Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter LI - Renic

Drengr - Noble warrior. An honorable man.

Muspelheim - An underworld of fire.

Völva - a seeress or prophetess; a witch.

Seidr - Magic. 

Seiðmenn - a seer; or male shaman.

Draugr - a ghost.

Disbelief struck each of his erstwhile clansmen in sundry degrees of awe and wariness. Above all, there was a pervading disquiet that disturbed the air. And well they might be leery, he thought, for he was no better than a stranger to them now; no better than a ghost.

Only his brother's face lay impenetrably stiff — deceivingly calm —and nearly as white as the argent scars that marred his features. Roth's pale, fierce eyes were locked to his. But he made no move to approach Renic.

And then, seemingly all at once, the Blackmanes snapped from their shock and converged on him in hearty warmth and welcome. All except Roth and Brenna. She too stood apart — as though stricken with palsy.

Aila and Heida's credulity, by contrast, had wavered only briefly, for they now rushed headlong into his arms! Questions flew at him from all directions. The press of hands and lips were plenteous and besought him eagerly — Ragnar's, Leif's, Søren's, Thora's, and a myriad more. But the familiar scents of Heida and Aila were the one's he'd missed most. Theirs, Roth's, and, Odin help him, Brenna's as well. 

The sudden loss of her scent was as unmistakable to him as when his name had left her lips moments earlier. Were he given to whimsy, he might have bethought the very air bereft of verdure now that she had slipped away. Moreover, he was not a little crushed to note that his brother too had vanished.

Even as he noticed their absence, his nose having said as much, his mother's question broke through the noisome crush of Blackmane enthusiasm. "How is this possible?!" she whispered hoarsely, no less thunderstruck for all she could see and touch him. Her hot tears spilled across his cheeks as he bent to kiss her.

"Ay, we bethought you dead!" Heida's eyes had transmuted inclemently from stark, happy relief to condemnation. Nonetheless, she held him close, her fingers like gyves at his leathern brigandine, as though she might never release it.

Suddenly, like as not to assure herself that he was indeed not a wight after all, his mother plied an angry palm to his chest — one terse slap of admonishment. "Why did you not return till now!?" Like Heida, condemnation and, above all, hurt was rife in her countenance.

But Aila was not saying anything that he had not already asked himself a thousand times over. Every day for the last five years since he'd 'died' he'd questioned and doubted. "I will tell all," said he, "just as soon as I have spoken to my brother."

"Speaking of whom..." His mother had by now noticed her son's absence as well. "Where is he, Heida?"

His sister gave a small sigh and a troubled tug of his brigandine. "I think it best you let him be for now—"

"No, he and I have much to discuss. And my stay here is impermanent."

Aila's golden brows flew together like a sudden bolt of lightning. "What?" said she, her voice deceptively low.

But Ragnar, having failed to hear the exchange between mother and son, drew the crowd's attention with his enthusiastic bellows. "The gods have spared our Renic and brought him home to us after all this time! We shall feast in Odin's honor this night!"