Which starts well and just gets better. (Mostly.)
1. Gifts
‘Here Wistan,’ said Lytelman, ‘This is for you as you wanted it so much. Are you going to swear to me too, now?’
Before he got my answer he handed me the rune-inscribed spear so I just smiled broadly and said, ‘No, Lytelman, thegn. I will stand by your side as your friend and ally, as I promised, which I think is better for both of us.’
I suppose a little dance of joy might have amused the thegn, but I left him to continue distributing his largesse from the recent battle with a Pukel raiding party and went outside to familiarise myself with the heft of the spear. Firstly some throws to check the balance and trueness of the shaft, but mostly thrusting it vigorously into targets of tight-bundled straw and marsh reeds. Take that, pukel-strawman.
2. The Gleam
The sun had set when someone noticed a change on Nothgyth’s silver guard-mirror, where it hung in a corner of Gefnhame hall. Not the usual creeping tarnish spots of pukel infiltration, nor the black tide of a raid in strength, but a clear and gleaming point seeming to glow against the ordinary polished silver background.
Lytelman looked at it, frowning and tugging his beard.
I suggested, ‘Perhaps it reflects some happening, a ceremony or rite of power perhaps, aligned with the mirror in just the way the pukel creatures are not?’
‘Well it isn’t Nothgyth,’ replied Lytelman, ‘she’s away to Gefionmere, I think, off here.’ He waved a finger up and right of the centre of the mirror. ‘Not down there,’ pointing at shining spot, ‘due south of us. I’d say that must be across the valley in the high ground. We’d better go and look for ourselves.’
I thought for a moment. ‘It isn’t moving or changing in any way, and finding the exact spot out there will be Hel’s own task in the night and the fog. I’d say the chances of finding the other side of the valley just now is only evens. Remember what it was like riding out to Saebeorhtstead the other night? How many bog-baths do you want to take this winter, Lytelman? My counsel is that we watch the mirror for the night and set out as soon as the gloom lightens, when we can see to put one foot in front of another. Your call though, of course.’
The thegn found this advice good and had the mirror checked regularly through the night, with orders he be roused if it changed. His slumbers were not disturbed until it came time to rise. The mirror gleam continued to tantalise, only winking out at dawn.
3. A Walk in the Mist
So we set off south, close as we could reckon, into the morning mizzle. With us was a recent arrival at Gefnhame, one Hrothgar, a cragsman from the east. I think he knew Lytelman from way back and must have wondered what had happened for him to become a thegn and came a long way just to have a look, out of curiosity.
Anyway, Hrothgar turned out to be an excellent fellow and started to prove his worth when the uphill walk had turned into more of a scramble. He pointed out a shallower valley, off to the side of our ‘southern’ direction, barely visible through the mist. As it offered level footing Lytelman’s decision to investigate the valley was easy and as wyrd would have it, the correct one.
The valley must look out over Gefnhame on a clear day. It’s short and ends in a steep scramble back to the main slope. Just at the valley head is a large burial mound, covering nigh on the same area as Gefnhame hall. There is a small bolder with runes scratched on it and an old brown stain suggestive of some past sacrifice, but none of us could boast of reading the runes. Probably the longer residents of Gefndene would have known this place to name it, but we were there and they were not.
On the top of the mound we found clear traces of a recent fire, last night’s as far as I could tell. It must have been well tended. It had consumed all its fuel leaving not even a scrap of part-burnt wood. Further investigation brought more puzzles. The fire appeared to be set with no disturbance to the bushes growing on the mound, save that of the burning itself. No tracks led to or from the mound and none of the scrub bushes had been cut for burning. The mysterious portents stacked higher with Hrothgar’s exploration of the scramble up the valley head. Unnoticed at first in the fog, somewhat above head height, a slide had left a flat slab exposed which showed a deep, regular scratch in the shape and proportions of a door, heroically tall and with no means for the opening of it. From the part-buried vegetation below and unsettled nature of the debris on top, the slope had shifted very recently.
Well, none of the us thought that a fire on a mound would not be connected with the bright point on the guard-mirror, which left the question of who set the fire and to what purpose foremost in everyone’s thoughts. So displaying the wisdom of thegns Lytelman determined to stop overnight and wait to see what happened next. We set up camp at the head of the valley in the space between the between the mound and the door slab — but slightly to one side lest that door-like slab should turn out to drop open like a draw bridge. We thought it might be bad to be directly underneath…
4. What Transpired at the Grave-Mound
I took the first watch. The night started unquiet. We huddled around a small smokey campfire of damp brush, surrounded by the howling of wolves. Wolves are rarely heard down from the hills this early in the winter, before the snows, and never in such numbers. There is still food up in the high country so why would they come down here? The was no sign of actual wolves, though the howling continued, by the time I roused Lytelman to take the middle watch. I was guessing at the time of night from a barely seen lightness above in the fog in the hope it was the moon.
Well Lytelman was the Luckyman. As they like to do in the depth of the night, a lich rose from the sod of the valley floor and sought to have the watch-keeper join the ranks of the dead, an invitation Lytelman declined, as his shouts woke us up. He was, of course, calm, measured and thegn-like in calling the alarm. Hrothgar and I had a stretch and scratch and saw to arming ourselves, while more of the dead emerged, brushed the loam off their shoulders, clicked their bones back into place, then forcefully presented their invitations for ‘Lytelman and companions’ to join them in Hel this very night. As nice and polite as lichs ever are.
Lytelman and his big axe ended facing three who presented a shield wall – late Geats for sure – while me and Hrothgar were engaged by individuals. That rather puk’d up my speech to Lytelman earlier about ‘stand by your side’ except by a fairly loose interpretation, but that was a mild discomfort compared to Hrothgar facing a fully armed lich with no weapon that would bite on it. That’s no fun. Neither Lytelman nor I had thought to warn him when we set out — though the unspoken reason to avoid unnecessary night marches is the unquiet dead — nor even thought shout a warning when they emerged. Poor planning for an Aetheling and a Thegn, no? So Hrothgar perforce had to mix arm wrestling with the lich’s weapon while dancing away from the dead man’s blows.
A combination of blows from his three opponents knocked Lytelman into the camp fire, but he claimed later to have taken no harm from it to his surprise, though it was soon scattered as he fought standing in the embers.
Blows were exchanged all round, several times, before Lytelman’s axe skill brought visible reward in a series of blows that first staggered one of his attackers back — breaking their shield wall — a second blow smashing into the corpse, then third cleaved it as it sought to return to the shelter of Hel, leaving it half in and half out of the ground. Thin cheers went up from me and Hrothgar at this sign of a turning fortune, but were cut off as a new tide of sod-lurkers rose all around us. It looked like we were well and truly puk’d. There was no escape, who’d desert comrades at a time like this? Anyway there was no route clear… Just a moment tighten grip on shield and spear, pucker up and resign to whatever Wyrd the next few instants held.
‘Enough!’
A big voice from on top of the mound, a blaze of fire, and the dead men sank back into the soil.
There stood a tall man, the height of two or three mortal men, looking down from the mound crest at us three panting Geats. He seemed unimpressed, after a long inspection with his one eye. Well puk me rigid, I thought, it’s pretty clear who this is.
‘I was looking for heroes, but I suppose you’ll have to do.’
‘You are tardy, you have kept me waiting here an extra night. I’m sure my brother will have something to say about that too, later.’
Your brother, Big Man? Well, this is just getting better and better.
‘So. Dress your wounds and follow me… You do have something for your wounds?’
I dug deep in my scrip for the pot of healing salve from Nothgyth, surprisingly quite unneeded after the battle with the pukelmen and thurse a few days ago.
The Big Man looked at it, sniffed it and pronounced it, ‘Crude, but it’ll do,’ before muttering something else over it then handing it back to me to apply to Lytelman’s heroically extensive cuts, scrapes and bruises.
The Big Man kept up a litany of complaint against tardiness, lack of respect for tradition and our choice of equipment. He seemed particularly incensed by Lytelman’s boar-tusk helmet, imbued with Wen-ish powers, and looked hard at me probably because I carry an Ingwe token for protection.
‘Are you true sons of the Geats?’ asks the Big Man.
It’s so like being back at home…
‘These are the frontiers, the borderlands; we make the accommodations we must.’ I say.
The Big Man did not reply as such, but looks closely into my eyes and suggests I think on my forebears and place in the world. Like I don’t…? But you also don’t get fresh with gods so I made respectful and enquired how should we name the One-eyed Big Man in this place?
‘Grim.’ was the answer, and ‘Follow me, quickly now,’ as he strode to the door-slab, taps it, mutters something unheard and a door opens into darkness.
Grim steps though and disappears. We hurry to follow him, wary of the great door closing suddenly…
… into warm, bright sunshine and waist-high grass.
5. Into the Summer Country
Well, we stumbled, blinded by the sunshine, tangled in the long grass and struggling to get our Winterfell layers off before summer’s heat overwhelmed us. A valley was spread out before us with rich grass and great trees in full leaf. Down in the valley was a great stone built hall.
The sight of us panting and struggling gave Grim pause and he gave us a few moments to catch our breaths, which Lytelman made an opportunity to quaff several slugs from a flask of a stimulant drink — another of Nothgyth’s gifts. He barely had time for the last swallow before Grim moved, again calling us to follow and strode for the distant hall. Along the way he told us, ‘I shall do the talking here. Mind your manners, keep quiet unless you are spoken to; do what you are told.’
6. At Skulmar’s Steading
Impressed though I was by Grim’s height, when we reached the boundary wall of the hall I had to reappraise the use of the term ‘Big’ in the face of the size of the gate guards.
Grim, unfazed by their looming, simply stated to the guards, ‘You know me.’
The guards assented.
‘Tell lord Skulmar I am here.’
There was a wait while a guard did so. When he returned it was to say that the lord bid Grim enter. We trotted along behind to keep up and tried not to trip while staring around at the size of the people of this place. They were to Grim, perhaps, as Grim is to us ordinary Geatish heroes.
The hall’s surroundings were busy. The racket of smithing rang out from somewhere and many other crafts were in view. Oddly, for the size and number of people and beasts everything was cleaner than I’d ever expect in mid-summer in any mortal hall I’ve visited.
Close up the hall itself was as huge as it looked, with a scramble, for us, up yard-high steps that were particularly troubling to Lytelman whose eke-name indicates his difficulty in this place, but comrades all three so Hrothgar and I lent a hand. A few more steps and we could have worked out a routine taking turns running up each other’s backs and swinging up the last man, I’m sure.
The hall inside was huge, as were the crowds of people in attendance. At the far end sat Lord Skulmar, with a Grim-sized man sitting on a small stool at the lord’s feet. As we got closer we saw his mouth was sewn shut. He looked furious. No wonder.
Grim and Skulmar treated each other with only the most cursory glance towards civility.
‘What are you calling yourself today then?’
‘Grim.’
‘And what have you brought us?’ Skulmar gestured dismissively at the us. ‘They don’t look like much.’
Grim informed the giant lord that we were his chosen and tested heroes to do the task agreed as the freedom price for his brother. Skulmar looked sceptical, but allowed that it was Grim’s option to have us try. The man on the stool looked even more furious. I guess he’d found something to agree with Skulmar about.
Skulmar’s chief lady, Iduma extracted us from the tense atmosphere between the lord and Grim, and led us into the kitchens to refresh ourselves while waiting for the arrival of someone called the Bee Ward, who would explain our task. I suppose Grim and Sculmar just sat around exchanging barely veiled barbs the while. Certainly Iduma disappeared quickly, back to the main hall presumably to keep the peace, as she seemed to be the nice, or diplomatic anyway, side of a double act with her husband/chief.
We were put up on a shelf out of harm’s way, aside from a curious cat, given honey cake and mead which proved notably refreshing, so with just a little bit of prompting from me Lytelman topped up his half-empty flask of Nothgyth’s potion with some giants’ mead.
7. The Bees
The Bee-Ward, Beowaerd, arrived. He turned out to be a small, for a giant, bustling man in a cloak, with a rune-staff of office. He takes us from the hall kitchen to distant trees on the far side of a meadow. He was amenable to conversation and talked about the Eotun lands and attitudes and his position as an appointed official of the lord of this place.
So, to the problem. This, the Bee-ward explained, was an infestation of ‘hyrneta’, hornets. A hornet queen had infiltrated one of the bee-skeps. The rapidly growing hornet colony would eat all the bees in short order and expand to the other skeps. The Bee-Ward needed a way to get into the infected skep, protect the bee queen and destroy the hornet queen before she took over and spread further. Or he’d have to destroy the skep wholesale I suppose, burn out the good with the bad.
He called the bees down with a flute, even as a passing bee was attacked by a lurking hornet. This hornet he dealt with by leaping and striking it out of the air with his staff, stamping on the stunned hornet, the size of a large wolf, to finish it.
The bees themselves were the size of large dogs and there are lots of them, swarming out of the skep at the bee-ward’s call, buzzing angrily round us. I had never realised how intimidating dog-sized bees might be…
Fortunately the Bee-Ward has something for that and marked us, all three, with a salve that gave us an understanding of the bees’ language and to see them as pleasant-faced women. Likely it made us more acceptable to the bees too.
The were no longer buzzing angrily, rather the bees constantly chattered and agreed amongst themselves, ‘We must take them to the Queen…’
‘…yes, yes…’
‘…to the Queen…’
‘…yes, we must take them…’
‘…to the Queen, yes, yes,’ and they grouped to lift us up to the skep, where we scrambled onto the side and worked to insert ourselves through the grass ropes wound to make up the structure. Wriggling in through the ropes was easy for Lytelman, not so much for me and Hrothgar, but Geatish pluck, resolution and the thought of a fall of hundreds of feet to the ground below invigorated our efforts…
Inside more bees met us to guide us to their Queen. The slight discrepancy in scale between three Geatish warriors, our kit, especially the spears, and the bees’ tunnels through the hive, was problematic. By the time we arrived at the Queen’s chamber we were smeared with drips of honey from accidental punctures of honeycomb cells.
She was beautiful, regal and entirely unreal. It felt to me as if Beowaerd’s glamour laid on our eyes and ears was under strain here. Shrugging aside the question of what we’d really see without it, we talked strategy: did she know where the hornet Queen lurked in the hive? The bee Queen was vague as to locations and directions but sent her bees to look for the invaders; she would know when they found them because she would feel her children dying. So, while we were waiting for the dying to begin, she invited us to break our fast on honey and bee-bread. Whatever bee bread actually is, it seemed delicious.
The Queen stiffened, ‘We have found the enemy—’ she started, then shrieked ‘They are here!’
8. Hyrnetan
A giant wasp head, unsoftened by glamour, appeared by chewing through a wall and was immediately mobbed by bees. Each bee attacked then dropped, dying, to the floor. Apart from the bees themselves getting in the monster’s way as it attempted to drag itself fully though the hole the bee stings didn’t seem to trouble it much. We stood between it and the queen initially, thinking the bees would surely overwhelm it, but with the bees in the air thinning out rapidly, and to little effect, we charged forward before the thing found itself without resistance, urged on by the quite understandably hysterical Queen. Fleeing to safety didn’t seem to be an option for her.
Lytelman went straight for it with a two-hand overhead chop from his axe, while Hrothgar and I stabbed with our spears from the sides, now repaying the inconvenience of getting them through the skep’s passages. The Hornet had clawed arms that scratched and grabbed for Lytelman. When they caught him he was pulled into range of the heavy sideways-cutting jaws which just missed his neck, to chew on his shoulder instead.
It is an ill wind that blows no good so while the hornet nibbled on its delicious Lytel morsel Hrothgar and I went full out on it. Though Lytelman broke free for a moment it seized him again, a target right in front of it while it just ignored us, barely able to defend so I stilled it with a deep two-handed thrust of my spear through its head.
I’d just worked the spear back out when the Queen screamed again and another hornet head broke through a wall a few strides around the chamber. We dashed across and caught it earlier in its emergence than the first, giving us time to deploy better against it, then Geatish arms repeat the smashing axe blows and deep two-handed spear thrusts. Again I had the satisfaction of the finishing thrust, though be in no doubt it was a joint enterprise that stilled both hornets.
A look past the first corpse gave sight of another monster retreating up the tunnel, doubtless a scout going for reinforcements having found the bee Queen and her defenders.
She was crying out, “Follow them, follow them back to their lair.”
We delayed only for the moment needed to gather up shields, for the next fight would not be as one sided we suspected, then squeezed past the corpse, following the distant flickers of movement of the retreating scout.
9. Counterstrike
The hornets had obliged us by cutting a larger passage through the hive to suit their own size, close to our own, but they had no regard for the bees’ structures and the breaks rained honey onto us as we splashed upslope, ankle-deep through a constant stream of gold.
We came to a nexus chamber where several hornet tunnels diverged. One seemed to lead ‘ahead’ and slightly up, the others down or behind into the depths of the skep. Lytelman stepped into the upward passage and called that there were hornets coming and pushed forward. I had a premonition and while Hrothgar stepped past me to follow Lytelman, I watched the tunnels behind us. Well I did so, for I was ready when two hornets rushed up into the chamber from lower tunnels. Two against one is not a happy fight if you are the one, though I was about keeping them at bay and doing them more hurt than I took, I thought it best if I gradually gave ground to back into the tunnel Lytelman was fighting his way up. There they could only come at me singly and my back was likely safe while I could hear Lytelman’s battle cries and the thumps of axe against hornet-armour.
It was a long battle, at both ends of the tunnel, against a seeming constant stream of fresh hornets replacing their crippled and dead. The hornets’ game is to clasp, try to bite and then, if three points of the victim are fixed, bring the stinger up from below. I was lucky the one time a hornet caught me fully for a moment, for the bottom edge of my shield impeded the stinger just enough to save me. Lytelman was not so lucky, I heard from him later, and had I not been busy might have noticed his roar of rage at such a low blow.
Eventually there were no more hornets. All was quiet further up the passage behind me. Shapes that still moved in a larger chamber at the far end did not buzz and walked with two legs alone, so I gathered that we were victorious.
It seems that Hrothgar, recalling the way the first hornet seemed only capable of engaging one target, bravely threw himself into a hornet’s embrace to distract it from Lytelman and his bee-avenging axe. Hrothgar was, in consequence, a little nibbled about the edges. It was a bold move so I was happy to share my own flask of Nothgith’s finest restorative with him. Drinc Hael Hrothgar, hero!
10. Surprise victors
We were still gathering ourselves when a scout bee arrived and rejoiced at the fall of the hyrneta Queen.
And our survival. Of course. Fighting without dying? The bee’s world turned upside down, no doubt.
We were led back to the bee Queen’s chamber, where the dead were gone and the common folk of the bees were at work repairing the damage to the walls. The Queen had warm words for us, and gifted us each a large wax flask of her honey. We expressed our thanks for her generosity and wishes for her realm’s speedy recovery and future prosperity. There was a general exchange of compliments and mutual well wishes, though it was soon apparent that the Queen had perhaps less grasp of the wider world than we imagined and in truth we had little grasp of hers. Moving swiftly on though, I asked one last boon of her and her people: a flight back down the ground below, which she was pleased to grant.
Beowaerd the Bee-ward was surprised to see us so soon, and more surprised to see all three of us alive, and asked for assurance that the hornets were indeed dead, which we assured him was so, and were backed in this assurance by the bees, to whom he paid more attention. He was very pleased, but taken aback by the speed with which three Geat warriors remedied his problem and indeed seemed at a loss for what to do next until I suggested that perhaps we should report this famous victory to Lord Skulmar as this was a task he set.
Beoward agreed this was indeed the correct course to take. It seemed to me however that we were all over with honey and that the great lord might not be pleased by us leaving small sticky patches wherever we stood in his great hall. Could we perhaps take a few moments to clean ourselves and our possessions? Beoward thought this was a splendid idea and so we visited the steam lodge of the hall to wash and rest there while our possessions were cleaned.
Then eventually, slightly damp but very clean, we were presented by Beowaerd to Lord Skulmar, still holding court in his hall. He too was surprised to see us so soon and pleased, formally, that we had succeeded. He ordered the two Ese — Grim and Lothar — be fetched from their guest quarters and pronounced their freedom, as the ransom task was fulfilled.
11. Rewards
Though it seemed Skulmar wanted us all, Ese and Geat, to depart as fast as we could leave his sight, his lady Iduma intervened and asked that the heroes be rewarded by the Eotan folk, adding that she doubted Grim was planning to do such. Grim kept his silence at the barb, clearly as anxious to be away as Skulmar was to see him and Lothar gone. Iduma left the hall for a few moments and returned with flasks of her own mead for each of us Geats, which she stated ‘will do you good’. We made fulsome thanks to the fair and generous lady, but Grim’s patience was clearly reaching an end and we were called to follow him, thus saving us from a looming threat of running out of grateful words.
Once clear of Skulmar’s reach Grim announced he will indeed reward us for our service to him and his brother, despite the attempt by the Eotan to cast doubt on his generosity and sow division.
He asked Lytelman what reward he desired, which Lytelman turned back on Grim, asking for whatever farsighted Grim thought would best benefit Lytelman himself.
‘Some inches?’ asked Grim, with never a smile, but Lytelman just reiterated his request for Grim’s best judgement in the matter of the reward most suited.
‘I hear what you are asking,’ Grim replied and passed on to ask the same question of Hrothgar, who too begs the gift-giver’s best wisdom on his behalf.
And Wistan you ask?
I was given no question, no choice, no offer, just another reminder of my heritage, which I thought made the third speaking. So I acknowledged that I was indeed reminded of my heritage, while hoping it was not stuffy halls and long lectures on behaviour befitting an aetheling that the Big Man referred to.
12. Homecoming
Then we are back through the door into Winterfell in Gefndene. Not noticably, in the night mist, later than we left. Coming from the Summer Country we had our outer layers bundled up, so hurried to put them on again, gathered the remnants of the fire danced through by Lyttleman and relit it. Lytelman quaffed his flask of Eotan mead, to warm himself against the night.
It seemed at that time, after a midnight fight with lichs, meeting a god, jogging across the summer country of the Eotan realm, fighting a long battle with poison tailed monsters while trapped in a maze, being polite to people who could squash us like hornets should they choose, then jogging back again — that we were not sure who of the Ese we’d helped, even though it had been quite clear to me as soon as the Big Man appeared.
Perhaps we were a little tired.