Runes and Red Sails (Queenmaker Book 1)(65)
“Some say the Gods spoke to him in a dream, others that he took council from the singing of the wind in the trees and the birds in the sky; none know for certain what passed there. On the ninth night, he returned, and said this to the waiting men, ‘I have little love for Breki, but it is a wrong and evil deed for a man to slay his own brother. I will go to Breki and speak with him, and send him from these parts. If he will not hear my words, only then will I raise a hand against him.’ All thought this fair and praised his wisdom.”
“And so Sigurd sought out his brother, and they talked for long hours. Sigurd told Breki all that had happened, and all that he had done for these people, but Breki would not be moved. Sigurd offered to Breki all of the treasure he had won in the outlands as a ransom, but Breki would have none of it. Breki called his brother a coward, and told Sigurd that he had grown soft living amongst farmers and doing their bidding. There was only one way to settle the matter, said Breki.”
“Brother and brother stepped into the circle of the holmgang, and such a fight had hardly been witnessed between men. They broke their shields and their weapons against one another, grappling with hands in a contest of brute strength. The blood rage and battle lust consumed them both, and they howled and bit one another like wild beasts. Unable to overcome his brother, Breki changed his shape; now a bear, now a wolf, now a serpent. Whatever form he took, Sigurd would best him—he pinned the roaring bear to the ground, clamped the wolf’s snapping jaws shut with his fists, and tied the thrashing serpent in knots around itself. Once more in the form of a man, Breki traded blow after blow with his brother, but could not overcome him. As his strength failed him for the first time, Breki bowed before his foe.”
“Such was his rage that Sigurd could not stop himself, and raised his brother high in the air, throwing down his body and crushing it against the bones of the world. As the frenzy left him, Sigurd wept bitter tears over the broken corpse of Breki. When the other men came to reward him with rich gifts of silver and gold and praise for his valor, he would accept nothing, such was his grief. ‘By this deed I am cursed,’ he wept, ‘Kinslayer, I name myself. I will have none of your gold nor do I want your kind words. Burn my brother’s body and cast the ashes to the wind, raise no mound or stone for him, so that this evil may be forgotten.’ With those words he rose and went into the forest, and was not seen or heard of for many a year.”
All eyes were riveted on Onund as he finished the tale. As his voiced trailed off, they followed Sigurd along forest paths in their minds’ eye.
Aelfhild wiped a tear from her eye; the story had struck a little too close. “Do the stories of berserkers ever end well?”
But she knew the answer before she asked.
Onund chuckled. “No Thrym story ends happily, lass.”
35
We need more water by the mast, before it burns through!”
Aelfhild dragged her bucket through the waves once more, and splashed the smoking sail.
Ash from the Eldfjoll swirled around her in billowing clouds, collecting in drifts and mixing with the saltwater to form jet black sludge. Where cinders gathered in unquenched piles, they sparked and sputtered against the wood of the hull and cargo.
She refilled the bucket as, beside her, Ceolwen emptied a pail of ashen slush over the side. They were all of them ghosts beneath cloth masks, two watering eyes poking from a blank face and body coated in pale dust. The ash stuck to every surface, rendering their entire world in grey hues. Unn-marr cut an inky line through the sea as she sailed, though it was soon plastered over again.
Embla whined from beneath a wadded blanket. The air was thick with brimstone’s reek and the ashfall tore at the nose and throat, so Eyvind had swathed her in wool for their journey through the shadow of the mountains.
Aelfhild shook ash from the rigging, and her eyes followed the line of the mast skywards. High above, lightning arced in stark blue lines through the churning clouds.
The Eldfjoll themselves were spectacular. Three peaks vomited columns of smoke and soot forth into the heavens. At the root of each one glowed an immense crater, shimmering malevolent red with heat. It was the only hint of color on the dead landscape. Steam burst from the shoreline as molten rock poured from fissures along the mountainside and cascaded into the sea.
There was a distant boom, and flecks of liquid fire sprayed from the nearest caldera.
“Ivar is stoking his forge-fires today!” shouted Onund.
And for a moment, gazing at the burning earth, Aelfhild could imagine the Smith sending sparks from his great anvil in the world’s heart.
“More water here!”
The cry broke her from the daydream, and she swept back into motion.
Eyvind kept the ship a safe distance from the coast; the Thrym said that the gasses from the mountain would scald the lungs of those foolish enough to draw too close. Rafts of pumice drifted atop the waves, scraping and scratching at Unn-marr’s hull. The porous stones were no threat to the sturdy oaken boards, but the way the rest of the crew kept an eye cocked skyward hinted these were not the only weapons in the volcanoes’ arsenal.
An ember sputtered in the sailcloth before Aelfhild could quench it and left a thumb-sized hole behind. The red wool was splotched brown with ash and charred in a dozen places now.
“Let us hope the Smith does not stoke his fires any more today,” she said to Ceolwen, who was pouring another load of mud over the side.