"No, no, no!" Sodull screamed, gazing up at the sky. "This is not supposed to happen!" He glanced down at Erik's lifeless body, horror and anger in his eyes. "No, no, no!"

Tears were trickling down both Skalfi's and Vandri's cheeks, neither girl seeming to care, and Blader felt prickling in the corners of his eyes. Wolfsted, too, looked very close to crying, and Sodull already had tearstains painted down his face.

"He displayed honor," Sodull yelled. "Erik Kjoll was willing to die to save Vandri! He did die to save her! He's supposed to be alive! You hear me, seers? You hear me, gods? Erik is supposed to live! Those who show honor survive, remember? Remember?" His voice cracked on the last word, followed by a sob.

Gently, Sodull laid Erik down on the ground, closing his friend's eyes with another sob. He sat back on his heels, staring down at Erik. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

"I don't understand," Vandri whimpered. "Why? That was honorable, that was brave, that was...einherjar. Why wasn't it acknowledged? Why is he dead?"

"Because the Reenactment is faulty!" Sodull shouted. "Because this whole damn thing is a lie! A lie! We're told it will work, are told only true einherjar will survive, but that's not true! That's not true! Because if it was, Erik would be alive right now!"

No one said anything. There was nothing to say. Sodull was right. Whatever doubts they had had about it before were gone.

"Instead," Sodull continued to rant. "People like Dyr Gunar get to join up and kill generals while those like Erik are killed, and for what? Nothing! Absolutely damn nothing! Baldor thinks he's so much better than Odin, but he kills us needlessly for his armies! That's not better, I say; that's worse! At least Odin only took us after we were dead!" His voice dropped to a whisper, the pain evident in his tone. "I just want to know why. Why Erik had to die, when there was no need."

"The Reenactment is being manipulated," Skalfi said softly. "Someone wants those of honor dead, or those of dishonor in the einherjar."

"But who?" Sodull asked, glancing at her. Then something seemed to click in his mind and he slowly turned to pin his eyes on Wolfsted. "You never told us how you knew about that meeting."

Wolfsted paled as Vandri, Skalfi, and Blader all looked at him. "How do we know," Sodull continued. "That it's not you. You're Aldrian, after all. Don't have the same allegiances as the rest of us."

"I'm no traitor," Wolfsted defended harshly. "I swear to you, I am no traitor. I am not behind this. Aldrians may be different, but that doesn't make us traitors."

"Then tell us," Sodull hissed. "Tell us why you headed into the root basin that day. Tell us how you knew the gods would be meeting."

Everyone kept their eyes pinned on Wolfsted, even Vandri, who appeared confused as to what they were talking about but knew better than to interrupt Sodull. The Aldrian glanced around at them, once again looking cornered.

"Wolfsted," Blader said softly. "Just tell us."

"Please," Skalfi said.

"Tell us!" Sodull shouted.

Wolfsted was trembling, with anger or pain or fear, Blader didn't know. It was the first time he had seen his friend so visibly affected by an emotion. After a moment of hesitation, he reached up to his collar and jerked down, pulling his tunic down enough to show them his chest.

There, carved into the skin, was a rune, one belonging to the higher order. Blader narrowed his eyes. He couldn't read this rune. Around the edges of the marking was dark red, almost like a thread. Blood. Dried blood.

"What is that?" Vandri asked.

"I don't know," Wolfsted whispered. "It was marked on me when I was a child. I do not remember that day. But it's been here almost my entire life, and sometimes it speaks to me, tells me things."

Sodull was staring at the rune. "What...why?"

Wolfsted released his collar and adjusted his tunic, shielding the rune from sight. "I know almost nothing about it. My parents and my brother searched everywhere for the elder who marked me, who cut the rune into my flesh and sealed it with blood. My brother only found scraps of information, whispers of knowledge that used to be. A path so old we know nothing of it."

"It's not runic magic?" Skalfi asked.

Wolfsted shook his head. "Not in the way it is used today. This...this is blood magic, ancient, arcane wisdom. I do not know what it is for, or why I was marked, or how it works. All I know is that I sense things, sometimes, that others don't. That day, I was led to the meeting between the gods." He looked down. "So I did not lie when I said I had a sixth sense. I just didn't mean the one the myths spoke about."

Blader placed his hand on his friend's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Wolfsted," he murmured.

"I am no traitor," Wolfsted said, raising his head to meet Sodull's eyes. His own eyes were fierce. "I have never been."

"I'm sorry," Sodull said. "I just don't understand how Erik could die. I am sorry, Wolfsted. Please, forgive me."

Wolfsted nodded, silent, and Munin stepped forward, toward the small group. Blader had almost forgotten he was there, he had been so quiet.

"We need to move on," he said. "We can't sit here forever."

Sodull glared at him. "Not until Erik gets a funeral. He deserves a warrior's honor."

Slowly, the recruits got to their feet, wiping the tears from their faces. Vandri took her pack and, after emptying the small food supply and the canteen from it, which Munin collected, she wet the exterior and used it to clean the blood and poison from Erik's arm, sniffling. Sodull picked up his friend's sword, wiping it through the grass to rid it of the blood. When Vandri finished with cleaning up as much blood as she could off of Erik, Blader carefully slid Erik's shield onto his good arm while Wolfsted fixed his sword into Erik's hand. Then they crossed their friend's arms, Erik's sword pointing over his left shoulder while his shield covered the gruesome wound and the sword's hilt.

Munin watched uncertainly as Skalfi tilted Erik's head so it was like he was looking up at the sky, ready for combat, before stepping back so Sodull could kneel beside his friend. Tears dripped down his face as he stared at his childhood best friend, and then he reached out and pulled Erik's tags out from underneath his tunic.

"You are einherjar," he said firmly. "You are, truly, you are. You should have the tag that says so. You know I would have given you mine."

Then he stood and Munin joined them as the recruits stood staring down at Erik, most of them silently crying. Munin looked out of place as he stood awkwardly beside Vandri, him being the only one who hadn't known Erik.

"We have a song," Sodull said in a choked voice. "In Drottning, and the surrounding fishing villages. About death. It's tradition, almost, to sing at funerals. I want to sing it." But he lapsed into silence.

"I know the song, too," Skalfi said softly, glancing at Sodull.

"Sing with me?" Sodull asked, and she nodded. Taking a deep breath, Skalfi began, Sodull joining her.

The waves bring up to the shore many sorrows

I will look for memory of your death there on the morrow.

Skalfi's voice was soft and quiet, and Sodull's broken voice joined hers, adding a depth to it.

Farewell, farewell, I bid you a fond farewell

I don't know what I'll do without you but I hope you will fare well.

Blader felt the tears coursing down his cheeks, running over the corners of his mouth and getting trapped there, tasting of salt. He drew his sleeve over his lips to dispel them, but more kept coming, following the paths of the first.

The sea swallows many, and the battlefield holds its dead

Where do those who simply die go to rest their heads?

Farewell, farewell, I bid you a fond farewell

I don't know what I'll do without you but I hope you will fare well.

Vandri took a gasping breath, trying hard to keep from crying aloud.

Is it cold, where you are, is it cold?

Do you even feel it, do your bones feel the cold?

Farewell, farewell, I bid you a fond farewell

I don't know what I'll do without you but I hope you will fare well.

Wolfsted stood silent, eyes fixed on Erik's body, his face stained by tears.

I wish to build you a boat, a towering pyre

But all I can manage is a tiny funeral fire.

Farewell, farewell, I bid you a fond farewell

I don't know what I'll do without you but I hope you will fare well.

Skalfi's voice was breaking, and Sodull choked back a sob. Their voices trembling, they finished out the song.

May the goddess give you a seat at her table

Send me a letter if you are able.

Farewell, farewell, I bid you a fond farewell

I don't know what I'll do without you but I hope you will fare well.

For several long minutes, the recruits held their silence, wiping the tears from their faces. Then Sodull spoke, his words low and shaking. "I think I know the answer to the Dyr Gunar question."

The other five all looked at him. "What?" Blader asked.

"The honorable ones are all dead," Sodull said. "That's how Dyr Gunar made it out. He wasn't honorable. He just lived. Those with honor had already sacrificed themselves."

Blader remembered the words spoken to him in the beginning of the Reenactment. All who live are not honorable; not all those who die are heroes. Was that supposed to be some kind of message to him, as he stared down at the body of his honorable dead friend?

"All who live are not honorable," he murmured. "Not all those who die are heroes."

The others looked at him strangely. "What?" Wolfsted asked.

"Something I was told," Blader said. "In the beginning of the Reenactment, while I was in Ginnungagap. These voices spoke to me and that was one of the things they said."

"Ginnungagap?" Vandri queried. "Is that where you woke up?"

Blader thought back. "I was conscious, I suppose, but I didn't move. Then I woke up in Jotunheim and I could move."

"Odd," Skalfi said, looking at Erik. Silence fell again as they regarded their friend before they all turned and continued to walk along the river's edge. Blader glanced back once at Erik as they moved forward, and he looked almost peaceful, lying in the grass with his weapons of war.

[----]

Blader didn't know how long they had walked in silence before he noticed the white mist slowly rolling toward them from up ahead. Shielding everything in the land from sight, the fog was thick and impenetrable by the eyes. The sun, which had been in the process of setting for a while now, was beginning to vanish as it sunk below the mist line. No light made it through.

"This isn't good," Wolfsted commented quietly as everyone stopped, but no one moved to flee. There was no energy to run, to try and hide from the mist. For what was the use? Honor clearly wasn't the metric used to determine the survivors of this Reenactment anymore, if it ever had been.

Blader took his weapons off his back, slipping his shield over his arm and drawing his sword. His friends did the same, Sodull picking his sword and shield over his bow. "Can't shoot an enemy you can't see," he muttered.

"Stay close," Blader advised. "We don't want to lose each other."

Skalfi lifted her shield and Blader heard the soft thunk as it knocked against his and Wolfsted's. "Form up," she said. "This way, we're connected."

Several soft thunks followed Skalfi's as the other recruits did as she instructed and they stood in a line, watching the mist approach them, concealing everything in its path. The closer it got, the higher it reached, and the more light was blocked out, leaving only a faint dimness, not quite dark.

As soon as the mist touched Blader, he felt a numbing sensation spread throughout his body, and then the fog utterly surrounded him. It was like he was alone. He couldn't see anything, not even his fellow recruits. Shifting his shield slightly, he waited for the quiet scrape of its surface moving against Skalfi's shield, but the sound didn't come. Another movement of the shield, more pronounced this time, revealed she was no longer there. On his other side, there was no Munin.

Blader was completely alone.

/**/

What did you think of this chapter? Of their "funeral" for Erik, of Skalfi's and Sodull's song, of the mist?

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed! Please vote and comment, let me know what you think!

Skylar Wittenborn