The Hunter Victorious (13 page)

Carn felt his heart begin to thump within his chest and he felt faint. Yes! It had begun, the march to glory, as he had known
that it would if his faith were only strong enough! He stared at the king expectantly with a tentative smile on his scarred
lips.

“The gods have decreed that I am to wed. They wish an heir to the throne and a sacrifice as well, a worthy sacrifice
to let them know the depth of our gratitude. The wedding will be a celebration such as Valhalla has never known, a feast befitting
the gods, one that they will surely remember. Blood and wine shall mingle and flow down the slopes and we shall sing our praises
of the gods until the mountains ring. The gods will reward us for our piety and dedication by granting us the gift of life.
Immediately following the ceremony and the feasting, those whom the gods have selected as worthy of glory and life everlasting
shall depart this world to dwell in the halls of the gods forever.”

Otir Vaeng sat unmoving in his chair, as he had done throughout his entire amazing commentary. Carn stared at him in stunned
disbelief. There was a certain logic in Otir Vaeng marrying, for the kingdom certainly needed an heir, although he had entertained
some personal notions along those lines himself.

As to the rest of it… well, Carn quickly reflected, he had no aversion to bloodshed as long as it was not his own. As for
the feast, Carn had little interest in food these days, but a good feast would take the people’s minds off the flow of blood
that the king had promised; commoners were always weak-hearted when it came to blood.

But what did he mean about leaving this world and dwelling among the halls of the gods? It was that that troubled Carn the
most. He could feel the weight of the king’s eyes upon him, waiting for his answer, and he knew without looking that Skirnir’s
gaze was fastened on him as well, waiting, hoping that he would make some unforgivable mistake. Carn intended to make no mistakes.

“Interesting,” he said smoothly, “at first hearing. I will be interested in learning the details. When will this take place?”

“Soon.” The king waved his hand wearily, as though bored with such mundane details and seemingly satisfied with
Carn’s response—or rather, the lack of it; he closed his eyes and sighed wearily. “All of it will be worked out in the days
to come.”

“And Braldt? What of Braldt?” The words were forced out almost against Carn’s will. “What role will Braldt play in your plan?”

“Braldt? He will be the sacrifice, offered up for the pleasure of the gods as well as mine, if we ever find him.”

Carn tried to hide the smile that came to his lips. It would not be seemly to take pleasure in the death of one’s own brother.
It took several moments before the rest of Otir Vaeng’s words took hold in his mind. “Gone? Braldt’s gone?”

“That is of little importance; we will soon have him in hand. There are only so many places to hide on Valhalla,” Skirnir
said with a dismissive gesture. His eyes shone with malevolence as he said softly, “A better question would have been who
the king is going to bring to bed and throne. That is the question you should have asked.”

Suddenly Carn’s heart began to flutter and his mouth went dry. Both Skirnir and the king were watching him now, waiting for
him to speak, to ask the question. But even as they waited, in his heart Carn already knew the answer.

The volva reclined lazily on her chaise longue, rejoicing
in the heat of thè flames. She drank deeply from the crystal goblet, savoring the smooth, rich bloom of the crimson wine.
The volva was many things, but first and foremost she was a sensuous woman who reveled in creature comforts.

A throat was cleared impatiently. The volva smiled to herself and languidly turned her head away from the mesmerizing flames
of the open fire pit. It did the king good to wait upon the whims of another; she enjoyed making him wait.

“Impatience does not become you,” she said lazily, settling herself against her pillows and taking measure of the man who
strode back and forth pacing from one wall to the next and then began again. As always, he was tense and consumed with his
own seriousness, drawn so tightly that if he were plucked, he would surely hum. The thought amused her. “It is good that you
are so easily entertained,” the king said bitterly. “I myself find little to laugh at these days.”

The volva did not respond, but merely sipped from her goblet and caressed her inner thigh with long, slender, scarlet-tipped
nails.

Otir Vaeng stared at her, his eyes dark with a seething conflict of emotions. The volva saw in his glanced fury, frustration,
and violence all competing with desire. That was
good; it was as it should be. One could not allow such men to gain the upper hand, feel secure.

“Your plans,” she drawled casually, as though barely interested in the topic, “are they taking shape?”

“If you can bring yourself to pay attention, there are some matters we need to discuss,” Otir Vaeng said sharply. “You do
have a large stake in the outcome, you know.”

The volva said nothing, merely smiled and shrugged as though the subject were of little or no interest.

Rage burned brightly in Otir Vaeng’s eyes and for a moment the volva wondered if she had perhaps gone too far, for he took
a half step forward and it seemed that he was about to strike her. Then apparently he thought better of it, for the light
faded from his eyes and he sank into a chair, resting his forehead against his knuckles.

“I don’t know why I do this,” he said in a low tone, almost as though speaking to himself.

“Of course you do; don’t play childish games. You do it because you enjoy having the power to rule men’s lives. What other
reason is there? Come, now, stop this nonsense. Tell me, what are your plans for the girl? What are you thinking?”

Otir Vaeng was startled from his lethargy. There were few who dared speak to him so frankly, much less women, for whom it
was widely known he had little patience. He was a man who sought no counsel but his own and was unaccustomed to explaining
his actions. His eyes blazed momentarily as he struggled with his anger, but then his eyes met hers and suddenly, inexplicably,
he was gripped by uncertainty. He wavered. His eyes fell.

When he had instituted the return to the old gods, the volva had been but a ploy, a means of swaying the masses with religious
fervor. But the volva needed no convincing arguments to aid his efforts, for she had long believed in the old
gods and practiced the old arts, as had her mother and her mother before her. She had joined him without a murmur, but at
odd moments he had the disconcerting thought that perhaps it was he who had joined her cause.

She was a strange and slightly frightening woman, with few of the graces normally attributed to her gender. He felt fear and
a sense of revulsion whenever she turned her sultry eyes upon him, the threat implied in the palpable heated aura of her sexuality.
Otir Vaeng repressed a faint shudder; he could no more imagine coupling with the woman than lying down with a sleeping tiger.

Despite his fears and suspicions, the king knew that he could not afford to alienate the seeress. His plans had advanced rapidly
and things were beginning to gel. He would need her services to bring them to fruition.

“We have taken her, and the beast. I did not want the creature, but the girl refused to come without it; she might have struggled
and caused herself harm. I want no bloodshed. There will be time for that later.”

“We can sacrifice the beast before the girl; the sight of blood will rouse and roughen their spirits, and when the knife slices
through the girl’s throat and we give her to the gods, they will go mad; you can tell them anything and they will obey you.”

“I had thought that if we gave the creature to the gods, perhaps they would be satisfied and not require the girl.” Otir Vaeng’s
voice had lost its power and he turned aside as he spoke so that he did not have to look at her.

There was a lengthy silence, during which time the volva fell very still. Her eyes bored into the king, who fidgeted and squirmed
like a small child who had done wrong and been called to account. The tension grew till it shivered on the nerves before the
seeress spoke.

Her voice was glossy soft, a silky purr as she regarded the
king with hooded eyes, much as a panther regards its prey. “The gods speak directly to me. They whisper in my ear, telling
me their needs, charging me to fulfill them. The girl will go as a bride to the gods, untouched, pure, a suitable sacrifice;
the blood of a beast will not appease them.”

“I do not see how the gods, amorphous, ethereal creatures if they even exist, can desire anything, much less the life and
flesh of a young girl!”

The seeress smiled at him. “That is your problem, not mine.”

Septua strolled through the crowded marketplace, wending his way through the throngs of sharp-eyed shoppers and those who
came as most did, merely to see and be seen. The marketplace was the heart of Valhalla, a promenade of sorts where literally
all manner of deals were done, everything from the sale of purloined goods to promises of betrothal. If you could not find
what you were looking for in the marketplace, it was not to be found on Valhalla.

It pulsed with an undercurrent of excitement that Septua found as intoxicating as any drug and almost as impossible to be
without. When he was separated from the marketplace, he felt incomplete in a way that had nothing to do with the physical
inequalities he had been dealt by nature. Here, as nowhere else, he was any man’s equal, and in most cases far superior.

Septua stopped at the corner of a display of hardware, a mountain of metallic arms and legs, smooth heads with no eyes, a
veritable burial mound of dead and useless robots, their delicate computerized innerworkings slain by the erratic, unpredictable
emissions of the dying sun. It warmed his heart just looking upon them lying still and silent, never to move again. The robots
had been a bane upon his existence, causing him no end of problems for more years than he could count.
Silent, predatory, never sleeping. Their demise brought him great pleasure.

He grinned broadly at the vendor who began to sing their praises, thinking that he had found a buyer. Septua entertained the
notion of buying one or two, just for laughs, using them to hold mops and brooms and such. But then, he wasn’t much for housekeeping.

Once more he set forth upon his way, breathing in the rich scents of the goods offered for sale: lush, golden pomonas, dripping
with juice, imported at great cost from far-off Galardia; pungent sacks of stick cinnamon, worth their weight in gold, plucked
from the last few precious trees of old earth; glittering arrays of weaponry, swords and daggers and all manner of deadly
honed items forged and fashioned on the hearths of Rototara.

Septua loved daggers and swords and the like. None was happier over the demise of such state-of-the-art weapons as laser pistols,
stunners and beamers than he. He rejoiced over the deadly solar flares that disrupted everything that depended on computer
chips and solid state circuitry to function. He had never been adept at the more sophisticated weaponry, but swords and daggers—ah,
now, that was another matter. Give him a dagger, and his own natural gift of stealth and size was no longer a factor; he could
compete against the largest of men and emerge the victor.

Stealth and speed were Septua’s finest attributes, along with a shrewd and crafty mind that was capable of interpreting seemingly
unrelated facts and discovering cleverly disguised schemes. This was just the sort of puzzle he was working on now. He turned
over what young Brion had told him, the bare facts: the sun was dying, Otir Vaeng was assembling a core group of those who
would be chosen to populate the new world, and Septua would not be among those chosen.

The dwarf shrugged his broad shoulders, a grimace on his
expressive face. He had not been among those chosen the last time they had immigrated to a new world; he would have been astonished
had it been otherwise this time. All those who remained on Valhalla would die. Well, where there was a will, there was a way.
When Valhalla’s sun finally winked out, he would not be among those left to freeze in the darkness.

He mulled over the tasks that young Brion had set before him, simple enough on the surface, little challenge for one as clever
as he. But there had to be more to it; it just took some figuring to find out what was the true, hidden agenda.

Brion had said that Septua would be well paid for his services. He just didn’t know how right he was. Septua hefted the heavy
pouch of coins that he had liberated from the young warrior’s possession, calculating how many of the kroner he would have
to spend to find out what he needed to know. Whatever it was, the cost meant nothing in the long run, for if he did not succeed
and there was no world, what need would there be for money?

The snow had fallen without cease for two days and nights, burying what few indications of trespass there had been beneath
a thick blanket of snow. It draped over the burial urns and packed solidly upon the roof of the fugitives’ lair. They were
surrounded by snow on all sides and Braldt found it unnerving, for there was no definition of any sort and it almost felt
as though he were adrift in a sea of smoke.