The Wolf Hammer, page 2
part #1 of Odin's Bastard Series
I had been fighting for him. I had been more than competent at that, I knew.
Yes, I had fought, recently.
All the lessons with spear and sword, I had put to good use.
I had been a warrior. With a sword, I was terrific. Men had told me that, in a field of battle. I grasped for a sword with my other hand, but my belt had no scabbard. No other weapon on the belt either.
I knew sword, spear, hammer.
Hammer.
There had been a hammer. Not mine, but…Father’s?
He had carried it to war, and yes, I, too, had fought.
I had coveted that hammer, the family heirloom, Odin’s Wolf Hammer.
Where was it now?
I lay there and calmed myself.
The war had been recent.
Was that where I had been hurt? I had been a lord of spears, ring-giver to my men, and I suddenly recollected ranks of marching men of Hati’s Valley, and other men, from other eastern jarls. I had commanded a thousand men, a legion of men on the…the…right flank?
Yes, I had commanded my father’s right flank.
In war.
“But where?” I said, and it was only a rasp.
Against…the west? Surely not. The Sons of Odin in war with each other?
That was not possible. Odin would stop it.
And still, it had happened. I was sure of it.
There had been a devastating war.
A terrible war.
I saw a flash of my father, leading men through hills, looking back at me, his face haggard like wolf’s, thousands of men tromping over a burning land. He looked afraid, and disappointed, in doubt, bitter.
And I had feared him. Or, of something I had not done?
Yes. I had not done something, and it had plagued me.
What was he like?
More fleeting memories of him invaded my thoughts.
His long, bony face had always been brooding, the armor of dull gray steel ever clinking as he had walked the halls of Hard Keep. Occasionally, he had crashed down on the Throne of the East while dictating letters to his scribes. I remembered his gauntlets, heavy with metal strips, and the helmet of silver. He was almost always armored. It was so with the Hardhands. It made a man robust, resilient, to wear such armor. We all wore chain over leather, every day, and it started early.
All had a brass bracer on our right wrists, put there by my mother.
On it was carved the Eye, of Odin, inside a flame.
To remove it would mean you no longer served the god, and you would be an outcast. Mother had given me mine, early. She had adjusted it as I grew, but I could not remember a time without it.
Father had no crown. His braids were his crown, thick and entwined with golden wire.
I didn’t know him well. A
My words had been few with him, thanks to his constant travels in the service of East Midgard, and because he seemed to avoid me. He had loved us—his family, his people—so he told us in his speeches. Many times, I remember, he had argued with Mother, bitterly and savagely, and yet, he had always succumbed to her wishes, her words, for he loved her more than most things. True to his oaths, he loved Issan, my mother.
I remembered mother had wanted something from him.
He had refused.
What was it? I wasn’t sure.
Thinking about him, made me feel…anxiety.
Sorrow.
And there was a hammer. It kept coming back to me.
The Hammer.
The Wolf Hammer.
The hammer Odin had given to the first of men, scions to Aska and Embla, our furthest, most ancient kin. That hammer was a lesser brother of the hammer of Thor, a chip of the same craft, dverg-made, blessed with high power.
Father had let it take him away from home, alone, so many times.
He had said evil had many faces, and it was for our family to hunt it.
To kill it.
Notably, he had said, to seek it out. To seek the hidden evil.
He traveled far and wide in Midgard, seeking such evil, and injustice, bringing back tales of travels, and some he didn’t share but wrote down in his book, the Black Tales. He would often write, thinking deep, alone in the great hall by fire.
Hammer. The Wolf Hammer.
Where was it?
With Father? Where was Father?
Mother. She had hated that weapon.
She had loathed it with a passion. The memory of them roaring at each other came to me and again dissipated.
Issan. My mother.
My fair mother, Issan, raised us into fighters, rulers, honest and harsh eastern men, but loving and faithful for the oaths and honor.
What had happened to her?
And the others?
Aye, my brothers. Alarik, the eldest, ever worried and diligent. His thick, dark hair a Hardhand symbol as much as the hammer, always wild, and extended to his arse. His wife died, I knew suddenly, but he had had a boy, Morag, a happy six-year-old boy with huge, ready grin. There was Erik, the wastrel, slight in the frame but fast as a snake, a terror in war, and unable to commit to any of the women Mother had tried to force him to marry. His lot was to ever follow Alarik, and he didn’t mind.
I remembered both.
And then, through the curtain that separated me from the past, one other person materialized in my mind.
I knew, for one panic-filled moment that I was married.
That I had a wife.
Had. Had had?
I saw her face.
Baiae.
Baiae the Hardhand, by marriage, a noblewoman of the hills, of a lesser family, one of my father’s captains had been her father. Mother had found her. They had been friends.
I remembered her, the kind, gentle face leaning over me, kissing my forehead, mud, and dirt on her face. Her brown, curly hair had touched my face.
Then, pain.
Where was she?
I wept.
She had been…yes. In the war too? Or in Hard Hall.
I gasped and tried to breathe.
I had loved her. I remembered it. We had shared love, secrets, and oaths.
I couldn’t remember the secrets.
I had forgotten our secrets.
I felt the crushing longing, the horrific fear she was dead, and desperately tried to cast my mind back to what had happened to her.
I couldn’t.
I willed myself to calm, waiting for the shaking to stop.
I would have to get up.
I would have to get up and find her.
Then I felt a tug as someone was pulling at the bag on my belt.
I turned to see a shocked face of a smudge-cheeked, bushy-bearded, stocky warrior. The man’s face was streaked with sweat, and he reeked of mead, his thick face twitching.
He must have seen I was alive and had still decided to rob me. Yes, his eyes betrayed surprise, and I decided there was something about my face that made him recoil.
The forehead.
What was in it?
I grasped for his hand. He yelped and backed off more, standing straight. Then he pulled a wicked dagger and eyed me warily, as I climbed to my knees, feeling sick.
I put a hand over that bag and found it was empty.
I lifted it for him to see and dropped it.
He nodded, and the man cursed under his breath and then he spoke. “I was just checking. No offense, eh? You never know. You still have your armor, so why not coin? We’ll take the weapon, and then you may die in peace, blood-face.” He winked. “I think you would look a very handsome corpse. Despite that…well. Wound?”
I tried to say something, but pain lanced through my head, making it impossible to speak.
I heard the man stepping closer.
We?
Indeed, I heard another.
“Wait,” I heard another man say with a smooth, elegant voice. “Borin, hold. Don’t slit his throat yet.”
Yet.
“He is just a dog, Ajax,” Borin rumbled. “Maimed and smelly. He’s on the damned way to Helheim. But I wasn’t going to kill the bastard. I was just going to hamstring him, so he won’t make a fuss. Now turn away. You know you cannot stand the sight of blood, you pathetic coward.”
“I can’t stand your stench, but I do stand blood, brute,” the one called Ajax said. “Just wait. Let me see. Then we decide. I’m better at this part, the thinking bit. I promise you may do the slicing.”
“Like bread,” Borin rumbled. “Won’t take long at all.”
I had to do something. The light was too bright, and suddenly I couldn’t see more than their outlines.
I also saw red dots of pain and tried to breathe, but I felt it was near impossible.
I ignored the discomfort and kept trying to open my eyes, to hear, to understand. I felt the light and warmth of Lifegiver, our star, on my skin, and I realized I had been laying before a window. I squinted at it and saw a huge, arched window with a red windowsill, built of Palan’s crimson marble, the light streaming through half burned curtains. I experienced a tug of familiarity for the sight, and also for the sound of gulls screeching outside.
The stench of death was thick in the room. Burned flesh’s odor filled the air.
It was Hard Hall. My home.
I raised my hand and blocked the light, catching sight of two more figures coming into the room. One was holding a spear and a javelin, and the other a huge crossbow. I heard the sounds of more people beyond.
In fact, I picked up screams from far below, from the city, and yells of elation.
“Ajax, step back,” said a man. “Let me see him.”
“Yes, Fang,” Ajax answered, stepping to the side. “Of course. Whatever you say, sir.”
caught a brief sight of an ugly, bald man before the pain made me close my eyes. And then the man spoke, spittle flying. “Why are you here?” asked his gruff voice. “And who are you? Are you even from the East?”
I spoke thickly and managed an answer. “Just a man. I’m hurt.”
The room was familiar. It was indeed in Hard Hall, in my own realm.
For some reason, I thought I should not be there.
Had I been in a feast? Had I hit my head? Dreamt it all?
No. This was different.
The walls were smudged, tarred, and the furniture in ashes.
If I was suffering the aftermath of a feast, it must have been the most terrible feast in all the ages.
It was familiar and wasn’t.
“Where are you from?” Fang demanded.
“I—” I began and choked. “East.”
“Bah,” said the man called Borin. “He lies, the piss-pant bastard. So he does. A vagrant of the High King, or of the shit-king of Vittar. Even if it is from the King of Aten, it is filth. It is clearly something they left behind, so why would we even have this discussion, eh? Fang? Shian? Just stuff a rag in the mouth, and make sure he—”
High King?
The Son of Odin of the west? Reignhelm?
I knew Vittar. I knew Aten.
Both were nations in the Verdant Lands, in the west, jarldoms.
Now…kingdoms?
Yes, that’s it. That’s part of the puzzle. The war involved High King, and…
“Wait,” said a woman, Shian. “He is valuable.”
“Is not!” Borin insisted. “Like a pool of vomit left after a feast! Only good for dog-food!”
“He is valuable,” Shian insisted. “I know that hair. Who would have a thick, black mane like that? Like a black lion, he seems. See? And the…face. Look. What is he doing on the floor? Borin, you don’t know him?”
Ajax grinned. “He is taller than most, wide as a door, and that hair. See, Fang?”
“By Odin’s cock,” said the man named Fang, with a gruff voice. “You are right. How can it be? Laying here on the floor, just like he fell asleep after an all-nighter in a whorehouse? Did the enemy leave him here?” He stepped closer. “Or…no. He must have survived and made his way here. He is lucky they missed him.” He grinned. “Now his luck runs out.”
The woman’s eyes went huge as she gawked at me, or over me, and then she leaned closer to Fang, and they began whispering.
It boded ill for me, I decided.
“They couldn’t have missed him,” Ajax said. “Tarl Vittar’s men. They just left the keep two hours ago. And they will come back soon. They will torch it, surely.”
“Well, they wouldn’t miss him and then just leave him here,” Borin insisted. “How could he hide here? Everything’s been looted, damn it. No place to hide, eh? Look at him. They want all the Hardhands dead. They will want to make sure even their name dies. None may utter that name.”
“You just did,” Ajax murmured.
Borin snorted. “I’m not yellow, am I? And you think they would just leave him here?”
He looked calm and didn’t seem too bothered to mention it.
“No,” Ajax sighed. “I think they really did miss him. Which one are you?” he prodded.
My name?
Hagar?
“Shut it, all. Now, you tell us,” said Fang, addressing me, “everything. About that weapon too.”
What weapon?
I shook my head in pain. I didn’t know what I was doing kneeling on that cold floor, or why. Their questions were annoying. And I was, I thought, also probably going to die.
I breathed, stabbing pain blossoming anew in my face.
“Look what has been done to him,” whispered the woman. “The face. Poor man. It looks almost alive.”
“Poor man,” said Borin with a feminine voice. “Adeling! Rich bastard? He has been bathing in gold all his life. Let him rot!”
I leaned forward and inspected the hand I had covered my face with. The sleeve, the dark substance.
It was my own blood, though very dark.
I touched my forehead, and a stab of pain shot through me again.
“Stop touching it,” said Shian. “It is not something you want to poke.”
“Can you tell me about the weapon? It is it, isn’t it?” Fang demanded. “Stop being such a woman.”
“What?” I whispered as I held my belly and checked I still had my manhood. “What weapon?”
“We don’t mean your cock,” Borin said. “You idiot. He meant you are acting like a prissy girl.”
“You sound like one,” I cursed. I knew it was a weak response, and a foolish one, but I was also very confused.
“Odin’s balls,” the thick thief Borin said with exasperation. “Like talking to a useless baby. Keeps meowing, he does. Do we have milk for it? Shian? Can you breastfeed the baby?”
“You would like that, Borin,” she said acidly. “You’d like to see that, no? And it doesn’t work like that, fool. Easy to see you had no mother at all and drank ale from birth. Be silent. Let him focus. He needs to, unless he wants to die.”
I found droplets of blood on the floor, and then I watched the figures crouched next to me. The light was blinding painful, but I was sure I was about to get butchered, so I had to fight.
Hardhands always fought. Father had said that.
I growled and tried to get up, but a foot crashed into my chest, and I fell on my back.
I struggled to get up, but instead, I merely backpedaled and found a wall.
“Adeling Hagar?” the man called Ajax asked softly. “That’s your name. Alarik died. Erik, probably as well. I saw their standards falling and the enemy heaving around them. Your father is dead too. It leaves you. Adeling Hagar Hardhand, named after your poor late father?”
Late father? My brothers are dead? Standards falling?
I watched them. I felt the sorrow, intensely powerful, and closed my eyes.
For some reason, I felt shame.
Why?
“He didn’t know,” Shian said. “Poor man.”
“Stop that,” Borin snarled. “I’ll get sick.”
“Poor?” Fang said acidly. “Bastards, the lot. Borin’s right.”
Squinting, I made them out. Backpedaling had taken me out of the light.
They were odd people.
All were devoid of riches, warriors with just the barest of gear. They had no rings, no finery. Everything, no doubt, had been either lost in war or sold to feed them. Only weapons were meticulously cared for. One had a short sword, a beautiful weapon with an inlaid snake pattern in the blade, and the dagger. That was Borin. Another, Ajax, had a long sword, and his face was elegant, cleanshaven, a bit like a wolf’s. Shian was a short, blonde woman with clever face, large eyes, and almost hypnotic smile, and her chain was cut in a way to let you see her left thigh and leg and long leather boot, while the chain armor ran to her ankle on the right leg.
Fang, their hulking leader, wore dark plates and black chain, and had a dark helmet on his belt, flat steel with eye slits, leaving the chin and mouth free.
Their clothing looked like it had fallen apart on the road.
“Is he crazy?” asked Fang, who was standing slightly behind the two other men and Shian. He was holding a crossbow aimed at me, ready to fire. “Tired of life, your highness?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure, though.
“Are you?” he demanded. “Adeling Hagar?”
“Yes,” I rasped, and found my face raw, thick, and my voice was echoing and hissing.
Fang whooped and still kept the crossbow aimed at me. “Payday!”
I remembered my voice. My old voice. It had been strong, gentle, and I had laughed so loudly, my wife had often pelted me with anything at hand. Now it felt like there was oil in my mouth and lead pouring from my lips. I wiped my lips, just in case.
“Prince Hagar,” Ajax spoke softly. “I am Ajax. Ajax of Kilmos, one of the towns not far from—”
“Are we in…Hard Hall?” I asked.
“Well,” he said. “That is encouraging. You know your home. It is not your hold anymore, though. Former—"
“Former?” I asked harshly and held my head.
The war.
An image from beyond the curtain came to me.
My father.
He had been home with us, feasting the six great eastern families for Yule. The snow had been falling for days, and fires had kept the keep warm. They…we had sat in the hall, not far from us.
My eyes went to the side, where high doorways hung broken.
There, rows of fine-looking eastern jarls, lords and the best and most deserving of warriors, and the Son of Odin, Odin’s Hammer, the Wolf Hammer, and Regent of the East, had eaten. I remembered their dignified but merry ranks.
Yes, I had fought, recently.
All the lessons with spear and sword, I had put to good use.
I had been a warrior. With a sword, I was terrific. Men had told me that, in a field of battle. I grasped for a sword with my other hand, but my belt had no scabbard. No other weapon on the belt either.
I knew sword, spear, hammer.
Hammer.
There had been a hammer. Not mine, but…Father’s?
He had carried it to war, and yes, I, too, had fought.
I had coveted that hammer, the family heirloom, Odin’s Wolf Hammer.
Where was it now?
I lay there and calmed myself.
The war had been recent.
Was that where I had been hurt? I had been a lord of spears, ring-giver to my men, and I suddenly recollected ranks of marching men of Hati’s Valley, and other men, from other eastern jarls. I had commanded a thousand men, a legion of men on the…the…right flank?
Yes, I had commanded my father’s right flank.
In war.
“But where?” I said, and it was only a rasp.
Against…the west? Surely not. The Sons of Odin in war with each other?
That was not possible. Odin would stop it.
And still, it had happened. I was sure of it.
There had been a devastating war.
A terrible war.
I saw a flash of my father, leading men through hills, looking back at me, his face haggard like wolf’s, thousands of men tromping over a burning land. He looked afraid, and disappointed, in doubt, bitter.
And I had feared him. Or, of something I had not done?
Yes. I had not done something, and it had plagued me.
What was he like?
More fleeting memories of him invaded my thoughts.
His long, bony face had always been brooding, the armor of dull gray steel ever clinking as he had walked the halls of Hard Keep. Occasionally, he had crashed down on the Throne of the East while dictating letters to his scribes. I remembered his gauntlets, heavy with metal strips, and the helmet of silver. He was almost always armored. It was so with the Hardhands. It made a man robust, resilient, to wear such armor. We all wore chain over leather, every day, and it started early.
All had a brass bracer on our right wrists, put there by my mother.
On it was carved the Eye, of Odin, inside a flame.
To remove it would mean you no longer served the god, and you would be an outcast. Mother had given me mine, early. She had adjusted it as I grew, but I could not remember a time without it.
Father had no crown. His braids were his crown, thick and entwined with golden wire.
I didn’t know him well. A
My words had been few with him, thanks to his constant travels in the service of East Midgard, and because he seemed to avoid me. He had loved us—his family, his people—so he told us in his speeches. Many times, I remember, he had argued with Mother, bitterly and savagely, and yet, he had always succumbed to her wishes, her words, for he loved her more than most things. True to his oaths, he loved Issan, my mother.
I remembered mother had wanted something from him.
He had refused.
What was it? I wasn’t sure.
Thinking about him, made me feel…anxiety.
Sorrow.
And there was a hammer. It kept coming back to me.
The Hammer.
The Wolf Hammer.
The hammer Odin had given to the first of men, scions to Aska and Embla, our furthest, most ancient kin. That hammer was a lesser brother of the hammer of Thor, a chip of the same craft, dverg-made, blessed with high power.
Father had let it take him away from home, alone, so many times.
He had said evil had many faces, and it was for our family to hunt it.
To kill it.
Notably, he had said, to seek it out. To seek the hidden evil.
He traveled far and wide in Midgard, seeking such evil, and injustice, bringing back tales of travels, and some he didn’t share but wrote down in his book, the Black Tales. He would often write, thinking deep, alone in the great hall by fire.
Hammer. The Wolf Hammer.
Where was it?
With Father? Where was Father?
Mother. She had hated that weapon.
She had loathed it with a passion. The memory of them roaring at each other came to me and again dissipated.
Issan. My mother.
My fair mother, Issan, raised us into fighters, rulers, honest and harsh eastern men, but loving and faithful for the oaths and honor.
What had happened to her?
And the others?
Aye, my brothers. Alarik, the eldest, ever worried and diligent. His thick, dark hair a Hardhand symbol as much as the hammer, always wild, and extended to his arse. His wife died, I knew suddenly, but he had had a boy, Morag, a happy six-year-old boy with huge, ready grin. There was Erik, the wastrel, slight in the frame but fast as a snake, a terror in war, and unable to commit to any of the women Mother had tried to force him to marry. His lot was to ever follow Alarik, and he didn’t mind.
I remembered both.
And then, through the curtain that separated me from the past, one other person materialized in my mind.
I knew, for one panic-filled moment that I was married.
That I had a wife.
Had. Had had?
I saw her face.
Baiae.
Baiae the Hardhand, by marriage, a noblewoman of the hills, of a lesser family, one of my father’s captains had been her father. Mother had found her. They had been friends.
I remembered her, the kind, gentle face leaning over me, kissing my forehead, mud, and dirt on her face. Her brown, curly hair had touched my face.
Then, pain.
Where was she?
I wept.
She had been…yes. In the war too? Or in Hard Hall.
I gasped and tried to breathe.
I had loved her. I remembered it. We had shared love, secrets, and oaths.
I couldn’t remember the secrets.
I had forgotten our secrets.
I felt the crushing longing, the horrific fear she was dead, and desperately tried to cast my mind back to what had happened to her.
I couldn’t.
I willed myself to calm, waiting for the shaking to stop.
I would have to get up.
I would have to get up and find her.
Then I felt a tug as someone was pulling at the bag on my belt.
I turned to see a shocked face of a smudge-cheeked, bushy-bearded, stocky warrior. The man’s face was streaked with sweat, and he reeked of mead, his thick face twitching.
He must have seen I was alive and had still decided to rob me. Yes, his eyes betrayed surprise, and I decided there was something about my face that made him recoil.
The forehead.
What was in it?
I grasped for his hand. He yelped and backed off more, standing straight. Then he pulled a wicked dagger and eyed me warily, as I climbed to my knees, feeling sick.
I put a hand over that bag and found it was empty.
I lifted it for him to see and dropped it.
He nodded, and the man cursed under his breath and then he spoke. “I was just checking. No offense, eh? You never know. You still have your armor, so why not coin? We’ll take the weapon, and then you may die in peace, blood-face.” He winked. “I think you would look a very handsome corpse. Despite that…well. Wound?”
I tried to say something, but pain lanced through my head, making it impossible to speak.
I heard the man stepping closer.
We?
Indeed, I heard another.
“Wait,” I heard another man say with a smooth, elegant voice. “Borin, hold. Don’t slit his throat yet.”
Yet.
“He is just a dog, Ajax,” Borin rumbled. “Maimed and smelly. He’s on the damned way to Helheim. But I wasn’t going to kill the bastard. I was just going to hamstring him, so he won’t make a fuss. Now turn away. You know you cannot stand the sight of blood, you pathetic coward.”
“I can’t stand your stench, but I do stand blood, brute,” the one called Ajax said. “Just wait. Let me see. Then we decide. I’m better at this part, the thinking bit. I promise you may do the slicing.”
“Like bread,” Borin rumbled. “Won’t take long at all.”
I had to do something. The light was too bright, and suddenly I couldn’t see more than their outlines.
I also saw red dots of pain and tried to breathe, but I felt it was near impossible.
I ignored the discomfort and kept trying to open my eyes, to hear, to understand. I felt the light and warmth of Lifegiver, our star, on my skin, and I realized I had been laying before a window. I squinted at it and saw a huge, arched window with a red windowsill, built of Palan’s crimson marble, the light streaming through half burned curtains. I experienced a tug of familiarity for the sight, and also for the sound of gulls screeching outside.
The stench of death was thick in the room. Burned flesh’s odor filled the air.
It was Hard Hall. My home.
I raised my hand and blocked the light, catching sight of two more figures coming into the room. One was holding a spear and a javelin, and the other a huge crossbow. I heard the sounds of more people beyond.
In fact, I picked up screams from far below, from the city, and yells of elation.
“Ajax, step back,” said a man. “Let me see him.”
“Yes, Fang,” Ajax answered, stepping to the side. “Of course. Whatever you say, sir.”
caught a brief sight of an ugly, bald man before the pain made me close my eyes. And then the man spoke, spittle flying. “Why are you here?” asked his gruff voice. “And who are you? Are you even from the East?”
I spoke thickly and managed an answer. “Just a man. I’m hurt.”
The room was familiar. It was indeed in Hard Hall, in my own realm.
For some reason, I thought I should not be there.
Had I been in a feast? Had I hit my head? Dreamt it all?
No. This was different.
The walls were smudged, tarred, and the furniture in ashes.
If I was suffering the aftermath of a feast, it must have been the most terrible feast in all the ages.
It was familiar and wasn’t.
“Where are you from?” Fang demanded.
“I—” I began and choked. “East.”
“Bah,” said the man called Borin. “He lies, the piss-pant bastard. So he does. A vagrant of the High King, or of the shit-king of Vittar. Even if it is from the King of Aten, it is filth. It is clearly something they left behind, so why would we even have this discussion, eh? Fang? Shian? Just stuff a rag in the mouth, and make sure he—”
High King?
The Son of Odin of the west? Reignhelm?
I knew Vittar. I knew Aten.
Both were nations in the Verdant Lands, in the west, jarldoms.
Now…kingdoms?
Yes, that’s it. That’s part of the puzzle. The war involved High King, and…
“Wait,” said a woman, Shian. “He is valuable.”
“Is not!” Borin insisted. “Like a pool of vomit left after a feast! Only good for dog-food!”
“He is valuable,” Shian insisted. “I know that hair. Who would have a thick, black mane like that? Like a black lion, he seems. See? And the…face. Look. What is he doing on the floor? Borin, you don’t know him?”
Ajax grinned. “He is taller than most, wide as a door, and that hair. See, Fang?”
“By Odin’s cock,” said the man named Fang, with a gruff voice. “You are right. How can it be? Laying here on the floor, just like he fell asleep after an all-nighter in a whorehouse? Did the enemy leave him here?” He stepped closer. “Or…no. He must have survived and made his way here. He is lucky they missed him.” He grinned. “Now his luck runs out.”
The woman’s eyes went huge as she gawked at me, or over me, and then she leaned closer to Fang, and they began whispering.
It boded ill for me, I decided.
“They couldn’t have missed him,” Ajax said. “Tarl Vittar’s men. They just left the keep two hours ago. And they will come back soon. They will torch it, surely.”
“Well, they wouldn’t miss him and then just leave him here,” Borin insisted. “How could he hide here? Everything’s been looted, damn it. No place to hide, eh? Look at him. They want all the Hardhands dead. They will want to make sure even their name dies. None may utter that name.”
“You just did,” Ajax murmured.
Borin snorted. “I’m not yellow, am I? And you think they would just leave him here?”
He looked calm and didn’t seem too bothered to mention it.
“No,” Ajax sighed. “I think they really did miss him. Which one are you?” he prodded.
My name?
Hagar?
“Shut it, all. Now, you tell us,” said Fang, addressing me, “everything. About that weapon too.”
What weapon?
I shook my head in pain. I didn’t know what I was doing kneeling on that cold floor, or why. Their questions were annoying. And I was, I thought, also probably going to die.
I breathed, stabbing pain blossoming anew in my face.
“Look what has been done to him,” whispered the woman. “The face. Poor man. It looks almost alive.”
“Poor man,” said Borin with a feminine voice. “Adeling! Rich bastard? He has been bathing in gold all his life. Let him rot!”
I leaned forward and inspected the hand I had covered my face with. The sleeve, the dark substance.
It was my own blood, though very dark.
I touched my forehead, and a stab of pain shot through me again.
“Stop touching it,” said Shian. “It is not something you want to poke.”
“Can you tell me about the weapon? It is it, isn’t it?” Fang demanded. “Stop being such a woman.”
“What?” I whispered as I held my belly and checked I still had my manhood. “What weapon?”
“We don’t mean your cock,” Borin said. “You idiot. He meant you are acting like a prissy girl.”
“You sound like one,” I cursed. I knew it was a weak response, and a foolish one, but I was also very confused.
“Odin’s balls,” the thick thief Borin said with exasperation. “Like talking to a useless baby. Keeps meowing, he does. Do we have milk for it? Shian? Can you breastfeed the baby?”
“You would like that, Borin,” she said acidly. “You’d like to see that, no? And it doesn’t work like that, fool. Easy to see you had no mother at all and drank ale from birth. Be silent. Let him focus. He needs to, unless he wants to die.”
I found droplets of blood on the floor, and then I watched the figures crouched next to me. The light was blinding painful, but I was sure I was about to get butchered, so I had to fight.
Hardhands always fought. Father had said that.
I growled and tried to get up, but a foot crashed into my chest, and I fell on my back.
I struggled to get up, but instead, I merely backpedaled and found a wall.
“Adeling Hagar?” the man called Ajax asked softly. “That’s your name. Alarik died. Erik, probably as well. I saw their standards falling and the enemy heaving around them. Your father is dead too. It leaves you. Adeling Hagar Hardhand, named after your poor late father?”
Late father? My brothers are dead? Standards falling?
I watched them. I felt the sorrow, intensely powerful, and closed my eyes.
For some reason, I felt shame.
Why?
“He didn’t know,” Shian said. “Poor man.”
“Stop that,” Borin snarled. “I’ll get sick.”
“Poor?” Fang said acidly. “Bastards, the lot. Borin’s right.”
Squinting, I made them out. Backpedaling had taken me out of the light.
They were odd people.
All were devoid of riches, warriors with just the barest of gear. They had no rings, no finery. Everything, no doubt, had been either lost in war or sold to feed them. Only weapons were meticulously cared for. One had a short sword, a beautiful weapon with an inlaid snake pattern in the blade, and the dagger. That was Borin. Another, Ajax, had a long sword, and his face was elegant, cleanshaven, a bit like a wolf’s. Shian was a short, blonde woman with clever face, large eyes, and almost hypnotic smile, and her chain was cut in a way to let you see her left thigh and leg and long leather boot, while the chain armor ran to her ankle on the right leg.
Fang, their hulking leader, wore dark plates and black chain, and had a dark helmet on his belt, flat steel with eye slits, leaving the chin and mouth free.
Their clothing looked like it had fallen apart on the road.
“Is he crazy?” asked Fang, who was standing slightly behind the two other men and Shian. He was holding a crossbow aimed at me, ready to fire. “Tired of life, your highness?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure, though.
“Are you?” he demanded. “Adeling Hagar?”
“Yes,” I rasped, and found my face raw, thick, and my voice was echoing and hissing.
Fang whooped and still kept the crossbow aimed at me. “Payday!”
I remembered my voice. My old voice. It had been strong, gentle, and I had laughed so loudly, my wife had often pelted me with anything at hand. Now it felt like there was oil in my mouth and lead pouring from my lips. I wiped my lips, just in case.
“Prince Hagar,” Ajax spoke softly. “I am Ajax. Ajax of Kilmos, one of the towns not far from—”
“Are we in…Hard Hall?” I asked.
“Well,” he said. “That is encouraging. You know your home. It is not your hold anymore, though. Former—"
“Former?” I asked harshly and held my head.
The war.
An image from beyond the curtain came to me.
My father.
He had been home with us, feasting the six great eastern families for Yule. The snow had been falling for days, and fires had kept the keep warm. They…we had sat in the hall, not far from us.
My eyes went to the side, where high doorways hung broken.
There, rows of fine-looking eastern jarls, lords and the best and most deserving of warriors, and the Son of Odin, Odin’s Hammer, the Wolf Hammer, and Regent of the East, had eaten. I remembered their dignified but merry ranks.
