37. Magnar

My eyes scoured the vast hall while Erik was reunited with his brother and a fierce longing gripped me as I turned away from him.

I started walking, weaving between the revelling warriors as my heart pounded with hope for who I might find in this place of legend.

I crossed through an arching doorway and the sound of drums drew me on.

A deep pressure filled the air and it felt as though a hand had taken mine, drawing me further between the press of bodies.

I passed through another door and found myself in a part of the hall without a roof so that gleaming sunlight shone down over those who gathered there.

“Magnar!” Elissa screamed, launching herself into my arms before I could turn towards the sound of her voice.

I pushed her back, staring at her face in wonder as she laughed with joy. She looked just as I remembered her and for a moment I worried that meant she’d died young but as I looked at the sea of faces around me I realised everyone here was youthful and full of energy. It was as if the hall chose to house them in their strongest forms so that they were the best warriors they could possibly be for the rest of time.

“We’ve waited too long for you dear brother!” Aelfric bellowed, slamming into us too and an incredulous laugh fell from my lips as I was reunited with my dearest friends.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” I gasped, the memory of my grief for them rising like an angry beast in my heart.

“How could you have such little faith?” Elissa teased as she stepped back. “Wait until you see how tall little Magnar grew.”

Aelfric slapped an arm around my shoulders and I gripped him fiercely as we followed his wife through the crowd towards a group of warriors who bore resemblances to the two of them.

A man rose from the centre of the group and he smiled broadly as he recognised me.

“I often wondered if I’d just dreamed up how damn big you were,” he said as he looked me over.

“This can’t be little Magnar?” I breathed in disbelief. He was nearly as tall as me and he had his father’s muscular build. The last time I’d seen him he’d been a small child.

“You know they never stopped calling me that,” he said with a laugh. “Even when I was older than you had been before you slept, the whole clan still called me little Magnar. I could never live up to the legend I was named after.”

“That’s why he grew so tall,” a girl added. “In hopes that he would outgrow his little nickname.” She looked so similar to little Magnar that I was sure she must have been his sibling.

“How many babes did you have in the end?” I asked my friends eagerly, lapping up this chance to find out what had become of those I’d had to leave behind when I slept.

“Thirteen,” Elissa replied ruefully.

“She’s a damn saint,” Aelfric added proudly.

“And they gave us forty seven grandchildren between them,” she added.

I smiled widely, wanting to hear about each of them as the fractured remnants of my heart swelled with happiness at the knowledge that they’d led full lives. It had been my dearest wish for them.

“Are you going to leave me waiting much longer, my boy?” a deep voice called from behind me and I stilled as recognition washed over me.

I held my breath, afraid to turn while desperate to see him in equal measures.

I spun around slowly and the warriors surrounding us moved away so that a wide space was left between me and my father.

He was just as I remembered, although a little younger. His skin was warm with the echoes of life, his long hair braided with beads marked with runes. A smile hid beneath his beard and his golden eyes sparked with joy at the sight of me before him.

So many nights I’d spent lying awake, doubting what I’d done to him. Especially since my own transformation had taken place and I’d been forced to wonder if he might have been able to survive beyond the curse. But as I looked at him I knew I’d done the right thing by him. There was no accusation in his eyes. No judgement or regret. Just a shimmering pool of love and joy at our reunion.

I gave up all effort at holding back and ran to meet him, colliding with him with such force as to knock a lesser man from his feet.

My father laughed as he wrapped his arms around me, slapping my back with a fearsome joy as I shook in his arms, overwhelmed with the emotion of seeing him again.

Another set of arms wound their way around us and I laughed as I recognised my mother’s embrace. She was here. With him. Just as I knew she’d longed to be from the moment of his death.

“It was worth the price of my life just to see the two of you again,” I murmured as I bathed in the love of my family.

My father pushed me back so that he could look at me more closely and I was surprised to realise I was a little taller than him now.

“You’re not dead yet, boy,” he said fiercely.

“And your fight isn’t done,” my mother agreed. “We’ve been watching you, we saw what Andvari did. You have to claim vengeance for your love.”

“Is she here?” I asked suddenly, desperately wondering if Callie was close. She’d given her life for humanity and if that wasn’t a warrior’s death then I didn’t know what was, so I was certain she had earned her place in the hall.

“No,” Mother replied sadly. “Andvari took their souls for his own purposes. He devoured them. They are lost to all planes of existence.”

The pain of that fact ripped into me like a fresh wound. The god had done more than just kill them; he’d destroyed them entirely. There was no hope of me ever reuniting with the woman who’d set my heart alight and I refused to face an eternity in this hall without her.

“Where is he?” I snarled. I would kill that demon among the gods and take from him everything he’d stolen from me and more. And when it was done, I would cast my soul into the unending fire. I wouldn’t exist in any form without her by my side.

“Beyond the eternal war,” Mother sighed, reaching up to brush her fingers along my face.

“Further even than that, my boy. If you want to kill that monster it may take more than you can give,” Father added.

“I will give it all. Every fibre of my soul in the name of her,” I replied fiercely. Nothing mattered to me now but exacting revenge upon the creature who had taken my love from me. And there was nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice to see his end at my hand.

“Then you should go now,” Mother said sadly. “This is no place for the living, the longer you are here the more it will take from you.”

She brushed her hand over mine and for a moment my skin seemed near transparent. I curled my fingers into a fist and the colour returned to my flesh but her warning was clear.

I eyed the people I loved with a pang of regret before turning and heading away from them. I didn’t say goodbye and neither did they. We would meet again when my time came or I would follow Callie into the jaws of the god who had claimed her soul. Either way, the dead didn’t need farewells.

Erik met me before I could search for him and I nodded to him as he turned towards the far end of the hall.

We passed between warriors of every ilk. Enemies drinking alongside old friends. Valhalla was a place for joy and revelry and we didn’t belong within its golden walls with our broken hearts and fractured souls.

It seemed as if we walked forever but eventually we came upon a door at the farthest reach of the great hall. It was small and dark and hidden within a shadowy corner where none of the warriors seemed to look. They were happy where they were and this exit meant nothing to them but it called to us with the promise of vengeance.

Erik led the way through it and we found ourselves upon a hilltop which overlooked an immense battle raging across the flat plains below.

The sea of warriors stretched away endlessly in every direction and I stared at them in wonder as the clamour of clashing steel set the air alight with noise.

The sky above them was deepest red as if it reflected back the blood which stained the ground below.

As I watched, warriors were cut down, falling in battle as their blood poured from their bodies only to flow back in so that they could rise again and fight on. It was never ending. They died and were remade. Time and again. Always rising to re-join the fight, never slowing, never ceasing. It was a battle which would rage for all of time and I could see no way for us to pass it by without having to join the fray.

“How do you like our chances there?” Erik asked stoically and I frowned.

“I do not see a way that we could cross that sea with our lives intact,” I murmured in reply. My death did not concern me anymore but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to complete this task if I was without my flesh.

A faint pressure was growing on my back and I frowned as the weight of it grew and grew. I reached over my shoulder and drew the war horn that I’d taken from Andvari’s treasure into my grasp.

Erik eyed me with interest as I brushed my fingers over the runes which were carved into the golden instrument. The essence of the horn washed through me and the runes spoke inside my head.

“This is the Gjallarhorn,” I murmured and Erik’s eyebrows rose in recognition. “Andvari must have stolen it from the god Heimdall. It will call every warrior in that hall to our aid.”

“You would rouse every warrior in Valhalla into battle before Ragnarök?” Erik asked.

“If the gods can use mortal souls to build their army then a mortal should be free to call on their aid in return,” I growled, lifting the horn to my lips.

I blew on it and the most triumphant cry rang from the golden instrument. The hill trembled with the power of it. The air around us seemed to vibrate as the trumpeting call carried on and on.

A great roar came from the hall behind us and I turned just as the doors were thrown open.

Every warrior in Valhalla charged towards us in an endless line of men and women holding weapons high and bellowing a battle cry.

They parted around us like a tide divided by a great rock and I stared on as they rushed by. I caught sight of my clansmen, my parents, Warren and Miles. Even my old war horse, Baltian, sped past with Aelfric and Elissa screaming for blood upon his back.

My heart lightened at the sight of so many great warriors clamouring to aid us against the evil of Andvari.

As the warriors slammed into the battle, they carved a great path into place along its centre.

I set the horn down at the top of the hill and we started running for the gap between the fighting warriors.

The sound and stench of battle overwhelmed me as we were engulfed in the midst of the unending war and we charged between the ranks with a conflict of our own in mind.

Each step we took was bringing us closer to Andvari. And I could scent his death on the wind.