RuneWarriors (3 page)

“Every child is a gift,” Lut had told them, not wanting any burdensome pressure placed upon the boy. There was no significance whatsoever to the baby's arrival, he'd said. Spring had finally come and their long ordeal was over. But later that very night in his hut, he'd had a dream, a terrible nightmare so disturbing that thinking of it now, so many years later, made his insides churn in dread. Women with their hair and limbs on fire…decapitated human heads impaled on spikes…an ever-widening shadow hole devouring the huts of Lut's village one by one…and at the center of all the destruction, a red-haired warrior, a demon resembling Dane.

As the village seer, he had a duty to alert the elders of ill omens his dreams might foretell. But the possession of foreknowledge was a dangerous thing, and often it was best to keep silent until certain a thing was true. And so he had told no one, especially not the boy's parents, believing that the dream had been nothing but the foolish ravings
of his aging mind, or perhaps caused by a bad batch of mutton stew. And besides, the boy was but a baby! What harm could come from a wee infant?

But now, awake in his hut after the celebration round the fire, listening to the wind sighing in the trees and the high, lonely whine of a wolf howling in the distance, Lut had an uneasy feeling that all was not right. Something about the firelight dancing in Dane's eyes. But no, he told himself, how could he think such things about someone so beloved? And to banish any further doubts, he thought of the boy's hearty laugh, his delightfully inquisitive nature, and his uncanny talent for mimicry. And in the warm glow of a teacher's pride in his favorite pupil, Lut's mind wandered back to his own now-distant boyhood, to faded memories of his mother and father and other Norsefolk he had known and loved. And soon, adrift on a new sea of memories and growing drowsy, he sank back into the comforting arms of sleep.

O
ne morning, soon after his first hunt, Dane was play fighting with his wooden sword in the livestock pen behind his family's hut. He leaped about, dispatching a dozen Goths, shouting, “Hie,
skum-bøtte
!” and “Death's too fine for swine like thee!” when the sound of laughter startled him. He looked up to see his father standing over him.

“Defending the village, are we?” his father asked. Dane nodded, afraid he was soon to be scolded for not having milked the goats and mucked out their pens. But his father grinned and said, “Well, why not do it proper, then, eh?” and unbuckling his leather-belted scabbard, he handed it, sword and all, to his son, nodding for the boy to take it. Dane could scarce believe it: his father's own sword! Dare he even touch it? The worn silver of the hilt gleamed in the sun, seeming to hold the secrets of a thousand battles.
Dane gripped the hilt, the steel icy cold in his hand as he drew it free of the scabbard—the blade so heavy, the sword point fell to the ground. Dane used his other hand to lift it, and his father then showed him how to hold it aloft in both hands, and how to thrust and parry without losing his balance. And then, taking up the wooden sword as his own, Voldar encouraged Dane to fight him one-on-one, man to man. Much to Voldar's delight, Dane barely hesitated. Hard he came, bringing down the blade so quickly, Voldar scarce had time to raise a defense, and backward he stumbled, falling through the fence, wood splintering on top of him, a bit of blood appearing on his arm.

For a moment Dane thought Voldar was dead.
I've killed my own father
, he thought, panicked, and burst into tears. But then he heard his father chuckling as he rose and brushed himself off, showing Dane that there was nothing but a scratch on his arm, nothing serious at all. And then Geldrun came out and began scolding Voldar for fighting with the boy, and as his parents argued, Dane scurried off to join his friends and brag about what his father had let him do.

 

As skilled as he was at play fighting, Dane was even better at making friends, Drott and Fulnir being two of the closest. The times he spent with them were the very best times of all. One winter, before the lake had fully frozen, the boys not yet nine, Dane, Drott, and Fulnir went fishing without permission. Drott, not the sharpest of blades, ventured out too far and, being of generous girth, fell
through the thin ice into the freezing water. Unable to climb out, he thrashed about, crying for help until Dane, afraid his friend might drown, crawled out onto the ice and pulled him back to safety. After the boys had been scolded and told never to do it again, the villagers laughed at Drott's stupidity—for this wasn't the first time he'd shown ridiculously poor judgment—and he was ever after known as Drott the Dim, a name he himself found amusing.

Dane's other boyhood chum, Fulnir—who loved to play in mud and filth, rarely bathed, and loudly and frequently emitted farts so dense with stench, they made bystanders want to retch—naturally became known as Fulnir the Stinking. But this nickname in no way gave a full measure of the boy. For Fulnir, son of Prasarr the Quarreler, was a solid sort, loyal as the days were long, and as strong of heart as he was of scent. And, in truth, Dane was comforted by the odor, for he knew these other virtues came with it, and it was these strengths that most defined his friend.

Then there was Astrid, the fairest in the village, but every bit as tough as the boys. While other girls sat home with their mothers, learning to cook and sew and wait on their fathers hand and foot, Astrid was out playing with the boys, having fistfights and
snøballkrigs
, with tightly packed balls of ice. Once, after getting hit in the face with one of Dane's iceballs, Astrid had run home in tears and Dane had felt a pinprick of pain in his heart, the first stirrings of love. Days later, while sitting in a tree together, Dane had stolen a kiss and she'd punched him in the face,
which only made him love her all the more. Soon after, Astrid discovered an affinity for playing with axes, and the boys pretty much left her alone. And though the sight of a girl hurling hatchets at high speeds may have seemed odd to some in the village, her father, Blek the Boatman, having no sons, encouraged her, and over the years she grew to be quite handy with them, using trees for target practice and only occasionally threatening to throw them at one of the boys.

 

In the spring of Dane's eleventh year, Dane, Drott, and Fulnir left the village just after dawn to hunt with their bows and arrows. The mist rose off the early-morning frost as they moved through the forest, talking of game they might kill, and of girls. Though the high grasses were thick with summer quail, Dane could think only of Astrid.

Whenever she was near, he couldn't take his eyes off her. What was happening to him? He could think of her and her only. And there were things about her he'd never noticed before. Like the way she chewed her bottom lip when thinking. How the sunlight put a kind of glowing halo round her golden hair. And her scent! Ah, sweet as wildflowers after a summer rain. And her eyes. Her smile. “The greatest beauty in the fjordlands,” her father oft proudly said of Astrid. And it was true.

But never did she put her nose in the air or pretend to be above anyone else. If there were fish to be cleaned, she would gut them; if there was wood to be chopped, she'd be
the first out of the hut with her axe. And daggers, cleavers, carving knives—she had mastered them all. She'd become so adept with her blades, in fact, that she'd learned to shave men of the village with nary a nick and to make crude ice carvings of Odin and Thor as yuletide gifts. Dane knew he wasn't the only boy in the village who admired her, but the thought of anyone else holding her hand or walking beside her always gave him a cold ache in the pit of his stomach. Just the day before, he'd seen Jarl the Fair giving her a lesson in archery, and the familiar way that he'd put his arm round her to guide her hands made Dane sick with anger. The schemer! Jarl always wanted what others had, if only for the pleasure of taking it away from them.

A loud
skreek!
interrupted Dane's thoughts. He saw that Drott was taking aim at a black bird perched high in a tree. “Don't,” said Dane. “It's a raven.” Lut had oft said that ravens were the kin of Odin, and that killing one would bring ill fortune. Drott lowered his arrow, and the boys turned away to continue hunting, and that's when Dane spied them. Wolves. Five big grays had come out of the trees behind them and quickly circled the boys, yipping and howling. Dane caught flashes of their yellow eyes and long dark tongues through the high grass.

Dane let fly an arrow. One wolf fell, the arrow sunk in its side, a spurt of blood staining its fur. But the four other wolves crept closer, and the boys, shooting the rest of their arrows and missing, scrambled to find what weapons they could. Fulnir drew a knife and waved it, hoping to keep
the wolves at bay. Dane jabbed his bow at the beasts as they lunged, growling back at them in a vain attempt to scare them off. The wolves stood their ground, dancing back and forth in the grass, easily ducking the stones the boys began to throw. And then the biggest of the four sank its jaws into the end of Dane's bow and pulled it from his grasp.

“What do we do?” Fulnir cried. “Run for it?”

Dane's heart raced. The wolves drew closer, snarling and baring teeth. He knew it was useless to run. Their only chance was to stay and fight, to make the wolves believe that they were bigger and more dangerous than they really were and to scare them away. But how? The boys were running out of stones to throw.

All at once the boys heard an angry
crawk!
and, like an arrow shot by the gods, a raven swooped from above and began to attack the wolfpack. It was the very raven Dane had saved. Down it came with surprising ferocity, cawing and clawing and swooping and swiping, heroically pecking at their heads so viciously, the four wolves had to turn from the boys to fight off the bird. The wolves tried to swat the raven with their paws, but this only intensified the bird's attack. And with the boys yelling and hurling stones, and the raven attacking with unrelenting ferocity, the wolves finally retreated back across the stream into the trees. After a few desultory yips, they hung their heads, turned, and slunk off, disappearing into the deeper shadows of the forest, defeated.

The boys continued their yelling, slapping hands in victory, until they spied the bird hobbling around on the ground, unable to fly. Dane saw that the raven had been injured in the fight, its left wing broken. Lifting the bird with care, he set it upon his shoulder, and the four of them began their trek back to the village. The raven seemed at home perched beside the boy's head, and it squawked as they walked along, Dane laughing and mimicking its cry.

After a time, boy and bird had grown so at ease with each other that whenever the raven gave Dane's ear a nudge with its beak, Dane would take a berry from his sack and feed it. The three boys walked through the summer-scented forest, happy to be alive, and Dane happiest of all to have made a new friend in so unlikely a way. And though he couldn't have known it then, it was a friendship that would last the rest of his days.

T
he moons rose and fell, and by the time he entered his teens, Dane had ripened into a strapping young man, stalwart and strong, with glittering blue eyes, a big, easy smile, and a shock of unruly red hair just like his father's. A skilled swordsman, adroit with bow and arrow, he could also play a lively tune on the wooden pipe. And if not exactly picture-book handsome like Jarl, he was what Astrid's father had once described as “a lad not lacking in charm.”

A young man of impulsive good humor, Dane always looked to make others laugh. He would mock the explosive sound of Fulnir's epic farts or walk into a tree, imitating Blek's poor eyesight, and he could mimic the voices of most everyone in the village, especially his father's.

But one bitterly cold day at winter's end, just after he had turned thirteen, he got his comeuppance. Eager to
amuse his friends, Dane hid in the outhouse, imitating with surprising accuracy the colorful oaths his father made when his bowels were stopped. “By stinkers!” he groaned. “My innards are in knots! No more horsemeat, woman! You're killin' me!” And to his delight, he heard his friends explode with laughter. But then came another voice—

“Well, I'll be dipped in weasel spit!” The outhouse door flew open. It was Voldar, come to use the privy. He'd heard the shenanigans, and now Dane was caught in the act. “I'll teach you to respect your elders!” He'd tried to grab his son, to knock some sense into him, but Dane had slipped free of his grasp and run off laughing, pulling on his long bear-fur coat as he disappeared into the woods with his friends.

“You forgot your chores!” Voldar called after him, seeing that the tree limbs he'd stacked against their house had yet to be chopped into firewood.

“I'll do it later!” came Dane's faint reply and then more snickering. Voldar fumed. Once again his son had chosen play over work, and it steamed him no end. He was all of thirteen! When would he grow up? Voldar stood there, watching the snowflakes fall in the soft afternoon light, wondering if perhaps he himself was to blame for his son's soft character, and this thought vexed him even more.

So when Dane came home an hour later without his fur coat, shivering cold and stamping his feet in front of the fire to get warm, Voldar ordered him to go chop the wood. Dane said he would, just as soon as he got warm again.

“What happened to your coat?” Voldar asked.

Dane looked sheepish and said he'd lost it.

“You
lost
it?”

Dane explained that he'd taken it off to climb a tree, but then the coat had fallen into the river and been swept away. His mother, Geldrun, said it was all right, he could use her coat. Voldar said, no, he'd go out and chop the wood wearing what he had on.

“Hey,” Dane said, “it's freezing out there.”

“Yes, and the cold can kill,” said Voldar. “A man can easily freeze to death for want of proper clothing. You were given a coat of the finest furs, a coat your dear mother slaved for weeks to make—skinning, cutting, sewing. But you? You throw it away as if it were nothing. You appreciate nothing. And so to learn this lesson you will go out only with what you have on and do what you should have finished hours ago. Chop the wood. And you'll stay out there until it is done.”

Then Dane, being headstrong, made another mistake. He said he wouldn't do it. It was too cold, he said, to go out without a coat. And it was then that Voldar rose from his chair, forcibly removed the rest of the lad's clothes, and pushed him out into the snow, shutting and barring the door behind him and shouting that because of his insolence, he would do his chores without any garments at all.

Dane stood bare naked in the freezing twilight, the falling snow and icy air so cold on his skin, it was only a
few moments before he took up the axe and began to chop wood, desperate to do something to keep himself warm, as the voices of his parents continued arguing inside.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” he heard his mother ask.

“A father stern is a lesson learned,” came Voldar's reply. “He
defied
me.”

“But 'tisn't healthy—”

“Serves him right, disrespecting us. Discipline!
That's
what he needs.”

“But,” said Geldrun, “how's he to learn if he freezes to death—”

“Woman!” barked Voldar, losing patience. “It's decided!”

So naked Dane stayed out there, hacking away at the wood, his hair frosting white and lips turning blue, further humiliated as the village children appeared, jeering and pointing at his privates, receiving even worse ridicule from those his own age, particularly Jarl the Fair.

But no one laughed harder than Astrid, comely daughter of Blek the Boatman. Yes, Astrid had flowered into a fetching young lady with long blond hair the color of sunshine and a smile that lit her face whenever she laughed, a laugh so bright, it seemed to Dane the most beautiful music on earth. Whenever he heard her voice in the village or saw her at work with her axes, chopping firewood or hacking meat from a carcass, his vision grew misty and his heart filled with a feeling much like a flower in bloom, and he found it hard to speak. So when an iceball of her own
hit him hard in the buttocks and he heard her giggle, it was truly a dagger to his heart.

 

My father doesn't understand a thing!
Dane silently fumed as he stared into the fire, covered in blankets, eating the venison stew his mother had made, ignoring Voldar, who sat across the table. The cozy warmth inside reminded Dane just how bitterly cold he'd been outdoors.
How dare he humiliate me like that? In front of my friends? And Astrid? Leaving me out there a whole hour? The man's a monster!

His father's lips were moving, but Dane refused to listen. Something about it being time to stop his foolish ways and grow up. Be a man. Time to choose what to do with his life. Be a swordsmith. Shipwright. Farmer. A trader of furs. A tender of livestock. A maker of maps or cheese. All were respectable trades, he heard his father say—

“…and I just pray you choose the right path.”

“Oh? And what path is that, Father?” Dane asked sarcastically. “Follow in
your
footsteps and become village leader?” Dane scoffed. “Uh, I don't think so.”

“Well, make some decisions!” his father exploded. “A so-called man of thirteen and still no nickname? The festival is just weeks away! You haven't practiced. If that's not irresponsible, I don't know what is!”

The Festival of Greatness, competitive games held every year in the village, was a ritual rite of passage for those moving into adulthood. It was common practice that if by
his fourteenth year a man had not yet received his nickname, he'd choose one of his own and keep it the rest of his days. But Dane, much to his father's shame, had yet to pick one. Dane the Dangerous. Dane the Amuser. Over the years he'd been called many names, but none had ever stuck, perhaps because, as Dane liked to believe, his positive traits were too plentiful to pin down.

“Actually,” said Dane, “I
have
picked a nickname.”

“Is that so,” said Voldar. “And what name have you chosen, son?”

“From now on I shall be known as…Dane the Insane.”

His father just looked at him and nodded, saying nothing, appearing to give serious consideration to what the boy had said. “You've given this a lot of thought, eh?” came Voldar's calm reply.

“Yeah. I guess. I just like the sound of it. ‘Dane the Insane.' When people who know me hear it, it reminds 'em what wild fun it is to know me, and they'll laugh. And when strangers hear it, my enemies in battle, it'll make 'em think I'm insanely violent, and they'll run in fear and wet their pants in panic. ‘Dane the Insane.' Pretty good, eh?”

Dane grinned, expecting it to be met with hearty approval. But the grin quickly disappeared when Voldar rose and roared at the top of his lungs, “That's doubtless the most
asinine
thing that's ever come out of your mouth! ‘Dane the Insane'? Are you really
that
backward, boy? You may as well call yourself ‘Dane the Idiot Son of an
Embarrassed Village Elder!'”

Dane froze, momentarily speechless.

“D'ya hear this, Geldrun? What your boy is saying?” cried Voldar, beside himself with rage. “
This
is the best you can do? What about ‘Dane the Despicable'? Or ‘Dane the Destroyer'? Or ‘Dane the Fierce'?”

“Oh! So the only name I can pick is one of
your
choosing?” Dane yelled, now finding his tongue, his anger spilling forth. “Killing is the only thing that makes a man?”

“Of course not! But at least it's got character! Iron! ‘Dane the Insane'? That's a joke. A fart in a windstorm! A—”

“But I like being funny and carefree! It's who I am!”

“You're my
son
, that's who you are!” Voldar exploded. “Don't you
ever
forget that!” His father erupted in a fit of swearing, overturning the kitchen table, his eyes afire. Dane feared they'd soon come to blows, but Voldar caught a reproachful look from Geldrun and, bottling his rage, made a supreme effort to sit back down and speak in the calmest, most well-reasoned of tones.

He explained that he'd been the same when he was young. He too had defied authority. All he'd wanted was freedom. To blazes with responsibility! But he'd been wrong, Voldar admitted. He'd come to realize that freedom itself was nothing without a family, that taking responsibility, for himself and for others: This was the true road to manhood. And he wanted this for his son more than anything.

Dane nodded, feeling stupid but not about to show it. His father laid a hand on his shoulder, blue eyes ablaze with love.

“Son,” Voldar said, “it's not just having a name your enemies will respect. It's having a character your people will look up to and follow.” Dane listened now, his anger subsiding. Voldar explained that the strength of a man's character, the wisdom that lay in his mind and heart, were far more valuable than the brute power found in muscle and bone. “Violence. Killing. Destroying things,” said Voldar. “That's easy. Anyone can do it. But building something—a home, a friendship, a family—and making it last? That's hard. It takes a real man to do that.”

Voldar rose and left the room soon after, and Dane sat for the longest time, staring into the fire, pondering what his father had told him.

 

“‘Dane the Insane'? You actually
told
him that? Are you crazy?”

Dane was walking in the forest with his pals Drott and Fulnir, hunting quail. Klint the raven flitted about through the treetops above. (Dane had named his bird Klint after one of his own great-grandfathers on his mother's side, who had lost his wits at age thirty and fallen off a cliff while trying to fly.)

“Not a name I'd have chosen,” said Drott.

“Oh, and ‘Drott the
Dim
' is so heroic?” asked Dane defensively.

“No,” said Fulnir, “but it's accurate.”

“So is ‘Fulnir the Stinking,'” said Drott with a smirk.

“Hey, I know what people say,” said Fulnir. “I should feel shame for my name. That there's no dignity to it. But the way I look at it is this: On the rare occasions I
don't
smell, people are pleasantly surprised. They're thinking, ‘Hmm, he doesn't smell half bad.'”

“So you're saying,” said Dane, “a name shouldn't promise too much.”

“Yeah. Like if your name were, say, ‘Dane the Magnificent,' you'd be expected to always
be
magnificent. But c'mon, even on your best day, folks would bound to be disappointed.”

“I never thought of it that way,” said Dane. “So what name
should
I choose?”

They walked awhile in silence, their sealskin boots crunching over the now sun-softened snow that carpeted the forest floor. Drott suddenly stopped. “I know! You shall be known as ‘Dane the Nose Picker!'”

Dane and Fulnir just looked at him. “Don't you see?” said Drott. “When you meet people and you're
not
picking your nose, they'd be favorably impressed!”

Fulnir burst into laughter. Even Klint gave a derisive squawk. Dane shook his head and walked on, his pals hurrying to follow, Drott continuing to spout more names, each more ridiculous than the last, like “Dane Fish Breath,” “Dane the Strangely Warted,” and “Dane the Kisser of Sheep.”

Then, as Drott paused to take a breath, Fulnir said, “Why get upset? It's only a name, Dane. Just a few meaningless words thrown together to define you the rest of your days and the way generations of Norsemen will remember you long after you're dead. What's the big deal?”

Dane caught sight of the big grin on Fulnir's face and realized his friend was just messing around. “Right,” said Dane. “It's only a name. I'm sure to hit on a good one by the day of the games.”

Then, cresting a hill, Dane stopped in his tracks. Before him lay the snow-frosted valley, his village appearing far below like a collection of small gleaming stones beside an uncoiling ribbon of river that ran into the bay, the flower-buds dotting the trees and green shoots breaking through the melting snow crust a welcome reminder that spring was nearing. Dane and his friends gazed out in silence, absorbing the breathtaking beauty of the place they called home.

“Sweet, eh?” Dane heard Fulnir say. Dane agreed it was.

Then they slowly became aware of another imposing presence. Following the shoreline to the southernmost rim of the bay, their eyes were drawn to a great castle perched ominously on a distant cliff top overlooking the sea, its dark ramparts faintly visible above the veils of gray mist hugging the rocky shoreline.

There in his great princely castle, Dane knew, lived the man who lorded over these lands, a man to fear, his presence
like some never-sleeping sentinel, ever watchful, seeing far and wide, as if this ruler's vigilance were as constant as the sun, moon, and stars themselves.