After Njord got tired from chasing me, we continued our descent. Zigzagging our way down, from branchling to branchling, twig to twig, we travelled a mile down the tree. We found the best places to lay down lines and slide down; secluded clearings in the thicket where prying eyes wouldn’t spot us. Sometimes we’d lay down two lines, from two clearings on the same level. This way, if the álfar found one of our lines and waited in ambush… we had another one we could try to escape up. They would also find any trail we left between our lines, following us all the way back to camp if we weren’t careful. So we made sure not to break any sprouts or bark and avoided cutting anything.

Despite our zigzagging, our descent was much faster than weaving our way up through the thicket, looking for suitable ways to ascend. In about half the time it took to climb up, we had laid lines all the way back to the level of the camp. Sliding down the last line, it was a short walk finding our way back to camp.

Like good furniture, Stonebear was sitting exactly where we left him hours ago, on the same fallen twig. Two scruffy Norsemen sat with him, playing dice.

Stonebear regarded us like long-lost relatives he hoped to never meet. His pipe was clearly empty… but still he tapped it persistently while giving us a stoney gaze. “What took you idiots so long?”

“They tried to kill me. But we’re friends now.” My ability to summarize is unmatched.

“Shut up! It was just a joke.” Birger considered finishing the job. Njord glowered silently.

“I didn’t try to kill you.” Erik objected to being that interesting.

“You didn’t try to stop them, either.”

“Well, I didn’t entirely disagree with them.” He shrugged, grinning.

Was that his usual dopey, baseline expression… or did he manage to tell a joke? And if so… why wasn’t he laughing?

Stonebear pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, you all came back in one piece… so let’s grab our gear and move it up to the new camp.” He coalesced with Njord. “You found a good site?”

Njord nodded.

“Good.”

Some people just talk and talk. Sadly, Stonebear is not one of them.

Then we moved up to the new camp… and it was very boring. All we did was climb up the flimsy little knotted quarter-þumal lines, then towed up a heavier, full-þumal-thick cable. Securing the cable and setting up a crank, Njord and Birger and the other meaty Norsemen hoisted up our supplies and our lazier members. Like me and Stonebear.

He kept thinking of all kinds of things for me to do that were far away… but I always managed to do them quickly and come right back, needing his sage advice. After all, I’m the new-blood.

It was all so boring that I whittled myself a spear in my spare moments… casting it at the annoying, knife-wielding squirrels. They almost made this part of the story interesting.

image [https://i.imgur.com/9B7LL4j.jpeg]

“Crow! Stop playing with squirrels!” Birger was setting up his silk hammock, using a man-sized leaf as an umbrella and furs for his blankets. Apparently he spent his earnings on more than just runes and heretical symbols. He didn’t need much shelter from the elements, of course, even as it stormed and thundered around us: The tappers had picked a spot deep in the thicket, where the wind was a gentle hum and barely a raindrop reached us. The leaf umbrella was just to catch stray drips, to protect his expensive bedding.

There was quite a waterfall, though, on the other side of the clearing. It roared down a hole in the canopy, leaves and twigs floating along and plunging down with it. It destroyed all in its path with the rage of Njord. By which I mean the sea god; not the norn-blooded Njord whom I was currently hiding from.

Eventually, dawn came, and the total darkness turned into near-darkness. Dapples of sunlight shone like blinding gold; shimmering and flashing as the leaves rustled in the unceasing wind.

“Morning Njord!” I leapt up to a twig, just out of his reach. “Were you dreaming about your princess? Or about throwing me off the tree?”

He studied the twig, gauging if it was worth climbing up after me. “I can throw you off while I’m awake.”

“If you do, that princess will remain in your dreams.”

He chuckled, his teeth looking sharper with his smile. “Oh, don’t worry, Crow… I told you before: I can make your life hard without killing you.”

I don’t have big ears. Yet, for some reason, Njord still mistook me for a pack mule.

“Sorry, Crow!” he said, while shoving me into a briar patch.

I almost forgot to squeal in pain as I righted myself. “Don’t mention it… I’m sure I’ll make the same mistake one day.”

Birger guffawed. “You’ll have to catch up with us first, Wolfling.”

“I can help if you like, Crow.” Erik appeared where he was least wanted, which was anywhere.

“No need, the briars are helping me plenty already.” Snapping a few briars and plucking out the spines, I was as good as… Crow.

Erik grimaced as he watched me pull out a particularly deep one. “Glad you’re handling it all so well….” He winced as I pulled out another. “Maybe try not to anger Njord.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Do you really think it’s possible to avoid enraging Njord…?”

“I didn’t say it’s possible, I just said stop trying to do it!” Moving to catch up with the others, walking along the branch, he stopped. Then he craned his neck, slowly looking up with a glazed expression. “Would you look at that beauty?”

I looked up. “What?”

“Don’t you... you obviously see it—the branch!”

Looking again I saw the majesty of… a big branch. I’m not sure what else you want me to say about it. VERY big branch. A ‘Spire Branch’.

It stood ahead of us, bursting up through a thicket like its own tree, a mini Yggdrasill. It pointed almost straight-up, making it a ‘Spire Branch’. You couldn’t really see the bottom of it where it branched off from its bough. But, if you tried to walk around the base of it on the bough, it’d take you five minutes. I bet you wish your house was that big.

We approached it by hopping from one branchling to another, twig to twig, until it loomed over us like Aurgelmir. I reckoned it was about a half bowshot from one side to the other, some hundred yards. And if you tried to count all the birds in all the fine places to nest on it, you’d die of old age.

Stonebear was also looking up at the branch, studying it as it broke through the thickets and canopies like a spear deep in a wound.

“Stonebear, my favourite dwarf!” I said, causing him to shudder.

“I thought Torsten was your ‘favourite’…?”

“Yes, well… don’t tell him I said that—he’ll get jealous.”

He took a deep huff of his pipe, then chuckled… no, choked, he was choking. “Odinn grant me strength… you’re like four newcomers squashed into one annoyance.”

“Does that mean I try four times as hard?”

“I want you to try me less.” He looked at my many packs, and some of the thorns I was too lazy to take out. “How many packs do you have?”

“All the ones Njord could find.”

“I thought you said you became friends…?”

“I also said he tried to kill me. We’re making progress!”

He snorted, choking more—wait… was that laughing? Is laughter painful to dwarves?

“Well… good job, Crow. I’ll tell him to stop trying to break your back.” He looked up to the branch again, puffing the opium in his pipe.

“Are we going to climb it?” The branch was a sheer wall of wood, spotted with sprouts, sub-branches and twigs. It looked like a vertical forest, shaded by its countless leaves. “Shouldn’t we keep climbing crosslimb, in the safety of the thickets?”

Stonebear gestured with his pipe. “We’ll be safe enough. Look, it’s surrounded by thickets, and there’s plenty of leaf-cover as we go up. They won’t see us. And it breaks through so many levels, it’ll save us a lot of time.”

Birger sneered. “Of course you’re fine with it… your aged limbs don’t have to do the climbing to get to my sweet Ragnhild.”

Stonebear’s beard bristled in agitation. “Your Ragnhild…? Why wasn’t I invited to the wedding?”

Birger crossed his arms. “Njord already promised her to me.”

“Did he?” Stonebear was stone-faced… but his hand clasped his pipe very tightly.

Birger shrugged. “What did you expect? Old men are fit for the coffin, not the marriage bed. Or were you hoping to buy an apple of Iðunn to give you some help on your wedding day? Bring some life to those shrivelled loins?”

I stepped forward, a hand slipping to my dagger, expecting I may get the order to cancel a wedding. Birger kept his arms crossed, leaving his neck unguarded.

Stonebear rudely shoved me aside. The old dwarf stepped forward, coming close to Birger. Hand on dagger, I got ready to throw it into Birger’s tattooed neck, which was a fair distance above Stonebear’s head—if he so much as lifted a finger to hurt Stonebear.

Taking his pipe in his left hand, his right on his belt near his axe, the dwarf shook his pipe at Birger. “One more word like that… and you will be the bride at your wedding, Loki-thrall.”

Birger hissed, his tattoos a deep scowl in the early morning sun. “Let’s say no more on Ragnhild, then.”

Stonebear looked ready to stab him with the pipe. He nodded. “Go and start the first leg of the climb, and don’t cause any more trouble—or you’ll regret it.”

“Fine… I don’t mind hard work.” Birger strode away. He whispered as he passed me, “don’t forget the princess.”

Was all this… because he had a new job lined up? I croaked with laughter, sidling up to Stonebear.

“Was he always this good-natured?”

“Þegi þú.” He glared at Birger’s back, right between his shoulder blades.

I waited, standing there silently with Stonebear for several minutes; making no sound except to indicate I was still here, standing with him.

…And the stone cracked.

“You made him worse.” There was a touch of sullenness in his gravelly tone. “Ever since Ragnhild started mooning over you… he’s been like a mad dog.” His resentment towards me was a hollowed shell, now that Birger had tipped his hand.

“I don’t think I’m the reason he’s so angry.” There was no response. “I mean, wouldn’t you be annoyed if your betrothed was fawning over your chieftain?”

“What are you talking about… Birger tried to kill you, remember? Twice!” The dwarf turned on me fully, pointing to my dagger. “If you’d drawn that, it’d be the third and last time.”

Why did no one ever take me seriously? It’s not my fault I’m funny.

“He is angry, and he takes that out on me….” I spoke as if baiting a trap. “But it’s not your fault Ragnhild is all over you.”

“...She is?” He blinked rapidly, the most expression a dwarven face is capable of.

“Didn’t she call you her protector? And refuse to let go of you until she kissed you some five times, before she left?”

“That girl just likes to play games…” Stonebear broke eye-contact, turning away from fantasy to the cold, hard ground.

“Come now, Stonebear… all you have to do is talk it over with Njord—and things will resolve themselves.”

Stonebear’s pipe was empty, but still he tapped it endlessly. “Perhaps so.” He nodded, looking at my bags on the ground. “Go put your bags somewhere… the others can carry them.”

“I don’t mind carrying them, if you want me to.”

He regarded me closely. “...No. You’ve earned a rest.”

I had indeed. “If that’s your order, I’ll sleep like the dead.”

But more than that: I had earned a valuable friend. And he would be very useful.