If his plan worked, he wouldn’t need the approval of anyone in Svartiskóli to do his work. He would be his own master. Breaking into Svartiskóli’s library had become something of a mind exercise for him in these last months. It was a cathartic exercise which soothed his nerves. Proof that despite his having burned every bridge, there was still a way forward; that he could not be stopped. Still he had never thought he would actually be desperate enough to do it.
The náskárar convened at a vacant lot in Skeifan, the cleared site of a building that had burned down a few years earlier. Currently it was used as a store yard for stacks of pallets, rusted iron rods, mounds of fishing nets and colourful buoys. There were plans to build something new there, but they had all been halted when a bureaucratic cog had broken somewhere in City Hall. Now it was common enough knowledge that the náskárar roosted there, although they wouldn’t deem just anyone worthy of engaging in conversation with.
A pair of dark silhouettes took off from a rooftop far to Garún and Sæmundur’s left just as they entered the storeyard. Scouts. Sæmundur glanced above them. No dark shapes in the overcast sky. But náskárar had incredible eyesight and could be watching them from a good few kilometres away. He kept wiping his sweaty hands on his coat. He and Rotsvelgur went way back – but there was a limit to his patience.
The náskárar landed like falling meteorites, hitting the ground with four resounding, heavy thuds as they dropped from the sky like dead weight, their enormous wingspan slowing their descent just enough to keep them from injuring themselves. Sæmundur jumped, although he had been expecting this, but Garún just grew more alert, her posture shifting to that of a cat about to pounce or flee. He almost told her to relax, they were fine, but then thought better of it. They were probably far from fine.
The náskárar surrounded them, perched on freight containers, their rough, iron talons digging into the rusted steel as if it was soft earth. Each náskári had three legs, with a heavy set of talons on each foot. The leg in the middle was commonly called krummafótur – raven’s foot. Something parents said to their child when they put their shoe on the wrong foot. Should one of the náskári choose to pick Sæmundur up in their claws and carry him aloft there would be little he could do about it.
Right in front of them was Rotsvelgur – the hersir of Those-who-pluck-the-eyes-of-the-ram. He was large for a náskári, towering over them despite his hunched back. Menacing and cold eyes sat behind a long beak that curved a little further down than was usual. Sharp iron like hardened lava covered it – a weapon made for tearing and disembowelling. He was armoured in helskurn, a roughly cast half-plate armour that covered his torso. The story went that it was made from the armour of soldiers Rotsvelgur had killed, fused with the arcane seiður of the náskárar. His hertygi, the harness going over his shoulders and around the armour, was decorated with trophies and status symbols Sæmundur could not identify. Many seemed to be from kills of monstrosities found in the sorcerous highlands, but among them were skulls and scalps from humans and huldufólk, claws of náskárar and fins from marbendlar. The other náskárar were similarly ironed on their talons and beaks, their hertygi decorated with varied trophies. Each of them had a large horned skull of a ram dangling from their harness, splotched red with dried blood. Blóðgögl, as he suspected. Soldiers. This wasn’t a polite meeting, as he had hoped.
Rotsvelgur leaped down and shambled towards them with his uneven three-legged gait. Garún and Sæmundur both reflexively took a few steps back. He was a predator, a lumbering creature of malice and iron, his breath reeking of old blood and marrow. His black feathers ruffled in the wind. It looked as if it was going to rain.
“Sæmundrr,” the náskári growled in rough, archaic Hrímlandic. “Err þérr arriv’d to pay the skuld?’
“Hail and well met, Rotsvelgur. I received the … er … memo, that was included with my last purchase. So I have come to negotiate with you.”
“Negotiate, þérr say’t,” spat Rotsvelgur, and he leaned in closer. It took everything Sæmundur had not to step back. He could not afford to show weakness now. “Talking err-at paying.”
“I can’t pay now. But I promise you, I just need one last thing, and then I’ll pay you back. Double.”
The náskári leaned back, stretching out his back. Contemplating. Calculating. He stood on his third leg only, using his other two talons to contemplatively shuffle his claws. At his full height the corvine being stood at almost three metres.
“Who err that gestr þérr brought?’
Rotsvelgur glared suddenly at Garún, his pitch-black eye narrowing.
“This … uh … is—”
Garún interrupted Sæmundur before he managed to make a mess of introducing her to the leader of the most powerful tribe of náskárar in Reykjavík.
“My name is Garún. I’m a friend of Sæmundur’s. I’ve come to talk to you about an alliance.”
Rotsvelgur tilted his head sideways, staring her down inquisitively. So much like a raven, but still so different. This close, the dark stains of blood were visible in the coarse iron that had been fused with his beak. It reminded Garún of the wild lava fields by Huldufjörður.
“Þérr err betwixt worlds,” the náskári said after a while.
Garún’s heart sank – was there no goddamn being on this fucking island that couldn’t give her a break for who she was? She kept silent, waiting for Rotsvelgur to make the next move.
“Err-at bad,” he said finally, nodding slightly.
It seemed like a learned gesture – a human gesture. Garún looked towards Sæmundur, who nodded at her encouragingly. It seemed like the at ending was a negative.
“Such err the way of skrumnir, as well. Powerful seiðr.”
She made a mental note
