A Walk on the Island

Solrun went first to the elves, and gladly they made her a shield. But she remained with them long thereafter, for she wished to learn the ways of hearth and home and the softness of a wife. So it was that they taught her to cook and to clean, to walk without sound, to heal with only a touch, and how to banish cold and damp. She learned to sing and to play, to blow upon the flute and bring forth life and joy, and she learned all of the things a woman must know about men and about herself. But then she asked of them one more riddle, and that answer they could not give.

"I bear the sword Wrath, and its curse cannot be undone," she said to them. "How, then, can I save the one I love when he is fated to fight against me?"

"He cannot be saved," they said to her. "For if you draw that sword, a man must fall, and you are not a man. How then can any man defeat you?"

"There must be a way!"

"Then it is not known to us," said the elves. "Perhaps the dwarves, by whose hands it was made, could tell you more? But the lore of it is not known in our lands."

Then Solrun journeyed from the elf-realm to the realm of fire, where all things are first made, where order is hammered out of chaos. And if her journey to the elves had been swift, then her quest to find the dwarves was long and arduous. Her sword and shield were stained with blood and soot, her helm was dented, and her unclad body was marked by fire and blades before she came to the end of that long road. When the dwarves received her, they saw not the youngest and fairest daughter of Orm Hard-Hand but rather the like of a Valkyrie or some swift and terrible goddess.

"Vanadis is come!" they said, and they threw themselves down before her. "Valfreyja is here. All hail the Lady of the Battlefield!"

"Solrun is come," she said to them, and she removed her golden helm, for she was faint with exhaustion. "Hail to the Lady of the Long Road."

Gladly they forged her a new shirt of mail: one shaped for a goddess and stronger even than the last. "Let no man try to mar what we have made," they warned, for they had worked great magics into the steel. But long she remained among the dwarves after their task was done, for she wished to learn all the lore of making and forging, and all the lore of flame and steel, and before she left she made herself a new helm that would not be dented or stained upon her journey home. And that helm was beautiful and yet dreadful to look upon, and not even the dwarves could bear her gaze when she wore it. No longer did they call her Vanadis, for Solrun was more terrible still. And then she asked of them one further boon.

"You who make all things," she said to them. "You who unmake the dark into light, who kindle fire out of emptiness: know you the unmaking of this sword?"

"Know we that the sword cannot be unmade," they said to her, "except it be by the hand of Dainn who made it. But Dainn is long dead. He dwells now the deepest of nine realms beneath Hel. Seldom does he answer those who call on him, and never gladly!"

"But he will come when I call, and gladly will he answer," said Solrun when she hard this. "He will keep a civil tongue in his head, or he'll keep no tongue at all."

So it was that Solrun went down the long road toward Hel, until she came to the place where Dainn was buried. Twisted and blackened was his grave, and dark was the night, for the moon ever hid from Solrun now. With a sigh, she set aside her swift spear and coaxed the bright moon out, and then by its light she saw Dainn sitting upon his stone. Short and ugly was he, and every bit as twisted as his grave.

"Go away!" he shouted at her. "Leave the dead in peace or in pieces! It matters not which—though it seems to me that you prefer the second."

"What know you of what I prefer?"

"I know that sword you carry," said Dainn the Twisted. "I know that it cuts through stone like mist—I know that it shears iron as well as fleece, that it cleaves bone and flesh, that no armor can turn its bite and no healer can mend its hurt. I know the curse that lies upon it, because it lies also upon me!

"Give me that sword," he continued, tearing now at his beard. "Hand it to me and let me carry it back to Hel where it belongs. Why do they bury blades with warriors? Do they bury the ox with the plow? Better to bury a sword with the smith that forged it—let him remember the warmth of the fire and the forging."

"I cannot, O dwarf," said Solrun. "The sword is mine and not mine: it is my dowry, and promised to my husband. It is promised to the man who will defeat me. Now, will you help me? I must lift the curse ere I meet my love in battle, or he will fall by my hand."

"Then you will never be wed to a living man!" said the dwarf, and he cackled to hear her plight. "Better that you bind yourself to the dead and damned, girl. Come and take me to bed! At least I cannot be slain by that sword."

"Slain not," said Solrun, "but perhaps accursed. I will bind you, foul dwarf—I will curse you to rot in the grave and never wander. I'll break your legs, and the ants will crawl between your ribs, and I will bind your hands so that you cannot brush them away. I will break your jaw so that you cannot speak, and then you'll be a more gracious host to your next guest!"

And so saying, she put her hand upon the sword hilt, but then she paused. The dwarf laughed and laughed, and she set aside both her fury and the blade: for she had almost drawn the accursed sword, and the only blood to drink was hers, for the dwarf was long dead.

"I need no sword to break your bones," she said. "Laugh while you may, rotted dwarf, for soon there will be no laughter."

"Then I will laugh even still," said Dainn the Twisted, "for if you break my bones you will never learn my secret. Only I can reveal to you the answer to your riddle."

"Then tell me, and speak quick! I tire of your hospitality, dwarf."

"Yet I am not tired of your company, shield-maiden," said Dainn. "In fact, I require more and better. What would you do to learn that secret? What request would you refuse if, in return, you might learn what I know?"

"There is no road I would not walk," she said. "In fact, there is no path I have not trod—nor that I would not tread again—save only that you may not have my oath, nor the dowry I keep for my love. All else is yours. Only tell me the secret, dwarf. Reveal to me how I might save him."

The dwarf laughed with twisted glee, and he beckoned the maiden forth. Down into his grave he led her. Down into the flames and the shadows. Down into Hel they went, the maiden and the dwarf. "Serve me faithfully," he told her. "Cry not for mercy, and do not flee. Submit to me, my little elf-slave, and the secret shall be revealed by the first light of dawn."

So the shield-maiden set aside her armor, and she knelt before the twisted dwarf. She bowed her head as if to pray, and his fist tangled in her hair. She wrapped her lips about him, and she suckled as a babe might, drawing him deep inside her. She offered her throat to him and he took it, his claws gripping ever tighter, forcing her ever lower, ever harder onto his blackened manhood. When he spent himself within her, it came as no surprise that he tasted of pitch and ash, of the sulfur of Hel and the dust of the grave. Nonetheless, Solrun gagged and spat, unable to hold his wretched gift on her tongue, and the dwarf flew into a rage.

"Is that how you serve your love?" he demanded of her. "Is that how you would offer yourself to your husband? Is that how you serve faithfully, as you have promised? Then you will be punished for it! I will see to it that you bear the marks all the days of your life, and let your husband know that I was first!"

"Punish me then," she said, now shuddering at what she had done. "I deserve it. I will not resist."

The dwarf took her to the pits of Hel, where flames leap and ash falls like snow. He took her into the depths, where no light penetrates but the light of fires burning, where there is no sound but the cries of the damned. There he bound her in chains of his own making, the iron still hot from the forging. The black metal bit into her skin, burning and scarring her flesh. Above the forge he hung her, and he stoked the flames higher. Near the anvil he fixed her, and he began to forge a brand for her hide.

"Do you deserve this? Even this, if you can believe it?" he said to her.

"I gave you my word," she told him, though her agony was beyond all endurance. Though sweat glowed upon her skin, though her chest heaved as the flames licked her, though she struggled in the searing chains, still she gave her submission. "I promised to serve you, dwarf, and I shall. Spare me nothing."

"You are strong," said the dwarf. "You are the daughter of Hard-Handed Orm. But I will make you cry out. I will give you cause to break your promise, and thus I will keep my secret."

The dwarf could not see the steel in her eyes, nor hear the ring of it in her voice. So twisted was he that he could never understand her love. And so he tried to break her, though she could not be broken.

He fashioned many brands for her, in the shape of profane signs and runes of dark moment. The sparks from his anvil raked her flesh, and she did not cry out. Then he thrust those brands into the forge to heat them, and he worked the bellows until the flame glowed white, and even the dwarf could not bear the heat of it. He brought out the first of those brands, and he raised it before her eyes, and he bade her ask for mercy.

"Mercy?" she said. "I desire none. Only give me what I deserve: punish me as you would your own wife, dwarf. I will endure it and thank you for it!"

Then Dainn the Twisted marked her and marred her, the youngest and fairest daughter of Hard-Handed Orm. He wrote things upon her that should not be repeated. Things that should never be said of any woman, let alone the shining shield-maiden, Orm's secret sun. Yet I will tell you what he wrote upon her—I will speak to you the words etched upon her flesh with fire—if only so that you know all that she endured. And when you know, then her true courage will also be known to you. You will know why her name is not forgotten.

Bitch he named her. And shit-drinker. Scum-hole and cunt and slave. Filth and whore. Living meat he called her as he began to cook her with his brands, tearing her melting flesh and commanding her again and again to beg mercy from her tormentor. His anger only rose as she refused him, instead asking him to continue—asking him over and over for more of what she deserved.

"You must satisfy yourself with my suffering," she gasped, and her mouth was filled with blood for all the screams she had bitten down. "Discipline me as you must. Discipline me as though you love me, dwarf-husband."

But the dwarf had run out of brands. He took the tongs from the flame and with them he crushed her breasts. He forced one of the brands inside her, stirring her cunt with it, and the cords on her neck stood out beneath her sweat-clad skin. She nearly swallowed her tongue with the anguish he brought her, but still she did not cry out. Still she refused to beg mercy from the fiend. So at last he wrote a curse upon her belly, saying that she would be barren all the days of her life. He wrote this with his knife, carving the words into her flesh and then staunching the blood with red-hot iron, and at last Solrun cried, for she feared another curse upon her. She feared that no man would want her should this curse prove true. She resolved that, if it did, she would give herself to her husband, and give her sword to him, and then fall upon that sword so that he could wed another.

And yet still she did not beg.

"Now you are uglier than I," he told her as the fire burned low. "I the handsome dwarf and you the mutilated cunt. What say you, torture-bitch of Hel? I no longer desire you. Do you desire me?"

"A wife's desire must always be for her husband," she said, her voice now no more than a rasp. "Yet my desire is for your satisfaction, dwarf. Are you satisfied with my destruction?"

"No," said the dwarf. "See, the sun is rising. Now you will learn my secret, cunt. Now you will know the truth, and so I have one more hurt to cause you."

Solrun closed her eyes. She waited. She listened. All that she had endured would soon be worth it, if only she would learn how to tame the curse and save Baldur's life. But the dwarf was gone, having already abandoned her to her scars and her suffering.

Thus she learned his secret with great pain: the curse of the sword could not be undone.