Sublime

Odin’s hall, and Freyja’s, hold “all men who have fallen in battle since the beginning”, but they will be too few “when the wolf comes”, as Fenrir inevitably will at the Ragnarök. Kings and their retinues are therefore especially welcome, with the Valkyries serving wine for such a royal entrance.

Hard to argue with a god like Herne, who lives in every bramble thicket, every maggot crawling in every carcass, anywhere in the realm. But he’s not sure it would help these people, here in this camp, to have Arthur back as king. Arthur wasn’t a great healer, a great mender of broken things. He was the one who did the breaking, more often than not.

Just as the einherjar would fight for the gods at the Ragnarök, the drowned also had their station, although a terrible one that they do not seem to have earned. As all the powers gather at the end, something will stir on the ocean floor, the greatest Viking ship ever made. Its name is Naglfar, ‘Nail-Ship’, so called because it is built from the fi