Lord of Slaughter

by M. D. Lachlan

  Loys heard another voice, this time speaking Greek: ‘Help me!’

  He glanced at the wolfman, scarcely visible in the dim light. The wolfman squeezed Loys’ arm – partly to restrain him, partly, thought Loys, as a gesture of reassurance.

  ‘He is Odin!’ whispered the wolfman. ‘It was he who was in the tent with the head of the rebel at his feet!’

  ‘Will you go to him to die?’ Loys didn’t want that at all. The wolfman was his protector.

  ‘He would need the sword.’

  The voices again, now both speaking Greek.

  ‘This pool is a drowning pool. It whispers to me.’ That was the boy, Loys was sure.

  ‘Save yourself and save me. She has called us here.’ The voice sounded very strained.

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘For death. There is a mad ghost in these caverns and she is hungry for your blood.’ This was accompanied by coughing and retching.

  ‘I am a man, not a boy. I am no coward and will face the ghost. I am likely a famous ghost killer and a god of death. Remain a while in the water, sir; it suits my temper to see you there.’

  ‘Can you not feel? Can you not understand? You bring the runes with you. You are a killer, true, but you are a fragment of a death god. She will have us united. The runes are slipping from you. Can you not feel it? I can feel it.’

  ‘I would have more of these pretty symbols. I cannot yet fathom their use but they take me to a place where I snuff out men’s lives. Take me there again, symbols.’

  ‘Let me out of the water; I will freeze. Let me out.’

  ‘Remain a while yet, sir, please.’

  ‘How old are you, boy?

  ‘Fifteen years, so my father said. I killed my mother when I was born.’

  ‘And not yet a man. Are you cut?’

  ‘No man would dare cut me.’

  ‘Then you have been held that way by luck or by enchantment. Listen to your voice. You are changing. No man can hold the runes, no man.’

  ‘You are a brave man to tell me that. I can hold them, true enough.’

  ‘She will kill you. She will kill me. Death is here. He’s talking to her. Can’t you hear him whispering?’

  ‘I can hear only you whining.’

  The men continued arguing as the wolfman whispered to Loys: ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man in the water.’

  ‘The man is the chamberlain. The boy is called Snake in the Eye. He is a Varangian.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘He came to me for a cure for an enchantment.’

  ‘What cure?’

  ‘He said he could not kill.’

  ‘What did you do for him?’

  ‘Nothing. I told him to come to Christ and give up his savage thoughts.’

  A splash from the submerged passage. Loys thought he would crush the handle on his knife, he held it so tight.

  The voices at the pool stopped. Snake in the Eye came running up past them, no lantern to guide him, he was just a shadow in the dim light.

  ‘Get the man out of the water,’ said the wolfman. Then he was gone after the boy, a silent shadow himself.

  Loys slithered down the smooth rock bed of the stream to the edge of the well.

  The chamberlain was trying to get out but he was shivering violently and could not make his hands grip the ledge of the pool. On a shelf of rock next to him lay the Lady Styliane. Loys put out his hand but the man didn’t have the strength to reach up and take it.

  ‘She’s here. She’s taken them back. She means me to die.’ His speech was slurred and slow.

  Loys lay down and grabbed him, but the eunuch was far too heavy to pull out that way. How to get the chamberlain out of the water? If he rescued him he would have his gratitude and all the benefits that brought.

  Loys got his hands under the chamberlain’s arms and pulled hard. He didn’t budge. He shook as if his flesh was trying to writhe free of his bones.

  ‘She wants a death, for sure she wants a death. He wants a death. He is she as she always was he. Death begetting, mother and father of death,’ Snake in the Eye spoke from the passage.

  The chamberlain grabbed Loys’ arm.

  ‘That’s right, come on, try to lever yourself up.’

  But the chamberlain didn’t drag himself up, he pulled Loys down and forward into the freezing pool.

  Loys took in great mouthfuls of water. The chamberlain’s arms wrapped around him, pressing him down into darkness. Fighting for air, grabbing at the chamberlain, forcing him down in the chest-deep water, Loys pushed himself up. The two men staggered through the water, falling, rising, fighting and falling again. Loys heard screams and shouting behind him, saw snatches of light before those arms forced him down again.

  The chamberlain was exhausted by his time in the water, and whatever strength he’d suddenly found deserted him just as quickly. One moment he was powerful, almost irresistible, the next his energy had faded as rapidly as a flow of a stream cut off by a sluice gate. The chamberlain’s hands continued to claw at him, but his eyes were frightened. He clung to the scholar for support now.

  ‘Help me,’ he said. ‘The magic has deserted me. I am alone here and she means me to die. I took my power from here years ago and now she wants it repaid.’

  Loys remembered how he had been used – played false and set up by the chamberlain. He could not trust the man, and now he knew his secret the chamberlain was a peril to him. Anger fuelled him. A verse from the Bible went through his mind: ‘till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’.

  Isais was dead. Loys was a murderer already.

  He shoved the chamberlain down and held him. He put up no resistance and drowned easily, his hands on Loys’ hands, gentle almost as if the chamberlain was thanking him. Around Loys the light of the rocks seemed to suck and breathe as he waited for the chamberlain to die. A year ago he could not have killed but he had been transformed. By what? By love and the defence of his love. He released the chamberlain and the body floated face down.

  He waded to the ledge nearest him, at the far end of the pool from the entrance. Something was around his hands, like weed. Hair. Long hair. He couldn’t look down, he just washed the hair from his hand and pulled himself up. As he did so a sharp pain bit his leg as something dug into his flesh. The stone he had taken from Snake in the Eye was still in his little bag on its cord. He sat for a moment to regain his strength. Where was the wolfman? Without him he would never get out of the caves. He had to find him.

  The woman’s voice was in his head but it made no sense. A rock called Scream, a rope called Thin. What did it mean? He reached into his bag to cast the stone away but he didn’t. He examined it. A wolf’s head crudely scratched upon it, just a pebble tied in an elaborate knot on a thong of leather. The voice gabbled like a market trader. A rock called Scream, a rope called Thin. A rock called Scream, a rope called Thin. Something told him to put the stone around his neck. No, that is devilry. The insane shrieking of the childish voice jumbled all his senses, threw his thoughts into disorder. He would do anything to make it stop. Instinctively he knew the stone would help him. He tied it about his neck clumsily, his fingers at first unable to make the knot. In the end he managed it and the voice fell silent. As soon as it was quiet he was tempted to take it off again. He did not. He tucked it into his robe so no one could see the pagan symbol. He was ashamed of it, but the stone comforted him.

  He heard a scream and he recognised the voice at once. ‘Beatrice!’ he shouted.

  At the entrance to the tunnel, he saw someone move, someone with a head as white as a deathcap in the lamplight. Mauger was crouching at the edge of the water, a cruel curved sword in his hand.

  50 Mighty Killer

  The wolfman watched as Snake in the Eye walked through the dancing shadows towards the man who had emerged from the water of the tunnel, his sword drawn. It was the big Vikin
g, naked save for a sword belt. The moonsword! Elifr would have recognised it anywhere. He wanted to spring forward, to insist the boy killed him with it. But the big Viking was there and he had the sword. Elifr opted to sit and wait, to see what unfolded.

  Snake in the Eye approached Bollason boldly.

  ‘Hello, Bollason!’ Snake in the Eye’s voice was like that of a man greeting a friend on a fine morning rather than a warrior meeting another in such uncertain circumstances.

  Even the battle-worn Bollason gave a start when he heard the boy’s voice.

  ‘Snake in the Eye,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a poor greeting, my friend,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘Do you not welcome your leader and your god?’

  Bollason kept his eyes fixed on Snake in the Eye. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Need gods explain their purposes to mortals? Do we, who ride shooting stars across the void of heaven and whose enemies suffer numberless griefs, require to give reasons to men?’

  ‘Still mad and incapable of sense,’ said Bollason. ‘Light a lamp – the light here is dim and I have work to do.’ The wolfman caught the wariness in Bollason’s voice.

  ‘You paid me the service of allowing me hölmgang,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘I shall repay you by lighting your lamp. That’s how gods work.’

  He took a bronze lamp from Bollason’s small bag, shook, rubbed the moisture from the oil-soaked cloth and quickly kindled a flame.

  ‘I have work to do here,’ said Bollason.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ said Snake in the Eye.

  ‘Put down your sword,’ said Bollason. ‘We are friends here.’

  ‘We are,’ said Snake in the Eye. He sheathed his weapon.

  Bollason gave a couple of tugs on the rope. Then he began to pull hard.

  ‘I think I saw you by some waters before,’ said Snake in the Eye.

  Bollason said nothing, just kept pulling.

  ‘I know your name. This is not your well. You have a well, though – it’s near here, or is it the same well? Are all wells the same well? Is that your secret?’ said Snake in the Eye.

  Bollason carried on pulling.

  ‘I took your head. When I gave my eye for wisdom, I took your head. You advise me and speak truths in my ear. I took your head when I gave my eye!’

  ‘You have two eyes now, boy,’ said Bollason.

  ‘I’m not a boy!’

  Snake in the Eye snatched up Bollason’s sword and struck at the side of his head. The warrior had anticipated the blow and ducked, the sword sparking into the wall. Bollason dropped the rope and dived at Snake in the Eye, driving him to the floor of the tunnel.

  ‘Who are you? Who are you, old man?’ the scholar Loys cried out from down in the pool.

  Snake in the Eye gave a great sigh as all the wind went out of him, and Bollason froze, lying unmoving on top of him.

  ‘There they are, all the pretty candles,’ said Snake in the Eye.

  Bollason was quite still. Snake in the Eye wriggled from beneath him.

  ‘You don’t look right with a head on your shoulders, old Mimir, my friend,’ he said.

  He stood and took out his own sword. Then he hacked off Bollason’s head. He gave the neck five or six good blows but still the head was not severed. The boy snorted in frustration.

  ‘If you were a better corpse, your head would come off more easily,’ he said. ‘Your head’s meant to be off. It doesn’t look right any other way.’

  He walked to the rope that emerged from the water and looked at it as if he didn’t quite know what it was. Then he began tugging on it, singing out in a high voice,

  ‘Oh I am the fisherman,

  And fish are what I catch.

  Big ones, little ones, fat ones, thin ones,

  In fish I have no match!’

  Four or five pulls and a woman came almost lifeless from the water, her hands bound to the rope. It was all Elifr could do to keep silent. It was her – the one who had tormented his dreams, the one he had vowed never to meet because he knew he had loved her too strongly and that their love was cursed by the gods. His head pounded, his vision blurred. He wanted her so much but he couldn’t go to her. That way death came into his kingdom and the cycle of misery began again.

  ‘Now I know you too,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘Lady, we have met before. Well, it’s time for us to meet again.’

  He pulled her onto the dry ground. The woman was face down, vomiting water, sucking in air in great rasps. Snake in the Eye turned her onto her back and hitched up her skirts. Then he undid his trousers and stepped out of them.

  ‘I think this,’ he said, ‘will prove once and for all I really am a man. And all my friends, my silver, shining friends, here to see me in my glory.’

  He paused for a second.

  ‘This candle I see is not yours. Why do I not see you, woman? Two candles. Perhaps I should snuff them and see what corpses I find planted in this rich earth.’

  The rope started coiling back through the water.

  ‘But wait,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘It seems I may have other fish to catch!’

  The wolfman gave a shiver. He knew who the boy was, knew who killed without touching, knew who carried Mimir’s head for wisdom and had given his eye at the well. Odin, the dead god. Come to the earth to die, as the prophecy had foreseen. He’d been so near to being free of his destiny in the emperor’s tent.

  Every instinct told him to attack but, though Elifr had lived as an animal, he was not an animal. The woman was there. If he allowed himself to be killed by the god, what would happen to her? She would be saved in eternal time, perhaps killed in this incarnation. But seeing her alive, so vulnerable, he feared for her and his resolve left him. He needed to defend her. But how, against a god? A ritual was impossible now in the waters, he needed more time.

  Again the howl, fear given sound. There must have been another entrance, and the wolf was in. The god’s story was unfolding.

  Elifr knew he didn’t have long. The wolf’s destiny was to kill him, the last stage in a magical conversion that would empower him to kill the god. He had to get the woman away. He mouthed her names as he’d known her before. Adisla, Aelis. What was she called this time? It didn’t matter. It was up to him to save her. How? Hide and then ask the well’s guidance when he had the chance.

  Snake in the Eye was pulling at the rope, singing all the time.

  ‘O lady, rage at the ocean,

  The storm-torn fields of grey.

  But the ocean, it is heedless

  Of anything you might say.

  Your tears sit like diamonds

  Upon your cheeks so pale and fair,

  And the spray it sits and sparkles

  A rainbow in your hair.

  Your son is son of a father,

  Dead and lost to the sea,

  So lady, rage at the ocean

  Then turn your eyes to me.’

  With one final tug a shape emerged from the water that sealed the passage, a flash of white. A head.

  A man stood up with a great cough. He bore a large wound on his cheek. The wolfman saw he was nearly as afflicted as the woman who lay half-naked and gasping on the floor, but he was a warrior and instantly mastered himself.

  ‘Ragnar, my fine killer!’ shouted Snake in the Eye. ‘I have spared your life once, but even for the service you did me you cannot expect such indulgen—’

  There was the sound of steel on leather, a heavy exhalation and Snake in the Eye sat down. Mauger’s sword had gone straight through him. The boy grasped at the hilt as if he was afraid it would be taken from him.

  ‘I’ve had enough of your talk,’ said Mauger. ‘Speak to that.’

  He bent to the lady and pulled down her skirts, checking to see if she was breathing.

  ‘You know the penalty for this offence,’ he said to Snake in the Eye.

  The warrior picked up Bollason’s strange curved sword, which lay on the floor next to the dead man’s head. He weighed it
in his hand for a second, and the wolfman knew he was about to cut off the youth’s head. Snake in the Eye sat glassy-eyed, gazing up at the man like a child listening to a story.

  ‘Ahh!’ A shout from behind Elifr. The wolfman glanced left from his hiding place. The scholar. The white-haired warrior forgot about the dying boy and ran down the passage towards the sound.

  Again the howl – no echo, just forcing its way through the dead air of the caverns, flat and toneless. Was the boy the god? He had to die at the teeth of the wolf, yet the warrior had put a sword clean through him. The wolfman needed to get away from the woman. The wolf was coming for her, and if Elifr fled then he wouldn’t die as part of the magical transformation that would bring the wolf god to earth.

  But he couldn’t leave her stricken on the cave floor.

  Elifr ran to her. From up the passage, towards the well, he heard the warrior bellowing, screaming for Loys to show himself. The scholar had hidden in the dark. The woman was breathing. He held her to him to warm her with his body heat.

  He wept as he did so.

  ‘I’ve tried to stay away,’ he said, ‘but the fates are weaving for us and they bind us too closely. Come on, wake up. You must run from him.’

  Snake in the Eye still sat, impaled on Mauger’s sword, clutching the hilt. He kicked Elifr’s leg to get his attention.