RuneWarriors (12 page)

“To the man what brought us wisdom!” The men cheered
Huzzah!
and drank to Dane. It felt good to have been right, to have the men with him at last. Drott began lecturing the Vicious Brothers about the differences among mead, ale, and grog…mead being a drink of fermented honey, made mostly for special occasions, ale a hearty beer brewed from malted grain, and grog being just a gallimaufry of alcoholic beverages all thrown together. Rik and Vik the Vicious brothers looked confused by this new information.

“But mead, ale, and grog,” said Vik, trying to comprehend what Drott was saying, “they all have the same kick, right?”

“Yes,” said Drott, “all produce the same state of euphoria.”

“And last just as long?” asked Rik, now getting what his brother was driving at.

“Yes, yes,” answered Drott, finding this line of questioning tiresome. “All will make you equally drunk.”

The brothers beamed and turned to each other.

“Grog me!” said Vik.

“Ale me!” said Rik.

They bumped chests and began guzzling from their goatskins, chugging their inebriant of choice, racing each
other to the comforting arms of drunken euphoria.

 

Jarl stood there uncomfortably, holding his wineskin of idiot water, feeling every bit the twit. He felt the eyes of the men upon him.

“Whaddaya keeping
that
for?” he heard Fulnir ask. “To make you smarter?” This made the men guffaw and Jarl feel worse. That he'd been wrong, that he'd chosen the idiot water, was bad enough. But to be bested by his rival and made a fool by the others, this was sheer humiliation. Suddenly wanting to be rid of all that had shamed him, he moved to empty the goatskin over the port side bow. But Dane grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“'Tis nothing to those who know of its danger,” said Dane, “but perhaps a weapon against those who don't.” The sullen Jarl thrust the bag at Dane and walked off, though still in the range of their laughter, which further darkened his mood. Perhaps the gods weren't on his side after all, he mused morosely. Perhaps he was doomed to die, and the best he could hope for would be to die bravely and heroically in battle. As he watched the others busily prepare to set sail on their new course, the men gave Jarl not a single look. The ship was now clearly under Dane's command.

T
he girl lay asleep in the moonlight at the rear of the longship, tied at the wrists and ankles and secured to the bulwark to prevent her escape. Thidrek sat on a cask nearby and gazed upon her lovely form, the sight of her bare shoulder and the wisps of her golden hair taken by the breeze awaking in him some long-buried tenderness. The Mistress of the Blade, they called her; the sound of this pleased Thidrek still more. He might have to torture the poor girl if she chose not to accede to his wishes, and for the first time in his life, he felt something akin to—what was it? Discomfort? Regret? He wasn't sure. This must be what others talk of, he mused, when they speak of having “feelings of affection.” But oh, how weak he felt! Horribly, horridly weak! And visions of grisly torture again flooded his mind, comforting him, and soon his moment of weakness passed.

Thidrek turned his gaze to his clothier, Hrolf the Finicky, who had finished taking the girl's measurements and now sat nearby, sketching designs on sheets of vellum with a stick of charcoal. Though barrel-chested and balding, he cut quite a stylish figure in his silver-studded black-leather vest and matching boots. In his youth, when known as Hrolf the Ripper, he had dutifully burned, looted, and maimed, all the while secretly harboring a desire to work with fabric. At last he gave in to his urge to create and, working nights, fashioned a line of smart warrior attire, ensembles of chain mail, dyed leather, and ermine that won him wide acclaim. When the designs caught Thidrek's eye, Hrolf was put on retainer as his personal clothier and ever after known as Hrolf the Finicky.

“May I see it
now
?” Thidrek asked, eager to see what Hrolf was dreaming up for him.

“When I
finish
!” Hrolf snapped, his voice a reed-thin rasp due to an old knife wound on his throat. Thidrek said nothing, knowing it best not to push the man. He was a temperamental artist, rumored to have killed a former patron for daring to criticize his color scheme.

With the girl asleep, Thidrek turned his gaze to the Shield of Odin that lay gleaming in his lap. He stared in distraction, mesmerized by its opalescent Eye, lost in the glints of starlight it reflected. It was funny. He felt most alive when taking life. The power he felt when killing things—the swell of strength that swept through him—these were the moments he lived for, taking him to heights
of pleasure his weak-willed father hadn't had the character to grasp, much less emulate. Yes, Thidrek had far outstripped his father's own pathetic accomplishments, and now the prince was on the verge of possessing the ultimate prize. When he thought of the exalted powers that might soon be his, the possibilities were so thrilling, he could scarce contain himself.

“Did you know, Hrolf,” Thidrek intoned, “that some men are fated to rise above mere mortal status? To stand eye to eye with”—he drew in a breath and eyed the heavens—“the gods themselves?”

“I shan't be surprised,” Hrolf rasped, “to someday see
you
in that vaunted company.” Then, finally finished, he presented his drawing to His Lordship, who eyed it with interest.

“Snow white and teal,” said Hrolf, “that's the color scheme I recommend, m'lord. With ruffles here, here, and here.” He then handed Thidrek something he called a “fabric swatch.”

Taking the swatch, Thidrek gave it a brief glance and began buffing the Shield with it, polishing it to a high sheen. “You're my clothier—I leave that to you,” he said distractedly. “So long as it says ‘Ice Queen,' Hrolf. That's all that matters.”

“She'll be the picture of icy reserve,” Hrolf said.

 

Only feigning sleep, Astrid had lain awake the whole time and heard it all. They'd roughed her up a bit after her
capture and lashed her again to the aft deck, this time tightly binding her wrists and ankles with long straps of sealskin leather. Though the ties had cut into her flesh, she'd borne the discomfort with stoic strength. This was made all the more difficult as the fur she lay beneath was infested with fleas, and she had to lie still and not scratch at the beastly little things.

She'd heard Thidrek's footsteps recede and after a few moments of silence had cracked open an eye to see that she was now alone. Her mind sharpened by the pain in her leg and her primal need to escape, her thoughts raced, piecing things together.

They were fitting her for a garment of some kind. But what was it? What kind of sick scheme did he have? A nuptial dress? No, it couldn't be. But she'd heard him say “queen.” He must be thinking of a royal wedding. But how
could
he? After the way he'd treated her? She was so steamed that when Thidrek returned, kneeling over her, offering a plate of food, she blew up in anger, blowing off all pretense of being cooperative.

“Are you
that
deluded to think that after all you've done—the kidnaping, the poison, the hard bed—I'd actually agree to
marry
you? Of all the colossal gall! I'd rather die by my own hand than have you touch me!”

A light of desire came into Thidrek's eyes. “I so like your fire,” he said with an oily smile. “But who said we're to be wed?”

“Oh, so I'm just a gutter wench, is that it?” Astrid shot
back. “I'm fine for a good time but nowhere near worthy to be a queen?”

Thidrek grinned, further aroused by her outburst. “Woman, you stir me!” Enflamed, he bent to kiss her—and Astrid used the only means of self-defense at her disposal. She spat a gob of spit in his eye.

His cheeks flamed red. He quietly drew out his handkerchief and wiped away the saliva. His voice went cold.

“This time tomorrow,” he said, “you'll wish you hadn't done that.” And he swept away, leaving Astrid lying there alone, shivering in the chill wind, further pained by the knowledge she had only one more sundown to effect an escape.

S
trutting back and forth before the men at the aft end of the ship, the wisdom water still firing his mind, Drott was alive with insights. Enthralling his friends, Drott pontificated on matters great and small, enjoying each moment of his newfound brilliance, telling Rik and Vik and Orm and the others he wanted to explain as much as he could before its magical effects faded once and for all and he went back to being Drott the Dim again.

The men asked why the effects of the wisdom water had to fade at all. Why couldn't they last forever, like the effects of the idiot water did? Drott admitted that, on the face of it, it did seem unfair. Since there was already a seemingly endless supply of idiocy in the world, you'd think the gods would be a bit more generous with the wisdom. But, no, he said, wisdom had to remain a rare and precious thing or else men wouldn't value it as much—
which would make life a lot harder than it already was—and so it was only fitting that the gods would dole out wisdom in such minuscule amounts, if only for our own good. Some of the men, slow to accept Drott's mental superiority, threw searching looks to Lut to see what
he
thought of this explanation. Lut just nodded and smiled, and the men eagerly returned to peppering Drott with questions.

Orm wanted to know why it was that in their land both snow
and
rain fell from the sky, whereas in other lands his father had visited there was only rain. Drott explained that snow was merely frozen rain and that in warmer climes it rained all the time and never snowed and people were always wet and miserable and never able go sledding or throw snowballs and that's why the Norsefolk were lucky to live where they did. Orm seemed satisfied by this answer.

Ulf the Whale wanted to know if the Romans had really thrown people to the lions. Drott said, yes, they had. Ulf then wondered aloud how many people a lion would have to eat before it was full, and Drott said he wasn't sure but guessed a dozen at least, maybe more, and Ulf the Whale observed that once his grandsire Zander the Remarkably Tall had eaten an entire ox at one sitting,
with
dipping sauce, and Blek said, “Yeah, and fell over dead the following day.”

After the laughter died, Rik and Vik had an astonishing array of questions on the many intoxicating aspects of ale and grog and other alcoholic potions and which drink
would keep you drunk the longest and which would make you pee the farthest. Drott described how grapes were used to make wine and how to get rid of hiccups, deftly avoiding having to answer the urination-distance question at all.

Asked about the origin of the runes, Drott said it was the god Odin himself who, in ancient times, had given their ancestors the original runic alphabet carved on a magic staff. Using this “language of the gods,” men had learned to communicate with the deities, carving runic symbols on bones and pieces of tree bark, which they then read to know the future.

Years later, he said, men made the language their own, using runes to communicate with
each other
, inscribing in wood men's names, dreams, and, at times, grocery lists. And to preserve for future generations the exploits of the most heroic among them, they carved tales of their selfless deeds on giant slabs of granite they called rune stones. And these rarest of heroes so memorialized came to be known as Rune Warriors, men who would live on, in stone, for ages. “And thus it was,” Drott said, “that men used language to stop time.”

Fulnir showed great interest in the causes of body odor, and Drott had patiently explained that “we are what we eat,” and that perhaps a modified diet would change the odors his body expelled. Blek had asked about the many moods of the sea and the faces of the moon, and Drott answered his questions as best he could.

Jarl seemed particularly preoccupied with the Shield of
Odin. What gave it its powers? How had their forefathers come to possess it? And what secret scrubbing agent had Voldar used to keep it so clean and shiny all these years? Drott told of the time before they were born when Voldar, in the full flower of youth, while in the service of a Gottlander king, had been given the Shield in gratitude for having saved the king's twin sons who'd nearly drowned when their trading ship had been attacked by pirates. The Shield, the king had told Voldar, had been crafted generations before by trollfolk who dwelled in a far northern realm and were known to employ the bewitchments of sorceresses—known as
vølvas—
in the forging of their weaponry, and thus had the Shield gained its powers. And when Jarl asked how he knew all this, Drott said that his suddenly sharpened faculties had helped him recall long-forgotten tales his uncle Hakon the Rude used to tell when Drott was an infant.

Finally there came questions about the nature of death and whether he knew how each of them was to meet his demise. This Drott could not answer. He patiently explained that he only had wisdom. Intelligence. This was not the same as foreknowledge; only the gods could see the future, he said, for they were all-powerful and all-knowing.

“But if the gods are all-knowing,” asked Ulf the Whale, “how could Thor lose his Hammer?” He was referring to the prophecy they'd heard since childhood, the one Voldar had so often told them round the fire.

“Hhmm,” said Drott with a frown, appearing to be stumped. “It does seem rather unlikely, doesn't it?”

“So the prophecy isn't true?” Some of the men seemed alarmed.

“Well, think about it,” said Ulf. “How could the great and powerful Thor lose his Hammer? What? In a fit of drunkenness he drops the Hammer and can't remember where he left it? It's fifty feet long! He'd always know where he left it.”

“You're right,” said Drott. “I don't think a god of his stature would ever lose the greatest power in the heavens by accident.” A small look of pride then spread over Ulf's big ruddy face, pleased his own mental prowess was now on display.

“Unless,” Drott paused for emphasis, “he were to lose it on
purpose
.”

“On purpose?” Ulf asked. “Why?”

“Yes!” Drott answered, his excited mind seeing a new possibility. “What if he let it fall to earth deliberately? As a
test
?”

A test? Now he had Ulf's attention. The others, too, traded quizzical looks, wondering where Drott was going with this, Drott himself not altogether sure.

“Yes, you know—maybe he knows
exactly
where it is and is just testing us, to see what we mortals will
do
with it. To see whether we'll use it for good or for evil—or for some nuanced and multifaceted mixture of the two.” He looked at them expectantly, awaiting a reaction, wondering himself if
his notion indeed had any truth to it.

The men considered it a long moment. Then Ulf said, “Naaah!” and dismissed it with a wave. The others chimed in, saying Drott had stopped making sense and he ought to stick to things he really knew about, like which herbal remedies were best for frostbite and why flint rock could be used to spark a fire and other stones could not.

 

Knowing that their situation was dire, Dane stood alone at the bow, staring into the misty darkness, trying to quiet his mind and forget what Drott had told him. His stout friend had taken him aside earlier, eager to share his new-found literacy.

“Listen, Dane,” he'd said, “I know what you're feeling. You're anxious. Uneasy. In an apprehensive muddlement.” Dane had just stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Or maybe it's more like a jittery disquietude? A kind of distress edging toward despair? Or perhaps a dark foreboding, a fretful trepidation bordering on full-scale panic and—”

Dane had silenced his friend with an oath, but Drott had continued, explaining that he was just having a “crisis of confidence,” wherein a man whose true nature is yet untested feels overwhelmed by problems he faces and fears he hasn't strength to carry on.

Dane hadn't felt very encouraged by these words. But he'd thanked Drott all the same and bidden him go back to the men at the stern of the ship, where he'd continued his speechifying. And though Dane, overhearing it all, had
had his doubts about the whole Thor's Hammer business, he'd been glad the men had the distraction, for it gave him time to think.

They'd traveled north with no problem, entering the narrow passageway known as the Shallow Shoals of Peril—which Drott said had once been called “The Extremely Narrow and Shallow Shoals of Peril and Almost Certain Death” but then shortened to make it less cumbersome in conversation. Dane had confidently sailed into these dangerous straits, believing the tide high enough to carry them safely through the rock-plagued waters.

He'd been wrong. Soon after they'd entered, the tide receded, revealing the first few massive rocks rising up out of the sea. But he hadn't panicked. He'd calmly guided the ship himself, calling from the bow back to Blek at the rudder, telling him how to maneuver safely through the deadly straits.

But the tide sank further. More rocks appeared. Night fell and it grew dark. And then, worse, a blinding fog had set in, and even after lighting all the ship's torches, they could see but a few yards in any direction. The choppy seas heaved the ship in unexpected ways, making it harder to steer clear of the rocks that would suddenly appear out of nowhere.

And
that's
when Dane panicked. He could hear the mutinous grumblings of the men behind him and knew that one way or another they'd soon be sunk, no matter how smart Drott was. Lost and alone, he drew his coat
tighter around him for warmth and peered out into the misty fog, searching for answers.

They'd found their wind, all right. And the wisdom they'd gained had only led to this deadly pass. But what of the thunder they sought? What form would it take, and where and when would they find it? And even if they found it, how exactly were they to employ its powers to defeat their foe? Maybe the gods had forsaken him altogether, just as they had abandoned his father. What good were the gods, anyway? They never were there when you needed them. Perhaps, as Dane had often secretly believed, they existed only in the imagination of mortal men, as a kind of ideal of perfection men themselves created in order that they might strive to attain it.

Further troubled by these thoughts, his mind sought comfort in the past. He remembered something his mother had told him on the night of his father's death. After the funeral at sea and Lut's reading of the runes, everyone had gone back to what was left of their huts. It was then, alone with his dear mother, that Dane had broken down and wept. He'd told his mother he was afraid, that he didn't think he was up to the task of being a leader, and that Jarl was a more able man than he. He even confessed his urge to run away and live alone in the woods for the rest of his days, so he wouldn't have to bear the dagger stares from the rest of the men and women of the village. Moved by her son's vulnerability, his mother had grabbed him by the hair and given him an iron look.

“Now you listen to me. Your father, may he rest, was one flinty son of a weasel. There were days I'd've sooner bashed his head in than look at him. But he had a fire inside him. You warmed yourself by that fire, Son, and whether you feel it yet or not, you have it within you too. Forget about trying to become your father. Just become the man he knew
you
could be. Feel the fire, Son. Believe in yourself. That's all a boy really has to do to become a man.”

Dane looked at her. “Is that it, Ma? That's the speech?”

“Pretty much,” she said. “Oh, and eat your vegetables and take it easy on the grog and remember to change your underthings once or twice a month.”

“Can you let go of my hair now, Mother?”

“Of course, Son,” she said. She let go. Then she'd kissed him and started to build a fire in the hearth. Dane had lain awake all night in his father's old cedar chair, unable to sleep, staring up at the empty spot on the wall where the Shield of Odin had once hung, brooding about the other things now missing from his life and what he could do to get them back.

 

Alone now at the bow of the ship, Dane remembered his mother's words. Believe in himself? How could he? They were in this fix all because of him. Jarl was right. Dane had no business piloting a warship. Other than his good luck in picking the wisdom water, all he'd done was make bad judgments and wrong decisions.

Dane peered up at the cloud-enshrouded moon. The mists that rose from the sea were as thick and impenetrable as the obstacles he faced. Could he lead the men to safety? Was Astrid lost to him forever? Could he ever be as fearless and brave as his father had been?
Of course not
, he thought.
I'm just a stupid kid who thought he was hot stuff. Dane the Defiant? They might as well call me Dane the Ridiculous!
And forget ever becoming a celebrated Rune Warrior!
Ha!
There was about as much chance of that happening as there was of Dane growing a second nose!

He looked to Lut the Bent, who lay asnore beneath his furs. The old one had taken sick a few hours before, complaining of fever ache, and though Lut had tried to shrug it off, saying it was nothing to bother about, Dane had insisted he take to his bed and rest. Lut had done so, spending much of their sea journey asleep. Dane felt acutely the absence of his counsel. And when twice Dane had shaken Lut awake to give him more mead and ask how he was feeling, all Lut had said was “A man can fool his fate,” and gone back to sleep. Was this an important dream truth, Dane had wondered, or just the mumblings of a feeble old man?

The southern skies were clotted with clouds, but to the north two stars shone clear and bright. For a moment Dane thought of them as two eyes looking down upon him, the eyes of his father. Staring up into these star eyes, he felt the presence of his father's spirit, and forming words from the feelings in his heart, he sent out a silent prayer, asking
for strength and guidance and, yes, wisdom, for he knew he'd need these to succeed. He told his father he felt responsible for all that had happened and if it were possible he would give his own life to reverse all that had gone wrong. He waited, hoping for some kind of answer, a comforting sign.