Chapter Thirteen
Steffen felt comfortedby the feel of Tristan’s hand in his as they closed in on the Rigr who’d woken up during the ride there. They all sat with the last one, who was still unconscious and shivering under a blanket near the fire, but they seemed collected and well-fed, enjoying a cup of bonfire coffee.
Vestergaard had already joined his fellow soldiers and hiker and gave the what’s-up nod as they joined in human forms and took a seat around the fire. “Coffee?” He nodded toward the suspended pot and jar of instant coffee. Six mugs lay in a heap next to it.
Steffen went to make it. “Thanks. How are you doing?”
“Confused!” Kasper stared wide-eyed at the fire.
The other soldier nodded slowly. “It’s been...a ride.”
“I still wonder what this means,” Vestergaard said.
“We all do.” Steffen pointed at the pot. “Anyone need a refill?”
Kasper held out his mug. Steffen took it, placed it at the end of the line, and poured the dehydrated coffee nuggets into it. It was sacrilege to turn the bitter liquid gold into something like that, but it made life easy in the wild. It reminded him of the gold that Sk?ll had handed out and that it could apparently be used as another test.
“So, you arrived around the interesting time?” Tristan asked.
“That was insane,” the newly awoken soldier said. “We didn’t see what happened, and the Guards staying here started stomping with the sea of everybody gathered that way.” The soldier pointed toward where Steffen remembered Isbait’s courtship to impress the Matriarch had taken place. “It was so intense that we joined in. It kinda helped lift the brain fog.”
“Yeah, like trying not to dance at a rave.” Vestergaard shook his head. “Impossible!”
Yeah, Steffen understood that. “I got sick, too, and was transported here along with you guys.” Steffen handed the mug back to Kasper. “I woke up yesterday morning. Vestergaard woke up today.” Steffen returned to sit next to Tristan and handed a mug over.
“And everything has been weird since,” Vestergaard said.
Steffen nodded. “Have you shared the dreams yet?”
Vestergaard shook his head. “I got here not long ago.”
“We’ve talked about it,” Kasper said. “Weirdest fever dream I’ve ever had!”
The soldier nodded wide-eyed, drinking from his mug.
“Anything...pale blue in there?” Steffen asked. They both looked up, and the speed with which Steffen got their attention, he guessed that, yes, he’d asked about something that had taken up much of the focus in their dreams, too. Steffen pointed to the soldier. “Go on. Please share all details.”
“The V?lve should be here,” Vestergaard said. “She’s pretty good at guiding us because she seems to know how to interpret visions.”
“You spoke more with her?” Steffen asked.
Vestergaard nodded, still looking out of it. Or just tired.
“I’ll get her.” Tristan got up and left them.
“Until I saw that pale zombie, I’ve always been an atheist,” the soldier said.
“What’s your name?” Steffen asked.
“Nielsen, Lars Nielsen, but I’m called Nissen.”
Steffen grinned. “And you’re an atheist, that’s funny.”
“Why?”
“A nisse. Elf-on-a-shelf. A v?ttir of old Norse origin.”
“The ones you tried to sacrifice chocolate to?”
Steffen nodded. “But they were nature v?ttir. There are also house v?ttir, and those are the ones we please around holidays with porridge or baked goods or butter to make sure they don’t tease the house.”
Nissen chuckled. “I got the name because my little sister, who’s eight, put cardboard elf-on-a-shelf cut-outs into my backpack to make sure I had some Christmas holiday decorations at the barracks. The others never let that one slide.” Nissen shook his head. “After witnessing all this, I’m kinda struggling to find out what I believe.”
“Me, too,” everybody, including Steffen, said.
“Well, I guess in my case, I just have to expand on my worldview to see where it fits,” Steffen said. “I already knew the world is bigger than what we understand because I knew wolf shifters lived in secret among humans. I can see how it would disturb your world image a lot more.”
“The revelation of you certainly did,” Vestergaard said.
“But that color?” Nissen looked at Steffen. “I dreamed it infected people around me. People I love. Like my little sister. They became mean or apathetic. She wants to be an artist and draws every waking hour, but all her crayons and watercolors and pencils turned that blue, and she’d only fill in whole sheets of paper that same color. I remember running around to find graphite and charcoal for her, even making it in a fire, because every time I handed her a different color, it would turn blue. And excitement left her eyes,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.
That little girl was his world—Steffen clearly understood as much.
“Then what?” Vestergaard asked.
“I...took it all away from her. She said she hated me for not supporting her dream and ran out. I followed her, and she picked up weird blue sponges and started painting the house walls with it, sneezing and rubbing her eyes, but she kept going. So I started removing the sponges. And then...” A sob escaped him. “She started painting my parents, and they sneezed and rubbed their eyes. My dad turned into a real asshole who tried to prevent me from taking the sponges away, but my mom helped me, so he hit her!” Nissen shook his head. “He’s never done that! He’s not like that.”
“The worst in us,” a woman said.
They all looked up, finding Tristan had returned with all ten V?lve.
Marisol sat next to Steffen, and Tristan sat on his other side. The others spread out, and the Rigr moved to get them blankets and make them comfortable.
“What do you mean by the worst in us,” Nissen asked one of the new V?lve.
“All visions we’ve had regarding this is that it draws out the worst in us.”
“Like schnapps will make some people violent, but beer won’t,” Tristan said.
Nissen nodded slowly, staring at the flames. “If you love them, let them go,” he mumbled. “Of course, that’s from a very different context, but at some point, I had to save my mother. She was going for my little sister fiercely, who my dad was also trying to keep away from us.
“Our house started growing sponges where Anna had painted the walls, and as my mom and I watched from the sidewalk, they picked them, put them in plastic bags, and talked about all the money they could make. They kept doing that until there were piles of bags, and then they sat down and kept talking about all the money they could make, while they ate the sponges and...did nothing. They just turned blue and shriveled up and died.
“My mom was pretty out of it and angry. Then someone came by and walked through the gate to poke at the bags. The dust made him sneeze. He suddenly got all eager and collected the bags, trying to carry more than he could.” Nissen shook his head. “He said he was going to get rich, and more and more people came to take the bags and pick the sponges, and my mother and I shouted for them to stop. To get away. Many did, but others just went into a frenzy, feverishly scraping them off the walls until their fingers bled and shoving the sponges into bags, and they stuffed their mouths and pockets and...” Nissen pulled a face from disgust. “No one was getting rich on something like that, so I went in there to stop them. My dad and sister rose as those zombies and tried to stop me, so I...I killed everybody who kept fighting me, then torched the place. My mom helped me by getting the jug of gasoline for the garden tractor. And we burned it all to the ground, including the people who just kept hoarding the blue sponges even though they were on fire and screaming in agony.”
“Your mother is Rigr, then,” Steffen said. Nissen looked up. “We found out that Rigr are apparently Karls, who are capable of withstanding the pollen from that fungus. Those who get infected become the Thralls. It’s genetic.”
“Burn the Thralls,” all the V?lve mumbled.
“But it’s not merely fire that does it,” Steffen continued. “I burned it out of my human side by raising my ember.” He looked at Marisol. “You said the strongest Rigr rose by putting the fire of Muspel in their chests.” He looked at Vestergaard.
“Rigr, Rigr, lead the Karls and kill the Thralls.” Marisol smiled sadly at Vestergaard. “You shouted that when Isbait spread the word of chaos to come.”
“And the shading that Warlord Sk?ll commands spilled from your chest to join his.” Steffen put a hand on his chest. “It spilled from where our ember sits.”
“Did it spill from yours, too?” Vestergaard asked.
“I don’t know. Hati saw it on you and told me, but he didn’t see me. What did you see when the shading expanded?”
“Shadows. Swords and spears stuck out of the black billowing dune covering the ground, and it was like I could feel the handle when I tried to grab one, but...I couldn’t. Old warriors stood here and there. It was like they were stomping, too, and they hummed this guttural rhythmic song. And there were wolves, big and small. A huge swan. And an eagle cried out so close to my ear I thought it sat on my shoulder.”
“I heard eagles when we were attacked by Draugr in the valley.” Steffen looked at the V?lve. “It’s time for the swans to land and the eagles to fly. You said that.”
“Swans are V?lve,” a V?lve said. “Eagles are Valkyries. We’re the same...breed, so to speak. But Valkyries will pick a soldier to aid in battle.”
“Rigr mates?” Tristan asked.
“There are old tales of men winning their favor by stealing their wings,” Steffen said. “She’ll marry him and stand by his side, giving him strength.”
“That’s a Christianized version to reduce the worth of a woman to something men can claim as property through marriage,” the V?lve said.
It irritated Steffen that he hadn’t learned all their names yet, but his brain was filling up with so much new stuff now that he barely thought it capable of remembering them if he asked. That one, though? She was the head of their coven—he’d figured that much out. She was the one who stuck closest to Marisol. He’d at least ask her name.
After they’d run this topic to exhaustion.
“And you, Kasper?”
The hiker looked around at them and sighed. “Well, I’m a chef, and my dream happened at my job. I work in a hotel, and we have a small garden with herbs and stuff. We grow certain mushrooms, too. An old head chef, who was fired years ago, was suddenly there again, filling his old position, yet he’d been fired for incompetence and stealing. He was a right asshole, and I was the one who stood up to him, making it so loud that the hotel manager had to storm the kitchen because every guest in the restaurant could hear me. I let it fucking rip when he started spewing venom at a young girl, who’d just started her apprenticeship there. When her waterworks started, my anger exploded, and I told him exactly what I thought about him.”
Steffen leaned into the story, eager to hear about a righteous underdog taking down the man.
“That’s when others started speaking up and telling the hotel manager what they’d seen and been subjected to by him. I threatened to walk out in the middle of service if the prick wasn’t immediately escorted out with a pink slip in his back pocket, and again, everybody else backed me up, threatening to follow me out the door.”
“Leaders show the way and walk at the front,” Tristan said. “Or run, in the case of wolves.”
Kasper nodded. “So I was quite surprised when that prick was back in the kitchen. He had new ideas for the fall menu. The theme was blue! He brought boxes upon boxes of fungi for us to grow for the new menu along with a bag full of something I’ve never seen before. It looked like a loofa. Those coarse sponges to exfoliate?”
“That’s what grew on my house,” Nissen said.
“And what the doctor used in my dream,” Vestergaard said.
Steffen glanced at the V?lve. “And what I found on the side of the road.”
Kasper nodded. “Except it was soft to the touch. And it tasted...not bitter, but it had a real sour twist. One I can easily imagine giving a fantastic flavor if used in the right combination with sweetness.”
“You tasted it?” Steffen asked.
“Yeah, he handed us each a slice as we looked over the recipes. Someone said it looked unappetizing, and the asshole did what assholes do. I’d already told him off once, but this is where things get strange. It became some kind of verbal battle as we shouted from each end of the kitchen, and everybody, even the dishwasher, stood in the middle, sidestepping either my way or his way, and as those boxes sprouted in record time, more and more went to him, and their eyes...” Kasper shook his head.
“Turned blue where they’re usually white,” Nissen said. “My dad and sister’s did that.”
Kasper nodded, looking troubled. Finally, he looked at the V?lve. “How do we see the same details when we’re not V?lve?”
“Because you carry an ember. That’s what whispers to you like it whispers to our embers,” the head V?lve said. “The difference is you mainly hear and see what can or will influence your lives, while we see and hear everything. Now, please, tell us the rest.”
Kasper nodded. “The head chef had gone over all the recipes earlier on in my dream, and one thing stood out to me. No dish was allowed to be heated above a certain temperature or had to be cooled before the fungi could be added. I grabbed the cooking torch and started at one end. He went ballistic and screamed like I was burning him. So did the ones who’d joined him fully, while the others writhed in discomfort.
“Suddenly, more people entered, and they all had strangely colored eyes.” Kasper nodded toward the Cubi. “But some of them looked black. I dunno, I was too busy getting attacked and defending myself with that little torch, and I knew, I just knew that I had to burn those blue things. He went for knives and attacked me, and I finally pinned his head against the gas stove and cranked that sucker to the max, not caring about my own hand and arm getting burned as I kept his head there until he was dead.
“He’d stabbed me multiple times by then, and I would see through the destruction of those before I bled out.” Kasper sneered. “I would...kill it.” Sorrow took over his features. “And them. The ones screaming like he did when the fungus burned and shriveled up.
“As I slipped around in my blood, I kept going. I kept burning it. And them. And I finally slipped on the ground and hit myself hard on the way down, but I saw the blue leave the last eyes as they turned in death, and I felt a smile of accomplishment stretch my lips as my life ebbed away.” He shook his head and snorted almost angrily. “I felt like killing them and burning down half the kitchen meant I’d done something worth my life.”
“Why do you shake your head at that?” Marisol asked.
“We’re not supposed to kill but help others.”
“Did you serve in the military?” Vestergaard asked.
Kasper shook his head. “I have severely reduced hearing in my right ear due to an infection as a child.”
Vestergaard nodded. “It’s a tough lesson all soldiers either learn or crumble under. Sometimes, it costs a few to save many. Whatever this blue shit is? It’s infecting people and turning them into threats against others, and they even infect others. And we all burn them one way or another.”
“What lies ahead changes the status quo,” Steffen said. “From the Alphas of all rising, we knew war waits on the horizon. It’s in us as Alphas to go that mile, and the animal in us can certainly kill.”
“I do notice a common denominator,” Tristan said. “All of you have a verbal battle, too. And those who don’t succumb to the blue but heed your warnings, are the ones you manage to save. And you burn the rest.”
“I only burned the fungi,” Steffen said.
“With your ember,” Tristan noted. “There are differences between the embers that burn in Wolf and humans. And in V?lve and Cubi, I’d imagine.”
Steffen contemplated that. Steffen had only battled himself while the humans had battled someone else while trying to save people. Maybe that was because of the pack gene? He wondered how a Cubus would see the battle, considering they had the Cu-Boka gene that seemed to manifest very similarly to the pack bond. Maybe Vargr were just so connected to their embers that they knew it was the epicenter of their power to help others?
“Ela has visions,” Marisol said.
“Royals rise from their own to lead their own, so I’m not surprised if they have more than special doses.” Tristan gnawed his lip, thinking. “What is it the dose does?”
“Oh, you should know.” Steffen looked at Kasper. “Your hunter friend got safely to the hospital, yet due to the Draugr curse, as we call it, we kept your friends here.”
“When did they wake up?”
“They didn’t slip into fever.”
Kasper looked puzzled. “Then what happened to them? Did they escape it because they didn’t run at them?”
“I didn’t run at the Draugr—I couldn’t see it. I stayed with your friends, and I was still hit. So was Tris.”
“But I’m part V?lsung, and the wolf is immune. Stef is only Vargr. Too close to humans and thus susceptible.”
“Maybe because I’m a Beta who decided to kick ass.”
Tristan chuckled. “We are our choices, then. No, you were always Alpha like your dad, but Ulrik didn’t raise you to a rank that could challenge his say because you’re not prone to kiss ass. Also, if I’m not mistaken, then true Alphas, like Ulrik, can be a Thrall, and that’s what continues to tease my carefully established hypothesis.”
“And Erik?”
“Yes, like Erik and Oscar. And their Bitch mates. It...” Tristan shook his head. “We need to know more.”
“Yeah. Either way, Jane’s okay, but the guy is being watched carefully as he hoards gold, snaps at everybody, feels entitled, and he’s rubbing nerves to a point where some of the V?lsung are debating eating him, just to get some peace and quiet around here.”
Kasper gaped. “Are we talking about the same guy?”
“How would you describe his general personality traits?”
“A minimalist who finds the greatest value in sitting alone by a creek with a fishing rod in his hand and his bare feet in the water. He loves that so much that he only has a part time job to not eat away at his precious free time to do that, and he shaved away all unnecessary expenses to be able to live just like that.”
“Why would he hoard gold, then?” Tristan asked.
“Time is money?” Marisol suggested. “To buy one’s time back in today’s society, you need money. Or gold. Financial freedom is what gives us time.”
“Hence all the easy hacks and hustler mentality books being sold like hotcakes at the moment,” Nissen said. “My dad actually buys them and teaches my little sister the theory behind becoming an art influencer on social media.” He sighed. “But so far, they’ve only talked about it. For a year.”
Steffen knew little to nothing about it, but he could kinda understand what drove Kasper’s friend. Also, that detail made a few things about Nissen’s story make more sense. Steffen’s job was to stay at home, and...okay, he had a lot of little things to see to. He was a landlord of sorts, and he could easily lose count of the clogged toilets and sinks he’d fixed in residences over the years. That was just part of it.
And then it made sense.
“Thralls have no drive and want the easy way out.”
“And those who still have a drive will gain riches and fame by using others as stepping stones.” Marisol looked at Steffen and smiled. “Not all are so humble in their pursuit of power that they’ll bow down to pick it up.”
Humble, humble, pick up power. See them smile.
Steffen returned the smile. The power he’d picked up was his pack. Their following of his ember. He’d lifted them up. That was his power. And each of the Rigr present had stood a battle and won. But yeah, killing the Thralls was a crappy outcome.
Click...
“Wait...” Steffen gaped as he ran that disjointed snippet of a thought through his over-stuffed brain again and again. “Colored eyes.” A desperate urge to toss all these disjointed thoughts at Elakdon rushed over Steffen, and he shifted to his Vargr form as he scurried around and sprinted off to locate the old King.
He skittered to a halt by the fire that Elakdon had settled by with his things, but he wasn’t there.
“Guards!”
Steffen snapped his head around at the shouting in time to see Navidon bolt from his seat and run to the Thrall hiker. He grabbed him and tossed him across the ground, while a Succubus collapsed where the hiker had stood.
Warlord Magnus was right on the heels of the red-eye, who tossed himself onto the human.
“If you ever touch a Cubus again, I’ll fuck you up and feed you to the Warlord in bloody bits!” Navidon sneered into the human’s face.
“Assist!” Magnus changed to human and grabbed Navidon around the midsection, lifting him off the Thrall hiker.
V?lsung closed in fast, and Thorleif planted a paw on the chest of the hiker, snarling and drooling in his face.
In the meantime, Navidon kicked his legs to be released. “The Dame, the Dame, let me go! She’s poisoned!”
Guards had made it to her, and Steffen ran there to...be useless. Except he could pull Tristan, so he did.
“Tris! Get Ela to me now!” Steffen shouted. “Now!”
Magnus released Navidon, who sprinted on all fours across the ground to get to the Dame. She dry-retched and shivered as a Guard hauled her up to lie against him. Navidon steered straight for her, pressed his lips against hers, and the vile stench of his corrupted dose hit Steffen’s nose a moment later. But the Dame threw her head back and moaned, while a reddish liquid spilled from the corner of her mouth and drippled down her chin and neck.
Then she toppled Navidon and gyrated against him. She smelled horny and...like she felt great, and that scent intensified as Navidon flipped them over and dosed her again. Things turned amorous and sexy, so Steffen turned away, seeing Tristan, Elakdon, and Randr sprint his way.
They skittered to a halt, and Elakdon looked around, confused. “What?”
“The Thrall hiker poisoned the Guard Dame, and Navidon attacked him, then dosed the Dame, and now they’re...doing that.” Steffen pointed a thumb over his shoulder.
Elakdon gaped. “A Sir dosed a Dame?”
“Several times. It stank.”
Elakdon looked at the Thrall hiker, and his gaze darkened while his eyes grew bright molten golden, and a sneer pulled at his beautiful features.
“Let me make this perfectly clear to you,” Thorleif stated, drooling all over the human. “Your presence among the beautiful people is tolerated at best. You carry a disease that can harm them. Unlike your friend Kasper, who is now well, you are diseased.”
“What disease?” the human shouted, struggling and pushing at the weight of the massive paw holding him down. “I’m not sick!”
“You are,” Thorleif snarled. “I can smell it on you because I was there when you got sick.”
“Uhm...” Elakdon looked around. “And Jane? You smelled her?”
“Yes.” Thorleif looked up, and this was the side of V?lsung that put true fear in Steffen. And respect for the strength they brought to the cause of the running bond. “She grew sick, but she’s better now.”
Steffen was about to tell Elakdon some of the disjointed thoughts that had clicked, considering it was the topic, but the King seemed to suddenly have other things on his mind as his eyes grew wide, and he ran off, shouting for Marisol.
Elakdon caught up to her not sixty feet away. “No one listen in! As in no one! This is private Royal business!”
“Nol!”
Elakdon leaned in and whispered to Marisol, who answered him, and what followed surprised them both. Steffen didn’t listen in as instructed, but he looked, pinning his hearing to the pleasurable sounds behind him to have something to direct his focus on, or it would follow his line of sight. Elakdon looked increasingly frustrated. They’d probably hear more about that later once the King had figured out exactly what was going on. But it probably had to do with what had clicked in Steffen’s brain, so he’d have to interrupt that conversation real soon.
“To fulfill my objective, Warlord, would you watch over the Sir, copulating, while I tend to the threat,” Magnus asked.
“Tend to your task, and I’ll watch the Sir.” Thorleif stepped off the Thrall hiker and turned to watch Navidon, who made the Dame quake in a limb-shaking rapture.
Magnus shifted to human again and pulled the hiker to his feet. “Let’s go.”
“No! When we get back to human society, I’m going to be very important, so you don’t want to mess with me!”
“You’re unimportant now and will remain to be, and no amount of gold will change that.” Magnus hauled off with the guy, who continued babbling about how his gold would change that.
Steffen looked at Navidon, making the Dame squirm and pull at the body bringing her pleasure, then at a frustrated King, and finally at the small mountain of gold the Thrall hiker had collected.
“This...isn’t like him.”
Steffen turned to see that Kasper had joined them, and he stared around, confused. “I’m sorry, but he lost the battle.” He pointed to the gold. There had to be several kilos there.
Kasper went to it and grabbed a handful off the top of the little mountain. Finally, he screamed in frustration, and hurled it across the ground, making a few spectating Alphas jump to avoid having their feet hit. “I didn’t believe it!” Kasper covered his head, shaking it. “What’s that about?” He pointed to where Navidon was still pleasing the Dame.
“Your friend’s entitlement meant he was angry that Navidon spent time with Jane, but none of the beautiful Succubi here would bed him,” a Guard Lord said. He turned his brightly glowing eyes on Kasper. “He went to take what he thought was his right.”
“And that poisons a Cubus to a point where they can die from...sour energy,” Steffen explained.
“Luckily, it didn’t get that bad, but copping a feel is usually not this poisonous to us, no matter how much ill-will is in the hormones of the human.”
Elakdon joined them, and his bright golden eyes looked frightening. “A full shot of Draugr can mean it’s concentrated in him.”
“Which is why I came over here,” Steffen said. “Ela, I think the dose is an antidote to that. I think sour energy is more than raped energy. It’s the spores.”
Elakdon gaped. “And Navidon’s stinky dose?”
“Burns it out of the most infected. Those so infected that regular Cubi can’t feed on them. It’s why it burns him. Burning is what made me connect the dots to that theory.”
“Huh!” Elakdon kept gaping and staring at where Navidon reached his climax along with the Dame. “That kinda makes sense, considering the dose changed the taste of Jane to one he liked. And now she’s well, and he doesn’t like the taste of her dosed.” Elakdon drew a deep and shaky breath, shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t understand how that has to do with rape,” he muttered to himself, then stood straight. “We’ll need my scientists together for that. And we need to find another Draugr.” Elakdon walked off. “Randr, lover! Where did you and Earl Knud find that Draugr in Denmark?”
Steffen debated running after him to learn that, too, but he decided to stay with Kasper, whose friend’s cries of indignation and delusions of grandeur grew fainter and fainter. That Rigr needed support from someone who understood now. He needed it more than Steffen needed immediate updates on Elakdon’s research into his own people.
––––––––
STEFFEN STAYED CLOSEto Kasper the rest of the day and joined the risen Rigr at their fire, yet he did notice when Warlord Magnus returned as he walked slowly behind them on the way back to the fire with the old King. He smelled of fresh blood. Human blood.
Sk?ll walked to Magnus, smelling him. The questioning look was easy to decipher because it remained unasked on Steffen’s lips, too. What’s with the scent of human blood?
“I took the King’s suggestion, seeing as the threat turned from potential to actualized.”
Sk?ll glanced at Kasper, who had his back to them and stared at the fire. The distance didn’t let a human hear the conversation, but Sk?ll noticed that Steffen did because they locked gazes for a moment, and the intensity said it all. Sk?ll merely nodded and walked back to his fire close by, while Magnus continued to the fire with Elakdon, yet Navidon wasn’t there at the moment—he was off feeding.
Luckily, Steffen sat by a fire that allowed him to hear the conversations around both Sk?ll’s and Elakdon’s fires.
“The hiking Thrall has been eliminated as per your suggestion, Nol,” Magnus announced.
“Thank you,” Elakdon mumbled.
“V?lsung has taken out the threat to Cubi,” Sk?ll said quietly. “He’s dead.”
“You should know, Nol, that he tasted much better than any human I’ve ever eaten,” Magnus continued. “It makes me contemplate your theory of why an infected would taste different to Navidon and the detail in the Rigr’s dream of something sour putting us off the meat.”
“Visions aren’t always correct because the point is to specify a detail,” Marisol said. “In this case, sour meat. Also, he didn’t remember that detail clearly. He said V?lsung said something about sour meat. Or something like that. This might be his mind trying to analyze the vision, and that’ll always corrupt the message. It’s the most challenging aspect of being a V?lve. To overcome the need to analyze to try to understand the whispers and visions.”
“But it’s confirmed that V?lsung feel increased hunger toward a Thrall?” Elakdon asked.
“Yes,” Magnus said. “He smelled...I think I can smell a Thrall from a Rigr now. I’m not surprised that the nose of Warlord Thorleif, being full V?lsung, caught it first.”
Steffen returned his attention to the conversation around his own fire where the three Rigr chatted, unaware of the conversations around them.
An eagle cried out close by, making Steffen jump and look around. So did the three Rigr.
“What?” Tristan asked.
“An eagle cried out.”
Tristan’s eyes went wide. “What?” He looked around. “You four heard it?”
“What does that mean?” Kasper asked.
Randr stood and looked around.
“Father!” Tristan called out.
Randr came to them and knelt behind Steffen and Tristan. Marisol joined him and scooted in to sit close to Tristan. “I heard an eagle.”
“All risen Rigr seemed to,” Steffen said. “Even me.”
“I have for many years, but it’s clearer and closer now,” Randr said. “I hear it when we stomp together.”
“It wants to sit on your shoulder.” Marisol looked around, then pointed into the darkening evening sky. “They soar above the five of you. Waiting.”
“For what?” Nissen asked.
“I don’t know.” She looked up. “But five soar around in a circle up there.”
A Sleipnir came over, slowly, supporting a shivering man to sit among them.
“Welcome back to the real world.” Kasper handed a blanket over.
The soldier nodded slowly, shivering as he took the blanket. “Thanks.”
The Alphas of all and Rasmus joined them, and their bonfire became too small to sit around. Sk?ll, in Vargr form, sniffed the guy as they passed around him to find spots. Steffen decided to expand the fire a bit, or the humans and Randr would become too cold at the distance needed to accommodate everybody.
“Coffee?” Vestergaard asked. The guy didn’t reply. “Jesus, Anker, snap out of it.”
Nissen snickered. “Just make him a liter.”
Vestergaard pulled a face and filled the pot with water from his canteen.
In the meantime, Anker kept vegetating and staring at the fire. He did until he’d drank half the coffee. Finally, the soldier looked up, his gaze swimmy.
“All stocked up on coffee?” Vestergaard asked.
Anker nodded. “Yeah,” he finally mumbled. “Wouldn’t mind more.”
Vestergaard chuckled and poured more instant into the tiny pot, which he finally carried to put down in front of Anker. “There we go. Now, please share your fever dream.”
“Why?”
“We all tripped.” Nissen pointed to Marisol, who sat bundled up in the nook of Tristan’s arm. “The V?lve needs to know.”
“I was a kid again,” Anker said. “Fifteen, I think. Younger, I know that much.”
“What signifies that age?” Nissen asked.
“My mom got really sick, and I was shipped off to boarding school by my stepdad because he could care less about me. My presence was tolerated on the weekends if I stayed in my room as much as possible, but Mom never really got out of it.”
“Sorry, man,” Vestergaard mumbled.
“Pills and booze. She had borderline personality disorder and was a narcissist, and for some reason, I had to live up to some picture-perfect ideal for how she wanted life to look. Like, she popped all sorts of pills and drank constantly, but our home was immaculate, and all the knickknacks were expensive stuff. It was like living in a museum.
“My stepdad was the same. I don’t know who influenced who or whether they were both like that, but he had a temper. He’d hit me if he found a single crumb on the kitchen floor or table if I’d made myself something to eat.”
Steffen’s ember rose to remind him of how Ulrik had turned to snap at little things like that. He’d started spitting on members of the pack. He’d even hit a human mate, which was a total no-go, even for Betas. It had been after Steffen’s Alpha dad had died and was no longer there to keep Ulrik in check.
That instant had made Steffen’s ember burn twice as hot as ever before, yet he hadn’t taken action.
“I wasn’t the only kid being dumped at that school because our parents didn’t want us, so I bonded with some of them. Others just became mean assholes who took it out on everybody else. I think they made a club or something because they all wore the same shirt.”
“What color?” Vestergaard asked.
Anker looked up, seemingly puzzled by the question. “Faded baby blue. I didn’t want anything to do with them, and I kept defending my friends when they tried to recruit us. To help create that sense of belonging that drew them to those asshats, we made our own club, but not just a club. A family. At least, that’s what I wanted it to be.”
Steffen smiled. Rigr could lead even the lost, it seemed. Except those already infected, which the ones in blue shirts probably signified.
“They wouldn’t leave us alone and grew more and more mean about it. They even beat up one of my new brothers. I had to protect them. They looked to me for that. So I beat them up whenever they got too close.”
“What else did they do?” Vestergaard asked.
“Tried to bribe them away from me. Promising them drugs and stuff.” Anker shook his head. “So many of the dumped kids smoked or slipped into alcohol for some escapism, but I didn’t allow it among my brothers. Those bastards kept offering, and when one accepted mushrooms, I kicked him out. He joined the blue shirts.”
Something rubbed Steffen the wrong way. “What kind of mushrooms?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Details of a fever dream are important,” Vestergaard said.
Anker sighed. “Some new exotic thing that looked like a sponge. I hated that it made them such a tight-knit group, while those who stuck with me weren’t as carefree. I wanted them to find solace in us being together and have each other’s backs, not waste away in drugs to find some temporary happiness.”
Okay, Steffen could get behind that one. Anker sought prosperity for his little pack of abandoned kids, but tossing them out? No, that was wrong. Then again, the others burned the Thralls, too, so what was it that rubbed Steffen wrong?
“In my dream, my mom was still alive. Still on drugs and booze. I got curious whether it could make her carefree, so I got some of those mushrooms and slipped them to her on the weekend.” Anker smiled to himself, lost in his little moment, so he didn’t see the glances the rest of them shared. The WTF glance. “It was a spectacular weekend. She was like a really good mother. Stepdad, too, once he got it. The blue shirts took it themselves, not understanding that it didn’t have to be a drug in that sense but a medicine. They wasted away instead of dosing it properly, but I taught my friends how to use it, and we were all pulled from the boarding school to come home. To our real families.”
“And the mushrooms?” Nissen asked.
“I sold the knowledge to a pharma company and got so rich I could take care of my family, and they got those pills for free.”
Again, they all looked around at each other.
As they did, Steffen counted. They sat six Rigr who’d battled Draugr. Steffen looked at Marisol. “How many eagles above us?”
She looked up. “Five.” She looked at the bonfire. “And one dead in there.”
Steffen grumbled and got up, jogging to Elakdon’s fire. He knelt behind Navidon. “So, uhm, that newly awoken Rigr?”
“Mm-hmm?” Navidon leaned back against Steffen to be able to see behind Magnus’ back.
“How do you feel about him?”
“Hungry.”
“Burning?” Elakdon asked. Navidon nodded.
“He didn’t burn it,” Steffen said. “He used it on others as a drug.”
“I repeated the tale around this fire,” Magnus said.
Steffen hadn’t noticed from being too entrenched in the tale, so he nodded, happy he didn’t have to relay the whole thing. “I fear he can poison your people,” Steffen told Elakdon.
“I’ll go get General Madsen.” Elakdon stood. “My scientists will need blood from all of you. And preferably also semen.”
Steffen merely nodded and returned to the Rigr fire. He listened in with half an ear as the conversation continued, and the other Rigr, who’d passed the Draugr test, were no longer happy to sit with their friend.
Glancing at Sk?ll, the Warlord easily peeked out behind the Vargr form, and Steffen felt grateful that Matt had managed to merge the three sides. The look in Sk?ll’s eyes and the nod he discreetly gave Steffen, said it all. He’d have him watched.
But now they were all awake again, and the run would become easier for the Sleipnir, who’d otherwise been carrying their sleeping bodies between campsites.
A failed Rigr, though? Steffen almost felt...betrayed.