from neck to navel with his long, curved dagger—right in front of their eyes. The álfr moved toward Stonebear, bloody dagger in hand. And he had the most dýrlegur expression of shock when I appeared behind him. The álfr whirled as I grabbed his tunic and pulled him off-balance. His flailing dagger slashed just under Crow's eye as I stepped behind the álfr’s shoulder; writing him a saga in long, deep cuts as I held him in place.
"So sorry...." I dropped the dying álfr, and fled.