Chapter 8

A/N: this is a revised version – I toned down the Lagertha / Raggie scene at the end to make it more palatable…

Thor gathered the body of his lover and child into his arms, wishing he could protect her always within their circle of safety.

“Home,” she murmured, settling herself into his embrace. “Take me to my family.”

Holding Lagertha close to his chest, he flew into the sky with her, feeling her weakness, her energy sapped by Odin’s actions and he closed his eyes thinking back to how her pain became his pain, how he had felt her being drained as surely as if the old god had sunk his fangs into her. Now she hovered near unconsciousness and he feared for her, feared she would not wake, feared that she would be too vulnerable, that he would have to stand guard over her night and day. Well, so be it. He was old enough to stay awake for weeks at a time.

Mountains rose up beneath him, pushing him higher as he flew to the remote location Eirek had chosen to live in, and he wondered if its isolation wasn’t a reflection of his mental state. The central highlands were remote, the land scooped into a series of depressions shaped like the cauldron of a witch. Beyond the cauldrons was a large heated lake. There was better land to be had in more accessible regions, but something about the desolation of the place had appealed to him, and perhaps it was also because the landscape could give you the false impression that you could shut the world out.

Perhaps that was what Eirek wanted more than anything.

Landing beside the longhouse Eirek and his children now called home, he carried an apparently sleeping Lagertha up to the front door and knocked. Finna opened it and Thor took a small step backwards, surprised at how grown up the girl appeared now, dressed in a warrior’s tunic and pants, her braided hair making her appear even more fierce. Girl no more, he thought, but adult. She gasped at the sight of her unconscious grandmother, stepping forward across the threshold to run her fingers down the side of her face.

“What ails her?” she asked, staring up at him with blue eyes so like Lagertha’s he had to look away. “You turned her?”

“I did. She asked me to.”

Finna nodded. “I’ll fetch father.”

The girl ran off and Thor carried his precious burden over the threshold, heading straight for the bedroom and laying her out on the bed. He held her hand for a moment, sensing his brother-by-turning approaching at full speed.

“Is she injured? Why has she not healed?” Eirek demanded.

“It is not so simple.” Thor explained what had happened and Eirek’s face grew more and more concerned, shooing Finna away when she tried to come into the room to find out what was going on. Thor felt for the girl – she wanted to be included but still Eirek treated her like a child, perhaps because he hated the thought of her growing up without her mother by her side.  The more Finna and the others grew, the more Sookie was lost to him.

“You should let Finna stay,” Thor suggested.

“No – she is too headstrong already, her and her brother both. They are not content to let things be but push and push -“

“As all children do to their parents when they are grown.”

“She is not grown. She is a child in a woman’s body.”

Thor wisely decided to drop the matter. “Will you take the refugees from Ingstadt and Kattegut?”

“Of course. I do not like the responsibility that has been thrust upon me here, but it may help me forget for at least a little while what I have lost. So let this place swell with their numbers – there is enough land here for them to live comfortably for all this place is inaccessible in the winter.”

Lagertha’s eyelids fluttered and opened, and she sat forward, Eirek kneeling by the bed as he embraced his mother.

“Mother, you should rest.”

“Nonsense. I feel weak as a newborn kitten but I am done with resting. Now I am home we must seek our revenge against your father. He is expanding his empire. We must find a way to check his power and make him pay for what he has done to our home.” Lagertha pulled out the bloodied cloak pin she found in the fire and Eirek sniffed it suspiciously.

“Shall we attack him openly?” Eirek asked.

“We have a shortage of men here,” Lagertha continued, “and he has conquered and subjugated many of the vampires to the south. Perhaps it is time we raised our own army.”

“We would have to go south,” said Thor. “Eirek could not come lest he endanger his fae children. And the Aesir have kept ourselves apart. In the old days, when we fought the frost giants, our numbers were greater, but now we are few – the last. Who will we be able to bring to our side?”

“I have an idea,” said Lagertha.

They talked late into the night, plotting and scheming.

“We cannot stay here, as much as I might like to. Thor and I will travel south to begin work on our plan,” explained Lagertha.

“Let me come,” Eirek demanded.

“You cannot,” said his mother. “Your place is here. Protect them.”

When they took their leave, Lagertha whispered into her child’s ear that it would be no betrayal of his love for Sookie to live again, to take another’s blood and body, that surely she would understand the long and lonely waiting of it.

Eirek growled at her and Lagertha sighed before disappearing off into the night.

Some days later, Finna and Erlendr, still mad from being left out of the scheming against their grandfather, snuck out during the day and took one of their father’s ships. They were going raiding to the south.

 

 

Thalia glared at the blonde-haired vampire, the woman her lover Ragnar pined so much for. She was tall, strong, beautiful – but more than that, she was not his and that made her all the more desirable.

“Why would I help you?” Thalia demanded.

“Because Ragnar is an asshole,” Lagertha insisted.

Thalia smiled.

“There are other, better ways at ending your maker Loki than rubbing an empire in his face. Join us in thwarting him,” Thor explained.

“Why? What are you to me – either of you – that I should listen?”

“We are Aesir and we are sworn to end your maker,” Thor explained. Thalia laughed.

“Fat lot of good you’ve done with that.”

“We will end him.”

“And what of Ragnar? Do you seek to end him?”

“No. He was my husband once, my lover, the father of my children for all that I buried so many of them. I just seek to curtail him.”

“Alright,” Thalia said. “Perhaps I will help you, if only because he accused me of burning down your beloved Kattegut and whatever the other place was called.”

Lagertha’s mouth dropped open. “He accused you?”

“Indeed. I will help you on the condition that I am made the true queen.”

Thor nodded, and Lagertha regarded the small, dark-haired, fierce vampire with suspicion. If Ragnar had accused her, then perhaps it had been her after all.

Could Ragnar be innocent? Surely not? Pushing her doubts aside, Lagertha decided to trust this Thalia.

 

Outside one of Ragnar’s castles at first dark, Lagertha and Thor waited in the shadows for the vampire king to emerge. Thalia had told them he would be here, that he was planning an excursion to another kingdom, that a takeover of another monarchy was planned, that his troops would be amassed, that if they struck, they would weaken him. They watched and waited for the troops to pour out, Lagertha wishing they had forced Thalia to stay with them to wait out events.

When they struck, they came at them from all sides. Although Thalia had let them into the walls, the battlements were swarming with vampires. Thor turned, swinging his mjolnir and crushing skulls, a storm gathering to cloud their vision, to make the old stone walls slippery and treacherous as Lagertha swung her sword, flying up to the battlements and screaming Ragnar’s name, demanding he come out, that he show himself and face her.

Too late Thor realised Ragnar’s forces were attacking only him, that they were avoiding Lagertha’s blade and fangs, that they were allowing her to make her way inside the castle.

“It’s a trap!” he screamed but his voice was lost in the storm he had created.

 

Lagertha shivered in the draughty, cold castle and wondered how Ragnar could stand it as she ran from room to room, seeking him out, sword in hand, fangs out.

“Come and face me!” she screamed. “You fucking coward, come and answer for what you have done!”

In the end she found him seated at a writing desk in his bedroom.

“I should have known I would find you in your boudoir,” she spat.

Ragnar stood, something clutched in his hands. She thought it was a quill and perhaps a vial of ink.

“You are beautiful,” he breathed and Lagertha realised this was the first time he had seen her transformed. She held her sword high, in front of her face as he stepped towards her, hands outstretched, reaching for her, to touch her face, caress her fangs.

“I only wish it had been me,” he murmured. “But I couldn’t – didn’t – trust myself to do it. Now you are one of them.”

“Come any closer and I will cut off your head,” she snarled.

“Don’t be like that,” he whispered, his eyes still holding hers. “Please -“

“No!” She swung her sword at him and he ducked it easily, the missed blow putting her off balance momentarily, which was the only opening he needed. Swifter than her, older than her, he stabbed deep into her arm with his sharpened quill, modified by the witch to administer the love potion.

Lagertha clutched her arm, a wave of nausea rising through her. “What have you done?” she demanded, her sword clattering to the floor as she lost all her compulsion to fight him. He stepped closer and she willed her arm to rise, to slap his face, but instead it hung uselessly by her side.

“I thought you wanted me to choose you, not force me -” she began.

“Ah, but it is hardly a level playing field is it not, given you are now Thor’s child? He can command you to stay away, yes?”

The word ‘no’ was on her lips but he did not allow her to say it, his body pressing up against hers as he kissed her. It was all Lagertha could do not to wrap her arms around him and she felt a dull, hideous ache where her dead heart now lay.

“I don’t want to force you, I won’t. I like your fight too much,” he murmured, his lips against her ear. “But I need a chance, an opportunity to get close to you. That is all I want – for you to remember what we were to each other.”

“I remember,” she whispered and he kissed her again, her body responding to him even as she tried to will it to stop, to stay still, she found her arms holding him closer to her, felt him quiver at her touch, her closeness.

“Stop,” she panted.

“Are you sure?” he demanded. “Your maker is still preoccupied fighting my army. One thing you must know of me Lagertha is that I know how to lead men, and vampires are much the same. They flock to my side, fight under my banner. Join me.”

“No.”

“But your body betrays you,” he whispered, “Don’t you remember when I bested you? When I was the first man to come inside you?”

“He will smell you and he will kill you.”

“Now now,” said Ragnar. “Would you really want that?”

Lagertha thought for a moment.

“No,” she said at last.

Then Ragnar dropped to his knees in front of her. “You are my queen,” he breathed.

He stood up then and backed away, eyes still on her and Lagertha had to fight herself not to wrap her legs around him and demand he made her remember what it had been like.

“I will wait for you to come to me,” he said. “This is the beginning. Each time you see me, you will crave me more.”

Lagertha spat at him and he laughed, walking away from her.

“How am I supposed to explain this to Thor?” she demanded.

“I don’t really care,” he shrugged as he walked off.

Chapter 9