Fire and Lies (8 page)

Happily, Bergen flashed his widest grin. Dropping himself beside Kallan, he unlaced his boots and tossed them aside before crawling beneath the blankets, paying no mind to the rage that twisted her face.

Bergen grinned.

“She didn’t take to the idea then,” he said, shuffling down between his furs and stretching out to face Rune.

“Not exactly,” Rune said from beneath his arm.

Bergen widened his smile.

Kallan sneered.

“Why are you smiling?  Why is he smiling?” Kallan asked, but Rune only grinned. “Why are you smiling?” 

With a sigh, Rune afforded himself a moment to prepare for the torrent that would follow his answer.

“Because,” he said, ensuring his arm remained over his eyes. “We agreed that if you don’t double with me, you’d be doubling with him.”

A sickly pale coated Kallan’s complexion. Her silence confirmed her protest as she turned four shades of white.

“Me, personally,” Bergen said, propping himself onto his elbow to better face Kallan, “I don’t care if you freeze to death, but my brother—”

“You sleep with him then!” Kallan said, grasping desperately to her legs and pulling them deeper into her chest as Bergen burst into a fit of laughter.

“Fair enough,” Bergen agreed, sitting up. He threw back the blankets. “I’ll leave this bed to you and Ottar, then.”

Kallan’s eyes widened with horror. “No!”

As Bergen resettled himself into his bed, Rune exhaled.

“The temperature is dropping, Kallan. Set aside your pride or freeze.”

“Perhaps it’s your company she abhors, Rune,” Bergen suggested, propping himself up onto his elbow. A bit of bare chest caught Kallan’s eye. With a grin, Bergen gently caressed the vacant spot beside him. “Come along, Kallan. I’ve had worse. I can forget you’re a Dokkalfr for one night.”

Kallan sank deeper into Ori’s overcoat.

“When the snoring gets to you, just kick him,” Rune said.

Kallan settled her chin back to her knees and she rocked against a sudden rush of cold.

“What about him?” Kallan asked as the camp outside quieted, leaving Bergen without a partner.

“Bergen doesn’t bunk,” Rune said.

Kallan scowled. “Why not?”

As soon as she asked, Bergen was back up propped on an elbow.

“I once angered a goddess by denying her my manly pleasures.” Disgust crunched Kallan’s face. “She put a spell on me so I always burn.”

“Still telling that lie, Bergen?” Rune asked and, with his grin still splayed on his face, Bergen settled back down on his bed.

Quiet settled too quickly over the camp as one by one the men paired off and claimed a bedroll, desperate for the added warmth an additional body would provide. The tent flap opened again, followed by the drag of Ottar’s footfall, snapping Kallan to attention. Her temper flared and she clenched her teeth, forcing her tongue still.

“Which of you two idiots am I sharing heat with tonight?” he grumbled.

His apparent exhaustion from the day weighed heavily on him. Bergen snapped his attention to Rune. Rune afforded a peek from beneath his arm in Kallan’s direction. Both awaited her decision.

“Fine!”  Kallan said, slapping the ground and unfurling her body.

She threw back the hides of Rune’s bed, purposefully blasting him with the cold night air. Too angry to notice the smirk that pulled at the corner of Rune’s mouth, Kallan shifted herself down beside him, violently yanking the hides over herself.

Indifferent to the decision, Ottar dropped himself beside Bergen and pulled the blankets up over his wide chest, forcing Bergen to shuffle into the empty spot he had offered to Kallan.

“Darling,” Bergen exploded, rubbing a hand over Ottar’s chest.

“Ger’ off,” Ottar said, adding a back handed punch to Bergen’s shoulder.

With a chuckle, Bergen laid back, the usual grin stretching his mouth. Kallan scowled as she shifted herself into a more comfortable position.

Eager to welcome the sudden warmth that enveloped her, Kallan eased onto her back and, despite her mental flourish of protests, she fell into a sound sleep.

* * *

The wind rattled the forest leaves with a gentleness that coaxed Bergen awake. He sighed and watched his breath billow into a ball before as it dispersed into the cold air. Ottar snored quietly beside him, unconscious to the world around them.

Shifting his weight, Bergen flipped onto his side and tucked his arm beneath his head, then stopped.

Stretched across Rune’s chest, Kallan lay fast asleep under Rune’s arm where it was wrapped protectively around her. Her hand fell with elegance down Rune’s side and Bergen watched, stupefied, as she rose and fell peaceably in time to Rune’s breath.

Bergen moved to settle himself back to sleep, but paused mid-shift as Rune slid his hand into Kallan’s hair. Bergen watched Kallan release a deep sigh as she nuzzled Rune’s chest, confirming his suspicions.

Laying his head onto his arm, Bergen stared at the tent’s ceiling. He spent the next hour sorting through what little he knew about the night his brother took off to Midgard and the weeks that followed.

After sending his mind through a maze of dead ends, he forced himself to sleep comforted with the plan to extract every answer out of Rune by tomorrow’s end.

S
igyn rode without rest, aware of each day lost at Loptr’s side, as Svadilfari carried her without sleep. The flames of Muspellsheim burned her flesh from the impervious heat as she came to face the grand, steel gates alive with the inferno that forever burned as constant and as consumed in flame as the sun. The ground was hardened, black stone, steaming with the constant heat that fed the realm. Frequent pockets of bright, golden reds pushed their way through the black ground alongside pillars of flames that rose from the rock. There was no life save only what the fire gave.

Sigyn stopped briefly at the pair of giant, ebony fire wyrms that flanked the steps of Surtr’s hall. Their long, slender bodies twisted and curled then tapered to the tips of their tails like snakes until they seemed to entangle themselves in their own spine. Both wyrms tightly tucked their grand, willowy wings to their sides.

They slept as Sigyn approached, paying no mind as one raised its snake-like head to glance curiously at her with its one good eye, round and black and red, as black as a fire opal. With a snort, it deemed her harmless and nestled its untethered head back beside its four-toed paw, giving her a glimpse at a scar that sealed its right eye. The fire wyrm returned to sleep.

Undaunted by their vast presence, Sigyn urged Svadilfari through the burning gates, unconsumed with undying flames that licked the red sky. She came to the doors of Surtr’s hall and dismounted, leaving Svadilfari alone at the bottom of the yellow steps encrusted in brimstone.

Gathering her skirts in her sweating palm, and through a sharp stench that pierced her nose, Sigyn ascended the steps to the open doors, her head high, charged by the need to hope.

“Surtr!” Sigyn cried with an undeterred stance as she walked down the length of Surt’s hall. “My Lord!”

“Sigyn!”

The boom of Surtr’s voice rumbled the halls and rattled Sigyn’s heart. She gritted her teeth and held to her strength as she neared the steps of his throne.

“You come with a request,” Surtr stated plainly, knowing her purpose before she spoke. “Ask it then. Be brief,” he commanded as Sigyn came to stop at the feet of his throne flanked by the set of wide, high seat pillars where the grand Fire Giant sat, his own body fueled by the flame formed the flesh of his being. To his side, his sword, as long as Sigyn was tall, flickered lively with the flame that enveloped it. On the other side, his wife Sinmara sat.

With long, shimmering locks of the purist gold, Sinmara curiously peered down, as intrigued by Sigyn’s arrival as Surtr.

“I come to give voice to the needs of my husband, who lays bound by the bonds of Odinn!” Sigyn declared in as grand a voice as Surtr. “He bids you come! I ask you, free him!” she begged, desperate for the Fire Giant to accept. The tears holding in her eyes, always so gentle, hardened.

“The bonds made from the bones of your sons were molded by the fires of Svartálfaheim’s forges,” Surtr reminded her as he mulled the situation over in his thoughts. Pensively, he shook his giant head, heavy with regret.

“No.” Surtr sighed deeply, looking on, almost, with pity. “Nothing can break those bonds. Only those with the proficiency to forge them have the strength enough to make them yield.” He shook his head again and leaned upon his knee. “You know I have no skill to rival the Dvergar, no secret spear to rend those chains, and yet you come. For a key, then, you hope.”

Sigyn quelled the sorrow that bit her nose and forced her chin high.

“I’ve come to give voice to Loptr’s cry,” she pressed on.

Pensive, Surtr studied her stance, knowing she came with the utmost sincerity. He heaved a deep sigh and growled.

“Loptr’s words have reached me, but I can not lend my aid without attracting the eye of Odinn.”

Desperation she could not hide clouded her eyes.

“He begs for your aid,” she tried again, “and requests your support in rending the stones of Odinn’s throne!”

Surtr glanced upon her tiny frame, dwarfed by the magnitude of his race. He paused, coming to rest his gaze onto her eyes that peered so hopefully at him. He sighed, hating what he had to do.

“I see the torment of his suffering in your eyes,” Surtr replied. “You still grieve for your sons. I know your tears were ignored when Odinn bound your husband to Yggdrasill. Nevertheless, Loptr’s affliction was cast upon you.”

Despite the heat that sweltered, a cold permeated Sigyn that left her rigid against her frayed nerves.

“I will not deny that the march against Asgard stirs a desire in me,” Surtr continued. “Greater still, if Loptr were to fight at my side, but…” Each word clawed its way to Sigyn’s insides. “The task you ask rings out as treason to those in Asgard.”

Sigyn forced down a silent sob with a dry gulp.

“As long as Loptr lies at the roots of Yggdrasill, bound by Odinn’s damnation,” Surtr proclaimed, softening his voice, “I can not risk angering the gods of Asgard, lest war be waged on Muspellsheim.”

Surtr watched his words relinquish the last of Sigyn’s hope as she forced her eyes from his.

“I can not stand alone against the powers of Asgard,” Surtr said. “I will not stretch my hand to lend my aid to Loptr.”

His final answer took Sigyn’s hope from her and she nodded with a burden countless times heavier than when she had entered his hall moments ago. She had barely moved when Surtr added, “I am sorry, Sigyn.”

Without a word and bearing no grudge, Sigyn forced her stiff legs to carry her back through the doors.

At the base of the steps, Sigyn gripped Svadilfari’s saddle in an attempt to pull herself up. But, drained of her strength, she buckled beneath the weight of her sorrow, and resting her head onto the horse, sobbed silently.

“Sigyn?”

The Jotunn snapped her tear-stained face to the eyes of Sinmara, who quietly descended the stairs. The reds of her gown swept the brimstone as the flames of her long, golden hair trailed behind her. Her skin glowed white from the heat of the blaze that composed her flesh.

As if afraid it would suddenly slip from her grasp, Sinmara clutched to her bosom a chest fastened with nine locks. Upon closer assessment, Sigyn saw that the locks had been opened. As she drew nearer, Sinmara lifted the lid to reveal a large bundle wrapped in amadou.

Sigyn wiped the tears from her eyes as if ashamed, and forced her composure.

“Shortly after the waters flowed from the Gap of Ginnunga and formed our worlds, before the Great War that unified the gods, Loptr lent his aid to Surtr against Niflheim. Surtr’s stubbornness is fixed, but his interest brews.”

Sigyn held her attention, piqued with curiosity and restored hope.

“I give you the blade Loptr left in my keep, won with the price I set.”

Sigyn shifted her eyes to the strands of fine-spun gold that flowed from Sinmara’s head, knowing, full well, they were once the locks of Sif that Loptr had taken from her.

“Surtr desires to fulfill your request, but can not so long as he stands alone. If it is Surtr’s support you seek, go with Laevateinn and return with Loptr beside you.”

Sinmara passed the bundle to Sigyn. Cold permeated the bundle, snapping and crackling against the heat, and forcing her body to shudder with a chill that flowed up her spine like Nordic lake water. Ingratiated, she held tightly to Laevateinn and called out as Sinmara walked up the stairs.

“Sinmara.”

With elegance, the giantess turned. The locks rippled down her back like a sheet of golden water.

“Thank you.”

Sinmara smiled gently and re-collected her skirts as she continued up the steps.

With haste, Sigyn snapped around and secured the bundle beneath the saddle. She climbed atop Svadilfari without delay and rode past the dragons, out through the gates of Muspellsheim to return to Loptr’s side once more.