Chapter two
A new landscape.
At first all is black. All too soon, the two warriors, unlikely companions to a journey through the nine realms, are able to figure the itinerary which the misshapen portal is taking. The Vanir would like to go home. The Jotun is happy with any realm as long as it is not Asgard.
Yggdrasil Express does not offer many options.
Niflheimr is colder than Jotunheimr and belongs to Hela. A private hell for … Hell. Not really the place to visit when one is a Vanir with a song on his lips. Muspellsheimr is the great fire where Black Surtur dwells. These two realms are not welcoming to gods, giants frosted or not; not welcoming at all to men and elves alike.
Asgard and Vanaheimr hail of Gods abodes. Aesir are gods… so they say. Vanaheimr has no gods. But one and only Goddess. Aesirs and Jotuns do not approve of this flight of fancy. Elves and dwarves could not care less. Mind you, Vanaheimr is populated by rebels who refuse to be gods since gods cannot lose war and Odin won. If they want to worship a female, it is their problem!
The losers who are not gods are elusive to woo. Odin has opened the doors of his golden city hoping to see it flocked by admiring, vanquished and subdued Vanirs. Vanirs do not attack anymore… Vanirs ignore Asgard. Vanirs, true gods who pretend to live like men, who pretend to be simple, mortal men, achieve what Odin cannot despite being the winner. Vanaheimr lives in peace. Unlike Asgard always worried about a new outbreak of war.
Asgard might like to put its hands on the two travellers but the portal does not stop. Heimdall all but sees a flash and wonders if a comet has not blinded him for a few instants…
Sadly for the Vanir traveller, the portal does not stop to let him walk back home. The portal ignores Vanaheimr.
Could it be Midgard? No, then as it cannot be Jotunheimr they left, it must be Alfheimr? Because the options are getting dire: just one more stop. After that, it is Hel which it signifies that the portal was so broken they must have died during the journey or it is….
Shit.
Svartalfaheimr. Land of the dark elves; realm of dwarves. Trolls country…
Shit. Shit. Shit!
It means they are still alive. It means that the Jotun is going to be exposed to unbearable warmth and shiny suns; it means they are in danger to be held at ransom. Both of them.
Laufey refused an alliance against Odin because the Jotun wanted the glory to have crushed Asgard's finest to be his and his only. Njord, Great Khan to the Vanirs has taken to his horse and shamed by his defeat rode away never to be seen again. The council of viziers which rules in his absence says they cannot commit until the Khan comes back.
In truth, the Jotuns fight on their own and the Vanirs play at hide and seek. While the Dark Elves mop for a united front against Odin. In short, a lost Vanir and a lost Jotun are at risk of paying with their dear lives the flat refusal of their leaders to fight Odin along the dark elves.
The Jotuns are reluctant to call friend elves all too keen to be cowards on the battlefields. As for Vanirs, the freemen refuse to enter into what looks like an allegiance with their leader Malekith the Accursed. The ex-gods have their dignity. A courageous Jotun and his stubborn Vanir companion will pay for such disregard of Lord Malekith.
All of this is worrying and the light is blinding. Blinding and wet. Wet. Wet! Wet?
The Jotun covers his eyes from the suns which shine through the thick green foliage. This explains the light but why wet? The skies are calm and are not promising monsoon. Yet again, a raindrop again and again falls on his blue-skinned face.
Finally! His Highness is waking up. By Njord the Great, I was going to worry I would have to…
A vice grip seizes the Vanir's neck and pushes it away. The Jotun, finally rid of his over-talkative companion takes a disinterested look at the surroundings. A tropical forest. Svartalfaheimr, it is.
Give me your map
Which map?
The map.
The Jotun is angry. Yet it speaks like a great cat purrs. Until it jumps on you and kills.
Give me the map… the portals map.
The Vanir seems disinclined to obey. Rather he digs in his backpack, in his pockets.
Err… it would seem the map fell off when I took the snowboard out.
The Jotun would like to have eyes that kill which he does not have. He has rudimentary Jotun magic but not eyes that kill. And he deplores the fact.
We shall have to walk to the nearest interface.
Yes.
It says a lot when the chirpy Vanir becomes monosyllabic. It says a lot about the Jotun when he tries to put weight on his wounded leg and discovers it lamentably weak and unmistakably painful. The Vanir speech impairment disappears.
When the portal opened, you had lost consciousness. You were literally a… a frozen rock. If rocks could be more frozen than they already are in your benighted realm. Frozen which translate in my realm by running a high fever, delirious, moaning, in pain and fit to boil a kreezer's egg by simply touching it. I tried to walk you, drag you, carry you to the closest interface but you are way too heavy for me. I know some magic… but I am no trained wizard.
While the Vanir explains why the Jotun must have lost conscience for what sounds like two days… the Jotun takes a look at his surroundings. The Vanir has removed his winter coat and now ports the longue sleeveless leather jacket typical of a Steppes man. Being less dressed does not imply being underdressed. The facial veil remains and the hood is back in place except it shows a pair of large ear bangles. The amber curls are nowhere to be seen…
I had to remove your boot and cut open every wound pustule, suck up the venom and spit it away. I did not know Jotuns could survive such injuries. .. Whatever you made it, I pronounced a few healing runes, dressed your leg, found some water. The All-Mother must be protecting us. I could not boil the water as I could not light a fire and give away our presence to those bitches of dark elves; I cleaned your wounds, got you to swallow some water and at long last managed to bring you back from the dead.
The Jotun's red eyes do not show the urge to express thankfulness. The red eyes scan his leg; his fingers extend and slowly the angry wounds start to heal.
Some would say thank you.
Some would. Some say you did no more but what is due.
Fucking Jotuns and their fucking pride. I saved your fucking life twice, if not thrice. Give me back the bottle.
No.
The irate smaller warrior throws himself at the taller Jotun. Gone is the care for the wounded man. The bottle must be given back. The Jotun stands his ground. Worse, the Jotun's wounded leg slides behind the Vanir's shorter limb. It throws it off balance and the Vanir falls. And the Jotun falls atop of him. The Vanir's hands could look as well as claws which they are not as they try to push away, wound, scratch, rip and tear at the same time. The Jotun mercilessly is holding them pulling them apart away from his chest, his face. Humiliation for the Vanir, One single Jotun hand is now holding his wrists. Worst is to come. The free right hand is attacking the Vanir's hood, the Vanir veil and this is unbearable. Nobody but an equal can see his full facial feature.
A Jotun is just a giant; a Jotun is not a god, not a man. Not a Vanir. Both are warriors. The Jotun is a Bloody Frost giant and the Vanir is an apoplectic angry man.
Thought so.
I shall kill you.
Next time, do not pull your travelling companion too close. Jotuns may be as thick as Odin's eldest son. Still, they do not stand Vanir insults.
I will kill you. Get off the veil.
Dark elves dislike Vanirs but they hate Jotuns. They consider my people as traitors. If you have an extra veil, I can pass for a tall… taller than usual Vanir. All I need is to do is to fade away my facial markings
It hurts the Vanir warrior but the Jotun man has a point. Blessed All-Mother is; maybe they can pass as two Vanirs hunters accidentally fallen to the Realm of the Dark Elves, there is hope. And it is not a lie. Their arrival was not planned!
The elves will not suspect a Jotun warrior as they will not expect Jotuns to put on their ice armour in this very warm realm. The Vanir allows, one should say humour the Jotun to create the illusion of a clear forehead. He only raises his voice when her new Vanir companion slides a Jotun dagger under his belt.
If you refrain from getting too personal with the dark elves, they will not suspect you for what you truly are. Now we walk to the nearest interface.
My equerry would do himself a world of good as not to speak before his master.
It seems his decision to travel to Jotunheimr is a never ending journey through humiliations. Well, feeling somehow responsible for the unsuccessful portal, the Vanir digs some more in his bag and hands a pair of earrings.
If you are a master, you need runic earpieces. And be careful…
The Jotun trims the fancy pieces to a more basic model. He is a man and earrings clearly fashioned by some loving sister are not his taste.
Eh! It's mine.
You have lost the bottle, you have lost the fight and you have lost the right to call these vulgar earrings yours.
The pieces adorn now the Jotun's ears.
Say I pretend to be your young brother. I do not like being an equerry.
Say I use your veil like a muzzle and you shut up?
The Jotun starts walking at his usual stride. Followed by the small Vanir.
If we are captured… let me do the talking. We are hunting keezers and we fell through a portal near a patch of blue-star flowers in bloom. These flowers are known to have strange properties. And your clan… I mean our clan is the Proud Bow… yes the Proud Bow. Your name is Osyn, the Lord Osyn of the Clan of the Proud Bow. And…
You are the muzzled page of my Lordship. I shall call you Chirpy!
Chirpy has felt on his face like leather straps gagging him. Not long enough to show; long enough to be fearful of this Jotun who behaves like he was Old Laufey's kinsman. They walk toward the portal in the dense forest. They do not speak. Too busy they are climbing over fallen, rotten tree roots, branches and trunks. They also avoid stumbling on countless, myriads of creepers. Yet they go on accompanied by the sounds of the flying fauna and hopefully only the flying fauna of the tropical forest. Svartalfaheimr does not boast of Nuu-rus; its predators are smaller. They are smaller; they kill just as well.
They are hot and sweaty. The new Vanir misses his cold realm. And his leg has started to hurt again. Vanir medicine seems to be not so up to scratch. The tall hunter starts to stumble, and his vision gets blurry by instants…
We… You need to rest. I wonder if the chemicals in the venom have not altered during our little junketing trip through Yggdrasil. Let us stop or you are going to fall and break…. Your… CAREFUL! … GREAT. Just what we needed!
Just shut up, brother and help me sit on that trunk.
The smaller Vanir turns around the tall one. He is full of reproach, concerns and officiousness. He is the epitome of young brothers who are a pain in the neck. Over cautious, over-enthusiastic and all too prone to display knowledge well above their age, they should be wise to hide.
I told you. You are too tired and some venom is still running in your blood. Look at you; you have fallen and I am sure you must have broken a limb…. Naturally, told you so. Look at that sprain and that bruise. I am having no more of this nonsense. We…
…sshhh!
…sshhh?
The muzzle is now firmly on the little Vanir and his silencing obliges him to listen at his 'master' is referring at.
The silence. The forest is now totally silent.
And when sound returns, it is with the whoosh of a large net thrown over the two Vanirs.