A Yank at Valhalla

Chapter XIV Thor's Oath

Our solemn little procession wound across Asgard, through the streets of stone houses, past great Valhalla castle. We moved miserably toward the castle on the eastern cliffs where Frey and his line dwelt. As we approached its entrance, the lady Gerda stood waiting to meet us. The lovely face of Frey's wife went pale as she saw the stiff figure on the shield. But she did not falter.

"My lord comes home for the last time," she said quietly in the deep silence. "Bring him in."

Gerda walked beside us, her eyes fixed on Frey's dead form, as we entered the castle. We took him into the great hall of the castle, a high-roofed, big stone chamber. There the shield that bore his body was laid across wooden trestles that had been hastily procured.

I tried to speak a word of consolation to Gerda, and could not. Her strange eyes seemed not to see any of us, but remained fixed on her dead husband. She had seated herself in a chair by the body. With hands folded in her lap, she stared wordlessly. Freya plucked my arm as I stood, swaying from exhaustion. The woman's eyes were bright with tears.

"We cannot soothe her grief, Jarl Keith," she whispered. "And you are weary to the soul. You must sleep."

"Aye, sleep," boomed Thor, his heavy voice rumbling ominously. "For tomorrow we shall need every arm in Asgard."

I let thralls lead me to a small chamber in the castle. Hardly had I flung myself upon its hide bed when I was sinking into a slumber of utter physical and nervous fatigue. My dreams were troubled. Again I seemed to be facing Loki's beautiful face and the snarling wolf Fenris. Again I saw Frey confronting the venomous Midgard snake. And again, like a dim echo from far away, the dying gasp of Frey reverberated in my brain.

"I see Loki riding in fire and storm to destroy Asgard — I see the Aesir dying—"

I awoke with a shuddering start. The sun was setting. I had slept through the day. A thrall had touched my shoulder to awaken me.

"The lady Freya bade me rouse you. It is time for the lord Frey's funeral."

I hastily donned my mail coat and helmet and buckled on my sword. Then I went down to the lower floor of the castle, and looked into the hall that was now growing dusky with twilight. Gerda still sat exactly where I had left her. Hands folded unmovingly, her lovely face was a strange, immobile mask as she looked at the body of Frey upon the shield.

Freya touched my arm. The woman had donned her own short mail tunic and helmet. Again she was the warrior-maid I had first met. Her white face was composed.

"We give Frey burial now, Jarl Keith," she said. "The shield-bearers come. You should be one of them."

Thor, dark-faced, brooding-eyed Tyr the berserk, and sad, noble-looking young Forseti had entered. We entered the hall where Gerda watched her dead.

"It is time, lady Gerda," said Thor softly.

"That is well, " she said in a calm voice.

We lifted the shield that bore Frey's body. Carrying it high upon our shoulders, we paced slowly out of the castle, Freya and Gerda following.

The gloom of early dusk layover Asgard. A strong wind blew keen and cold from the northwest, wailing around the lofty cliffs. Warriors in companies of hundreds waited outside, clad in full armor. As we passed through them, they took up their place behind our cortege. They marched after us, striking their sword-hilts against their shields in that clangorous dirge.

We wound along the edge of the cliff to the stair that led down to the fiord. At the head of the stair, on the cliff-edge, were gathered Odin and his lady Frigga, old Aegir and Ran, Bragi and all the other Aesir nobles.

"Farewell, Frey," said Odin. "You have gone first into the shades, but others follow soon."

From the warriors who had followed us, from all the Aesir-folk, echoed that solemn sorrow.

"Farewell, lord Frey!"

Now we four started down the steep and narrow stair that was chiseled from the cliffside. Only Gerda and Freya followed us. The wind blew in great gusts, booming and moaning around the cliffs in the twilight. Thus we came down to the deep, narrow fiord in which floated the long dragon-ships of the Aesir. Among them, Frey's ship stood ready to give him Viking burial. It was trimmed and stacked with wood, and a low, broad wooden platform had been built amidships.

We stepped aboard and laid the shield that bore Frey's body upon that platform. Thor put Frey's sword in the dead hand. Then Frey's black horse was led into the bow of the ship. Tyr's dagger flashed, and the horse fell dead.

"Now all is ready," Thor rumbled.

We stepped back onto the shore.

"All is not yet ready," said Gerda calmly.

She stepped past up to the platform where her husband lay. When she looked down at him, her lovely face was strangely happy.

"For long," she said quietly, "my lord has lived with me at his side. He could not go on this journey into the dead without me."

Before any of us could move, she drew a dagger from her robe, and sheathed it in her heart. We watched rigidly as she fell upon the platform. Her golden hair fell across Frey's dead face.

Freya broke into wild sobbing and clung to me. We stared in horror and pity, but Thor lifted his great hammer in salute.

"Skoal to the lady Gerda!" he rumbled. "She goes proudly to death with her lord, like a true Viking."

Tyr slashed the mooring of the ship. Then he took a waiting torch from a socket, and tossed it into the resinous wood with which the ship was filled. The pile blazed up with a crackling roar, casting a red, quivering light through the deepening twilight. We bent our shoulders against the stern. The ship of death forged out on the heaving waves. Then, as the wind took its raised sail, it sprang forward like a thing alive.

Back we climbed to Asgard, my arm supporting Freya. At the top of the cliff, we stood with Odin and the other Aesir. By the light of many torches, we gazed silently at the burial ship of Frey and Gerda. Blazing red with flames, its high sail carrying it before the swift wind, the ship drove south over the heaving black waves.

"Viking funeral, for a true Viking man and his mate!" Odin declared.

Thor raised his hammer into the air. His red face was even redder by the light of the distant fire ship.

"Thy spirit hear my vow, Frey!" boomed the giant. "It was slimy Iormungandr, Loki's evil snake, that slew thee. I swear to rid Earth of that Midgard serpent in the coming battle, or die myself. Wyrd binds me to that oath!"

The blazing ship that bore the bodies of Frey and Gerda was now far away upon the dark sea. A great torch of red fire, it, was still scudding southward before the wind. Then we saw the ship's prow dip. The whole burning craft plunged down beneath the waves.

"So passes the lord Frey and his mate," said Odin's heavy voice in the silence that followed. "And now, jarls and warriors of the Aesir, we must prepare ourselves. The hosts of the Jotuns come upon the morrow, led by evil Loki, to destroy us."

"We hold Asgard safe while we live, lord Odin!" cried Bragi.

All the voices shouted chorus. I, too, joined that shout, fierce desire for vengeance on Loki and the Jotuns burning in me strongly. Only one of us did not join in that fierce yell, and that was Tyr. The berserk still stood gazing out into the windy night, his dark, brooding face unfathomable.

"Tonight we hold feast in Valhalla as ever," Odin was saying. "Now I go to prepare that which may snatch victory from Loki's grasp. Son Thor, come you with me — and you also, Jarl Keith."

The Aesir king strode with Frigga and his stalwart sons, giant Thor, Vidar and Vali, back toward the black, looming bulk of Valhalla castle. The other Aesir nobles and warriors slowly dispersed toward their own castles and homes. I remained with Freya on the edge of the cliff. The chill darkness seemed alive with voices, with winds that boomed and wailed about Asgard's cliffs as though bemoaning something to come.

Freya crept into my arms. No longer was she the fierce, proud Viking maid who had watched the burial of her kinsman and his mate. A trembling woman, she felt even as I the shadow of colossal disaster deepening with inevitable swiftness over us.

"Hold me close, Jarl Keith," she whispered. "I fear that when tomorrow night comes, we may be separated forever."

"No!" I exclaimed fiercely. "Whether living or dead, Freya, you and I shall be together."

In the darkness, her blue eyes shone up at me with bright tenderness. Her cold little hand touched my cheek.

I kissed her quivering lips. We clung together in the frigid darkness, the moaning wind wrapping around us both the dark cloak I wore over my armor.

We could hear the tramping of feet, the clanging of hammers beating out spear and arrowheads, the bustle of activity as the warships below were prepared. All the stir of preparation was for the coming battle. Freya raised her bright golden head with proud gladness.

"Come Loki and all his evil hosts, come the end of Asgard itself, and I shall not weep now," she whispered tensely. "Beloved who came to me from beyond the ice, we are one till time ends." She stepped back. "You must answer the summons of lord Odin. We meet again at the feast tonight."

My heart was throbbing with pride and gladness as I turned from her and hurried across Asgard to Valhalla castle.