Travelling downtree took only a day, even with the kegs. It was simply a matter of sliding down from one branch to the next. Ragnhild, however, though I treated her wound as soon as I could, didn't make it. Stonebear’s face didn’t change… but I could hear his heart breaking as I cast her body off the tree.
The dwarf and I dragged ourselves to the smuggler in Treetown, who'd pass on the ichor.
"Brother, I've returned!" Stonebear let himself into the small, back-alley shop with a hard kick to the door. It was filled with junk, covering all kinds of contraband. He saw a letter on the counter: "Important delivery, back soon."
It was signed almost a week ago.… Nevertheless, we hid the kegs beside the mead (which we drank), sleeping in shifts and watching for his brother's return.
It was on our third glamorous day hiding in the cellar that Stonebear said, "Níeh?ggr take Yggdrasill! I'm going crazy from worry, or from you stinking like a dead seal!"
“Like I said: Leave me to guard the ichor, and go look.” I gave my best winning smile.
"I'm not THAT crazy!—yet.... There's no helping it; I'll have to go to the storehouse and find him.
“He told you how to get there? Dwarves really do tell their brothers everything," I beamed.
“Of course he did… I’ll find someone I can trust… you can go—”
“You can trust me, Stonebear.”
He paused… “Crow, you’re still new, and—”
“I killed BIRGER for you, Stonebear.”
He stared at me, his stoney-face agape.
“I didn’t tell you… because there was no need to. He was a traitor, planning to kill you and take the sap. So, I cut the rope and killed the Loki-Thrall—so you could have Ragnhild.” I spoke with all the sincerity, pain, and heartache I could muster. “You are my chieftain, you can trust me.”
The mention of Ragnhild’s name almost brought sentimental tears to his eyes… and that warmed his heart a little. Made him long for connection… for his brother… or a surrogate.
“Go get the kegs, Crow… we leave at once.”
After a day's descent avoiding ichor-poachers, we circled and descended until we reached a withered bough—secluded in near-darkness by the canopies. Above it was a knothole as tall as a man.
"Fenrir looks to the moon!" Stonebear called.
"Is that door a fa?ade?" I asked.
"Nay, it's Yggdrasill's living bark, though just two yards thick. Quite a marvel, isn't it? Anyone tries to break in: the Worldtree'll rouse every guardian beast and spirit it possesses, slaying him on our doorstep."
"Couldn't enemies trap us inside?"
"There's another passage... I SAID: FENRIR LOOKS TO THE MOON!"
Blue eyes peeked through a tiny crack. "Who from Hel are you?" asked the angry eyes.
"Hallbjorn Agranson, brother of Torsten—is he here?"
"No, we've expected him for days. Didn't he send you?"
"Odinn's Eye... First thing: We have to store this ichor."
"Who's that?"
"Crow Jólson. I was shorthanded, but we know his family. And he killed an álfr."
The eyes glared at us for some time, using three different peepholes. I tried to look personable.
A glorious expression of exasperation and defeat overcame the eyes, and the last peephole was closed. Moments later, the door peeled open with the sound of machinery—it must've weighed tons. Entering, I saw a decently-sized warehouse, busy with all kinds of strange outlaws. Orkar from the west, Satyrar from the south, every kind of scum imaginable gathered into one place. They were sorting many casks amongst the alleyways of shelves, the glow of hanging lanterns casting a great chain of long, hard shadows. How dyrlegt… splendid.
"We'll go to the office and get paid, then unload." Stonebear said to empty air. "Crow? Where are you?" He looked around, but didn't see me.
My first was far back from the gate,
leaning over an empty crate.
Made him easy to obfuscate.
Second: Lured to investigate.
The third was conversing with the fourth,
their shadows forming a long pathway.
Sliding along, I quietly wrought
a swift ending to their sordid days.
Fifth was up high, till the ladder strayed.
The ninth abandoned the sixth
to go and check on the fifth.
Sixth's chin I did lift.
His life won't be missed.
The fear of the seventh was rife,
when he saw the blood on my knife.
He advanced with spear,
but I disappeared,
then out from the shadow I stepped,
and the seventh's white throat was cleft.
The eighth thought he'd put up a fight,
he grabbed me and held on most tight.
But before he could harm,
I had twisted his arm.
With cut lungs he raised no alarm.
The ninth did hear a wheeze.
My knife flew on the breeze.
It stuck in his chest,
he lay down to rest.
This Shadow guards the Tree.
The tenth was the first to warn and call,
before I managed to kill them all.
"We're under attack!" Stonebear cried… failing to consider the many other reasons there could be a dagger in that man’s chest.
How clumsy... Stonebear saw the body. I gestured, and the knife flew back to me.
Stonebear turned, quick for an old dwarf. "Crow?!? By the Allfather, what are you doing?"
“What he told me to, of course.” I circled left, dagger still in hand. The old dwarf had a good axe, and a good stance… a little less feeble than I imagined. “And very much thanks to you, Tapper! Pity your dead brother wasn't so easily tricked.” I grinned in the manner of a friend who is about to stab you.
"You ódáinsakr seiesvikari bróeurbani! I'll carve you a blóe?rn!"
I smiled at the compliments. Growling, he charged not with his axe, but with a knife in hand. Smart…. There was no way to keep me from closing in on him with my knife, what with how marvellously quick I am, and the place was so cramped and cluttered that swinging an axe is sure to hit everything except me.
"I'll cut you from groin to gizzard!" He followed me into the dark—exactly as I hoped.
"Can you reach that high?" To his surprise, I was already behind him. I took hold of his long hair, dagger in my other hand. He struggled furiously, as I stabbed into him, again and again; into the side, the belly, the chest. But not into the heart, the liver, not deep and true—as he thrashed about like a fish in my claws. Dwarves are remarkably stabbable… and they’re also tough.
Oh, look, his heart just opened up to me. I saw his arm raised, his balance off: a clear line to stab his leathery old heart which broke for Ragnhild. But as I plunged the dagger towards his chest... he caught me, trapping an arm in his armpit, squeezing like a vice. Then, Stonebear grabbed the wrist which held my knife. He pulled me over his short back, flipping me over him and throwing me to the ground as hard as he could, with his oversized strength!
THUD
“You can go to the depths of Hel, you argr-changeling!” As he brought the dagger down, to stab me in the heart… I admired the shadow being cast over me. The lantern’s light on that shelf cut a sharp contrast, like a long path of darkness reaching out to me. I merged with the shadow, sinking into the floor as his knife struck wood.
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“You're as stupid as Crow was,” I said, waiting.
“You aren't Crow... what are you?” Stonebear was searching and bleeding; gasping as he looked left and right.
"Crow spilled his guts about everything…."
Left-right.
"And really, why wouldn't he?"
Left-right-left-right.
"We're practically kin."
Left—SLASH.
" 'Patterns are dangerous spells,'
"is the story your blóe-beard tells.
"Greet Ragnhild and our friends in Hel:
"My ichor ointment made her ail!
“Let those I helped to fall and trip
“know how the álfar got their tip."
In the minute Stonebear wasted, the tappers had prepared. It hardly mattered. They swung wildly at shadows, always leaving something open. Tendon or artery, eye or neck, limb or organ. Bloodied, the whole force routed, and I pursued... a little too eagerly.
Dashing into another chamber, I saw... a tree—of normal size. Yes, I was a bit confused, too. It was a regular-sized tree inside a giant tree.
And this inside-tree
almost flattened me!...
by punching the ground!
It was one of the etnar: Those living-tree giants. This one was some four yards tall. But he had missed... and an etunn was slow to recover.
Running swiftly up his arm, I leapt at his chest,
to plunge my dagger deep.
I would then make a long cut down his trunk,
to make his blood-sap seep.
But my enchanted blade rebounded... and I fell scrabbling towards the ground.
My fall was halted by a kick from a leg the size of a tree trunk. He sent me hurtling into the wall. I thrust out arms and legs to catch myself and—I heard the chilling crunch of Crow's bones shattering.
I fell to the ground in a mangled heap.
“Oooh... I shee," I slurred, sinking to the floor. "An etunn. Explains how you made the door... and this hollow—” I coughed up some disturbing-looking mass, with blood and… eww, teeth. “Takes a tree to know a tree…? Did you teach your little thieves that trick with the buds, too—how to mutilate them and hide the taps…? How many tricks do you know on how to destroy the World-Tree…? You accursed parasite!”
“It's your god Wōtan who is the parasite, Grub.” The etunn loomed over me. "I am a child of holy Yggdrasill, whose blood and wisdom strengthen me. It has been my right from the day I was first grafted into my father’s branches as a sapling, and grew into what you see now.”
“You drink ichor...? Drink the blood of your ‘father’? Must've drunk barrels of it, since my dagger bounced off…. Huginn will laugh at me....”
“Don't die yet, Grub. I have questions.”
“Go away, Tree....”
“First: We have a lot of trouble getting bodies off of Treetown unseen—”
“The dwarf was in the sack of potatoes....”
“You mean Torsten...? So you were behind his disappearance. How did you find—”
“Go AWAY, Tree!”
“I can hurt you before you die, Grub of Wōtan.”
“And I can call you mean names… like ‘Rotted Old Tree’… so old you call Odinn ‘Wōtan’….”
My vision swam and the room was a jumble of the ugly Tree and this hollow; plain except for its various colours. Colours? I saw there were flowerbeds scattered about—I was even sitting in one. High up in this room, the only one big enough for this etunn to stand in, there was a skylight. Sunbeams traced clear lines in the dust and in the shade of the cute little shrubs he kept as… relatives or pets or something. Maybe his own leaves needed sunshine enough to risk a window? Yet, weeks ago, I searched the outside of this hideout quite thoroughly and didn’t notice any windows. Was it magic? Or mirrors? Magic mirrors?
Regardless… this was perfect.
The tree advanced, his shadow cast to one side of me, out of reach. “Do you really want to die with your deeds forgotten? I saw how you killed as if it were a game. Humour me… tell me of your brilliance.”
This was a smart tree… and also a stupid one.
“Oh… you want me to tell tales, do you? Where to start…?” I would crack Crow’s knuckles, but the etunn already did.
“Did the Aos Sí send you? By this, I mean the álfar,” said the talking-firewood.
My laughter came out tortured and twisted…. I’d have to mimic that sound, later…. “That’s what that idiot, Birger thought! He decided I was an álfr, or at least a changeling….”
“You aren’t…? What are you?”
“Brilliant, handsome, loveable—always a step ahead….”
The Tree’s eyes narrowed. I didn’t know they could do that.
“What did you tell this Birger, then? Was it clever?”
Now he’s just being obvious.
“What he wanted to hear, of course…. Same with that ox-troll, Njord: I made up a princess for the sentimental one who wept when his best friend died…. And I made a plan to backstab people and get rich for the back-stabby Loki-thrall, Birger. The fact he – very wisely – hated dwarves made allying with the álfar an attractive alternative. Plus… his brother was obviously a changeling….”
I spoke very slowly. Partially because I was nauseous and concussed… but mainly because I was in no hurry at all.
“It was so funny when I grinned at him and cut the rope… how he cursed me to his last….” I chuckled, fondly.
“Why did you cut him loose?” The Tree’s annoying voice slowly grumbled the words; like a creaky ship mumbling on the sea.
I would have to get him to talk more.
“Oh, originally I melded into the shadows and kicked him off…” I explained. “The reason I had to cut him loose was because the anchor stubbornly held on—despite how loosely I hammered it in…. So, instead of falling forty feet and breaking his back, he just hung there and squealed a bit. But after I cut the rope, you should’ve seen the drama that followed…! Stonebear and Njord hated each other after that, and I found some weakness beneath that dwarf's stoney exterior. He developed a soft-spot for me.”
Blinking long blinks, I looked down as if pondering the details I already knew well. In truth, I was measuring times and distances.
Continuing, I said, “it wouldn’t have been quite the same if I had snuck up through the shadows without anyone noticing…. Stonebear might not have believed me, when I said I killed Birger…. Better still, Njord beat me in front of him, and I shared ‘secrets’ with the dwarf as if I cared what he thought. He practically adopted me.”
“I meant why did you kill him? Why was this important?” The Tree sounded impatient, in what little expression his voice offered. And here I thought trees were good listeners.
“Stonebear took me here because I killed Birger.”
“But why go to all this trouble…? You had Torsten already?”
“Yes… well…” I hesitated. It was an honest miscalculation, really.
The Tree, despite being the slowest thing that should never walk, hated hesitation. So, he lifted his tree-stump foot… and decided to give me a stump of my own—right below the knee. His foot came down like a thunderbolt, echoing the sound of squelching flesh and bursting bone.
“What are you doing!?” Panic rose in my voice, a rarity. Just as well I had no feeling in that leg. Nevertheless, I screamed in pain and rolled around a bit, hyperventilating.
“Explain yourself quickly, Grub…” said the stupid tree, which had given me an excuse to take longer to tell him as I writhed in agony.
“Yes! I’ll explain! No more stomping!” I caught my breath, taking my time to do so, throwing in some prayers and lamentations to Odinn. Eventually, I ended up saying: “Never again shall I walk the branches, skipping and dancing with the dryads… my leg, Lefty, is gone forever!” And the Tree… just stood there. He wasn’t happy I was saying these things—but neither did he find it strange. Did he think humans name their legs?
“I am surprised you grubs name your limbs.” Said the Tr—he actually said that!? He believes that…? For an etunn, the loss of a limb is very minor—you just graft on a new one. So, logically, a species that can't just grow back or replace limbs... would name them?
“Yes…” I said. “I am from a long line of men who have called their left legs Lefty, and our right legs are given a secret name.” I tried to focus on the horror of the situation as the Tree nodded along.
Don’t laugh—he wants to stomp you again.
“Very interesting…” The Tree said, disinterestedly. “Now, return to my question: Why this convoluted plot? Why did you not just use Torsten instead of Stonebear?”
“I cornered Torsten… and had every intention of getting him to lead me here. And he did… but then you had this bark door, and the password—and Torsten didn’t scream it out loud like an idiot. I tried to convince him to tell me the password… doing things not unlike what you just did to that leg. To my surprise, he was very protective… did he worship you…?”
The Tree nodded, an expression a bit like sadness and a bit like boredom crossing his wooden mockup of a face. “My initiates would not give you the password…. Torsten was always most faithful. Whatever he claimed of Yggdrasill’s blood-sap, he gave generously to my cause.”
“And took generously from his workers to do so—no such thing as a generous dvergr….”
“So what did you do?”
“Well…. The door to your little hideout is shaded all the time… and since I can’t meld into vague shadows without contrast, I couldn’t just slip into this place. So… I went to the brother that Crow had told me about.”
“You aren’t Crow?” the Tree asked.
Whoops. I’m still a bit light-headed, it seems.
“Yup… so, disguising myself, I joined their little group, figuring dwarves told their brothers everything—trusting no one else. Sure as can be, after I ordered a squadron of álfar to come and thin the herd, capturing and killing all of them but me and Stonebear… he decided I was like a son to him. I hope he still does, when I see him again in Hel….”
“You may yet live, if you prove to be useful, Grub.”
“Oh yes…! I assure you, I have many things to tell you, Tree. And you will love all my stories….”
The Tree paused, suspicion etched in his face. “How kind of a servant of the enemy to oblige….”
“Well, Odinn should have done me more favours with that dagger… I bet you’d like to hear what the álfar told me about your little operation?”
“We will get to that, Grub… but first—”
Looking about himself, the Tree had noticed his tall form was casting a shadow. The sun had sent the shadow slowly creeping towards me—until it was almost touching Crow’s crumpled form. And the Tree saw a broken arm reaching for that finely-cut shadow.
The etunn stepped far back, faster than I thought was possible for those lumbering giants. His shadow fled from me at the speed of the sun.
I made a growling noise, the most awful I could think of, to express displeasure.
The talking-firewood gave a woody sigh. “You are clever, Servant of Wōtan… but your shadows will not save you this time.” He kept to his corner, inadvertently blocking the doorway to the rest of this hive of scum.
“Well, can’t blame me for trying. At least you gave me a little space…” I chuckled. “No more stomping or slapping or anything—you can’t swat me like a fly.” The dizziness was finally clearing.
Most trees don’t talk—this one wouldn’t stop. “The sun will move soon, Grub…. Now, you have stalled long enough. What are you? And what of Crow? You said you put on a disguise to seem as Crow, and you said you disposed of Torsten’s body in a sack. But what about Crow’s body, his corpse? That would be a big sack to smuggle out. Did someone help you smuggle the body? Or did you just hide it?”
The Tree pointed an accusatory finger, its shadow stretching tantalizingly out of reach… but that didn’t matter, now. “How did you change your shape to look like Crow's, and how did you hide him for so many days?"
I laughed through broken teeth. "You poor Sap! Haven’t you realised…?” Using broken limbs, I propped myself up against the wall of this perverse hollow in Yggdrasill. “How did I hide Crow…? I didn't.”
Crow's body slumped back against the wall—and a raven crawled out of his mouth. Leaping into the air, I took flight. Weaving past the confused etunn, I flew back the way I came; into the previous room where Stonebear lay, dead and bloody-bearded. But the tree-giant pounced, diving at me like a thrown javelin. Missing in his initial grasp, he slid across the ground after me. He thrust forth his long, gangly limb to catch me, the spear-like fingers closing around!… and I slipped through his fingers.
It was a pity I didn’t kill all the tappers… but I’d make sure to jam the door on my way out, and let the álfar in. And despite the many annoyances and setbacks, I really didn’t lose much. Just my dagger and… my meagre lodging, left slumped against a wall after its many adventures:
A nine-day-old corpse; who had fittingly been named, “Crow.”
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