[center][h3]Feast[/h3][/center]

“Pour again!”

Thick dark liquid poured from the clay gullet into the raised horn, frothing as it struck the rounded walls of the polished vessel. The foam was not given time to simmer down as the horn was speedily lifted to a beard-rimmed mouth and overturned breathlessly, sending droplets flying to be trapped in the forest of curling hair. In but a moment, the horn was emptied, and once more it hungrily rose up.

“And again!”

“Hold now, Gunnar!” another man laughed from the side, “We’re not even past the first calf. You’ll be snoring under the bench by the time we get to the boiled-blood. I thought you didn’t want to miss that one.”

“It’s been a long way here,” Gunnar replied, his nose still buried in the horn, “I couldn’t enjoy any of it if my legs are sore.”

“He’s long of foot, but not hardy,” another man, sitting across the table from them, interjected. His face was disfigured in a peculiar way. A mighty blow had flattened his nose so that its nostrils were slanted forward, giving it an uncanny resemblance with a swine’s snout. Some unevenness inside it made him rasp and snort as he breathed, which did nothing to lighten the similarity. “After going past some three hills, he’ll lie around for days, and then he’ll still need to drink himself warm if there’s a feast. If not, he’ll make do with the brewery dregs.”

“It wasn’t three hills, Regin, but at least ten times that,” Gunnar jabbed a finger at the distant smoke-marked ceiling, “Enough to leave you so hungry you’re just heating the belly with that leg.”

Several eyes fell onto the large meat-covered bone Regin had pulled before himself from the fire behind his back, where roasting chunks sizzled and cracked on its stones and spits, dripping sharp-smelling fat into the flames. The disfigured man gave no sign of noticing and bit into the large leg without cutting it, as though it had been the most natural thing in the world to do. Guffaws rose around him, going to join the chorus of words, laughter, singing, the clatter of knives and horns and the crackling of burning wood, that mingled with the bitter smoke and ascended alongside it.

What marvel that the hall of Hoddren should have been filled with such bounty on that evening? For it was the day of [i]Naemdegi[/i], the time to cast away the last shadows of winter and welcome the new dawn of spring. All around the hall’s walls and roof were tied knots of herbs both fresh and dried, which marked the changing of the season and sweetened the smoke where it touched them. Among them were wooden tablets, most often round pieces of a small trunk, that had been painted or carved with a red or white hand in a halting gesture. Many were blackened after years of use, but still the symbol on them stood out clearly, having often been swept and retouched. The cleaner the hands of the dawn-father, the God of legend, were at Naemdegi, the luckier would the year to come be, for his fiery vigil would keep away misfortune and invite plenty. Such was tradition, and such it had been for time immemorial.

Hoddrenhöll had enjoyed good fortune for generations now, with more plentiful days than meager ones, and so it was wide and spacious, built of sturdy wood. Two large tables stood along its length, with a bench to each side of them, and there sat the folk of Hoddren, cheering and feasting and attended by many servants. At the end opposite the door, under the wall where hung the shields of renowned fathers and notorious defeated foes, was a smaller table, covered in furs and standing across, so that those who sat at it could see all that happened in the hall. There was the head of the clan of Hoddren, Magndór the gold-bearded, and its elders, watching over their kin in revelry as they did in all things. While the others drank from horns, they quaffed from gleaming chalices of foreign make and rare art.

With them there was also a honoured guest, who, though he shared no blood of theirs, had earned a seat at the lord’s table through fame alone. The men beside him wore rings and golden clasps, but he had not even traded his brown cloak and grey hat for finer clothes, and met the dawn as he did every day. Even so, it could not be said that he disdained Hoddren’s hospitality, for he ate and drank as heartily as Gunnar and Regin and the others of his band, who sat near the head of the table closest by.

“So you’re going towards the Griknin fjords,” Magndór was saying, between a sip and a mouthful, “You still haven’t said why. Heard of something crawling in the hills there? I would hope I’d know of it in time if a tröld came eastwards, but maybe I don’t hear these things as sharp as you.”

Hnikar had been chewing on a particularly large bite, and gnashed out something indistinct in reply. It wasn’t until he swallowed some of it that it became clear what he was saying.

“My ears aren’t better than yours, Hodder,” he sent down the rest with a silvery cup’s worth of brew, “For this or for else. No, there isn’t a hunt calling me that way. Not yet, anyhow. I’ve told you about how the woods west of Griknin have more of the beasts than you’d think were left on the whole earth, yes? I don’t think anyone will ever try to go see why if I don’t, but that-” he swept a hand as if to push the question away, “It’s a big effort, that. Not now.”

“Maybe you told Magndór, but not us,” one of the elders, Gremnir, leaned in. He was a heavyset man with graying hair and beard, wearing a wolf-pelt cloak. “It’s the first I hear about it. Not that much ever gets here from the woods that far west.”

“You haven’t said anything about the fjords to me, either,” the chieftain nodded, “What is it with the trölds there? Is that their mating ground?”

“Maybe, if they even mate like the dawn-father’s beasts and don’t just hatch out of rocks. I couldn’t tell you that.” Hnikar shook his head as he wiped grease from his beard. “But this is a thought decades old, before any of us were more than unblooded lads. Of all the tales of the tröld-slayers, how many that you know come from those places? From the Breisdris, or Linndir? Too many, that’s what.”

“There’s many small halls around there,” Gremnir said, “Stories break down the more you tell them. All the ones we’ve heard about them might’ve started as two or three in all.”

“And maybe a few more, but ones that started after a night of drinking rather than hunting,” Magndór laughed.

“I would know that well enough,” Hnikar smiled, revealing a handful of missing teeth, “But that can’t all be it. There’s too many different names in those tales there, and some of them, they have that feeling they must’ve been true.”

“What feeling?”

“It’s something you have to know yourself, after you get a notch on your blade.” The Trollcatcher stretched his shoulders as a servant refilled his cup. “Sometimes, you hear a song and you [i]know[/i]” he struck the point of his finger against the table, as if driving a knife into it, “This came from someone who has been on a real hunt. It’s the things they say that a drunk braggart isn’t going to think about, but not just that. You have to know,” he repeated, and drained the cup again.

“So say enough of them are true,” the chieftain conceded, “It means there’s more of the bleeding beasts there than anywhere else east of the Lakes?”

“I can’t say that, I haven’t been that wide myself. Maybe it’s not the only place like that there is. But if something is the matter, sooner or later someone will have to go in there and find out, and cut it at the throat if needs be. Or else hells know what’s going to happen in a few more decades.” Hnikar set down his cup. “But I said it, I’m not going for that now. If there’s nothing around the Griknin, I’ll listen for anything from further west.”

“You might as well stop in the fjords, they might have goods from beyond the strait if you have the gold to spare,” Gremnir nodded, and went back to his meal.

“Further west, then,” Magndór mulled over the drink in his chalice before downing it, “It’s nothing certain, but I heard a hall was raided somewhere there, beyond the fjords. The Cales, or someone else along the coast, no one knows. Nothing about the mark of a tröld, by any means.”

“Perhaps it’s some reaver from the outer seas,” Hnikar said, looking into the dance of the fire, then over the celebrants, “They sail quite deep inland, sometimes.”

“Perhaps,” the chieftain agreed, “But they’ve never come far enough to reach us. We’re safe, here.”

The feast went on, until dawn came.