“I have missed you, too, little one,” Hrung said. “It has been dull without you.” He licked his lips. “And dry.”
Elvar poured some more mead on to Hrung’s tongue and his throat rumbled his pleasure.
“Ah, but the years have been parched and empty since you left. Not a day has passed since then that I haven’t wished Jarl St?rr and Silrie had left me dead in Snaka’s throat.”
“I remember the day you were hoisted from the fjord,” Elvar said, though she had only seen three winters, then. She had been sitting upon Grend’s shoulders, down on one of the harbour piers. “I thought you looked sad. There was red algae covering your eyes and cheeks. It made you look as if you had wept blood.”
“Perhaps I had,” Hrung said. “It is no pleasant thing, being swallowed by a serpent-god and having your head bitten clean from your body. Worse still that a small fragment of Snaka’s dying power seeped into me and condemned me to life when I would rather rest in death with my giant-kin. As bad as this life can be, though, it is better than the three hundred years I spent sitting in the deep fjord, only Snaka’s fangs and fish to count.” His eyes took her in, lingering on the troll tusk and rings draped about her. He took a deep breath through his large nostrils, strong enough to stir Elvar’s braided hair.
“You have found what you sought, then,” he said. “You reek of battle-fame and great deeds.”
Elvar shrugged.
“And you have not managed to rid yourself of old loose-lips,” Hrung said, his cloudy eyes shifting to Grend. The old warrior just stared flatly at the giant.
The sound of voices echoed in the corridor beyond the mead hall, the slap of many feet on timber.
Gytha has told my father of my presence here, then.
“I would stay longer, but my father is coming to spoil our reunion,” she said.
“Ask your question, then,” Hrung said.
“Is it so obvious?” Elvar said.
Hrung chuckled, a sound that vibrated through Elvar’s chest. “As much as you like my company, I think need has driven you to me. Ask, little one,” he said.
“My father has bid me return to Snakavik, to stand at his side. He has offered me warriors, a warband. Everything that I wanted.”
Hrung’s head shifted, severed muscles in his neck contracting. A nod.
“This is known,” he said, “but that is no question.”
“My question is: Should I take his offer?”
Gytha appeared at the mead hall’s entrance, gesturing for Elvar to leave.
Hrung stared at Elvar, his opaque eyes swirling like storm clouds.
“I have to go,” Elvar said.
“Silent and thoughtful and bold in strife, the jarl’s bairn should be,” Hrung intoned.
Elvar frowned. “Silent, thoughtful, bold, I strive to be those things,” Elvar said. “But that does not answer my question. When to be bold, that is at the heart of my question. Are my father’s words strife? Is that what you are saying? Or, should I be bold in the battle for Vigrie and join my father as he moves against Queen Helka?”
Hrung was silent, only the clouds in his eyes moving.
Voices in the corridor.
“Please,” Elvar hissed. “Give me a straight answer, just once.”
Hrung’s mouth twisted in a grin. “That is not my way, little one,” he said. “Blame old Snaka, he made me and my giant-kin with a love for words and riddles. You must sift through my gift to you and find the gold in it.”
“A riddle, then, anything,” Elvar said, her eyes flickering between Hrung and the doorway.
“To answer your question, I will ask you another. Can the sun be cold, or the sea be dry, or the wolf become a lamb?”
Grend growled in his throat. “What use is a talking head, if it only ever spouts shite?”
Hrung’s eyes fixed on to Grend.
“Eyes are for seeing, ears for hearing, and a thought-cage for understanding. Unless your thought-cage is already stuffed full of straw, such as yours, Grend the Talker,” Hrung rumbled.
Grend’s eyes narrowed, his hand moving to the axe at his belt.
“What are you going to do, offended warrior, cut off my head?” Hrung laughed, the sound echoing, filling the hall.
Elvar laughed too as she tipped the rest of the mead on to Hrung’s tongue, then turned and ran, Grend following her. She flew through the doors, past Gytha and out into the sunset as the shadow of her father filled the corridor behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
VARG