When at long last Marbjörn deemed the longhall ready, dozens of warriors raised burning brands and approached the stacked piles of kindling.

Skadi had watched in a stupor, the night seemingly endless, unable to act, to think, to move. It felt as if her grief filled the cup of her heart to the brim; if she exerted herself in any way, it would overflow.

But as the men approached the longhouse, a realization galvanized her into action. “Wait!”

She ran up the steps and into the great hall proper. The stench was so strong that even now it caused her to shudder. But she turned almost immediately to the door in the hall’s side and wrenched it open.

Her uncle’s armory and treasure hoard.

Of course the chests were gone, but it was the sight of the empty weapon brackets that caused Skadi to grimace.

Afastr had taken everything.

With a grimace, she backed out into the main hall, and considered its great length, its hundreds upon hundreds of dead. It was right that they should be burned thus, but not without ceremony. And with Ásfríðr dead and buried, that obligation, she realized, fell to her.

Drawing her völva staff from her belt, she emerged back into the night and gazed out over the hundreds of warriors. They were, for the most part, a shadowed horde, but here and there a torch lit them into islands of flickering orange and red, their expressions somber, their gazes hollowed out so that they seemed themselves a gathered host of the dead.

“Afastr did this,” she said, her voice carrying in the chill air. “Afastr who threatened us with war before I even arrived over the destruction of one of his dragon ships off the Cloud Coast, and whose blood lust was only stilled when he thought he could have me. Have me for what? As his wife, yes, but primarily as his means of extending his life. There is dark seiðr in Kaldrborg. Their jarl kills his wives and drains their wyrd to bolster his own. He has lived for longer than any of suspect by this means, and when I refused his dark needs, he did… this.”

Skadi turned to consider the great hall. For a moment nobody spoke. There was only the sound of the torches burning and that deep, aching void of sound from within.

“This… this massacre of every man, woman, and child is the result of living too long, of steeping yourself in the dark arts, of losing your humanity. Yes, we people of the Draugr Coast go a-viking, and yes we slay those who stand against us. I’m no child. While I have never been raiding, I know that we, too, kill men, women, and children on these raids. But there’s a difference. Those we kill or capture as thralls we do towards an end: to bring home gold and glory. We do not exterminate, but hit hard and fast and then leave to return another day. This? This was butchery. This took long, hard hours of killing and dragging the bodies together. And for what? Why would Afastr do this?”

She searched the faces in the crow. Gaunt Kvedulf. Dour Glámr. Mournful Aurnir. Focused Marbjörn. Scowling Nokkvi. Horrified Damian. Many, many more.

“Because he seeks to destroy our spirit before he kills us in battle,” she said softly. “Because he thinks this deed will break us, shock us so profoundly that we’ll lose all courage and resolve. And he was almost right. Almost. The sight of my loved ones in there…”

She trailed off. Felt the anger begin to rise through the grief and stunned horror.

“But Afastr made a grave miscalculation. We are not people of Isern, or Wuduholt, or one of the tribes hidden deep within the Skaberi forests. We are Northmen. We are the sons and daughters of legends. We are those who prized independence so that we left King Harald’s kingdom to carve out a life here in the wilderness, preferring to be beset by troll-folk and hunger to bending knee.”

The crowd shifted, and she saw chins rise, eyes narrow, men and women nod as if to themselves.

“What’s more, if our dead could speak, would they urge us to weep and lay down our weapons? Or would they howl to be avenged, would they demand that we who loved them strive to our utmost to kill those who visited this evil upon them? What would they wish, our dead, of us? Sorrow or fury? Horror or hatred?”

Growls and murmurs rose from hundreds of throats.

Skadi raised her voice, her own passions filling her chest to bursting. “Fury and hatred. Vengeance. That is what Afastr has sewed here. A bitter crop that he shall soon harvest in full. There’s no telling how many of his own he lost in this butchery, but whatever the number, however many of his warriors fell to our people’s righteous fury, that number is but a drop in the bloody bucket compared to what’s to come. Tomorrow our friends arrive, and we shall set forth, all ten dragon ships, for Kaldrborg. To bring it fire and wrath, to teach Afastr how the people of the North respond to such atrocities, and to bring peace to our fallen by avenging them a hundredfold on those who did this.”

Many called out their agreements, many nodded vigorously, and Skadi sensed that she could incense them further, bring that now simmering fury to a fever pitch. But to what end? Their battle was still a week away at least.

She turned to face the hall and stretched out her arms.

“Hel, great Aesir of the underworld, welcome these people to your realm. Welcome them and know that they are brave and bold, hardy and resilient, wise and stern. A powerful host comes to you, and you will find much amongst them to admire. But for those who died with a weapon in their hands, Odin and Freyja, I hope you have plenty more white mead and grilled pork on hand, for Sessrúmnir and Valhöll will have rarely seen their like. And to you departed friends and loved ones, know this: soon we shall send a thick river of newly dead into Hel right after you, and first and foremost amongst them will be Afastr, who will howl and beat his chest, bitterly regretting his evil life, but knowing it is too late, far too late to do other than have died like a beast bellowing in the mud.”

She looked back to Marbjörn, who nodded and glanced at the torchbearers. They moved forward and shoved their brands into the huge piles of kindling, expertly prepared so that each quickly consumed shavings and small branches and then set to devouring the beams and logs.

Skadi pulled the great doors closed and then rejoined the crowd to watch. The flames spread quickly, and soon the hall was ablaze, great curtains of crimson raging in the air, the wood crackling and popping, showers of sparks billowing forth into the night sky to challenge the stars.

The heat grew oppressive, and reluctantly the crowd moved back, then back again. Soon the fire became a conflagration in truth, and the great hall roared, its huge timbers and massive support columns wreathed in flames so intense they appeared yellow gold, as if the noble spirit of the longhouse were consuming its mortal shell.

The great hall burned for hours. Nobody turned away. When the roof finally collapsed inward with a great rushing roar, sending up great gouts of curling sheets of fire in its wake, Skadi thought of the dead within finally being consumed, blackened, charred, reduced in that crucible of ultimate heat into ash.

She thought of Begga, her knobby knuckles as she held out a plate of gruel to Skadi, laughing at something ridiculous Kofri had said. Thought of Ulfarr sitting calmly to one side, endlessly smoking his pipe, watchful and steady as a weathered rock.

Tears brimmed in her eyes and then ran down her cheeks. Her heart ached, throbbed, but never burst before the grief. Her expression remained hard and cold as if cut from granite. She pictured her three friends walking the long dark road into Hel, side by side, Begga no doubt chiding Kofri for something, Ulfarr following behind and shaking his head.

Her heart throbbed, and she saw Afastr’s face gazing out at her from the heart of the pyre.

“This is your doing,”he seemed to say, his manner untroubled, his gaze steady. “You made me do this.”

Skadi curled her hands into fists. The face vanished, and she inhaled raggedly. The people of Kráka had been right to watch her warily after Afastr’s departure. They had known her decision would bring them grief.

But who could have foreseen this?

She worked her way through the crow to her uncle’s side. His face was bathed in firelight, and he looked old, weary, defeated. She looped her arm through his own. He studied her for a moment, then returned his gaze to the great hall.

Kráka was dead, she knew. There was no coming back from this. Even the mightiest hird needed a home, families, thralls, livestock, a place and way to live.

Afastr had gutted her uncle as surely as if he’d plunged a knife into his stomach.

“We’ll kill him,” she whispered. “You will hew off his head like you did Queen Grýla’s.”

Her uncle made no response.

* * *

They slept on their ships and the docks, hundreds of warriors wrapped in blankets or simply seated against whatever wall or lying upon benches. They had been too tired, too dispirited to bother making a real camp, and many had simply collapsed where they could find an open spot.

Skadi had remained awake. She’d spent several hours seated in their old home with only the faint light of the late-rising moon coming in through the window to give the familiar objects and angles shape. Had stared sightlessly until at last some undefined need or thirst had been assuaged, and then walked Kráka as dawn crept up, eyes glassy, skin heavy with ashes and dried sweat.

The Raven’s Gate was ajar, but the ground outside it was muddied with blood and torn up. She walked a small circle before the gate, studying the tracks. Hundreds had died here, trying to flee the attack from the docks, and been met with a second force that had pushed them back into Kráka.

Afastr had known people would try to flee and planned for it.

Lips pursed, Skadi raised her gaze and saw Queen Grýla’s head, still impaled upon its stake a score of yards before her. She’d run past it so many times while training that it had become almost invisible to her, but now she walked up and around it so that she could study the decomposed face in the moonlight.

“Your vengeance finally came,” she whispered. “Does it gladden your heart, wherever you are?”

The leathery face made no answer.

Finally, Skadi returned to the docks and set about organizing the feeding of the men, ordering great kettles of porridge to be cooked over fires. The warriors responded sluggishly, and she could tell many of them wished to simply sit and stare out into their own thoughts, but she prodded and commanded until at last some semblance of order started up, and people began to get in line with bowls and spoons in hand.

Gathering her last clean outfit from the chest in her former home, she made one final pilgrimage to the waterfall outside Kráka and bathed in its icy waters. The chill made her bones throb, caused her to gasp, stricken, but she dunked herself under again and again, then lathered her stinging skin mercilessly with soap and washed her hair until she felt so numb she could barely flex her fingers.

Emerging from the pool, she dried off and got dressed only to realize that the small forest spirit was seated on a rock, its nut-brown face and glittering bird-like eyes solemn as it studied her.

“Hello,” she said.

“The bright wolf of the hall shone last night and feasted on the eagle’s barley.”

“Yes.” Skadi lowered her comb. “Kráka, our village, is no more.”

The woodland spirit cocked his head to one side in the quick manner of a bird. “The children of ash and elm leave?”

“Yes. We travel north, to bring death to those who did this.”

The forest spirit seemed to consider, his wrinkled little lips pursing. “That man of Hel is a dangerous corpse-scather.”

“Even so.”

It reached into its grubby tunic and pulled forth a gleaming acorn, which it held out in the palm of its hand. “The ruler of the wood stands boldly in the seaweed of the hill slope. Here he is when he was but a seed, a thousand summers ago. Cast him on the ground, and he shall grow anew.”

Skadi hesitated. An acorn? Did the spirit wish her to plant an oak wherever she went? But no, this was in response to the man of Hel, Afastr. The spirit shifted its little hand, and though the acorn appeared normal, the flicker of a golden gleam washed over it.

“Thank you,” said Skadi, reaching out so it could drop the acorn in her palm. It felt warm, like a stone left beside a fire. “You have been a good friend to me.”

The woodland spirit wrinkled its nose, blinked, and then was gone.

Skadi examined the acorn. It was strangely heavy as if made from metal, and the warmth didn’t dissipate. She tucked it into her pouch and stood with a sigh.

She felt far older than her eighteen years. Felt worn and hollowed out and weary. But stifling a yawn, she began to make her way back to the docks.

The other ships would be arriving today, and then they would head north.

North to Kaldrborg.

North to Afastr.

North to vengeance.