A Walk on the Island

They two returned again to the foe-shore, to that red sand where so many were slain. They returned on a night when the moon fled, as it fled always from Solrun Spear-Crow, and Baldur, Prince of the North, kindled a bonfire upon that spot. That place where the rough sand had drunk the blood of a hundred suitors for his beloved. That place where her hands had been drenched red with the blood of men who might have claimed her. There he piled up wood and brush, and doused it with oil, and cast a flaring torch amid the timber to bring light to their revel: to their celebration of one another, and of one and another becoming only one.

She brought him mead. Naked she served him, wearing only the shining blue feathers of the crow in her hair; only bracelets of gold upon her sleek-muscled arms; only anklets of braided leather, set with polished and sparkling stones. She belonged to him in body and soul. Why should she hide? Each of her marks was borne for his sake, and he loved her still—or perhaps he loved her all the more. So she brought him mead and knelt before him on that star-strewn night when the moon fled. She raised up his horn and bade him drink: prayed that he might find satisfaction in the cup she brought him.

"May it be as sweet to you as my cup is bitter," she said, "though that bitterness be sweet to me."

And Baldur took the horn from her hand and brought it to his lips, and he drained the cup as she watched. As flames leapt high into the black of evening, she watched, and she longed to be drained for him, even as he drained that horn of mead. Let him empty her out. Let him consume her utterly. Let her nourish him and bring him joy, and she would be happy in all the days of eternity.

"Will you also drink?" he asked her.

"If you will offer it, I will."

"Then I shall. This the first bitter taste of the cup you will drink for me tonight—the first fruits of your offering to me."

"The first of many," she breathed, hardly daring to speak such words into this world of shadows. "That the whole world might know for whom I endure—that all should perceive my devotion. Yet above all, so that you might see it written on my flesh, etched upon my skin, and shining in my eyes. That is my truest wish, Lord Baldur. Oh, that you would grant your servant such a blessing!"

"How could I deny you?" he said. "And, in so doing, I would deny myself..."

"Do not," she gasped. "Indulge. Slake your thirst in me."

"Did he bind you?" asked her husband. "When he heaped torment upon you, were you chained?"

"I was," answered the woman that was a shield-maiden. "Yet what a shame it would be for your servant to be bound this night. I fear not your touch nor your love, Lord: grant me both, and I shall welcome them, however harsh."

"So be it, Solrun. Receive my love!"

Then he laid her upon the sand before him, and he wrapped his strong hands around her throat. Hands that were stronger than steel, that could rip mail like cloth; hands that shivered spears and shattered shields; hands that healed her hurts and gave her comfort; hands that could make stones into dust. Solrun endured those hands. She more than endured them: she welcomed them! Both those hands and the blackness they brought as he strangled her and raped her, driving his spear into her belly and killing her again and again. Each little death brought her closer to life, and to the fullest knowing of it, and to the moment when his seed would fill her, and so she rejoiced.

When she awoke in the aftermath, she could hardly speak. The bruises on her throat told the tale: dark and deep, every movement hurt, and to swallow was a terrible torment. Yet still she said, "That was not even a foretaste, O Lord."

"No, it wasn't," he promised her.

And his seed was still boiling in her womb when he began to force the mead horn into the taut and puckered ring of her anus. The gilded instrument, set in a lattice of fine-wrought metal, tore and cut at her hole as he pierced her. It split and stretched her, and sand clung to the sweat of her skin as she bucked beneath it. Yet she bore up beneath it as well, her back arching and bracing, the firm and sculpted muscles of her flame-wrought, war-trained body bunching and quivering. The firm globes of her ass and the potent strength of her thighs fought against the instinct to pull away, instead rising and pushing to greet his hand and her horned lover, even though the scent of her blood was on the air.

At last, all but the mouth of the horn was in her, and she glowed with pride and sweat. She moaned beneath him, body vibrating, lungs filling and emptying in pained gasps. "Will you enjoy me again now?" she asked him. "Think how much tighter I will be."

"None at all," he said to her, almost laughing thanks to his pride in her. "No man has ever enjoyed so well-trained a bride. Your lessons among the elves were not wasted, I think."

Solrun blushed to hear it, though she had blushed at none else he had asked of her. Then she smiled at him. "Better to put that to the test, don't you think?"

So he used her a second time, this time with one strong hand on the horn inside her, pulling and wrenching and shoving and twisting, the better to experience the fullest extent of her body's abject and utter submission to the pursuit of his pleasure. And as he climaxed, the horn broke inside her, drawing a sharp cry from her throat, but she would not let him stop.

"Finish!" she panted, still riding him, and still taking him, and still embracing her lover. "My pain means little—your completion means all." And she kissed him as she bled onto the sand.

Prince Baldur drew out the jagged horn from within her, leaving its tip embedded. Coated in her blood and in other awful things, it was no longer fit for a king as it once was. Not a hero's horn, this; but only refuse, fit for nothing and no one. He lamented this and apologized to her, for it had been her father's drinking horn.

"Now it is mine," she said to him, though her voice was still edged with pain. "Fit only for me: for the one who will bear all for you, Lord. Give it to me and let me drink."

Then he gave her the horn, though he knew not what she might intend. And he watched with wide eyes as she threw back her head and took the jagged and broken point into her mouth, and then to the back of her throat, and then farther still. She made herself a vessel for him, gasping and waiting with her spine arched gracefully and her breasts upraised to the stars above. The sight filled him with a need that he could scarcely understand: to give to her, to let her receive of him, and to make himself even more a part of her. This, then, was tutelage of the elves.

Her eyes were on his, half-lidded and happy when he began to pour his piss into her cup. His amber flood filled her and even overflowed, spurring her to swallow faster. She gulped and guzzled, drinking greedily her lord's golden gift, and her flesh quivered with the magnificence of that moment. Only when he was truly finished, when he'd shaken the last drops into her cup, or onto her face, or scattered them across her body, did she at last begin to remove that broken horn from her throat. Only then did she begin to lick, softly and lovingly, every ruined inch of that cup. Until the metal gleamed. Until not a stain could be seen. Until it was again fit for a king, save that it was broken and that its spike was still inside her.

And now she bowed before him, and she lay her head on his foot. She kissed him, heedless of the sand on his skin. She licked him, bathing him gladly with her tongue. "Even now, you have hardly begun," she said. "What will you write on me, when the time comes? What message would you have me bear?"

"I will tell your tale to the world," he said to her. "Of how Solrun the mighty went down into Hel to break a curse, and of how she took that curse upon her own flesh. How she returned to free the man she loved and only bound him more tightly. How only love could set her free."

"Yet I do not love freedom, Lord—only your chains."

"Then let my chains be your freedom, Solrun, as you are mine."

So at last he began to write. He told their story from its start. From its very beginning. He told it with burning brands, with sharp knives, and with hooked fléchettes. He began it upon her right arm—her sword arm—and continued with the left, down the shield side, and she endured. Still and silent she remained, watching as her blood ran and her skin melted, as the metal pierced and tore her. And he began the same work with her legs, starting at her thighs and moving down, decorating her with pain, adorning her with beautiful torment. So the red sands of the foe-shore were reddened now with her blood, until Solrun grew faint with its loss, and she fell upon her knees.

Prince Baldur fell by her side at once, and he took her in his arms. Her blood marked him, painted him, made him glow by the firelight. "Have I written enough at last?" he asked her.

But Solrun saw in his eyes that those words were a lie. A trick: a trap for the weak. Her lord didn't wish her to plead for mercy. No—the hard Prince of the North wanted a hard woman to call his own, and one who would never plead. His desire for this was as great as her own: to have a love like none before nor since in all the ages past and all the years yet to come. For this, she loved him all the more.

"Our story is not done," she said, the words almost too soft to be heard. "Give me but a moment to rest, and..."

In that moment, Solrun fell into darkness, and but for Baldur's healing lore she might have been lost. It was his craft that bound her to this world's realm and gave her the strength to return. Though he did not heal her, his aid sustained her and bolstered her endurance, and she felt a new fire within her as her eyes opened. In that moment, she caught his gaze, and she saw gladness in his pale eyes, and the fleeting shadow of fear.

"Fear not," she said. "I am strong, and I am yours."

"I shall not be afraid," he promised.

"Do not bind me," she begged him, "but nail me up. When next I falter, fix me upon the tree, even as Grímnir was fixed, so that I can never escape from your love."

"It shall be done."

Then Solrun found her footing once more, on the blood-wet sands of the foe-shore. And Baldur took from the bonfire a whip of chain and flame, and with it he began to score her flesh. No longer could she contain her cries of pain, and so she set them free: but her cries were no lament. As the whip tore her flesh and burned her skin, her voice rose in a song of praise to Baldur, lauding the strength of his arm and the power of his loins, and the long stamina with which he used his bride. And when Solrun's endurance again began to fade, and only curt grunts of anguish could be heard, still then she found it within her to speak some few little words of encouragement to him.

"Masterful," she panted as new blood ran down her back. "Another, please—like it, but harder."

"Hngh!" she groaned when the whip rose up like a serpent between her thighs, striking her holes and ripping her open. "I am yours, O Lord. All of me. This you prove by your hand in this moment."

"Unggk!" she grunted when the hard chain battered her back, crossing her kidneys and her spine. "I will be your blood eagle," she promised him. "Take your portion, Lord—leave the rest for the crows."

But then, covered in the stripes left by that blood-soaked weapon, she fell once again. Only to one knee. Solrun made to rise, but Baldur prevented her. He bade her kiss the whip that had scourged her. He bade her clean it with her tongue while he prepared a place for her.

"By your will, Lord," said his wife.

And on that moonless night when the stars watched, the prince led Solrun to a tree. He bade her stand before it, with her whip-charred back against the bark, and her forced her hands back to caress the wood. Faint and fading, Solrun obeyed, and she did not pull away when she felt the thick nail against her skin.

"Will you accept even this?"

"I will," she said, though her tongue was thick and her mouth was dry. "Though it shatters my bones, I will."

And it shattered her bones.

"Even this?" he said to her, his voice as soft and inevitable as the fall of a leaf.

"I will," she answered him. "Though you break my body again and again, I will."

And he broke her body again.

"And this too, for me? For your lord?"

This he said as he placed her ankle against the trunk, and as he held the point of the iron spike against the side of her foot. She swallowed, her bruised throat trembling. Yet her answer was already decided.

"For you, Lord," she said to him. "For the only star in my sky. For the one who watches over me always."

He drove the spike home, and he watched over her as the overwhelming anguish shook her. Her breaths were shallow and sweat and blood ran down her as though it rained from the sky, and she pulled senselessly at her spike-fixed limbs, as though there were any chance that she could escape this tree. But in the end, she mastered herself once more. With tears of love in her eyes, she helped him to position her other ankle against the trunk.

"And this, at last?" he breathed. "Will you endure this for your husband?"

"All things," she swore to him. "All things again and again. Even in Hel will I come to you and endure."

Broken, she hung for him upon the tree. With her body torn, with her bones shattered, with the very last of her strength she hung for him. Then he kissed her, and in agony she pushed herself higher to kiss him back, and then his cock was in her. He filled her with his burning brand for the third time that night and fucked her, hammering her against the tree. He loved her longest and hardest on this, their last joining on that night, and her cries of passion eclipsed even her most dreadful wails of anguish.

Afterward, she hung limp from the spikes, wholly spent for him, emptied out. She could not breathe, but only hang from her broken hands, her twisted arms. She could not rise, for she had no strength. She knew she would die, but she was not afraid. Will you come to me? she asked him with her eyes. Will you find me in Hel below?

Yet it was then that he brought forth her bright spear. "Raise yourself once more," he commanded. And Solrun sought within herself for the strength to obey, and she found it, though it cost her. As she did, he thrust the spear into the tree beneath her, so that when she hung down again her cunt would rest upon the shaft. In this way, her torture was increased, her suffering was lengthened, and her love for him was made even deeper still.

"Clever are you, Prince of the North," she said, though her voice was all but gone.

"And long-suffering is my bride," said he in answer. "And now, I will write the end of our tale."

She thought that he would kill her. That he would cut out her heart and take the sword and go into the north and claim his kingdom. She would have been glad for that, for she would have given her all for her love, but no such thought was in his mind. Instead, the runes he carved upon her—the words he burned into her blood-soaked skin—were words of prophecy. In giant-runes, ancient and wise, he wrote upon her. He wrote of things to come, and he wept, for he knew not how he knew, and neither would he ever learn. Ever after that night, he would gaze at her in wonder, never knowing what those runes meant, but always knowing that they told how the tale would end.

And then it was finished.

Solrun remained on that tree through the night and all the next day, until he brought her down at sunset. Then she lay at death's door, wrought with fever, with her life in the balance as he set all his craft of healing against the terrible wounds he had given her. For many days she lingered, and for many days he tended her, until on the ninth day exhaustion took him and he fell beside her into a deep slumber. When he awoke, he thought himself dead.

For when Baldur awoke, he beheld a woman in raiment of white, with golden hair and eyes like the winter sky, and she was more beautiful than any living woman. She brought him water to slake his thirst and laid a meal before him and washed his feet, and he said to her, "Lady, am I slain?" But she only laughed. "And if not, then where is my wife?" said he. "Where is Solrun?"

Then the lady in white drew open her robe, and she revealed the litany of scars upon her sun-gold skin. They were faded and in some way beautiful, more akin to the work of an artist than to works of malice, and yet he knew each one. Here was his bride. Here was Solrun.

"You have cared for me so long," she said. "Allow me a little while to care for you."

So they stayed for a little while longer upon the frost-rimed shore, before they two went into the north, across the night wall and into the realm of giants. And it is known that, whatever curse was written upon her belly, the work of that dreadful night blotted it away: for Solrun bore him many sons and daughters, all of whom became heroes of their own tales. But this is not their tale. This is the story of Solrun and of her love. So we will speak not of sons and daughters and of their deeds. Instead, we will speak of a time long after, when a darkness came to the realm, and when King Baldur was hard pressed.

Listen well, my guest. This tale is not yet done.