Tag: Breidelsteinn

  • 2.17 – Vision of Home

    2.17 – Vision of Home

    Stigander caught the sound of silver bells in the wind and steeled himself. The last trial had tried to make him choose between his birthright and his son’s future, as though the two could be separated. That had been bad enough, but surely the trials ahead would be just as wrenching. He took a step forward on the path…

    …And found he now stood on a different mountain path, on an island he had not seen in more than a decade. I’m… home?

    He blinked, hardly believing what his eyes were showing him. The road beneath his feet, laboriously cut into the granite face, switchbacked above and below. Behind him marched the Vidofnings, savage jubilation painting each and every face. Even Einarr’s, which left a twinge of heartsickness behind. Far below, the Vidofnir bobbed in the water alongside a ship with an unfamiliar ramshead on the prow – Einarr’s ship, it had to be.

    The men behind him furrowed their brows. They’re waiting on me. He stepped forward again even as he turned his head to look up the rock face. There, rising above, were the unmistakable grey stone walls of Breidelsteinn. I’m home.

    His pace quickened. The Usurper must have already lost, or there would be warriors on the road, and arrows would rain on their heads. Instead, all was peaceful. It was time to reclaim the honor stolen from his father.

    As they marched, he heard the strains of the Lay of Raen carry up the road and the corner of his mouth quirked in a smile. That was some impressive breath control Reki had, if she was willing to sing while they marched. At least, he thought it was Reki.

    At the top of the switchbacks Stigander stopped again. The gates stood open wide. In the center of the passage, his father’s first liege-man knelt before him. Clustered in the shadows behind, the Jarls and Captains of Breidelsteinn prostrated themselves. No. Not like this. These men were my friends.

    But now they were his subjects. Even if his father were still fit to rule, which Stigander thought unlikely, the Clan would never accept him at its head again. They might not accept him, for that matter. Stigander closed his eyes and swallowed hard on the melancholy that threatened to overtake him. Done is done. You knew this would be part of the price.

    When he opened his eyes again they were hard. He had hesitated too long already, when now was the time for decisiveness. Three firm steps forward brought him to just ahead of where the man knelt. “Gorgny Agnarsson, do you swear on the names of your father and your grandfather that the Weaver’s sorcery no longer holds you?”

    “In the names of Agnar and Hagrlaug, I swear my mind is no longer clouded by sorcery, and may my heart burst if I lie.” Shame practically dripped from the man’s voice.

    Stigander nodded, accepting the attestation. Uncle Gorgny had always been an honest man. “Then swear to me as you once swore to my father.”

    “My lord prince, Lord Raen yet lives, and though all the clan may forsake him, I will not.”

    Stigander snorted, but his face softened a little. “You realize under the circumstances that could mean your death?”

    “I do, and I will make any oath you ask of me – except that one, so long as my lord Raen still lives and breathes.”

    “Rise, then.” Stigander suppressed a sigh. If he had wanted to prove the man wasn’t a traitor, this managed it nearly as well. “How is Father?”

    “Battered but not broken. Never broken.”

    “Good.” He smiled at the man he had always thought of as an uncle and clapped him on the shoulder. Stigander had not dared hope that his father would survive this. It would be good for Einarr to meet his grandfather again.

    Stigander turned his father’s liege-man and stepped over the threshold. “What of the rest of them?”

    “The ones you see? Penitents all. It’s as though we all woke from a bad dream not long ago. The rest are shackled and awaiting justice.”

    He nodded now. “I will take the oaths of the penitents in the main hall.”

    “Yes, my lord prince.”

    His father’s hall had changed under the influence of the Usurper and the Weaver. Raen had made it larger than it had to be so everyone would be welcome, and they were. The lively good cheer he remembered had fled over the intervening years, tossed out with the rugs and candelabrum that were nowhere to be seen on his return. His brother had left it empty, cold, and dark.

    Stigander set his mouth in a hard line. Restoring the hall would be easy, compared to the rest of what he had to do. He slowed for the last few steps up on to the dias, feeling their weight.

    The seat of the Thane stood before him, polished and painted wood that had never before this moment intimidated him. Stigander blew a breath through his moustache. Rather than sit, he turned to face the men now filling the hall behind him and motioned at a few of them to join him: Gorgny, Bardr, Einarr. As Gorgny stepped into place beside him, he caught the man’s eye. “Uncle, where is Father?”

    “Resting, under the care of an herb-witch.”

    Stigander winced a little. “Urdr was quite cruel, then.” When Gorgny nodded, he shifted his attention to the hall.

    “People of Breidelsteinn,” he began, his voice filling the hall. “It has taken long years, but at last Urdr’s Weaving has been unraveled – by none other than my own son Einarr.”

    He allowed a minute for the cheering to die down before he continued. “I do not believe that any of you who stand before me were in their right mind during the Usurper’s reign… but much can change as the years fall away. My friends, I believe that you are all still my friends, and I would ask you to swear to this. If your heart does not remain with the Weaver and the Wolf, swear again before me as you once did before my father Raen.”


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  • 2.13 – Fidelity & Honor

    2.13 – Fidelity & Honor

    “Runa is my only child, and likely to remain so. He who marries her will become my heir. Rise, son, and take the hand of the prize you’ve fought so hard for.”

    Raenshold. The Jarl was asking him to forswear Raenshold… his father… his birthright… and accept a jarldom in its place? Einarr shook his head as he climbed unsteadily to his feet, certain he must have heard wrong. “My lord, surely you jest?”

    “Not at all.” The Jarl’s face was open and honest, as though the thought never crossed his mind that Einarr might be bound by another oath.

    Einarr risked a glance back at the hall: his father’s face was grim, as was Bardr’s. Erik and Tyr looked concerned. Now he glanced down to Jorir, and unless Einarr was very much mistaken that was fear he saw there. Runa, though, gave him an encouraging smile and nod, trying to convince him to go ahead and accept. As though she did not know what her father asked of him.

    Einarr set his mouth and turned his attention back to the Jarl. “My lord Jarl, every man under my Father’s command has sworn to return and reclaim Breidelsteinn.”

    “Do you not have your own ship, your own crew, now?”

    “Why would that matter?”

    The Jarl blinked now. “Is Raenshold truly even a memory for you? Is it not merely the stories your father’s men tell to while away the time as you wander the waves? I am offering you the security of your own lands with my daughter’s hand.”

    “It is true, we have lived as vagabonds since the Weaving, and my memories of home are faint and dim, their patchwork filled in by the stories told aboard the Vidofnir. But Raenshold is and ever will be home, and I was born to be a Thane, as was Father before me. You ask me now to settle for a jarldom in foreign waters, and let my birthright be usurped again?” Einarr raised his gaze to meet the Jarl’s, unflinching, and pursed his lips. Anger was beginning to smolder in his breast, and he worried he would say too much.

    “You have been a homeless wanderer, sailing from port to port with never an end in sight. While you are unwed, that is fine for you, but I am no father if I allow my one and only daughter to lead that kind of life. Her hand in marriage is bound to these lands by a chain even the gods might not shatter.”

    “Bound by you alone, and you hold the key.” Rage threatened to boil up, but if he fought his father-in-law over this he lost, no matter who won. “You say you are my father’s friend, and yet you try to seduce me into betraying him? Nay, Jarl. Runa shall be my bride, and none other, and no other than Raenshold shall be our home.”

    “You’re being unreasonable.”

    “Actually, I rather think you are. You would make a nithing of me.”

    The sound of silver bells filled Einarr’s ears and the Jarl froze. Einarr looked about, surprised: no-one in the Hall so much as blinked, save one. The strangely familiar lady’s maid with the long golden hair and the elfin features. She curtsied, and as she rose she turned to walk away. The scene in Kjell hall faded with every step she took into the distance, until it was replaced with the alpine meadow where he had first seen the woman. Einarr shook his head to clear it before stepping back toward the path where he had evidently left the rest of his companions. I hope I’m not too far behind.

    ***

    The sound of silver bells rang in Jorir’s ears and he stepped forward over the threshold between reality and dreaming. He didn’t know how it was done, but he had been through the tests before.

    The scene in front of his eyes was the last one he expected, however. The light faded, its color yellowing, until he stood in a torch-lit stone hall. To every side svartdverger made merry. It took his eyes a minute to adjust, but when they did he saw the sigil of Chief Soggvar – King of Iron and Brass. I’m… home?

    Jorir’s face lit up, for now he recognized the faces of his kinsmen. Some of them he was quite sure were dead, and others he suspected were, but in the world of the Oracle’s trial that did not matter. His eye lit on his brother’s face and he could not smother his astonished grin. He stepped over and put a hand on the other dwarf’s shoulder. “Brotti? What’re you doin’ here?”

    “Waiting, little brother. We all are.” When his brother turned to face him, Jorir had a moment’s double-vision: Brotti’s face turned ashen, and the shadow of an axe cut across it. Jorir blinked and the vision cleared.

    Jorir smiled again at his brother, but this time it was wan. I had a feeling.

    “Go. The Thane would welcome you himself.”

    “Aye.” He nodded, studying Brotti’s face even as he clapped him on the shoulder. Living or not, this would likely be the last time Jorir saw him. After a long moment, he turned towards the throne where Thane Soggvar sat looking dour – moreso even than Jorir was used to. Things must have got bad after he left.

    Slowly Jorir stepped towards the throne, and slowly he knelt before his chieftain and bowed his head. He felt the large, heavy hand of the king settle on the back of his head with surprising gentleness. It was cold and clammy.

    “Welcome home, son of the mountains. We have expected you.”

    “I beg you to forgive my tardiness, my king.”

    The hand raised again off his head. “It is of no matter. We have endured.”

    Have you? “Thank the gods,” he said, as though he had noticed nothing amiss.

    “What have you discovered on your long journey?”

    “I have found the Cursebreaker.”

    “Well! Cause for celebration indeed! Bring out the mead! In the morning, we will sacrifice to the gods for their beneficence!”

    Jorir tried to smile in response to the Thane’s enthusiasm, but the signs within his vision suggested he was too late.


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  • 2.9 – Son of Erik

    2.9 – Son of Erik

    Einarr returned to the Vidofnir late that evening with Bardr and Jorir several silver poorer and an equal number of tankards less thirsty, with only two potential recruits found.

    Bardr clapped him on the shoulder as they approached the Vidofnir’s mooring. “Don’t worry about it. Two men in an afternoon, on your first day out? That’s hard to complain about.”

    Einarr shrugged. Maybe it wasn’t, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was supposed to have done more.

    “Don’t look now,” Jorir interrupted. “But I think something happened while we were out.”

    Men swarmed about the docks in front of their boat. The three men exchanged a look before taking off at a jog for the ship they called home.

    The crew was clustered in a ring around the gangplank, with the men on the outside jockeying for position. Three men stood in the center of the ring: Erik, leaning on his crutch; the slight, cinnamon-haired Irding, looking like nothing so much as a reduced copy of the man; and Stigander, standing between them.

    Einarr glanced around: Sivid was currently on the outside of the ring, at least for the moment. “Oy!” He tapped the small man on the shoulder. “What’s going on?”

    “That skinny guy – said you sent him? Hadn’t been here ten minutes before he walked up to Erik and popped him, right in the jaw. Right now the Captain’s the only thing keeping those two from fighting.”

    Einarr sighed. Of course. “Coming through!”

    The Vidofnings didn’t exactly part to let him pass, but they didn’t try to stop him, either. Stigander acknowledged his arrival in the center of the circle with a silent nod.

    “Father. What goes on here?”

    “Just a little tension with one of your new arrivals.”

    “Talk to the cripple over there!” Irding jumped in. “I wanted to leave it be where it was.”

    Predictably, Erik’s face reddened with anger. Not that Einarr could fault him.

    He took a deep breath, trying not to let the newcomer’s bluster get to him, too. “So tell me. Why did you feel the need to punch one of our best men immediately after you were let on board?”

    “Ask him if the name ‘Kenna’ means anything to him.”

    Erik’s anger slowly changed from anger to confusion, and then to remembrance. “Kenna? Lovely girl, she was. How is she these days?”

    “Dead.”

    Erik blinked.

    “Kenna. The woman you seduced and abandoned here in Apalvik twenty years ago. My mother, who always believed you’d come back for her, died of the pox last winter.”

    “Kenna was… She… I have a son?”

    Irding glared at the man who was, in fact, his father. Stigander pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, while Einarr shook his head.

    “There was some justice in your assault, then,” Stigander finally said. “This does not change that now I have to decide if I actually want to let you on my ship.”

    “If you will have me, I would stay. For my part, the punch was sufficient… because I should like to know the man who fathered me.”

    Einarr looked at his father. “If he is Erik’s son, doesn’t that make him just as much a man of Briedelsteinn as me?”

    Erik still looked poleaxed by the revelation that he had a son, although the vestiges of excitement looked to be building. If he’d fathered other children, plainly their mothers had not seen fit to inform him of it.

    “So it does. Erik? Will having this man on board be a problem?”

    “I have a son…” He shook his head, the question finally registering. “No. Not a problem. Evidently I deserved that one.”

    Stigander jerked his chin down in a decisive nod. “Very well. Irding Eriksson, welcome aboard the Vidofnir, last refuge of the Sons of Raen. You’ve already met my son, I believe. The men who were with him are Bardr, the Mate, and our smith Jorir.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “Do not expect special treatment because your father is one of our top warriors. I assure you that Einarr gets none.”

    “Understood, sir.”

    “Good! Now, I believe you were on your way to help unload when you decided to assault my sailor. Get to it!”

    * * *

    Among the crowd that had gathered with the crew to watch the budding fight were several local merchants. Some of them muttered about reducing their bids on account of the disruption. Thankfully, a quiet word with Bardr and an inspection of the goods in question forestalled that outcome.

    Erik disappeared not long after their cargo was offloaded, and reappeared with a cask under each arm more than an hour later. The man’s face was red, and already he smelled of mead, but unless Einarr was very much mistaken Erik was actually happy to learn he had a bastard. Einarr shook his head: he would wait until his friend was somewhat less ebullient before he asked “what about the others?”

    Irding kept to the shadows near the side of the boat, for the most part – until Erik caught sight of him.

    “Come, have a drink with us! Let yer old man get to know you.” Erik already had a small crowd around him, in truth. Einarr beckoned from the edge of it. Erik would find himself wedged in an awkward place soon enough, but for tonight it was true that they had found another man of the clan – even if he didn’t quite recognize it yet.

    Einarr’s other foundling, a broad-shouldered young man calling himself Svarek, arrived with the first light of dawn, a pack slung over his shoulder and a double-bitted axe at his belt. He was the third son of a local freeholder, he said, and his options were join a crew or join a priesthood. It was a common tale, but neither Einarr, Bardr, nor Stigander could find a reason why he shouldn’t come aboard.

    The Vidofnir remained under-strength, but still they sailed with the morning tide, beseeching Eira for fair winds and no more hunters.


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