by Scott Oden
Brodir looked askance at her. “You sound certain, little sister.”
“She is,” Úlfrún replied. The older woman joined them, taking a seat when one of her bear-men rose and moved aside for her. Another handed her a cup of wine. She drank it in three swallows, and then held it out for a refill. “She is the Dagaz-bearer, the Day-strider.
“Wolf shall fight she-Wolf | in Raven’s shadow;
an axe age, a sword age, | as Day gives way to Night.
And Ymir’s sons dance | as the Gjallarhorn
kindles the doom | of the Nailed God’s folk.”
Dísa’s eyes narrowed as she heard the words of the prophecy. “How do you know this?”
Úlfrún smiled. “I am the she-Wolf. Our pale friend, back there, is the Wolf—the Ghost-Wolf of Skara, he is called—and the Raven’s shadow…”
“Is Hrafnhaugr,” Dísa whispered. “When it speaks of the Day giving way to Night, what does it mean?”
“Aye,” Brodir said. “And who are Ymir’s sons?”
Úlfrún shrugged; absently, she massaged her forearm above her iron hand. “Who can say? All we know is the prophecy is coming to pass. What we do in the next few days will kindle the doom of the Nailed God’s folk. But we must push on, get in front of this rabble, and meet them at Hrafnhaugr, in the heart of the Raven-Geats’ land. Will your folk fight with us?”
Dísa glanced up. “They will. But I beg a favor of you, Jarl Úlfrún: lend me a few of your men. My people expect me to return with my Jarl’s son, who is at the mercy of the Witch-man’s dogs. Help me free him! My friend—”
“Your friend hangs from a cross,” Úlfrún said. “He’ll likely be dead by sunset. If you go back now, with my help or not, all you’ll accomplish is to die alongside him.”
Dísa’s jaw clenched. “Then at least he won’t die alone. Loan me a bow, if nothing else, so I can get close enough to end his suffering!”
Úlfrún scratched and stroked her lower jaw as a man might his beard. She was of two minds, Dísa could see. A part of her wanted to err on the side of caution, to get her men to Hrafnhaugr and await the hour of the prophecy; the other part of her longed to bloody this upstart crusader’s nose. She glanced between Brodir on one side and an old úlfhéðinn on the other, a gray-bearded man wrapped in wolf fur.
Brodir shrugged his mighty shoulders. “You and the wolf-brothers scouted their lines for a reason, lady. Why not a quick strike?”
Úlfrún leaned back and scowled. “You would risk the prophecy?”
“How can we know what risks the prophecy and what does not? Seems to me, if we succeed we say it was meant to be. But if we fail, was that not also meant to be? I leave it to the will of the Norns.”
“Forne?” Úlfrún glanced at the old úlfhéðinn, who leaned to one side and spat.
“The more of these cross-kissers we kill here, the fewer we have to kill there.” The man, Forne, nodded toward Dísa.
For a moment Úlfrún was silent. Then, nodding, she glanced over her shoulder. “Herroðr, fetch Skaðmaðr.” Herroðr, the youngest man Dísa had seen among this war band—and still at least ten years her senior—brought an oiled leather sack to Úlfrún. From it, she extracted a crossbow. Its stock was fine-grained yew, carved and inlaid with ivory runes; of iron was the lock and trigger, while the bow was made of composite material: wood, horn, and sinew.
Úlfrún handed it stock-first to Dísa. “This is Skaðmaðr, the Man-slayer. She has sent three-score hymn-singers into the arms of their Nailed God, and she does not miss. Take her and free your Jarl’s son—one way or the other. While you do that, we will make sure that white-skinned bastard has his hands full, won’t we, boys?”
Grunts and wolf howls echoed off the stone walls of the bluff as the Sons of Úlfrún Iron-Hand girded themselves for war …
15
Dawn came, sunless and raw, to the Horn.
Father Nikulas pulled his cloak tighter against the chill. The priest chewed his lip as he watched the six men Konraðr had detailed to him dig three graves in the rocky soil. Haakon’s body, along with the bodies of two sentries slain the night before, lay a short distance away, washed and anointed and wrapped in their cloaks, their heads covered by short lengths of linen. He considered the dead as the living hacked at the soil. Haakon they found in a ravine, as Konraðr predicted, along with a dead pagan; the other two they discovered after the chaos died down last night, on the eastern edge of the encampment. Both bore wounds from an axe or a blade, but one—the men of the burial detail had named him Egil—showed signs of having died from a significantly heavier blow.
“Our little bird had help,” Konraðr had muttered. More Geats, he was sure. But how many more? And what troubles would they stir up as this small army entered the territory of the Raven tribe? Nikulas looked up, his eyes raking the forested north bank of the Horn. In truth, the priest had not expected resistance so soon. Since crossing the River of the Geats at the southern end of Lake Vänern, under the brow of a gloomy and mist-wreathed mountain locals called the Troll’s Bonnet, Nikulas had felt ill at ease. Each step since, the sensation of scrutiny had grown. Something was watching them. Even here, in the company of God’s anointed warriors, the priest felt naked before the great Adversary.
An Adversary whose lair was yonder, across the river.
Father Nikulas steeled himself. Somewhere in that dank annex of Hell, defended by howling and godless savages, lay a barrow; under that barrow, still wrapped in the skeletal embrace of the dragon he had slain, lay the bones of holy Saint Teodor. The Saint’s hand yet clutched the hilt of his sword, whose blade had been baptized in the blood of our Savior. The crusaders’ presence here not only served the King, but it served God and the Church as well. If he had to kill every pagan between here and Heaven’s gates, Nikulas would see the bones of blessed Teodor enshrined in Lund. He would witness the Sword of Christ leading the King’s armies to victory. And he would rejoice as the Light of Christ poured into every corner and cranny of the North, to banish the taint of ancient heathenry once and for all …
“Father,” one of the soldiers of the burial detail said.
Nikulas blinked. He shook himself free of his reverie and looked down at the men who toiled before him. “What was that?”
“I said, is this deep enough, you think?”
Nikulas nodded. “It will do.” The men clambered from the knee-deep graves and set about arranging their slain comrades’ bodies. That finished, they stepped back and waited for Father Nikulas. The priest made the sign of the Cross. “Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine,” he began. “Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.”
“Amen,” the six soldiers echoed, crossing themselves.
Nikulas nodded. “If God wills it, we will see our brothers again come Judgment Day.”
“Or sooner, if we get on the wrong side of a filthy pagan axe,” the eldest among them said. The others chuckled. “Let’s cover them up and let them sleep.”
As they worked, Father Nikulas glanced back at the camp. The sound of hammers and saws echoed as work crews repaired the bridge; the rest of the army busied themselves by striking camp. Lord Konraðr wanted to be on the move before the noon hour, even if it was just a handful of miles into enemy territory.
“We should just buy them off,” one of the diggers replied. “The pagans, I mean.”
Nikulas turned back and stared quizzically at the six men. “Who said that?”
“I did.” The speaker was a young Dane, one of the mercenaries who’d answered Konraðr’s call. “Is that not what the lords of the South do when they want something? Throw gold at it until the enemy relents? We should offer gold to these pagans until they kneel before God and hand over the Saint’s bones. Greed’ll do our work for us.”
The others snorted. “You’re a right fool, Svein,” the old soldier said.
“Then so are princes and kings, you old sack,” Svein sneered.
“Well said, Father,” the old crusader echoed. “We—”
Suddenly, the man fell forward, across the half-filled grave. The others laughed. “I’m the fool, but at least I have my feet under me,” Svein said. Like them, Nikulas thought the old crusader had simply lost his balance. The priest moved to help him up … and saw the fletchings of a crossbow bolt standing out from the base of his skull.
“God’s teeth!” Nikulas fell back.
“There! Over there!”
The grave detail dove for cover as bolts whined around them. Svein, who hauled Father Nikulas to his feet, screamed and cursed as a bolt punched through his thigh. “Go!” he snarled, shoving the priest away. “Go! Warn the others!”
“Pagans!” Nikulas yelled, ducking and running in a whirl of black cloth. “Pagans in the camp!”
Howling like the beasts whose skins they wore, Úlfrún’s wolf-men, her úlfhéðnar, attacked from the south.
* * *
ON THE NORTH SIDE OF the camp, on the bridge over the Hveðrungr River, Konraðr walked the newly repaired sections. He studied the boards underfoot, testing his weight in those places where his carpenters had joined new planks to the half-charred ones. “Good work, Arngrim,” he said to the captain of his engineers, a gaunt and rawboned man whose father had built ships. He passed the knowledge of adze and awl down to his son, who used it to build towers, rams, mantlets, and mines for the Ghost-Wolf of Skara. “Will it hold?”
Arngrim hemmed and hawed; he smoothed his wiry beard, knuckled the edges of his mustache. He considered the bridge with a practiced eye and after a moment, nodded. “I wouldn’t want to run cavalry and a full siege train over it, but it should suffice.”
“But you’re not certain?”
Arngrim sucked his teeth. “I am certain, my lord. It’s as solid as you please. It’s just…” He trailed off, his face flushing.
“What?”
“You’re going to think I’ve gone daft.”
“I leave such judgments to God,” Konraðr said. “Come. Out with it. What is it about this bridge that gives you pause?”
“Here, let me show you,” Arngrim said. He led Konraðr to the end of the bridge nearest the camp. There, he leaned out over the wooden kerb and pointed down at the supports. “Look here,” he said. Konraðr followed his lead. “This is a simple arch bridge,” the engineer said. “Most of the weight is on these abutments, here, supports like this one on each bank.” Konraðr nodded. He saw a rough wooden cylinder, its foundation lost amid the undergrowth at the river’s edge.
“And so? Looks ordinary to me.”
Arngrim replied: “Aye, from up here it does. But I went down there to check for signs of rot, seeing as how this whole damned thing is wood and stays damp from the spray of the water passing under it. Here’s where you’re going to think I’m either an idiot or a madman: I don’t think this bridge was originally made by Men.”
Konraðr bit back a derisive snort. He glanced at Arngrim, then back at the abutment. His engineer was as solid a man as any he’d ever met—sober and practical, not given to flights of fancy. If he thought something was not right, Konraðr knew to give it an extra measure of scrutiny. “Anyone else and I would wonder what heresy had possessed your good sense.”
“Anyone else, my lord,” Arngrim said, “and I would carry this to my grave and never tell a soul.” He gestured again at the abutment below them. “That support? It’s not conventional timber mounted on a stone foundation. It’s an ash tree. A living, deeply-rooted ash tree. All four of the supports that make the arch … ash trees. So expansive that four of the lads could not link their hands around them. And the body of the arch, that holds the road bed up? Made from intertwined branches. Oh, aye. The parts those idiots burned were just old planking, half-rotted—which is the condition this whole damnable structure should be in: half-rotted and ready to fall into the cursed river.”
Konraðr nodded. His ghosts were silent; they milled at the edges of his vision, unwilling to cross the bridge of their own volition. He wondered, then, if this would be where they parted ways. “That’s why it wouldn’t burn,” he said. “It’s living wood.”
“As green as the Whale-road. You recall my old da? My father’s father? He went with Lord Magnus to Halberstadt, but ended up not taking the Cross.”
“Aye, I remember him. Skalli, I think was his name. Said he ‘just wanted to see what the fuss was about.’”
Arngrim smiled. “That’s him. Well, he was a heathen to his bones. Magnus knew and said nothing, for he valued the man before the faith. But old Skalli told me tales. Told me about bridges like this, built in the middle of nowhere. He called them the work of trolls. I called him daft. Seeing this now, I think I owe me old da an apology.” Arngrim straightened. “I mean, how goes it that no one knows this land? Not a soul in Eiðar could tell us in what direction the land of the Raven-Geats lay. We had to track those four lads we came across just to get this far. And this is settled country, is it not? The King has estates along Lake Vänern’s shore. Norse lords have hunting lodges up country. Fishing smacks and merchants ply these waters … and yet, this corner remains wild and forgotten, a road no one recalls ending in a bridge built by trolls, over a river I’ve never heard of? This tells me we should tread warily.”
“You know what this tells me, my friend?” Konraðr said, clapping Arngrim on one broad shoulder. “It tells me we are heading in the right direction. Check it one last time. I’ll head back and get the first company up and moving. We’ve plenty of light left and—”
The ghosts at the edge of Konraðr’s vision howled their warnings a heartbeat before the albino’s red eyes apprehended the threat. Cries of alarm arose from the far bank of the river, where Arngrim’s work crews—the score of soldiers who doubled as carpenters and laborers—had set about dismantling their open-air workshop, taking down their treadle saws and dousing the small forge where scrap iron was turned into nails for the bridge planking.
“What deviltry?” Arngrim said.
Men scrambled for shields and spears as a line of figures shambled from the forest. At first, Konraðr thought these shaggy creatures might be trolls, come to reclaim what was theirs from the grasping hands of Man; then, he saw the bear skins, the axes and naked swords in their fists, and recognized them for what they were: “Berserkir!”
Konraðr was on the verge of ordering Arngrim to pull his men back to the center of the bridge when something else impinged upon his senses: shouts of alarm coming from the camp, followed by the skirling blast of a horn. The spectral voices, half heard under the clamor, suddenly changed the tenor of their warnings. The boy, the voices hissed, dissonant and eerie. She wants the boy.
“They’re after the bridge!” Arngrim snarled. “What are your orders, my lord? My lord?”
But Konraðr had gone still—as motionless as a statue hewn from marble; he was not frozen in place by fear, or by indecision. Rather, his mind whirled as it processed what he could see, feel, hear, and sense: he noted how slowly the berserkir came, their attention focused more on wreaking havoc than killing; nor were they frothing or glassy-eyed, indicating they were not in the grips of their famed battle rage. The shouts and horn-cries of alarm from the camp, the ghostly voices fixated on “she” and “the boy” …
“She’s a tenacious one, the little bird.”
“My lord?”
“Pull back to camp!” Konraðr said, turning.
“And give them the bridge? If they get a toehold, lord, we might as well end this crusade here, fighting over timber and nails!”
“They don’t want the bridge, Arngrim,” the lord of Skara said. “They want us to think they want the bridge so we’ll strip the camp bare and muster our forces here, to defend it! This is a diversion! They’re
striking for the chapel tent from the south! They’re after the Cross!”
* * *
DÍSA CAME HARD ON THE heels of the úlfhéðnar, moving as quickly and as silently as the veteran wolf-warriors. This, she realized, was the work Grimnir had trained her for, to strike fast, hard, and silently; to kill, then fade into the shadows. She clutched Skaðmaðr close as she dogtrotted through the trees and around thickets of bramble and thorn, one bolt clenched in her teeth and two others in her fist. A knot of tension rippled through her guts. She realized it was apprehension; fear, even. Fear of what she had to do, should this bid to free Flóki Hreðelsson fail.
At the three graves, where Forne and his more fleet-footed pack brothers had ambushed the first of the crusaders they came across, the girl peeled off from the main assault and kept to the trees. She worked her way around until she had a clear line of sight on the cross the Witch-man, Konraðr, had ordered erected outside the Nailed God’s tent. She knelt in the lee of a long-fallen tree, once an arboreal giant but now nothing but a moss-covered skeleton. She propped Skaðmaðr on the log and peered over. The knot in her guts tightened.
Dísa’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of Flóki’s naked body, arms stretched near to breaking, hanging from nails driven through his wrists. His head had fallen forward, his chin resting on his blood-smeared chest; his legs were bent slightly, his heels propped on a scrap of wood they’d affixed to the cross. Even above the clamor, Dísa heard him groan as he straightened his legs. He drove his head against the center stave of the cross, his mouth open in a silent scream. Dísa felt the talons of grief claw at her heart. She bit back a sob, turned it inward, and exhaled it through her flared nostrils.
She had to free him. But how? The main thrust of their assault pressed in from the south. Dísa could hear the howling of the wolf-men, the shouts of alarm; the crash and slither of steel, the dull thud of blades striking shields. Fires sprang up in that direction, black smoke drifting across the camp as Úlfrún’s troops kicked over braziers or snatched brands from cook fires and flung them into tents. To the north, the attack of the berserkir did not draw off the main body of crusader troops as they had hoped. The Crusaders did not commit to protecting the bridge; instead, Dísa saw flashes of white—white hair, white mantle—as the lord of Skara rallied his men and formed a shield wall around the Nailed God’s tent. And around Flóki.
