Thorolf's Arc

Chapter 5 of 10

Word spread, as Thorolf feared. On the fifth morning a stranger stood at the stone pool. He wore mail under a travel cloak and a dark iron ring on his sword hand. His jaw was set hard. He did not weep like the others. He watched the waterfall as if it owed him blood. "They say you give rites for the dead," the warrior said. "My brother fell in a raid. I need a rite that points me at the men who killed him." Thorolf set a stone for him anyway. "Sit. Name him first." The warrior sat but gave no name. He turned the iron ring on his finger, round and round. Marks were cut into it, old oath-marks. "I swore on this ring to kill them all. Until it's done, I don't rest. I don't grieve." His voice cracked on the last word, then went flat again. Thorolf brought out the amber amulet. It caught the light and glowed warm, like a tear held in gold. "Freyja keeps grief safe," he said. "Name your brother over this. Pour the water. The rest can wait." The warrior stared at the amber. His hand shook. Then he shoved it away. "Grief is for men with nothing left to do. I have the oath." He stood. The stone fell over. Thorolf felt the old heat rise in his own chest. He knew this man. He had been this man, years ago, with a ruined hand and a father who gave no comfort. He almost shouted. Instead he looked at the iron ring, and he understood. "The oath won't let the grief in," Thorolf said. "It stands between you and your brother. As long as you wear it, you carry rage instead of him." The warrior's flat face broke a little. "If I set it down, he's just gone. There's nothing left to hold." Thorolf pulled a bundle from his pack. The sacred herb, green leaves and tight buds, the thing he shared with grieving men to ease them. He did not offer it. He set it on a flat stone by the water. "Not everything you hold has to cut you," he said. "Take off the ring. Just to hold it in your open hand. You can put it back." A long silence. The waterfall filled it. The warrior worked the iron ring off his finger. He held it in his palm, and his hand stopped shaking. "My brother's name was long," he whispered. "He hated it." A laugh tore out of him, then a sob. He said the name over the amber. Then he knelt and pressed the iron ring into the mud at the pool's edge, not burned, not thrown, just set down in the earth. He carried water to the stones and poured it. When he walked home, his sword hand was bare. Thorolf picked up the muddy ring. He had reached a man rage alone had sealed shut. But now his grove held a vengeance oath buried in its soil, and he did not know what that would call to it next.