When they came at last to the roof of Asaheim, above the great cliffs, Valmar heard gasps from the einherjar behind him - and those were not men easily surprised.
"I had thought it would be a wasteland," Hasa admitted.
"Of course not," Leif scoffed. He was an old godhi now, and often played the part. "Asaheim is full of monsters, everyone knows this. But monsters have to eat something, do they not?"
The hanging valley was covered in forest, with barely a place to stand that was not green. It was lush, and though further up it grew low it continued up to the shoulders of the great peaks. Atop the peaks, though, the ice was eternal, even now in the peak of summer.
Valmar had known, of course - had suspected, from the pattern of the rain, even before they had left Unaeslan, and had known ever since that flight atop Arnir.
"So, then," Jorin said, walking forward. "We'll have food, and space where we can farm. What next?"
Valmar looked at the landscape around them, trying to see through the trees to find the shape of the land. "We will make camp here," he said. "And then..."
He stopped, thinking about how to articulate his vision. He did not have the context for it, not truly.
How big could a settlement be, if not constrained by the tyranny of land-death?
What of the empire that such a settlement could rule?
"We will make camp here," he said. "But it is over there - " he pointed inward, to a point where the valley diverged - "at the juncture of the rivers, where we will build a sanctuary. There we will stand, and what we create will remain until the ending of the world. A center for all craft, and for trade, in due time; a place where water will run through stone houses, and from which roads will stretch to every corner of Asaheim. I do not doubt that some of us will continue to wander. I will, that is certain. But here, we and our sons, and their sons, can begin to build the work of generations." He paused, and the Russ roared.
He had received many epithets over the years. Few had stuck. But now the cries quickly settled into a pattern.
"Sky King! Sky King! Sky King!"
It bordered on blasphemy. But Valmar made no attempt to stop it. The skalds sang of his exploits, of the beasts he killed and the ones he befriended, of the armies he killed and the armies he led. He did not care much.
This, though? This was what he wanted to be remembered for. This would be his true legacy.
A few moments later, the ice troll attacked.
It stumbled out of the trees, using one as a club, and Valmar barely blocked its blow with his hammer. But the clash of wood and metal went badly for the former, and the improvised club shattered. The ice troll tried to push Valmar off the cliff regardless, Valmar barely manging to beat it back, and as he shattered its skull at last he slipped, almost falling to the sea but grabbing onto the rock face and pulling himself back up. Arnir returned from his circling, giving no sign of whether he would have saved Valmar or not, had he fallen.
That set the tone for the following weeks, which were not easy even for Valmar. The Russ learned of the sleetwood around them, of what could be safely gathered and what could not, largely by trial and error. At every step they were beset by insects, and sometimes by bigger things. But cursing and struggling as they did, the Russ learned how to survive, and fight back. The walls of their sanctuary, which Valmar named Thengirik, were erected within a day, and reinforced so much that they held, even against the animals of Asaheim.
The wolves were aggressive here, but after the first pack was beaten back, Valmar convinced the others to leave Thengirik alone. The mastodons and the lesser bears, he also convinced to stay back. No doubt, the weapons of the Russ - the best on Fenris - contributed to that success. Many animals wandered into Thengirik, but none came out.
And the land really was fertile enough, if only in the lower reaches; and past a certain point it got easier, Asaheim seeming to accept them, though in truth Valmar supposed it was they who had learned its ways. And before they knew it, Valmar and Jorin and Geri and Hral were standing on the southern ridge of Asfryk and gazing down at the sanctuaries - the cities - of Torerik and Vulfik to either side of them. They were barely populated - for on Asaheim the great problem of Fenris was inverted. There was plenty of land, but too few people to work it. Roads snaked across the landscape, though it was even now untamed, in the main, and would forever remain so. Outside the fortified fields, even Valmar trod carefully, and he would not dare to try to clear land that could not be defended. And besides, men needed the wild, too, not only wolves, even if that wild sometimes killed them both.
"So," Jorin said, "I suppose I should ask the question again, Valmar, as I did when we came here. What next?"
"We could remain here," Valmar said thoughtfully. "Merely live, and laugh, and dance, and drink. But such is not the wyrd of men like me and you." He paused. "There is only one thing left to do, Jorin. Asaheim stands ready, but half-empty. We will fill it."
"With slaves?" Jorin asked.
"No," Valmar said, "of course not. The sanctuary cities are a gift, and they will not be for the Russ alone, though the Russ will always be first." He watched the circling of Arnir as he spoke, the drake munching on an elk it had found somewhere in the mountains.
"You mean to unite Fenris," Jorin said.
"Of course," Valmar said. "To weld the tribes into a single realm, without destroying them in the process. It is the only thing left, and so it is what I must do, soon. But for now... Watch the wolves, would you?"
And the wolves would watch Jorin.
Valmar, Sky King of the Russ, jumped from a running start, seeing Arnir's flight. The drake responded to his call, and then he was gripping its back, the wind rushing past, and flying, once more, southwards, towards the sea.