“You affected all of us,” says the warrior to his right: a berserker with dark braids pulled tightly back from his face and one of those thin Frankish goatees around his solemn mouth. I know his brown eyes. This is the berserker who caught my sword in the fray, who held me back, who said, Balls.
He puts two fingers to his heart and says, “The Mad Eagles salute you, Valkyrie.”
At least seven of them surround me, mostly shadows in the dark. “Thank you,” I say.
“I am Darius Strong, captain of the Mad Eagles.” He covers my hand with his, the warmth of his skin traveling up my arm. “We returned here for you, Valkyrie. Come with us tonight, home to our hall, and drink in honor of our fallen, and yours. We will show you how the Mad God mourns.”
Without hesitation, I say yes. Darius and Sharkman flank me, with the five other berserkers spread behind.
SIXTEEN
THIS IS WHAT a funeral should be:
Me standing atop a table beside a wide bowl of honey-dark mead, in a torchlit warehouse before an entire band of berserkers. They put two fingers to their hearts and together cry, Hangatyr! God of the Hanged.
I let the words wash over me, closing my eyes for only a moment, hunting for a response in the bowels of my memory. My head swims, my body buzzes with the heat of Odinist frenzy that exudes from the berserkers, with fierce joy and heavy, heavy sorrow. I dunk my goblet into the cauldron of mead, let the cool alcohol swirl around my fingers and into the cup. I lift it, mead streaming down and dripping onto the table. As I hold it high, I say, “To the glorious dead!”
The Mad Eagles roar in response and the warehouse rings with the echo of our cries.
It’s a huge metal cavern in the center of the berserker camp. They’re tucked far into a corner of the North Ice joint military base, between the airfield and the ocean, separated from the army by curling barbed wire and a small guardhouse at the gate. Tiny windows high against the warehouse roof glow with moonlight, but the metal catwalks hang with torches and oil lamps. Real fire, not the false flicker of stage lights like in the old circus feast hall. The orange light dances over chipped and abused round-shields, rows and rows of spears that line the walls, dust-covered wooden rifles, and one autocannon crouched like a wolf in the corner. The Mad Eagles have created a strange, dark home that’s half ancient, half modern here in this industrial building.
When the roar fades, I drink all that will fit into my mouth, and the berserkers pound the floor with their boots, the table with their fists. The air vibrates, my bones shake, and I let myself laugh wildly.
Then I dunk the goblet again and crash down along the table to kneel before Darius. I wrap my hands around the cup and say, “Captain Darius Strong, drink mead with me as your fallen brothers drink mead with the Alfather.”
I put it to his lips and he drinks.
One by one, I offer my cup to the berserkers. I ask for their names and repeat them back, inviting each to drink mead with me. Some murmur my name, Signy, and some Valkyrie.
Sharkman covers my hands with his and feeds alcohol back to me. Another, called Thebes, ducks bashfully but meets my eyes. He’s got a strip of burn scars distorting his face from temple down past the iron collar of Odin. Another warrior has tears in his dark blue eyes, and the oldest of them all says not my name nor my title, but calls me Nine.
I’m flushed and sweating midway through the ritual. Fire and alcohol and the fevered madness that spins under the heart of every berserker raise the temperature in the warehouse. It’s a sauna. I shed the top layer of my dress onto the floor while Darius holds Unferth’s sword, and when I take it back I leave it unsheathed. Cup in one hand, sword in the other, I use Sharkman’s shoulder to climb onto the table again. There I stand in my underdress and jewelry, Jesca’s silver and Ned’s copper rings on my fingers, and I fill the goblet again. I drink long, tossing back my head, and when I wipe my mouth with my forearm they laugh and salute. They come to me and I pick up cups and goblets and drinking horns from beside the mead cauldron, passing out full cups to every berserker. When we’ve all a drink, I lift the sword and tell them a piece of my story I’ve not told anyone.
“I was afraid,” I call, “and numb and desperate—but it did not matter because I burned, too, with rage and grief, and when I saw that herd picking their teeth with the bones of my own glorious dead, when I raised my sword—this sword—and charged, there was a great roar behind me. The roar of power, the roar of our grim god of madness and death, pushing at my back like wind, like massive black wings.”
My throat is hot, and my stomach and heart, too, tingling with alcohol and passion. The poetry tumbles out of me, fast and strong. “They were wings, though they did not grow from my back. They were your wings, every dark feather a finger of your craze, your passion. My heart spun with the Mad Eagles as you charged from the sky like my own battle wolves, to tear apart my enemies. That madness has hounded me, has lived inside me, ever since.”
They cheer.
The cry raises the hairs on my neck, and my head falls back. I shut my eyes as they yell. We drink together.
A throne-like seat is brought for me and I slouch in it, Unferth’s sword slung across the back and the goblet of mead in my hand. They tell their stories now, boasting about the trolls they killed, their visions of me, the spinning fury of the madness inside them. I hear of rending limbs, the sweet smell of troll ichor, crushed bones, and tears that streaked their faces from the hot wind of death. I learn the names of their fallen and we salute their brothers with more mead.
My head is lost in dizziness, my nose numb from drink. I eat roast pork with my fingers and stomp with them in the rhythm of our united heartbeats. I down the last drops of mead and laugh.
Here’s red-haired Marcus tugging the goblet from me and lifting me to my feet. He swings me close and spins me around, and I still laugh. I’m pulled from him into another’s arms, and then another’s, my head cloudy and the entire world spinning. Brick, with a scar cutting his tattoo apart, grabs my elbow too hard and I swing it up into his face. There’s blood in the mix now, and a frozen moment before Brick laughs outrageously and the others follow. I dance with him then, heady and wild. There are hands on my ribs and my arms, loosing my braids, and then a hot mouth against mine. I allow it, embrace it, sinking into the kiss for one brief turning of the magnificent world, and then put my hand on his cheek and push back.
It’s wicked-eyed Sharkman, one eyebrow tilted and his face still close. His shoulders slope with muscles bursting out of his black vest; he’s a head taller than me. He’d take me away right now and give me everything I desire, and there’s no hiding it on that wide, flushed face of his. He doesn’t even try to hide it. Everything the opposite of Ned.
“Valkyrie,” he whispers. I grab his face and I kiss him again.
I’m still in his arms when the sun rises.
It spills through the wide-open doors of the warehouse, where tables and benches are pushed back or turned over and so many berserkers snore, sprawled out or with heads together. My eyes ache and nausea digs spindly fingers into my stomach. From this dark corner, I spy Darius at the main table reading a book, a mug of something steaming in hand. It smells like hot chocolate and I think of Unferth.
There’s no hard, sharp pain at the thought of him, but only a sorrowful echo.
Slowly I push out from beneath Sharkman’s arm. My underdress is twisted uncomfortably and my braids a disaster, boots I have no idea where. Sharkman grumbles and I shove him off the hem of my dress. I creep to my feet.