When he woke, he lay on a pile of fur, compresses of herbs and leaves on his brow and his chest. The Lady We'al and Freawaru sat nearby, embroidering by the light streaming in through an open window. Lady We'al looked up when she felt his gaze, raising an eyebrow in inquiry.

"And how do you feel, hawkling? Does your head hurt terribly?

"My head is... I don't know. Where is Hervor? What news of the Geat, and the monster?" He was sore in every limb.

"The Geat has done what he was paid to do, killed the Nightstalker, the Ravager, the beast called Grendel. Its arm hangs over the doors of my Lord's meadhall, where you lie now." Lady We'al nodded to her daughter, who brought Volund a cup of cool water.

"And Hervor? What of my cousin?" He took a sip and then pushed the cup away impatiently.

"She has accompanied the Geat and his brave friends and the varingjar to burn out the heart of the evil, to slay the mother of the monster."

"What? I must go - " We'al put a hand over the poltice on his chest, pushing him down with surprising strength.

"You will go nowhere, boy. Your mother, your cousin, even I have paid in dear blood to keep you safe. You will not be safe so long as the hag lives. Thus, my sister, who is your cousin, has gone with the war-party to see that the monsters are dead and the dead are avenged." A trickle of moisture ran down his ribs from the poltice, and his legs and arms felt leaden again.

"She can't die," he begged, speaking words in the language of his mother, a broken phrase that he struggled to speak and understand.

She answered in the same language. "No, Volund. Your cousin will not die. But it is her sacred duty to see that the dead awake again in the Lord's Halls Beyond the Veil."

"I don't understand," he struggled against the weight on his chest, for surely it was more than what he had remembered the day before.

"Sleep," We'al said, again in the language of her people, and she traced a rune on his forehead and lips, the liquid bitter and sharp when it touched his tongue.

Darkness overcame him once again, despite his protests.

When he woke again, it was on a mat in the mead hall, where he and Hervor had slept before the Lord Hroth had seen fit to chain him to the lodgepole. Hervor sat next to him, sharpening a burr out of the edge of her blade with a piece of stone. She glanced over at him languidly. "Welcome back, Volund. You wandered quite some time."

He felt weak and thirsty, and beyond his thirst lurked a hunger that loomed large. Hervor reached over and wrapped his hand around a bowl of hot stew, thick with vegetables and the familiar flavor of rabbit.

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"How long?" He drank the stew carefully, rolling to sit up carefully.

"You have slept for six days, long enough for the hunting party to go, find the beast and its foul mother, and slay them both." Volund groaned.

"Will I be given over to the Geat now?" he asked, miserable with dread.

"I think not," she answered. "He witnessed your fit and falling, and has decided that he does not want a companion who has spells like that. He left with the Heathobard and the Geats and some of the varingjar at first light this morning."

"What? Only some of the varingjar? What do you mean, a fit and falling?"

"The remaining brothers shall take us to my father. There was a tremendous wrestling match to determine who was worthy of that honor." She smiled slightly. "You should know, as my male kinsman, that there are several who would wed me. They may yet come and ask you for permission to seek my favor."

"Woman, I don't understand. Tell me what has happened." He put his cup aside mostly empty, and looked around for his knife and spear.

"Oh, he is full of vigor this morning. Very well, I went with the Geat and his companions to the hovel of the hag and the Ravager. The beast had died before we arrived, but the hag herself lay in wait. I bound her tongue and the Geat ran her through with a great blackwood spear, borrowed from you when you fell in a fit after the forearm of the beast was taken."

"Wait, I remember... seeing a chest of riches with Lord Hroth's crest upon it. How could I have seen that?"

Hervor touched her forefinger to his chin. "You touched the paste with the blood of your enemy, and the Sight overcame you. The Geat took up your spear for the hunt, for the weapon of someone touched by spirits is holy. He baptised it in the blood of the bitch and I made him return it to you. Further, the Geat has stolen away the gifts that Lord Hroth had given her, claiming that they were not found. I burned the dead, and sent them to the All Father, and also the hag and her misbegotten creature - their ashes I buried in the mud."

"What do you mean? The chest that Lord Hroth gave her?" Volund looked around them, more alert. They were alone in the Mead Hall.

"Everyone has left to see the Geat and the Heathobard and the rest to their boats, and I imagine there will be quite the celebration afterwards." She put her sword in its sheath, and stood to tie the long sword belt around her. "The lord seeks to consolidate his holdings, and conquer more. He chose the dark path, and paid the hag and her pet to raid the villages, spreading fear like a plague until we came here and you demanded that the Geat come."

"And then the Geat has stolen the riches from the lord of this place?" Volund stood, and she tossed him the blackwood spear, and handed him his knife and the small pack he had arrived with.

"The Geat is a wolf, seeking the weakest in the herd to prey upon. The Lord thinks himself strong and clever, but he is, rather, the weakest and most craven in the herd. There is no strength in causing fear. But you know this, yourself." She took a last deep drink from a meadskin, and left it on a table nearby. "Come. It is beyond time for me to take you beyond this place."

"But what of these people? With a lord like that will they be safe?" He followed her towards the brightness of morning sunlight. Above the door, in two pieces, the arm of the beast hung. Forearm and hand dangling next to the rotting bicep. As they walked beneath the grisley trophies, the rotting flesh gave way, and the massive arm-bone slid out of the sheath of rotting tissue. The bone fell at Volund's feet.

"Take it, cousin. It will be a fine weapon in the times to come."

“Evil men must die,” Volund whispered, but Hervor didn’t seem to hear him.