“The line of duty?” I shake the door again.
“Yes! We are Idun’s Bears, we obey her, and she told us: Kill the golden one and lead the seether into the orchard.”
“You killed him because she told you to?” My voice cracks. I shake my head and feel tears tearing at my eyes again. A useless sob shoves through my teeth. “I will call holmgang on her, too,” I cry. I don’t care if she is Idun; it doesn’t matter who she is if she caused Baldur’s death.
“You loved him,” the berserker says.
I suck air in through my teeth. “What is your name?” I wish to know it so that when I kill him, I will do so with the proper words on my tongue.
The berserker lowers his hands. He knows exactly why I’m asking, and draws himself up. His tattoo is just like mine, but stands out harshly against his paler skin. “I am Henry Halson of the Lone Star Henrys. I’ve known of you for years, Soren Bearskin. I admire this sword of yours, despite your father’s stain.” His eyes lower to where I guess my sword leans against the wall outside my cell. My palm itches for the soft sharkskin grip.
“You know who I am,” I say, forcing out the words. “But do you know who it was your warlord killed?”
“My lady’s enemy,” he says calmly, softly. I read sorrow but not regret in the curve of his frown.
I will make him regret it. I return his frown with a smile, a teeth-baring sneer as horrible as I can force it. “You murdered Baldur the Beautiful.”
“No.” Disbelief etches lines around his mouth.
“Yes. Yes. Recall the sun on his face, recall the reflection of the sky in his eyes.” Tears fall from my own eyes, each one hot with frenzy. “That was Baldur the Beautiful, the god of light, who we were bringing here to receive an apple from Idun.”
My heart is breaking against the prison door, and it’s all I can do to grip the bars and hold myself on my feet. “You know he was at large in the world.”
Henry Halson presses himself into the wall across from my door. He doesn’t want to trust me, but he must know I would not invent such a lie. I see the hardened skin under his iron collar, where it’s rubbed and rubbed for all his years in the war band. The skin shines in the fluorescent light, standing out as he grows pale. “She ordered us to kill him,” he whispers.
“Let me out.” I will go after Alwulf, and then find Idun herself and cut her down beneath my sword. Sweat trickles along my brow as I think of my weapon in hand, as the fever embraces me again. The chip of starlight under my heart is burning and hot. I am ready. I want it now; I want to destroy everything around me.
But the berserker Henry Halson is gone.
Closing my eyes, I lean my forehead against the cold bars. I am glad it’s dark outside. Any hint of sunlight would burn.
He died without remembering who he was.
I failed so completely.
Turning my back to the door, I slide down to huddle against it, arms tucked to my chest, knees up. Here is my battle-rage, here is my power, and it is useless to me.
I must get to Astrid. I need to get to her, alone in the orchard, alone with her nightmares. Her grief must be explosive.
Like my fever, which is so near the surface, roaring in my blood. It dances over my skin like candle flames.
I don’t know how time passes, as I crouch and shake with the power I no longer wish to hold tight inside. I would rather it rip me apart and escape, tearing down everything in its path. There are no innocents here; there are no people in this valley who are not culpable.
Because Baldur is dead.
Someone asks quietly through the door, “Is it true, Bearskin?”
“Yes,” I say, the word practically a growl.
“Baldur—”
“Yes.” I pound on the door and hear the thump of running boots.
My hand throbs anew. I cradle it, welcoming the pain as an echo of my heartbeat.
Outside the barracks, light flares. Firelight. I hear a yell, but it isn’t angry. More like a summons. They believe me.
I need to see him, to close his eyes and touch the wound in his heart. I want to wrap him in armor and set him onto the pyre. There’s no telling what will happen to him now. He died forever once, and it took the entire world weeping to bring him back.
The scrape of the lock brings me to my feet. I peer out through the tiny barred window, but see nothing. Backing away, I tense and wait.
After a moment—too long for a key—the door slowly creaks open.
It’s Vider.
In two bounds she’s crossed the space and launched into my arms. I catch her, holding her dangling off the ground. Her hands clutch at me and her breath is hot on my neck. There are tears, too, smearing between us. She smells like smoke and hay and cow poop, and I guess she hid in their little barn, probably in the rafters. I hug her until she groans, and when I put her down she draws a huge breath but doesn’t let go of my wrists. Her eyes are pale green moons, round in her narrow face, and all her hair floats around her head. I step back and eye her up and down. She appears whole and well.
“They didn’t hurt you?” she whispers.
“No.” I touch the bruise on her cheek left over from her night with the trolls.
Vider ducks her head. “I ran, when they—when they killed him. I’m no good to fight, and they were taking Astrid to the gate. I slipped out between two of them and heard their captain yell not to chase me. That I didn’t matter.” She thrusts up her chin. “Don’t matter? Well.” Her hand reaches out and she twists her fingers into my T-shirt. “This’ll show them.”
I put my hand over hers. “It will. You did the right thing. Your strength is in”—I glance at the open door—“sneaking.”
“They’re all gathered in the field now, arguing about something. Astrid hasn’t left the orchard gate, though she’s on the other side of it. I could pick that lock, too, but they’d see.”
“No. They’ll let me in to her.” I take Vider’s hand and exit my prison. The fluorescent light tightens my eyes, but I see my sword leaning against the wall. I swing the sheath over my shoulder, but free the sword. The runes etched into the crossguard shine, and Sleipnir seems to wink at me.
“How, Soren?” Vider asks as she trails me. “How do you know?”
“Because they’re berserkers, and I’m a berserker. And I know how to make them.”
We leave the barracks unseen, which is easy because Idun’s Bears are gathered in a circle of torches between the village and the iron gate. I stop beside the feast hall and count all nine figures moving through the darkness and flames.
And there is Baldur laid out nearby.
They’ve given him a white blanket to lie upon and a clean shirt to wear. The blood has been washed from him, his golden hair braided, and the spear that killed him laid beside his hand. I stare at his shape, wishing to convince myself he only sleeps because the sun shines on the other face of the planet. But his chest does not rise or fall, and no nightmares turn beneath his eyelids.
I look at Alwulf, their captain, who threw the fatal spear. He will die by my hand. I curl my fingers tighter around the grip of my sword.
“Vider,” I whisper.
She leans in.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“I will hold your shields,” she answers immediately, her fist pressing between her breasts.
“No.”
Her quick look of betrayal and surprise has me taking her elbow. “Stay hidden, and no matter what happens to me, you keep yourself free of them so you can tell the world.”
Her fingers pinch into my arm. “Let me help you.”
“Help me by staying hidden. Promise me.”
Her lips purse as if she’s sucked sour candy.
“Promise.” I bend so that our eyes are level. I hold out my arm to her, hand open to shake.
Her eyelids flutter and there’s a glint of tears, but Vider clasps my wrist and shakes once. “I promise, Soren. Take this.”
A round, hard stone is suddenly
between our hands. I uncurl my fingers and the troll’s eyeball is there. In the dark, Vider’s silver hair is ghostly, and I think about how brave she was to walk into the troll house alone. And now the prize she claimed is a charm she offers to me to take into battle. “I will spill his blood onto this,” I say.
Quick as lightning, Vider kisses me. Her lips press mine, and then she flits away. I cannot see her path through the darkness.
Sword in hand, I walk with measured pace toward the gathered berserkers. Some still wear their uniforms, but most have changed into casual clothes, likely believing their part was complete. I scan their faces and hair for the red-gold gleam of Henry Halson. He’s there across from his captain, fidgeting with the end of one braid. I’m pleased to see the upset pinching his face.
And there is the man Alwulf, who killed Baldur.
I stand in the darkness at the edge of the torch circle, and stare at him. He glowers around at his men, and I know from a place deep inside me, even farther down than the home of my frenzy, that this choice is irreversible.
If I challenge him to holmgang, berserker to berserker, I will die or I will kill him, and in doing so become everything Odin could want. Berserkers are meant to fight and kill and die.
It doesn’t matter anymore that I won’t have a chance to ask a boon of Odin, because we failed to deliver his son. After this, I couldn’t ask for the frenzy to be taken away. It will be mine. With this act I am about to perform, I will ground it into everything that I am. I’ll become the bear, to avenge my fallen lord, and to accept what Astrid has always told me: my power is a dance. I am its partner, not its slave.
Just then Alwulf says in a hard voice, “It doesn’t matter who or why, but only that we obeyed our lady.”
I want to yell how much it mattered. I want to drive my sword through his chest right now.
Instead I plant my feet and yell his name: “Alwulf Robertson!”
The band turns to me as one, surprise and wariness marking their postures.
“Well,” Alwulf says, striding toward me. “You’re free, Styrrson, and your sword hungry for blood.”
“I want Astrid, now.”
“She’s there, boy.” He swings his hand out, gesturing through and behind the warrior band.
The iron gate slashes in black streaks between me and the silver-green apple orchard. All is gray and shadowed, but I see her standing. Her white hands curl around two bars and she watches me from eyes like gaping holes. Her hair spills free and she’s lost her cardigan, shivering cold in only a pale violet sundress. Surrounded by apples.
“Let her out.”
There’s a rumble from the warriors around me because I order their leader, but thanks I am sure to my news of Baldur’s death, they don’t immediately stand behind him.
Alwulf laughs, and his gray braids tremble with it. “You are a fool. She’s where she belongs, delivered into the orchard as our lady commands.” To his warriors he says, “Take him back to his cell.”
Several move to obey, and I lift my father’s sword. Calm settles over my shoulders. I aim the point of the sword at Alwulf and say, “You are not a man’s equal, and not a man at heart.”
Silence falls.
Even Alwulf is taken aback. His cragged face slides into surprise, but it only takes a second for him to snap out the response: “I am as much a man as you.”
I push the words out from deep within me: “Meet me, then, Alwulf Robertson, for my right to blood price for my fallen lord.”
He barks a laugh. “To settle this the berserkers’ way,” he says, “there is only death to choose.”
It is good, for I would not have let him walk away.
His eyes slide down my sword. “And I look forward to battling against Styrr’s blade.”
“So be it,” I say, my voice quieter than I’d have liked.
The words are echoed by all the warriors in the circle. “So be it.”
The holmgang is set for one hour later, at midnight. A berserker with short hair like mine suggests waiting for dawn, but I tell him I’d rather cut Alwulf down where he stands than wait for the sun. Alwulf says he’ll humor my eagerness, since we all know how lack of control runs in my family.
It takes every ounce of will and knowing Astrid watches from the orchard gate to prove him wrong and walk away.
Henry Halson appears before me and offers to hold my shields. I grind my teeth and look toward where Astrid stands as still as a statue. “Yes,” I say to him, and he leads me into the fitness center where I can borrow his holmgang pants and take time to stretch. The garish white light makes my head throb, and we use the locker room between the weights and pool as a place for me to change. It smells of chlorine and wet shoes, and the concrete is rough under my bare feet.
“May I?” Henry asks, his hand hovering over my sword as I strip. I pause with my T-shirt balled in my hand and study his expression. It’s clear and slightly deferential. I nod and he whips the blade free with a relish that reminds me of Baldur.
I turn away as I remove my jeans, not from modesty, but to hide the sorrow I find impossible to keep off my face. The troll eye gets tucked into the toe of my discarded boot.
“This is an amazing weapon,” he says in the wolf tongue.
When I’ve tied on the thin holmgang pants, I look back, searching my memory for the right words of response. It’s been too many years since I’ve spoken like a berserker. Pirro rarely bothered, for it’s meant as a way to let us communicate war plans and secrets. Just another thing to set berserkers apart.
But I turn to find Henry balancing my sword like a circus performer, with the pommel in his palm and the tip straight up. It barely wavers and he adjusts his arm only minutely to accommodate.
“That’s how you judge?” I say in Anglish, low and threatening, thinking of all the death this sword has seen.
With a flick of his wrist, he’s got it held properly by the grip, and I barely saw the motion. He smiles as if he can’t help it. “I can feel its … flavor and poise.”
I only stare until he flips it around and offers me the hilt. As I take it, he says, “Thank you. I’ve wanted to hold it since I was twelve.”
“Why?”
“I came here to replace your dad.”
“What?” I sit on the long bench between rows of lockers. We have a few minutes.
Henry straddles the same bench several paces off from me. “After he was made wulfheart, the Bears were down a man. I had just come into my power and so was directed here from Tejas.”
I realize I’m shaking my head. Wulfheart means Dad wasn’t reassigned or released—he broke commit.
“You didn’t know?” Henry frowns. “I’m sorry. I assumed …”
“I was only a kid. They didn’t tell me.”
He pulls a grimace. “And you haven’t joined a band, so who would have since then? I see.”
There are jagged pieces of confusion trying to connect in my mind, but I can’t fit them together. “How is it possible?” I say. “You can’t be that much older than me. When he left to commit with my mom, that was over eighteen years ago.”
“Oh, no.” Henry puts his hands on his knees as if he’s holding himself back. “He was a Bear until that summer, only nine years ago, just before he killed all those people.”
“No.”
He only nods.
“Why, then?” I ask. “Why was he cast out if it wasn’t for leaving to be with my mom?”
“Idun ordered that he return. That he leave his family and his wandering ways and return to the valley to be her captain.” Henry’s eyes flick down, and he’s tugging the end of his braid again. I want to swipe with my sword and hack the braid off so that he stops revealing his nerves. “Your father refused to leave you. And Alwulf, who was Idun’s second choice for captain, banished him for denying her.”
I think of my dad the way I’ve seen him most recently: dead, with coals for eyes. He chose us over his goddess.
“It’s why Alwulf won’t
back down about—about Baldur,” Henry rushes on. “When we learned who it was he killed, the rest of us, or most of the rest of us, wanted to call the Alfather here, to ask him to come. But Alwulf ruined your father for not obeying Idun, and so he will only say, ‘This is the will of Idun, and we do not thwart her will.’ ”
I can barely breathe, and cannot speak. Air rushes harsh and hard in and out of me. I should be glad I’ve been hollowed out already tonight, so this information can’t bowl me over.
Henry shakes his head. “But if it—if he was Baldur—that cannot be the will of the gods. He—” He steps over the bench and grasps my shoulders. “Alwulf is my captain, but Baldur is—was—my god. The son of my Lord God.” His fingers tremble and press into my bare skin. “We’re berserkers, but we’re not mindless the way others say we are. This is too complicated for unthinking obedience.” A laugh shakes out of him.
I grip his hands, grateful for his grief. Here, maybe, is a berserker I could someday fight beside.
He says, “What else does Odin teach us but never to be blind to consequences, Soren?”
Consequences. Another word for the threads of fate. The reason I’m here, to claim blood price for Baldur, and maybe—maybe to avenge the wrongs Alwulf did to my father.
Slowly I nod, and he tells me, “Alwulf wants to kill you.”
“I want to kill him, too.” In my sword I see the reflection of my tattoo, and I grip the hilt tighter. I look up at Henry, at his same tattoo, and I say, “One of us will get our wish.”
Dressed in only the loose black pants, and with my father’s sword sheathed again on my bare back, I walk across the cold, dark grass to the orchard gate.
As I approach, Astrid pries her hands off the bars and reaches out, pressing her body into the gate so that I can clasp her fingers as soon as possible. They’re like frozen sticks and she winces as I squeeze them. She shivers in her thin dress and slippers. I wish I had a jacket to offer her.
We say nothing for a long moment, then I step forward to wrap her in my arms as best I can with the iron rods of the gate keeping us apart. My Astrid. I whisper to her that Vider is safe, that I’ll get her out, that I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t protect him the way I promised. She trembles in the cold, pressing into my fever. I stare beyond her into the orchard. The trees are thick and tangled, not laid out in rows but growing haphazardly and wild in their unnatural summer. Thick branches with bright green leaves twine together so that under them it’s blacker than a cave.