A Fate Inked in Blood

Bjorn concludes that the raiders are not from Nordeland. He suspects that they have come from another jarl’s territory to kill or capture Freya. He explains that the raiders do not want to be ruled, and his theory proves correct. The raiders are warriors in the service of Jarl Gnut Olafson, whose stronghold is one fjord over from Selvegr. When Snorri learns of the raid, he orders Freya to stay away from the fighting. He is not willing to have his “possession” killed so soon after he has finally acquired her. However, because she is desperate to help protect the people of Halsar, Freya escapes from the Great Hall and climbs to the roof. From there, she sees homes burning throughout Halsar.

Freya also sees a much larger force of Gnut’s warriors silently approaching the great hall from the south. She realizes the attackers that came by boat were a diversion. Freya knows that the enemy will burn down the great hall and everyone in it. Help from Bjorn and Halsar’s other fighters will not come in time unless she can alert them. She jumps from the great hall’s roof to another roof and inadvertently falls into a pig pen.

Bjorn finds Freya in the pig pen and urges her to escape from Snorri entirely. He says that Snorri will not punish her family because he will believe that she died or was taken by Gnut. Freya says she doesn’t want to escape; she wants to help. She convinces Bjorn to aid her in getting past Gnut’s guards on the beach and setting fire to their ships in the hopes that his attackers will leave the great hall and try to save the ships. Freya and Bjorn swim through freezing waters to approach the ships from behind. Using Bjorn’s fire axe, they light three drakkar on fire. The ploy works, giving Snorri’s men enough time to regroup and push Gnut’s army to retreat. Bjorn calls it Freya’s first victory. She is freezing as they exit the water, so Bjorn holds her against him. Warmth and comfort give way to arousal and sexual tension, but soon they hear people looking for Freya, and she pulls away. She decides to maintain distance from Bjorn because being close to him makes her lose her head, and she cannot afford that.

Eighteen Halsar residents were killed in the battle, and many more were injured. Freya sees herself as the reason for the attack and blames herself for the deaths. Angry glares suggest that the people of Halsar blame her, too. Funerals are held in the morning. As they light the pyres, Freya sees a hazy, hooded figure on the beach. It appears as if smoke and bits of ember and ash are emanating from it. Then the figure disappears.

Ylva urges Snorri to punish Freya for disobeying his order to stay in the great hall, but he doesn’t. Nor does he punish Ylva for failing to keep Freya there, as Bjorn suggests. Instead, he says that Hlin’s warning about the dangers to Freya will not go unheeded again. He orders Bjorn to teach Freya to fight and also tasks him with protecting her. Bjorn tries to protest, but Snorri insists, saying that after tonight, Bjorn must stay by Freya’s side until she has fulfilled her destiny.

While Freya waits for Bjorn to start their training the next morning, she talks with the healer, Liv, who reveals that when King Harald of Nordeland heard the prophecy and learned that Snorri was seeking the shield maiden, he kidnapped Bjorn to keep Snorri from moving against him. Bjorn’s mother, Saga, was killed during the abduction. Freya also learns that Snorri was already married to Ylva when he conceived Bjorn with Saga in “a moment of indiscretion” (110). Snorri made many attempts to free Bjorn, but he wasn’t successful until three years ago. Ylva has a 15-year-old son with Snorri named Leif, but as Snorri’s firstborn son, Bjorn is Snorri’s heir.

When Bjorn finally arrives to start Freya’s training, he is not his usual charming self. His attitude toward his new obligation hurts her feelings. She asks him why he is so angry about having to train and protect her. Bjorn says that Snorri’s interpretation of his connection to Freya is “bullshit”; his destiny isn’t tied to hers, it’s just Snorri twisting things to get what he wants. His fate, he says, is to win battles, not to spend day and night defending another man’s wife. Freya vents her own rage at the situation, leading Bjorn to apologize. When Freya asks about Bjorn’s imprisonment in Nordeland, Bjorn says he was made to swear a blood oath to never try to escape. Snorri’s efforts to rescue him were motivated by selfish ambitions; he needed a god’s fire—Bjorn’s fire axe—to find and reveal the shield maiden. Bjorn also says that the seer who made the prophecy is dead and reveals that the seer was his mother, Saga.

Freya meets Ylva’s son, Leif, when he returns from a hunting trip. Leif and Bjorn are friendly and clearly care about each other. Leif and an older warrior named Ragnar report capturing a spy while hunting, but the spy refuses to tell them anything. Ylva suggests that they “put fire to her feet” (121) to make her talk. They bring the spy in, but as soon as they remove the bag covering her face, Bjorn severs her head from her neck. He says she is named Ragnhild and is sworn to King Harald. She is also a child of Hoenir, so she can speak into the mind of whoever holds her tokens and show them visions. Ragnhild has no tongue because Harald cut it out. He wears it on a necklace as her token, so he was the only person she could speak to. Bjorn killed Ragnhild because he feared that she would send a vision to Harald as soon as she saw Freya, alerting him that the shield maiden had been found. Bjorn says that Harald and his army could attack within a matter of weeks, and the people of Halsar cannot withstand Harald on their own. Snorri plans to gather all the jarls of Skaland and convince them to unite and resist Nordeland’s attack. First, however, they’ll ride to Fjalltindr to pay homage to the gods.

Fjalltindr is a sacred temple at the top of a mountain called Hammar, where people from near and far gather every nine years to make sacrifices and pay the gods tribute. On the way, Freya sees the same hooded figure that she saw on the beach. Nobody else can see it, so they say it must be a specter. The figure tells Freya to make a sacrifice at the temple on the night of the first full moon, or her thread will be cut short and the future that was foreseen will be unwoven. After they make camp that night, Steinunn asks Freya to describe how she felt when the specter appeared so that she can capture the experience authentically in the ballad she is composing. At Snorri’s orders, Steinunn will chronicle Freya’s actions as she fulfills the prophecy. Bjorn makes his dislike of Steinunn clear. He tells Freya that the skald’s power is intrusive because it allows everyone else to see and feel one’s innermost thoughts and feelings. Bjorn and Ylva quarrel that night. Ylva admits to wishing that Leif were Snorri’s heir, not Bjorn. She feels that Bjorn has been away too long and is more Nordelander than Skalander and declares that their people deserve to be ruled by a legitimate son.

Later, Bjorn helps Freya apply a salve to ease the pain and stiffness in her burned hand. The intimacy of his touch arouses her desire for him, though she tries to hide it. As Freya tries to sleep that night, attackers fall on their camp and shout to each other to kill the shield maiden and to kill all the women to make sure of finding their target. Freya calls on Hlin’s magic. Bjorn, Snorri, and the other warriors join her to make their shield wall, and Freya’s magic spreads to cover all the shields. They repulse the attackers, then take the offense. Freya draws on her rage to kill and maim. When the fight is over, her rage turns to horror at the gory scene. The leader of the attack, a jarl named Torvin, is identified. Just before dying, he says everyone is coming for Freya. Bjorn expects that more jarls’ warriors will ambush them on the way to Fjalltindr. Snorri tells Bjorn to take Freya on a different route known as the Path to Helheim: a set of stairs and tunnels inside the mountain. Bjorn calls it a suicide mission because the tunnels are full of draug, the undead.

Snorri insists that Steinunn and one other warrior accompany Freya and Bjorn. As the four of them near the mountain’s cliff-side, they find the ground littered with human bones. Some bones have been made into wind chimes and are hanging from the trees. A haze of steam drifts toward them, filling the air with the smell of rot. Bjorn says he won’t force Freya to go into the tunnels, but she decides to continue onward. They leave the other warrior with the horses, then convince Steinunn not to go with them despite Snorri’s order. Freya gathers her courage and enters the tunnels with Bjorn.