Standing Stone

Angela Caperton

I

OST WOULD HANG HIMSELF AT SUNSET.

Perched on the standing stone, beneath the spreading oak with its branches black against the purple sky, he watched the sun set behind the sharp edge of the Giant’s Tooth. Ost turned the hempen rope in his hands, long woven strands wrapped with braided reeds, seven turns for the runes of wisdom.

The sun was god’s eye and when it winked behind the distant mountain, Ost would give himself to the god, because he had seen this oak in his dream and knew this was the place where he must die and be reborn as the Allfather had been reborn, in wisdom and power.

There had been long days of travel, first with his tribe and then alone, through the low mountains and into the valley beyond, through forests plentiful with game. His tribe had starved for many weeks, and their numbers grew thin, easy prey for the bandits whose lands they passed through. Ost’s kinsmen wanted to stop in the valley of deer, but Ost drove them on, first with promises and then with threats, until one night when the moon was full, the tribe finally cast him out and Ost had traveled alone after that, north and west, toward the place where god’s eye vanished every night. Through the life and death of that moon and the birth of another, the slender, silver curve bright in the east, just as it had been in his dreams.
Ost listened to the night sky, the cry of a coursing nighthawk, the drone of spirits, strange voices in this northern wood. He chewed a bit of the mushroom he had plucked from his father’s grave, long ago, and the setting sun bled fresh crimson across the dome of heaven, turning the oak’s limbs into meat, like the corded sinews of a skinned foe.

“My god,” Ost prayed. “Father of warriors. I give you my life.”

He hoped that he would not die. It was said that those who gave themselves to the god were sometimes reborn as the mightiest and wisest of men, the true sons of the Allfather who had hanged himself from the tree of the world. Ost slipped the seven knots along the hemp, opening a noose and then placed the coarse rope around his neck.

Naked he would go to the god, with only the iron bands on his arms, emblems of his strength and his devotion. He breathed in the air of the fading day and felt it turn to light in his chest. The light spread like tendrils through his face and he clenched his teeth against the building heat that smoldered in his legs and arms.

He tightened the seven knots, counting the runes of wisdom, tight around his neck.

Ost saw the blood of the god run like water through the forest, the Giant’s Tooth tearing a gash in the flesh of twilight, crimson turning dark as charcoal among the trees. He stood on the rock and looked up the rope to the great branch overhead, a hempen stream of blood like the cord of a birthing mare.

“I give myself to you,” he said to the sky and stepped off the stone.

His legs and arms caught fire. White light spawned at the base of his spine, like the noon sun, raced up his back and out of his eyes and his mouth. The black stringy meat of the tree wrote runes against the sullen purple sky.

One for the rage that makes men brave.

Two to move in shadows.

Three for wisdom to turn a foe with words.

Four for laughter.

Five to bear sorrow.

Six for the sun.

And seven…

He saw the moon like a golden sickle ascendant in the east. On its hook the god hung, terrible over the earth, his blood falling as black rain in the darkness. Cool drops fell on Ost’s bare chest, making rivulets down the tight muscles of his stomach into the thatch, before crawling under his dangling butt and tracking a slow line down his leg.

There were wolves and monsters in the sky and their gleaming eyes began to spin in a slow circle. The god moved in him and the light caressed his legs … and pulled him downward.

The Allfather granted him a vision of a woman who shone with pale fire. The moon embraced her in the heavenly arms of its crescent. An ashen mane of hair cloaked her shoulders and her eyes gleamed brighter than the sky wolves’. She lifted him, bearing his weight against the cord of blood. Precious breath flooded his chest, the moon’s gift, and he reached up and caught the rope between his hands.

She lifted him … and for the first time in many months, desire pulsed through him.

With her help, he loosened the noose and pulled it over his head, then dropped to the ground, where his legs would not hold him. Ost fell and rolled onto his back. The moon woman bent over him and he saw she wore a garment of white doeskin, the color of bleached bone.

A dark flash drew his eye as she lunged at him, squatted on his chest, her knees pinning his arms to the ground. She became flame, the press of her thighs so hot they burned him….

Ost fought against the spinning rainbow in his head, still gasping to breathe…The fire did not cool, even when the cold edge of her blade against his throat stilled the breath in his lungs.

Eyes the color of the sky stared at him, wide like a startled fox, their glow the very color of the horned moon.

She whispered loud, her words thick with strange tones and stresses, but the meaning reached into him, blew upon the fire of his blood. …

Ost focused, the screaming colors of darkness turning to fog and then parting. He tried to pull his arms away from the trap of her knees and she pressed the blade harder, pulling it enough to nick his throat.
She growled, feral and hungry. When she spoke, her voice flowed like golden honey.

She repeated the words and Ost understood them, not so different from his own tribe.

“Who am I?” she asked.

The moon crowned her like a halo, but Ost felt the god’s power now, knew his will and his way. Quick as a striking wolf, he arched and twisted. Hands freed, the knife nicked again as he grabbed her wrists and rolled atop her, pinning the woman beneath him, the doeskin soft against his chest, his legs twining with her bare ones, his weight trapping her.

He smiled, lust and curiosity the very blood in his veins.

“I will tell you who you are,” he said carefully, so she would hear him. “You are mine.”

***

FELI GROWLED FROM BENEATH THE STRANGER as she fought to free herself. Her stomach trembled at the sound vibrating from her chest as the memory of her mother’s throaty menace added to the strange churning of fear and determination that fueled her struggles. Her mother’s growl had been one of chastisement when Feli snatched meat from her father’s hand, and…

And…

By the fire, under a low, swollen moon, her mother and her father tied to each other, arms and legs, hair and teeth. She’d heard that growl then too, from her mother, low, a trill of throat that intrigued Feli as flesh smacked sweaty flesh in rising rhythm, nails clawed, tumbling and wrestling until her father horned a cry to the skies before the movement stilled.

Her mother fed the earth now but her offering did not stop the sun or the early snow, and only that rumbling from her throat was given to Feli. The sun stole the water, turned the grass hills to dust and then the snow fell, thick and white and cruel. The dry seasons took her people one by one. Babes cried and thin men fought until blood stained the rocks and turned the dust to black mud.

She stilled, willing her heart to calm, binding her breath like she might a wayward lamb. The man on top of her pulled her hands together over her head and Feli did not resist. She looked beyond him to the sky, to the stars that decorated the night, looked to the crescent and received ivory strength in the fresh streams of light that reached her beneath the edge of the massive oak’s limbs. Sharp enough to cut, hard enough to stand, soft enough to shape, smooth enough to comfort, warm enough to desire.

Wasn’t that her?

His free hand gripped the doeskin and yanked it over her hips, exposing her thighs and belly to the night. … Shadows hid his expression, but his rough hands raked over her hip, testing the flesh there, the strength. She shifted her leg away from his hand, easing his bare body between her thighs. Feli’s stomach tightened and the pulse between her legs thudded like hooves. …

Feli had not lain with a man, but she knew the way of it, knew she was ready.

His hand slid under the front of the doeskin, forcing it uncomfortably up, over her breasts, the gathered hide bunching at the base of her shoulders, the scratch of stones and dirt in the folds of the garment scraping her back. He squeezed her small breasts, snorting as if disappointed…

Feli smiled as sensation shot through her, along with understanding.

She lifted herself as much as she could and put her lips to his hair. Against the coarse strands she murmured the words, slow and careful so he would hear them.

“I am yours.”

His teeth released her … the hair of his rough beard teasing. He lifted his head and looked at her.

Feli breathed over his face, her pulse pounding in the skin … he had pulled. She leaned upward, toward the stranger, straining against his weight, her shoulders aching as she tried to free her wrists. The quickening within her belly rippled like a brook in a green field.

Her lips met his strong chin and kissed the burn of rough whiskers that covered it. She smiled and parted her lips, bared her teeth, and nipped through his beard to the flesh beneath. His muscles jumped as if she’d struck him and she gave her own light snort. His hand loosened on her wrists. She stole the moment and pressed her lips to his cheek, nipped again, her teeth finding smooth skin, tongue touching before the bite.
He released her as though she were fire.

Feli giggled. The stranger pulled away, falling on his butt, scrambling back as though she were a viper. He fell against the tall stone and there he waited, his breath ragged, his eyes reflecting the moon.
Feli nimbly righted herself and squatted.

She watched him. She knew him. He was the sun.

And she, like her mother, beyond the circle of the fires, outcast from the arms of the tribe.

She was the moon.

He started toward her and she stopped him with a sudden movement, as though she might run, then held him without touching him, staring into his eyes.

She eased the doeskin over her head and cast it to the ground. …

He did not move, his outline dim, but she heard his breath, and felt his heat as she reached him. He caught her like a wolf captures prey, sudden and fierce, his hands on her arms, bruising and hard, the growl in his throat echoing in her chest.

The stranger held her suspended, her feet off the ground, his hands around her middle. For a moment she wondered if he would cast her aside, but then she leaned toward him and nipped again, her teeth catching his lower lip and tearing.

He roared and shook her and she laughed as her teeth rattled. She wrapped him with her legs, knowing where she needed him, where he belonged. He bit her shoulder and her neck, not too hard, his tongue tracing the muscles, the lines of her pulse, his teeth claiming her now.

… He lowered her to the ground, the solemn standing stone their witness. His hands roamed…. Wild pleasure shot through her, like the fire of sunlight through leaves, it moved and played and turned all parts of her golden in hot, bright spots.

She lowered her head to his neck and kissed through his beard, her tongue savoring the salty taste, the heat of him. He groaned against her shoulders and his hands went to her waist, leaning to push her down.
Feli pulled her legs from around him and clamped her thighs together … He laughed and reached down, tender now, stroking her ….

…

He leaned and kissed her, mouth to mouth in the custom of her tribe. She tasted the musk on his breath, an earthen flavor like mushrooms. His tongue parted her lips, invading her mouth in hot thrusts. Her skin burned, ….

She pulled away and licked him.

An animal snarl filled the air around him, the sound empty of everything but lust.

He pulled her to him, rough, demanding, and she moved with him, opening, her breath abandoning her. She bit his shoulder hard … and he cried out ….

She cried out ….

Darting fear mingled with shattering pleasure as he settled on her for that instant of knowing, of fitting, two halves made whole.

…

After a time, they lay together beside the cold stone. Feli’s smile reflected her joy.

She was woman.

She kissed his chest. “Who am I?” She asked him again.

He looked at her for a long moment, the crescent light in his eyes.

“You are the moon,” he said.
***