Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s hoping 2021 is less… interesting than 2020 was.
I am in the process of moving from WP.com to DreamHost. Please excuse any weirdness associated with this (long-overdue) move. You *may* need to re-follow, if you currently follow the blog here, but I don’t yet know. This does, however, mean that there will be no chapter today as I try desperately to get everything moved.
At first light the next day, Einarr set off for the barrow field with Naudrek and Troa, leaving the others to continue their search for answers in the ruins. As they stepped out of the crumbling stone walls, Einarr saw movement off towards the horizon: one of the draugr, shambling into the forest to rest – if the abominations truly rested – for the day.
Half-starved wolves. Draugr, attacking relentlessly any foolish enough to be out after dark. Surely they had already devoured all the game animals and the livestock. The plants all seemed as sickly grey as the sky. What amazed Einarr under these circumstances was that anyone still lived here at all. “Everything about this island seems strange,” he said aloud.
Naudrek snorted. “You’re not wrong. But why do you say it now?”
“Just thinking. Everything we’ve seen here leads almost inevitably to this place being part of…
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Einarr sat crosslegged on the ground, near enough the fire that the heat pressed uncomfortably against his thigh. The tablet page appeared to give an accounting of gifts presented by Ragnar to men of the town. It seemed utterly ordinary, so he turned back to the previous page.
That spoke of a traveler who stopped by these islands and was granted hospitality in the Hold. In the dead of the night, it said, the traveler and his crew attacked the men of the hall, but were vanquished and driven off. This was less than a month before the accounting of gifts. Strange that a traveler would violate the laws of hospitality like that, but honorless dogs did exist.
Before that, there were several pages of ordinary seeming accounts, and then a near repeat of the gifts and tale Einarr had just read. Once was not unheard of. Twice in –…
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Sinmora slashed down and a draugr collapsed into a pile of bones, only to begin reassembling itself almost immediately. Troa stomped on the pile of bones and moved into the hole it left even as he took out the legs of the one behind it. Then Finn stepped forward as Troa had before.
They fought, and as they fought they crept their way forward, keeping the two most vulnerable in the center of their circle. Even as they moved forward, though, the walking dead reassembled themselves in their wake.
A bony claw clutched at Einarr’s wrist. He kicked, the sole of his boot striking the skeletal form in what would have been its nose, had it still possessed one. It stumbled backward anyway, knocked off balance by the blow. “Hrug! Tell me you have something you can do!”
The mute sorcerer grunted.
“He’s trying,” Eydri hollered, her voice sounding less…
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As then, so now. May God have mercy on us!
I was prompted to read and share this proclamation by a leader that understood God and what He wanted of a nation that was going through what America is about to face as the unrest builds in our country. Remember, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” and this applies to nations as well as individuals. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” mdc
 | Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day Washington, D.C. March 30, 1863 Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln’s son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed. |
By the President of the…
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This.
I am by my human nature a political creature. I speak this as a confession of weakness. Times like these try not only my soul (my mind, will and emotions), but my faith as well, revealing where I place my trust and hope. We Americans (and much of the rest of the world) are watching our bodies and souls being taxed by Covid 19 and all the laws and rules that governments are putting in place to keep both this disease and ourselves contained, regardless of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Speaking of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine prophetically wrote in 1776, “These are times that try men’s souls.” It’s our souls that are being tried! I just read the following this morning on a web news site:
Trump campaign fundraiser, Pamela Martin, said at a rally in Washington D.C. on Saturday, there is no doubt that…
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Einarr and Troa were out of the room before they heard Eydri’s footsteps start to catch up. Her complaints registered a moment later.
“Warn a girl before you take off like that! Whatever happened to sticking together for everything?”
Einarr and Troa muttered apologies but did not slow. The sound of fighting grew closer, but still Einarr worried they would not reach the two scouts in time. When, not much later, the ruins once again grew quiet, Einarr ran faster.
When he saw the two, though, in an open space near the edge of the ruins, they were apparently unharmed. Finn stood leaning on the hilt of his blade, and Odvir rested on a tumbled-down section of wall, both catching their breath and staring into the forest.
“What happened?” Einarr demanded just as Naudrek and Hrug pounded up behind them.
Finn, straightening as he wiped a forearm across his brow…
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Much to Naudrek’s annoyance, Einarr insisted on taking the midnight watch that night. “This is your quest, Einarr. You owe it to yourself to be fresh for it in the morning.”
“You’re right. This is my quest. But I deeply mislike the situation I’ve brought you all into, and of all of us there are three who are best equipped to deal with the minions of Hel. Me, Hrug, and Eydri. And I’m the only one who can keep my own watch.”
“But—” Naudrek tried to protest again.
“But what? Don’t tell me you’re worried I’ll try to handle too much alone?”
The other man clapped his mouth shut. Einarr shook his head, chuckling. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you first if anything happens. There will be nights enough when I’m the one sleeping the whole night.”
“…As you say.”
Now Einarr sat by the fire, polishing Sinmora’s blade while…
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It was nearly impossible to tell the passage of time in the twilight gloom of that forest canopy. Here and there they would pass near a spot where a tree had fallen, but even in those brief clearings the only sky they saw was a dull, dead grey. It was their stomachs told them it must be nearly noon, and just as they resolved to break on the road for their midday meal Troa spotted the standing stones off to the left, deeper into the forest.
Einarr sighed. “Nothing is ever easy, is it. All right, gents. Chew some jerky, then Troa, Odvir, and Finn, I need you to look for a track going off in that direction. Would have been a road when Grandfather was a boy, but she said it hadn’t been used since. Everyone else needs to limber up… and under no circumstances is anyone to lay…
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As afternoon faded into evening the last stragglers made it back to the Heidrun. Svarek had managed to acquire some cabbages and fresh fish ashore and was currently boiling them into one of his marvelous soups. Everyone looked discouraged. Everyone, that is, except for Einarr’s team and Hrug. They were merely resigned.
“I’m afraid I gave you some bad advice earlier. Had I known how poorly thought of Ragnar was when Grandfather left, I’d have come up with some other way of asking around.”
He heard a few scattered grumblings, but no-one interrupted.
“The bad news is, the only public hall in town is not a place you can – or should, I think – stay. Anyone who doesn’t come with me will have to stay on the ship.”
Svarek snorted. “Bread’s full of rocks, anyway.”
“Oh, you too?” Einarr chuckled, then sighed. “The good news is, between the…
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idahodimple 