No Horns on these Helmets

By L. J. Bonham, Tyree Kimber, Cynthia Ward and 4 more

Horns?  We don’t need no stinkin’ horns!

Long before Marvel and the fat lady singing, there were Northmen who went Viking.  They carried axes and swords, worshipped gods such as Odin, Freyja, Thor, and Tyr, and they didn’t have horns on their helmets. Check out some of the most imaginative stories by authors such as Erin Lale, L.J. Bonham, Tyree Kimber, Cynthia Ward, Tony Thorne MBE, Hugh B. Long. Gerri Leen, among others. Sharpen your axes and jump in your longboats, because there are no horns on these helmets!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC
• Release date: May 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513047980

Book preview

No Horns on these Helmets

Edited by Erin Lale

Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC

© 2015 by Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC.

Published by Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC.

PO Box 99

Clinton, MT 59825

www.skywarriorbooks.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

Editor: Erin Lale.

Cover art by K.S. Augustine.

Publisher: M. H. Bonham.

Printed in the United States of America

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Table of Contents

Gullveig Drowning by Jackson Eflin

Second Time Around by Brianne Chalfant

The Legend of Delbel the Butzemann by Robert Lusch Schreiwer

In Chains Until Ragnarok by Tyree Kimber

Her Gothic Vacation by Tony Thorne MBE

Blades of Ice and Ivory by Christine Morgan

The Dragon Bone Tower by Cynthia Ward

Victorious Girlfriend by Laura Dasnoit

The Door in the Lake by T.J. O’Hare

The Youngest Valkyrie by Kathryn M. Hearst

To Love Loki by Gerri Leen

Norn Porridge by Ross Baxter

The Guardian by John Loving

A Draugr's Tale by Hugh B. Long

Kinsmen by Garman Lord

Woodencloak by Erin Lale

Blood Allies by L. J. Bonham

Kenaz by Hannah Burton

Jörmungandr by Jeff Szappan

A Wolf in the Hills by J M Ross

Gullveig Drowning

Jackson Eflin

The town square smelled of berries and woad and saffron. Splashes and laughter filled the air, songs wafting lazily around the houses that sprouted onions and herbs from their roofs, and the summer heat left bare arms and loose hair glistening with sweat and sunshine. Two girls walked lazily as the gold and glass around their necks shimmered and clinked, their smiling lips lending themselves to dancing. They were carrying linens to the town square to be dyed in the great vats that had once been bathtubs, to be dried by the summer breeze and strung about the village in time for the Disirblot. Red for the Lady’s fertile lips kissing the upturned back of the soil, yellow for the light of the Sun as she raced across the sky, greens and purples to beautify the rock and tempt the elves to bring blessings to every doorstep.

But they also dyed black and blue, in memory of those who had passed over the year, in remembrance that the life of the party can be the death of the summer, in prayers to the ancestors and to Hel their queen for a warm reception in the hererafter.

The old women dyed the black and the blue. They knew the importance of it, knew that the dead would want to celebrate just as much as the living would, that the grief of the dead is the grief of the living. Theirs was a somber job, and the rise and swell of songs fell quiet upon their wrinkled ears until one crone, her heart breaking all over again for her daughter, taken away by the winter winds, sung out a wailing dirge that broke out across the sky and conjured silence from every throat. The summer winds howled back at her, suddenly chilly.

###

What if I’m not ready? Katla asked, her arms wrapped around her knees.

Her mother shook her head, then reached out and combed Katla’s head with her fingers. Of course you will be dear. What’s making you worry?

Katla was quiet for a moment as answers slammed into her heart like the hoofbeats of a goat herd. Because I’m the youngest spækona the tribe has ever seen? Because I still have to have help picking the right herbs? Because my prophecies are vague at best? Because Ingirunn didn’t finish training me? Because I can only remember about half of the galdr songs? And, worst of all, an endless thought that bit in her veins like a hungry serpent, Because when I try to call to Freyja, I hear nothing?

Because everyone’s relying on me, Katla settled on at last. And what if I get it wrong? What if I think the signs say ‘plant now’ but they meant ‘plant later’? Or if I tell the Vikings to raid south, when they should go west? What if I go to pieces and tell everyone ‘The signs say we should burn down the village and live as hogs for the rest of our lives’?

Her mother laughed. I’d love to see Earl Svellr snorting in the mud. I think it would do him some good. She knelt in front of her daughter. You will be magnificent.

How can you be sure?

It is the prophecy every mother has when her daughter is born, she said. Her broad smile wrinkled her face like silk.

After her mother had gone off bartering, Katla tried to calm herself, quiet her nerves, remove the serpent coiled around her heart, but to no avail. She raced to the edge of town, to walk through the woods, away from the chatter of the people expecting her to sunder the walls between today and tomorrow and peer through the crack. There was a river that flowed to the south of the village, and a mile or so off it pooled enough for bathing, deep enough that you could jump from the outcrop above it without hurting yourself.

Someone had left a spear on the bank, a nice one too. It was carved with scenes from the legend of Gullveig, burned and reborn from the ashes, her magic so strong that death was nothing to her. Katla held it like she’d seen her brother doing, her brother who, two summers ago, had been initiated into the ranks of the Ulfsarks. And then she held it like she’d seen Ingirunn do, with her wand of Ash Wood, back when she had been Katla’s mentor, back when the weight of the village wasn’t on Katla’s shoulders, back before the fever that had made her body go cold, too soon to teach Katla all she needed to learn. Ingirunn had heard the singing of elves and the laughter of the ancestors since she was a child, she had been the perfect choice to be the town’s seeress. She had picked Katla because the gods had told her to, and it was this more than her own skills that gave Katla the boldness to hold a spear to the watchful sky. She pointed it to the sky and shouted.

Hear me Freyja! Freyja, oh witch of heaven, oh falcon queen of the cat-drawn chariot! You who are in every spring flower, you who are in every crone’s wrinkles! I am to be your throat in just three days! So… her imperious air faltered. …could I hear your voice?

The woods were silent. The water was still. Katla dropped the spear, sat on a stone and stared at the gently flowing water. The shadows began to grow long and she dozed in and out of consciousness. In the pool’s reflection she could see the jagged shape of the bluff at her back, and the drifting of the clouds against a wildly blue sky, a bird darting across every so often.

And then something moved against the rocks above her. Katla watched, the hairs on the back of her neck on end, as the snout of a wolf broke the line between stone and sky, sniffing and snuffling. It had her scent. Its head emerged, stared down at her. She froze, hoping that it might think her a stone, but it held its gaze as it slowly withdrew. She listened as it scuffled above her, getting slowly closer, looking for the quietest, swiftest way down.

Katla reached slowly for the spear at her feet. Nothing sudden. Nothing fast. Her fingers brushed the wood as the smell of the wolf reached her, a thick smell of mud and sweat. The head of the spear scraped against the stone and the wolf paused, then resumed. She thought she heard its hackles raise, imagined its teeth, heard the scraping of its claws.

The wolf’s breath was quiet as the summer night. It had stopped descending, was preparing to pounce. Katla was trembling, but she was trained in the art of galdr song. Her breathing was steady. Her grasp was strong.

The woods were quiet.

Then the wolf leapt, and Katla turned around and braced the spear, belting out a scream that was prayer and spell and song and primal rage all at once. The wolf hit the shaft and the momentum pushed them both into the pool. All of her senses were occupied by the weight of the grey hair and a feeling of hot blood and icy water on her skin, and then her head hit bottom and everything went black.

Grey nuzzling around her legs. Feathers tickling her shoulders. Her mother, or Ingirunn, or a raven coated in blood and flower petals, had reached its arms around her neck and affixed a necklace of fire that sat heavy on her breast. Lips kissed her eyes and forehead. Sharp teeth, smiling.

She woke up as her face hit the surface of the water, gasping for breath. Instinctively she flailed until her hands hit stone, and pulled herself onto dry land. The wolf had floated to the surface, a spear through its neck, its blood diluted in the slow-moving water. Its matted fur was red, its ferocity and its dignity both washed away.

###

Katla lay panting on the shore, terror still racing through her veins but, as she stared at the teeth in the now still wolf’s mouth, a hot feeling of triumph surged through her. She raised a fist to the sky and howled her victory with all of her throat, and then lay back on the ground, laughing in ecstasy, as the pool water licked her feet like adoring panthers.

###

That hot pride was still glowing bright in Katla’s chest when she sauntered into town, the wolf slung over her shoulder. She wrapped it like a cloak, muttering the old words for strength as she did, the body’s dead weight making her buckle slightly, but she wanted to flaunt her kill. She wore a cocky grin and bloodstains.

Several people in the town square dropped what they were doing to stare. There was a splash as the dyed fabric hit their vats again, a squelch as an early dinner plate fell food-down. Her brother, leaning against the tavern’s wide doorway, gave an appreciative whoop and raised a tankard to her. Three Ulfsarks, out of their armor, walked over to her, looked her up and down, then gave her appreciative nods, murmuring about the size of the paws and the color of the gums. (Healthy. Must be good hunting south of the village.) The two tanners ran up to her asking to be the one to skin and tan the hide for her. They were embroiled in a longstanding rivalry over who should inherit their father’s tannery, as he’d died without giving his blessing to either of them.

I can have it done by next Thorsday!

I can have it by next Tiwsday!

I can patch the hole where the spear went through!

I can make it so you’d never know it was there!

I can get all the blood out without losing any of the color!

It doesn’t have color you oaf, it’s grey.

But Katla wasn’t listening. She’d known their father, a friend of her mother’s, since she was a child. He too had died of the old fever. She’d watched them bury him. But yet there he was, standing behind his sons shaking his head and rubbing his brow. As they jabbered on, he looked up, met Katla’s eyes. There was a sudden weight on her chest, in addition to the wolf’s carcass on her shoulders, like stones or soil. All at once her muscles rebelled, she had to put the body down, and in doing so she broke eye contact. The weight of the wolf and his gaze gone, she felt lighter than falcon feathers. The weight was less severe when she looked up again, locked eyes with the wight. He spoke, but Katla couldn’t hear his words, but his meaning came through with an approving gesture to Siafi, his older son. Katla turned to him and accepted his offers. His brother slunk away while they bartered for the work, one hide for the back claws and two eyes.

###

Katla was the talk of the town that night. Everyone put their work on hold to buy her drinks and hear the minstrels telling marvelous lies about her. Even the dead came to listen, an old couple swaying to the music and several warriors, their armor muddied and bloodied, stood alongside, staring forlornly at the ale. They gave Katla her space as she told her tale four times, each retelling between rounds of drinks, and as the light dropped the wildness of her tale rose. Most people there knew it, but no one minded. A good story was a good story, and no Ulfsark ever told the complete truth when he came home with his skin either. Her tongue was never so loosened that she’d tell anyone about seeing the wights though. That was a sacred gift that she had no intent to share with anyone, though deep down she was also worried someone would ask her to pass messages that she couldn’t hear.

When the night drew to a close and everyone went to their homes Katla sat outside, staring out at the stars as if there might be answers there. She’d never heard any songs or legends about someone killing a wolf and then seeing the dead. Perhaps she was something new. The stars offered no advice or clarification, just wandered slowly across the sky Like migrating swans.

She wandered, wrapped in night, and found herself at the tanner’s. Through the window she saw movement, and for a moment was surprised that Siafi would work this late. But no, it was his father’s ghost, toiling as if out of habit. He was singing, she could tell by the way he swayed, even if she couldn’t hear him. As he worked at the tanning vat there was a ripple on her skin, that nameless sensation of power she’d always felt when Ingirunn had been in the thrall of sorcery. She watched him for a bit, pouring chemicals into the vat and then stirring, then sticking his fingers in to check the temperature, until he seemed content. He stretched the hide on the rack and then dried his hands. He looked up, saw her, and that feeling of weight came back down on her chest. He smiled at her and put a finger to his lips, then stepped back into shadow, vanishing from view. She was thankful, that weight made it hard to breathe. She panted, but regained her composure after a moment.

Katla wasn’t necessarily surprised by the wights. Everyone with any sense knew the dead lingered to watch over their descendants or settle old grudges. But just as surely as the dead were always around, they were just as surely unseen. Except, perhaps, by cats.

But now there was another one standing in the road, staring at one of the houses. It was a crone’s house, and with slow realization Katla recognized the woman. She’d died two winters ago, leaving a hole in the family tree, a curious absence, like a thread pulled loose. She was crying gently, looking in through the windows at her mother, her mother who had demanded the body burned so that her daughter would have a little bit of warmth to carry her into eternity.

The weeping woman saw Katla then. Their eyes locked and there was a sudden heat on her skin, curling around her like the crack of a whip distributed slowly over every bit of her body. She felt a funeral pyre. The weeping woman walked up to her and asked her a question, her eyes said as much. Katla heard nothing. The woman asked the question again, and her pyre seemed to burn Katla’s skin hotter. She took a step back, but was unable to look away. The weeping woman advanced on her, her mouth churning, her hands sweeping the air as she tried to communicate something. Rage? Loss? Loneliness? Fear? Katla couldn’t tell, could only watch as the silent woman’s tears turned her eyes red.

Then she reached out and grabbed Katla’s shoulders in anguish. The fire, at first an echo, now felt real, sharp, alive, and Katla screamed. Both women backed away from each other, and their eyes unlocked. Katla ran home. She laid in her cool bed, shuddering.

###

She spent the next day in bed. She checked herself for burns but found none, not even on her shoulders, but the memory of the pain lingered under her skin. It was two days until she’d have to prophecy for the town. People came by to congratulate her on her slaying of the wolf, or to ask her to interpret an omen, and she was courteous, but wished they’d all go away and let her puzzle her new world out. Her spirits lifted when Siafi came by, to tell her with incredulity that the hide was completely done. He couldn’t understand it, but wanted her to have it now. I’d rather not get too mixed up with magic, you understand. Miracles are lovely but if word gets out you can’t pull them off on cue it’s bad for business.

She sat staring at the hide for a long time, then draped it over her head like the Ulfsarks did. It felt warm and oddly comforting, this thing she had killed. She closed her eyes, remembering. It was a blur now, and she could not remember exactly what had happened. She would have to ask someone from the tavern to tell her the earliest story they could remember, hoping it would be the closest to truth. She wrapped the skin around herself like it was her own, falling deeper into its warmth, then shrugged it off quickly. She knew what happened to those who fell too deep into a wolf’s skin, and she couldn’t afford to go wild now. People were relying on her.

As the skin fell to the ground she gasped and scuttled back against the wall. A wolf was sitting in her house. In the next moment she recognized it, recognized its healthy gums and bright eyes. She was looking at the ghost of the wolf whose skin sat at her feet. Once again there was a moment of tension as predator and prey stared at each other, and a rushing like water slipped under Katla’s skin. She felt light and murky. But then it gave her a nod, like a bow, and padded over to her. It laid its head on her lap. Katla stroking behind its ears in a delirium as she felt herself drowning, spinning gently. There was something calming in it, spiraling downwards. Her skin felt cool and the air coming through her lungs felt heavy. Her eyes fluttered closed.

A sharp pain in her side. Ropes on her wrists, tension beneath her arms as muscles stretched. A wolf, or a ghost, or a king, stood before her, clapping. Death poured out of his eye, came upon her like a wave, slammed her against a wall as its soft lips pulled her down, ever downward, through well water.

When she woke the wolf had gone, its skin drenched in her sweat.

###

Katla strode toward the tannery, hailed occasionally by passerby. She smiled but otherwise ignored them, and waited for the town to go quiet. Some houses were lit from within, celebrations starting early. At the tannery she found Siafi asleep, but his father still awake, staring out at the stars. Their eyes met and the weight pressed down on her again, but she was ready this time, and breathed slowly. There was a smell of peat in each breath. She placed a bowl at his feet, a stretch of the wolf’s meat prepared with fat and spices. She poured a bit of mead on the ground as well. Siafi’s father smiled at her, and bowed. He ate it with a cheerful air, and Katla sat with him until he had finished.

###

The weeping woman was watching her mother again. Katla supposed she had been every night for two years, and wanted to weep for her too. She was sure that she’d be able to hear her this time. She had the wolf’s blessing. She would be able to comfort her. She could do it.

It’s all right, Katla said. I’m here now. What worries you?

The woman turned to her, opened her mouth, and spoke soundless words. Katla’s surety vanished, and then their eyes locked and she felt the pain of fire creeping along her skin. She shook her head in frustration. Why? It had been so easy for Ingirunn, she could turn her head to the side and listen to the gossip of the gods. But here was this woman, in pain, and Katla had nothing she could do to help. She punched a wall, earning her nothing but a bruised hand. She closed her eyes, leaning against the wall, trying to listen, trying to hear, straining her ears as far as they could stretch, but heard not one sound. With her eyes closed she didn’t see the weeping woman coming for her.

The hands clasped around her face, burning spreading through her body, fire, hot red fire, surging over her skin, breaking down every bone in her body. She looked into the woman’s eyes and it felt as though the entire world was on fire, and there was the smell of burning flesh and the woman’s gut-wrenching wail, and the hard funeral logs beneath her back.

She pulled herself away, and then paused. The memory of the flames still burned hot, but so too did the memory of the wail from the woman’s open mouth ring in her ears. Katla looked at her. Her mouth still hung open in a silent cry, and then Katla knew what she had to do.

She steeled herself then grasped the wight by her arms. Fire again, fire all over, fire everywhere, fire forever. But this time instead