Page 3 of Delinquent Dette
I know, Dette. I know.Sten had come to visit his young frequently, eager for them to hatch, so he could take them. It was only right to do so. The grief in his voice was pleasantly equal to Frikka’s own. The Drake mourned, too.
When Sten drew Frikka from the burning longhouse, he hushed and preened the Dette with soothing whispers inundated with pure grief.
Why didn’t you defend our eggs?Frikka snarled and snapped at Sten.
I was too late. You were strong enough and needed your revenge while I brought our eggs out of the fire. You deserved your life for a life.Sten nuzzled and cradled Frikka until they shifted and sobbed into one another’s arms.
“Cease your tears and release that bastard raider. One egg of a clutch that should have never been born.” His father, Jarl Fjallarr, waved an unblemished hand at the two.
Rage boiled in Frikka’s gut. His dream had been five eggs and five he had. He stared from his hands, bloody and filthy, to his father. “Father, why are your hands clean?”
Clouds darkened the dimming sky as evening ran in. Smoke from the fires rolled through the air. Jarl Fjallarr said nothing.
“You bear no ash or smoke. Your clothes are clean, Father. Your hands are clean, Father. You scent of fine oils, Father.” Frikka choked when strong arms embraced his midsection, stopping him from lunging.
“A jarl does his fighting from the back! I am a leader, not a blade slinger! It is you that lay with filthy axe-swingers. Look at you, a Dette bloodied guarding a bastard clutch. Tyr did not want those eggs, and it was his curse!”
Thunder trembled in the far distance. “See! Even Thor is angered by this clutch. A jarl’s son does not breed with the impure!”
Impure.
That’s all Sten was. A bastard son borne of the horde for the horde. His Dette father had been a youngling, himself. A second heat given by Freya, sired by another of the horde.
“Have the gothar cleanse you and purify yourself. Leave this behind so the peasant can take your shameful clutch.” Frikka’s father gestured at the five eggs that rested haphazardly on a bearskin. The screams of their fear echoing in Frikka’s head drove madness into his heart.
Frikka stared at the eggs as his father’s words tickled his senses as if they were a mile away from his ears. “No.”
“What did you say?” The low growl in Jarl Fjallarr’s throat rang of threat.
“I said no.” Frikka turned his attention from the five eggs to the one that had silenced itself with a single footstep. He then turned his attention to the remains of the Drake he’d slain. He’d done that. A Dette.
“Frikka, by all the gods I swear, I will cast you out of the clan if you defy me,” the jarl seethed. Frikka’s gaze snapped to his father. The same blue eyes. Frikka’s Dette father had soft brown ones, but the Dette was aloof and had little to do with him. He was a toy for his father’s whims, but free to do as he pleased—until he was needed. Like all his children.
“Sten? As the jarl’s oldest unmated Dette son, I am next in line to be presented to worthy Drakes. Are you worthy of me?” Frikka stared Sten down.
“That is a question with many edges, like the axe I swing.” Sten took Frikka’s hands. The calloused pads of Sten’s large hands were rough, burned, and blistered. Soot caked his fingers and blood smeared his body. Sten would be a warrior fit for Tyr. Sten would fight.
“Then give me your answers.” Frikka held up a hand to silence his frantic father, who was smart enough not to get closer. He was a coward and Frikka had slain a Drake.
“The short answer? That isNo. I am not worthy. But it is not by the station of my birth. It is not by station of your birth, either. You are no more special by name than any other Dette. But by heart, you are great. I see power in your eyes. I see strength in you. You are clever and playful. I am not worth a Dette with such character, love, and bloodthirst.” Sten stood tall, chin steeled. The scruff of his beard streaked with blood flashed in a strike of lightning, his eyes bright and menacing.
“And why did you not avenge your young?” Frikka stepped away from Sten and stared him down.
“Our young had gone by the time I arrived. I saved the remainder while you took your heart’s desire in flesh. I would never deny you the blood owed.” Sten swallowed hard, and clean trails formed in the filth of his face as tears fell. Lightning struck again, this time closer. Shouts rang out as another fire erupted—the storehouse.
“Father. Raiders are permitted only to hold onto a portion of their wages, the rest stored for them, correct?” Frikka stared at the burning storehouse, the smoke thick as rain began to fall, washing away all the blood.
Jarl Fjallarr nodded once, spite growing thick in his eyes.
“Render unto him what is his. Render unto me my dowry. I am Nidhogg no longer.” Frikka didn’t want the dirt on his hands to go away. He didn’t want the blood to drip off, watered down. While it was on him, it meant something. On the ground, washed away, it meant nothing. His baby was gone, and it meantnothing.
And a sickening voice in the back of his head told him that he was willing to give his baby up for Tyr’s army not a day ago. He was a timid Dette up until he wasn’t anymore.
“If you are Nidhogg no more, you get no dowry.” Jarl Fjallarr spit on the ground. “But the Nielsen may have his share.”
He clenched his fists and took a shaking breath as wet footsteps sloshed up behind him
“And I shall take my share, too.” Erik Nielsen. A brother in arms with Sten joined Frikka’s side.
