.” Fjölnir’s voice trailed off, and he stepped out again. When he came back, he was carrying a travel chest, which he put down by the door.
“Now,” he said, “we talk. First I’ll tell you of my son. He was like you, a big, strong lad. Not too sharp. He meant well, but there was always something in him. Pride, anger, I don’t know. I could talk to him, teach him, but only up to a point. The thing—the fire in him—it always took over.” The fire in the hearth crackled in agreement, and the room twisted and warped with the dancing shadows. “He left to go and find things—adventure, maybe, or honor, I guess. His place in the world. I used to be . . . I wasn’t always a gentle father.” The old man was miles away now. “So he needed to go away.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
Fjölnir blinked, and for a moment Audun was sure the old man didn’t recognize him. Then he smiled. “Oh yes. I do know. See, I had another son by another woman. Wish I never had. Nasty piece of work, just like his mother. He was smart, too. Had a real knack for letting other people do his dirty work. And he . . . poisoned the mind of my son, turned him against me. He told him I was weak, old, and feeble.” The shadows behind Fjölnir were moving more than Audun thought they should. “I had to . . . I had to discipline them. But they’re out there. They’re out there waiting to come for me, to claim what’s theirs.”
The old man stopped talking, and a silence spread in the hut, only occasionally broken by the crackling of the fire.
“Food,” Fjölnir finally said. “We should eat.” He reached down and produced two mugs of mead from somewhere. “Drink this,” he said to Audun, who did not need to be told twice.
It was the sweetest, most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.
“Eat,” Fjölnir commanded. He’d carved off a chunk of glistening roast pork. The smell alone was enough to make Audun’s stomach lurch with hunger.
They ate and drank.
After a while, Fjölnir said, “I will guess that you didn’t have a good time with your father.”
“You’d guess right,” Audun said.
“What happened?”
“I killed him.”
Fjölnir sat in silence for a little while. “And was that when it happened?”
The tone—the understanding in the old man’s voice—sent a wave of sensation up Audun’s arms. “Yes” was all he could say.
“Tell me,” Fjölnir said.
“He was . . . I know now what he was. He was a coward and a bully, and he had no interest in a fair fight. I think he might have been good to my mother at the start, but as long as I could remember he’d beaten her. And me, if I made any noise.” The words that had been kept down for so long tumbled out of him. “And he beat us thoroughly. Mother didn’t go out for days on end. Fucking bastard,” Audun snarled. “He didn’t care about anyone but himself, so I started trying to find a place to work. There was a blacksmith in my village; I began doing odd jobs for him, sneaking out when the old man was drunk. For some reason I grew up quick and was soon doing hammer work. In my twelfth summer, I packed on some muscle, but my father didn’t notice. Then once, he came home from drinking and I was standing too close to the door, so he punched me, sent me flying across the room. Then he grabbed Mother. He was rough with her, so I stood up, told him to let her go. He laughed at me. I told him again. He said, ‘Or what?’ I said I’d make him.”
Audun took a sip of mead. “That was one step too far. I got his attention. He went for me with his belt, tanned me, then grabbed me around the neck. He was going to strangle me, and I . . .”
“You felt the fire,” Fjölnir said. “There was a fire inside you. Something that burned. Some kind of beast that needed to get out.”
“Yes.”
There was a long pause as the two men eyed each other up.
“How did he die?” Fjölnir finally asked.
“I knocked him to the floor and broke his face,” Audun said. “I smashed it. I couldn’t stop hitting him.”
“And then . . . ?”
“My mother—she put a hand on my shoulder. I turned around