Tonight’s feast was to be the sole moment of gathering before the warband ventured forth to assail the peaks. There was no disguising the ruin of the longhouse’s back wall, so Kvedulf had chosen to have a new throne placed squarely amidst the fallen beams.

The chair was roughly built, hewn together with deliberate crudeness, a mighty seat that could have accommodated Aurnir. In the ruddy firelight, the night sky visible through the wreckage behind and above, it took on a more symbolic meaning, one that steeled those gathered and united them in their resolve.

Tables had been righted. Benches mended. Thralls had labored long and hard to prepare a feast, and now they brought it to set before the warriors. Dried and smoked mutton were laid out on the boards along with trenchers of rabbit stew and slabs of grilled beef. Fresh-baked bread was cracked open to exhale breaths of savory steam, while crocks of fresh butter were at hand to drown it all in. Herring, dried cod, bowls of soup, and endless horns of warm mead to wash it all down with were served, so much food that Skadi couldn’t help but wonder if there would be anything left in the stores.

Perhaps Kvedulf was uncertain of his return and thus sought to eat everything they had before they died.

Anarr the skald played vigorously on his lyre, sending forth rapid swirls of liquid notes at an infectious rhythm, so that the hird and common warriors raised their voices to shout over the music, to laugh and thump the table, to boast of what they would do to Queen Grýla and her trolls.

Skadi sat at her uncle’s table, perpendicular to the other two, set before the throne. Rannveyg flanked Kvedulf’s far side, while Hwideberg and Marbjörn filled out the rest. Some seventy men and women filled out the rest of the tables, and the central fires and torches along the walls filled the great hall with heat and smoke.

But not much. The draft from the ruined end made the flames stream and kept the air uncommonly clear. Food cooled quickly, and only the boldest of warriors sat without their mantles and cloaks.

Kvedulf had proven surly company, and Skadi wished she could be eating with Glámr and Yri at the foot of one table, where they’d been invited to feast for their role in the giant’s death. Instead, she smiled and ate heartily, drank a full horn of mead but no more, and sought to imprint the moment in her memory, lest the days ahead should prove dark and terrible.

The time might come when she’d return to this night for solace.

Kvedulf gestured, and Anarr struck a bright note, loud and clear, drawing everyone’s attention.

The jarl stood. “Tonight we feast, but we do not celebrate. There can be no celebrating while our kin are held prisoner by Queen Grýla. Come dawn tomorrow, however, the bravest and boldest of Kráka shall sally forth to right that wrong.”

Cheers and pounding on the table.

“There is one here however who already deserves be recognized for her bravery. Were it not for Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir, we warriors would have come home to a grim welcome. A frost jotunn awaiting us at the dock with a complement of trolls instead of the faces we hold so dear.”

Murmurs of appreciation, and the whole hall seemed to stare at her. The torches glimmered in the gloom, and Skadi stared straight ahead.

“Anarr, my skald, was not here to witness the events, so cannot do them justice as he might wish. That is why instead Skadi shall rise and relate the tale. It is not every day that a jotunn is felled by a maiden, and this deed deserves to be heard. Rise, Skadi. Tell us what happened. Anarr shall accompany you on the lyre, and together you shall make a bright weaving of this deed.”

Applause and shouts of encouragement.

Skadi rose. Never had she addressed such a host, though often she’d sat in her father’s hall, listening to other heroes recount their accomplishments.

She knew from experience to wait for complete silence.

The voices and cheers died away, until at last only the crackle of the flames could be heard.

“It began with shouting,” she said, pitching her voice to carry. “Cries of alarm and fear. Glámr and I seized our weapons and raced to the Raven’s Gate, from where the sound of battle had begun. And the first thing I saw upon arriving was the giant.”

She was no skald, but the experience was so fresh in her mind, the images so clearly hewn into her memory, and Anarr’s accompaniment so sublime, that she held the entire great hall captivated. She told of the battle at the gate. Ragnarr’s agreement to surrender. How she and Glámr fled to the völva’s temple—but she left out her encounter with the wood spirit. The battle at the gods’ gate, her vision from Freyja, the gold chain Seimur, the poisoning of the chwisgi.

“She poisoned the chwisgi?” Hwideberg’s anguish was startled and raw. “No!”

Laughter, and the massive old man flushed in anger.

“I feel your pain,” said Skadi. “Before we poured many pitchers of poison into it, we three had a cup each. And it was…”

She paused, and it seemed the whole hall leaned forward, eyebrows raised.

“There is a reason the people of Unigedd call it the breath of life,” said Skadi with a smile. “I can’t describe it. But we all lamented when Ásfríðr poured in the hemlock.”

The sixty warriors sat back with a sigh, and Hwideberg shook his head disconsolately.

Then the return to Kráka, the giant in this very hall. She turned and sketched the giant out where he had sat, painted him vast and fell against the back, and how she’d convinced him to drink the poison.

How she and Glámr had met with Yri outside, climbed to the smoke hole, and there begun their attack.

Anarr’s music became vivid, fast-paced, and Skadi did her best to describe the blows. How she had leaped. Been thrown away, to hit that very tapestry there—see the cut, where Natthrafn had sliced it in two? The arrows loosed, the trolls roaring, Seimur falling upon the maul, the giant’s confusion when he couldn’t raise it.

How he’d stood and burst his way free. How Yri and Glámr both had dealt it grievous blows before being swept through the air, and then she lied and said she’d thought them dead.

The warriors looked at the pair of them at the table’s end with marveling glances, and Skadi saw Glámr compose his face so that it was like stone, even as Yri flushed bright red and sought to do the same.

The final moments of the battle. How she’d tied Natthrafn to a pole with her belt, how the giant had lunged at her, the fateful throw!

How her spear had flown true, how the giant had fallen, and how the trolls had then fled in terror.

When her lost words were spoken Anarr played a sorrowful, almost mournful series of notes, which he then disrupted with a riotous eruption of celebratory music, much as a hand may dash an image from a pond.

The warriors leaped to their feet and roared their approval.

Skadi inclined her head and sat.

Kvedulf clapped and nodded his head in agreement with the furor, but his eyes shone with a cold light. When finally the cheering died down, he stood.

“Kráka is proud of its heroes, and I, your jarl, even more so. Yri Alfwerdottir and Glámr Half-Troll, approach.”

Both stood, rounded the table, and walked up beside the fire pits to stand before the jarl.

“You fought bravely against a monstrous foe. You have my love and my thanks.” And the jarl pulled two silver arm rings from his bulging biceps and handed them to each.

Both bowed low, murmured their thanks in turn, and then returned to their seats as the warriors roared once more.

They loved nothing more than to see gold and silver given to worthy warriors by their jarl.

“Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir,” said Kvedulf, turning to her. “It was you who struck the killing blow. It was you whom the Honorable Lady Freyja blessed with the treasure Seimur. Your tale is one for the ages. May our children’s children’s children speak of your name with as much pride and awe as your jarl does. Your father would be most proud.”

It was this last that brought tears to her eyes.

Kvedulf pulled a massive golden arm ring free and offered it to her. It was beautiful, two bands of gold intertwined and ending at two wolfs’ heads that snarled at each other across the gap.

Skadi extended her arm, and he slipped it up over her bicep, and there bent the metal so that it hugged her close.

“To celebrate this moment we shall not toast with ale, nor even white mead. No, it shall be wine from Nearós Ílios that we shall drink, one and all!”

Shouts of excitement greeted this call, and thralls, readied for this moment, stepped forth with great, full-bellied jars to pour wine as red as heart’s blood into fresh cups. Skadi raised hers to take its scent, and the dark liquid proved rich with fruits and darker aromas she couldn’t place.

“Skadi Giantslayer!” roared Kvedulf, and the hall erupted once more, warriors leaping to their feet and pounding on the boards.

Skadi lifted her cup and downed it in one pull to their universal approval.

They sat, Anarr playing a lively rhythm once more, and thralls hurried forth to refill horns, serve more food, and clear away dishes.

Kvedulf’s smile fled like smoke before the wind. He stared out over his hall, near to glowering, then rose with horn in hand and moved back to his throne, rising up on the makeshift dais to slouch back and watch as the festivities continued.

But they were short-lived. The cold was vicious, and all present were aware that come dawn they would march into the mountains. Soon the older members of the hird began to retire, leaving the youngest men to drink and arm wrestle and boast.

Skadi smirked.

She knew which group would be head sore and sick in the morning.

Rising to her feet, she approached her uncle and bowed her head. “Thank you for the honors you did me, jarl. I will step away now to prepare for the morning.”

“Go in peace, Skadi.” Kvedulf studied her briefly then looked to the hall once more. “And pray that your wyrd prove as strong in the days to come.”

Skadi took a step backwards, then walked down the length of the hall. It took some time; everybody wanted to congratulate her, tell her how they would have helped if they’d been there, to ask questions, to offer her a horn of mead.

But eventually, she extricated herself and found Glámr and Yri waiting.