Chapter 1 Candle

Volund woke abruptly, the cold silence of the great-hall echoing around him. The fire had gone out, and his father's hounds crouched silent in the near blackness around him. He heard his mother gasp, and he reached for the dagger his father had given to him for Midwinter. A rattle of leather armor and rasp of bronze signaled the moment his father's shieldmen came to their feet, fanning out before the heavy doors of the hall as something massive impacted them.

The deep booming of the door sounded again, and then again, and with a shriek the stout timber that barred the doors split. The other men in the hall woke, grabbing clubs and tools, the shieldmaids pushing the mothers-with-babes and girls and children towards the back. His mother hissed instructions, and they waited by the hidden door into the caves where they stored food and stabled the beasts during storms. His father strode forward, the wrought silver of his torc and the wicked edge of his sword gleaming in the faint moonlight.

Straining to see around the bodies of the taller men, Volund tried to discern the aspect of the enemy. Looking up even further, he saw the head and shoulders of the monster tower over his father's men, a cudgel like a tree-stump swinging in the enormous hand. Men were tossed back like children before the giant, the snapping of limbs and ribs strangely quiet in the chaos. A shieldmaid, Hervor, dragged him away, but not before he saw his father struck by the giant's weapon, his skull crushed.

With a bellow, the creature waded into the midst of the remaining men, warriors and farmers and craftsmen all falling like wheat. Its eyes gleamed yellow in the dimness, and it wore nothing but a girdle of boiled leather, blue woad smeared in a grisly parody of the elegant swoops and whorls that Volund's kinfolk painted on their bodies before battle. The dogs were loosed against the ravager, and they scattered, too, before the vicious cudgel. Men and women and animals cried out as they were pummeled into bloody meat, and Hervor shoved him into the cave and slammed the door behind him. Volund shoved his dagger into his belt and swung the inner bar across the door, hearing the thump of the heavy tapestry falling against the other side.

His mother gripped his arm and swung him back amongst the shieldmaids, the precious iron of her spearhead gleaming coolly in the light of a tallow candle. "Run, boy," she whispered at him. "Go with your cousin to the Lord of Hart-Hall. Tell him that the Ymir has come, tell him to summon the Geat."

Volund flushed red with shame to be sent away when the danger was upon them. His mother shook him. "Look at me," she said in low tones. He met her eyes, black in the dim light, her golden hair a pale smear. "You are not a coward, Volund. Let no man say anything but that you are fleet of foot, and that you brought the rescue. You are our best runner. Now, take my spear, and go." She thrust the smooth blackwood handle into his hands.

Hervor appeared from the darkness, though Volund had not heard the door unbarrred or opened. She had blood on her shield and the gladius she had brought back from a skirmish with a Roman supply train. Blood ran down the central groove of the short sword. "Fight well, Sigrun," she said to Volund's mother. "We will make the Stag Hall lord rise up and defend the people."

"If we fall, take him to Father," Sigrun thrust a small hamper of food into Volund's hands, and he fumbled the strap across his shoulder. She gripped the back of her son's neck hard, pressing her forehead to his. "Run fast and fight well, Volund. We will meet again."

Following Hervor into the darkness of the caves, Volund was aware of the smells of the smoke changing. No longer was it the peat of the fires, but had the bitter taste of sod and hardwood as the longhouse itself caught fire. When they emerged from the passage, the faint light of dawn touched the eastern skies. Looking back up the slope to his father's hall, Volund saw billowing smoke rising from the roof. Hervor wiped down her blade and sheathed it before beckoning him to follow. They turned south, towards the sea, and ran at a ground-eating pace for most of the morning, slowing to eat briefly at noontide and running again in the high light of the afternoon.

Their camp was rough that night, and cold. They ate again, and slept briefly wrapped in their cloaks on the hard ground. Volund heard Hervor get up at moonrise. Turning his head, he saw her raise her hands to the sky, muttering to the Old Gods in her foreign tongue. She'd come with his mother as her shield maid when Sigrun was wed to his father, and no-one knew much about their people. Hervor and Sigrun certainly didn't volunteer much about their origins.

They were both black-eyed among a blue and green eyed people, with milk pale skin. Sigrun's hair was the color of wheat, but Hervor's was a deep brown that was almost black except in the brightest of sunlight.

Her prayers complete, Hervor turned her black gaze to him. In two swift strides she knelt next to him. She pulled a small clay pot from her hip pouch, pulling the beeswax stopper from the mouth and dipping a finger inside. "Tonight you will See True, little hawk." A dark paste clung to the tip of her finger.

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Before he could protest or lift a hand to stop her, she drew a rune on his forehead with the paste. His tongue became a lump of meat, and he felt the skin of his brow begin to tingle, a sparkling haze dropping over his vision. Struggling, he burst free from the heavy clay of his limbs, screeching rage at her as he launched into the sky.

It was natural, to find the currents of air in their courses over the land, and he spiraled up towards the moon. The wind became thin, and he banked and angled back towards the darkness below him. Soaring to the west, he quickly covered the ground it took them an entire day to run. Circling the village where he was born, he saw the smoking ruin of his father's longhouse. It wasn't the largest mead-hall, or the most grand, but he grieved his home. Women and old men worked even in the night to clear the area and already new timbers were being raised to protect the fragile people within. Some of the sod houses still huddled around the edges of where the mead-hall had stood, irregular in their spacing.

His father was laid out with his shield guard. They had no boats, but his mother had overseen the crafting of a pyre in the shape of a longship for the dead. In Volund's eyes, his father was a powerful gyrefalcon lying shattered on the hewn wood and peat of the unlit pyre, surrounded by the hounds and boar and wolves of his retinue. For as many broken men and women Volund saw, it seemed that some were missing.

His mother was a searing figure of golden light, strong and fierce, with a winged circlet on her brow, a spear in her hand. Looking up at him, she raised her spear in salute, and returned to her work, shepherding the remains of his people in their sad work.

Turning towards the moors to the northeast, Volund sought out the monster, the Ravager who had destroyed his home. He found the dripping cave where it lived, and he found the missing warriors and shieldmaids. They were kept in an enormous basket, the living and dead alike, and as Volund watched, the beast reached in with a massive paw and pulled the arm off of one of the bodies, rending the flesh and spitting out the copper arm-band that had been fastened around the bicep of Barton. The aging man should have been telling stories to the children, sneaking them sweetmeats and scaring them with grisly tales.

One of the captives screamed, rage and pain in her voice as she struggled. An ancient hag pulled the shieldmaid's hair through the gap in the cage, sawing at the scalp with a stone knife, muttering an obscene verse. The hag stopped mid-chant and looked up at Volund, her black gaze piercing him.

The falcon who was Volund tumbled through the air towards the ground, struggling to find breath or wind to raise him up. A strong gust found him and tumbled him to the east, farther and faster than he'd ever traveled before. He found himself circling an enormous whitewashed mead-hall, the doors twice the height of a man, with multiple chimneys rising from the length of it. Sod houses and tens of tents clustered around the western side of the building, standing proudly in rows like Roman streets. A banner emblazoned with a stag fluttered in the breeze, always catching the first light of dawning. As Volund circled, he saw tatters along the edges of the banner, and saw a rot in the heart of the stag. Shuddering, he spun away, flying again to the west.

Far below him, he saw movement in the brush, a rabbit cautiously moving about its evening forage for food. Screaming fierce delight, Volund-the-falcon stooped swiftly, plummeting to the earth with talons outstretched, piercing the flesh of the animal. It screamed like a dying girl, and he snapped its neck before settling upon it, rending the flesh from its bones.

The youth came back to himself abruptly, drenched in sweat. Hervor sat back on her heels, watching him. "You could have brought back breakfast, boy," she said, standing and stretching.

He wiped the drying stuff off of his forehead, a smear of blue woad coming away on his fingertips. Shuddering, he scrubbed his hands in the grass.

Volund rolled to his knees, crawling a few feet to vomit acid from his empty stomach. He fumbled at his waterskin, drinking a gulp and then vomiting again. When the spasm was done, he took another cautious sip. Standing, he ignored Hervor's critical gaze and stretched his body up, extending his palms to the sky, and then to each side, and down to the earth. He stretched his legs and hips, and then put a piece of venison jerkey between his cheek and teeth to soften for a bit. Nodding to his cousin, he started off to the east, his easy lope a ground eating pace that would see them there by sunset.

Indeed, as they crested the last hill before the Hart Meadhall, the sun blazed red and began its final descent towards the sea. Watchers found them while they were yet a handsbreadth of daylight away from the meadhall, as they came upon the broad street built by the invaders in generations past.

There were four sentries guarding this approach to the village, their cookfire banked to the side of the smooth road. They were armed with spears and gladii, holding their spears with great ease and wearing the gladius awkwardly tied to their waists with belts. Hervor dropped back a step and let Volund lead the way.

"Who comes to the Stag Hall?" the shortest of the men called as they fanned across the road.

"I am Volund, son of Hrulf, and we come to bring warning to Lord Hroth of a Dread Ravager come up from the fens. Two days past, it fell upon our meadhall and killed my father and his warriors. The rest I must tell the Lord."

The sentries exchanged quiet words, and the short one gestured them to follow, leaving the other three to their watch. "I am Alfrik, cousin to the lord. We will see what he has to say about your monster."