INTRO
 
Welcome to CHAPTER 18 of the Kinsmen Die podcast, home of fantasy fiction based on Norse mythology that’s written and read by me, Matt Bishop.

In this podcast I read my first novel, Kinsmen Die, one chapter at a time. Every TEN chapters, I recap the key plot points and provide some insight into the myths I’ve referenced in the book as well as some of the creative choices I’ve made along the way.

In Chapter 16, we were with Hodr — the son of Frigg and Odin — as he mucked out some stables and remembered the man, the warrior, he’d been. 

In Chapter 17, Frigg pulled double duty — damage control for her husband and as a Mom to Hermod.

When we last left Vidar (in chapter 15) he was just about to attack a whole bunch of Jotunn warriors.

Let’s do this.

Chapter Eighteen
Vidar
Vidar’s mind burned as his fylgja’s strength coursed through him. Yet it was as if he clutched a slick rock with wet hands in a cold, fast-flowing river. That rock was himself, his body, while his grip was his spirit. His hamr and hugr. But if his grip slipped, she could take control.
And probably would.
“Garm’s teeth,” Canewin shouted. “They’re huge! How can—”
Garilon barked a reproof, and the standard-bearer fell silent.
The black Jotunn longships were as large as any of the ships plying the trade route to Vanaheim. Such ships could easily hold more than a hundred sailors and warriors. But spun as they were from smoke and ash, who could say how many warriors these might bear?
They would find out soon enough.
A grim smile rose to Vidar’s lips. A company of Jotunn warriors numbered two hundred men. With his fylgja pouring strength into him, he felt as if he could take them all himself.
He glanced up. Only one bird drifted overhead, high above bowshot. One shaman of the three to track the Aesir’s movements? That meant the others would be using their magic to harry him until the threads he’d woven parted and the charm unraveled.
The sails of the black ships slackened, rippling as if they meant to stop. Garilon’s horn sang out sharply over the heavy rumble of hoofbeats. The double column reformed into a narrow spear with Vidar at its tip. Garilon rode at his right and Canewin on his left, one of her gloved hands tight around the spear from which Vidar’s fox-head banner cracked and snapped in the wind.
Maybe a hundred yards were left between them and the ships. The ashen sails slackened entirely. The ships halted and then vanished in a cloud of ash and smoke. The stench of burned wood grew overpowering.
The wedge of Aesir, horse and cold iron, accelerated to a gallop. Vidar wrapped Hrimfaxi’s reins around his saddle horn, leaving enough slack for the mare to move freely. He withdrew his spindle and pulled free a double arm’s length of thread.
Smoke burned his eyes, and he coughed from the thick stench. The drumming sound of hooves filled his ears. Maybe fifty yards left.
He let loose a battle cry. His fylgja slavered, flexing insubstantial limbs, and he felt his strength double again. He dug his fingers into that river rock that was himself and began reciting the runic phrases that would strengthen the leash wrapped round his fylgja’s neck.
In between eye blinks, the cloud of smoke and ash condensed into a massive black sphere that spun in the air. It pulsed once. Twice. On the third pulse, it transformed into a thousand black spears that shot toward them. Garilon’s horn cried out; he understood the danger.
Thirty-five yards left.
“Steady!” Garilon shouted above the thundering hooves. “Their magic won’t—”
The black spears smashed into Vidar, his men, and their horses, bursting into a shower of ash and soot. Horses screamed and balked. Trained though they were, they were blinded. The men coughed and spit, dragging on reins to get their panicked horses back under control.
Maybe it had been luck, but Hrimfaxi had not been blinded by the soot. She’d barreled right through it.
The Jotunn had formed themselves into a shield wall. These Jotunn were armored in much the same way as the Einherjar: boiled leather armor covering chest and arms and split below the waist to partially cover their legs. Leather helms shining with studs. Round shields painted black. Long spears jutting forward.
Vidar realized he was hearing Hrimfaxi’s hooves alone. He glanced to either side. No one. It must have been the cloud of ash from the destroyed spears. He’d ridden through it, but his warriors had been caught.
Maybe fifteen yards left. Less than the length of a warship.
He had heartbeats left to decide: Either face the Jotunn alone or circle around and wait, which would give the Jotunn warband more time to ready themselves. And more time for their shamans to bend their seidr against his warband.
No real choice, then.
He pulled witchthread into his hands until the spindle rattled empty. He cast the thread forward, singing the charm his father had taught him. The grasses and roots obeyed, surging up from the dead earth to twist around his enemies’ legs.
Cries of dismay went up among the Jotunn shield wall that was four warriors deep and maybe twenty wide, their spears bristling.
In the heartbeat that remained, he drew his sword, readied his shield and charged.
Garilon’s horn shrieked from behind a moment later, calling the warriors to reform.
Vidar smashed into the Jotunn. He knocked three down immediately, those in the first line who held the shields. They screamed in pain and fell awkwardly, their legs and feet bound to the ground by his power.
Those in the third and fourth lines rammed long spears into his face and chest. The impacts rocked him back in the saddle, but thanks to his fylgja, none of the blows injured him. And thanks to his charm, Hrimfaxi remained unscathed.
Though there was no pain or blood from the jabbing spears, he gripped Hrimfaxi tight with his legs so that he wouldn’t get knocked off. In flashing arcs, he hewed spear blades like heads of grain, but he couldn’t quite reach the warriors themselves.
A pair of spears slammed low into his right side. Rather than pulling back, this pair of Jotunn warriors shoved harder, trying to lift him out of the saddle.
He brought his sword down to cut through the shafts, but his strike was off and his blade stuck in the tough ash. Before he could free it, another pair of spears slammed into him. Rough hands reached up and dragged his shield down.
He hit the frozen ground. Breath blew from his lungs. Above him, Hrimfaxi did as she’d been trained: she went wild, spinning and kicking her heavy hooves.
Bound as they were by the grasses, the Jotunn immediately around him couldn’t flee. He heard the wet thocks of smashed skulls and broken bones.
A howl tore free of his throat, as much the fylgja’s roar as it was his own. Without thinking, he hauled on her strength like a sailor raising a mainsail. His body thrummed with new strength and he was up, hammering Jotunn warriors aside with blade and shield alike.
He screamed as he swung his sword, blood spraying as he hewed through them till it broke in his hand. He flung the hilt at a thickset, black-bearded, grinning Jotunn. It bounced off the man’s helm and dropped him.
When his shield became a smashed ruin, he laid about him with his fists. He charged back and forth, trying to break free of the encircling Jotunn but there were just too many of them. They drove Hrimfaxi off and, tucked behind round shields and long spears, got around him.
Garilon’s horn shrieked again, closer now. The sound pierced the battle fury that had settled into his mind.
Yet Vidar could taste the Jotunn’s uncertainty—like hot blood and the sweet flesh of Yggdrasil’s fruit. They might have him at bay, but they’d shortly have to deal with his warband.
One Jotunn started shouting orders, and resolution replaced their uncertainty. They began jabbing their spears at him.
And then he felt—finally—the Jotunn shamans picking at his charms. Not only were they beginning to unravel the weave that protected his warriors, but they were unwinding the grassy fetters he’d flung around the Jotunn’s feet.
He slapped one darting spear aside and caught another. He yanked hard, using his fylgja’s strength as naturally as his own. The Jotunn flew toward him, surprise etched into the man’s swarthy, heavy-browed face. Vidar caught the warrior and broke him across his knee.
His fylgja screamed with delight.
Aesir battle cries echoed behind him. He turned toward the sound and gathered himself for a charge—and then the shamans hurled seidr at him. It cut runnels across his skin like a snow bear’s venom. Pain flared, but his fylgja screamed it away until only his rage remained.
His fylgja made him slap one spear away even as another struck him in the small of the back. She spun him around, and he grabbed the spear in both hands and with it flung the Jotunn warrior aside. Then she made him sprint forward, spear still in his hands, toward the opening she—they—had created.
No, he thought at her, shouldering her aside and taking back control of his body. He needed her strength, but he would not let her control him.
She snarled like a cornered great-cat, but backed down.
Through the gap in front of him he saw his warband on foot, fighting toward him in a tight wall of their own. Most of the Jotunn seemed to be attacking them. He himself was in the middle of a noose of maybe twenty Jotunn.
He spat on the ground. He could feel the shamans further picking apart the witcharmor he’d woven for the warband. It wouldn’t hold much longer.
His fylgja shrieked inside him, making his blood pound harder.
Enough, he shouted at her. Then a pair of spears slammed into his back.
He stumbled forward, fell, rolled and then came back up to his knees. He took another pair of spears full on his chest. They tore through his tattered armor, but skidded across his flesh.
As he stood, arms wide, facing the Jotunn, he saw fear in their dark eyes, leashed like hounds. They knew what he was and they lacked the weapons to kill him.
This time when his fylgja screamed, he turned to his left, pulled on her strength, and sprang forward faster than the attacking Jotunn could react. They were coming at him in pairs, shieldman on the right and spearman to his left, alternating all the way around the noose.
But they hadn’t expected him to move as fast as he did. He slammed shoulder-first into the shieldman. The round shield broke, and the Jotunn warrior flew backward, dark beard parted in a howl of surprise.
Vidar then grabbed the shoulders of the spearman and drove a knee into his stomach as he pulled down on the man’s shoulders. The warrior vomited blood as his torso was pulped.
By then, the next shieldman had begun turning toward Vidar. Still moving far more quickly than the Jotunn could react, he skip-stepped forward and caved in the shieldman’s skull with a single clenched fist.
Seidr flared across his shoulders, hissing and burning. He staggered and went down on one knee, mind reeling with pain.
Before he even realized what was happening, his fylgja had picked him back up and was driving him forward into the next spearman. She used his arms to grab that warrior’s shoulders, pull him down. When she hammered his knee upward, he felt the spearman’s spine snap.
Vidar watched the dead warrior’s hugr dart free like a silvery fish. His fylgja reached for it, extending bloody hands as he might reach into the mists above a lake.
And then she ate the Jotunn’s spirit.
Vidar’s heart nearly burst with ecstasy. He reeled backward, struggling to rein in his—no, her—desire for more. Hot horror rose like the dawn.
The remaining warriors in the shield wall attacked, hewing him with axes, slamming spears into him. None of it mattered. The thuds of their weapons against his body sounded like a heavy summer rain on a longhouse roof.
The pounding of his heart and the need for more death were all he felt. He fought that need even as his fylgja fought his enemies.
Using his arms, she slapped a spear aside, spun, and stepped in close. He watched the warrior’s eyes, deep brown below heavy brows, widen in surprise. The man’s lips parted, a white strip of teeth behind a black beard.
His fylgja tore the warrior’s throat out with her talons.
Talons? When did she—
Renewed ecstasy flooded through him as his fylgja drank in the dead warrior’s spirit.
He was losing his grip on that river rock, his fingernails peeling back. He focused on the icy manacles of his tattoos and began to invoke the runes that would restrain her—
Only to be drowned out by the fylgja’s shriek, malicious and eager.
Dozens left. More food.
No! He had been a fool.
He threw what will he had left into reciting the runes. The shamans must have sensed it, for seidr  incandesced against his skin, burning him with long rippling lines of venom.
His fingernails slipped from the rock, and the current took him.
No no no...
When the fylgja realized his control was gone, she surged up from the depths of his mind like a broaching whale. Dimly, he was aware of her propelling his body forward at one of the Jotunn still before him. The Jotunn’s spear shattered against his chest. And with one of Vidar’s hands, the fylgja ripped away the man’s armor and sank Vidar’s teeth, lengthened into fangs, into his neck. The warrior thrashed, trying to throw him—her—off. She broke the warrior’s neck with one savage twist of her head.
Another wave of ecstasy swept him further away from the rock of his hamr.
The further away he was carried, the more control she took and the more she shifted his hamr, molding his flesh into a shape she wanted. Already his body had doubled in size, looking more and more like a snow bear with long curling horns and sharp talons, thick and black.
He had been a fool. As if from a great height, he watched his body leap toward the Jotunn shield wall that had engaged his warband. His body rampaged, opening a wide, bloody swath through the Jotunn. She drank more spirits and grew larger, altering his hamr still more.
But he no longer felt any of it. Just a lingering, vague shame as his thoughts faded.
She turned to look at him then, green eyes wild and triumphant.
Such a fool... 

OUTRO
Well, folks, that was CHAPTER 18 of Kinsmen Die. I hope you enjoyed it. 

Vidar fought the Jotunn…and his fylgja…and didn’t do well against either.
  
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As always, I’m going to read from the Havamal, sayings of the High One, Odin himself.

I’m reading from both the Bellows and the Larrington translations

Bellows, Verse 18

18. He alone is aware | who has wandered wide,
And far abroad has fared,
How great a mind | is guided by him
That wealth of wisdom has.

Larrington
Only that man who wanders widely 
and has journeyed a great deal 
knows what sort of mind each man controls; 
he who’s sharp in his wits.

 
Thanks for listening.

Sources:
Bellows translation
https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe04.htm

Larrington translation: The Poetic Edda (2nd ed.), 2014, Oxford World Classics