The horn blew again. Erik stood, pensive, watching the hall for anything that might leave. Instead, cheers came from the square and wide doors along the length of the hall opened. Thousands of men and women began to file out into the field. The procession was slow and seemed to be endless, the first out finally coming to a stop only a few dozen yards from the tree line where Erik watched. He could see them well enough. They were dead-eyed and listless, shuffling in place. They had spread fairly evenly across the entire field and all of them watched the hall with a sort of cold detachment.
Ljunge leaned to Erik. “The battle.”
Erik nodded. “Should we join? We should, right? Maybe we can get to Göll.”
Tove nodded. “You are einherjar. It is your place to join them.”
“Sure, and maybe…” His eyes rolled across the slack-shouldered fighters. “Maybe it will help you two get in. To prove you deserve it.”
Tove nodded, though not enthusiastically. He knew she had seen the look on those in the field. It bore none of the glory Erik had been sold. One more thing that was not what he believed. One more thing he could have been told.
Expressions of horror grew on the faces of the einherjar in the field. Some even pleading with their eyes. The horn came again, and he could see the will inside some of them break as they pulled their swords and axes.
Erik watched a moment as the battles began. They were fierce, desperate. Each fighter finding another and screaming as though there was nothing they could hope for but to survive the day. A woman plunged an axe into a lethargic man’s leg. He fell, screaming.
“No! No, not again!” He wept as he bled out into the grass.
Ljunge stood, watching with a knit brow. “This is… What glory is there in this?”
Erik gritted his teeth, sucking in a breath. “What can we do?”
They had to fight, he knew that. Göll was taken. There would be no answers or meaning if they fled. He charged out onto the field, finding it hard to look behind and see if Tove and Ljunge had followed.
He met the axe-wielding woman and she gave a shout, swinging. She was slow. The einherjar all were, glacially so. He could not afford to be kind. He punched the woman’s face and her skull caved under his hand, skin splitting and she wrenched away under the force of the hit. Her body dragged and then rolled across the ground. Erik looked to his side and saw that Tove and Ljunge had joined him. They faced as little resistance as he did, putting blades through their first opponents as though the men were made of hay with bones of sticks.
Another charged him and Erik reeled back, again putting his fist through bones as if they weren’t there. It was the second attacker that drew attention to him. Others stood away, not wanting to engage him, one fleeing to another side of the field. He marched forward, Tove and Ljunge off to his left, tearing through all those who came at him.
He had neared the tree in the center of the field when a large man showed himself, bearing a pair of axes and covered in blood. He did not look nearly so lost as the others had, and pointed the end of his axe at Erik without a word. An open-mouthed smile showed that the man had no tongue. Others circled them to watch the fight. The man charged but to Erik he may as well have been walking. A pang of guilt rolled through him, until he thought of Göll’s screams and the world came crashing back to him. The warrior swung his first axe and it came down wide of Erik’s arm. Erik reached a hand out, swatting the man with the back of it. He disappeared in an instant from Erik’s view, his limp body clipping three or four others as it went. The gathered men fled, getting as far away as they could manage, some running themselves into the path of Ljunge and Tove and finding blades put through them in spite of any effort to remain alive.
As he neared Valhalla, Erik saw that the valkyries were gathered along a balcony that ran along the space above the doors. They stood, watching the battle with little interest. Even as they worked their way across the field, felling any that came near them, the warband drew no particular concern from the valkyries. The field had nearly been cleared of fighters when Erik realized he could neither see nor hear the crowd and hadn’t since he entered the field. It only seemed to stretch on toward nothing in either direction. Even the forest had disappeared.
His warband came together with only a dozen men left on the field. Ljunge’s shirt had been torn by cuts. Erik could see his body was covered in scars below the neck. Ljunge looked down as he came close, realizing what Erik was looking at.
He laughed. “Scars are a man’s pride. But never on the face.”
The remaining dozen closed on them, forming a loose group. Erik sighed. “I thought it was supposed to be one on one combat.”
Tove’s breath was heavy from the work of moving across the field. “They seem not to have heard that.”
The men broke into groups of four, each squaring in front of one of Erik’s band. Tove and Ljunge moved away, immediately putting distance between themselves and the groups. The men gave chase while Erik stood his ground facing down the ones who’d chosen him. Three enormous men and a woman sized to match. They moved out, circling around him.
They charged at once, Erik putting swift blows to the first two, ending them instantly. He spun, striking the woman beside the head. It was the fourth who caught him. He felt the familiar metallic press of steel against his side. Erik braced
