Fenrir

The iron would not break, and someone had begun to smile.

Fenrir saw it between the gods standing above him: a quick baring of teeth, gone as soon as he looked. He lowered his head. The fetter pressed into the thick fur at his chest. Beneath it, his forelegs were drawn together so tightly that he could feel one claw against the other.

They had called this one Dromi. The first fetter had broken before he had properly braced himself, and afterward they had told him what a splendid thing he was. He had liked hearing it. He had liked the circle they made around him, all those faces turned toward his own.

Now the circle waited.

He drew his hind feet beneath him. Iron scraped stone. For a moment his weight hung against the binding, and the pain was so sudden that he almost let himself fall.

Instead, he threw himself sideways.

The link beneath his breast opened with a crack that struck the walls and came back. Something hit the ground beyond the watching gods. They scattered. Fenrir rolled, rose, and shook the broken iron from his legs.

A length of Dromi lay beside his paw.

He picked it up. It was warm where it had touched him and bitter on his tongue. He carried it toward the god who had smiled.

The god stepped back.

Fenrir stopped. He had meant to drop it at the man’s feet, to let him see where it had parted. The others were already gathering near the hall, leaving a clear space around the wolf.

Only Tyr remained within reach.

“Did you see?” Fenrir asked through the iron.

“I saw.”

He opened his jaws. The broken links struck the paving between them.

“Then tell them.”

Tyr looked at the place where Dromi had failed. He did not pick it up.

Outside the Door

By evening, the fragments had been carried away.

Fenrir could still smell the hands that had collected them. They had come while he slept, worked quickly, and left by the far side of the yard. Nobody had asked him to help.

Light spilled from the hall. Inside, benches scraped. A cup fell, and the laughter afterward brought his ears forward. He stood and crossed the yard until his shadow blocked the doorway.

The laughter stopped.

He could see the nearest table. There was room beyond it, if they moved the bench. He put one paw on the threshold.

Tyr came out carrying meat.

“Here,” he said.

Fenrir did not move his paw.

“Bring it inside.”

Tyr glanced at the doorway. The wolf’s shoulders rose above the lintel; his chest was wider than the opening.

“You cannot get through.”

“I could make it wider.”

A man inside stood up so sharply that his bench fell. Fenrir turned toward the sound. Tyr stepped between him and the door, holding the meat against his own chest.

“Come away.”

There was no challenge in his voice. That made it worse. Fenrir could have broken the wooden frame with a thrust of his shoulders. He had broken Dromi. Instead, he backed into the yard, and Tyr followed him to the place where he always ate.

The meat lay untouched between his paws.

“Was it a good fetter?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And I broke it.”

“Yes.”

Fenrir looked past Tyr to the narrow bright door. Voices had begun again, lower now.

“They should have stayed.”

Tyr crouched and pushed the meat closer. This was the god who had fed him when his teeth were small. The others had watched him grow from beyond a safe distance; Tyr had come close enough to lose that distance every day.

Fenrir bent his head. He took the meat carefully, keeping his teeth clear of the hand.

Several mornings passed before they offered him another trial.

This time there was no load of iron to drag into the yard. The gods were going to Lyngvi, an island in the lake called Amsvartnir. There, they said, they would show him something worth breaking.

Fenrir searched the group for Tyr and found him standing near the back.

“Are you coming?”

Tyr nodded.

Then Fenrir went with them.

The Soft Fetter

The lake closed over his shoulders. Cold moved through his coat until it reached the skin, and for a while he had nothing to do but swim. His paws pushed against deep water. Ahead, the gods’ boats slid toward the island.

He reached the shallows first.

On land, he shook himself, sending water across the flat stones where they would have to stand. It pleased him to see them lift their hems as they came ashore. He waited for someone to laugh.

Odin stepped past the wet stones. In his hand was a pale length of cord.

Fenrir looked behind him for the fetter.

“This is Gleipnir,” Odin said.

He stretched it between his hands. It was no thicker than something used to fasten clothing. Another god took an end and pulled. The cord straightened; neither man could part it.

They passed it around the gathering. Fenrir watched their wrists and shoulders, the small adjustments of their feet. They were trying hard enough. Whatever else they concealed, that was real.

“Now you,” Odin said.

Fenrir lowered his muzzle. He could smell the hands along the cord, but there was no forge-smoke, no iron, none of the things that had told him what Dromi was. Gleipnir brushed his whiskers. He drew back.

“What is it made of?”

“The dwarves made it.”

“That is who. I asked what.”

Odin let the middle of the cord fall. It hung loosely, stirred by the wind.

“You broke the others.”

“The others were iron.”

“And is silk harder?”

Fenrir put a paw over the trailing end. He pressed it against a stone and drew back. Gleipnir slid beneath his pad without a sound.

He lifted his foot.

“No.”

The word left a space around it. One of the gods stooped to retrieve the end of the cord, and Fenrir watched him do it. Let them take their little thing home. Let them test it on one another.

Odin began winding it around his hand.

“Then Dromi was your last feat.”

Fenrir felt the old tightness in his chest, although there was nothing around it now.

He could swim away. The lake was behind him, the far shore dark with trees. No gate stood across the water. Yet he knew how the story would travel back without him: the great wolf who had broken iron would not risk a thread.

“If there is a trick in it,” he said, “you will leave me here.”

“If it holds you, we shall release you.”

“Before you leave the island?”

“Yes.”

Fenrir looked along the row of gods. Not one came closer.

He could not smell a promise. He could not catch it beneath a paw or force it to carry weight. He knew what meat was, what iron was, what the boats would do when their oars entered the lake. He needed something that would remain with him if the words failed.

“Put a hand in my mouth.”

The god holding the other end of Gleipnir let it fall.

“One hand,” Fenrir said. “Until I am free.”

Nobody mocked the cord now. They looked toward Odin, then away from him, then at one another. Fenrir began to feel better. Here was a test they understood.

He had not asked for Tyr.

But Tyr came forward.

The wolf lowered his head. Up close, he could see a pale scar across the god’s knuckles. He knew that hand by its smell, by the way it opened to give and withdrew empty. Of all the hands on the island, this was the one he had learned not to bite.

“Do you know the bargain?” Fenrir asked.

“I know.”

Tyr held out his right hand.

Fenrir could still refuse. He could turn toward the water and leave the hand hanging in the air. But Tyr was offering what the others would not, and for the first time since they had shown him Gleipnir, the wolf thought there might be a way to finish the trial and go home together.

He opened his mouth.

What the Hand Was Worth

Tyr’s palm settled against his tongue.

Fenrir kept his jaws apart while the gods worked. They approached from the sides, passed Gleipnir around his legs, and retreated as soon as they could. The cord moved through his coat like running water. He felt almost nothing until they drew it tight.

Tyr stood directly before him. Fenrir could not lower his head much farther without pulling the god off balance.

“Ready,” Odin said.

Fenrir pressed outward with his forelegs.

The cord caught.

He shifted his weight and tried again. With Dromi, there had been movement inside the iron, a small yielding before the final effort. Gleipnir gave him nothing. Its pressure deepened as his muscles swelled against it.

He stopped.

Tyr’s fingers had curled. Fenrir moved his tongue away from them and worked his hind feet into the ground.

This time he drove with his whole body.

The gods jumped back. One fell against another. For an instant that pleased him; then the binding dragged his legs together and he struck the earth on his chest. Tyr stumbled forward with him, his arm sliding deeper between the wolf’s teeth.

Fenrir forced his jaws wider.

He lay still until Tyr found his footing. A tooth had scored the skin near the god’s thumb. The taste was sharp and new.

Someone laughed.

Fenrir rose as far as the fetter allowed. Every part of him wanted to throw itself against that sound, but Tyr’s hand was still in his mouth. He waited for the gods to approach and undo what they had done.

They were looking at Gleipnir.

The wolf made a rough sound around the hand. Tyr understood him; Fenrir saw it in the way his eyes flicked toward the binding.

Release me.

No one moved.

Fenrir pulled backward. Gleipnir bit through his coat. He could not free one leg without tightening the others, could not turn far enough to bring his teeth to the cord. The strength that had split Dromi now held every loop hard against him.

He stopped again, breathing through his nose.

Odin was speaking to the others. Two went toward a heavy stone farther up the island. One collected the tether attached to the fetter.

They were not preparing to release him.

Fenrir looked at Tyr.

The god’s free hand rose. For a moment Fenrir watched it with an eagerness worse than hunger. It could reach the fastening. It could call the others back. It could do something other than hang uselessly beside the body whose right hand lay between his teeth.

Tyr put it against the wolf’s cheek.

Fenrir turned his head away from the touch. The movement drew Tyr forward, and the god had to follow.

Now the wolf understood what had been offered.

Not help. A price.

Tyr had brought a hand he was willing to leave behind.

Fenrir held him there. The god’s pulse beat against his tongue. All around them, the others were beginning to work with the quick, relieved movements of men whose difficult task was finished.

He waited until Tyr looked directly at him.

Then he closed his jaws.

The cry drove the laughter from the island.

Tyr staggered back. Fenrir tried to follow, not toward the wounded god but toward the ones holding the tether. Gleipnir caught him and hurled him down. He rose and lunged again. The stone scraped forward, plowing a furrow before the gods forced it into the earth.

They brought another stone. He fought that too.

When they came within reach, he opened his jaws to take more than a hand. A blade flashed. They thrust a sword upright into his mouth, hilt against the lower jaw, point against the roof, and sprang away.

He could not close his teeth. He could not speak.

The boats scraped over the shore.

Fenrir strained until he could see the lake between the gods’ legs. Tyr was among them, his arm wrapped against his chest. At the water he turned, but whatever his face held was too far away to read.

The oars went in.

Fenrir had crossed that water with his whole body. Now he could not move the length of a paw.

Saliva fell around the sword. It darkened the earth beneath his jaw, found the furrow made by the dragged stone, and began to run toward the lake.

He watched the last boat clear the island.

Then he lowered his body as far as Gleipnir allowed. He laid his ears back. The little stream kept moving, carrying the taste of Tyr away.