Disclaimer: I own neither ASOIAF nor The Elder Scrolls.
Author Note: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to A Song of Sovngarde. Please remain seated at all times, and keep your hands inside the vehicle.
Hilda
The cold wind needled Hilda's bare arms, like a thousand icy pinpricks. She inhaled the frigid air until her lungs burned, blinked, and felt tears trickle slowly down her cheeks. I shouldn't cry, she thought. Tears are useless.
And yet, the tears still came, one after the other, marching cold trails down her face.
To the west, a hundred coves and inlets blanketed in grey-green moss cradled the endless western sea. Jagged mountains rose in the northeast, beyond the hilly Wolfswood, fading from grey to white as they climbed past the Wall into the frozen far north. Surrounded by ancient spruce and ironwood, enshrouded in mist, eyes clenched shut, Hilda saw neither the sea nor the mountains nor the sky, but she could feel them, hear them, as surely as she could feel the thin wool of her gown brushing against her skin, hear her heart thundering in her chest.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Death has claimed one of your blood, the sea had whispered to her the week before, as she stood upon the beach and watched the dark waves break green and white against the rocky, moss wreathed outcroppings. And death comes for you, the mountains had rumbled. The sky only ever told her to rejoice, even when black and angry, alight with blinding fury. In each of them she saw Kyne, the mother of all Nords, the master of all elements. She could feel the goddess reaching into her soul, speaking directly into her heart.
Death comes for you, she heard again. Rejoice.
The morning was cold and crisp, the wind biting, the sky grey and somber. Hilda's breath misted in the air, and as she listened for new omens, as the crows sang their mournful song, and the waves churned, more tears marched down her cheeks.
Her grandfather was dead, as had been foretold by the sea. His bones and belongings had arrived with the dawn, ferried across the Narrow Sea by her cousin and Thane, Thorfinn Deathbrand.
But that was not all she wept for; she was alone now, and though she had rarely known his counsel, her grandfather had always been there, just at the edge of her thoughts, out of sight but never entirely out of mind.
Her cousin and housecarl, Gunnar, who had returned west with Thorfinn, told her that her grandfather had killed a hundred men before one of them put a sword through his belly. He said that Old Vjorn had shouted them to death even as his innards seeped out of him, crushed them beneath the weight of his mace and the might of his thu'um. Gunther spun an equally tall tale that Vjorn was drunk on mead and still buried in a woman when the battle came, tit in one hand, mace in the other.
No matter how grand the tale, the end came the same. Her grandfather was dead. She had known it since the sea warned her, but seeing his bones made it real. He sups in the halls of Sovngarde now, she thought solemnly, as the wind twisted about her bare feet and sent her gown aflutter. Sovngarde was home to all Nords who died valiantly; the vast castle-city she ruled had been named for it.
That's why he went east, she told herself. So that he might achieve glory and spend eternity with our fallen kin in Shor's hall. Hilda had been sad, at first, when Thorfinn had brought his bones to her, but now, in the forest, as she cried beneath the uncaring gray sky, blonde tresses wisping in the wind, her sadness and frustration turned to anger, for now she would have to bear the weight of the dead and the living all alone.
So many titles, she thought. She was the Keeper of Sovngarde, the Dovahkiin, the chosen of Shor, the blessed of Kyne, the Hero-God Ysmir made flesh. Queen of all Nords, both dead and alive. The Dovahjud. She had assumed the titles when her grandfather went east seven years hence, taken her vows before the godly faces atop Seventree Hill and sworn her soul to Shor and Kyne and all the Dovakiinne of the past. She had been all of eleven, but the bone-grinding weight of duty had been shared with her grandfather. Now the pressure and responsibilities and expectations were as anvils chained to her ankles and wrists and wrapped about her neck, strangling her, crippling her, crushing her.
Damn him, she thought, taking another deep breath that swelled her chest. She scented pine in the air, felt cool earth beneath her feet. The wind rose to a piercing whistle, swept green-gold spruce and pine needles from their branches, sent them fluttering to the forest floor. A queer sound rose up out of the shadows, a low rumble like quaking stone. For a moment her breath stopped, mind leaping to the harrowing tales she had heard shared amongst her people, of draugr and daedra. They're dead and gone, she told herself, heart quickening. Or far away besides, beyond sea and ice.
She looked out into the forest. The mist stretched and coiled through the woods like ghostly fingers. Glowing yellow eyes stared at her through the fog, dozens of glittering topaz gems that shined as bright and golden as the moon. She recognized them immediately.
Gods damned wolves. Can I get no peace? There were half a dozen that she could see; all of Jorrvaskr, no doubt. Even wolves born outside the clan took up residence in their mountain holdfasts. The small pack prowled the gauzy shadows, utterly silent as they encircled her, except for the rumbling growls, low and constant.
She palmed her sword. The leather grip was cold to the touch. Her grandfather had had the blade commissioned for her shortly before her thirteenth year, after her first bleeding. It was a beautiful weapon; the long length of ice-blue steel was patterned with mesmerizing ripples and etched with ancient Nordic runes. The black gem set in its gilded pommel didn't shine so much as it absorbed light, a dark abyss fashioned into a jewel.
I have another sword now, she thought. An even greater sword, called Miraak. It had been passed down since time immemorial, before the Sons of Snow had braved the treacherous seas of the nether. Thorfinn had presented it to her, sheathed in a white lion's pelt, but she hadn't the heart to wield it, so it sat in the vaults with her grandfather's spoils of war; great chests of gold and silver, jewels and gems, diamonds, pearls, finery, tapestries, weapons, dozens of spices, and half a hundred other things, from bolts of cloth to egregiously bejeweled boots. Thorfinn had brought back her grandfather's women as well, little more than bedwarmers, the lot of them. And all with child. I would send them back east elsewise. Grandmother will not approve.
They would be her aunts and uncles, those children, and they would never truly know their father, save through her, until they died themselves. Her grief slithered back, slowly, tinged with a sort of hopeless despair. Her lips trembled.
"Leave me to my sorrow," she commanded the wolves, seizing the annoyance their presence wrought, using it to stifle her mounting dolor. At the sound of her voice, a stillness fell over them; their breath rose to join the fog, mixing in the chill air. The largest of them, a broad-shouldered, copper furred she-wolf, crept closer.
"Leave," Hilda said again, scowling. "You need not know my wrath on this day." If her breath hitched, the wolves gave no indication that they had heard. But they did not move.
Hilda pulled her sword free and the steel sang. "Hircine could always use more beasts for his hunts," she threatened. "Perhaps I should send you to him."
The she-wolf crept closer, head bent low. Her shoulders reached as high as Hilda's chest, and her teeth were like curved daggers. Her claws could rip through flesh and bone with ease.
She was a fearsome beast true, but not so fearsome as Hilda. The young queen bared her teeth and raised her blade as if to swing. The tip caught on a lone beam of light, glimmered; the she-wolf, a killer of men and beasts alike, rolled to her back and let out a long keening whine.
Hilda dropped her sword arm and huffed. "Fine, Maela. You may stay. The rest of you leave. Now."
Sulking, whining, snapping at each others heels, the pack left her, fading into the mist like ghosts. Hilda waited until the dark shapes were completely gone before she spoke.
"Jarl Wulfgar sent you?"
For a long moment, the only sound was shifting bone. Hilda watched the beast shift and shrink, fur shedding, bones snapping, melding, reshaping beneath the skin. The wicked claws melted into fingers. It had been fascinating, once upon a time, to watch a wolf transform, but Hilda had long since lost the girlish delight she once felt at witnessing the ancient magic. It was almost rote, now.
"No," answered Maela Jorrvaskr, when the change was done. Hilda was tall, but even she had to look up at Maela. The warrior-woman had strong, almost masculine features, but her lips were plump, and the curves of her well muscled body left little doubt as to her femininity. "I came of my own volition, as soon as I heard about Vjorn."
Maela dipped her head in respect, then stepped closer to Hilda, the mist clinging to her naked form. Her thick red mane hung down her back, riddled with pine needles and bits of bark, and her pale skin was patterned with winding tattoos from her shoulders to her feet.
She opened her mouth. "Have you-"
"No, not yet," Hilda said, already knowing what Maela was about to ask. "I would properly mourn his life before I seek him out in death. Though I hardly knew him."
Maela frowned. "Your grandfather loved you more than you could ever know."
"Then why has he abandoned me when I need him most?" His wisdom, his sword. His name, and the history behind it. I need them all. Especially now.
"He did not abandon you, my lady." The sun peeked out from the grey cover of clouds that dominated the sky; rays of light trickled through the trees, painting the brown earth in streaks of gold. "He sups in Sovngarde now. His counsel is yours, until-"
"Until I walk the halls of Sovngarde myself. I know, Maela. I'm the Keeper, now. The only Keeper. I know. Even now I can feel him. He sits with the gods, sups at their table, with his kinsmen and his ancestors. He is... happy."
"Then go and see him," Maela urged. "There is no need to mourn him. Celebrate him instead, for the great life he lived and the glorious death he sought. Eternity is his now. Rejoice."
She does not understand, Hilda thought, even as her spine tingled at the reminder of Kyne's words. None of them do. Not her, not mother… Sovngarde was all her people seemed to care for, save for the wolves: Upon death, they were claimed by Hircine, Lord of the Hunt.
Nords lived and loved and died to reach Shor's Hall, to live amongst their ancestors and kinsmen, drinking and fighting their way through eternity. But life is more than death. Hilda wanted more than that. Needed more than that. She preferred the castle Sovngarde in the living realm, as opposed to the great hall of death that her seat had been named after.
She wondered what Helsif would say, to see her weeping, and as if a door had been closed, her tears ceased.
"He is of little use to me in Sovngarde," she said. "We live in the realm of men, not spirits. The northern and southron lords cannot reach him in Sovngarde. They respected him, respected his word, his sword-"
"His blood," said Maela. "You are of his blood."
Hilda nodded. "That and more. We share a soul."
"Then why do you weep? I watched the Hagraven pull you from your mother's womb. Saw the high priests bless you. I have known you since your first breath. Never once have I seen you cry."
Hilda pushed her thick golden braids over her shoulder and started to pace, back and forth, back and forth. Her grandfather had worn his hair like hers, braided and wrapped in strips of leather, in the Nordic tradition. It was another reminder of what she had lost, and what she yet stood to lose.
"Magnus sent word from King's Landing," she began. "The king's Hand is dead, and the king himself rides north for Winterfell as we speak, presumably to appoint our liege as his new Hand." She felt a twinge of pain in her palms, and only just realized how tightly she was clenching her fists. "He means to take Wulfric hostage."
Maela loosed a rumbling growl, fingers lengthening into claws, teeth growing into fangs. "I won't allow it," she ground out, voice deep and guttural. "I will rip him to pieces if he tries, and feast on his fat, kingly flesh."
The decision isn't yours to make. "You won't ask why he wants Wulfric as a hostage?"
Maela shook her head. "It does not matter. He cannot have him." Doubt crept into her amber eyes. "Right?"
Hilda wished it were that easy. "Thorunn wed Daenarys Targaryen," she said. "The Mad King's daughter. Thorfinn suspects that he has pledged his men to help Viserys Targaryen claim his birthright, the very throne that Robert Baratheon sits. A throne that we helped sit him on."
Maela dropped her head. "Aye, I know, I was there. I fought alongside your father. Stood with him, when he died."
Hilda smiled. Her mother had told her the story dozens of times, of how her father had fallen against the white knight, Ser Barristan the Bold, on the banks of the Ruby Ford. Ser Barristan had been half dead himself after their clash, but Robert Baratheon had ordered his wounds cleaned and sutured, and had maesters nurse him back to health.
"And I thank you for that, Maela. I always have and I always will." She leaned against a crooked ironwood, the bark still damp with morning frost, and her smiled turned melancholic. "Thorunn has warred his entire life. He was weaned on war; it is all he has ever known or desired. He yearns for it as a hungry babe yearns for mother's milk." She looked down at her hands, as if she might find enlightenment in the lines of her palms. "I imagine he's somewhere fighting now; a pitched battle against sellswords, a tavern brawl, in a of the slavers' arenas."
Maela almost snarled. "And knowing the sort of man Thorunn is, you still mean to send Wulfric south. To let him be taken. Your brother."
Hilda swallowed her own anger, but just barely. She had near as raised Wulfric herself, for all that she was only a few years older. "For now. I can do little else."
Maela was silent for a very long while. "And what of Thorunn?" she asked finally, almost painfully. Thorunn, like her, was of Clan Jorrvaskr, though he had spent most of his life in the far east. They were blood kin, and no Nord would ever wish ill on their own blood. But still, Maela asked, "Will you perform the Sacrament?"
Hilda was reluctant to use the Black Hand against her own people, but she could not ignore the danger Thorunn represented. She had to keep Wulfric safe as best she could. "If no other option presents itself."
"You will find another way. You're a clever girl, and tenacious. You've your mother's wit."
"Thorunn cares nothing for my wit. He only respects strength."
"Aye, he does. But you have that too."
"Only just. My grandfather could have stopped him. Curbed his stupidity, or his lust, whichever led him to wed the Targaryen girl. King Robert trusted my grandfather. Loved him. Even if Vjorn couldn't have stopped Thorunn, he could have dissuaded the king from taking Wulfric, reassured him, something. King Robert has neither trust nor love for me, for all that my father died for him. If Thorunn makes an attempt for the throne my brother will die." She looked towards the heavens as the wind picked up. A lonely howl reached her ears. "Now do you see how my grandfather abandoned me? He couldn't have died at a worse time."
"If King Robert kills Wulfric, he and his won't be long for this world," Maela promised. "Every Nord would take up arms, old and young alike. We would burn this land to ash."
Some of it, Hilda thought. But not all. Westeros is too large. "You asked why I weep? I weep because I am afraid. Because I am angry, and frustrated, and alone. Because I don't know what to do, or where to turn. My people know war. We know death. But for the two centuries we've lived here, for the families we've wed and the seas we've explored, we are still strangers to this land. Outsiders, to all the lords below the Neck. A war with the crown would spell our demise. Thorunn must know this."
"He knows that with our full strength, and his full strength, we could carve ourselves a great portion of this land. The North, the Iron Islands, the West... all could be ours. Call upon the Blood Flower, and the rangers, and all the Nords who went south. You need not fear a war against the throne."
"I would rather stop war, not encourage it."
Maela scoffed. "We are Nords. We aren't meant to stop wars. We are meant to end them."
Hilda said nothing to that, standing quietly for several breaths before she turned away to start the long, familiar trek back to Sovngarde.
The trail twisted for a little over a mile through dense woods and sparse, wet meadows, out into the misty, moss covered bog. There the trail died and the road began. Maela shifted back to her wolf form and trotted behind her, padding silently through the undergrowth. Hilda heard the other wolves return, heard their yips and snarls, but they kept to the trees; she was equally irked and touched by their devotion, and glad for their discretion. There was no telling who they might happen upon on the road; a single massive wolf was one thing, but a whole pack? There would be a panic.
The bog soil was moist and spongy, and she had to step lightly lest she sink into the muck, until she reached the solid road. She saw what looked like moose tracks cutting across the trail. Two of the wolves stopped to sniff at the them, then took off deeper into the woods.
The road was wide, pitched in places and cobbled in others, with ditches dug along the sides for rainwater, markers for distance, and bridges that arced over the more treacherous stretches of the bogs where the soil was too soft to tread. It stretched east for over a hundred leagues, dotted here and there with small villages and hamlets, cutting through the Wolfswood and all the way to Winterfell.
And there, looming beyond the humped bogs, half shrouded in mist, was the mighty Sovngarde. It looked like nothing so much as a mountain from this distance, veiled as it was by thick fog.
She wondered, as she walked towards the distant fortress, if her grandmother might want to visit her brother and nephews at the Rills, and if her mother would return now from Dawnfort, in the far North. Wulfric would want to see her, she knew. No doubt he had heard by now what the king had demanded of him. The Hrothgar would have told him at the first opportunity.
Every hour or so, she came upon a rumbling wagon or wayn as it made its way down the road. Traders and merchants traveled absent guards on the Blackstone Road, for even before the roads had been built, Hilda's five times great grandfather, Thorvard the Mighty - who had wed Sarra Stark and sired Helga the Heavenly, the third Dovahkiin to rule Sovngarde - had tasked his warriors with regularly patrolling the lands as far east as the western fork of the White Knife.
The travelers, as she came upon them, called out blessings and prayers, for her, her father, and her grandfather. They forced gifts upon her, as it was considered a bad omen amongst Nords, traders and merchants especially, to not share their wares with the Dovahkiin. It was considered an even worse omen for the Dovahkiin to reject them.
She received a lovely tan mare from the first merchant she came across, a tall, well-wrinkled woman with stark white hair named Agatha. She refused to let Hilda walk barefoot all the way to Sovngarde, and berated Maela for not offering her own back to ride.
"Shor's beard!" the woman had exclaimed upon recognizing Hilda. "Dovahjud, you mustn't ruin those lovely feet of yours on this hard earth! And you, wolf! What use are you, eh? A shame to the Jorrvaskr name! Lord Markus should have you shaved. Take one of my horses, Dovahjud, please; I would be honored for you to ride her."
The second merchant gave her a beautiful shadowskin cloak, a deep black that was slashed with white; he was a ranger too, for she saw woven over his heart the face of Kyne. He scolded her for being out in the cold with little more than a sleeping gown.
"We Nords were born of the ice, it is true," he had said, his beard so thick that Hilda could hardly see his mouth move, "but that is no excuse to be out in your undergarments, Dovahkiin!"
The third merchant, another woman, heavy-set and almost as tall as Maela, gave her a thick, long-sleeved wool gown and a skin of sparkling wine; the fourth, a man in fox and ferret furs, cooked her a much needed meal of grilled leeks and cabbage, mutton, fried potatoes, and shrimp paste on hard bread. They washed down the meal with honeyed mead. The fifth gave her a silver brooch to fasten her cloak, and a ring with a beautifully cut garnet; the sixth, who rode with her two young sons, gave her a pair of sturdy boots to better spur her horse, but only after cleaning her feet and making her a rasher of whale bacon. She thanked each of them, genuinely, prayed with them and for them, blessed the woman's sons, and all the while the sun continued its slow journey through the eastern sky.
With the horse beneath her, who she decided to call Qonos, which meant lightning strike in Dov, she made much better time back to the castle-city. Maela seemed to enjoy the opportunity to run.
A few of the travelers Hilda came across weren't Nords though; she could smell their fear when they looked upon Maela, who, on four legs, looked like nothing so much as a direwolf with the musculature of a bear.
The fog was starting to clear. Beyond the wetlands and barry farms, Sovngarde thrust up out of the thinning brume. The castle had been built on the southern arm of Sea Dragon Point, atop ancient First Men ruins. The city spread neatly over a vast tract of land, in the center of which was a high hill crested by seven ancient weirwoods, left untouched after the Carving.
The Nords called it "Seventree Hill"; back during the reign of Ragnar Redbeard, a great hero and the son of the first Dovahkiin to rule, carpenters had carved the Nordic Gods into the bone white boles above the solemn faces of the northern Gods, only to watch them weep blood.
Thinking them some strange, northern magic, Ragnar had wanted the trees burned out root and stem, but a Northman showed him that the blood was only sap, and the wood was valuable, for it never rotted. After learning this, Ragnar cut down all but seven of the trees, and used the wood to fashion rafters, furniture, and weapons. His seven foot longbow still hung in Sovngarde's great hall, beneath rafters fashioned from the same trees.
The massive walls of Sovngarde, all black granite and as tall as spruce trees, rose out of the earth and stretched for a mile in either direction, with towers that were spaced every few hundred or so yards. Hilda smiled as the city came fully into view, for she cherished her people as much as they cherished her, despite the burden of her responsibilities. The din of the city was as a siren's song, calming her nerves and settling her thoughts. She smiled, almost overcome with love.
She knew, suddenly, exactly what she would do, how she would placate the king, how she would curb Thorunn's aggression. Nearer the city, she heard wrens and warblers chirping almost frantically, and Maela, sensing her changed mood, loped closer and yipped at her like some wet-behind-the-ears pup. Beneath the midday sun, the city seemed to glow, and even Qonos was unbothered by the massive wolf trotting at her side.
The smooth outer wall branched out from the barbican, with its turreted corners and dragon's head crenellations. Behind the stout structure was the city proper, whose tallest towers and buildings seemed as if to disappear into the heavens, standing proudly above a second inner wall that was even taller than the first. All the towers were crested with black iron, and black dragon banners rippled above the conical spires.
The portcullis, so wide that forty horseman abreast could comfortably ride through, was made of latticed steel. Two monstrous moats surrounded both the outer and inner city walls; each moat was several dozen feet deep and wide and lined with smooth round stones. Hilda saw otters knifing through the scum choked waters as she crossed the red oak bridge into the barbican. There was a loud splash; Hilda looked back and saw one of Maela's wolves frolicking in the water, chasing after them.
Sovngarde, she had heard spoken, was the grandest castle in all of the north, grander even then Harrenhal, some whispered, for the great builders who had sculpted the castle had put their souls into the stone and made it living, to be shaped as easily as clay, and giants and mammoths had set the living stone, stacked its mountainous walls and dizzying towers. It stretched across several thousand acres; if not the grandest castle, Hilda thought, it was certainly the grandest city. According to the many travelers who visited Sovngarde, only King's Landing and Oldtown were more populous.
The citizens and soldiers milling about at the main gate all bowed as she passed, giving blessings and condolences, and one of them asked if she might see fit to take a message to his dead kinsmen.
"Write down your message," she told him, and all the rest who might have been afraid to ask, already feeling the headache that would come when she ventured to Shor's Hall, "and the name of who you wish to receive it, and leave it for me at the temple."
The portcullis rattled and clanked its way shut; she continued across the second, longer bridge, and into Sovngarde, pushing Qonos into a gallop.
She had messages to send, and dead souls to visit.
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