RuneWarriors (2 page)

T
he boy was hailed a fine hunter. “Dane! Dane! Dane! Dane!” the villagers chanted as he waved from atop his father's shoulders.

In honor of his first hunt, Dane's father presented him with a string of bear claws to wear as a charm round his neck. Her eyes ashine with pride, his mother, Geldrun, gave him a beaver coat she had sewn, with a wide belt and a rabbit-fur collar. Then the hooded figure of Lut the Bent—the village
sannsigerske
, or soothsayer—came forward. An ancient stick of a man with nut-brown eyes and worn, leathery skin, Lut was one hundred three winters old and still active with the ladies. His face crinkling into a smile, Lut laid a bony hand upon the boy's forehead and in his croaking voice declared him now worthy of being called “warrior.” Dane beamed.
Me? A warrior?
His heart soared.

Dane felt a special kinship with the old one. For years, Lut had taken him aside and treated Dane as his own private pupil, teaching him about the gods who ruled their lives, and the healing properties of various flowers and plants, and the storied history of their people. Dane treasured these talks and sometimes felt that Lut had selected him for a purpose, that he was watching him,
preparing
him for something. “Learn to read your own dreams,” Lut had often said, explaining that the gods spoke to men in dreams. Once Dane had even been allowed to watch Lut cast the runes, divining the future as writ by the gods, something no other child in the village had seen. Yes, Lut was both teacher and friend, and it felt good to receive his blessing.

That night, amid a large circle of stones, a heroic fire was built, and Dane, son of Voldar the Vile, grandson of Vlar the Courageous, was allowed to sit beside the council of elders as they gave thanks to the gods. They stripped the bear of its hide and divided its meat among the families.

The snow had stopped falling, and the fire's warmth felt good after so long in the cold. Dane watched as skewers of sizzling bear meat were passed round, the women and children feasting first and then the men. He'd dreamed of this moment for years, and now it was here. His first hunt. At last, he was a warrior!

Other boys were soon ushered over and allowed to sit by the fire, among them the snotty Jarl the Fair, Orm the Hairy One, and Dane's good friends Drott the Dim and
Fulnir the Stinking. No one cared where Drott sat; he was a good-natured sort, always good for a laugh, and he bathed regularly. Fulnir, however, was made to sit downwind, the elders all too aware that even a whiff of the boy's feculent fumes would foul the festivities.

Seated beside Voldar under the starlit sky, Dane listened to the elders tell stories—brave tales of their fathers' fathers and their fathers' fathers' fathers and their fathers' fathers'
fathers'
fathers and—well, they told a lot of stories. Tales of yore being the way wisdom was passed on to succeeding generations—and a fine way to brag to the womenfolk as well. Fathers told tales of magic trolls who dwelled in marshy bogs and fed on children, of fire-breathing elves who rode serpents, of wolves that walked upright, and other creatures large and small that did the bidding of the gods. Lut spoke of other mysteries, like the Ægirdóttir—the Nine Daughters of Ægir—god-spirits who were said to dwell beneath the sea, preying on sailors and schools of wayward herring, and the legendary Well of Knowledge, a secret spring whose waters would greatly expand a man's mental capacities, though knowledge of its location had long been lost.

Finally it was their chieftain's turn to speak.

“We Norsemen,” said Voldar, “are a proud, courageous people, bound by family and honor, protected by the gods, enriched by the plunder of our forefathers.”

“Plunder,” said Dane, a question forming. “You mean ‘kill,' Father?”

“Yes, Son,” said Voldar, sharing a look with the other men. “To survive, at times, a Norseman must kill. To feed his family. To fight to defend them. But 'tis my fondest wish that you never have to follow the path of the sword.”

Dane had oft heard of his father's exploits, of the blood spilled with spear and broadsword, of the screams, sobs, whimpers, and whines even the bravest of his enemies made as they met their ends. He had memorized the locations of his father's many battle scars, and in his dreams had seen vivid scenes of the violence he might one day do. For countless generations, he knew, his forebears had survived by invading and raiding foreign lands, breaking men's spirits by forcing them to wear their undergarments backward while barking like dogs and other such humiliations. It was conquer or be conquered, as Voldar liked to say, and Norsemen weren't keen on being on the losing end of anything, much less a good fight. But one day, after years of warring, Voldar had been persuaded at last to lay down his broadsword. It was Geldrun, his common-sense wife, who had convinced him.

“Face it, Volie,” she'd said, “your fighting days are done. Your eyesight's gone, your knees shot. There's no future in raiding and pillaging. It's time to put down roots, live off the land, be sensible.”

Like most men who fall under the civilizing influence of their women, Voldar grumbled and put up a fuss and even kicked the furniture a bit, but eventually he saw that his wife was right. One summer after snowmelt, he and twenty
other fathers built a circle of thatched-roof homes in a lush, flower-dotted meadow that lay between the base of a mountain and the waters of a coastal inlet. And it was this very heathland—near a freshwater stream and a forest rich with game—that Dane had come to know as home.

 

“Father?” Dane asked now. “Do Vikings ever lose?”

The fire crackled as Voldar paused to reflect on this.

“Well…there have been one or two defeats,” he answered, “but nothing too ignominious, and nothing I'd tell your mother about. The unofficial record, I believe, is Vikings five hundred and three, enemies nil. But some stories may vary.”

The older men chuckled. Dane had another question.

“Father, when a Viking dies in battle,” said Dane, “where does he go?”

A gleam came to Voldar's eye. He rose and gestured to the sky with a flaming stick from the fire. “He goes to a place more glorious than man can imagine. He goes to Valhalla, a shining palace above the clouds. The Valkyries—great beauties who ride cross the sky on winged horses—come down and take the spirit of the fallen warrior up to the heavenly Hall of Heroes, where he sits beside the gods in glory forever.” Voldar paused. “But it's not
dying
that brings a man honor—it's how he
lives
that counts. What most defines a man isn't the sword he carries; it's the beliefs he carries in his heart.”

For a long moment, the men stopped their work on the
bear and gazed up at the stars, their eyes full of wonder.

Drott spoke up. “Can we eat treats up there? Honeyed nuts and sweetmeats?”

“Of course,” Voldar said, indulging the boy. “All the sweets you can stomach!”

Then Fulnir had a question. “My father says Odin is always watching us, so we had better do our chores and mind our elders, or Odin'll smite us and smite us good.”

“That's right, boy,” said Voldar, giving Fulnir's father a smile. Odin, it was said, had lost his own eye in order that he might see with a more godly sight, and thus he became the god of prophecy, poetry, and war. And it was to Odin, Father of the Battle-Slain, that the Valkyries would bring the fallen heroes of war.

Voldar raised the sacred Shield of Odin, and the boys were instantly mesmerized by the flickering firelight reflected in it. It was a circular disk forged of a secret alloy, and it held in its center a precious stone. The stone, known as
Ó inn Auga
, or Odin's Eye, was reputed to give the Shield special powers, making whoever held it invincible in battle. In times of peace, Voldar and his tribe believed that Odin's Eye watched over the village, protecting them from invaders, and that if the Shield were ever lost, his people would be without protection from famine, disease, and widespread tooth decay. (Toe fungus was another much-feared pestilence, but easily cured with a poultice of yarrow root.) “The Eye sees all,” Dane had oft been told, and having nearly lost his father that very night, Dane was
comforted to know someone so powerful was watching over him.

Voldar laid down the Shield. “But Thor,” he said, his eyes boring into the boys, “Thor is the mightiest of gods, for he has
Mjolnir—
Thor's Hammer—the fearsome weapon he hurls across the sky, unleashing lightning and thunder to smite our enemies.” At the mention of Thor's name, Dane noticed Lut and other elders touch the charms they wore round their necks. Of all the gods in Valhalla, Thor was the mightiest. He could topple mountains with a single blow of his Hammer—a weapon so large, it would take a score or more of Norsemen to carry if it were ever to fall to earth. Though said to be the son of Odin, Thor possessed none of his father's cunning; but when it came to brute battle strength, Thor beat all. So men prayed to father Odin for wisdom and to Thor the son for power. And as father-and-son combinations go, a man was believed to be unbeatable if he had both on his side.

Transfixed, the boys gazed at Voldar as if he were Thor himself. They'd heard the tales of Thor and Odin many times over but never tired of hearing them told again. And Voldar never tired of telling them, dancing about, eyes alight, gesturing grandly with his hands. Then he narrowed his eyes and spoke in a hushed whisper. “But that's not all, boys! Did you know that far, far to the north, there are known to live giant men made entirely of
ice
?”

Dane's eyes went wide with wonder. “No!”

“Ah, yes, frost giants, they are!
Hrím ursar!
Marvelous
magical creatures, they say, some over twenty feet tall, who dwell atop the highest snow-capped peaks of Mount Neverest—a place so terribly cold and remote, no Norseman has ever reached it, nor likely ever will.”

Voldar towered over the boys, waving his torch, his war necklace of wild boar tusks jangling on his chest.

“It's the cavorting of these very creatures,” he continued, “that causes the deadly avalanches that bury entire villages. The mountain they live on is so high, some say, frost giants can reach right up into the clouds—into the halls of Valhalla itself!—and wrestle with the gods! Legend has it that someday a frost giant will steal Thor's Hammer—and the man who steals the Hammer back for Thor will bring his people a hundred winters of peace and prosperity, give or take a few years.”

An elder spoke up, saying he thought the story was a prophecy, not a legend. Voldar replied that if memory served, he was fairly certain it was a legend. There was more disagreement back and forth. Finally they looked to Lut the Bent for a decision.

As Lut had oft explained to Dane, there was a distinct difference between a legend and a prophecy. A legend was a story created by
men
about the
gods
. A prophecy, or
spá
, was just the opposite: a story created by the
gods
about
men
. And it was the seer's belief that Norsemen should take prophecies far more seriously than man-made legends, given that the prophecies came directly from the gods and legends from mere mortals. But as tales got handed down
from one generation to the next in the mind-numbing cold, the Norsemen flat out forgot which stories were which and came to believe in all of them just to be safe.

“Truth is all that matters,” Lut said gravely, “and if we seek it, we shall prosper.” The men nodded, Lut's wisdom ending the discussion and reminding them all of the higher things. The boys fell silent too, staring up at the stars, visions of dwarves and elves and giants made of ice alive in their minds, the only sound the crackling of the fire.

 

Later that night at home, as his father put him to bed, Dane's mind was still astir with questions. “Does Thor's Hammer really exist?”

“Of course, Son.”

“And the giants made of ice?”

“So they say.”

“Tell me another story, Father,” said the boy.

“No, no, it's time for bed now, son. Go to sleep.” And he kissed his son good night and rose to leave.

“Father, are you angry with me? For getting lost?”

“No, not angry,” his father said. “I feared for your safety, boy. Because you're so dear to me.” Dane saw the shine in his father's eyes, and it made him feel a special kind of warmth inside.

The old man turned to leave again, but the boy had one more question.

“Father?”

“Yes, Son.”

“When I grow up, will I be as brave as you?”

Voldar smiled and looked deep into his son's eyes. “When you grow to be a man, you will be
twice
as brave as me, son. You'll be a Rune Warrior.” Dane knew this to be the name Norsemen gave to those whose deeds were so great and selfless, their exploits were carved on giant granite slabs called rune stones in celebration of their heroism. And hearing Voldar speak these words gave him a sense of deep tranquility, for he knew his father never lied and was the wisest man in the village, perhaps even wiser than Lut.

 

Lut the Bent couldn't sleep. The stories round the fire and the celebration of Dane's first hunt had stirred feelings and brought forth images long buried. But now, as he lay alone in the darkness of his hut, it all came flooding back: haunting scenes from the boy's earliest days passing through his mind—memories most awful.

The Winter Longer Than Odin's Beard, it had been called. Six miserable months of blizzards and ice storms the villagers had endured, without a glint of sunlight, the skies so gray, they seemed to be made of impenetrable ice, the people weak with hunger. Then one bleak morning, a baby had been born to Voldar and Geldrun, the boy who would come to be known as Dane. Lut remembered visiting the hut that first morning and being struck by the thick tuft of red hair atop the boy's head and his tiny smile. Lut remembered, too, the joyful shine he'd seen in Voldar's and Geldrun's eyes. As was Norse custom, Lut had then
taken the newborn outdoors and raised the fur-swaddled infant to the sky to present him to the gods. And as he began to pray, asking them to look with favor on the child, the wind abruptly died, the air grew still—and then there was light! The clouds had parted and a shaft of golden sunlight shone down from the heavens. Lut had felt the warmth of sunshine on his cheeks as the villagers danced in merriment, cheering the child's every squirm and squall. “Is this a sign?” they asked Lut. A
tegn
, or omen? “Is the boy a gift from the gods?”