Swords v. Cthulhu

The Children of Yig John Hornor Jacobs

Grislae bent her back to the sea.

The face of the ocean was dead and still. Mist hung about the longship Reinen and drizzle fell in gauzy streamers. No breath of wind stirred the sails. It was warmer here in the south, and what land they could see, flatter, the barest ink stroke on the horizon.

Oars creaked as Heingistr’s company strained. Hoensa, Rill, Svebder, Uvigg, Snurri — the blooded men who did not row — watched the shore as it slowly passed.

“The shape of the land is familiar,” said Hoensa, squinting his eyes against the gloom. “We raided what farms we could find, five winters past, but the ones near here we spared for future plucking.” He slapped the bulkhead. “Our shields were wet from plunder and we could let these pass.”

Grislae sank her oar into the water and pulled. She had found her rhythm among the men from Heingistrhold. At first her hands had blistered, but only a little, since they were accustomed to plow and rope and the labors of the farm.

At the covered stern of the Reinen, over a small touchwood brazier, huddled Urtha and Wen — wives to Hoensa and Rill. The women would not let their husbands raid without their company. Their cooking. Their guidance. And because Heingistr did not meddle in the affairs of husbands and wives, he allowed this, as his father had before him. Indeed, it spared him from eating what his men might cook.

Urtha scowled at Grislae’s garb when she boarded the Reinen, noting her helm, her boiled leather tunic. Her sword.

“You are Ordbeg the Boy-Lover’s daughter, are you not?” Urtha said, as Grislae hung her shield over the gunwale. The shield had been her father’s, but she’d repainted it.

Svebder and Snurri chuckled. Grislae looked at the women. They called her father “Boy-Lover” in derision, because he would not kill children. Last Imbolc he was coughing blood, and by the Festival of Eostre, he was dead, his incessant retching so odious, the end came as a relief. She didn’t weep. She swore she’d never pick up another hoe or scythe another hayfield. She dug his grave, placed him in it, and built a cairn. It was her last spring sowing. Her father’s sword and shield and wealth she kept, and placed nothing in the grave with him. Then, back aching, she drank as much mead as her belly would hold, sitting in the dim silence of their farmhouse — leagues away from Heingistrhold and any other soul — and drew Ordbeg’s sword from its scabbard and watched the firelight flicker down its length.

To Urtha she said, “I bear his shield, sword, and helm. Not his name.”

“Nor his hair,” Wen said in a fruity voice, looking at Grislae’s pate.

“Nor what hung between his legs,” Urtha said, squinting.

Grislae shrugged and ran a hand over her stubbly head. The incessant itching of lice had driven her to take a knife to her once long locks, as she had not the inclination to waste silver on lye. She’d found she liked the fierce look of her shorn head. And that the young men from the neighboring farms had stopped leaving loaves and flowers by her door, which was just as well. She would never wed.

She crossed her arms in front of her and frowned at the two women. “I have come to raid. Heingistr has not a problem with it. Have either of you?”

Wen only frowned but Urtha, the wide-faced leader of the two, said, “I’d warn you to stay away from our men, but I imagine they’d rather fuck sheep than bed with you.”

Grislae smiled. “That hole in your face would be the perfect arsehole,” she said, as she unslung her sword and stowed her bindle, “if it wasn’t for all your teeth.”

There was a moment of quiet. Wen looked shocked. Urtha scowled at Hoensa, her husband, for support. Hoensa shrugged and looked back toward the shore.

“Rill would rather fuck sheep than just about anything,” Uvigg said, and the still hush of the sea was broken by the laughter coming from the longship.

“There,” Heingistr said, jabbing a thick finger into the mist. “Marshes. There will be a channel. And beyond, farms.”

Grislae bent her back to the sea.

The channel opened into a sheltered bay where they moored the Reinen that night. No lights from home fires nor watchmen’s torches shone in the dark, and the mist pressed too close to spy any smoke breaking the heavens, or stars peering through.

“Snurri, Hoensa, take one of the new ones — Grislae — and scout.” Heingistr nodded his head inland. The men began unlimbering a goat from the hold of the Reinen, and Wen and Urtha whetted their knives. Snurri cursed and belted on his sword, put his helm on his head. Hoensa’s eyes glittered.

“No shield,” Snurri said to Grislae as she took up her gear. “We move fast and it will only slow you.”

They made their way inland, walking swiftly and crouching low. The men moved easily, familiar with each other and their rhythms. Grislae kept up without much struggle — her time on her father’s farm had kept her fit and strong — but was alarmed by the amount of noise the men made as they moved through the forest: snapping limbs underfoot, grunting, cursing under their breath.

Grislae moved in almost absolute silence, lightfooted. The land rose, and she passed through cut forest and into fields. It was warm, her skin beading with sweat.

They came upon a farm, low slung and dark, no smoke coming from the roof.

Snurri, sweat streaming into his beard, whispered, “We will wait here, and watch.” He hopped over a fallen log and kneeled behind the low brambles between the farm and where they crouched. Before Grislae and Hoensa could join him, he cried, “Ach!” Flailed and rolled on the ground. When he rose, he stomped like a maddened horse. “Snake! Gods protect me!”

“Odin’s eye, you’re one big fucking baby,” Hoensa said. He peered at the house. “Sound a battle horn next time.” He drew his sword and looked at Grislae. “If someone was there, we would know it by now, thanks to Snurri. Let’s take a look.”

Hoensa moved forward, what meager light cut through the dark, cloudy sky glinting off his helm. Grislae followed, drawing her sword. After a moment, the shaken Snurri lumbered after them.

The farm had a thatched roof, wooden walls, and rough-hewn timber shutters. The door was open. Entering, the three were swallowed in darkness. A thick matting on the floor of the farmhouse cushioned their steps. Only the faintest intimations of rooms were apparent to them. Grislae smelled more than saw the cold hearth on a far wall. The scent of bread and meat told her it had been occupied but recently. But there was another smell, an old smell, sour and stinking of death, mingling with the odors of farm life. From all around came a rustling sound too, and that put her on edge.

“I have a fire steel and striking stone,” Grislae said, moving toward the back of the room. The close air was hushed, but there was a light susurration, as reeds stirring in the breeze.

Snurri, hulking in the darkness, said, “I don’t like this place. There are no people here. They will have taken their wealth wherever they have gone.”

“Let us see what we can see,” Hoensa said.

At the hearth, Grislae removed the fire steel and stone from the pouch at her belt and struck a spark. The flash revealed a bundle of kindling hay near the wall by the hearthstone; she soon had a small fire burning in the sooty hearth. She stood and stepped away from where the shifting yellow light spilled across the farmhouse, the brilliance blinding after their long trek through the night.

Through her watering eyes, the floor shimmered. Snurri gave a small exhalation, “Uff, dip me in sheep piss.”

“What, Snurri?” Hoensa asked, hearing his tone. “What is it?”

“The brood of Jorgumandr,” Snurri said with a curiously flat inflection. “Snakes. More snakes.”

Hoensa and Grislae blinked away tears, peered at the floor. It shifted and gleamed in the fickle yellow firelight. As Grislae watched, it writhed and wriggled in a lazy expanse. Looking down, she saw many small snakes strike at her high boots with their vicious mouths.

“Ergi! These damned serpents!” cried Snurri, whipping his hand about as if to rid himself of a fly. He began stomping indiscriminately, and Hoensa joined him. The small fire crackled in the hearth, the floor rustled, and for a long while there was naught but the sound of the men’s heavy breathing and bootfalls as they crushed the snakes.

Grislae grabbed the remaining cord of kindling hay and stuck one end in the fire. Then, sword in one hand and flaming straw bundle in the other, she shook out her legs and moved. “The door,” she said. “There is nothing here but vermin.” Raising high the makeshift torch, she turned around in a circle. Everywhere, every open bit of floor, shimmered and writhed. “You will stomp all night and never kill them all. Come.”

It took a moment for the men to stop. Snake-fear and kill-lust kept them stomping the writhing mass. Grislae shrugged. She left the farmhouse, entering the sodden night. Hoensa and Snurri followed. She was reaching to set the thatch roof on fire when Hoensa placed a hand on her arm and said, “I think not. There are other farms full of fat children, food, and gold. Best not to warn them Heingistr’s company is here until we are upon them.”

“I am bit,” Snurri said, holding up his hand. When they said nothing in response, he patted his body from collar to crotch. “Ach, I can feel them slithering all over me.”

They moved away from the farm, taking a muddy road that led beyond the house and beside a furrowed field. The mire sucked at their feet. They had reached the far tree line when the light of torches filtered through the trees.

Doughty men with ruddy faces carrying axes. Farmers, all. They tromped down the road, speaking in a round, fluid language Grislae could not make out. Their hushed tones were agitated; something had disturbed them.

Crouched behind a mossy rock jutting from the forest mulch, Grislae readied herself to strike. Hoensa, who had hidden himself behind a thick oak, held up a hand — Wait.

The farmers neared. Snurri, poised behind a log, withdrew his sword. Grislae gripped hers tighter.

Hoensa shook his head and pointed back to the farmhouse. He mouthed, No. Wait.

They let the farmers continue on, passing a few paces away, unaware that the company of the North hid so close.

When the farmers had crossed the field, Grislae said, “Why did we let them pass? We could have killed them and taken their gold.”

“I’ve killed scores of farmers and they never carry gold. They hide it away in their houses and will not yield it until you put a blade to their son or daughter’s throat.” Hoensa shook his head. “We’ve raided these shores for generations. These would not be out here in the dark, unless some greater fear than that they hold for us was not pushing them on. I would see what it is that frightens them so.”

Snurri sucked on the back of his hand. “Would that we had found a mill or hamlet, killed the men, fucked all the wives and daughters, and took their livestock and metal. Not this. The countless brood of Jorgumandr and thrice-cursed farmers.”

“Stop complaining, Snurri,” Hoensa said. “We will circle around and see what we can see.”

They stayed beyond the tree line and made their way around the field and into view of the farmhouse. The farmers were clustered outside the door, arguing. One of them pointed inside and gave a blistering speech in their bubbling language, but one word was prominent, due to its hard sounds and angles: Yig.

Soon they came to agreement, and the farmers set their torches to the thatched roof. Within moments the house was burning. Light spilled out, illuminating the field, the forest, and the spot where Heingistr’s scouts watched.

“It must be those wretched vermin,” Snurri said. He sucked at the back of his hand again. “What is yig? Snakes?”

“I don’t care what it means.” Hoensa stretched, swung his sword experimentally. “Let us kill who we can and take the others as slaves. And find more farms to raid. No?”

Grislae nodded, gripping her sword.

The Northerners fell on the farmers from behind as they watched the house burn. Snurri let forth a terrible scream as he ran, so by the time Grislae came near, the men had turned to face them, startled. Hoensa’s sword took one in the arm, deep, and the man fell. Hoensa wheeled toward the next man, who raised his axe.

In the shifting yellow light from the burning roof, Grislae found herself facing a burly farmer whose expression lacked sufficient fear to suit her. He whipped his axe in a tight circle, but she rocked back on one leg, letting it pass, and then sprang forward in the wake of his missed blow. She spitted him through the belly, and once his face showed the death-fear, she smiled and ripped the sword free, turning to face the others.

Snurri clubbed a man in the face with the pommel of his sword, dropping him, and Hoensa had killed another. The last farmer bolted into the dark and Hoensa sprinted after him.

“They are strong but none of them know how to fight,” Snurri said, and sucked hard at the back of his hand. “You did well, Boy-Lover’s girl.”

Grislae ignored him. The farmer he’d clubbed stirred and moaned through a bloody mouth. She stripped one of the dead of his belt and tied the moaning man’s hands as Hoensa returned, breathing heavily.

Snurri and Grislae looked to him and he nodded. “They will be alerted by mid-morn at the latest, when their men do not come home to their soft beds. Let us take this one back to the boat and hear Heingistr’s words.”

They roused the battered farmer, bound his mouth, and marched him back to the Reinen. Heingistr, Wen, Urtha, — Hoensa’s wife — Rill, and Uvigg waited for them. Soon the other new men roused from their slumber on the Reinen’s decks, coming to join them by the fire on the shore.

“We saw the light,” Heingistr said. “You must have good plunder to have burned the first farmhouse you came across.”

“We did not burn it,” Snurri said. He waved a hand at the new slave, who had collapsed on the shore near the fire. A pot hung there and the smell of goat stew lingered in the air. “This one and his friends did the burning. The farmhouse was overrun with snakes.”

“Snakes?”

“Countless snakes,” Snurri said, and looked to Grislae and Hoensa for support.

Hoensa nodded. “There were many.”

“I am bit,” Snurri said, holding up his hand. It had swollen like a sack of barley soaked by rain.

Heingistr’s face remained impassive. “Uvigg, your father took a slave woman from this region. Do you know their tongue?”

“Some,” Uvigg said.

“I would put questions to this man, and then you can take him to the hold.”

Uvigg unbound the captive’s mouth and gave him water.

“He’ll be shitting teeth for a moon,” Hoensa said.

Heingistr questioned the toothless farmer about nearby holdfasts and villages. There was a fortress, far inland, ruled by a lord named Risle with a crowing cock as his family sigil, but far enough away to not be a concern. Closer there were farms, but the real prize was a mill five miles inland. Quickly, Heingistr and company decided on a course of action — to leave with enough men to take the mill, the miller’s fat wife and daughters, and all of their grain and gold, and be back at the Reinen before the tide turned. Many of those newer to the company grew excited. Urtha kissed Hoensa fervently, and Heingistr began sharpening his axes.

“What of this thing they kept saying?” Grislae asked. “This yig?”

Uvigg put questions to the captive in his language. The man raised his hands as if warding off a blow. Uvigg withdrew a knife, and with a casual motion picked at the dirt under his own fingernails, and repeated his words. The slave answered haltingly.

“Some local haunt, maybe? It has been long since I’ve spoken this tongue, and truly the man’s accent is fucked beyond repair. He’ll eat soup for the rest of his life,” Uvigg said. “Some sort of serpent, like Jorgumandr, except not so fierce, nor so divine. He spoke of the ‘children of Yig,’ and ‘Yig’s retribution.’ All sheep shit, in my judgment.”

Snurri stirred. “Maybe it is their name for Jorgumandr.”

“These people do not worship the same gods as normal folk. They have their wounded man and their mother and the sightless ones and the forest,” Uvigg said. “They know nothing of Valhalla and Yggdrasil. They are blind.”

“But fat,” Heingistr said. “And we will take what is theirs. Hoensa, ready the men.”

“Grislae will come too. She handled herself as well as Snurri, at least,” Hoensa said.

“That is not a high sheaf to hide in,” Rill said. Snurri bristled.

“She split a farmer without hesitation. A big fellow,” Hoensa said and gave Grislae a nod.

“Then she is with us.” Heingistr turned to her. Pulling a knife from his belt, he cut his forearm and cupped the blood that ran there. He slapped Grislae, a big open-handed blow, catching her mouth, cheek, and ear in his massive hand, sending her reeling. She sat down forcibly, motes of light swirling at the edges of her vision. “Get up, Ordbeg the Boy-Lover’s girl. You are blooded now and one of my company. Get up,” he said, and taking her arms, raised her from the ground, the stag-faced prow of the Reinen behind him, looming.

She tasted the blood on her face, some of it hers, streaming from her nose, some of it Heingistr’s. The eyes of the company were upon her, blooded and unblooded alike.

“My name is Grislae,” she said. “I put aside my father and his name.”

Heingistr remained still and everyone was silent except for the soft moaning of the captive.

“So it will be, Grislae No-Man’s Girl,” Heingistr said. “So it will be.”

“Grislae,” she said.

There was a long silence where the men waited expectantly for Heingistr to react to her last words, to see if their company’s leader would take it as a challenge. A big grin split his beard and he extended his hand still mired with blood.

“You will shoulder many names in this world, Grislae,” he said. “As long as your sword strikes and your heart remains true, you are one of my company.”

She gripped his forearm in friendship. For the first time in her life, Grislae was happy. The feeling was so foreign and short-lived, she was only aware of it once it was gone.

Of the thirty-three in Heingistr’s company, they left a third with the Reinen, Wen, and Urtha, and took twenty-two inland to raid the mill. Heingistr was concerned that the burning farmhouse might draw others, and so men were needed to guard the longship. Grislae and Hoensa led them past the farmhouse, Snurri staying behind to tend his greening, unusable hand.

They followed the road away from the smoldering farmhouse and inland, past sucking muddy fields and dark forest. The wind picked up and the clouds cleared, leaving gashes that allowed the milky half-light to filter onto the face of the land.

At the first farm there were two women and a boy. They boy tried to fight them with a cudgel, so Uvigg killed him. They bound the women and left three men at the house to take what spoils they could from the premises. The rest of the company moved on.

They found a small river — one that, Uvigg told them, ran into the marshy bay where the Reinen was beached — and followed it south. Two more farmsteads they came across — one, rich with livestock and grain, where three young men and a girl fought them when the door was kicked in. The girl, no more than thirteen, chose to defend her home with a butcher’s blade, so Grislae ran her through. The girl looked surprised once her widening eyes fixed on Grislae’s face, and she pawed at Grislae’s breasts as she died, as if looking for some kind of succor there. The rest of the farmer’s sons, and the other daughters hidden in the cold room below the kitchen, they took for slave stock. The men of Heingistr’s company looked at Grislae with new eyes.

The next farm was empty, possibly alerted by the screams and shrieks of their neighbors. They left four men to round up with the scattered flock.

The sky lightened. Soon the sun would rise.

Thirteen men and one woman moved inland, toward the mill. The sky bloomed in the east and illuminated the water vapor in the air, shining through the trees like the golden fog of Valhalla.

The mill was guarded by men bearing axes, cudgels, and a single rust-eaten sword, doubtless their families and other precious things barricaded inside. Svebder had unlimbered his bow and feathered two of the men before they knew Heingistr’s company was upon them. In the blood-spiked rush toward the mill, Grislae found herself yelling wordlessly. She killed two men, taking one through the throat as he swung a hammer at her — she received some of the blow on the meat of her shoulder — and speared another through the back as he grappled with Hoensa. It was over quickly, and she came out on the other side with a calmness she’d never known, as if all the wheels of heaven had locked and the braid that was her fortune and destiny were complete.

The men rousted the miller, his wife, sons, and daughters, killing only the one girl who dared to fight back. Grislae found a horse, harnessed it to a wagon and brought it around for the spoils. By daybreak, the wagon was heavy with grain — and some metal — and on its way back to the Reinen. They reached the ship unmolested, loaded slaves and spoils into the hold, and were back into the waters of the marsh and approaching open sea by midday.

Spirits on the Reinen soared as the sails bellied with wind and the sea spray dampened beards. “Hale we went forth, and hale we returned, heavy with plunder and the blessings of Aesir and Vanir!” Heingistr shouted at the shore, exultant. “We have come to this fat shore, all the high holy gods protect us!”

As if in answer, Snurri moaned. A fever had settled upon him, and he slumbered heavily, cradling his hand to his chest. When he woke, he would dip the bloated green hand in a bucket of saltwater — the old remedy. It did not seem to work. “We are cursed by Yig,” Snurri mumbled, eyes cloudy. “It will be the death of us —”

“Shut up,” Hoensa told the delirious man. “You are snake-bit and addled. Do not speak of these southern gods.”

“ — the children of Yig — ”

Hoensa snatched the bucket of saltwater and dumped it on Snurri’s head. “Clear your mind, man. We are to sea.”

“ — cursed, we are — ”

Heingistr said, “Put him below, where his delirium cannot poison our good cheer.” He slapped the mast and looked to the men of his company. “We are heavy! This shore is rich and ripe!”

Wen and Urtha, with Hoensa’s help, moved Snurri into the hold, near the livestock. They looked wan and dejected when they returned.

“The ravings of the ill and infirm do no favors to the brave,” Hoensa said, as he stepped on the deck and took a deep breath of salt-spiced air. The wind was up and Reinen’s sail full, the shore passing at a good clip.

Urtha, shaking her head, said, “I will tend him, and the slaves. I am afraid for him.” She paused, looking to the distant shore.

“Snurri bears a tattoo of Jorgumandr on his chest, the great serpent eating its own tail. He told me once that the völva seer saw his doom in a serpent’s mouth, so his father tattooed him there,” Hoensa said.

“Loki’s brood,” Urtha said, pursing her lips as if tasting something bitter. “Inconstant and wicked.”

“We shall see. Snurri is strong, if nothing else,” said Hoensa, looking toward the feverish man.

“And stupid as rocks,” Urtha said.

Urtha joined Wen at the covered stern of the Reinen and spoke with her softly. The seas were high, swells pitching the longship. Some of the men chanted the Glymdrápa in rough but strong voices, laughing as Fjolnir fell into the mead and drowned:

The seas grew, and Heingistr brought the Reinen in to shore, to find port and send out scouts. “When the seas are high, the North is nigh,” he said, looking at the shore, avidly.

Beneath them the livestock bleated and the thin moans of Snurri filtered through the air-grate. His breath had taken on a rasp, as if the fever had settled in his lungs, and Urtha gave Hoensa worried glances when she came up from the hold.

They paced the shore for two days, until the swells let up, and finding a river, made their way up it until the water was barely brackish. They moored her on an old pier, half-rotten — despite the livestock hold, the Reinen’s draft was shallow. They set up camp in the burnt-out ruin of a fishing hut; victim, possibly, to one of their or their cousins’ forays. Heingistr sent Grislae, Hoensa, and an unblooded lad named Knut to survey the area. They found farms and a small village with a moss-covered church, all within a half day’s walk of the Reinen — it was still morning, and so they set forth immediately.

With the full company save the wives and Snurri, they took the village, killing all the men and the women who fought. Any boys and girls old enough to labor in the field, or bed, were taken as slaves. Grislae felt the exaltation of war and battle as she came into the hamlet and heard the screams of the villagers, pleading. She killed a woman in her home — a farmer’s wife who hid something in her cellar. She heard muffled weeping from below as she stood in the dim house over the woman’s body.

Grislae found the trapdoor and went down among the crocks of butter and sacks of grain, where she found two chubby, red-cheeked children. She dragged them out into the street and put them to the sword for all of the company of Heingistr to see, and the gods as well. The raiders found a wagon and drove it to the stone church, killing the high priest and his servants there, and taking their gold.

“We do not burn! We will return one day,” Heingistr laughed, as he came through the church’s shattered door, carrying a chalice and a cross. It was late afternoon and the slanting golden rays made the spoil and slaughter seem kissed by the gods. “Kill the goose, take the eggs, one day another goose will make its home in the nest.”

Spoil-weary, they trudged alongside the pilfered wagon, leading a string of slaves back to the Reinen.

“The spring planting was especially hard on Willa and the children, after the late freeze,” Uvigg said to Hoensa, who walked beside him, axe in hand. Uvigg patted the slats of the wagon trundling beside them. “So my share of this will be a great boon. The boys grow tall and thin now that their manhood is in sight, and we can buy a cow and some goats to keep them in milk and cheese.”

“They’ll be raiding with us soon enough,” Hoensa said, resting a large hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Yes!” Uvigg said, smiling. Then frowned. “Though Willa won’t like being left alone with the girls during the summer months.”

“Leave the boys behind and bring her.”

“We have spoken of that — she was always fierce and deadly with bow and blade. But she would not shame her sons by leaving them behi —”

Uvigg gurgled and pitched forward, feathers and arrow-shaft protruding from his throat. It took but a moment for Hoensa to bellow warning and heft his axe. A great cry came from up the path, and men with shields and swords raced down a hill toward them.

The blooded company of Heingistr was hard to surprise and fierce in battle. But many of their number were unblooded. At the first sound of attack, Grislae’s sword was in hand. She crouched, keeping her legs flexed, waiting for the first man to come near enough to kill. No farmers, these men — they bore shields with a scarlet rooster crowing; the men of Risle the captive had spoken of. Accoutred in boiled leather, the soldiers carried steel blades instead of farm implements.

The captives — boys and girls all — cried miserably in their foreign tongue, no doubt pleading to be freed.

Arrows filled the air like maddened wasps, buzzing and hissing. Grislae felt a flashing burn across her cheek, and raised her hand to find that half her ear was gone, ripped away by an ill-aimed arrow and further torn by scarlet fletching. Before she could register the bright pain, a man with a bristling mustache leapt forward, swinging a longsword. Grislae parried with her own, but the blow shivered her arm, wrenched her about, and she fell sideways upon the earth. She scrabbled away on all fours, levering herself with one hand and digging the other into the ground with her fist, still holding her sword, the man fast behind her. She scrambled under the stolen wagon and was up and crouched, ready to strike on the other side when the man rounded the corner. She put her blade in his groin and then ripped it away, cutting red roads in his flesh. He fell, pumping blood.

The next man she took from behind, as he exchanged overmatched blows with Svebder.

Grislae moved on, looking for others to kill. Blood surged in her, her cheeks hot, the ruin of her ear forgotten. She moved easily, her sword an extension of her arm. A terrible finger to point out those to be received by Hel.

Outnumbered. Other Northern raiders must’ve visited these shores, Grislae surmised, and recently. The company of Heingistr was overmatched. But still fierce. There was a moment when the soldiers drew back, and Heingistr, bleeding freely from his chest and arm, rallied his men. Those who remained clustered tightly around the stolen wagon, and as the remaining soldiers mustered the courage to attack, they were met with angry cries and angrier blades.

When Heingistr fell to his knees, the company broke, abandoning the wagon of spoils. Hoensa grabbed Heingistr, despite the man’s stature, and pulled him away, off the road and into the wood. Grislae came after. One of the soldiers marked their exit and followed.

Grislae met the soldier in the wood. He bore a shield and sword, a helm, a studded leather tunic and gauntlets. Bright eyes and an exultant expression, now that the company of the North was routed and their spoils lost. A smile spread across his face like pitch upon the water; he said something in this country’s bubbling, liquid language, gloating. Before he could finish, Grislae stabbed him in the throat, and whatever else he might have said was lost in blood. He went down, wrenching her sword from her hands as he did.

He fell, lying face up, hands at his throat. Grislae stood over him, looking down. Placing her boot on his face, she pulled the blade from his neck and spat on his face when it was free. The gob of spittle landed on the man’s open eye. He did not blink it away.

Turning, she rejoined Hoensa, shouldering Heingistr’s weight to flee to the Reinen.

It took hours to get back to the longship. Soldiers combed the forest and the shore. It was only the evening fog that seeped from the earth and the river’s surface that saved them. Many times Hoensa and Grislae had to hide in the dark, holding their breath, ready to muffle Heingistr’s moans, as men bearing torches searched for survivors of the company. But the light from the soldiers’ own torches blinded them. Grislae and Hoensa were able to slip away and move downriver without incident, bearing Heingistr between them.

It was raining by the time they reached the burnt-out fishing hut and pier where the Reinen was moored. Urtha looked at them with a terrified expression, her constant companion Wen nowhere to be seen. Wen’s absence struck Grislae. She did not like the woman — nor Urtha — but she’d grown accustomed to her presence, and seeing Urtha without her disturbed Grislae in ways she could not puzzle out.

Once, when Grislae was a girl, her father took her to the Midsummer festival in the woods outside of Heingistrhold, and she became separated from him, lost. As she wandered through the trees, standing like silent sentinels around her, she felt a tugging at her stomach, as if some invisible tether drew her onward, and found herself standing at the mouth of a cave. The air was thick there, and she felt a sinking dread, as if the world was worn thin, frayed. In the darkness of the cave mouth, something crouched. Something beyond her ken, beyond all ken. She felt as if at any moment all of creation would unravel and some great horror would stand revealed. It was only when some of the men from Heingistrhold found her, paralyzed with fear, that the feeling dissipated.

As Grislae looked at Urtha, and the Reinen beyond, she felt that way again.

“What has happened, husband?” Urtha asked. She had banked the fire while they were gone.

“Great misfortune,” Hoensa panted. “We were attacked by soldiers. Many of our men drink in golden Valhalla. But for now we wait for whatever survivors make it back to the Reinen. I will keep watch here. Take Heingistr on board and tend his wounds.”

“Nay,” said Urtha. “I will not. The Reinen is cursed! It teems with serpents. And Snurri, he is…”

“He is what?” Grislae asked.

“He is changed,” she said. “Wen entered the livestock hold and she—” Sobbing took her.

“I do not care if Fenrir himself is on board. If we stay here, we will die,” Hoensa said. He drew his sword and watched the dark line of trees wreathed in fog. “While I would welcome a warrior’s death, I would not have you hurt, Urtha, my love. And I won’t abandon what men might make it back here. We will wait until we cannot wait anymore. Go to the Reinen.”

“No,” Urtha said. “I cannot board the ship again. You do not know —”

“I will take Heingistr,” Grislae said. She cared not for the arguments of man and wife. Her ear was on fire now she had the opportunity to consider herself. It throbbed and oozed blood that ran in a dark slick down her neck. She sheathed her sword and, bending, lifted Heingistr’s full weight onto her shoulders, an oxen carry. He did not moan or make any exhalation as she did, though he was still warm. Once on board, she would determine if he still lived. He was a great weight, but no match to her will. She carried him down the pier and aboard the Reinen.

The longship’s deck was empty, devoid of man. Or snake. Grislae carried him down the length of the deck to the covered stern, where she started a touchwood fire with stone and steel in the sheltered cooking brazier, warming water to wash his wounds and her own.

From the shore, there came the sound of men calling to one another, and a cry. The thin yellow light of torches drew shifting lines through the fog. Grislae raced to the side of the Reinen, where the lusty company of Heingistr had disembarked only hours earlier. There, on the shore, lay the bodies of Hoensa and Urtha, heavily feathered with arrows, and joined together forever in death. Hoensa died, at least, with steel in his fist.

Turning, Grislae sprinted back to the stern, drawing her sword as she ran. She cut the anchor line just as the arrows began to fall. The sound erupted like giant rune stones being cast upon a mead-hall table. Rolling underneath the covered cooking area, she watched as a deadly flight of arrows impaled the deck, the oar benches, the gunwales, the upright oars, each one quivering. Crouching, she grabbed a shield from the Reinen’s bulwark, and holding it angled toward the shore, Grislae sprinted to the Reinen’s prow before another flight of arrows could fall. Her sword fell upon the second anchor line, severing it clean, and she threw herself against the gunwale facing the shore.

A long moment passed. The longship Reinen did not stir in the river. Grislae felt a scream building behind her breast, a yelp of frustration and rage. She held it back with clenched teeth. There were cries of men from the shore, and another vicious rain of arrows.

“Fuck you, you fucking sheep!” she yelled, allowing some of the titanic anger in her to spill out. Just a little. She had so much more to give. The shield clattered on the deck as she snatched an oar from its mooring hole, half-crawling toward where the pier met the Reinen. On her knees, one foot braced upon an oarsman’s bench, she peeked up, planted the long oar on the soft wood of the pier, and pushed. Her body thrummed and creaked with stress and inaction. “Odin,” she said, but could not be sure it came out as words. Torchlight came from the burnt fishing hut. There was a cry and another flight of arrows fell. Thunk thunk thunk thunk.

Almost imperceptibly, the Reinen moved.

More arrows flew. But these were different. They rose burning, trailing oily black smoke. The soldiers of Risle had wrapped their arrows with pitch-soaked rags. And now the Reinen was itself feathered with fire. More cries came from the shore, and the clomp of many boots sounded on wood. Torchlight neared.

The distance between the Reinen and the shore grew, bit by bit. And grew further as the Reinen was caught in the faster currents of the river.

More burning arrows fell, but hissed as they were extinguished by the river. Soon the husk of the fishing hut, the soldiers of Risle, and the accursed shore all diminished, disappearing in the fog. The muffled cries grew faint. Then there was only silence, the sizzle of burning pitch arrows, and the gurgle of the river as the Reinen floated downstream to the sea.

“Grissssslay,” Snurri called from beneath her. “Grissssslay. Come.”

Grislae turned slowly on the empty deck, listening with her sole remaining ear.

“What has become of you, Snurri?” she asked.

There was a long silence. She moved to the prow and reclaimed her dropped sword.

“Snurri, I would have an answer,” she said. Some of the bulwark was beginning to burn where the arrow had ignited it. Her first inclination was to draw up a bucket and extinguish the spreading flames, but Snurri’s voice made her pause.

More silence, but for a rustling and the crackle of flames.

Grislae returned to the covered stern. Touching Heingistr’s neck, she found no thrum of life there, no stirring of his blood. Grabbing a handful of acrid-smelling touchwood, she stuffed it into her tunic and picked up the jar of oil the women had used for cooking. Her sword held in her off hand, she slowly descended the narrow wooden stairs into the belly of the longship.

It was dark in the Reinen’s hold. Crates of spoils, casks of provender, and barrels of fresh water lined the hull walls. The slaves they had taken were all missing, along with the goats. Firelight from the deck fell in patches through the grating, illuminating a shifting, undulating floor that was all too familiar to Grislae. Snakes. Countless snakes, writhing and churning in a mass, falling into the bilgewater below and slithering up again.

“Snurri,” she said. “What has become of you, Snurri?”

“At firssst, I thought it a cursssse. But now, I realize, a blessssing. I am become…” Snurri’s voice came soft and low. Something moved in the darkness. The longship Reinen pitched slightly, as if a great stone had been rolled from one side of the hold to the other. The stench of fish and the familiar scent of death from the shadowy interior of the ship, along with a wet, scraping sound.

Then it came into the light.

Five times the size of a man, it was naked save for scales, and devoid of all hair and human features, like a once jagged stone left in fast-running water and smoothed by the current. Snurri, or what remained of him, truncated in a great serpent’s body, disappearing behind him, into the dark. Of his torso, the musculature and bones had been wrenched about in some gruesome transformation, so that his arms flared out like a cloak’s hood caught in wind.

The worst was his head. It had grown large, tremendous, and distended in a slick, hairless wedge, creased by a great, gaping maw that smelled of freshly split flesh and old death.

“Grisssslay,” it said. “I am become… wondrousssss.”

The thing slithered forward and raised its head. Its mouth opened wide. Grislae saw the vicious maw was lined with countless teeth and wondered how the thing could vocalize at all. It was a mouth to get lost in, a mouth to fall inside and find yourself shat out into Hel.

“You are about as wondrous as a piece of shite,” she said.

Its great head reared back at her words. “I am the offssspring of Yig! The child of wondrous Yig!”

“You sorry fuck, I do not spare children,” Grislae said, and hurled the jar of oil at the thing. It shattered, sending viscous fluid everywhere.

Snurri lashed forward, his serpentine maw open, his body a single scaled spring. Grislae was ready. Leaping to the side, she drove the point of her sword into the thing’s eye as far as she could. The serpent whipped about, thrashing violently. The wedge of its head smacked into Grislae’s torso, and she was knocked back, hard, onto her arse. She crab-walked backward, scrambling up the stairs to the deck.

The arrows’ flames had grown during her time below. Smoked teared her eyes. She pulled the touchwood from her tunic, set it alight and tossed it down the stairs into the hold. Flames and heat whooshed out of the opening as the spilled oil caught.

The Reinen shifted and pitched as thunderous blows shook the hull of the longship.

“We are the Children of Yig!” the serpent Snurri cried. “We are the sumptuous brood! We are —”

“Good and fucked,” Grislae said, and turning, she dived off the Reinen.

The current was swift, and she found herself borne away from the longship. Despite her weariness, she swam clear to shore, pulling herself out of the water and slumping on her back in exhaustion. She was at the point where the river became bay, and would eventually become sea.

The Reinen was a torch upon the waters. The sail, bundled against the mast, caught fire, and for a moment, in the conflagration, Grislae thought she could see a great serpent’s head worming its way into the world above… Then something exploded, perhaps more touchwood or oil in the hold, and the serpent was gone, replaced only by tongues of flame, licking at the night sky.

She watched it until the light of the Reinen was gone, lost upon the bosom of the sea, and all was dark. A fitting funeral for Heingistr, a Northern lord.

Then, exhausted though she was, Grislae rose and looked inland, into the fog. There were corpses out there in the dark, corpses she had made from the bodies of men. If she hurried, if she could beat the sun, they would still be there, and one of their dead hands, she knew, held a sword.

Her sword.