The Land the Gods Forgot, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by Sarah Beth
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Content Warnings
Map of Volheimer
. Chapter
. Chapter
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
24. Chapter Twenty-Four
25. Chapter Twenty-Five
26. Chapter Twenty-Six
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
30. Chapter Thirty
31. Chapter Thirty-One
32. Chapter Thirty-Two
33. Chapter Thirty-Three
34. Chapter Thirty-Four
35. Acknowledgments
36. Want more?
37. About the Author
38. Also by Sarah Beth
Content Warnings
This book contains elements of violence, war, death, attempted rape, kidnapping, suicide, mental breakdown, and torture.
Please be mindful of your triggers before reading.
"The future is fate, it won't change."
Uhtred of Babbanburg
To everyone who always wished for their own wardrobe.
Chapter One
~Bria~
Bria groaned as her foot slipped on the mossy ground for the hundredth time. Her father’s words rang in her head as she pushed herself to her feet again, go for a hike, Snowflake. The Fjord will set you on the right path, it always does. Easy for him to say, he was warm and dry in his office down in Oslo.
As she stood to her full height her eyes fell on the Fjord below. The water was that color of blue she wasn’t sure she could ever put into words. It was both so deep and yet bright that it was easy to believe it had been created by the gods. Her mother used to love hiking up here.
A pang went through Bria’s chest as her mind betrayed her, bringing up thoughts of her mother. They hadn’t spoken in weeks. Apparently, dropping out of college and moving back to Norway with dad was an unforgivable offense. They had been best friends, once. Now Bria wondered if they’d ever be friends of any kind ever again.
Pushing the thoughts away, and forcing her thighs to keep holding her up, Bria continued up the mountain. The path was rugged this far up and although there wasn’t any snow yet, the ground crunched under her feet like the coming winter wasn’t far. Just as she was beginning to gasp for breaths, desperately thinking she needed a break, the hill abruptly evened out. The trees, that had been closing in tight around her, fell away to reveal a small clearing. The Fjord acting as a stunning backdrop to an already breathtaking view.
Maybe her father’s idea wasn’t so bad after all. If there was any place that could help someone do some soul searching, it was overlooking an ancient Fjord. It took only one look at something that had been carved deep into the bedrock eons ago and yet still stood strong to make one feel small and insignificant.
Deciding that this was the perfect place to sit down for a bit and eat the food she brought, Bria turned from the view and saw a flat rock off to the side. Look at that, nature was even giving her a table to enjoy her snack. Only when she was close enough, setting her back on the ground beside it, did she notice impressions in the stone. With her brow furrowed, she dropped to her knees to get a closer look. What had first looked like scribbles etched into the rock, became immediately clear to her now what they really were — they were runes. Ancient Norse runes.
Her father being the man he was — very proud of his heritage — she knew more about Norse history and the Vikings than the average person. She could recall having a set of wooden dice with the Younger Futhark runes etched into them sitting on the bookshelf next to her alphabet blocks. The runes on this stone looked familiar, although she couldn’t remember what they meant.
Tracing her fingers over the runes she stopped at the last one, tipping her head to one side in thought. It looked like an ‘x’ with two lines on either side of it, closing it off. A vision of her dad sitting at his desk with her in his lap came to her mind. He had been holding a dice with this rune on it. As her fingers ran along the grooves, she remembered what her father had said — this is the symbol for an awakening, Snowflake. If you’re about to embark on a great adventure, this is the rune you use.
Sitting back on her calves, her hands sliding off the stone and into her lap, she looked back at the mountain tops and the Fjord beyond. She knew Viking artifacts and runes were found all over Norway and the rest of Scandinavia. But they weren’t usually left to the mercy of the elements like this. Someone, surely, must have found this stone before. It was sitting right there in the plain sight.
Sighing, Bria reached for her bag. She’d take some photos with her phone and tell her dad. He’d know who to contact and get this stone taken to a museum or something. Somewhere where no one else would try to use it as a table.
Rummaging in her pack, her phone having fallen out of the small pocket she’d put it into, the crack of metal rang loudly in her ears.
Dropping her back she spun around on her heels, expecting to see someone walking up the trail with metal hiking poles or something. But no one was there. It couldn’t have been an animal — no animal made a metallic sound like that.
Scanning the clearing one more time, she tried to shake off the strange feeling that had fallen over her. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end and she felt like she was being watched. Turning back to her bag, she hurriedly tried to find her phone. She wanted to get those photos and then get out of there. Something wasn’t right. She could eat at home.
With her hands buried in her pack, the sound happened again but louder. Her ears ringing from the power of it, she put her back against the stone and grabbed the pocket knife out of her bag. Another clash but this time there was no denying what that sound was — it was the sound swords made when they met in the air. What in the gods was happening?
The stone at her back vibrated; shook like someone had slammed a sledgehammer into it. Turning her attention back to it, she watched in horror as the stone split before her eyes, right between the runes. What the fuck? Stone didn’t just crack in half.
She didn’t get a chance to think anything else before a force from some other plain of existence snagged her middle and yanked her into the stone.
She landed hard, the air in her lungs leaving her in a huff. Her ears were ringing so loud she could barely register anything else. Coughing, she dug her hands into the wet dirt beneath her, pushing herself up onto all fours. Only when she looked up did she realize the ringing in her ears wasn’t inside her own head — it was the sound of swords clashing.
On all sides of her, a battle like the ones she saw in movies was taking place. Men in leather and armor swung giant-looking swords in the air, holding shields up to deflect the blows of their enemies. Bodies lay on the ground in mounds; the iron smell of blood in the air was palpable. A thud beside her had her head whipping to the side. Laying in the mud only a foot away was a beast unlike anything she had ever seen. Horns sprouted from its skull; fangs could be seen peaking out from its green-colored lips. Its eyes, frozen in death already, were blood red.
Now, Bria prided herself on not being a woman who startled easily. She rarely screamed lest it was at a haunted house on Halloween. But the scream that ripped itself from her throat was something more primal than she had ever heard come from her own lips. Pushing herself away, she landed hard on her ass as she put as much space between the monster and herself as possible. It wasn’t until she ran into something solid behind her that she stopped. Swallowing the second scream that wanted to escape, she looked up.
A man looked down at her, not a beast. A beard covered his lower face; his long hair was messy and covered in dirt and what had to have been dried blood. Blood bloomed on a cut to his forehead. His brows were pulled tight in a fierce expression; his lips were drawn down in the corners.
It was only when she looked into his crystal blue eyes did she realize how quiet it was. Looking away from the man whose legs were solid against her back, she surveyed the battlefield. Every warrior and beast had stopped in their tracks and were looking
Everything after that happened so quickly that her rattled brain couldn’t process it. As if a horn had been blown, every warrior and beast jumped into action. The monsters ran for her, their claws outstretched, while the warriors in armor got between them. Strong arms were around her, lifting her from the bloody ground. Only when her legs were put around a horse did her brain wake up. Although it wasn’t being super helpful, the only words she was able to utter were, “What the fuck?”
The man with the striking blue eyes put her arms around the person in front of her, the horse tossing its head from side to side. His eyes met hers for a brief moment before his gruff voice spoke to the person with the reigns, “Get her to city. Now!”
The horse’s muscles bunched underneath her and then she was rocketed away from the battle. She held on for dear life — what else was she supposed to do? — and squeezed her eyes tight. Maybe this would all turn out to be a bad dream. It had to be. There was no other explanation possible.
As the sounds of battle began to diminish and the feeling of needing to puke wasn’t imminent, Bria slowly opened her eyes. Despite being bobbed around on the back of a horse, she could just make out a forest on the far side of a field. And mountains behind that, ones that reached high into the sky, just like the ones back in Oslo. The ground turned from muddy earth to packed down dirt and stone; the sound of the horse’s hooves was like a warning bell.
Forcing herself to look ahead, she was momentarily stunned by what she saw. High wooden walls and a giant gate was where they were heading. A deep ditch had been dug to separate the walls from the rest of the area; a simple wooden bridge wide enough for one, maybe two horses, connected them. The closer they got, the higher the walls became. The horse’s hooves pounded on the wooden bridge and the gate before them opened, admitting them in the belly of the city seconds before they would've run right into it.
But this was like no other city she had ever seen. At least, none she hadn’t seen on paper in books.
Buildings and houses sprouted out on either side of the dirt road, their roofs made of sod and wood. The smell of horses and other animals assaulted her nose, along with the scent of sewage. Smoke billowed from holes in the roofs and was thick enough to make her eyes sting.
The horse, nor its driver, slowed even a little as they made their way through the town. People scattered and dove out of their way. Bria would have felt bad under any other circumstance but she was too busy trying to wake up from this nightmare.
The buildings began to diminish and then a hill appeared around a corner, a long hall with a sod roof sat on the top of it; a stone castle attached to the back of it. The front, looking like a traditional Longhouse from history books, was made of wood. The stone beyond that created a modest castle-like building. But it didn’t look anything like the castles Bria had seen while traveling in England. It was box-like, only two stories, and had no spires at the corners. It looked imposing and cold.
It must have given the inhabitants a full view of the city and valley beyond.
The horse nearly skidded as it was brought to a stop at the bottom of the hill, where wooden stairs that had been stuck into the hillside led up. The person in front of her swung their leg over the horse’s head and leapt down, only when they looked up at her did Bria realize it was a woman.
She couldn’t have been any older than Bria herself. Her long blond hair, braided in multiple styles with gold pieces holding it together, framed her face. Her skin, usually pale, was covered in dirt and blood. A sword was strapped to her hip and what looked liked a few knives on her thighs. But as she looked up at Bria, her brown eyes were warm and comforting; a small smile etched on her lips.
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Drawing her brows down tight, Bria said the first word she’d said since being on that battlefield. “What?”
A sympathetic smile replaced the previous one. Reaching a hand up to gently pull Bria’s own fingers from the saddle where she’d unknowingly grabbed, the woman’s voice was soft. “You look a right mess. I bet you’d feel better after a bath and some fresh clothes.”
Her face still contorted in confusion, Bria allowed the woman to take her hands in hers. It was only when the sleeve of her rain coat, usually a bright yellow, came into her view did she realize. She was covered in blood. And who knew what else.
She’d be proud to say later that although she had upchucked every last morsel she had eaten in the last twenty-four hours, she hadn’t gotten even a little bit of it on the horse or her companion.
Chapter Two
~Bria~
“My name is Emblyn, I’m a Watcher for the king. But I’m going to assume you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
She was definitely right. Sitting naked in a small basin made of wood with a thick soap-like substance being scrubbed into her skin, Bria was as far away from understanding where she was as she could get. She even tried pinching herself to no avail. If she was in some sort of dreamworld, she wasn’t waking up any time soon.
Two servant women were attending to her, scrubbing the blood off her skin and out of her hair. The water was blessedly warm at least, the pots hung over the fire keeping her from getting a chill. As one of the women dumped cups of water over her head, carefully shielding her eyes, Bria tried to focus on Emblyn.
The Watcher was sat on a stool against the far wall, clearly trying to stay out of the way. But her kind smile hadn’t left her face once. She’d briefly left Bria in the hands of the servants but had quickly returned, her own clothes clean and extras draped over her arm for Bria. She’d sat herself down on that stool ever since and hadn’t moved.
When the water stopped being poured onto her head, Bria tried to sit up a bit better. Clearing her throat, which had felt clogged since her arrival, she met Emblyn’s eyes. “Where am I?”
There was no other explanation at this point — she certainly wasn’t anywhere near home. Or, her brain was starting to assume, anywhere near her own time. Maybe she’d been watching too much television lately but even still…she was beginning to think time travel wasn't as crazy as it had once sounded.
The Watcher didn’t respond right away. When she did, her voice was guarded. “We call this place Volheimer — the Land in the Middle. The city you were brought to is Daganold.”
The pit in Bria’s stomach only grew heavier. In all of her dad's lectures on the history of the Norsemen, she had never heard of such a place. “And where, exactly, is Volheimer?”
“We don’t know. This land is all there is. All there ever has been. None of our ancestors have ever found another land, not over the mountains or outside of the Fjord.”
The water sloshed dangerously close to the edge as she moved, folding her legs in front of her and gripping the sides of the basin. “What? What are you saying?”
Pursing her lips, Emblyn’s brown eyes looked away as she spoke. “Long ago, the people of Daganold and their enemies of Feigrund were at constant war. The gods, being tired of their fighting, sent them away. To Volheimer. We’ve been here ever since.”
Bria felt her chest constricting. It was like she was falling through that damn stone again. Everything around her came rushing toward her. “You—you mean there’s no way for me to get home?” She sounded like a child to her own ears, scared and alone.
Emblyn looked at her with such empathy and sadness that it took all of Bria’s strength to hold in the tears. “No, my dear. There isn’t.”
Even though it was exactly what Bria had been thinking, it still wasn’t easy to hear it. Her chest clenched impossibly tighter and her stomach felt like it might revolt even though there was nothing left in it. Her poor mother. Her father — he’d probably be frantic by now. A search party would be sent to the Fjord for her. There was no way she could get word to them. That knowledge was far harder than being stuck in a strange world by herself.
As if sensing her guilt and panic, Emblyn stood from her stool and crossed the room. With a shooing motion, she bid the servants away before kneeling beside the basin. Taking Bria’s hands in hers, she squeezed them tight as she held her gaze. “You are not alone here. I promise you that. Whatever comes and whatever goes, I will be here. I swear on Odin.”
