Stormbringer (11 page)

No one asks for a second telling.

We ride all day, eventually making camp just before the light gets dangerous for the horses. I ache, everywhere. And itch. And I'm starving. And in the end I practically fall off Gluestick's back. Magni laughs at my discomfort, calls me soft, and chains me to a tree. Then he and Móði vanish into the woods to hunt for game, leaving their sister with instructions to scream if I get any ideas.

I have ideas. They aren't the sort to make Þrúðr scream.

Instead, she busies herself building a fire and using a little kettle to collect water from a nearby stream. I sit next to my tree and try to look nonthreatening.

When Þrúðr begins struggling with the fire steel, I say, “Here, allow me.” Then I snap my fingers, and the pile of kindling sparks and blazes. Þrúðr lunges backward, blinking first at the fire, then at me, eyes huge and mouth a round circle of uncertainty.

“Your brother's runes aren't as good as he thinks they are,” I say, settling myself back against the tree trunk. “But…shhh. Don't discourage him.” Then I wink.

This is, in fact, a lie. Móði's runes were fine, but the manacles have started rubbing my wrists raw, potentially exacerbated by yours truly pushing a few rocks and sticks beneath the iron. Raw wrists mean blood, which eats through magic and metal alike. Not all the way, but enough to spark.

Þrúðr scowls at me from across the fire. “I know what you're doing,” she says. “ ‘Good cop, bad cop,' wasn't it?” She mangles the English, but it's comprehensible.

I laugh. “Sort of. Related, anyway.”

“Mother warned me of you.” Þrúðr uses a sword to stoke the fire, and I don't miss the threat. “All the women warned me of you.”

I try a grin, the sort I use on Sigmund sometimes. Less maniac sharp, more rakish smooth. “Oh, c'mon. I'm not
that
bad. Besides, I'm married.” And, okay. It's not the most convincing excuse, and even less so in the tenth century, but…

But I don't expect Þrúðr to tense up like she does, don't expect the pure wave of frozen
loathing
she extrudes.

“Yes,” she says. “And we all saw what ills—what injuries—you inflicted on your wife, no matter how she tried to hide them.”

My brows hike. “Whoa,” I say. “Whoa whoa whoa.
What?
” Because fuck knows I wasn't the greatest husband in the Realms, but Þrúðr isn't accusing me of bad life choices and jerkish behavior. When she says “injury,” she means of the physical sort.

Þrúðr sits, straight-backed and stern, fire leaping and cracking between us. “We knew your shame,
níðingr,
” she says. “We all knew it. Often did we try and spare Sigyn of it, yet never would she listen, so cruel were your abuses that—”

“Þegi þú!”
The chains pull taught because, suddenly, I've lunged to the end of them. Metal biting into my flesh and hearts racing, black poison bubbling up and spilling over before I can stop it. “Still your tongue, you half-caste fledgling! Do not speak of what you do not understand!”

That's not my anger, not exactly. That's Loki's, and it is vile and it is
writhing.
Þrúðr's hit a nerve.

She knows it, too, nose high and holding the sword out before her, blade cutting through spluttering flames. We can't reach her from here, but we can nudge the fire, just a little, just enough to—

(whoa, calm the fuck down! what's gotten into)

“Do not think to lie in this,
jötunn,
” Þrúðr snaps. “We all saw evidence of your depravity, even as Sigyn tried to hide it.”

“I loved Sigga! I still love her, and every day I ache that we cannot truly be together.” Oh, ouch. But Sigmund's my boy, not Loki's wife, and he holds her soul, but it's buried. Not like skin on skin and—

(caressing pale flesh, her giggling laughter washing spite and hate from my hearts even as my tongue and lips caress the soft hollow of her throat, lingering as her fingers wind into my hair, holding me still with strength far in excess of her small frame as she commands me
bite
)

Oh.

Oo-oo-oh. Right. That.

Loki is saying, “—me of any ill and I care not for your ‘dishonor.' But for all my shame I never,
never
raised a hand against my love, my heart, and I would tear the same out from any who would accuse it!” We growl, trying to lunge forward again, metal biting into skin and drawing blood, and if he keeps this up—if we can't calm down—then we might just bleed enough to break the iron.

(not yet not yet not yet breathe, man, breathe it won't)

“I saw the marks!” Þrúðr says. The point of her sword is shaking, and if she screams, if she alerts her brothers…“We all did! Bites and burns that would appear upon her neck and arms after you had called upon her. If these were not your doing, then whose? And why would you allow it?”

Þrúðr's eyes are wide and damp, full of uncomprehending pain. Time moves differently in Ásgarðr, age even more so, and I try to remind myself—remind my black and roiling heart—that Þrúðr is a girl. By modern standards, she'd barely be old enough to drink.

I pull myself back. Physically, one hand across my own chest, and inertia might not work that way, but narrative does, meaning I end up back on my tail with a thud.

“Jesus,” I say, hands running down my face, making the words come out in English. My words. “Is that…is that what the
ásynjur
thought? That L— That I used to…to beat Sigyn?” It explains a few things. More than a few, I guess.

“Didn't you?” Þrúðr says, but the challenge in her voice is softer than it was. “The bites—”

“Were mine,” I say. “Jesus, I won't—” I look up, meeting Þrúðr's gaze. “The bites and the burns, yes. They were me. But it wasn't…I loved Sigyn. And those things…” How do you explain kinky sex to a Viking teenager? “Sigyn would ask me to do them to her.”

The point of Þrúðr's sword lowers, just a fraction, her expression flat with disbelief. “ ‘Asked'?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Why would anyone…”

“She liked it. Um. When I bit her. It made her—” Jesus, am I blushing? I think I'm fucking blushing. I hope my skin is dark enough that Þrúðr can't tell. “She liked it,” I repeat. My own sexual deviances are one thing, but these are the secrets of a dead woman.

Þrúðr blinks. “She liked it…when you
bit
her? Left marks and drew blood?”

I nod. “Some people do,” I say. “It's not…It's just a thing. There's nothing wrong with it.”

“Oh.” Something in my awkward, stuttering reluctance must be convincing, because Þrúðr looks away, sword lowered and shoulders hunched. She's blushing, not meeting my eyes, and trying not to think about all the things she doesn't know about being an adult woman.

Somewhere up above, leaves rustle as unseen figures dart among the branches.

Said leaves are still rustling sometime later, when Magni and Móði return. Þrúðr has spent that last little while in awkward, mind-churning silence, thinking awkward teenage thoughts. When her brothers return, it's a chance to trade that for anger instead.

“All that time,” she snaps, “and nothing to show for it?”

Magni and Móði have come back empty-handed, not a deer or hare or bird in sight, and they bluster with excuses about the forest being “barren” and “cursed.” When I scoff, three heads turn my way.

“Something to say,
jötunn
?”

I loll my head and grin at Magni. “The forest's neither cursed nor barren,” I say. “You've just been punk'd.”

“What?”

“Pranked,” I elaborate. “Tricked, fooled, played for suckers, fall—”

“Enough. Who has done this? If I find you have had hand in it…” He lets the threat hang. I shrug and pretend the thought of…that doesn't set my feathers on end.

“Blah blah blah, you're a big man, I get it. But I'm not sure they”—I point upward, into the trees—“do.”

The reaction is perfect, the Brat Pack instantly on alert, peering up into the branches. The now suspiciously silent branches.

“What trickery is this? Show yourselves, cowards!” Magni demands of the trees.

“Forget it,” I say. “They're local kids, having a laugh by chasing off your game.”

Móði scowls at me, tasting of suspicion and confusion. “There are no children in the Myrkviðr. No one lives in this place.”

“The
þursar
do,” I point out. Funny, isn't it? Who gets included as a someone and who doesn't.

Þrúðr looks back up into the trees, then smirks at her brothers. “You were outwitted by
jötunn
children?”

Magni growls at her, then back at the trees, raising his hammer as he shouts, “Monstrous whelps! I should smash you where you stand!”

“Yeah, well,” I say. “I guess if you really wanna find out just how monstrous the
þursar
can be, murdering their children certainly would be a fantastic start.”

“Quiet,
jötunn.
You go hungry with the rest of us.”

I shrug, closing my eyes and leaning back against my tree. Honestly, I'm ravenous, and another night on an empty stomach is as irritating for me as it is for Magni. But I'm not going to let him know that.

Instead, I listen as Þrúðr scolds him again and tells him to sit down and stay out of the way while she finds them food from her saddlebags. Stale bread and hard cheese, an apple and a few strips of jerky. They're hardly going to starve, the big babies.

I try not to think about it and, in fact, am still trying not to think about it sometime later when I hear footsteps head my way. Þrúðr, who bends down beside me and offers the last of the bread.

“In exchange for what?” I ask. Þrúðr's expression afterward makes me wish I hadn't. Shit.

But she doesn't pull away, and eventually I take the food. It's floury and awful, and just enough to remind me how long ago my last decent meal really was. To think that, just the other day, I was eating an eight-course degustation at one of the finest restaurants in Miðgarðr.

“The children,” Þrúðr says, watching me eat. “Are they a danger?”

I shrug. “They're just kids. Their parents? Maybe. But if we stick to the road and don't look like we plan on staying long, they'll leave us alone.” I hope.

“Móði thinks they may attack us in the night.”

“I'm sure Móði thinks a lot of things.” Few of which have much worth, if his track record is any indication.

A little crease appears between Þrúðr's delicate, (literally) golden brows and she says, “Can't you…speak with them? Tell them we mean them no harm? Parley for food, perhaps?”

I laugh, short and sharp and humorless. Honestly, it's not the worst idea anyone's ever had except: “One, I'm not convinced you
do
‘mean them no harm,' and two, you don't know very much about the
jötnar,
do you?”

Þrúðr flushes and looks away. “They are our enemies, and have been since the days of Búri and Ymir. What more is there to know?” Her hands are curled into fists against the wool of her skirt.

“Just because we all have horns and feathers doesn't mean we're all the same,” I say. “The
jötnar
in this forest are
þursar.
I'm not, and they'd be able to tell just by looking at me.” Honestly, it's probably one of the reasons the kids are following us. To the
jötnar
outside of Jötunheimr, my people are boogeymen and fairy tales.

“Meaning,” I continue, “that the locals are no more likely to listen to me than they are to you. Probably less.” The
æsir
are at least neighbors, of a sort. Meanwhile, I ran away from my people as a teenager, hooked up with the murderer of my great-great-great-whatever-grandfather, and spent a lifetime aiding and abetting the casual slaughter of my own species. Historic blood feuds are one thing, all that's quite another.

“So you will not help us?” It occurs to me, as Þrúðr says this, that she might be over here trying to prove a point. To her idiot brothers.

I sigh, roll my neck and shoulders, then let out a sound that's somewhere between the crack of a whip, the click of a camera shutter, and the cry of an eagle. It's been a long time since I've done that. Well, technically
I've
never done it, and even Loki's memories are hazy and faded, painted over by a lifetime of
æsir
dress-ups.

The noise startles Þrúðr and, from the sound and feel of our observers up above, it startles them, too. I don't think I get the call quite right—by now I'd have an accent, if nothing else—but I hope they catch my meaning.

“What was—?” Þrúðr starts.

“Territory call,” I say, straining my Wyrdsight as far up and out as it will go. The range is minuscule, compared to what I'm used to back home. “Now everyone in earshot knows we're just passing through.”

A moment later, I hear it: an answering cry, coming from the trees. Not from our observers, but farther away. The voice is an adult's.

“Aa-aa-and there's the answer,” I say.

“Which was?”

“ ‘Get the fuck out of our forest,' more or less.” I omit the part wherein I was called a featherless traitor. “Sorry, kid. I tried.”

Þrúðr nods, one hand reaching out as if to touch. “Thank you,” she says. “For trying.”

She's just so
earnest,
so naïve and so sincere, and if there's one thing that kills me every time, it's that. So I sigh and say, “Look. For what it's worth, I don't sleep like you lot do. So I'll keep an eye out until dawn.”

“Thank you, it's—I would appreciate it if you did.” She gives something of a conspiratorial grin and whispers, “My brothers mean well, but I think they fall asleep during their watches.”