“As the challenged,” the mayor continues, “you, Oslaf, may choose settlement and weapon.”
“I choose blood,” he snarls. The iron hammer of Thor is black against his pasty chest. “And small swords.”
“I accept,” Astrid says before the mayor can ask.
She returns to me so that I can hand her the first of three thin round shields—provided by the holmgang committee of the local 4-H club, Esmeralda confided quietly.
“You wouldn’t have chosen small swords, would you, Soren?” Astrid whispers when she accepts the shield from me.
I raise my eyebrows. “No.”
She grins, and then laughs. I can’t help laughing, too. This is all so ridiculous: challenging holmgang in a diner, running across Nebrasge after a missing god, leaving school with a strange, beautiful girl. And now she’s teasing me before entering the ring.
Our quiet laughter breaks some of the tension in the birch grove. Several pairs of eyes watch us warily. I look to Oz. He’s glaring, and David stands behind with hands on Oz’s shoulders, speaking quickly.
“Make it fast, Astrid” is all I say as she steps into the ring.
They’re each given a small sword; Astrid chooses first. The sword is a short, fat one with very little crossguard. Roman style, meant for a one-handed grip. The mayor removes himself from the holmring. Silence falls and wind rattles the birch branches together. Astrid and Oz face one another. Her back swells with a deep breath. I wish I’d seen her fight before, so I’d know what to expect.
The mayor calls out, “Hear!”
Astrid salutes Oz with the tip of her sword, and he returns the gesture. They lower into fighting stances. Astrid is on her toes, ready to dart in or back. She should be faster than him, but I can’t be certain.
Oz attacks with an abrupt charge, and Astrid dances out of the way. Her hair flings itself around her neck, curls bouncing. I curse myself for not telling her to braid it back. But she avoids the hit.
The same give-and-take continues for several moments as they attack each other and hurl insults like arrows. He seems wisely reluctant to insult her famous family, but Astrid has no such compunction. When she calls Oz’s mother a troll-wife, he turns red and swings hard, slamming into her shield. It snaps in two and Astrid falls to the ground.
Oz backs off and spits onto the dirt.
Slowly Astrid climbs to her feet and comes to me with the pieces of her shield. I trade her for the second shield and toss the broken halves away. “Fast,” I remind her. If he breaks all three of her shields, he’ll be allowed a single blow while she’s shieldless. For a blood match, he can choose any nonlethal cut he likes. And nonlethal is very different from noncrippling.
I swallow frustration. If this were my fight, the dullard would’ve been down in five seconds. But I remember that if I were fighting, it would likely have been against the soldier David, who might have given me more trouble. And called for death.
As they move in again, dog-calls come in from the audience, some yelling for Oslaf to pound the little girl into the ring floor. A few encourage Astrid. I know she can’t hear, but I mark them in case we need aid leaving town when this is done. The air grows warmer and the sharp clang of swords clashing together again and again beats a pulse into the earth. I feel it in my chest, echoing among my ribs and pulling my heart into rhythm. I stare at Astrid, watching only her motions, not his. It’s as though I am with her, moving with her, feeling the jar of steel up my arm, the skid of my toes on the ground, the wind in my hair as she whirls and slams her shield against his. She slips close, under his sword arm, so that he must angle awkwardly to get the steel pointed again at her.
I crow with triumph a second before she darts away again, slithering under his arm like a bride through the commit arch. She touches one of the hazel posts, the one opposite me. I see David leer at her, but she says something, and he glances, shocked, at Oz.
The young man stands in the center of the ring with his shield low. A long red line cuts across his right side, under his rib cage. Blood trails down, making his side grin. It’s not life-threatening but will need stitches.
The mayor ends the holmgang, and the crowd descends upon Astrid.
I lose sight of her and shove my way through, ignoring my instinct against physical contact. When I reach her, she’s with the mayor, gulping water from a Sigg bottle. Her sword is gone. Her opponent is also gone, and I don’t care where he’s vanished to. I position myself at Astrid’s left side and just behind. Sweat beads on her temples, streaking down to her jaw. But she’s smiling. Questions fly at us, and I ignore them completely. Astrid gives the water bottle to a woman in bright red and holds out both hands for quiet. After a moment, the clamor dies down.
I spy the video camera trained on us still. I hope she’s right about how quickly we can find Baldur and return him to New Asgard, because we’ll be on the interweave in five minutes, and on the news this evening. Local at least, and national if they realize Jenna Glyn’s daughter is hunting the god of light.
“People of Bassett,” Astrid says, “I offer you the blessings of Freya and thank you for the honor of your holmring and hospitality.”
“Stay for a feast, lady,” calls a man from the edge of the crowd. “We loved your mother well.”
“And she spoke often of the kindness of prairie towns. But I must decline, friends, for I am needed elsewhere.”
They protest, and I’m amazed at the calm Astrid shows despite being in only bra and battle pants, her cheeks still flushed from combat. She knows how to stir a crowd, just as her mother did. Obviously, there is something mysteriously trustworthy about her: I followed her with hardly a thought otherwise. But when I search for what exactly it is while she answers questions and makes them laugh, I can’t see it. She’s beautiful and filled with joy—can that be all it takes?
When one asks who is the boy-berserker standing at her back, she glances at me and the smile falls from her face. “This is Soren,” she says. I do not smile, or look out at the crowd. I watch her. What do I want her to say? What am I to her? I’m desperate to know, but unwilling to let the crowd hear it, too.
But she only smiles again for the people. “We must go, thank you!”
Together we make our way through them, out of the birch grove and down the hill to the gravel parking lot where the Spark waits in a sea of cars.
Several townspeople follow, and I turn around. One glare and a tilt of my face to display my tattoo is all it takes for them to slow and stumble to a halt. For the first time I am glad of the fear. It allows us to escape.
Astrid sleeps in the passenger seat while I drive out of Nebrasge and into South Lakota. She said to keep going until we reach Interstate 90. By the time we do, she’s awake and the sun is setting. For dinner we opt for meat pies and cider from a drive-through in Chamberlain, and then we continue on until nearly seven. Astrid tells me we’re only an hour away, but she doesn’t fancy wandering the Badlands at night even if we could get into the national park. We’ll go at dawn tomorrow, which will be Thorsday, only the second new dawn since Baldur disappeared.
The problem is that there’s no town between where we are and the Badlands, so we would have to backtrack for over an hour. I wish Astrid told me our options before we came this far. It’s unlikely we’ll be found by trolls on these plains: most have been pushed north or closer to the Rock Mountains. But it never hurts to be wary. Smaller trollkin can hide among the trees, or even in city parks if they’re careful or desperate enough.
Exiting the empty interstate, we end up on a parallel county road and find a place to pull off. I choose a cluster of white ash trees planted by some long-gone settler and marked with trollwarding runes.
With the car turned off, the ticking of the engine is the only sound. It’s too cold still for many night bugs or frogs to be singing. This quiet is so complete I can hear myself breathe.
“The back bench folds down,” Astrid says.
We get out of the front. The chil
ly air slides down my shirt and Astrid pulls her sweater tighter over the front of her dress. It’s blacker than Hel’s gate here, with no light pollution. I can’t see anything now that the headlamps are turned off. Even the ash trees with their carved runes have faded into the night.
Arching my neck back, I stare at the spill of stars. It seems like there’s more light than blackness. The Milk Path stretches like a smear from one end of the sky to the other. I look down because for a moment it’s overwhelming, as though the weight of it crushes my shoulders. All that space. And a sliver of it alive inside my chest.
Astrid opens the rear door and I help her lay down the bench seat. “There’s room,” she offers, and I try to stretch out. She curls into a tiny ball to give me more space. I pretend to find a comfortable position.
“Thank you, Soren, for coming with me,” she says before closing her eyes. I can feel warmth from her back against my side.
“Gentle dreams, Astrid.”
She sighs lightly, and very soon is asleep. I quietly climb out and unlash my spear. But instead of exercising, I stretch along the cool metal roof. There I lie, with my legs trailing off onto the trunk, to watch the stars move all night long.
SIX
I KNOW I slept, because suddenly I wake up.
It’s a surprise, and unlike my usual slow awareness that the night has passed while I was caught in a half-sleeping state.
The stars have changed. They fade into the rising tide of indigo that parades before the sun. Beneath me the roof of the Spark is frozen and the metal creaks as I move.
A murmur from my side startles me. I realize the warmth there is Astrid, and I can’t believe I didn’t notice whenever she climbed up here with me.
Her nose is tucked into my ribs and her knees are curled up so she sleeps with her hands folded in the center. I stare at the curve of her neck, at the costume pearls encircling it. Her delicate jaw and pale lips, the line of her nose, the limp dark curls hiding her ear. Her lashes are short and straight, almost flat against her cheek.
The thin pink sweater covering her shoulders and arms cannot be warm enough. I’m cold, even though I have this fever heating me from the inside. With only a little hesitation, I put my arm around her. It’s a relief like lowering a sword I’ve kept at the ready for hours. Then she snuggles closer. One hand grips at my shirt and she sighs.
I think my heart stops beating.
There are stories of old heroes being born and reborn to discover loves from past lives, to suffer and struggle for them again and again. Sigurd Dragonslayer and the Valkyrie Brynhild, Ivar and Ohther, Starwolf Berserk and Lady Kate.
In that moment on the roof of the Spark, I imagine ages and lifetimes pile atop us, spinning us into the pull of destiny.
Astrid’s eyes snap open. They’re as pale brown as hundred-year-old photographs. “Is it dawn?” she whispers, though from the light she must already know.
“Yes,” I whisper back.
“It was very cold in the car, without you.”
“I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I don’t mind. I climbed up here because you were so hot.”
“It is the berserking, boiling in my blood.”
“And the insomnia, too.”
I nod. And shift away, taking my arm back to sit up. I can’t hold her and think of berserking at the same time.
Astrid sits, too, pulling her knees up to her chest. “If you welcomed it, would you still be plagued by sleepless nights?”
“I believe so,” I answer, not looking at her. “My father rarely slept. It’s one of the reasons they say we have such limited time to live, even if we’re never defeated in battle. We burn up our energy and life in half the time because we never sleep.”
“Has there ever been a berserker who did not die fighting?”
“Yes.”
Her finger, soft as a butterfly wing, skims down my tattoo. It continues down to my jaw, drawing a line toward my chin. My body flares to life, threads of fire ripping out from that center of madness.
She turns her hand over so her knuckles rest against my face. “Soren,” she breathes.
I push myself off the roof of the Spark and my feet hit the frosty grass hard. “The sun will be bright soon,” I say.
More slowly, Astrid slides after. I offer my hand to assist, but she ignores it. “Yes,” she says, brushing off her dress, “and Baldur the Beautiful awaits us.”
The land is flatter than ever and filled with nothing. It’s as though vegetation has been burned off, and all that grows now on the rocky plains are stubbly patches of grass. The sky rises away, pale blue, and enormous clouds billow in rows like ocean surf. The only trees cling to the edges of trickling creeks.
We brush our teeth and change into fresh clothes in the public restrooms at a commercialized trading post, built to resemble a long building from an Old West town. They have fountain drinks, syrupy coffee, and doughnuts. We fill up the gas tank, too, and Astrid has a five-minute conversation with the attendant about the attributes of the ’84 Spark versus the ’92 with its Deutsche-made engine while I hover nearby, keeping my tattooed cheek averted.
Back in the car, we pass turnoffs for the Lakotas Buffalo Reservation and several pioneer homesteads turned into kingstate monuments. There are bronze National Historic Site markers every five miles or so along the road. The quiet, the utter lack of people on the road, makes me feel watched. I continue glancing in the rearview as I drive, searching for pursuit.
“They aren’t coming after us, Soren,” Astrid says.
I frown. “We’re missing from school.”
“We’re adults and can leave school on our own. Didn’t you pass your citizen test?”
“Of course.” She knows it. I had to before receiving my tattoo. “It’s only so empty here. Makes me nervous.”
“Can you imagine living this far into the plains? There are still pygmy mammoths and hill trolls, and the walled towns are few and far between. Mom and I never camped alone in this part of the country.”
I glance at her, to see she’s staring out her window with her fingers against the glass. “Like we did last night.”
Astrid laughs and looks at me from the corner of her eye. “Mom and I didn’t have a berserk warrior with us.”
I only grunt in response. The anxiety continues to itch between my shoulder blades, and I punch on the radio to HM, the public news station.
Through static, the announcer’s voice slowly emerges: “… quell the rioting in Shenandoah. Graycloak has dispatched permission to all the kingstates for militia members to carry open steel in the streets, against the wishes of minority leader Edding.”
My palms are slick against the steering wheel as all my skin begins to tingle.
“It’s likely to be defeated by Lawspeaker Howardson when she brings it before Congress, but a source from the White Hall claims that the president hopes this situation with the missing god of light will be resolved before Sunsday’s emergency meeting.”
Astrid sighs through her teeth and her head lolls against the seat back. “They can’t fix this with politics,” she murmurs.
“They have to do what they’re best at,” I say.
A little laugh escapes her, and she lifts her head as the announcer says, “Thousands of pilgrims have flocked to Skald, at the foot of Bright Home, with signs declaring that Ragnarok has begun. They’re gathered in the city parks mostly, and the militias are in a bit of a standoff there with religious leaders who insist on opening all the temples on Skald’s Chapel Row. The Valkyrie of the Rock arrived on the scene yesterday afternoon with seven of her wolves, and to the surprise of the king of Colorada, she held a prayer service in the city center, asking the mourners and pilgrims to remain calm and only pray together.”
A new voice, that of a woman, speaks: “This near to Bright Home, our prayers will rise with the wind up to the Valhol, where Odin sits and searches for his lost son. We will give the Alfather our strength to stre
tch his reach over the mountains and prairie, from ocean to ocean of this great country. Baldur the Beautiful will be found, and will return to us with all the glory of the sun.” The radio announcer takes up the story again, adding, “On the heels of the Valkyrie’s prayer, a spokesman for Ardo Vassing, prince of Mizizibi and well-known telepreacher for the Bliss Church, told the press he’ll be hosting a three-hour televent tonight, beginning at the CST sunset hour.”
Astrid leans nearer to me. “We’ll have found him by then.”
My tension only lets me flick fast glances at her, but Astrid’s face is loose with expectation and hope. I push the gas pedal down another bit to flare the engine. There isn’t anyone for miles to notice I’m speeding.
The morning news hour ends with Evelyna Salsdottir, the champion poet of New Asgard, reciting her award-winning verse, “Sunfall in Mesa Verde.” It’s about vanishing people, and the memories they leave behind, like the longest shadows cast as the sun sets. I’ve never heard it before, but Astrid murmurs the refrain along with the radio. When the last word fades under the buzz of our engine, she changes the station to iron rock.
“We’ll be there soon,” she says, and shuts her eyes.
I let the pounding rock shake the car. The rhythm travels up my hands from the steering wheel and into my shoulders, helping me relax. I drive through two and a half songs, eyes glazed on the black line of highway, before a high beep interrupts the music.
“This is an emergency broadcast. It is not a test.”
Astrid grips my knee, digging her fingers into my jeans. I jerk upright, the frenzy blinding me like a flash-bomb. My foot hits the brakes and we screech to a halt. It’s a good thing there aren’t others on the road.
“Repeat: this is not a test. All citizens of the United States of Asgard are cautioned against moving outside of city centers. Greater mountain trolls have come down from Canadia and attacked a settlement in Vinland. This is not a test.”