lives.” The queen called for a drink and the tall girl with the long brown hair at her side poured her goblet of dark wine. “My apprentice, Thora,” the queen said as she took the cup and drank. The tall girl nodded to them curtly. She had sad, serious eyes that took no particular interest in the newcomers.
Skadi handed back the empty cup and said, “It was eight years ago when the skyship fell on Hengavik.”
“A ship?” Freya stared at her. “That thing was a ship, and it was built by people who sail the skies? We never heard anything about this in Logarven.”
The queen frowned. “Yes, I know. It was my order that no one speak of the ship outside of Hengavik. I didn’t want to create a panic with rumors of frost giants and dead gods falling from the heavens. I also didn’t want to risk scavengers and treasure hunters coming to loot the ship or to kidnap the two survivors. But I also knew that the Jarl of Hengavik didn’t have the wits or the strength to protect the ship for long, so I came here to Rekavik, to King Ivar, with a proposition. His vala was old, maybe even older than Gudrun, and a fool to boot. So I became his personal advisor and he brought the skyship survivors and many pieces of the ship itself here to Rekavik where he and I could study them. “
“What sort of people were they? The survivors, I mean,” Freya said. “Were they from Alba?”
Skadi shook her head dismissively. “No, they were from a land called Marrakesh, so far to the south in a place so hot that it never snows, even in winter. They had brown skin and black hair, and wore strange clothes, and spoke many strange languages, but the man spoke Yslander well enough. So when they recovered from their injuries, we began to learn from them. About their homeland and about their ship. At first, King Ivar wanted to build a skyship of his own, to sail to the far south and see this Marrakesh for himself. He dreamed of a fleet of Yslander ships sailing the skies so that we might explore and trade and make war as we did in the old days. But we didn’t have the tools or materials to build even one skyship. The southern woman explained how her country was full of great mines, and giant smithies called factories, and giant laboring beasts, and devices that not even I could imagine. All of these things are needed to build a skyship, and we have none of them.”
Freya nodded, hoping the queen would hurry along to the heart of her story so the huntress could escape the heat of the braziers. “I see. But, the plague?”
“Patience. I’m coming to that. Eventually, I suggested a different use for these foreigners and their machines. The engine that drove them across the sky is a machine that spins, like a mill, so I reasoned that we could use the engine as a drill to tunnel down into the earth.”
Gods! Gudrun was right. Skadi did want to dig up the ancient demons!
Freya asked innocently, “To find iron and silver?”
“Oh no, I had far greater ambitious than mere ore,” Skadi said. “We would drill into the base of Mount Esja to release the molten rock into the bay and the southern fields. The heat would drive back more of the ice, and the new land would give us more homes beside the water, and the fertile soil would strengthen our crops. With one stroke, we would make Rekavik into a thriving paradise, the greatest city in the world. I even secretly dreamed we might one day grow trees again here in Ysland. The king agreed to the plan, and the foreigners agreed to help us. So for two years, our smiths worked to create the pieces of the new engine, Ivar’s Drill. When it was built on the slopes of Mount Esja, it stood taller than Gudrun’s tower. And in the months that followed we drilled deeper and deeper into the mountain.”
“The den of the wolf,” Wren whispered. “When the Allfather defeated Fenrir, the beast was sealed in a prison that had no door, deep in the earth. But no one knows where the den of the wolf is.”
“Yes, well, we know where it is now.” Skadi ran one white hand down the fur trim of her robe from her neck to her chest. “After months of drilling, the foreman sent word that he had found rock walls so hot they glowed red. We thought the drill was about to tap the river of molten rock so Ivar and I went to oversee the work that day. We had grown quite close over those years, and we married just before the drilling began.”
“And then?” Freya prompted her.
“And then, we sat on the slopes of Mount Esja and listened to the drilling, waiting to hear that the magma had been found, waiting to see that river of golden fire pour out of the mountain and down into the bay,” Skadi said. “It was late in the afternoon when the drilling stopped. The machine itself stood on the slope where we were, with only its grinding arm reaching down into the darkness. Ivar and I stood beside the pit, beside the machine, and we listened. We waited to hear the foreman tell us he had found the magma. Instead, all we heard were screams.”
She broke off, her eyes straying to the girl at her side, and then out across the faces watching her. “Ivar told me to get back as he drew his sword. The screams grew louder. The workmen all stood at the edge of the pit with tools and ropes. Some wanted to go down to help their friends, and others wanted to run, but they stayed at the king’s side. They stayed, right up to the end. The beast came up from the tunnel, and, well, you’ve seen them. Fenrir is a reaver, like the others, only worse. He’s larger, and darker, and faster. He’s…”
Skadi swallowed and gripped the arms of her chair tightly. “Ivar ordered Leif to take me back to the city, and we fled. Over my shoulder I saw the demon tearing the men to pieces, scattering their limbs on the mountainside and spraying their blood into the air. I saw Ivar fall, and I saw the beast lift his broken body to feed on it.” She pressed her lips tightly together and stared down into one of the braziers.
“When we returned to the city, I called out the house carls to kill the beast,” Leif said. “We searched the mountain for hours, but found no trace of Fenrir, and no survivors either.”
“Yes, and a great pity that you didn’t stay to fight the beast when you had the chance,” Halfdan said. “Or Ysland would have surely been rid of its vermin that day.”
The black-haired youth and the bearded man exchanged vicious glares, but neither one moved or spoke.
The queen cleared her throat. “In the months that followed, we began to hear the stories of a creature attacking the farms in the north and the fishing villages along the coast. And soon it became clear that there was more than one reaver running loose. The plague had begun to spread. Almost every day we would hear of another village completely destroyed by the demons. So we built up our walls and sharpened our spears, and now we live at war with Fenrir and his beasts. Halfdan keeps our walls safe, and young Leif leads one of our war parties to patrol the hills. The reavers give us a wide berth now, and we have few attacks near the city. They seem to prefer easier kills.”
The queen fell silent for a moment, and then looked up abruptly at Wren. “You have Gudrun’s ring? The rinegold of Denveller?”
Freya stepped back so that Wren could stand before the queen between the braziers. The girl said, “Yes, I do. I’ve been learning to speak to Gudrun and the other dead valas of Denveller. It’s a very strange thing, seeing their faces and hearing their voices all the time, but I suppose I’ll get used to it eventually.” The girl paused to glance down at the ring on her finger, and then she looked up through her tangled, dirty hair. “Do you want the ring, my lady? Would it help you cure the plague?”
Skadi smiled as she gazed down at the slender girl, and for a moment Freya thought she might say yes, that she might take the ring. And she felt the sting of knowing that there was no such ring for the valas of Logarven, as there wasn’t for most of the small villages of Ysland. The rinegold was rare and precious, and greedily sought by both valas and thieves.
But instead the queen sighed and shook her head. “No, that ring is for you, for Denveller. I’m already wearing the ring of Hengavik, given to me by my second mistress, Sigrid. I don’t think I could manage two of them. But…” Her eyes widened. “…but there is another ring that might help us. The ring of Rekavik is very old, perhaps older than all the others in Ysland. And now we know that the den of Fenrir was just to east of Rekavik under Mount Esja.”
Wren stepped forward eagerly. “Then perhaps the vala of Rekavik, an ancient one, perhaps the first one, maybe she knew about the den! Maybe she was here when the Allfather sealed Fenrir under the mountain!”
Skadi nodded slowly. “Maybe.”
“Where is the ring?” Wren asked. She looked from the vala queen to her apprentice and back again.
“When the last vala of Rekavik died, her apprentice was too young to wear the ring.” Skadi gestured to the girl Thora beside her. “So the king took the ring for himself. I didn’t think it wise or proper, but it was his right. I thought that when Thora was older she would take the ring, but he never offered to return it. And Ivar died before I could ask the question of him again.”
Freya shivered despite the heat. “So the ring of Rekavik is lost?”
The queen shook her head. “I thought as much myself, until last autumn. We hadn’t seen or heard of Fenrir in many months, but one day a group of farmers came into the city, describing a giant reaver that attacked their
