A groaning arose, inhuman and earsplitting, and the roof of the temple crashed down, abandoning the walls that had once supported it, a cloud of dust and debris mushrooming into the sky and coating the mount in white powder.
And then the world went still.
Hod could not hear the living, if any living remained, and the dead did not have heartbeats. He couldn’t hear, and he couldn’t smell.
The world was white instead of black, shallow instead of deep. Nothing existed but wintery silence.
The silence was almost worse than the screams.
“Bayr?” he whispered, but he could not feel his lips or hear the word when he released it.
“Ghisla?” he tried again.
She would not forgive him. He had fallen after all.
30
PACES
Ghisla curled herself around her palm, guarding her sacrifice as she crooned her song.
Her sisters sat with her, frightened but not willing to leave, confused but not willing to flee. When the forest began to quake beneath her, sending waves of fury up her legs, some of the women began to scream. But she did not. Her eyes were still sightless, the rune of the blind god still wet on her palm. She dared not stop feeding it. Hod needed her eyes.
The trees shuddered and the leaves shook, and the relentless black abated with a jolt. But the trembling continued, and the gods roared. She blinked, horrified, and tried again, tracing the shape of the rune with her bleeding finger and saying Hod’s name.
“Hody, Hody, Hody.”
But her eyes remained her own.
She traced the scar of the amulet on her right hand, shaking so hard she had to wipe away the blood and try again. But instead of dark she saw light. Instead of black she saw unrelenting white.
“I cannot see the mount,” she mourned, raising her gaze to her terrified sisters. She could not see the mount, and she could not see Hod.
Hod awoke in stages. His left foot screamed, and his right ear burned. Then his legs were being stung by a thousand bees, and his stomach repeatedly fell over a cliff. Someone beat against his back with a rod, and Ghisla’s eyes were gone. His own were flaming shards in his skull.
His throat tickled next, and he hummed, trying to clear it. Dust billowed from his lips and he began to choke.
“I dare not move him,” someone said.
He listened for their heartbeats and heard only his death rattle instead. He bucked and arched, desperate for breath, and his body responded with a lurch and a lungful of air.
“We thought you a dead man,” the stranger said.
“What’s wrong with his eyes?” another worried.
“There’s naught wrong with his eyes that wasn’t wrong before. He’s Blind Hod.”
“What happened?” Hod rasped.
“The temple . . . is no more.”
Then he remembered Dagmar, standing between the writhing pillars.
“Oh no.”
“Aye.”
“Where is Bayr of Dolphys?” he said, trying not to weep.
“He is here.”
“And the princess?”
“She lives too, blind man.”
“What of . . . the keepers?”
“They’re all gone,” the man sighed. “Buried with the Northmen.”
“Buried with their runes,” another man mourned, and Hod closed his burning lids and slid back into the inky abyss.
They slept in the clearing where Desdemona died, huddled together like rabbits in a warren. But Ghisla did not sleep. She never slept; she sang instead, one lullaby after another, and pled with Odin to spare his sons.
The daughters dared not return to the hill, and they could not head for Dolphys. Bayr was on the mount, and if he lived there would be a new king. If he died . . . Saylok was finished. Hiding in Dolphys would not save them.
She tried to give Hod her eyes again, tracing the rune of the blind god throughout the night, but her sight remained and darkness began to fill her chest.
Promise me you will not give up.
I will not give up today.
She persisted, and just before dawn she fed the star on her palm, pressing it to her brow in one last attempt at hope, and she found him.
Alive.
When he woke again, warmth brushed his cheeks and tickled his nose. He was back in the clearing near his mother’s grave, Arwin at his side.
“Baldr’s death was necessary. It marked a new beginning . . . the death of the gods and the rise of man. The rise of . . . woman.”
The sun felt good on his face, and he tipped his chin upward, letting the rays rest on him. Arwin smacked his lips, eating his berries in happy silence.
“You cannot stay here, Hod. When I am gone . . . you must go too. You must save Saylok.”
Hod listened, coming awake to the reality that was the temple mount.
Arwin was dead.
The keepers were dead.
But Banruud was not.
He could hear his heart, pulsing inside the castle walls.
People moved around Hod, and a robe had been shoved beneath his head. He patted the ground for his staff and realized it was still sheathed on his back.
He rolled to his side, thrilled when his limbs obeyed him, groaning when his limbs obeyed him.
The warmth had intensified, and he lifted his face to it, gauging the hour. Morning had broken. He lifted his hand to his brow and located the source of his most pressing pain. His braid was still intact, but his brain was now a throbbing, rotting corpse. The reek of death was all around him, and he welcomed the return of his senses even as he retched.
He scanned the hearts that pulsed and pummeled his head. He’d been left for dead or deemed a lost cause . . . or mayhaps there were simply not enough hands to help all that had fallen. He found his brother, and his chest swelled in grateful adulation.
Bayr lived. He moved. And his loyal band of warriors walked with him.
Hod found Alba, Ghost, and the archer from the wall. Aidan of Adyar moved amid the rubble as well. There were others, and he was thankful.
He turned his attention to the king.
Banruud huddled in the cellars beneath the castle floor. From the galloping chorus that seeped out through the walls, down the steps, and over the bodies that now lined the courtyard, a dozen men were with him.
Hod pushed himself up with his staff.
No one halted his progress or delayed his climb. No one called his name. He took tortured steps to the castle doors, wobbling and weak. But his resolve grew as he went.
The men in the cellar heard him coming and scrambled for swords and shields. He did not descend. Stone steps led down into the dank underground, and he opened the door above them and called down to the king.
“Gudrun is dead, Sire. The Northmen are gone.”
Elbor cried out in sodden relief. Even from Hod’s position at the top of the stairs, he smelled of piss and spirits, but he began to climb the cellar steps as if he’d been pardoned. Hod moved aside to let him pass, but he hovered nearby, waiting for the others.
“And the Temple Boy?” Banruud asked, still uncertain.
“The Temple Boy is no more,” Hod said, unflinching. The Temple Boy was no more. He’d long ago become a man. A chieftain. And soon he would be a king.
“You must come out now, Majesty,” he demanded, using the same quiet, emotionless voice Banruud seemed to expect from him.
He would make Banruud stand in front of his people, those that were left. He would force him to face the chieftains and the warriors who remained. And then he would end him, the way Banruud had insisted Hod end Bayr. If Hod was condemned to die with him, then so be it, but Banruud would die.