7.20 – Return

Posted on 2019-07-11 by allene

At first glance, the Shrouded Village appeared exactly as it had the day the alfr from Breidhaugr delivered him. Surely, though, that could not be the case. Melja had said they would continue their research while he hunted it. Einarr had no reason to doubt that, save for an offhand comment by a cynical old woman he met in the woods. He walked – determinedly, yes, perhaps even doggedly, but still well short of stalking – into the village, to the house where the scrolls were kept.

On the way, Einarr could not help but note that the villagers were going about their daily lives more or less as normal, if perhaps more nervously than before. Was research truly the only preparation they had to make? Did everything fall to Melja and his wife, truly? Einarr shook his head and pressed on, pushing the door to the scroll house open without announcing himself.

Melja, at least, was where Einarr had expected to find him: at the work table inside, half-buried in texts, all of which appeared to concern the Shroud.

“Good day,” Einarr said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

“Ah, Einarr. You’re back. Wonderful. Take a seat, I think I’m finally on the right track.” Melja sounded utterly unconcerned, at the very least.

Einarr felt the anger that had been beginning to burn in his belly recede. Not all the way, not with Melja left to do everything himself, but Geiti’s seed of doubt had been diminished. He joined his teacher at the table.

An hour later, to judge by the light, Melja leaned back and pressed his hands to his eyes. “Please, for the love of all the gods, tell me you found something.”

Einarr, too, sat back, but not to rub his eyes. He studied his teacher as he spoke. “A dead Jarl’s son, a burned village, an old woman and a scrap of cloth.” The piece of the Shroud Einarr lay on the table in front of his teacher. “Also, more than a few questions.”

Melja opened his eyes and stared at the cloth, fingering it in silence for a long moment. “The old woman – Geiti?”

Einarr nodded, although he wasn’t sure the alfr saw him.

“What did old Geiti have to say? She didn’t pour poison in your ear, did she?”

“Not as such.” Einarr smirked. “She was too busy calling me an idiot. Although she may be paying you a visit soon. Said I should tell you to stop hiding dangerous information if you didn’t want to lose more students.”

Melja snorted. “And why, praytell, did she say that?”

Einarr shrugged, a little uncomfortably. “Because she found me unconscious, with more than a few runestones on me. I stumbled on the technique practicing on the road.”

Now his master snorted again. “And, since I’d not mentioned them, you didn’t know your limit. All right, I can tolerate the old witch long enough to admit fault there. How many had you made before you blacked out?”

“Seven, I think.” He hadn’t been paying too much attention, at the time, but he saw no reason to mention that.

“Not bad, for a human novice. Keep yourself to no more than four, for now, and you should be fine. You may eventually be able to maintain more, but for the time being that should be a safe upper limit.”

Einarr nodded, glad to have it confirmed.

“You haven’t made any more since then?”

“Just one. The Óss.”

Melja tilted his head to the side. “An interesting choice. Most of our students pick something a little more… offensive for their first runestone.”

Einarr shrugged. He was and always would be a warrior first and foremost, even if he couldn’t rely on brute strength to carry him through. He supposed it might be too much to ask someone like Melja to really understand that, in some ways, he had more in common with the thief than he did with the rest of the village.

“Don’t take that the wrong way,” Melja added, perhaps reading something on Einarr’s face he had not intended to show. “I approve. The Wisdom Rune is one I often wish a student would choose. Only, think carefully on the answers you receive from it. They are not always, or even usually, straightforward.”

“I understand.”

“But. You had questions. Ask, and I will endeavor to answer. Remember that, for all that we have been guarding it for generations, there is still much we do not know about the Shroud.”

Einarr nodded once. “I’ll start smaller, then. Why are you the only one in the village who is working on this?”

Melja blinked at him blankly a few times, then smiled as realization dawned. “My dear boy, their work is done. The divination ritual is only waiting this scrap of cloth you’ve brought us.”

“I- you- … How did you know I would find it?”

“This in particular? We didn’t. This is both the best and the worst possible talisman you could have found for the ritual. But that you would come back, with something we could use as a focus? Almost inevitable.”

Einarr leaned his elbows forward on the heavy wooden table. “So what if I hadn’t gone?”

Melja shook his head. “Were you an alfr, or perhaps even a dvergr, that might have been a question, but you are human, and, as you yourself have said, a warrior. That you would go eventually was never a question. Honestly, you stuck around longer than anyone other than Mira expected.”

Einarr stared at Melja for a long moment, his shock at the revelation slowly giving way to annoyance. Gods, but the alfs could be infuriating sometimes. Finally he took a long, slow breath and let it out. “All right. So since everything I’ve done so far has been according to plan, how do we end this?”

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7.19 – Tracking

Posted on 2019-07-09 by allene

It was unmistakeably the same material as the Shroud. Oddly, it did not feel hot to the touch, nor did it burn anything else it came in contact with. For whatever reason, once separated from the whole there was no more magic in it.

This was just as well, Einarr figured, but ultimately unimportant. What mattered to him was the rough, ragged edge that seemed stretched in places. That meant the torn edge of the Shroud should also be ragged and stretched, and thus (he hoped) easier to track.

Or, a voice whispered in the back of his head, you could take the scrap back to your Master in the village and let them divine its location, like old Geiti said they could.

He might find it faster that way, he supposed, but it was still an unworthy thought. He shook his head. “I’ve been spending too much time around magicians,” he muttered.

No matter what Melja said, he was partly responsible for the Shroud’s release – however unintended it was. And the Shroud was in the process of killing its way across the island, to what purpose Einarr could not guess. He owed it to the Shrouds victims to at least try to discover their fates. Then they could be properly mourned, if not buried, and the restless dead would not trouble the island. Thus resolved, he shoved the scrap of cloth in the pouch at his belt and began peering at foliage and twigs, looking for burned ends.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, the signs were there to be found: a singed sprig of leaves here, a blackened blaze against the white bark of a birch there (and when he found that, he blessed the chief whose son they had found). Had the Shroud not been wounded, as it were, it would not have left such a sloppy trail.

Or, would it? He had no idea what drove the thing. Did it even care that it had been torn? He fingered the scrap of cloth in his pouch. Perhaps it would be best to go back to the village after all. After half a day of tracking it as it floated, seemingly aimless among the trees, he began to wonder.

He stopped and closed his eyes. If he were here, what would Jorir tell me? Had it been less than a season since the svartdvergr swore to him under suspicious circumstances? The dwarf had proven his worth – even his loyalty and his friendship – many times over already. Einarr smiled, because he already knew the answer to that: it had been Jorir’s voice before, telling him to go back to the village. He took a deep breath —

—And smelled smoke. Not faint and damp and faded, like he had been all day, but fresh and pungent woodsmoke. His eyes snapped open and he began to run, following his nose, toward the source of the smell.

Einarr could hardly believe his eyes. He had thought the Shrouded Village to be the only hidden village on the island, but here before him stood the smoking ruin of another. Had it been on the coast, he would have assumed a particularly vicious group of raiders, but he was still in the middle of the hardwood forest that seemed to dominate this island.

Here and there a timber jutted out, but little else remained beyond charred rubble. Einarr stopped at the edge of the village, frozen. Was this…

A sound of sobbing came from further into the village, and Einarr was moving again. Someone survived this?

The sound came from what must have once been the village green, but now was a scene of horror as herb-witches and whoever in the village had an ounce of song magic tended to the bodies still living among the rows of corpses. The sobbing he had heard came from a group of small children, huddled together near the edge of the green for comfort.

He left the children to comfort each other: likely their parents were among the dead. What little he knew about the Shroud said it had not done this, and yet he could not think the smell of smoke would be this fresh had the thief somehow ransacked the village by himself. An old woman was placing thin copper coins over where a man’s eyes used to be: he approached her.

“Honored grandmother… what happened here?”

She looked up sharply and squinted at him for a long moment. “Ye be a stranger. What brings ye?”

“I hunt the Shroud.”

“Then on the right track ye be. Old Snor’s home was the worst burnt, and the first, and still no sign of Snor.”

Einarr stared around them for a long moment. “All of this, from one man’s house?”

“’Tis a long story, an’ a sad one, but if’n you hunt the thing that started it, best be on wit’ ye. This village is finished, but at least we’ll be avenged.”

“I understand, grandmother. Good fortune to you all…” It felt ridiculous to wish it, and yet what else was he to do? Condolences from a stranger would only ring hollow. But he would see them avenged, that was certain. Them and all the other victims on the island.

He took his time leaving the village, scouring the forest border all the way around until he was certain he knew which direction the Shroud went. The smell of burnt thatch and charred flesh stung his nose the entire time.

When he left, though it was not West, towards the sea, after the Shroud. There was still too much he didn’t know, too many questions, for him to be out chasing it through the forest. He would take word, and the scrap, to Melja. And tonight he would carve the first of his three runestones: ᚨ. After all, he wouldn’t necessarily have a dwarf to rely on all the time, either.

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7.18 – Crone

Posted on 2019-07-04 by allene

Einarr accepted the old crone’s porridge somewhat cautiously. Last night she had spoken of ‘questions,’ and made it sound like more than a few. He wasn’t sure he looked forward to answering them, although he would as honestly as he could.

The porridge, at least, was good. It had a pleasant woodsiness to it that Mira’s did not, and even as he ate he felt his strength returning to him. To Geiti’s apparent amusement, he found himself shoveling the thick grain stew ravenously into his mouth. She, too, ate, though far more sedately.

“I am glad to see your strength returned to you, young Cursebreaker.”

He nodded, buying time to swallow a mouthful. “Thank you for taking care of me. I’ll be sure to pass along your message when I return to the village. For now, though, I must return to my hunt.”

Geiti shook her head, chuckling. Stringy white hair fell forward into her face. “I’d a feeling you were going to say that. You know they have means of tracking it, right? Divining with the runes is more than just fortune-teller’s tricks.”

Now it was Einarr’s turn to shake his head. “I don’t like neglecting my training this way, it’s true… but I am a warrior, not a scholar, and until the Shroud is dealt with it is scholarship they must focus on.”

Geiti snorted. “After all this time, and still those elves don’t understand people. And this time, they’ve sent out a half-literate Cursebreaker to get themselves out of a bind, assuming he doesn’t get himself killed first.”

Einarr raised an eyebrow to hear the woman’s muttering, but said nothing. He wasn’t certain he would put it so uncharitably, but she also wasn’t necessarily wrong. There was, in fact, nothing he could say that would satisfy both hospitality and honesty.

“Don’t you worry yourself over trifles, boy. You go on about your hunt. Maybe, by some stroke of luck, you’ll manage to stop the Shroud before they can. Maybe you’ll even live through it – you look like a scrappy one. Meanwhile, this old woman has work to do.”

Einarr paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth, and stared at her. There was something just a little off about old Geiti. “Who… are you?”

She smirked. “What, do you expect me to throw off my cloak and reveal myself to be Wotan? Frigg? While I may be the Wise Old Woman in the Woods, I am mortal like yourself. I’ve just learned in my years as the highest-ranking Singer on this island something of what to expect of the ljosalfs here. I have something of an understanding with them, you see, although it appears to be past time I paid them another visit.”

“I… see.” Part of him, he was surprised to discover, was a little disappointed that she was not a god in disguise. Most of him, however, was just as glad not to come face to face with either of the Aesir he had robbed earlier this summer.

Now she cackled again. “Be about your hunt, child. You have some idea how to follow the thing?”

“Some, vaguely. I think it might be torn.”

She nodded. “In that case, look for the ends of branches and twigs that have been singed. And if you must make more runestones for yourself, no more than four, and never more than one at a time. At least not until you have a chance to speak with Melja about it. I don’t doubt a stone of two runes would kill you all by itself.”

“Thank you, grandmother. I will remember.”

It took Einarr less than two hours to find his way back to the Chief’s favored campsite where, some four days before, they had found the knife and the trail to the little boy. The new chief, in all likelihood. He pitied the child, but only for a moment. More important by far was finding the Shroud that had in all likelihood orphaned him, and his best chance of doing that was to find the mark his father’s knife had left in the dirt.

He had not, yet, carved himself fresh runestones. The old woman had said four: well, he would keep three about himself, at least for now, but he needed to consider carefully which three.

Einarr stood in the center of the campsite, on the stones of the fire ring, and stared about him. There was the path the children had taken in their mad flight. Unfortunately, that told him little. He allowed himself an exasperated sigh. Calm down. Remember what Afi taught you.

Einarr took a step off to the side and squatted down near the fire ring, closing his eyes. The smell of wet ash still permeated the clearing, somehow, and strongest from the ring in front of him. But that wasn’t the only source.

He pivoted, one knee dropping to the ground, and walked on his knees over to the edge of the clearing. Yes, this was it: this was where Onnir had found the knife stabbed into the ground. Strange that it should have been like that…

…unless someone had been trying to fight off the Shroud. He could see how pinning a thing that was a blindingly fast, flying scarf might be an effective attack. Based on the little boy’s story, it seemed likely that was the case.

The slit was still there, half-hidden by brush. That was probably the only reason it still existed at all. And his nose told him there was a source of char here. He bent down so that his nose was practically touching the ground and dirt got in his whiskers. Nothing on the surface, but that meant little after so long. He combed his fingers over the dirt.

Something tickled his palm. When he moved his hand, in a space that had previously been covered by dust and pebbles, he saw a small patch of diaphanous crimson cloth.

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7.17 – Practical Magic

Posted on 2019-07-02 by allene

Einarr’s head swam, although he could feel the hard ground beneath it. The crackle of a nearby campfire was unmistakeable. The last thing he remembered was etching an ᚱ into some birch bark to keep for later use. What… happened? Where am I?

He blinked, and at first all he saw was a brownish blur. When he opened his eyes again, though, his vision was clear. That brown blur was the glow of firelight on the branches of an ash, and beyond that the starry field of night. Einarr groaned.

“Awake, are you?” The creaking voice of an old woman broke the stillness. “I’d begun to wonder if your foolishness had actually killed you.”

With another groan, Einarr pushed himself up on his elbows and squinted at the source of the voice. “What do you mean?”

The woman who sat across the fire from him in a colorless cloak appeared ancient – older, even, than the oldest of the Matrons on Breidhaugr. Old enough that Einarr was surprised to see her out in the forest at all.

“What I mean,” the crone said. “Is that the village alfs never should have let you out of their sight. What were you thinking, carving all those runestones?”

Einarr blinked at her, a little confused. “You mean those chips? I thought they’d be useful…”

“Not much use if you’ve so much of your life tied up in them they kill you. You’re a novice, and a human to boot. There’s no way your soul could support more than a handful.”

Einarr sat all the way up. For just a campfire, the light seemed awfully bright to his eyes right then. “What do you mean?”

The old woman with her drawn features snorted. “Wise enough to listen to your elders, at any rate. Did your alfr master tell you, properly, what the limits of rune magic are?”

“The Runemaster requires time, primarily. Time to inscribe the proper runes for his purpose.”

The crone nodded. “That’s right, so far as it goes. He didn’t mention runestones?”

Einarr shook his head. “I’ve only a few months with them. I only really wanted to learn how to read them. Probably he decided there wasn’t time to teach me.”

She snorted again. “Not quite, I suspect. Runestones are an advanced technique. Not because they’re particularly difficult: any fool can inscribe a rune and make it last. But every one you make ties up a portion of your life energy. With the number you had on you, you’re lucky I found you.”

“I… Yes. Thank you, for that. How long was I out?”

“It’s been a day and a half since I destroyed them for you. As for how long you’d been out before that, I really couldn’t say.”

Einarr blanched. “More than a day… since you destroyed them?”

“That’s right – and a good thing you put them on wood, too. If you’d been fool enough to carve them in stone, this old woman wouldn’t have been able to break them. That’s the only way to reclaim the bits of your spirit, after all.”

“I see.” He did, actually: his eyes finally felt like they were back to normal. “How do you know so much?”

The crone cackled. “You’re not the first over-extended student of the runes this old Singer has seen. Not on this island.”

“Wait, hold on. You’re a Singer?”

“I was, in my youth. Voice is gone, now, but it didn’t take my mind with it.” She laughed again.

Einarr nodded slowly, considering. “You have my thanks for the rescue. Tell me, did you move me from where I was found?”

“You give these old bones a good deal of credit, young man. We are not far off the path where I found you, in a little clearing not many others know. In the morning, you are free to go about your business – although if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get back to that village and bow your neck to Elder Melja. Tell him Geiti sent you scampering back, and if he doesn’t want to lose more students he should stop hiding ‘dangerous’ information.”

Einarr couldn’t keep a small smile off of his face. “I’ll be sure to tell him that when I return. But I can’t go back immediately.”

The crone resettled herself on the ground, leaning forward a bit with interest. “And what, then, has a young novice wandering about like a toddler just finding his feet?”

I think I deserved that one? “The Shroud has been freed.”

“Good gods, man, what are you doing out here? Get back to the village, let the Runemasters handle it.”

“The Runemasters can’t handle it if they can’t find it. I’m trying to make sure they know where to look.”

“And why, praytell, did they let a novice take on that job?”

He sighed. “Forgive me, grandmother Geiti. I’m afraid I haven’t properly introduced myself. I am Einarr, only son of Stigander, the son of Raen of Breidlestein. Wandering prince, veteran raider, no meagre hunter, and the named Cursebreaker besides.”

“Well well well. Now I have even more questions. But, they will wait. It is late, and you are still recovering your strength. Sleep now, and we will speak more in the morning.”

And so Einarr laid his head back down on the bare earth to stare at the stars and the light flickering on the branches above. Sleep eluded him, and he was uncertain if that was because his life energy was returning to him – he felt stronger almost by the minute – or if it was because even here he could not escape his Calling. Eventually, though, he must have dropped off, because when next he opened his eyes the sky was the pale blue of early morning. The smell of berried porridge clung to the morning air. When he sat up, the ancient Singer offered him a toothless smile and a wooden bowl.

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3.13 – Darkness

Posted on 2017-11-07 by allene

For a long moment, darkness and silence held sway. Einarr strained his eyes and his ears, but no light seeped into this cavern from above, and the only sound that reached his ears was the occasional plink of a drop of water falling into a pool below. Finally he heard the distinctive scrape of a fire striker. In the moment before the first spark died without catching, he thought he saw a skeletal figure poised to strike.

Sinmora rasped from her scabbard. He held his blade outstretched, on guard.

The striker sounded again. Again, the torch did not catch. Again, he saw his enemy. Caught, this time, a hint of cloth that suggested it might be the captain he had nearly tripped over earlier.

Now two strikers sounded. He hoped he wasn’t the only one to have seen the apparition… hoped this was not the thing that had killed the freeboaters.

A torch caught and flared to life. Einarr blinked: the skeleton now once again lay prone on the ground, its fingers clutching its neck. Confused, he looked over at Jorir as he sheathed his sword. The dwarf’s hand was on his axe handle, but he had not drawn.

“Tell me you saw that, too,” he muttered.

The dwarf nodded once. “Probably no one else, though. Not in that light.”

Einarr nodded, then strode forward, once again stepping over the cadaver as though it wasn’t there. Jorir, however, was not as forgiving: he stopped long enough to smash the brittle skull with the back of his axe.

“What was that about?” Odvir’s confusion was audible in his voice.

“Never leave an enemy on the field behind you.” Jorir’s answer was flat.

“An… enemy?” It was Irding’s turn to sound skeptical now.

“Aye. An enemy. Surely you’ve not forgotten why svartdvergers are such good miners, have you?” Jorir pointed at his eye. “While you’re remembering that, best remember that the dead walk on this island. Some of them may have ears.”

Einarr could not quite repress a smile when he heard a series of gulps behind him. “Let’s get back to that boat.”

***

Einarr came to the end of the steep passage they had followed down and stopped, staring, at the panel that once again barred their way. Even from this side it appeared to be solid stone, but that wasn’t truly the problem. The problem was the slope they stood on, and the smoothness of the stone under their feet.

“Almost makes you wish we had Arring with us, doesn’t it?”

Erik, at least, chuckled.

“Right. Well. There has to be some way to move it from this side, or there wouldn’t have been anywhere nearly so much gold down there.”

Jorir hummed. “Floor near the walls is like to have more traction than in the center.”

“Here’s hoping it’s enough.” Einarr stepped over to the corner, looking for any break between the hanging slab and the wall that they might be able to use for leverage. He scuffed a boot against the ground under his feet. “Mm. Maybe. No place to put a lever even if we had one, though.”

He paused a moment, considering . “Fjorkar, take the other side. Everyone else, brace us. Erik, Geiti, you fall in last. You’ll have the best footing of any of us here.”

“Aye, sir!” The response to this was somewhat more enthusiastic than the situation warranted, but he could understand wanting to be back in the sea air after the oppressiveness of the cave.

Einarr blew in his hands and rubbed his palms together for grip as he stepped up to take his place against the slab. “Put your backs into it! Ready?”

Fjorkar leaned in on the other side, and the rest of the team moved in to brace the two of them and lend their own strength.

“On three! One, two, now!” His “now” became a shout of exertion as he dug in feet, shoulders, and hands to try to lift the massive stone slab on its hinge.

A crack of light appeared at their feet. Einarr pulled his back foot forward and pushed against the ground. It bought them another inch.

Einarr saw from the corner of his eye that Jorir had slipped out of the formation and stepped toward the center of the passage. His eyes were intent on that crack of light at the floor, and he stood braced.

“What… are you… doing?” Erik grunted.

“Get me six more inches,” was all the dwarf replied.

Six?! Einarr had to trust his liege man, though. “One inch… at a time…”

A pair of hands moved from bracing Einarr to plant themselves on the stone. For an alarming moment, it seemed as though his boots would slip back, but then some little of the pressure from the slab was taken from Einarr’s shoulders. He gathered strength in his legs and gave another shove.

Fjorkar, too, was redoubling his effort, and one of the men on that corner had the same idea.

After what felt like an excruciatingly long time, the gap between the wall and the floor was large enough for Jorir to make his move. The svartdverger dashed forward into the gap, lowering his head to catch the stone on his shoulders.

The momentum from his dash pressed up against the stone slab. Einarr nearly lost his footing as the door swung upwards, until Jorir stood upright, bearing the weight of the stone on his shoulders and hands.

The rest of the team wasted no time scrambling out through the four-foot gap. Einarr, Erik, Fjoirkar, and Geiti were the last to pass through.

“You two. Go on through, hold it open for the rest of us.”

Erik grunted and motioned for Geiti to follow. He had to get down on his knees to get through that gap, but stood and grasped the edge once he was clear.

Now Einarr glanced over at the other two. “On my mark, we all three dash through at once. Get clear quick, or someone’s like to lose a hand. Ready?”

Fjorkar nodded. From his position, all Jorir could really do was grunt. Einarr decided that had to be assent.

“Mark!” He bent his knees and sprang forward. A moment later, the slab fell closed with a thunderous crack.

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3.12 – Vanishing

3.14- Unnatural Chill

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