They left him there, secured to the tree, bidding him farewell and safe passage to Valhalla or the morning, whichever came first. If someone stood watch, Bayr did not feel him. If Dred was near, he didn’t let it be known. Bayr suspected they kept his grandfather under guard. The night would be long for them both.
Bayr dozed briefly, exhaustion stealing his fear for a time. But as the moon rose and the stars deepened, he heard the rustling of unwelcome visitors and an expectant hush settle in the trees. A sudden howling raised his head and tested his bowels.
He wiped his brow against his shoulder, clearing his vision, and the action reopened the wound on his head. The scent would draw them in, and he cursed as one set of eyes and then another, and another, peered out at him from the undergrowth beyond the clearing.
He began to chant the prayers of his childhood, calling on Odin and his son, Saylok, the father of the clans. Calling on the Christ God, whom Dagmar had a special fondness for, calling on Thor, whose strength exceeded his own.
Mother of the earth be mine, father of the skies divine,
All that was and all that is, all I am and all I wish.
The blood rolled down his cheeks, dripped from his chin, and splashed on the pale skin of his bare feet. Planting his legs, he tested his bonds and felt an answering pop and rumble in the soil. The tree did not want to die either. The wolves crept closer and their snapping jaws echoed the sound of the protesting roots. His toes curled into the soil and his heartbeat filled his ears.
Did he have the strength to die when he could kill instead?
Could he wrench the tree from the ground or strip bolts from the bark? He could free himself and leave Dolphys behind. He could walk back to the temple, disgraced and demeaned. Shunned by the clan like King Banruud had predicted.
He could cower in the temple, hiding with Ghost, keeping his face averted and avoiding the king. Mayhaps, if he lived, the clan of Dolphys would let him stay, even if they rejected him as their chieftain.
Another droplet fell and then another, and he watched his blood trickle into the ground as the wolves crept closer.
Give me a home in hope, give me a place to go, give me a faith that will never grow cold.
It was the blood and the soil and his homelessness that triggered the thought. Bayr had not been schooled in the runes, though Dagmar believed him to have rune blood, but he’d been raised in the temple, and he knew the most common runes—the sun rune and the rune for pain, and the rune that kept the creeping things away. With his toe he made a clumsy figure in the soil, his lines not nearly as straight, his picture half as good as Alba’s had been. He extended the legs of the spider on either side, wrapping one spindly line as far as he could with the tip of his big toe, creating a perimeter around himself that butted into the base of the tree.
Then he bowed his head and let his blood weep into the body of the rune.
The wolves kept skulking, their bellies brushing the grass as they closed in around him. The growling became a whimpering, the snout of the largest wolf sniffing around the edges of the sloppy rune. The whimpering became a full-throated howl, and the pack began a mournful song full of desperate denial. They gathered around him, angry and anxious. But they did not cross the frail furrows of his rune.
All night they circled and shifted, snapping and sniffling against the simple shape in the soil, and Bayr stood silent, his head bobbing on his naked chest, making sure he fed the rune with his blood even as he waited for it to fail. He could have loosened the chains. He felt the weakness in the links, the warm thrumming of power in his arms and legs that promised salvation. He could have freed himself, but he didn’t.
It was not until the pale light of morning began seeping into the trees that the wolves tucked their weary heads beneath their paws and succumbed to disappointed slumber. Bayr wanted to slip his cold, aching feet beneath the heat of their bodies—they were close enough for him to do so—but he feared waking them and losing his legs. Bayr could not feel his fingers or his arms, but the agony in his shoulders was a pulsing prison, and his legs knocked together in fatigue. The blood was dry on his face, his hair damp with morning dew. But when he heard the warriors of Dolphys coming through the trees, he ground out the rune with the heel of one foot and waited for the wolves to wake.
They bounded away as soon as they did, frightened by the approaching men, and hovered at the edge of the clearing.
Dred’s eyes were rimmed in worry, and the lines of his face were deeper than the grooves worn into Bayr’s wrists.
“He’s alive,” he cried, running toward the tree. The warriors on his heels rubbed their eyes and searched the trees.
“We heard wolves. All night, we heard wolves,” an elder said in wonder.
Bayr simply waited for them to remove the chains.
“Look there,” Dystel hissed, jutting his chin toward the pack that was clearly visible hunched beneath the thready morning mist.
“The gods have spoken,” Dakin marveled.
“The wolves have spoken,” Dog grunted, nodding. “Let there be no doubt.”
“Take off the chains,” Dred roared, wrapping his arms around Bayr as the bindings were removed. “You’re alive,” he moaned. “I feared the worst.”
“At this moment I would rather be dead,” Bayr whispered, and let his grandfather shoulder his weight as he was released. Someone pulled a jerkin over his head and helped him step into his hose.
“You need to walk into the village. You need to walk, Bayr. With your shoulders back and your head high. And they will bow,” Dred urged.
“Goddamn you, Dred of Dolphys,” Bayr muttered. “I never wanted them to bow.”
“The gods have fixed your tongue,” Dred marveled.
Bayr was too tired to test the theory.
“Long live the Dolphys!” someone shouted, and a dozen voices took up the cry.
“We have a new chieftain,” Dred bellowed, and Bayr raised his head and straightened his back. With his arm slung around his grandfather’s shoulders and his feet as bloodied and bare as the day he was born, he walked through the trees into the village he would now call home.
PART THREE
THE TEMPLE KEEPERS
21
“Saylok was the son of the god Odin—” Dagmar said, launching into the age-old tale. He’d promised the daughters a story, and Alba, whose turn it was to choose, always asked for this one.
“Not many knew he was the son of a god,” Alba interrupted.
“That is true,” Dagmar agreed. “Saylok cared little for the opinions of men. He also knew that, since he was the son of a god, many would seek to test his power or garner his favor, and he kept his identity secret. But though others may not have known his origins, Odin knew, and Loki, Saylok’s brother, knew.”
“Loki was very fond of mischief and loved to make trouble,” Liis supplied, in case the other girls had forgotten, and Dagmar nodded, acknowledging that truth as he continued.
“Saylok loved to be out among the animals in the mountains and the fields, so Odin drew an island from the depths of the sea and named it for his son. He populated it with man and beast and gave it to Saylok, so he could live in peace and quiet, in a place where no one knew who he was.”
“But Loki had other ideas,” Dalys contributed.