Shield Maiden Page 16
Chapter Ten - Valkyrie
If you blew it, then a champion you are ... or might be one day. But you cannot keep the horn, child. It belongs to Heimdall and he will be wanting it back. We must make plans to achieve that before she tries again to take it from us.”
“She ... you mean Kendra?” Anna asked absently, still a little dazed at being described as a champion.
Gurthrunn nodded.
“So who is she and why has she got the whole village acting so odd?” Hild asked.
“Odd? How odd?”
“Like they don’t know us,” Hild sobbed.
The dwarf raised his eyebrows at Anna, who told him what had happened, reporting the strange behaviour of the villagers, how even their own parents seemed not to recognise them and had chased after them, and how the men were engaged in very strange activities, all apparently at Kendra’s command.
“Except for the children,” she finished. “She does not seem to have much effect on the young ones and not on us either.”
Gurthrunn listened carefully, fingering his warty face, his expression grim. After Anna had spoken he was silent a moment, warming his hands on the fire. Then, drawing in a deep breath, he said, “I told you that Loki had talked many folk - mortal and immortal - into his service. Kendra is a Valkyrie - a warrior woman and servant of the gods, or leastways she was. What Loki promised her I do not know, but serve him she did - and does. It was she who stole two items of great power: the Brisingamen of Freya and the Horn of Heimdall. The Brisingamen is a necklace that emphasizes the powers of its mistress and Freya is the Goddess of Love and War. Her necklace makes the wearer strong and almost invincible in battle, but it also grants the ability to entrance mortals - and many immortals as well. Someone wearing it, who is strong enough, can turn men’s hearts and those of women too, so that they adore the wearer and will do anything for them. Think, children, was Kendra wearing a necklace when you saw her?”
“Yes, she was and beautiful it was too,” Ellette answered. “Do you think that was the Brisingamen?”
The dwarf nodded gravely. “I am afraid so. That is why your folk were behaving so oddly. Kendra has them all under her thrall. She is using the necklace to force them to her will. The Brisingamen only seems to work on adults. Apparently Freya ignores children when it comes to matters of war and love.”
“It almost worked on me,” Anna said in a small voice.
“Perhaps because you are almost no longer a child,” Gurthrunn suggested.
Wilburh had been sitting very still listening to the dwarf, fascinated as he always was by tales of magic and the gods. He now asked a question.
“So, Kendra keeps the necklace with her. What about the horn? Why abandon it?”
“The horn she hid here so it would be ready for the day Loki would use it.”
“Why not use it at once. Why wait?” Wilburh asked.
“I do not know the answer to that. Perhaps Woden led the gods against Loki before his plans were ready. Whatever the explanation, Kendra and Loki were captured by the gods and imprisoned over two hundred years ago. During that time my people have searched for the lost treasures and have found some, but the greatest has remained hidden from us. That might not have mattered until only a few days ago.”
“Why? What happened?” Wilburh asked.
“Kendra, along with others in Loki’s service, escaped from their prison. Heimdall immediately froze Bifrost - the bridge between the worlds - but not before Kendra was able to reach Midgard. She is here to find the treasures and once she does I do not know what she will do, but whatever it is, I must stop her.”
“If she came looking for the horn where she hid it in the barrow she was out of luck. It was not there.” Anna said.
Gurthrunn nodded. “Yes, she clearly believed it would be safe deep in a long abandoned burial mound, and so it might have been had our Roman not been curious two hundred years ago. Even then it was buried again until you found it in the villa and blew it. Had you not managed to get a sound out of it, neither she nor I would have been drawn to your little village.”
“So what do we do? You talked about sending the horn back to Asgard. How is that possible?”
“There are paths and doors between the Nine Worlds if you know where to look, but it is not easy. Not these days. The gods have closed many of them in an attempt to stop their treasures being moved around and now that Kendra has escaped and Heimdall has frozen Bifrost, travel is even harder. Indeed, that very fact will make whatever Kendra is planning difficult. The gods let us dwarves travel in search of the artefacts, but without the gods’ help it is not easy to pass between the worlds. The horn is the answer. It can open one of the doorways. It can give me access to Bifrost, the rainbow bridge that links Asgard to the other worlds.”
“But what about Kendra? How do we deal with her? How do we free our parents from the spell that binds them?”
“I will help with that, but we must first get the horn away. If she gains control of it again she can summon an army to do her bidding. If that were to happen your people would be killed and your village burnt to the ground.”
Her face paling at his words, Anna nodded. “So we get it away through one of these doorways. Where is it?”
“In the same barrow where you found the horn. The entrance will act as my gateway. Such places have immense power for they are places where folk once passed from life to death. The doorway will give me access to Bifrost.”
Raedann got up and went over to the hut door, opened it a fraction and glanced outside. “It is almost dark. We should not travel during the night,” he suggested.
“No indeed,” Gurthrunn shook his head. “Those svartálfar like darkness. If we were to get caught outside before dawn we would be in trouble even with me accompanying you.”
“Why are the dark elves attacking us? And what about those horrid ravens?” Hild asked.
“Kendra has the svartálfar that live here under her thrall. The Brisingamen would work on them just like it does on humans, but in their case they were drawn to Loki’s side and will help Kendra to free him. As for the ravens – well, they serve the Valkyries, they fly with them when they go to battles and scout for them.”
A thought occurred to Anna. “Won’t the svartálfar attack us here?”
“Not right away. Their defeat today will give them pause for thought. The dark elves are nasty little creatures but they are easily frightened. They will have run away. It will take time for Kendra’s ravens to find them again and still more time to persuade them to attack. Besides, I have cast certain spells of protective magic here. This place is safe for a while at least.”
Gurthrunn stood and opened up a chest in the corner of his hut. When he turned back to the children he was carrying an armful of blankets. Handing one to each child he indicated that they should find a space on the floor to lie down. “Come, let us sleep and be about our business when the sun rises,” he ordered. “I will keep watch over you tonight.” So saying, he carried his great hammer towards the door.
The children settled down for the night and soon Anna could hear first Raedann, then Wilburh and Lar snoring. She looked around at the girls and found that they were also asleep. But sleep did not come easily to her. In her mind she saw herself once more blowing the horn and remembered how she had felt: the strange exhilaration that had run through her; a power she had not felt before. Then that image was gone and with terrifying clarity she recalled the battle below the fort in the forest. She had been so scared. Hardly a champion; hardly a leader of warriors or a captain!
The arguments she had with her father were always about her dreams of becoming a shield maiden, a warrior woman destined to fight the enemies of her people. Now, having been in battle today for real, she realised how uncertain she was about those dreams.
After what seemed a long time of tossing and turning, Anna got up and throwing the blanket around her shoulders like a cloak, she quietly opened the door and stepped out into the night. G
urthrunn was sitting near a fire he had built not far from the door. He looked up at her, an unspoken question in his eyes as she joined him on a log near the fire.
“I can’t sleep,” she said.
At first Gurthrunn said nothing, but studied her from under his bushy eyebrows then said, “You have something on your mind, mayhap? Something to do with what I said tonight?”
She nodded. “I was frightened today. When the dark elves attacked us I thought we were going to die and I was scared.”
“I imagine you were. Any sane person would be, child. Battles are terrible places. A warrior knows fear in his or her heart, but fights despite it. Fights because of it perhaps, because fear reminds you that you are mortal and can die and you don’t want to die, and you don’t want those you care for to die either. So you fight to live that they may live also.”
Anna realised that the horn was in her hand again. She had taken it out of her belt when she was listening to Gurthrunn. “This horn - you say it can only be blown by a champion - a leader in battle. Before tonight I wanted to be one, but after that battle I am not so sure. I am not sure I can be.”
“What you are and what you can be is your wyrd - your fate. Trust in your fate. It will not lead you astray. If destiny decrees that you will be a warrior, so you shall be. The horn could feel that in you: something about you that the others do not have. You are destined to lead and they to follow. Like all the treasures of the gods, the horn looks for rare people like you. It feels in you just a touch of the power that the gods have. That is why only you could get it to sound.”
“So you are saying I must believe in my wyrd. I must trust in my destiny?” Anna asked, still far from certain she was convinced.
Gurthrunn nodded.
“Indeed, that is all any of us can do. Now go and try to sleep, child. The morning will be upon us ere long. “