Freya the Huntress (Europa #2: A Dark Fantasy) (10 page)

The queen frowned. “Yes, I know. It was my order that no one speak of the ship outside of Hengavik. I didn’t want to create a panic with rumors of frost giants and dead gods falling from the heavens. I also didn’t want to risk scavengers and treasure hunters coming to loot the ship or to kidnap the two survivors. But I also knew that the Jarl of Hengavik didn’t have the wits or the strength to protect the ship for long, so I came here to Rekavik, to King Ivar, with a proposition. His vala was old, maybe even older than Gudrun, and a fool to boot. So I became his personal advisor and he brought the skyship survivors and many pieces of the ship itself here to Rekavik where he and I could study them. “

“What sort of people were they? The survivors, I mean,” Freya said. “Were they from Alba?”

Skadi shook her head dismissively. “No, they were from a land called Marrakesh, so far to the south in a place so hot that it never snows, even in winter. They had brown skin and black hair, and wore strange clothes, and spoke many strange languages, but the man spoke Yslander well enough. So when they recovered from their injuries, we began to learn from them. About their homeland and about their ship. At first, King Ivar wanted to build a skyship of his own, to sail to the far south and see this Marrakesh for himself. He dreamed of a fleet of Yslander ships sailing the skies so that we might explore and trade and make war as we did in the old days. But we didn’t have the tools or materials to build even one skyship. The southern woman explained how her country was full of great mines, and giant smithies called factories, and giant laboring beasts, and devices that not even I could imagine. All of these things are needed to build a skyship, and we have none of them.”

Freya nodded, hoping the queen would hurry along to the heart of her story so the huntress could escape the heat of the braziers. “I see. But, the plague?”

“Patience. I’m coming to that. Eventually, I suggested a different use for these foreigners and their machines. The engine that drove them across the sky is a machine that spins, like a mill, so I reasoned that we could use the engine as a drill to tunnel down into the earth.”

Gods! Gudrun was right. Skadi did want to dig up the ancient demons!

Freya asked innocently, “To find iron and silver?”

“Oh no, I had far greater ambitious than mere ore,” Skadi said. “We would drill into the base of Mount Esja to release the molten rock into the bay and the southern fields. The heat would drive back more of the ice, and the new land would give us more homes beside the water, and the fertile soil would strengthen our crops. With one stroke, we would make Rekavik into a thriving paradise, the greatest city in the world. I even secretly dreamed we might one day grow trees again here in Ysland. The king agreed to the plan, and the foreigners agreed to help us. So for two years, our smiths worked to create the pieces of the new engine, Ivar’s Drill. When it was built on the slopes of Mount Esja, it stood taller than Gudrun’s tower. And in the months that followed we drilled deeper and deeper into the mountain.”

“The den of the wolf,” Wren whispered. “When the Allfather defeated Fenrir, the beast was sealed in a prison that had no door, deep in the earth. But no one knows where the den of the wolf is.”

“Yes, well, we know where it is now.” Skadi ran one white hand down the fur trim of her robe from her neck to her chest. “After months of drilling, the foreman sent word that he had found rock walls so hot they glowed red. We thought the drill was about to tap the river of molten rock so Ivar and I went to oversee the work that day. We had grown quite close over those years, and we married just before the drilling began.”

“And then?” Freya prompted her.

“And then, we sat on the slopes of Mount Esja and listened to the drilling, waiting to hear that the magma had been found, waiting to see that river of golden fire pour out of the mountain and down into the bay,” Skadi said. “It was late in the afternoon when the drilling stopped. The machine itself stood on the slope where we were, with only its grinding arm reaching down into the darkness. Ivar and I stood beside the pit, beside the machine, and we listened. We waited to hear the foreman tell us he had found the magma. Instead, all we heard were screams.”

She broke off, her eyes straying to the girl at her side, and then out across the faces watching her. “Ivar told me to get back as he drew his sword. The screams grew louder. The workmen all stood at the edge of the pit with tools and ropes. Some wanted to go down to help their friends, and others wanted to run, but they stayed at the king’s side. They stayed, right up to the end. The beast came up from the tunnel, and, well, you’ve seen them. Fenrir is a reaver, like the others, only worse. He’s larger, and darker, and faster. He’s…”

Skadi swallowed and gripped the arms of her chair tightly. “Ivar ordered Leif to take me back to the city, and we fled. Over my shoulder I saw the demon tearing the men to pieces, scattering their limbs on the mountainside and spraying their blood into the air. I saw Ivar fall, and I saw the beast lift his broken body to feed on it.” She pressed her lips tightly together and stared down into one of the braziers.

“When we returned to the city, I called out the house carls to kill the beast,” Leif said. “We searched the mountain for hours, but found no trace of Fenrir, and no survivors either.”

“Yes, and a great pity that you didn’t stay to fight the beast when you had the chance,” Halfdan said. “Or Ysland would have surely been rid of its vermin that day.”

The black-haired youth and the bearded man exchanged vicious glares, but neither one moved or spoke.

The queen cleared her throat. “In the months that followed, we began to hear the stories of a creature attacking the farms in the north and the fishing villages along the coast. And soon it became clear that there was more than one reaver running loose. The plague had begun to spread. Almost every day we would hear of another village completely destroyed by the demons. So we built up our walls and sharpened our spears, and now we live at war with Fenrir and his beasts. Halfdan keeps our walls safe, and young Leif leads one of our war parties to patrol the hills. The reavers give us a wide berth now, and we have few attacks near the city. They seem to prefer easier kills.”

The queen fell silent for a moment, and then looked up abruptly at Wren. “You have Gudrun’s ring? The rinegold of Denveller?”

Freya stepped back so that Wren could stand before the queen between the braziers. The girl said, “Yes, I do. I’ve been learning to speak to Gudrun and the other dead valas of Denveller. It’s a very strange thing, seeing their faces and hearing their voices all the time, but I suppose I’ll get used to it eventually.” The girl paused to glance down at the ring on her finger, and then she looked up through her tangled, dirty hair. “Do you want the ring, my lady? Would it help you cure the plague?”

Skadi smiled as she gazed down at the slender girl, and for a moment Freya thought she might say yes, that she might take the ring. And she felt the sting of knowing that there was no such ring for the valas of Logarven, as there wasn’t for most of the small villages of Ysland. The rinegold was rare and precious, and greedily sought by both valas and thieves.

But instead the queen sighed and shook her head. “No, that ring is for you, for Denveller. I’m already wearing the ring of Hengavik, given to me by my second mistress, Sigrid. I don’t think I could manage two of them. But…” Her eyes widened. “…but there is another ring that might help us. The ring of Rekavik is very old, perhaps older than all the others in Ysland. And now we know that the den of Fenrir was just to east of Rekavik under Mount Esja.”

Wren stepped forward eagerly. “Then perhaps the vala of Rekavik, an ancient one, perhaps the first one, maybe she knew about the den! Maybe she was here when the Allfather sealed Fenrir under the mountain!”

Skadi nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

“Where is the ring?” Wren asked. She looked from the vala queen to her apprentice and back again.

“When the last vala of Rekavik died, her apprentice was too young to wear the ring.” Skadi gestured to the girl Thora beside her. “So the king took the ring for himself. I didn’t think it wise or proper, but it was his right. I thought that when Thora was older she would take the ring, but he never offered to return it. And Ivar died before I could ask the question of him again.”

Freya shivered despite the heat. “So the ring of Rekavik is lost?”

The queen shook her head. “I thought as much myself, until last autumn. We hadn’t seen or heard of Fenrir in many months, but one day a group of farmers came into the city, describing a giant reaver that attacked their wagons on the road from the northeast. Leif and his hunters went out to search for him, and they found him.”

“We found him in the hills to the east of Mount Esja,” Leif said softly, his eyes flashing with a cruel bloodlust. “I had twenty young carls with me, all fast runners and faster blades, and we chased the demon up into a rocky crevasse in the mountainside. We thought we had him trapped in the dark ravine. But it was he who trapped us. The demon climbed the walls, circled around us, and fell on us from the rear.”

The youth hesitated and licked his lips. “He tore two of my men in half before we realized what was happening, and soon the ground was swamped with blood and flesh and piss. The screams echoed so loudly in that place that my ears rang with meaningless noise. We could barely stand on the slick rock, and every time the demon killed a man he would fling the body at us, knocking down two or three men at a time. But we stood our ground and cut the beast, made him bleed, made him howl, and after a few minutes, we made him run as well. We stood our ground and we taught that animal to fear us. We earned more than mere songs that day. It was an hour for greatness, for glory.”

Freya watched the youth’s face as he spoke, his eyes wide and fixed on her though he seemed to be staring straight through her. His lips barely moved, and a strange smile lurked in the corners of his lips, twitching as though eager to blaze across his face with wild and furious joy at the memory of the battle.

“Thirteen died,” Leif said. “All in a moment, a few terrible breaths, a few last heartbeats. Fenrir shreds and grinds men as a miller grinds grain, and he paints the earth in blood wherever he goes. He is a flesh eater and a blood drinker. And even the survivors are victims. Two of my men were bitten, and began to change on the march home. I killed them myself.”

“The ring, Leif,” the queen said loudly.

“Yes, the ring.” Leif blinked and the dark revelry faded from his eyes. “I saw it on his finger, as did my men. Fenrir wears scraps of clothing around his shoulders and waist, like most reavers, but his arms were bare and we could easily see the golden ring on his claw. It shone in the light against his dark fur. He must have taken it from the king, along with the silver torques he wears on his arms. The reavers seem to like silver. But the gold was unmistakable.”

Freya found it all too easy to imagine the demon, a reaver larger than all the ones she had seen before, tearing grown men to pieces, the air sick with blood and piss and fear. She steadied her hands by gripping her knives. “Lady Skadi, is there really nothing you can do for my sister?”

The woman on the throne shook her head. “I can ply her with herbs to keep her calm, to make her sleep, to dull her madness. But nothing more. I have tried everything I know to cure the plague and I have failed at every turn.”

“But with the king’s ring, the rinegold of Rekavik?” Freya stepped forward again. “Do you believe there is some knowledge in that ring that can help my sister?”

“It’s possible, but I can make no promises. The ring of Rekavik holds the souls of countless wise women, and if the reavers once roamed these lands in ancient times, then one of those dead valas may know how to cure them.”

Freya nodded. “All right then. I’ll go. I’ll get the ring for you. I’ll do it.”

Erik gently took her arm and began to sign, but she turned away to face the queen, already knowing that her husband wouldn’t want her to go, and would at the least insist on her staying behind while he went on alone.

“It’s very hard to find Fenrir,” the queen said. “And almost impossible to face him and live. Leif’s hunters were all deadly swordsmen and they fell like children, helpless, before the demon. I will not send any more of my warriors to that end.”

“I’m not asking you to send anyone else. But I’m no warrior, and I’m not going to fight this demon in some sort of glorious battle,” Freya said. “I’m just going to hunt it down like any other animal. Stalk it, snare it, and spear it.”

“That’s not much of a plan,” said Halfdan.

“I know.” Freya nodded. “But it usually works just fine.”

Chapter 9. Drill

When their audience was over, the queen’s apprentice Thora led the three visitors to another wing of the estate, to a pair of rooms furnished with very large mattresses and very soft blankets. Thora gestured to the rooms in silence, her dark and haunted eyes staring at them each in turn. She looked exhausted, as though she’d been crying all night and day and had only stopped because her body simply couldn’t cry anymore.

“You’re going to hunt Fenrir.” The apprentice spoke very softly, her eyes straying toward the floor. “You’re going to kill him.”

Freya nodded.

“The reavers are victims, you know,” Thora said. “They all are. They were people once. Our people. Our families.”

Freya nodded again. “I know they were, just like my sister. Did you lose someone to the reavers?”

Thora nodded and whispered, “Yes, I did. And he didn’t deserve this. None of them did.” Then she pulled her black shawl tightly around her shoulders and strode swiftly down the hall. Freya watched her go, wondering what the other girl had been like before she lost everyone.

She was probably just like me. Content. Even happy. Looking forward to the future. And now look at her.

Wren said her goodnights and drew the curtain to her room, and Freya followed Erik into theirs. Starlight spilled through the barred window onto the bed, and thunder rumbled across the sky as the soft patter of icy rain began to fall on the heavy turf roof.