They ran to the south and west, past the great white cliffs of Lord Hroth's lands, down through the lands of the Danes to the edge of the narrow sea passage. Volund marveled that it was considered a narrow passage, when he could not see the other shore. When he remarked on it to Hervor, she quirked a smile. She had returned to her taciturn nature after they left the hall. He reflected that he might have heard more words from her that day than he had heard from her before, and that he would ever hear from her again.
When they came to the southernmost point of the land, Hervor began looking to the sea more and more. They stopped for a day, resting and foraging. He brought back three coneys and a fat sea-bird, his cousin brought back a sling full of a yellow flowered plant and another plant she kept covered. She spent much of the rest of the day with the herbs, boiling and pounding and grinding the plants into a paste. When she first added the strange plant to the pot, it flashed brown with tannins, and the steam smelled of visions. When she added the pulped yellow flowered plant, it immediately turned green, and then to the vivid blue of the paste she had smeared on him twice before.
"Woad? That's how you make it?" He asked.
She looked up at him. "Not exactly. With the yellow flowers only, it is a beautiful brilliant dye. Your grandmother loves to wear gowns dyed with it, and out of affection for her your grandfather's people paint their bodies with it in battle. "
"What about the other plant?" He gestured to the covered remnants of the brownish weed.
"This is for visions, and battle prowess, and rage against evil. You must not touch it, Volund, it likes you far too well." She covered it again.
While the concoction simmered down into a thick and foul smelling paste, she was watching the sea to the west. As the sun dipped into the horizon, he saw a flash like a far-off shore, and the shadow of a sail on the horizon. Hervor grunted and began to gather her things, kicking dirt over the fire. Volund did likewise, wrapping his few posessions tightly in a hide they had brought with them from the Hart Hall.
At moonrise, a sleek silver ship sailed right up to the shore, spinning gracefully until she faced the west again before dropping her anchor. Hervor removed her boots and stuffed them into the top of her pack, gesturing Volund to do the same, and they both waded into the waist deep waters, and then swam the last few yards when the bottom dropped out from beneath them. The thirteen varingjar came behind them, silent in their watchfulness. In the days of travel he had learned the name of only two of them, Theodor and Malaksson, who accompanied him on hunts.
Volund had never swam in the sea before. The deep pond and the hot springs near his home were still waters, and not the moving living thing all around him now. Something brushed his leg, and he stifled a cry. Hervor ignored his gasp and pulled herself up over the side of the ship by the knotted rope thrown over the side to them. He followed her, and the varingjar pulled themselves up and over the sides even without a rope to aid them.
Hervor exchanged quiet words with the three people manning the ship, one at the rudder at the back and two at the sail. Without comment, the varingjar seated themselves at the oars, except for Malaksson, who stood next to Volund, hand on his sword casually. The three sailors were by turns very tall, very broad, and very slim in their build, and all wore their hair tightly braided against the sea spray. Volund could not determine their gender or their aspect beneath the many layers of oiled hide that they wore against the wet.
Malaksson gestured to the front of the boat and a narrow bench across the narrow front of the boat, loops of rope tied around either side. They both sat, and Malaksson showed Volund how to put his hand through the loop of rope and hold on against the bucking of the ship, which began as soon as the anchor came up and the other varingjar began to row, chanting to keep their strokes together. The broad sailor pulled the cover off of a massive drum, and beat it in time to the song the warriors sang. The sail was raised and though it sagged against a weak breeze, they sped across the waters as the oarsmen pulled hard.
The ship skimmed the sea as it grew rougher, the spray stinging Volunds eyes. He clutched his pack and the whitening arm-bone of the monster, praying a little to gods he hardly knew, and wishing a little that he would die, that the nausea might stop. Hervor stood at the back with the very tall person wrestling with the stout arm of wood that seemed to direct their direction. She had unbraided her hair, and it seemed to float around her in a cloud, rippling in the faintest of breezes. In that moment, Volund had never seen anything as beautiful. In the next, he began to heave, and Malaksson casually threw him halfway over the side of the boat, that he lost his guts into the spray of their travel, and not on the deck of the small ship. The oarsmen laughed, but it was good natured, rather than mocking, and when Volund turned to look down their ranks, he saw that Theodor was also hanging over the side, his oar lifted from the water as he heaved his supper into the sea. His partner on the other side also raised his oar until Theodor was recovered, and then they resumed their efforts to the beat of the drum.
When dawn broke, Volund suddenly saw a gently sloped shoreline, naked of the dramatic cliffs they had ran along for the past days. A slender tongue of rock pilings and wooden planks provided mooring for the slender swanship, as Malaksson had named it to Volund, and the varingjar pulled their oars in, laying them along the sides of their benches and leaving a clear path down the middle.
Hervor gestured for Volund to follow, and stepped off the side of the ship onto the wooden pier as the very tall and very broad sailors tied the ship to iron cleats bolted into the wood and stone. Only after Hervor had set foot on the wood did the varingjar leave the ship also, and Volund wondered for a moment what strange land they had come to.
They were greeted by no one, only a lonely sconce with two lit torches and an unlit torch. Hervor took up one of the lit torches, and used it to set fire to the unlit torch.
She led them up a gently sloping path. Thick fog shrouded the land, and Volund saw little of what they passed, except to know that they were not in a forest. Bush and low trees, rocks and the trail were all passed over and around. While they did not run, they were not slow, either. Finally, when the sun was high in the misty morning, they came upon a low wall, and walked through the open gateway.
A gold haired woman in a stunning blue gown, kirtled in a bright yellow sash, came running down the path, laughing as she saw Hervor. She swept his cousin up in a joyous embrace, and Hervor appeared a bit put out by the indignity of it. The torch was dropped, lest she set fire to the blue gowned woman. When she was finally released in a shower of foreign words in a lilting tongue, she turned to the company she led, gesturing to Volund to come forward.
"Cousin, this is Frig, wife of Bruni the Farmer. Mother, this is Volund, Sigrun's son."
"I am also the son of Hrulf, lord of -" the golden haired woman waved a hand, cutting him off.
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"Yes, your father is very brave. It is your mother's courage that matters here." Her laughing black eyes took Volund's measure, lingering on the massive arm-bone he carried. "I see that you have something of that courage, yourself. Come, you must meet my husband." She turned, and Volund noticed that more than one of the varingjar watched her shapely form as she walked away from them. He felt disgruntled by the dismissal of his father, who had died so bravely, and moody that they looked upon the woman Frig with more desire than respect, and was quick to follow her, his cousin falling into step beside him.
They came to a low building, stone walls and round roof of sod and timber. It had a man-sized door, and the rooftree rose from the center of the building, hearths to either side. A man sat in front of the left hand hearth, an enormous brindle dog next to him, her belly huge with a litter of pups unborn.
The man was snoring softly, and the rattle and clatter of the woman Frig, Volund and Hervor and the entire retinue of varingjar coming in from the fog and spreading out at Frig’s instruction did not wake him. The dog, though, raised her massive head, and Volund recognized her for a wolfhound of tremendous size, the tips of her canines visible around her closed lips.
Frig finally poured a cup of deep red wine from a fine glass jug, carrying it to the man in front of the fire.
“Husband,” she said in a low voice, wrapping his hand around the cup. “We have company. Hervor has brought the boy and a group of fine warriors besides. Sigrun has instructions that you are to take him in.”
“Harumpf,” he grunted. “Sigrun’s her mothers daughter, for sure, always giving instructions, having notions of what’s right and best.” He drank deeply and sat up straighter in his chair. He took Frig’s hand in his, drawing it to his lips to kiss tenderly. She blushed in the firelight, or perhaps it was merely the heat of the flames. He turned to face Volund and his companions.
Volund took a surprised step back. One eye was piercing and blue in the man’s craggy face. The other socket was empty, but rather than the flesh and folds of an empty mortal socket, the youth thought he saw the span of stars in the night sky, the skirts of light moving among them like the hem of a Lady’s fine veil. Lightning coursed across that night sky, and Volund felt himself falling -
And he stood with a jerk as the man pulled a ragged patch over the socket of a long lost eye. Blinking rapidly, Volund couldn’t think of whether the Vision of the man’s eye was true, or the passing fancy of a sleep deprived mind.
“I can assure you, boy, it was definitely a dream. You surely did not see anything in this eye that you’d see in any other empty orb.” There was mischief in the man’s quirked grin, and Volund found himself grinning in return.
The man reached down to stroke the silky ears of the dog at his side, and she whined softly, looking up at him, and then twisted around to inspect her tail. "I am Bruni, and you are my guest for this moon and the next. You will rest, you will heal, and you will make something of that bone that doesn't look like it should be given to my sweet darling here. You will also help her with her litter. This is my price for sheltering you from the Geat and the mad lord of Hart Hall. "
Volund found himself staring at the hound until Bruni mentioned Lord Hroth and Bodulfr. "Sheltering me?" He looked around wildly, dread and a nightmare of being bound to a rooftree and watching, night after night, as warriors were killed and taken by the Dread Foe shook him to the ground, his gut clenching and his balls drawing close to his body. "Why would they come for me?"
"Because you found a way to hurt a Ravager who was invulnerable. Because you burned it and allowed a man with no honor to kill it on a Blood moon. And because the mother of the Beast would have you for supper, cook you in her pot and steal away your power." Bruni stood and came to Volund. The one-eyed man was no taller than Volund, though his arms were massive. His expression was kind and shrewd, and he nodded, knowingly. "You have tasted Hervor's potion, and yet you live."
Volund nodded. "Yes, she - "
"I know what she did. She'll pay a price herself, but that's a discussion I'll have with her later. Now, boy, the bitch is waiting for you. She will take you to her den, and you will be her guard and aid in her labors." Bruni turned again to sit in his chair, and Volund saw a gold band on one of his fingers. A wave of dizziness passed over him, and when he looked again, the ring was plain silver, scribed with runes.
"What -" Volund's voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "What is her name? The hound, rather."
"Her name is Geri, lad," Frig answered, drawing him away from Bruni. "Come, I'll show you her lair. Hervor will bring your things along in a bit."
Geri stood, her massive belly hanging wide and low even on her tall frame. She looked to be more wolf than hound for a moment, and then she shook out her pelt, brindle and striped with black and gold, and was once more simply a hound. She opened her mouth and took Volund's forearm in her jaws, looking him in the eye. He felt the edges of her teeth, but she was very gentle, releasing him as he fell into her deep brown gaze. Frig took his other arm and Geri released him, groaning a bit as she lumbered to the back of the hall.
A den had been fashioned of limbs and hides against the round curve of the wall, and Volund had to duck a little to enter after her.
"She's a good mother, but she will not leave the pups to hunt for some time. You will make sure that she and the litter are cleaned and fed. There may come a time when you will need to shelter with her, to protect her, so you will sleep here, in her den." Frig gestured, and Volund noticed a broad hide platform, a narrow cot beside it. Geri climbed up onto the platform and sprawled out, then curled around to inspect her hindquarters once again.
Volund climbed up next to her, and she lay her massive head on his lap. He stroked her head and ears, then reached over to stroke her side and flank, feeling the flex of muscle and the struggle of the unborn pups inside. After a moment, she turned around with purpose, and the first of the litter arrived with little fanfare otherwise.
The litter took an entire day for Geri to whelp, and at the end of her labors, she lay panting with six hand-sized pups, wiggling and wrestling for their turn at a teat. Volund brought her more water, and a bowl of meat provided by Frig.
Some time in the night, all of his belongings had been placed in a chest just outside the den, along with fine leather of varying weights, and leatherworking tools. When Geri finally got up and cleaned the pups for a moment, she looked him in the eyes deeply. She turned and picked up one of the pups and placed it in his lap where he sat against the wall next to her leather bed. It was sleepy, eyes tightly closed and eyelids still almost translucent, blunt faced and bulbous in shape, with a tiny tail. Volund brought the pup close to his face, inhaling the musk and milk smell of the puppy. It squeaked, drawing a sharp look from its dam, and then cuddled under Volund's chin.
Satisfied, Geri moved the rest of her pups to Volund's lap, and then left the den. One of the varingjar brought him a tight woven basket filled with rabbit furs, quietly instructing Volund on the cleaning of Geri's bed. "I'm Alexandros," the man said, glancing into the basket at the pups. "I kept the beasts at my sire's hall before I was called to the wind. If you need anything, my bedroll is nearby."
"What does it mean, that you were called to the wind?" Volund was hungry to talk to another human, and indeed just hungry in general - while he had carefully kept up with feeding Geri, he had not himself eaten since entering her den.
"I follow the Hawk Lord, a god of my people. It led me here, and I am grateful for it." He handed a hamper of bread and dried meat to Volund, and then left without another word.
Geri proved herself to be a good mother, and also a good guardian for Volund. On the third day after their arrival at the mist-shrouded farm of Bruni and Frig, a messenger arrived from the land of the Danes. Geri grumpily deposited six squirming and half fed pups in Volund’s lap and went to join her master.