Darkspire Conspiracy Chapter 1: A Long Expected Return

This week's addition to Warrior Wednesday

When it was announced that Sigrún would soon return after a little more than ten years away, there was much talk of celebrating this momentous occasion. This was especially the case, amongst the older folk of the village of Heiðrrán who felt that the return of Gertrud’s daughter was an occasion that necessitated a great deal of fanfare.

Gertrud was a very well-to-do fisher-woman, and had been previously considered rather unremarkable, that is until her husband died, and the Jarl Helgi suddenly arrived to take up her daughter as his foster-child. The riches he had poured upon her in return for Sigrún, were legendary and the fact that Sigrún had only returned three times during that time had turned the girl and her mother into local legends. It was often said that Sigrún’s father Freyvar must have, in the raid that cost him his life, saved the Jarl for him to be so grateful. It was also said that it was with his last breath that he made Helgi promise to care for Sigrún and Gertrud, which the mighty Jarl had done without a second thought. If any thought that she was intent on keeping the sum total of the wealth poured on her, by the Jarl, Gertrud had three years after the passing of her husband married the equally widowed Guðleifr Leifsson. Guðleifr was the guard of the old sorcerer Thormundr, who lived nearby just outside the village in a large stone-castle on a hill dubbed ‘The Storm-Mount’ as it was believed that Thor had once visited it long ago. So that in this way, Gertrud was dubbed the ‘Twice-Blessed’ for having not only exchanged her daughter for a small fortune, but married the most eligible man at the time, in the locality.

“Some have all of the luck,” many of the older women complained, “It shan’t last, just watch all her good fortune will someday come tumbling down, and her nice new long-house will cave in about her ears. Just you watch.”

But thus far, ill-fortune had not befallen Gertrud in recent times. And as she was quite generous with the fish she tended to catch, and with paying for food on this particular occasion, all were prepared to forgive her, the favour shown to her by fate. She had no relatives outside her daughters to speak of, yet remained on such good terms with all who lived within the community that many almost considered her to be family. Not that she would have called them such, for only her daughters Sigrún and Myrgjǫl (her and Guðleifr’s daughter), and her stepson Thorgils were kin.

At that time Sigrún was to come of age at seventeen years old, while Myrgjǫl named after Guðleifr’s now deceased Ériu-born mother was almost eight years old. As to Thorgils, he had as of late celebrated his twenty-first year just four months hence, in what had been a large festival-sized event organised by the party loving Gertrud (this in spite of Thorgils’ quieter disposition).

Though, ordinarily a very private woman, as said, it bears mentioning that Gertrud could also be a great lover of festivals and celebrations. So that in this way, she was often consulted for such things, before even the mayor Baggi Birgirsson, his wife or even Thormundr were. The number of tables that were being organised, on that day in the spring, though indicated to all interested that what Gertrud had in mind was something far grander, than some simple birthday-party or festival. This was to be the grandest celebration in recent memory, so that for almost a month as preparations were made and food brought in along with tables, the whole of Heiðrrán was abuzz with rumours.

 Quite how the rumour of Sigrún’s return had begun to spread, was a mystery, with no one quite certain at first, that this was what Gertrud intended to celebrate, given that she always tended to celebrate Sigrún’s birthday as grandly as possible. Confirmation was found late one night at the local tavern, the Drunken Otter. The truth was extracted, if accidentally, by Gertrud’s step-son, Thorgils who have been fed a little more to drink than he ought to have accepted. This was entirely thanks to the vivacious Hildr, continuously refilling his drinking horn when he was not looking.

“It has come about that the jarl sent word that Sigrún will return the night before she turns seventeen.” Thorgils was to bellow from where he sat by the bar, red-faced and stinking of ale. “Gertrud has awaited this day, for eleven years now.”

He might well have said more, were it not for Alvis Sigmundrsson’s sudden interruption, “Bah, quite why we should celebrate an ungrateful little minx, who has been gone for so long is beyond me.”

Thorgils who had begun to trail off in the middle of his speech stopped suddenly to glower furiously at the man seated at the other end of the tavern, his blue eyes blazing with passion. “What did you just say, Alvis?”

“I said-” Alvis was cut short by an elbow to the side from one of his friends, who shot him a meaningful look, at which time he mumbled an apology.

“Tell us more, Thorgils.,” another of the patrons prompted him eagerly, “More mead or ale for Thorgils! He is still thirsty.”

“No, no I really cannot, as to my sister, she has been away fostering, but I have it on good authority that she is impatient to return home to see her mother and Auðun again.” Thorgils proclaimed, carried along by the hearty mood, and warmth of the tavern (not to mention the drink in his horn).

“And Auðun has been waiting so long to see her, has he not?” Hildr asked of the warrior, who nodded absent-mindedly.

A long dreamy silence followed, as Hildr and her female peers in the tavern sighed full of the romance of it all, while the men sniffed and nodded their heads approvingly at Sigrún’s return. It was about this time that he glanced down at his drinking horn suspiciously, “I had thought it to be far nearer to being emptied, than this…”

“What of the Jarl Helgi, will he also be visiting the village?” Hildr was quick to ask, eager to distract him from her act of mischievous.

By this time Thorgils though had begun to doze off, as the endless flow of ale and mead began to get the better of him after several hours of celebrating the end of a long week, full of work. It was to be Alvis who was to ask of him, once he was roused. “And what of your stepmother? She still has gold and silver, correct? Likely it is buried beneath her home.”

“Nonsense,” Thorgils retorted with a sneer, as he bounced in his seat almost completely overcome by his drink, “She had only a little wealth, most of which shall be spent on her daughters’ dowries.”

“What of the gold and silver given over to her?” Alvis persisted, refusing to hear anything other than he wished.

“As I said; nonsense,” The only stepson of Gertrude snapped, “Thormundr has far greater wealth, in his castle, than she or the mayor put together.”

It was a statement none had expected, and that the man would not elaborate upon. After that exchange, he was to fall over onto the table, snoring loudly. No longer able to extract any information from the son of Guðleifr they were to return to gossiping about what was to come.

There was more than a simple birthday celebration to be discussed, as was proven days later, when talk turned next to the matter of figures moving along at the very edges of the locality. There were rumours of shadows, of giants and of wolves moving to the north and west of the sea-side village.

Quite where these shadows that moved in the night, the rumours of giants and of larger than average wolves, had sprung from was a mystery. All that anyone knew was that there was something in the air, some form of menace there that none had detected before. Mayhaps it was how the rumour that Fimbulvinter was not far, had begun to circulate also.

If she was at all concerned about it, Gertrud did not show it, nor did her beloved husband Guðleifr demonstrate any sort of apprehension about recent events. He was never a man easily daunted, not with regards to going a-viking abroad, or these days when travelling to Thormundr’s home alongside his son Thorgils (who had begun working there last spring as a guard).

All that worried them when one of the local women asked Gertrud was the preparations, “Our hope is that this will be akin to a festival, and a celebration like no other seen in recent memory.”

“And should the Jarl make an appearance himself?” The person in question queried back, a little doubtfully.

Gertrud was to stare for a moment at the other woman, who had accompanied her alongside four others to go wash their laundry by the sea-shore to the south of the village. She had not known about Thorgils’ accidental slip-ups from the previous week, as he had been too embarrassed to mention it. But now she began to suspect that, there had been a loose tongue along the way, so that she struggled to hide her surprise.

“If he does, he will have the finest feast he has had, in years,” Gertrud answered proudly determined to keep a brave face. “He and my daughter, both shall enjoy themselves.”

The women were to consider this the greatest of victories imaginable. They returned later in triumph, as convinced of the importance of this confession on her part, and pleased by their success in extricating it as a warrior might have been to triumph over a sea-serpent or wyrm. It was their view that this concession required a great feast and round of drinking down at the local tavern.

This was how Gertrud was made to admit the cause for why she was fussing about, and ordering in more tables and food than had been seen in years. It was also at this time that Thorgils, decided he should not drink anymore, though this oath was made utterly to himself with nary any mention of it to any of those he knew best.

The week of the expected arrival of Sigrún arrived if rather more uneventfully than most might have liked. This was something many of the men grumbled about, and cursed, with even the likes of Guðleifr utterly discontented about this fact. Often found when at home, in his long-house with its many splinter-ridden walls and poking at the old hearth-fire with a stick he had found outside the village, his face shadowed.

“This state of affairs should not continue, it shan’t continue,” He might whine on some days, adding on others, “Man was not made to rest on his laurels, with nary any adventure or excitement to enjoy. Really, what is that girl doing taking so long?”

At such times it was either Gertrud or Thorgils who liked to remind him, time and again, “More complaints? You really ought to go fetch some more fire-wood, or venison, we will have need of more for the celebration.”

“Bah, we have some venison and firewood aplenty,” Guðleifr hissed, at every reminder or attempt to pull him from his melancholy. “I only wish there was more to do.”

It went without saying that this is often the condition of all men. Women might thrive on the minutiae of celebrations and their planning, but where Northmen were concerned; there was naught that could bore them more than these things. It was as though a pall had fallen over the community at the knowledge that there were only minutiae to be seen to.

It was Thormundr alone, of all of them, who greeted this well. A more scholarly man by his nature, he thrived on the planning of events, and greatly enjoyed the opening of his own wine-cellar, food-reserves and other sources of wealth to Gertrud.

“Such times call for all to join in, and for us all to lend our talents, no matter how meagre they might be,” He was prone to saying with a great laugh, one that shook him from his toes to his great bearded face. Grey bearded and haired, he had dark eyes and thick long hair that were once completely black, but time had begun her onslaught against him even as he began to put on weight. “Really now,” He would say to Guðleifr, when he caught his oldest friend and guard fussing about there being naught to do, “You ought to be grateful. Such times, are meant to be enjoyed with one’s family, not looked on sourly.”

“I know this,” Guðleifr would say, just as all the men of the village would, at such a remonstrance, “It is only that there has been no excitement for weeks.”

“Such be the times we live in,” Thorgils retorted bluntly, rolling his eyes at his father’s insistent desire to sulk like a little boy. “I myself do not regret these uneventful weeks, if I may say so, it is a great deal more enjoyable in many ways than the fear before a battle.”

“There you see? The youth is capable of reason, now enough of thy fussing Guðleifr,” Thormundr cheered with a great booming laugh.

Guðleifr considered their words as he leant his back against the nearby wall, his bearded chin sinking into his chest as he brooded over them. At last, with a gusty sigh, and a grumbled oath or three he muttered, “You only say so because it means another excuse to drink wine, while my son simply wishes for an excuse to flirt with the likes of either Hildr or Ragna.”

Thorgils had the good grace to flush a little red, at his father’s reference to his fondness for women, but otherwise he did not say much more. Only he felt it inappropriate to complain when one had more than one could possibly wish for. An easily contented youth, who treasured knowledge and family, he returned to reading the book that Thormundr had lent him during his shift in the castle.

As to the day of her return, it was a bright one, if crisp and dry. Some were prone to whining about the wet season that was autumn, when rain-drops fell every bit as frequently as the leaves had begun to from the trees. The multicoloured trees so green in the summer, had taken on a lovely orange, red, yellow and yes still green set of hues so that on sunny days many stopped tilling the fields, or paused when fishing to stare in awe at them. The recent rainy days, signified that more and more men and women were in a sour mood.

It was hoped for that Sigrún might return on a brighter day, with nary any rain-clouds in the heavens, but this was not to be. Ultimately the day of her return, was to prove itself wet, unpleasant and hardly a joy to any.

To those such as the fishermen and fisher-women, they could hardly take their boats out to sea for fear of what might rapidly transform into a tempest. Only Bárðr the ‘Wolffish’, was willing to brave the sea, taking his boat out in the rainstorm for several hours by himself before returning drenched. His fur stinking worse than any dog the locals had ever seen before, as the Wolfram (that is to say a sort of ‘Wolf-man’ who was rather more canine than man in some ways) returned cursing and complaining. A friend of Thorgils, he was renowned for being the bravest of all the ‘sea-dogs’ in the locality, but also the most foolish, willing to brave storms no other man would care to try to challenge.

Wolffish was to complain when he returned to his family’s long-house (one of the largest in the village, as the family numbered almost thirty in total!), in a loud voice. “I would not suggest to any here that they venture out whither to sea, unless they have a death-wish!”

The fact that no one else was tempted seems to have escaped him, with the exchanged glances suggesting that most thought him a fool for having even considered it.

It happened though that outside of this, the day passed rather uneventfully, saves for the whistling wind that seemed to howl and whisper menacingly against all. Such was the violence of it, and the coldness it brought hither to every home, that more than one person shivered, wondering if maybe one of Loki’s terrible children was abroad in Norvech.

When Sigrún did not appear by noon-time, many were willing to say with definitive firmness that they would have to wait at least one more day. “She will not return on such a day, for who would be tempted to travel on such a day, when they could easily find a tavern on the side of the road and stay the night?”

What none expected as the suns’ began to descend along the horizon, was that in spite of the rain continuing to hammer at the roofs of their homes, carrying with their mockery of the residents of the village, Gertrud decided to carry on with her expected feast.

“I will have my feast no matter, if Hella herself were to find her way back into our world, and Ragnarök was upon us this very instant!” She proclaimed to those who lived with her, in her small home, too proud to admit defeat to the elements.

“But how will you host it? Such things are always done outside, and none will venture out to eat soggy food which has been rained upon,” Thorgils reminded her pointedly, where he sat to one side.

He was in the middle of fixing one of the family fishing nets alongside Myrgjǫl, with the girl occasionally letting slip a giggle as her eldest sibling made faces at her. It was with a scowl in his direction that Gertrud was to leap to her feet, rounding upon Guðleifr. “Guðleifr, dearest, you must go up to Thormundr’s keep to inform him we shall be there shortly. We wish to prepare the tables within his house, and with his permission will host the feast celebrating the return of my daughter.”

Never a man who loved idleness, her husband was on his feet and out the door in a heartbeat, happy to oblige her. If it meant being on his feet, and taking action, there was none more enthusiastic than he, and none whom one could depend on more during a time of crisis. And crisis was exactly what Gertrud thought this day had become, what with how the rains had sought to thwart her.

To her mind, it was a cruel prank that might well have been played upon her, by the likes of Loki himself, so that she was resolved to triumph over the rain regardless what others said. It happened that while she fretted on the road to the castle that her husband had secured from the moribund sorcerer the agreement she needed.

“I would be more than happy to be of service, especially if it is for Gertrud and her daughter,” He had agreed at once, without a second’s hesitation. “In truth I was filled with melancholy that, their reunion might prove itself a fiasco by dear Guðleifr.”

It happened that the two men set to work at once, to prepare the tables, fire up the kitchens’ fires and the hearth-fire at the centre of the keep (which Thormundr protected from the rain with an incantation). By the time the matriarch of the family had arrived, the fires had been well lit and several of the reserves of food he had agreed to house until the festival were already spits and being prepared.

An adept cook, Guðleifr was the sort of man who enjoyed the preparation of food as much as he enjoyed the devouring of it. He was soon joined in the kitchens by Gertrud and Thormundr, both of whom had considerable experience in cooking, while Myrgjǫl came and went, fetching them what supplies they needed (those she could carry). Thorgils for his part was volunteered for the duty of informing the whole of the village that, the feast was to be held at the castle.

In this duty he was joined by Thormundr’s apprentice Auðun. Ordinarily it might have been him in the kitchens, assisting with the meals, but as Thormundr quite enjoyed the company of his guard and the man’s wife, he had decided Auðun ought to assist in the village.

Auðun was the dark-eyed, nephew of Leif Haraldsson who had lost his brother some twenty years hence, in a snow-storm, to the north-west. An only child, he had been adopted of sorts by a good number of the local families, who doted on him and considered his apprenticeship to Thordmundr another sign of the old sorcerer’s good-nature. Most took his arrival before their homes with a great deal more grace than they did the louder, more abrasive presence of Thorgils. The latter had also decided that as it was far less interesting to simply wake people who had already gone to sleep, or were in the middle of preparing their supper and thus distracted by calling upon them nicely, he took to shouting slurs and insults. Most of which shan’t be written here, for it would not be seemly to repeat all that he called them.

Much of the politer terms he used were those such as, “Thorvain you black dog! Ildria you great big cow, why have you not already gone to my stepmother’s celebration?” Or when confronted by the mayor, he simply took to calling him the ‘Great Thief’ or the brigand of Heiðrrán, and the man’s wife the ‘she-mongrel’.

As mentioned these were the more polite terms used, and soon he had a number of children following after him, yelling out insults and otherwise giggling along with him. To say that many were scandalized or that there were a few rows that came near to being started is to speak lightly of the effect his insults had.

Far less rowdy, Auðun though amused by his best friend’s poor comportment at this time, was to refrain from laughing with only the most supreme of effort. Going from house to house, took some time at first but as the news spread on ahead of them, he soon found the time it took shorn to naught so that he did not have to visit half so many houses he had feared he would. It happened that by the thirtieth house he visited, those inside were already preparing to leave, so that they told him quite eagerly. “We know Auðun and intend to join Thormundr on his hill, now off with you and go inform him.”

A great many hurried off to go join those already in Thormundr’s keep, with some few preferring to stay home. The vast majority of the village preferred the idea of the food on offer by the vivacious Gertrud, whom all knew alongside her husband to be the finest cooks. Only Wolffish knew half so much as they about the cooking of fish and venison (and this, he would only admit to, with the greatest reluctance).

“Oh do come in, hurry along to the table over to the left,” Gertrud said to those arriving, as she guided them along to the table in question in the mead-hall. Or she would say to this family or that one, “Oh do come along, you seem frozen you see the table by the right-handed side? That there is your spot, do seat thyselves and be at ease!”

Aided by her youngest daughter, Myrgjǫl, who ran about here, there and everywhere with a great deal more energy and eagerness than her mother was capable of. She was in a word the perfect hostess, in spite of her youth. All who set eyes upon her were charmed by her, with Thormundr who would occasionally make appearances, after Auðun’s return, to entertain his guests no less amused by her.

“She has truly inherited the finest of her father’s nature and mother’s virtues,” He said to another old man of the locality, namely Wolffish’s grandfather in this case.

Old Bjarti as he was called, was once a great warrior, he had gone on more raids overseas than any other man or Wolfram in the locality of Heiðrrán, and was by this time deep in his cups already. “Why yes she has, I daresay that I hope my grandson someday fathers a child no less rambunctious and full of spirit!”

“Not if the said child takes after you or him,” Thormundr teased at once with a great chortle.

Never one to let such a challenge slide, he was soon challenged to try to out-drink the old eighty-year-old Wolfram, with the two’s cheeks soon turning a vivid shade of red. By the time Gertrud discovered them, they were singing old nursery rhymes together and almost falling over in their seats.

“Thormundr, were you not supposed to be helping in the kitchens?” She demanded of the old man, who waved off her concerns.

“Bah, ‘tis only one sip of the old drinking horn, is all!”

“It hardly looks as though, you have restrained yourself to only one sip,” the mother of Sigrún hissed at him, with such sharpness that he had the good grace to look a little sheepish.

“I shall see you soon, hold this horn for me Bjarti,” Thormundr said handing over his drinking-horn to his friend, who chuckling promised to hold onto it for him until his return.

Within seconds, Bjarti was emptying it down his own gullet.

It happened that the dinner was soon prepared, just as the last of the guests arrived eager to taste the food cooked up by the likes of Guðleifr, Gertrud, Auðun and so many others. The greater number of those who arrived was to be set before the tables, where there were strangely more than enough chairs for all of them. It was claimed by Thormundr, who was the head of the castle, claimed that the chairs belonged to another era, namely that of the previous Jarl of the local region. The previous man to rule over the castle was an elderly figure, one who had gone mad in his last days, and drowned himself in the local sea more than fifty years hence.

It happened that Thorgils set out for the village once all were in place, familiar as he was with Sigrún, as they were kin he was to set out into the rain regardless of the coldness and his discomfort. He did this at the encouragement of his father, and of old Thormundr, and did so with a wide, white grin.

It was outside, with his own duties of spreading drink and food to all, taken up by the lovely Hildr that he was to see the first sign of the arriving group.

They were more than seventy in number. The Jarl was at their head, on foot (though he ought to have been a-horse), and he had been carrying a torch until he had wandered into the storm. It happened that a great many of his troop had struggled against all odds. They had marched for days against what felt to be the whole of the world, as the weather grew ever fouler with every passing second.

The Jarl was a tall man of hair whiter than snow, his beard no less long was braided just as his wild mane was, and he wore upon his person simple wool. It was not his way to dress in so fancy a manner as might another man, for he was to his mind no better or higher than his subordinates. Yet there was still a beauty to the well-woven green cloak and tunic he wore, beneath his wolf-fur, with his family emblem of the red-stag interwoven into his cloak.

He wore not a single gold or silver wing on his fingers, disliking such excess so that he might have been mistaken for a peasant, and he might well have liked the error. His was a simple vision of the world, and it was one in which his sons, daughters, foster-sons and foster-daughters and their kindred took pride of place.

It was this man, this great kindly old stag of sorts, who greeted Thorgils with such enthusiasm that he nearly knocked the youth from his feet. After days of hardship, and struggle through the worst storms of his life, old Helgi gladly welcomed the vision of the village and Thorgils, elder step-brother to his foster-daughter, with more than a little relief.

“My lord, it is with great joy that I welcome you to Heiðrrán,” Thorgils said to him with the sort of warmth one might reserve for a favourite uncle.

“I am more than happy to be herewith you and thy kin,” Helgi replied earnestly, “It was not originally my intent that I should come so far away from home. But my heart told me that I must, else some dark fate might await my beloved Sigrún, who has become dearer to me than my own daughters.”

Pleased by his words and stunned, at the admission of so much emotional earnestness and the prescient awareness of possible danger, the younger man fell quiet. It was his view that the land surrounding the village had indeed become ever more dangerous. It was why he had become to limit how far the local children he often tutored, in the old ways those of Othinn and the Aesir, from wandering too far.

Accompanying old Helgi were a number of others, namely his favourite servants, his wife the lady Sigdis, once renowned for her beauty, she who had begotten him six daughters and six sons. Two years his senior, she was an elderly thing who never much liked to have their three youngest foster-daughters far from her sight. Silver-haired, with a genial if wrinkled face hers was a figure that ran now to fat, cloaked in an equally green cloak along with a fur-trimmed dress with two layers of wolf-fur cloaks thrown over her figure.

Grey eyed where her husband was blue-eyed, she was to pinch Thorgils’ cheeks even as she mocked him in her old voice, “You have grown once more Thorgils, it is not very courteous of you to do so.”

“I could not help it, milady!”

“Well, how are my foster-daughters supposed to compare and steal kisses, if they only come up to thy breast rather than your chin?” She complained good-naturedly, with a wink to two of the girls, themselves the daughters of the late lady of Astarún once the finest friend she had. Taken in at the late lady’s death, they had come to look on their hostess as a second, if slightly patronising mother.

The girls giggled and batted their eyelashes at Thorgils who flushed red, immensely impressed by the two of them, even as he coughed to hide his embarrassment. Slyly winking now to him, Sigdis was to request for a place for their servants and guards to stay.

Informing them of the grand feast that was to be held within the castle-keep of Thormundr, the lady grew concerned and was quick to point out, “There will not be room enough there. We have brought too many, on account of our fears of Sigrún running into trouble on the road.”

“A wise notion, the forests have begun to be filled with all sorts of shadows, rumours of giants and other beasts, I would not travel in the dark of night going for the foreseeable future.” Thorgils said to them with a hearty chortle, with both of the elderly couple nodding their heads at this statement.

“As cautious as ever,” Helgi muttered approvingly, as he invited the youth to fall into step next to him, “If only you had agreed to take up my offer to come stay in my home!”

“You make the same offer every year, and he always refuses,” Sigdis teased with a cackle.

“I am not so strong as Sigrún,” commented the young man with a sidelong glance to his stepsister who continued to walk with her foster-sisters, the three of them being inseparable. “I shan’t stand to be away from home for long, in recent days, especially if it means being away from Auðun, Wolffish and Myrgjǫl for more than a few days.”

“Weakness some may call it, I, for one, must commend your attachment to kin, though it might do thee more good to find a wife also.” Helgi teased Thorgils, wherefore he turned to Sigrún to ask of her cheerfully, “Sigrún, did you not say the other day, ere our departure, that I ought to find a husband soon for Alfhildr?”

“I meant that more in a different sort of manner, as a mere possibility,” Sigrún interjected, no less embarrassed.

“The two are close as sisters,” Helgi murmured to Thorgils who smiled also.

This was the way of things between them, with the Jarl a bright, cheerful old fellow, his wife a matronly lady who might fuss over even the plumpest of guests, complaining they were too thin. Can you imagine it, dear Reader? When one was with the house of Bleikrhaug, there was never any shortage of warmth, so long as one merited it.

It was with the greatest of pride that Thorgils recounted to the older man, the goings-on of his half-sister, of how his friends had fared since last they had met.

Treated as the honoured guest, on his arrival which was no less than what he ought to have expected, yet foresee this Helgi did not. Never a man over-stuffed with his own importance, it happened that he was to react with considerable surprise to find most of the village gathered together as they were. He also did not expect the quantity of food, nor did he or his predict that there might be so much hospitality on display.

Sending away a number of his guards away, with the request that they be served a great deal of the boars, turkeys, venison, and various birds along with the beef, fish, bread, and corn all gathered locally. There was also a great deal of carrots, stuffing and also mixed into every serving a healthy amount of spices taken from the deeper recesses of Thormundr’s reserves. No expense had been spared, and no one was to be allowed to go home hungry.

It happened that the longer the feast went on for, the more at ease all felt and the more every tongue loosened. At the first sight of her, Gertrud had welcomed her daughter home with an eagerness that almost threw the younger woman to the ground. No less eager than his weeping wife, Guðleifr was to slam his fist against the table causing every implement, bit, of cutlery and every individual plate bounce atop it.

If anyone saw either of the two women succumb to tears, they did not speak of it, nor did they wish to bring attention to it. Only Wolffish did by remarking cheerily to the no less happy Auðun, “They weep louder than you, or old man Thormundr laughs.”

“Quiet Wolffish,” Auðun hissed at him, feeling rather put off by the loudness of his friend’s words, and the cold withering stare that was directed in their direction, by Sigrún when she had been released from her mother’s arms.

A shy youth, one who had none of his Master’s grandeur or eloquent ways, he could not quite help but feel irritated at that moment by Wolffish, and his bumbling countryside ways. How grand it must have been to live at the court of the Jarl, with a never-ending retinue of suitors, of skalds and the most erudite of goði!

‘I grew up no less privileged in many ways, yet look at me,’ Auðun mused to himself, feeling rather akin to an overdressed thin oaf. He wished that the cold stare directed their way, by Sigrún would stop and that she would soon be distracted. This way, he might study her at a distance, without feeling unworthy and small.

It happened that this was not at all Sigrún’s intent, but rather that though she had not appreciated the remarks from Wolffish, she had not at once recognised her oldest playmate. Keen to find her old friend, she was not to immediately discern that the youth who sat by Wolffish’s side was him.

All throughout the feast she searched, and searched and searched, with her blazing blue eyes, and yet she still could not find Auðun.

Hardly questioned about this, her mother was too preoccupied with talking to her, gushing over how much she had grown. If one was to be quite frank over the matter, she could hardly be blamed for this, given how little she had seen of her daughter over the past ten years. It was a loss of connection that could affect and render any parent mad, especially one sweet-natured and as goodly as Gertrud.

Their discussion though was interrupted eventually, by Myrgjǫl who, frustrated and unaccustomed with being ignored or not having all of her mother’s attention, began to grow impatient.

“Mama! Mama, will you not listen to me?” Myrgjǫl burst out towards the end of the feast, miserable and unhappy at being ignored.

“Just one moment,” Gertrud told her before she returned her attention, to her eldest. “Go to your father.”

“But father is busy drinking with the Jarl and Thormundr,” Myrgjǫl warned her with a wrinkle of her nose, drawing at last her mother’s attention from the elder girl.

A quick glance to one side revealed that it was indeed, as the younger girl had said; Guðleifr, wishing to let his wife have time alone with her daughter, had been drawn into a drinking-contest with the likes of Thormundr and old Bjarti. Together the three men had taken to speaking of brighter days, of times when Thorgils and other youths had raced about foolishly, even as they drank and chuckled over it. It had not been long, before the three of them, and a group of five other men, had taken to drinking and singing bawdy songs.

No less drunk and seated amongst them, was the Jarl Helgi who sang along and cheerily began to compare the follies of his own sons’, to those of Thorgils. Convinced that the reasonable young man, who had greeted him, was a beacon of honour and virtue in contrast to his rowdy and obnoxious sons.

Exasperated and amused all at once, Gertrud very nearly intervened, when she heard some of the less impressive acts of Sigrún’s foster family, turned to Sigdis. “It appears that the Jarl, has the view that his sons’ were all rowdy fools, if one may say so.”

“One may, and one may suggest that they also took after their father,” Sigdis replied with a snigger and a fond look to her husband. “I must confess that he did far worse, when he was a young man. Sigrún, why do you glance about so? It is as though, you were anywhere but here?”

“Mama!”

“Myrgjǫl not now,” Gertrud hissed wearily.

It was then that Thorgils intervened, having seen what it was that his younger sister was up to, and realising she was on the cusp of annoying her mother far, far too much. Seizing the girl from under the arms, he plucked her with ease off of her chair, and whisked her away down the mead-hall, even as she fought against him.

“Put me down, Thorgils!” She shrieked furiously, angry at his interference.

“It is far past time, for you to be in bed, dear sister,” Thorgils told her sharply, as he escorted her home.

Because he was gone for quite some time, putting the youngest in the family to bed, he was unaware that talk turned next to him, and of his assistance. Never a man to drink too much since he had let slip about the celebration, it happened that this and his swiftness in supporting his stepmother won him much praise by the Jarl’s wife.

“It must be good to have so capable and reliable a stepson,” Sigdis praised as she observed him depart with the girl, “And Myrgjǫl is a lovely child.”

“Indeed, though the house has felt empty since last I saw Sigrún,” Gertrud replied with a warm smile to her daughter, who shrugged helplessly.

It was at this time that a great voice was heard to resound throughout the hall. It was a voice unlike any other that they had ever heard before, a voice that seemed as though it had burst out from deep underground. Furthermore, it was a voice that none recognised, just as the one to whom it belonged was entirely unfamiliar to all assembled.

The figure was tall, and he was dressed in a black cloak one made for the summer, with a mane of wild dark hair, and a short beard. His piercing green eyes, stared out across the hall with a defiant air that set few at ease. There was a sepulchral air about him, one hardly improved by the scarred, battered nature of the dark hauberk that he wore, one with the emblem of a raven chiselled into it. He wore gauntlets and greaves, in the style popular amongst warriors in recent days, and had an air of authority about him that could have made him pass for a King.

“Who are you, to interrupt this celebration?” Thormundr growled, displeased and surprising all with his sobriety after so many drinks.

Casting a glowering pair of eyes on him, the stranger who had suddenly appeared in the midst of the feast-hall uttered a great song in a chilling voice.

“Thrice married, and twice beloved,

When mythic men walk’d,

The blonde man she stole,

From she, whom he once more made whole,

Hella’s realm was their reward,

That they might sup in the realm most abhorred,

with Balðr of the many blessings,

Next came the tyrant guilty of many killings,

He it was who Gunther the weakling pass’d her to,

To the tyrant, their sons’ she fed though they were few,

Next came the gentle King,

Of him many charitable deeds harpers’ do sing,

By the shore, he found her and by the shore she damn’d him,

To wed her for love; is part of his hymn,

Three sons’ she gave him,

And three sons’ she took from him,

Away to the east, she went whither to a tower,

From yonder dark-spire she ne’er again didst lower,

A tree whose roots she might well deploy,

If for wanton greed, that she might his heirs destroy,

In her last breaths’ Brynhildr’s joy,

She didst call to, and curse the fruit of her joy,

Thus, she was thrice married, and twice beloved,

And twice she spill’d the Völsungs’ blood.”

“The lady who betrayed and was in turn scorned, I warned you before Jarl to burn the map to her tomb and you did not. You had an obligation, and have failed in thy duty, for which you shall soon pay for in blood if you do not heed my words! That map was painted in blood and paid for down through the generations in the same manner. You must burn it, and with it the secret of the location of the Darkspire of Guðrún.” The tall man in the dark cloak said in a loud voice, with everyone chilled to the bone, too frightened to address him then.

“Dear Sir, if I may, I am familiar with all the tales surrounding the spire of which you spoke, and the lady herself and can say in no uncertain terms that I have never heard of any such map.” Auðun said, the only man present with the courage to speak out in disagreement with the emerald eyed figure in the centre of the hall.

“The map disappeared more than two ages ago, and was recovered in the Wars of Darkness, at which time it was stolen from the old Kings of these lands. It is for this reason that, I have come to warn you that as the heir of Gautstafr the Thief, you will share the same fate as he in death. Give me the map,” the stranger continued on, a hint of impatience entering his voice now.

“How dare you! My ancestor Gautstafr was a great man, one who fought nobly in the Wars of Darkness almost three centuries hence, and who was never a thief!” Helgi roared, face turning scarlet with rage, as he glared with greater wrath at this chilling figure, than he had anyone in decades.

The response from the new arrival was to look on him not with equanimity, or fury as the Jarl looked on him with, but rather a kind of mournfulness. As though he regretted having approached, or spoken to Helgi on this matter, saying to him, “You have been warned, it was not my intention to insult thy ancestor Gautstafr, my intention and mission was to gain this map from thy clan.”

“I will give you steel rather than paper, if you continue to push me, intruder!” The Jarl threatened as he rose drunkenly to his feet.

“No, Helgi! Do not strike him,” Sigrún cried out, attracting momentarily the attention of the majority of those within the castle-hall. “I have a sense that something is amiss, you must not draw arms against him!”

It happened that Helgi might not have heeded her words, but when he returned his gaze to where the interloper stood, he found the man missing. Everyone searched about for him, with a number of people even venturing out into the kitchens, and down into the depths of the keep, all to no avail.

The search had to end eventually. It was hours before it did, with more than a number of the people reluctant to do so. They argued and bickered over it endlessly, yet it was Thormundr who decided firmly for all of them that the man could not be found and that they had to return home.

“You must all see to your families, we shan’t let anything have happened to those not present, therefore I would urge you all to go check on them and see if anything untoward has happened to them.” He counselled fiercely if wearily, which caused a great many murmurs of dissatisfaction as people were still curious and frightened yet did as bidden.

The worry that something might have happened to their loved ones and their children (most of whom had been sent earlier in the feast before the stranger’s arrival), made more than one person almost trip over another in the hurry to return home.

It was Gertrud who took command to organise them, dispelling their fears and telling them to leave in a slower manner, by also offering bits of remaining food to them. “Do take this before you go, and oh you look thin of late! Take this hunk of bread, will you not?” She would say to one couple or individual or another.

It also happened that the Jarl promised them, “This knave will be found never fear, just as sure as the sea is blue and the suns’ bright; I am thy protector and shall not tolerate the loss of a single soul! Go in peace, and know that on the morrow we shall do a full search of the surroundings ere my departure. At that time, I promise you that if this mischief-maker is still present he shall pay for his wild accusations.”

This was a source of considerable reassurance, with the men mumbling and grumbling into their beards, even as the women clung to them fearfully. What worried them most was how no matter how much they dug down into the depths, or climbed up to the upper echelons of the castle, none could find the remotest trace of the strange, deep-voiced man. He had left neither hide nor trace so that there were a great many who wondered later as they went home, if it had been Óðinn in disguise.

“Nonsense,” Wolffish said to these pronouncements, adding for good measure, “He had neither the flaming eye of the Allfather, but two very emerald eyes.”

“He might have at last reclaimed the missing eye,” Said one woman with a shrug of her shoulders as she walked down the hill from the fort, towards the village.

“Impossible, we would have heard of such a tale,” Wolffish retorted cynical, “After all, he has always appeared in the guise of a one-eyed traveller and not a two-eyed one.”

“Until now.”

“Nonsense, regardless we should turn our minds instead to this talk of maps and of Gautstafr,” Wolffish was to advise those around him, who preferred not to humour him.

“Why should we do that? He spoke gibberish, all know that Gautstafr was a great man, one who died defending these lands thirty years after the end of those wars, against the forces of the Aldthrinn.” Another man countered at once, this one was Geirr Dainsson, one of the closest friends at one time of Gertrud’s first husband.

There was more that was said, between the two sides, with the discussion one that Thorgils interrupted, being en route back to the castle. Confused to find them there, and not at the feast, he was to ask of them, “What is it you are doing here? Why leave the feast?”

“There was a strange man who arrived, to threaten the Jarl,” one man said, and that was all that was needed to be said as Thorgils tore his way back up the hill they had come from.

“That was not exactly what happened,” Wolffish reprimanded the other man, who shrugged his shoulders in response.

Fear tore through him, so viciously as to leave Gertrud’s stepson almost lacerated with marks from it. He did not possess a single blade to his name, but rather a large, double-headed axe that few men could wield with two hands, let alone one as he could. Yet wield it well he did, and had on more than a dozen raids south, so that the youth tore it from where it was strapped these days onto his back and held up high.

Thorgils if he expected to find blood and combat, or rage on his arrival back at the mead-hall, was to be sorely disappointed, instead he found his family intact and most still grumbling about what had happened. “I heard a man, came to menace the Jarl, what has happened? Father, Jarl Helgi are you both well?”

“Yes, you blasted young fool, now what in the name of Mt-Einhyrningr possessed you to burst so suddenly in here, while we are in the midst of our search, swinging that great eyesore wildly as you have?” Guðleifr yelled, still shaken from the sudden disappearance of the green-eyed man in the black hauberk from earlier, during the feast.

“I was concerned for you all,” Thorgils stuttered.

“If you are so consumed by consternation, do go hurry thither to see to the Jarl’s wife, she was left shaken, as were her foster-daughters.” Guðleifr growled, only just returning from having carved a path through the wine-cellars in search of the strange intruder from earlier. A wine-bottle in both hands, he was to pour some into three different horns that he handed to each of the three girls, wherefore he filled up horns for the Jarl and his bride.

The old woman accepted the beverage as her husband, who was now much more sober, continued to make threats, and to curse beneath his breath. “How dare a scoundrel come along, to threaten my house during such an occasion, he had no right! Why, I have half a mind to go hunt him down and have this man’s head struck from his shoulders!”

“Calm yourself husband,” Sigdis hissed at him, horrified to hear him talk so, “There was something uncanny about this man, so that I had the impression that it was some sort of phantom rather than a proper man that we spoke to.”

“Would you have me tolerate this insult to my ancestor’s name?” Helgi burst out.

“Remember good Jarl, thy father raced into the night in the dead of winter for a similar reason once upon a time, more than sixty years hence, and he was never seen again.” Sigrún reminded him sharply, well aware of this story for he had recounted it a number of times, to prevent her, in her own younger days, from racing off impulsively into the dead of winter.

“Listen to her husband,” Sigdis agreed at once, with her two other foster-daughters bobbed their heads at once.

It was only Thormundr who had the presence of mind, to ask of his guest, “Would it happen that you have such a map?”

The question was asked curiously, without any hint of implicit criticism or any semblance of judgment yet still the Jarl took offence. Seated a short distance from the sorcerer, he turned his shaggy head to glare at the older man, with a pair of blazing eyes, “How dare you ask such a question, after such accusations!”

“Really now Thormundr you ought, to know better than to ask such a thing,” Gertrud hissed equally indignant.

No less impatient than she, the sorcerer snapped, “Now is not the time for such soft-hearted sentiments,” He turned once more to the Jarl, “Helgi, I ask you now away from the crowds, to tell us why did, this man interrupt the festivities and pressed you for this map? What is this map of which he spoke? Tell me it was not that of the Darkspire.”

“But Master, he clearly said that it was of the Darkspire,” Auðun interrupted suddenly as he crossed back into the mead-hall from the kitchens.

It is perhaps far past time, dear Reader, to elucidate on the matter of what had happened after the disappearance of the man in the dark raiment. A cold air had swept through the whole of the mead-hall, so that none had felt at all at ease thereafter. It happened that a number of people as you well know departed for their own homes, with many searching about. While the greater part of those with Gertrud and the Jarl had joined in the search, they had reconvened in the feast-hall long after most had been dismissed or gone home of their own volition.

This group consisted of a great many guards of Helgi, the Jarl and his family, Gertrud, her husband, Thorgils and Thormundr. It was they who were in the midst of discussing what ought to be done, with Auðun busying himself by coming and going from the kitchens and the mead-hall. Ordered about by Thormundr to fetch spare food, and drinks for all that they may relax after the fright they had all had.

The elders of the family were seated at the right-handed table, where they had taken up sipping at some of the wine brought up by Guðleifr. The guards themselves, though they had ceased their endless searching of the castle, had hardly relaxed, their hands drifting to their axes and swords. None felt at ease there within the halls of Thormundr.

“I know what that man said, but he must have been mistaken,” Thormundr snapped at his apprentice, “Now will you just go back to the kitchens, extinguish them for the next several hours? Then, you may dismiss yourself back to your chambers, and leave this matter, to those whom it concerns?”

“Yes, Master,” Auðun acquiesced at once, if through gritted teeth. He ought to have heeded his Master’s orders, however, as he swept, mopped and cleaned the kitchens he found that the voices of those within the hall echoed. The youth also found that if he kept near to the door that connected the hall to the kitchens, he could hear their discussion.

Convinced he was otherwise preoccupied, Thormundr returned his attention to those around him, “That Auðun, he is either the finest pupil, or the very worst that I have ever had! Really, I shan’t imagine at times like this, him making it to the position of hand-mage, or ever making it past the Trials of my Order.”

“What is this map? It seems that this is all that anyone is interested in discussing, for which we allowed my wife’s daughter to have her return-party interrupted, and yet none have taken the time to clarify this matter to me.” Guðleifr shouted, throwing his hands up in the air, in a fit of pique, unable to quite follow the rest of them.

“There is not the time for such a tale,” Thormundr snapped evenly, “I will explain it in due time, if you care to hear of it, but I would need time to do research as I do not know all there is to know about this map.”

“Why would this stranger know about it, if you are not familiar with every aspect of its story, Master Thormundr?” Gertrud demanded confused.

“That I do not know, Gertrud.”

“What do you know of it, Helgi?” Sigrún asked of her foster-father, casting a sharp-eyed glance in his direction, “It was you whom he spoke to, and of you that he wished to hear more of or at the least thy ancestor.”

“It was my ancestor Gautstafr who discovered the map, or so goes the legend,” Helgi replied quietly, “It happens that the Darkspire map fell into his hands towards the end of the Second Wars of Darkness.”

“How did it do so?” Sigrún pressed curiously.

“That I do not know,” Helgi admitted with a shrug of his shoulders, “I only know that he fought in those wars under the command of the last King of Norvech, and that the map was drawn towards the end of the First Wars. It survived, quite how I do not know, I only know that it moved from one hand to the next, until it became a guarded royal treasure. At which time, it was said that it was stolen after which Gautstafr took it and, using treasures that he had been seized over the wars, funded the construction of my castle many leagues from here. There the family has ruled over the land, since that time with Gautstafr’s daughter one of Helgi the Terrible’s many wives, and it was through her that a son was born, and that son, Gautstafr II, inherited the castle.”

“And the map,” Thormundr added hastily, only for the Jarl to glare at him, “It is the truth Helgi.”

“I suppose,” Helgi conceded reluctantly.

“Why have you never spoken of this before?” Sigdis asked coolly of him, her brow arching in displeasure.

“It was never of much interest to me, dearest,” He replied at once, stumbling for words only to add, “I do not see why it would be, for only my father was very much keen on the story.”

“Why do you suppose that was?” Thorgils asked, speaking up for the first time in some time, only to draw from Sigrún and Sigdus an irritated glance. “It is a rather peculiar thing to take an interest in, if I may say so.”

“You may, and you would be very much correct in that regard,” Helgi agreed at once, only to huff a little, “I never quite understood what it was that my father thought. He was an odd man, the sort of fellow to take a rather unnecessary interest in old myths and legends, to such an extent that one may even describe it as unhealthy. It was this obsession of his that caused him just before his fortieth year, alongside my elder brother, Gautstafr, to charge out in the dead of winter, after a thief I believe it was, and to perish in the cold.”

“What did the thief steal, if you do not mind my asking?” This time it was Sigrún who queried, “It would not happen to be connected to this map now was it?”

“No, it was a dagger of some minor importance,” Helgi admitted with some embarrassment, “I still do not know why it was that my loved ones fled into the night after it.”

“You say fled as though they took flight,” Guðleifr said confused.

“If I say so, it is because to my mind they fled from all reason,” grunted the Jarl who had by this time grown utterly wearied by this talk of maps and dark mysteries of the past. “Or so it seemed to me, and it was this act that led to their deaths, as I have explained many times.”

“I think it far past time that everyone went off to bed,” Thorgils interjected suddenly, seeing a flash of annoyance enter more than one pair of eyes. Sensing further argument, he was to propose to all concerned, “I understand that all wish to offer advice, or make suggestions of what ought to be done. But this stranger, whoever he is, happens to have left and therefore, if I may say so; all that will happen from now on shall be an endless supply of bickering.”

This was agreed upon readily enough, as everyone (with only a few exceptions, such as Sigdis and Thormundr) began to break into smaller groups. One group, which was that of the Jarl decided to agree to the accommodations offered by the likes of Thormundr. Another that of the family of Gertrud decided to return home, and still another group this one being the guards and the two magi, decided to clear the tables from the mead-hall that people might find rest there.

There was a very near skirmish of the verbal sort, as Gertrud moved to depart with her husband and stepson, when she noticed that her daughter had not moved to follow her. Confused by this lack of action on the younger woman’s part, she was to press her, “Well? Why have you not gathered thy effects and moved to follow?”

Sigrún hesitated to answer yet did so with characteristic firmness, “I think it best if I remain here, mother, as it seems to me that there might be less room in your long-house than here. It thus seems more sensible to remain here, than to go with you.”

“That is nonsense,” Gertrud exclaimed, horrified by the very idea, of excluding her eldest child from her own home.

“She is right, what is this filth you have just spewed out of thy mouth, Sigrún? Go to yonder house of your ancestors, be merry and rest well.” Helgi said as he encouraged Sigdis up the stairway, with the old woman advancing ever so slowly, wearied after a day on horseback and too much excitement. “I would rather have three of my guards remove themselves hither, so that the other foster-daughters and wise old Thormundr might have a little more protection. Also, could you have one or two move to any houses that might take them in? Mayhaps we can establish a kind of ring that may shield more than one or two households, should that knave return this time with malicious intent.”

Most might not have noticed Sigrún’s sigh of disappointment, or how her face momentarily fell, but not one so perceptive as Thorgils, or who watched her with the sort of intensity as say Auðun. The latter of the two had only just escaped the kitchens, and the likely unending task that awaited him there (the task of cleaning dishes and pots and cutlery, that is). The only other people to notice this unhappiness on her part were Thormundr, Guðleifr and Thorgils. None of them were to say anything, with the first of the trio taking great care in leaving to help Helgi, find the bedchambers with nary any further words. The latter two men for their parts preferred to simply exchange a glance, the former shook his head while his son moved to speak briefly with Auðun.

The journey home was quiet and peaceful for each of them, though there was a certain measure of discomfort between Sigrún and the rest of them. None who noticed it spoke of it, for none wished to ruin the good mood that had settled over Gertrud.

Long had Gertrud mourned and longed for her eldest daughter, never a woman to neglect a single child, especially one of her own. On their arrival back to her home, the matriarch of the family quickly had four of the men sent away, all of whom had been in the midst of a game of dice. None of them objected with one of them, even leaning over to pat the snoring Myrgjǫl on the head with the still sleeping girl huffing, and rolling over.

Looking on her fondly, her father was to kiss her forehead, and pull up higher the fur-drapes that had begun to slip as she slept. “She was quick to fall asleep,” One of the guards informed them, “Though her exuberance, on her initial return, was extraordinary.”

“Lo! All is right with the world in that case,” Thorgils pronounced amusedly, before he gave a great yawn himself, “If you will excuse me Gertrud, father I would prefer to leave with the men. I will assume the nocturnal guard-duty of the castle, and go back to check on Auðun and Thormundr, if you will take up the duty of guarding them throughout the day, father.”

“Very well, take care on the way back there with the other guards, son,” His father said, gripping him by the shoulder.

A smile and he was gone, leaving the women and the remaining guards along with his father to nestle down onto the ground, or in the case of the women on the straw-beds available. All were keen to at last sleep after a day full of too much excitement and work.

All throughout the night though she tried to sleep as best she could, unaccustomed to the sound of the sea, Sigrún was to struggle to fall asleep. The sound of the crashing waves, mixed with the howling winds, only worsened her sense of fright as she recalled the glaring, regretful eyes of the stranger who had interrupted her feast.

If there was the hope that the morning might bring serenity and answers, there was to be none of that. Where the court of the Jarl was prone to sleeping late and waking up late, the people of the rural locality were the opposite. They were prone to early hours, to working until the suns’ descended only to then throw themselves onto their beds wake up early in the morning and begin the process over again. In this they were of the most sublime nobility, for none worked harder, and were more committed than they to their duties.

Hardly familiar with the vast majority of those around her, Sigrún was however more than a little amazed by them, even though she was initially irritated by the noisiness. Once upon a time, she might have been one of them, but her time in Bleikrhaug had changed her, left her different in some way, she could feel it. And yet there was still a kinship, a sense of belonging that was muted yes, but still present. She only wished that she could find a way, to cease feeling apart from them.

When she awoke, her mother Gertrud was eager to make her feel at ease, something that Sigrún detested. Nothing made her feel all the more as though she was a guest, rather than family than her mother acting the servant towards her. No less keen to be courteous and kind, was her stepfather with only in spite of the distance that separated them, Thorgils seeking to be himself around her.

Though, she was rather distant and did not speak much, especially to her youngest sister (who chattered away endlessly), Sigrún broke her fast with her family. It might have been an uncomfortable meal, were it not for those guards all around her, chattering and chortling amongst themselves. She knew them all by name, and was friendly with all of them, so that she spent more time speaking with them.

“We must set out soon,” Thorvain was to say, the large chestnut haired man was always loud, “I, for one, shan’t wait.”

“You say that because you wish to go back home, to moon at that woman of yours,” Freygils mocked, the older man hooted with laughter.

“Watch thy mouth!”

“We all know that Vigdis, is liable to be beside herself with sorrow at his absence, complaining to all about the Jarl for taking him along.” Sigrún remarked with a chuckle of her own, as the men continued to mock their compatriot with increased fervour.

“You hear that? It appears to me that, you are not alone in being pitiful, Thorvain!”

“Oh, do be quiet!”

On it went, with some complaining about Freygils or Oddr’s eating habits, their tendency to eat with their mouths open. Or they fussed about not having slept enough, which was a sentiment that Sigrún truly sympathised with herself.

The only source of discomfort was when some of the men teased her stepfather, who responded as though he were one of them. A charming man, for it was he who had bequeathed to Thorgils his talent for winning others over so easily.

Joshed at, comparing their own acts and deeds of manhood with him, he was eventually teased over his pretty wife, by Freygils who asked him in a rough voice. “Why is it that you have fathered only one child with thy wife, Guðleifr?”

Gertrud, who had been busy filling up everyone’s bowls and plates, was to turn scarlet and demurely try to hide her blushing cheeks. If she could have, Sigrún might have raced back to the Thormundr’s estate to grab her spear (Helgi’s gift to her, for her day of life) and skewer the offending guardsman.

Guðleifr however, was to chuckle loudly and say to him, “Have you seen how difficult it is to manage Myrgjǫl? It is entirely and wholly her fault, for always distracting us by trying to get into trouble, one way or another.”

“How is it my fault?!” Myrgjǫl objected at once, offended by this with her mouth half-full of fish-meat, “I do not go looking for trouble!”
“Really? Who was it, then, who pushed the neighbour’s son into the sea? Or who tricked Thorgils last autumn to stand up in his boat, before you tripped him and did the same to him? Or what of the time you tricked me into eating the food meant for the cow?” The list of acts of mischief was staggering, with a great many of the men holding up their horns in salute. Being a race of tricksters, Northmen had a great deal of respect for those who indulged in such acts (within reason, of course). It was thus their view that, Myrgjǫl was both a rascal and also a heroine in her own right, one who had taken a great deal after the Allfather they revered so much.

On it went, and on went the cheers as man after man boasted, chuckled and teased until it was time to leave for the estate of Thormundr. Time, one should specify for Sigrún to return thither, that is.

The castle was exactly as it had appeared the night before, if slightly less impressively and less ominous in appearance to Sigrún’s mind. At first sight, she had found the building daunting, as it blended into the darkness and shadows in some ways, at present it seemed more akin to a slumbering giant.

She wondered, at that moment, if maybe the rumours of giants and monsters were not originated in some way from over-imaginative locals, who had looked on the keep at the wrong time of the day. It was a supposition that she might have liked to share with her foster-sisters, if it was not for the fact that she could neither find a moment alone with them, and if it was not for their recent interest in Thorgils.

Once inside, if she or the dozen or so men with her were expecting to find the place slumbering still, they were disappointed. Rather than being idle so late in the morning, most of those present had already broken their fasts, and had finished eating with many of their horses prepared. None were more eager to get back to the road it seemed than Helgi himself, who by the time of Sigrún’s arrival in the entrance of the castle had just finished saying his farewells to Thormundr.

“Are you certain that I shan’t convince you to stay several more days?” The sorcerer was asking, eager to play host for a little longer for his erstwhile guest.

“Absolutely not: Since it was I that that stranger sought, and I whom he likely wishes to hinder in the future as the heir of Gautstafr. Besides, I am worried about my grandson Helgi who was left in command of the fort in my absence, and for his cousin Reginleif, who has only recently lost her husband.” Helgi replied quietly as he turned away, only to stop, when he saw his foster-daughter present along with a number of his guards. “Ah, I was just about to send for you lot, it appears many of you are prepared to depart, I suppose there would be little reason in delaying the inevitable.”

“Must you go, so soon?” Sigrún asked of him, feeling as though her heart was being torn asunder between the home she had made in the past decade and that which was of her birth. “You should stay a little while longer, you and Sigdis both.”

“No child, it would make little sense, especially since Thormundr has predicted with his stones this morning, a great storm is to sweep over this village.” Sigdis retorted for her husband, looking now to the sorcerer, who flushed red, embarrassed and guilty of having brought naught but ill-tidings. “It appears that Aegir has awoken, as has Skaði, and that between high-seas and an incoming snow-squall it shall soon be unlikely that any could travel between Bleikrhaug and Heiðrrán.”

“It might be possible in the spring,” Auðun piped up eager to soothe her sense of abandonment, all he received for his trouble was a snarled remark from Thormundr.

“Which is about when I should expect you to finish thy work, in the kitchens, correct?” His harsh words won him a reproachful look from those around him.

“Thormundr, he merely wished to help,” Sigdis replied, “And there is little harm in letting him have the occasional moment away from his duties.”

“Oh, he has a knack for having occasional moments, rather continuously throughout the majority of the day.” Thormundr complained impatiently, only to remind the elderly couple, “If you should truly wish as you say to evade the storm, I would advise you to depart soon, Jarl.”

“Ah yes, thank you Thormundr, and do remember to show a little pity towards Auðun, he is a good lad.” Helgi replied as he made to leave, as he made to leave he embraced the visibly emotional Sigrún who could hardly meet his gaze. “Know that though it was chance that brought you to my attention, chance and the misfortune of one old crone, but that regardless of these things, I have always held you in the highest esteem. I think of you, not as simply another half-orphaned girl of some local village, but as much my own as those daughters who came from my flesh.”

The words were more than Sigrún had hoped for, for a number of years. Kindly and paternalistic, it was Helgi whom she wished to cling to at that moment, rather than the village of her mother’s kindred. It was only with the utmost effort that she swallowed the tears that came, unbidden, to her blazing, blue eyes.

They embraced, with the young woman swift to embrace her foster-mother and sisters as heartily as she had Helgi himself. The old man was to pat her on the head, then he was gone, down the hill and towards yonder horizon. Much as she might have liked to give chase after him, Sigrún was to find herself staring long after him and his troupe of warriors.

The fifty or so men, who had accompanied her south-west, were all men she had grown familiar with and had almost come to consider more her family than her own mother. So that she found herself stricken with grief, and sorrow at their departure, tears in her eyes she watched them go, full of regret and sadness at this parting.

“Parting truly is a sorrow,” She murmured to herself, as the last of them at last faded into the mists of the early morning.

“With little sweetness to it,” Thormundr agreed not unkindly, as he patted her on her muscular if feminine shoulder. “Now do come along, I have some mulled wine you might like, it will do you some good to also get out of this wet, cold and rather unpleasant morning.”

Sigrún was reluctant to follow him, yet the thought of warmed, mulled wine was so tempting that she could not resist it. There was a sense of wrongness, she thought, as she made to return inside. It took her some time to realize what it was that bothered her so, about this parting; it was not the sorrow of it that had her so affected but rather the sense of doom.

Sigrún knew in some way, in the most vague manner possible, that she would never see her foster-father again, or his wife and her foster-sisters. It was with this gloomy apprehension gripping her stomach that she was to at last let go of her attempts to cling to the image of them. Stricken as she was, she knew she could not live only at that moment and was determined to repress this strange feeling of hers. It could not be real, she told herself, premonitions were common and had no basis in reality.

As she ignored Auðun openly (being still angry with him for the night before), and refused to sit by Thorgils’ side to his irritation and made her way to Thormundr’s side, she wished that she could have convinced herself of this.

The next few days were difficult for Sigrún, as she spent most of her time with Thormundr, reading in his library (for she had been taught the northern letters at Helgi’s court), and practising with her spear. Taught the warrior-arts alongside her foster-sisters and several of Helgi’s granddaughters, this at her insistence, she had become what you might know as a ‘Shieldmaiden’. Though, her foster-mother had once jested that she was less than fond of her shield and seemed to prefer a spear, so that she had dubbed her a ‘Spear-Maiden’. It was a jest, and one that had caused the maiden to feel embarrassed at first, only to later laugh along with her over the years.

It was her hope that she might someday go on a Viking-raid, so that she might prove herself in battle. Her dreams being to achieve some measure of glory, and to prove to herself she merited, her place at Helgi’s court.

“Always she practices her spear-thrusts and with her short-sword early, when I arrive to take up the evening shift as guardsman.” Thorgils remarked one day to Auðun, shortly after he arrived, only to catch the apprentice delaying his journey to fetch water, to stare at Sigrún as she trained.

“She is quite skilled,” Auðun praised eagerly, always keen to interject with compliments where the Shieldmaiden was concerned.

“Hmm, yes though her footwork could use some improvements,” Thorgils said after a moment’s thought, “If she leans too much into her thrusts in that manner she might soon lose her footing in a real battle.”

“Really now?”

“Yes indeed,” Her stepbrother retorted before he turned away to head inside, “Auðun, I would advise you to cease gawping at my sister, and hurry with that water lest Thormundr lose his temper again.”

“I was not gawping,” Auðun grumbled to himself.

What neither of them realized at that moment, was that Sigrún had overheard them. The correction, regarding her footwork, was one that she took with ill-grace, though Thorgils did not see it. It was a piece of criticism she had heard before, from less kindly individuals so that she had never truly heeded it.

Throughout the day, her already frosty manner towards her stepbrother, was to become all the colder, until he quietly preferred to avoid her company. It was ever his way; when in conflict with those around him, he simply quietly slipped away it was a testament to his humility. None had in years succeeded in engaging his temper, and even less of those who lived nearby wished to do so. Those who had journeyed across the Glacial-Sea with him still spoke fearfully, of his battle-rages and of his ferocity with an axe.

As to his father, Guðleifr, he clung on for quite some time to the hope that he might become as a father to Sigrún. Or if not a father, his hope was that he might forge some bond, in this his efforts were frustrated as Sigrún had little in the way of interests for any such relationship. It was not that she openly scorned him as she did the two younger men, but rather that she did not know how best to fit him into her life. Helgi was a father-figure, his sons’ akin to uncles and his grandsons as brothers to her, saving perhaps Helgi Gautstafrsson (Helgi’s eldest son). But Guðleifr was merely her mother’s husband, and a figure who jested too much, chortled too much and played too much just as Thorgils did, with the local children.

He was also prone to nagging her, so that he hardly helped his own case so to speak, by telling her, “Sigrún you really ought to come eat with the family!” or, “Sigrún, do dress up lest you will catch thy death of a cold so late in autumn!”, or there was her least favourite, “Rather than playing about with thy spear go help thy mother and sister!”

No, his advice was not welcome. So far as she could discern, he treated Thorgils and even Auðun no differently, and they did not object. Yet she could not bring herself to approve or appreciate his treating her akin to how one might, a wayward and ill-behaving child.

Gertrud if she noticed the unhappiness of her daughter, paid no heed to it and preferred to attempt time and again, to invite her to dinner, to weave, to fish with her. While it must be admitted that Sigrún, did participate in some of these activities, she did not make a great concerted effort, to do so. The reason, if she was being honest with herself, was that she simply did not enjoy her mother or her half-sister’s company.

If the villagers were at all interested in Sigrún, they did not care to show it after the initial first two days. Treating her in a manner one might accord to a small dog, who tended to nap all day, they were to swiftly become more interested in pettier matters, such as gossip and preparing for the winter that was to come. It was already late, and this meant that it was likely to prove itself a harsh winter, far worse than the last two.

Lo, you can see now, dear Reader, how life was already beginning to take shape, in the village now that Sigrún had rejoined it. Her time divided between stitching up clothes and drapes with her mother, or nets for her, fishing and also remaining limber as a spear-woman, in the days that followed Helgi’s departure.

It was just as dusk fell on the third day that our tale takes on a different hue and shape. The stars were not yet dotting the skies, as the clouds storm-dark and unpleasant, having since some time covered up the moon. The wind cut through the air, with all the gentleness of a thrusting knife in search of one’s heart, and the waters of the local sea were stilled. It was as though they were themselves awaiting, some dark mysterious sign just before they were to overwhelm all before them.

Sigrún, still not yet returned home, as she preferred to assist Thormundr in his search of any and all references to Gautstafr’s map in his vast library. It was a library inhabited by thousands if not tens of thousands of books, each of them populated by a vast store of wisdom and knowledge that went back seemingly to the dawn of time itself. It was only at this time that Sigrún discovered with some embarrassment that the libraries she had considered great, in the castle of her former foster-father, were miniscule and a pale shadow in comparison to the greatness of Thormundr’s collection.

Pleased at her evident fascination towards his library, the sorcerer had welcomed her company, listening to her complaints or her talk of her days with Helgi with rapt attention. He would listen, even as he searched about for this thread of knowledge, or sought after that piece of information that might lead him to solving the mystery of the strange interloper.

“What I must admit to being utterly flabbergasted by is just how he disappeared from sight so suddenly,” the wise old man was saying with visible exasperation.

“Surely moving along the shadows of this world is possible for those of your Order, Thormundr,” Sigrún asked, confused by his frustration. “He could simply be another member of it, one you have not yet met?”

“Doubtful, I have never in all my years seen that man,” Thormundr hissed at her, seething at the very idea that there might be someone he did not know in the Order. “Also when one transports oneself to another location, through the usage of the mystic arts, there is always some tell-tale sign after the fact.”

“Such as smoke or something? Or a flash of light?”

“Something to that effect, ordinarily it will be a flash of lights of all sorts and a great gust of wind, as though the person was seized by a great gale-force tornado. Or if the person was one of a fiery nature he will disappear in a flash of fire, or if they favour water they depend on a water source to transport themselves.” The great sorcerer explained at some length as though he were speaking to the very slowest of children.

“But how does that work?” Sigrún asked confused, by what it was that he spoke of, “How could they transport themselves by fire and light both at once? Or say water and light?”

“No, no, no I must explain myself slower I suppose; those are separate elements I meant to say that where light and noise or smoke.”

“But what of the fire and water?”

“Those are different elements, they come with what one might expect of those things; such as a flash of flames or seeping away.”

“But-”

“Oh, so that is how it works!” Auðun exclaimed, having appeared suddenly towards the end of this lesson, which caused his teacher to groan. “Why is it that when I ask such questions, you do not answer me?”
Irritated by this exclamation on the part of the apprentice, who had brought up a pair of plates with fresh salmon and tomatoes cut up and prepared for them. Seated in the library, before a table with a small library mounted on it and seated together hunched over several volumes and scrolls, Thormundr and Sigrún had to turn about in their chairs to look at the apprentice.

Accepting the food, it was as the two of them ate that Thormundr sought to chase his pupil away, that the youth took a single glance at the books they were looking at. “What are the two of you reading?”

“We seek to know more about Gautstafr’s map, and his line,” Sigrún responded at once, a little annoyed by his interruption, though she was also mystified by Thormundr’s dislike for the youth.

“Amongst these scrolls and volumes?” Auðun asked incredulously.

“Oh, do tell us what you know, Master Auðun,” Thormundr snapped sarcastically.

“Certainly Master,” The apprentice-mage replied with a sigh, this being the only sign that he felt wounded by the old man’s words. “The tomes you are examining are histories of the local area, and of the old Kingdom before its collapse towards the end of the Second Wars of Darkness. You have also sought knowledge regarding the years immediately after those wars, but I do not think that is the way forward.”

“Yes, yes, do get to the end of it; which book is it that you recommend!”

“The scroll of Ebba,” Auðun replied as he hurried over to one of the bookshelves.

“The scroll is a meaningless poem,” The sorcerer snapped at once.

“No, Master, it is quite meaningful as it speaks of the Darkspire-”

“I know of what it speaks of.”

“Do read it out for me,” Sigrún requested, if only because she was convinced that it might be the swiftest way to be rid of her childhood friend, ere he made an even greater fool of himself.

A quick glance and raised brow towards Thormundr, and Auðun was away. Reading from the scroll, in a powerful voice, he did so in one that immediately made the hair on the back of Sigrún’s neck stand up on end, as she stared at him.

“Below the tree,

Built by Siglofi’s sons’ three,

Hid there the key,

That Sigurdr’s dread may ne’er be free,

Away sent they to the dark tree,

Beneath its roots’ she is noosed

In the frozen cellar, she has made her roost,

Beneath red-wine, she is hid,

By flute’s rote and his song did they forbid

Her departure, lest she be loosed,

To wreak ruin, and thus have good refuted,

Flames wrought where ice thrives,

As surely she might leave summer to die

The tree’s leaves to pass from branch to ground,

And autumn to depart that winter might stay year-round.”

“You see?” Auðun asked of them, with both of them not seeing what he saw in the poem, huffing impatiently he explained rather more slowly that they might understand. “When it speaks of the key, it is referring to the map as such, in turn when it speaks of red-wine it does not speak of the interior of a wine-cellar. It is very possible that it speaks to the line of Gautstafr, as they are noted since the days of his rule for having the finest vineyards in Norvech.  And it hints if I were to guess that the map has been known to the lineage for quite some time, and hidden by them. It has been passed down as surely as the leaves pass from a tree’s branch and onto the ground during autumn.”

“What is it that you mean?” Sigrún demanded of him, “That Helgi lied to that stranger, about the map? Where could he have hidden it, if he did lie? And why would he?”

“I do not know if he lied as such, mayhaps the truth is buried beneath his words…” Auðun stopped mid-speech and stared at her, appraising her and studying her as though he had just seen her for the first time. “Sigrún, did Helgi and his women not leave a large chest for your effects and possessions at your separation?”

“Yes, it was a gift-” Before she could elaborate about the gift, there was a sudden boom as that of an explosion that resounded throughout the whole of the second floor where the library was to be found in the castle.

Smashing his way into the room, as he threw open the door heaving and puffing having run up all the stairs of the castle, and raced over from the entrance to the castle, Thorgils cried out. “Master Thormundr, come quickly!”

“Pardon?”

“It is the lady Gyða, foster-daughter of Sigdis and Helgi! She is covered in blood and needs immediate help!” Thorgils cried out, his words coming out in a rush, such was the panic that had seized him.

“What do you mean, speak sense, how could she be here and wounded?” Thormundr demanded of him, stunned at this revelation.

“Helgi has been ambushed en route back whither to his home!”