The Wolf Hammer, page 3
part #1 of Odin's Bastard Series
Father had been speaking to Jarl Lon Graymoor of his latest hunt. “Aye, there is a treasure to be had,” he had said. “This one had a hoard of silver, old and tarnished, and a hole filled with emeralds it had looted. It was particular to emeralds. You know how they get. Obsessed. And you are right. Hunting evil things could make you rich beyond gods, but that would also tarnish the quest, Odin’s call. Nay, I cannot tell you anything specific. I have given oaths to keep them a secret. Though, the elves of Reignhelm are not here to tell Odin, eh? Nay. I’ll not say no more.”
Elves. Reignhelm was served by a dozen, I remembered.
And father, and the east, had grown tired of them. Mother hated them. So, father did too.
I had not heard what Lon said, stroking his forked beard, but it had annoyed Father, who always tried to be civil with guests, and him especially. Graymoor had power.
Father had scoffed. “Never. Not once. I always leave it there, for animals and birds to pick up. I won’t take a thing. I think, sometimes, the treasure itself is evil. Sometimes, you leave the monster alone too. Sometimes, killing one does more harm than good, may Odin forgive me. There was one…but I must not speak of them. No details. I seek evil, smite it, and write it up.”
Lon had leaned forward, speaking softly.
Father had laughed. “I keep notes of everything, but only my blood-family can read it, and only the one who takes up my mantle. The journal’s locked by mighty magic. An elf, my father’s friend, put a spell there. It stays with me, see. Always with me.”
He had shown a black book he had pulled from his jacket’s pocket, before pushing it back in.
“Don’t you think you can go and seek a pot of cursed gold. It’s for your own good,” he had added.
“What?” asked Ajax, and I realized I had been speaking aloud. “He has a book, and it is always with him?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Treasure?” Fang asked. “What were you saying? Riches?”
“Let him speak,” Borin said. “He is finally saying something interesting. Silver and emeralds!”
I shook my head and went back to my memories. I kept my mouth shut now, though speaking aloud made it easier to remember.
Later that night, my father had been giving another speech, raising his mead in salute to the gods, drinking more than actually speaking, his high Wolf Hammer leaning on the throne. I remembered it now. The great weapon had ever been the focus of rumors. What it gave a man, I knew not. Father only spoke to Alarik of it. He expected he would carry it, and his boys would, too, after.
He had touched it rarely, of late.
Father had once carried it a lot— on his shoulder, the weapon as long as a man, elaborate and deadly at the same time. Black, silver, wolf’s face on the business end.
I always coveted it. I had.
I remembered my wife, and Alarik teasing his boy Morag, while Erik, grinning, had been arm-wrestling a guard captain in the corner.
Mother had not been there.
My mother, she had been elsewhere.
Oh, yes.
She had been visiting Vittar, one of the western kingdoms, on business for the state, for Yule and for peace.
Something had happened.
A man had arrived, opening the doors to the warm hall.
I watched the doors from the other side now, both broken, hanging on hinges.
Yes, that’s where he came in from.
I stared at the shadows within.
We had all gone quiet. Deathly quiet. Jarl Graymoor, his forked beard swinging, had pushed Alor and Agon, his blonde, twin sons to the side with his daughter Naera, out of the way of the man who strode for Father, a messenger from the west. His crest was on his cape, and it was a throne with an eye.
Malignborg.
In silence, Father had waited and then taken the scroll. He had spoken to the man, and then he had waved his hand, as he had left to read it in rooms beyond, the man following after. Slowly, the eastern jarls had relaxed and celebrated, and Odin’s Priest, Conal from Aten in the Verdant Lands, had sung in the celebration to the great god. We, the east, not fond of the west or the north, had cheered him, mocking his voice good-naturedly.
Then, suddenly, everything had changed.
Father had returned.
The song had faltered. There had been no sign of the man who had brought the letter. Just Father. His hand had been dripping blood.
Father had carried a letter.
We had seen the seals of the eye on that as well, from Malignborg. That letter opened up, had now been on Father’s hand. His face had been a mask of sorrow, tears staining his cheeks.
“War,” I gasped as I thought of that night.
“The war?” said Fang, confused. “The war is over. It was—”
I lifted my hand. I tried to look back.
“Let him think,” Shian chided Fang gently. “He is trying. We can give him a moment or two.”
War.
There had been one. Father had come back to his seat, wobbly on his feet. Every eye had been on him. Every mug had been held in midair, bites of food in mouths, half chewed.
“My lord,” had Graymoor said finally. “What is it? Is the queen well? Are you hurt, the king—”
And it was then when Father’s face had changed.
It had turned from a mask of sorrow into a beast’s maw—and he had hammered his fist on a pillar, cracking it. His eyes had traveled the hall, and he had pulled a sword from a guard’s sheath, and then he had walked to the priest of Odin.
The sword had quivered; the man had begged with his eyes.
The sword had gone up.
The blade had glimmered in the light of the fires, and every soul in that room had held their breaths. That sword and the hand which had held it would change lives.
Father had spat at Conal’s face, and then he had stabbed down at the man, so hard the man fell over my father’s arm and the sword, howling with his guts hanging out. Father had twisted the sword and kicked the man off the blade, his oaths and pledge of hospitality utterly broken, and then he had hacked down on the man’s back. Father had been panting. Then he had turned away, as he threw the letter to the flames of the firepit and then the sword after it. He had picked up the dead man, smashed him into a pillar, and cast him next to the fires. Then he had roared his anger, like a monster released from long imprisonment, or perhaps one permanently trapped.
We had all guessed, I remembered, what had happened.
It involved Illon, our mother, Father’s queen.
Mother had been taken. Was she dead?
Father’s eyes had betrayed it.
She had been killed? She had been let down by her hosts in Vittar?
Finally, Father had spoken. “Odin’s Son, they call me,” my father had cursed. “One of the two in Midgard. Odin’s Bastard now, for I curse Odin! How dare he do this? How dare he take my truest love? How dare he treat me…he is filth.”
I had stared at him.
Everyone had stood up, slowly, staring at Father and the burning body of Conal.
Father had hopped about, raving, his fingers twitching. Belia turned Alarik’s boy away, so he would not have to see Father or the terrible fate of Conal.
“My wife!” he had howled. “There, to represent the east, in Vittar’s halls, in Aeginhamn. There she was, where Aten and Palan and Harrian, and dozen other jarls met for a feast of peace, in peace! And there, Tarl Vittar, and Yggra, Rikas, Gilad of Aten… Curse them, curse them all, murderers! They took my wife! She died in a dungeon? Like a filthy beast? And for what?”
The yells of indignation and rage had filled the hall. Men were rushing in and out, and Father had been weeping.
I remembered my wife grasping my arm hard. I remembered the look of terror on her face.
She had guessed what would come.
Alarik had roared while the servant took his son. Erik had been gnashing his teeth, and the jarls had been yelling.
“Why?” the fork-bearded Graymoor had called out. His sons had been shocked, and daughter white of face, for it would be war, and they all had known it already. “They killed her? Why? Take to war!”
Graymoor had turned and watched us, the princes.
“Why?” Father had roared. “Why did she die? Because Odin set one Son over the other, and told that son, Reignhelm of Malignborg, to unite Midgard under a single crown. Odin, it seems, set him in charge as he went to war in Jotunheim! And how did Reignhelm do it? By demanding I give up my hammer! And then, he took my wife! Odin be cursed! I spit on him! He told Reignhelm to make Midgard one nation, at any cost, and I paid! Reignhelm, and I, both Odin’s Sons, but this son has been betrayed!”
Graymoor had slammed his fist on the table. “War! Take us to war!”
“Traitor!” Alarik had called out.
“War!” Erik had answered, with bloodcurdling rage.
“What happened?” called out a jarl from the side.
Father had danced back and forth, raging like a beast let loose. “The High King, so-called One Regent of Midgard…he told jarls Tarl Vittar and Adeling Yggra to hold my wife, until the time I would arrive in Malignborg. He expects me to come to him, so that I’d bow before a man, at Odin’s command. He expects me to return the hammer to him, Reignhelm? For safekeeping!”
They had roared their anger. I remembered I had not, that I had been quiet, and afraid.
Father had gone on. “Reignhelm expects me to be reasonable? That the deaths were not his fault? Oh, I shall be!” He had held his head, and then he had looked at us with hate. “He is sorry she had an accident? Is he sorry? Demands I come and take a knee, anyway? With the hammer? Odin commands it, and he is Odin’s mouth! He is stripping me of the Regency. He is raising himself into a High King, jarls into client kings, and will be making war in Verdant Lands against those who refuse his demands, and soon, here and the north, if we don’t bend a knee. What shall we do? Shall we go and take a knee, or shall we instead sail there and take his head? What would be a reasonable answer? His head, I think!”
The angry shout had gone on for a long time.
“Yes! Take his head! Head, head!”
Then Father had roared, madness glowing on his face. “Honor, that’s what I taught my family. Honor and service, that’s what was asked by Odin, and we have been hard and honorable here in the east, and have we not served well? Two kings, two Sons of Odin, and both were to serve Odin, and we have served him better, I think! Now, Odin leaves us for Reignhelm to rule us? He would do that?”
“Never!” Graymoor yelled. The others echoed it.
Father had laughed bitterly. “Odin would just assume that we bow, and did he tell Reignhelm to make sure the Wolf Hammer would not thwart his plans? Did Odin ask him to capture my wife, or did he do it on his own? I reckon we shall have to ask the head before it is severed from the body. If Odin approved of this? He will be sorry. Fine!”
He had spat, and then he tore at his hair. “I shall raise the Wolf Hammer. I shall raise it against Reignhelm, and against Odin if he comes from Jotunheim and tells me this was his idea. In any case, Odin’s Son, I am not. Odin’s Bastard all Hardhands will be. Everyone in my land shall spit on his one-eyed face. Bastards, that’s what we are. We will take our men, and we’ll go kneel on Reignhelm’s hall. We’ll burn it first. We’ll set it on fire, over his bones, and I’ll have my wife’s rotten corpse watching him, screeching on the walls of Eye Keep in Malignborg. I’ll string up his people in their thousands. And I’ll give away Vittar’s wife and sons and Aten’s sons and daughters to be a plaything for slavers, while the would-be-kings watch, and only then shall I slay them! Anyone who had a part in this betrayal shall see their children slain before they, too, shall fall. That’s what I will do. Give me your oaths, all. Will you follow me into Helheim itself, if need be? Will you march behind the bastard’s hammer? Will you see how I smite Odin’s own weapon through his doors?”
He strode to the side and grasped the terrible weapon and raised the Wolf Hammer high, dark and menacing, and they roared.
The hammer had not objected.
I had not screamed with the others.
I remembered I was beyond sorrow for my mother, and for…something else.
I had felt failure. Fear.
I couldn’t remember what I had failed in. What I had feared. My head began hurting, throbbing with pain.
And still, even if I disapproved of what Father had spoken of Odin, I hated the men and women who had killed Issan.
Their heads.
Those oaths, I gladly took. And there had been other oaths, and I grimaced with anger and pain, for I couldn’t remember. I knew it was important.
I felt it was a terrible omen to threaten Odin, though.
That the god was not guilty of the actions of the men.
I remembered it all, and then I heard a voice in the room, in the present.
“Adeling,” the bald man said gruffly. “Are you here? Did you slip away for good, from here into a world of insanity?”
I shook my head and leaned on the wall. “I was thinking back.”
My wife. Where was she?
“The rebellion failed,” the woman said. “Fang is right. Do you remember?”
The…rebellion?
Aye. Rebellion. It was nothing short of it, if Odin ordered it. But he had not.
I looked around.
The men and the woman said nothing.
I remembered a trek across the sea, a battle. A trail of fighting. I remember wounds and sickness, and jarls rebelling against their High King, most those who were related to Graymoor in the Verdant Lands. The east was marching and marching…to Lorin.
“Lorin,” I whispered.
“Lorin,” said the elegant Ajax, nodding. “That’s it. You were there.”
“Were you?” I asked.
Ajax smiled wistfully. “We served with your brother Erik. You remember?”
I didn’t answer.
He went on. “It was a butchery. The…High King won. He is now truly the High King of the East and West, though some of the jarls in the west rebel still, and the north has not answered his summons. They didn’t come to us either. North promised to aid us, but never came, claiming they were not ready. Bastards. We would have won with their help.” He sighed. “Just some jarls are left over there in the west, never forgiven, who are still rebelling. Barrac of the White Tower, mainly, Lon Graymoor’s cousin, stays loyal to the rebellion, for some reason. People say some of our men ran there, and the High King and Naergoth, his elf-lord will set on him soon. Some other fools live. He’ll be busy surviving.” He shifted closer. “He would not want to see you alive, Reignhelm. I don’t understand how come you are here, just after he left. He left Tarl Vittar in charge of destroying our nation because we burned the lands of Vittar, and Aten’s fleet is here too, but how come you are here?”
“I know not,” I whispered. “I truly cannot remember.”
He shook his head. “But you know it is odd, no? I didn’t know one of the Hardhands had survived. The battle was a terrible mess. They failed to kill one, but to miss one? Surely they buried the lot and would be seeking you.”
The bald man, Fang, grunted. “Might have to remedy that.”
I looked at him.
I was trying to remember.
The armies had gathered at Graymoor’s coast. It had taken a week of hard-marching men of the jarls of the six nations to get to Graymoor’s harbor. The fleet of the Jarl Graymoor had grown with pirates he knew so well, and they took us on a short sea journey to the Verdant Lands that spring, risking storms. It had all happened so fast, and early in the year, that the new High King Reignhelm had had no time to react. We had landed on the east coast with twenty thousand men, and the jarls who had taken a crown from the High King were set on mercilessly as we marched forward.
I remembered the horror of war, for I had not seen the like before.
I had traveled plenty but warred little.
It had aged me fast.
I recalled the burning of Sultburg, and how the fresh king of that nation was hung from a crossbeam in a burning pigsty. His sons and daughters were sold to slavers, and his people scattered. Then the army had marched day and night for Aeginhamn, for Vittar land. We had burned a hundred villages in Palan, a new kingdom on its side. Getting to Aeginhamn, we found the king gone, and the city blocking the way west. We didn’t siege, but took Vittar’s lands by deceit, pretending honorable negotiations, while swimming the harbor and taking a side gate, opening it up in the night.
The battle had been brief. The garrison had fled almost immediately.
The butchery had lasted much longer.
And we had found Mother.
I remember Illon’s, Mother’s corpse. And something else…just not entirely.
I had to make a choice? A terrible choice? And I had failed?
I rubbed my head, and my thoughts raced on.
My mother’s corpse was found buried in the crypts, and I remembered Father’s rage as we found she had been strangled. None in the city could tell him how, only that Tarl Vittar had been there, as had the men of Aten, especially Yggra Atenguard, and the younger brother. Eglin.
And Rikas and Gilad Atenguard as well.
And one elven servant of the High King, Naergoth.
He had been there too, they had said, the ones we questioned.
Then something had happened.
Everything had changed. That very day.
Everything.
And I couldn’t, as I crushed my head with my hands, figure out what it was.
Father had killed everyone in Aeginhamn. That was true. He had executed them in the Yellow Hall, and had kept at it until it was red and black.
I frowned, for I remembered a butchery in the hall of the keep, in the room where they had once feasted.
The honor of the Hardhands…had been broken at what happened to that city. Everyone had thought so, but few voiced it. They all looked at us strangely after, in deep thoughts, holding to their oaths, but no longer in love with them.
Father, his hammer, and us had marched on for Malignborg, without honor, bound by oaths. There, a god-gate to Jotunheim also stood, one of those that connected the Nine Worlds. There were eight such in every world, for the gods and people to use.
