Tangled Threads Publishing

Tag: Finn

  • 11.11 – Grim Mists

    11.11 – Grim Mists

    Einarr and Troa were out of the room before they heard Eydri’s footsteps start to catch up. Her complaints registered a moment later.

    “Warn a girl before you take off like that! Whatever happened to sticking together for everything?”

    Einarr and Troa muttered apologies but did not slow. The sound of fighting grew closer, but still Einarr worried they would not reach the two scouts in time. When, not much later, the ruins once again grew quiet, Einarr ran faster.

    When he saw the two, though, in an open space near the edge of the ruins, they were apparently unharmed. Finn stood leaning on the hilt of his blade, and Odvir rested on a tumbled-down section of wall, both catching their breath and staring into the forest.

    “What happened?” Einarr demanded just as Naudrek and Hrug pounded up behind them.

    Finn, straightening as he wiped a forearm across his brow, turned to face his Captain. “Wolves, sir.”

    Naudrek knitted his brow. “Wolves? At this time of day?”

    Odvir nodded and turned to face them as well, evidently deciding they weren’t likely to come back. “Yes, sir. Wolves — half-starved, by the look of them.”

    Troa nodded in understanding. “That makes sense, actually. Not like we saw any sign of game yesterday. They probably survive on squirrels and the odd villager.”

    Einarr sighed. “I don’t like this. Let’s hurry: I don’t want to stay on this island a minute longer than I have to.”

    With noises of agreement all around, they returned to their search quarters with new urgency.

    It was nearly evening, and the light had begun to take on the same sullen red of sunset as they had seen the night before, when Naudrek’s excited whoop echoed through the ruined walls of the old hold.

    Einarr sat back on his heels and breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he didn’t have to pry open another rotting chest.

    Eydri stood up and dusted off her hands. “Shall we go see what he’s found?”

    “With pleasure.”

    Troa stood with a groan. “How can one hold have so many storehouses?”

    Einarr chuckled. “This place must have been rich, once. Which makes the fall into this all the more troublesome.”

    “According to the herb-witch, we can find out what happened now that we’re here.” She was already gliding toward the exit. Einarr and Troa took up positions to either side of her as they made their way across the ruins. By the time they arrived, the light was outright dim.

    The room where they found Naudrek and Hrug still somehow had part of its stone roof, and its walls were filled with chests and scroll cases. Hrug was reading over a curling page of birch bark when they arrived, but looked up briefly to offer Einarr a pleased smile. Naudrek was scanning one of the scrolls.

    “If this isn’t it,” he said as they entered. “Then it’s long gone. Come take a look at this!”

    Troa cleared his throat, a little nervously, and took up a post at the door. Not much later he clasped hands with Finn and Odvir as they arrived.

    “All things considered, my lord,” Odvir ventured. “But shouldn’t we be getting back to camp soon?”

    Einarr looked up and blinked. “It is getting a bit dim for reading.”

    Troa cleared his throat again. “And wasn’t it about this time of day that the drowned draugr caught that fishing boat?”

    Naudrek blinked, stunned. Einarr understood: he could hardly believe he’d forgotten it, even with the excitement of finally finding the hold records. “Of course. If you think you’ve got something useful, bring it. Otherwise we can keep looking in the morning.”

    Without a moment’s hesitation Hrug tucked the tablet under the stump of his other arm even as Naudrek let his scroll roll up and left it on the table. Then they were out, darting across the open spaces of the ruined courtyard as though they were deep into enemy waters – which, Einarr supposed, was entirely too accurate.

    A light mist appeared around them, although the day had been dry. Einarr moved his hand to rest on Sinmora’s hilt and did not slow. It was not ghost light – not yet, anyway – but it did not have to be. They should have gone back to camp ages ago, even before Naudrek and Hrug had made their find. Now…

    Shapes moved in the mist. Their outlines were human, but that was impossible. Briefly the idea of his Wisdom runestone crossed his mind, but he put it aside. Seeing too well could be just as much an issue as seeing too poorly, after all. “Blades out, everyone. Seithir in the middle. Hrug, can you do anything about this mist?”

    The mute runemaster grunted: Einarr hoped that was an affirmative. He heard the rasp of blades leaving their sheathes as they formed a defensive circle.

    “Eydri, be ready. I think we’re going to have to fight our way back to camp.”

    “Of course, my lord.”

    Sometimes Einarr really wished he didn’t know she was attracted to him. It made moments like this awkward. But, in the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was surviving the night.

    The first of the figures solidified out of the mist: a stumbling, shambling skeletal figure, still clothed in the tattered, rotting remnants of the clothes it had died in.

    “Draugr,” he said aloud, unnecessarily. He slashed downward across its neck with Sinmora, but if the rattling bones did more than pause he could not see it. “Eydri?”

    The Singer drew in a deep breath to Sing, but before she got more than a few notes out she choked and coughed as though the mist were smoke in her lungs.

    “Eydri?” He asked again, more alarmed this time. Before she answered he heard the gurgle of water from her skin.

    “Run,” she rasped, still sounding raspy and half-choked.

    They ran, striking with blade and foot alike as they tried to clear a path back to the presumptive safety of their camp.

    Vote for Vikings on Top Web Fiction!

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    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading! 

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon.Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr ebook through Draft2Digital, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.

  • 11.10 – Waiting. Watching.

    11.10 – Waiting. Watching.

    Much to Naudrek’s annoyance, Einarr insisted on taking the midnight watch that night. “This is your quest, Einarr. You owe it to yourself to be fresh for it in the morning.”

    “You’re right. This is my quest. But I deeply mislike the situation I’ve brought you all into, and of all of us there are three who are best equipped to deal with the minions of Hel. Me, Hrug, and Eydri. And I’m the only one who can keep my own watch.”

    “But—” Naudrek tried to protest again.

    “But what? Don’t tell me you’re worried I’ll try to handle too much alone?”

    The other man clapped his mouth shut. Einarr shook his head, chuckling. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you first if anything happens. There will be nights enough when I’m the one sleeping the whole night.”

    “…As you say.”

    Now Einarr sat by the fire, polishing Sinmora’s blade while he waited to see what, if anything, the denizens of this place were going to throw at them this night. When he had relieved Troa’s watch, the man had seen nothing – which under ordinary circumstances meant there was nothing to see, and so far, neither had he.

    A wisp of mist floated past outside the door of the chamber where they had made camp, glowing white. Einarr followed it with one eye: it was interesting, but after dealing with the Althane’s court he was not about to go wandering off after ghost light if he didn’t have to, alone or not.

    From the other direction, a rattling noise caught his attention, but when he turned to look there was nothing there. That might bear investigating. Einarr stood, keeping hold of Sinmora’s hilt in a loose grip, and stepped softly over to the door. When he got there, though, there was nothing to see. With a sigh, he returned to his spot on the wall and polishing his sword.

    Either someone – or something – is watching us, or they’re trying to lure me out. Well, they can watch us sleep if they must, but I won’t be lured. Einarr snorted, and kept a frequent eye turned in either direction.

    When Finn, on the dawn watch, woke everyone come morning he reported with some puzzlement that he had seen nothing unusual. Einarr pressed his lips together and knitted his brow, then sighed. “So that means someone was after me, specifically, last night.”

    Eydri perked up. “Why? What did you see?”

    “Not much. The occasional wisp of ghost light, and once or twice I heard bones rattling. The sorts of things you might do if you deliberately wanted to draw someone out alone.”

    Now it was Eydri’s turn to knit her brow. “And if they wanted to draw you out, specifically, was it fair or foul?”

    Einarr shrugged. “Don’t know. Doesn’t matter, really. When we’re searching today, though, everyone stays in pairs. I don’t care if you’re just going out to shit, you take someone to watch your back.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “Now. As soon as we’re all ready, we need to start searching this place, top to bottom. There’s got to be some record of where Grandfather buried Ragnar. We need to stay focused here.” And not get wrapped up in some curse that doesn’t truly have anything to do with you. Get the sword and get home, don’t get wrapped up trying to fix whatever happened here a hundred years ago. The last time he’d done that was on the Althane’s island, and he’d cost the lives of far too many of Father’s crew.

    Finn started pulling wooden truncheons from his pack, and it was only then that Einarr realized the other man had spent a good portion of his watch cooking breakfast. He chuckled. “Three cheers for Finn! What have you boiled for us?”

    Not long after, with the fire thoroughly doused, they split into three teams. Naudrek and Hrug went southeast, Finn and Odvir went west, and Einarr took Eydri and Troa to the northeast. “Eyes open, blades limber. Good hunting,” he told them all in the courtyard as they parted ways.

    “Good hunting,” came the murmured response.

    For hours the three of them combed through forgotten guest chambers, store rooms and workshops. Occasionally they would find a bound scroll of birch bark, or a carved slate, but these all appeared to be inventories of what had once been stored within.

    The sky overhead was still a flat, overcast grey, such that nothing seemed to cast its shadow. Einarr tried not to focus on it as he searched: it sent shivers down his spine. Anyone could be hiding in a place like this: hiding, and watching, as someone clearly had been the night before. He was, he could admit to himself, just as glad to have a third person along – even if he had argued with Naudrek that morning that the scouts were the ones in most danger.

    With a sigh, he blew dust off the top of a moss-covered wooden box that sat, still unopened, in the corner of the current store room. A large tuft of dead moss tumbled down to the ground, revealing the remains of a carving on the lid. He raised an eyebrow: curious, Einarr started brushing away the moss.

    The central image was simple enough: it was a longship – not, so far as he could tell, Hel’s – with a dragon’s head on the prow. He’d seen more than one like it already, and all of them had been worthless to him. This one, however, showed the remnants of runework around the edges of the box. Unfortunately, between the light and the age of the work, he couldn’t make it out. “Eydri? What do you make of this?”

    The Singer, much smudged by the grime of ages, gave him a frustrated look. “Just another recipe box, isn’t it?”

    “Who protects their recipes with rune wards?”

    She furrowed her brow and stood to come look. That, however, was when they heard desperate shouts from the west. Einarr and Troa shared a look and a nod, and took off at a dead run towards the commotion.

    Vote for Vikings on Top Web Fiction!

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    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading! 

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon.Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr ebook through Draft2Digital, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.

  • 11.9 – Stone Circle

    11.9 – Stone Circle

    It was nearly impossible to tell the passage of time in the twilight gloom of that forest canopy. Here and there they would pass near a spot where a tree had fallen, but even in those brief clearings the only sky they saw was a dull, dead grey. It was their stomachs told them it must be nearly noon, and just as they resolved to break on the road for their midday meal Troa spotted the standing stones off to the left, deeper into the forest.

    Einarr sighed. “Nothing is ever easy, is it. All right, gents. Chew some jerky, then Troa, Odvir, and Finn, I need you to look for a track going off in that direction. Would have been a road when Grandfather was a boy, but she said it hadn’t been used since. Everyone else needs to limber up… and under no circumstances is anyone to lay a finger on those standing stones. The herb witch said they belonged to Hel, and I’m not inclined to think that was a figure of speech.”

    There were rumbles of assent from his companions, and they set about their tasks. The three scouts hadn’t been searching long before Finn called out. He sounded troubled, though. “I think I’ve found it.”

    Einarr, still chewing on his jerky, came over to have a look. There, winding off into the forest, was what appeared to be not much more than a pair of deer tracks moving oddly parallel to each other. To Einarr, too, that looked like what they sought. Disturbingly, though, the end of the track was strewn about with sun-bleached bones. Human bones, unless he missed his guess. He cleared his throat. “I think so too. Good work.”

    Why couldn’t Grandfather have just been a young hothead, out for adventure and a name for himself? Einarr sighed. With what they’d heard, and what they saw in the harbor… “Looks like it’s not just the bay,” is what he said. “Let’s move. We need to be encamped in the ruins before sunset.”

    “Yes, sir!” everyone answered – even Eydri, who was not exactly under his command.

    The track wound through the center of the standing stones. As they passed through, Einarr saw twisted, deformed figures of people carved on the stones and, dividing them, what had to be Naglfar. He shivered: were those carved intentionally? He couldn’t imagine who could be persuaded to make such a thing: even the demon cultists were sane enough to shun the grave if they could. “What are we looking at here, Eydri?”

    “A bad sign,” she answered, and clapped her mouth shut. A moment later, she sighed. “We need to hurry on to the ruins. The longer we linger, the more danger there is.”

    Reluctantly, Einarr nodded and frowned. “Should we prepare torches?”

    She frowned now, but it looked like thinking. “No. Not yet, anyway. Based on the bones, I suspect steel will suffice.”

    “You heard her. Let’s move. Daylight’s wasting.”

    Some distance past the standing stones, the track faded into oblivion. Under the forest canopy, one direction looked much the same as any other. The only guide post that remained constant was the single spike of mountain in the center of the island, and in order to check that they had to send someone up a tree.

    The forest twilight took on the color of late afternoon before one of them spotted the tumble-down stones of what used to be an outer wall of the hold and Einarr felt himself relaxing, if only a little. That the safety of the old hold was only relative was never in doubt. Still, though, it was bound to be more defensible than the forest. They picked up the pace.

    The forest had, somehow, still not grown up into the courtyard of the old hold. As they crossed the open land that would once have served as a killing field, the setting sun tinged the crumbling stone walls red.

    Inside, grass grew up between the flagstones, and moss fuzzed the walls. Most of the roof was gone, and the walls cast long shadows beneath their feet. Einarr pressed onward and inward, searching for a room that was still mostly enclosed. He wasn’t taking any chances here, not after what they saw at the circle of standing stones.

    They finally came to a chamber, with four mostly solid walls and only two exits for anyone who couldn’t fly, as the sky overhead shaded from the sullen red of sunset into the deep blue-grey of twilight. “This will have to do,” Einarr said, still looking around. His eyes lingered in the deeper shadows of corners, trying to determine if anything already lurked. “Troa, Finn, make sure the walls aren’t hiding anything. Odvir, we need wood. We’re making camp here, everyone.”

    Eydri slung her pack down on the ground with a groan. “I haven’t walked that far in a day in a very long time.”

    Naudrek snorted. “It’s not the distance. It’s the ownership.”

    Hrug grunted his agreement as he sat by the Singer. He started rummaging around in his pack, and soon pulled out his rune sticks.

    Einarr stood near the center of the room and bounced on his toes. As much as it had been a long march today, still he itched to begin his explorations – even though the light had nearly failed, and even though they knew they trespassed in Hel’s dominion. He shook his head and knelt on the ground, a few feet from the seithir. He gathered up bits of moss and dead grass that came readily to hand and began to kindle a fire.

    By the time Odvir arrived with his first armload of firewood, the kindling had started, and as the sky darkened into a starless black their fire lent the room a cheery warmth to press against the night.

    Vote for Vikings on Top Web Fiction!

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    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading! 

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon.Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr ebook through Draft2Digital, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.

  • 11.8 – The Grey Lands

    11.8 – The Grey Lands

    As afternoon faded into evening the last stragglers made it back to the Heidrun. Svarek had managed to acquire some cabbages and fresh fish ashore and was currently boiling them into one of his marvelous soups. Everyone looked discouraged. Everyone, that is, except for Einarr’s team and Hrug. They were merely resigned.

    “I’m afraid I gave you some bad advice earlier. Had I known how poorly thought of Ragnar was when Grandfather left, I’d have come up with some other way of asking around.”

    He heard a few scattered grumblings, but no-one interrupted.

    “The bad news is, the only public hall in town is not a place you can – or should, I think – stay. Anyone who doesn’t come with me will have to stay on the ship.”

    Svarek snorted. “Bread’s full of rocks, anyway.”

    “Oh, you too?” Einarr chuckled, then sighed. “The good news is, between the herb-witch and the rune sticks I know both where to go and who to bring with me. Hrug and I will ward the ship before we leave—”

    The sorcerer held up his hand in mute protest.

    “Don’t be so surprised, old man. We talked about this. If we do these wards properly they won’t need you here, and I very well might. I mislike what that old woman said about ‘Hel’s domain.’ I hope she’s just being macabre, but…”

    “But we all follow the Cursebreaker,” Eydri finished.

    “Yes, that. So I’m only taking a handful of people with me, and the rest of you get to stay put and guard the ship.” Against what, he could not guess, but he wasn’t about to put them off their guard that way. “Now. Coming with me – and no arguments, now, we all talked this over very carefully among ourselves. Hrug, Naudrek, Eydri, Troa, Finn, and Odvir. Ready yourselves for the expedition. Everyone else, you know what to do.”

    The sky was shading from pale grey to dark grey. Out over the water, movement caught Einarr’s eye. A lone fishing boat sped across the surface of the water, its oars creating their own wakes in the still surface of the water. Despite the strange, desperate speed of the rowers, however, the boat seemed to be slowing – and sinking. The closer to shore it drew, the lower in the water it sat.

    “Hey, that fisher needs help!” Odvir exclaimed.

    “…Yeah, you’re right.” Einarr was about to order his men to oars, but then Eydri held out a forestalling arm.

    “No, don’t.”

    “What?”

    “We can’t help.” Eydri looked pale.

    The water around the hull of the boat seemed to be writhing, as though grey tendrils reached up and roiled around its sides. They could hear the shouts and pounding of the fishermen aboard as they tried to fight off whatever it was that had now stopped them in the water.

    Then a crack like thunder echoed over the surface of the water and the boat broke in two. Now the voices of the fishermen turned to cries of fear as skinny black bodies dragged the capsized boat and all its occupants beneath the surface.

    “What did we just watch?” Naudrek asked, his voice hollow with sickened wonder.

    “I had wondered,” Eydri started. “What the old herb witch meant when she called this island Hel’s domain. I think… I think we know, now.”

    Einarr grunted agreement, his eyes glued to the place where the water still roiled from the death-struggles of the fishermen. “Be on your guard, everyone. Hrug, let’s get started.”

    The ward Einarr and Hrug laid over the ship was surprisingly similar to the one Elder Melja had maintained over the Crimson Shroud, except that it was set to keep things out rather than in – in this case, things that were not alive. It would draw its power from the entirety of the crew, which would distribute its need to the point that no one should be unduly inconvenienced. This was in place before the midnight watch began.

    At dawn, Einarr and his team shouldered their packs and tramped across to the dock. Svarek would take command while they were gone: the young wanderer had proven himself steady and reliable over the course of the last year. And with that, Einarr led the others back through the town.

    Even dawn could not bring cheer or color to the streets of this town. Einarr noted with interest, however, that now it was the women who were out and about, sweeping yards and doing the ordinary, day-to-day tasks that keep a town from squalor. Still, though, he saw no children. Perhaps, given what they knew about the island, this was rational on the part of the people. It did not make it less unnerving, however.

    The townsfolk, for their part, shied away from the travelers as they passed, and it was plain they did not intend to speak to the strangers. Thus it was that Einarr and his companions passed through the town in silence.

    The forest pressed hard against the edge of the town to the north and fell into the gloom of twilight. Eydri and Finn lit torches.

    The forest was not, in fact, black pine – or at least not entirely – but a mix of hard and soft wood. But, like everything else on the island, the colors were dulled and greyed, only reinforcing the feeling of death and decay that seemed to hang over everything.

    “According to the herb witch,” Einarr reminded them. “We need to follow the old road north until we reach the standing stones. After that things get trickier.”

    “Tricky – how?” Odvir asked, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

    “Ghost-light, lost in the mist tricky, I’m afraid. That’s why you and Troa are with me, frankly.” They were two of the only ones on board who had faced the Althane two years ago.

    “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Troa groaned.

    “Let’s keep going, though. The sooner we get to the ruins of the old hold, the better.”

    Vote for Vikings on Top Web Fiction!

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    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading! 

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon.Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr ebook through Draft2Digital, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.