by Scott Oden
The girl’s hands trembled as she did what Grimnir asked. For his part, the skrælingr turned back to the Raven Stone and sank down on his haunches. His eye gleamed like an ember in the shadow as he watched the rippling skin of blood, its surface disturbed now and again by a featureless face, by a clawed and beckoning hand.
“Skríkja,” he hissed. “Your vengeance is coming.”
22
Light spilled from Konraðr’s pavilion.
The lord of Skara stood at the head of a long table, his captains seated at either hand. Father Nikulas sat nearest to him, on his right, with Pétr beside him; to Konraðr’s left sat the hawkish form of Thorwald, and then Starkad. Both men vibrated with barely chained rage.
“You Danes,” Konraðr was saying to the other captains ranked along the table—Kraki’s officers, led by dour Horsten, who hailed from Roskilde and was cousin to its bishop. “You Danes will have the honor of being first across once the bridge is repaired. You will be the tip of my spear, and vengeance will be yours.”
“First into the teeth of the accursed enemy,” Horsten echoed with a satisfied nod.
“It should be my men, lord,” Thorwald snarled, unable to contain his anger any longer. “We take the risks, we should reap the glory!”
“Aye,” Starkad said. He nodded at the Danes, bloodied yet from their encounter at the postern gate of Hrafnhaugr. “They’ve had their chance and were found wanting! Let your sworn men have the honor—”
Thorwald snorted.
Konraðr struck the table with the flat of his palm. The albino’s red eyes gleamed with a dangerous light. “Did I mumble, dogs? Because I am pale, do you mistake me for a weakling? Do you covet the high seat of Skara, Starkad? Or you, Thorwald? Then come! Evict me from it and this battle will go how you desire! No? Then keep your cursed tongues between your teeth!”
“You dare?” Thorwald started to rise, but it was a sharp word from Father Nikulas arrested the movement and caused him to resume his seat.
“God is watching!” The priest glared around the table. “You all forget yourselves, my lords! This is no lowly raid for plunder or for glory! This is the Almighty’s work we do—this is bellum sacrum, a holy war, a Crusade to wipe this heathen filth from the North and reclaim our lost relics!”
“We know what we’re here for!” Thorwald replied. He scooped up his goblet and took a long draught of wine.
“Then act like it,” Nikulas hissed in reply. “There will be glory enough to go around, once we’ve excised this blight from our midst. And make no mistake—it is a disease, an infection of heresy! Look at yourselves. You fight over scraps, and why? Is it merely your true selves, or is it rather the base and unholy nature of this place? We stand on unhallowed ground! But for the power of the Lord, God Almighty we might succumb to it, and what then? Why, it would be as a second coming of Sodom and Gomorrah!”
“Our faith is our shield,” Konraðr muttered. He looked up. “Well said, my good priest. The evil of this land plucks at my soul like a skald’s fingers on the strings of a lute. Forgive my harsh words, Thorwald, and you, Starkad, but my orders stand. The Danes will be my vanguard. Come, raise your cups as brothers and toast our dead comrade. To Kraki!” Around the table, the captains lifted their goblets to Heaven and added their voices to Konraðr’s. “To Kraki Ragnarsson!”
“And may God have mercy upon his soul,” Horsten muttered.
“Oh, God’s mercy is without question,” Nikulas replied. The priest made the sign of the Cross. “Kraki died fighting the Heathen. Whatever his sins may have been, by taking the Cross he received absolution. He sits at the Lord’s right hand, Horsten. All of you, and all of your men, know this: the Cross you bear, and the blood you leave behind on the field, will open the gates of Heaven. We—”
The priest’s voice fades. Konraðr can plainly see Nikulas is still speaking, but no sound reaches the lord of Skara’s ears. No, he corrects himself. That isn’t precisely true. He can hear … something. He glances around, his eyes shifting from corner to corner, from face to face.
Laughter. He can hear coarse and uproarious laughter. Konraðr rises to his feet and goes to the door flap of his pavilion. He hears a woman’s voice raised in song, its lyrics obscene; hands clapping in time with the off-color music. Konraðr feels his choler rise. He will make these baseborn louts pay! This is no bawdy house. This is a camp of war—and a camp of the noblest sort of war mere men can imagine. Bellum sacrum, the priest had called it. Holy war. He shoves aside the flap, an acidic curse on his lips, and steps …
… into the nave of that ancient cathedral the men of the east call the Great Church of Constantinople; he shuffles like a dead thing through the broken imperial door and the living follow.
None can see him. Not by the greasy orange light of the burning city, glaring in from the clerestory overhead, nor by the guttering glow of immense bonfires eating at the Greeks’ holy books and wooden relics. Even to his own eye, he appears as a half-sensed shadow, a ripple of darkness glimpsed for a brief moment. But he knows he is there, even if the smoke coiling from smoldering pews has more substance than the grim and tattered wraith he has become.
A ghost of Constantinople.
He staggers on. The naked sword in his fist scrapes the blood-fouled tile underfoot as he lurches from column to column. He passes a saddled horse, spear-pierced and left to die under the sacred dome; passes a smashed reliquary, and hears laughter, again, as a horde of ragged and bloody children run past. They laugh as they kick a skull back and forth like a ball. The skull of a holy martyr. It strikes a column and shatters. The children are unperturbed. There are other reliquaries to smash open, other saints’ skulls to pry loose from their gold and crystal housings.
All around, he bears witness to a thousand acts of vandalism: frescoes and mosaics defaced, images of Christ and of the Virgin Mary trodden underfoot by men—soldiers whose surcoats and gambesons sport the Cross of the Holy Father in Rome—desperate for gold and silver to repay their debt to the Venetians; he sees the doors of the Great Church, blessed Hagia Sophia, pried off their hinges and taken as spoil; men drink wine from the relics of Christ, curse and blaspheme, fornicate in the patriarch’s seat with whores clad in stolen vestments …
He reaches the apse, and there before what is left of the great altar, the man bends his knees and collapses. Only his hands, draped over the cross-guard of his sword’s hilt, keeps him upright. “Why?” he says, voice cracking as he raises his face to the altar. “Why, O Father of Heaven, do you allow this madness to continue?” His chin sinks to his breast; he closes his eyes …
A hard, rasping voice answers him. “Aren’t you a precious sort of fool, you milk-skinned rat? What is that in your hand if not a sword?”
“I am not the Lord’s retribution,” the man replies. He opens his eyes. A shadow looms over him, tall and lean. He has the impression of whalebone and gristle knotted together with ropes of muscle and hard gobbets of sinew. Ruddy eyes glare down at him. “I am wreathed in sin, marked by it.”
“Who better to deliver your lord’s punishment? What is more difficult: staying on your knees and doing nothing, or rising and showing these swine the power and majesty of your lord, this God you kneel to?”
The man’s eyes slide to the blade of his sword. There is a divine gleam to it—an urgency that lends the words of this thing a certain clarity. Still, though, he hesitates. “I am but one. They are many. Why should they listen to me?”
“Make them listen,” the voice hisses. “Your blade is not the threat, little fool. It is the promise! Lop a few heads off, cut a few throats, and the rest will fall in line. Are you not a soldier of God, called upon this holy war to spread your faith? So, get off your knees, wretch, and do what you were called to do!”
The man clambers to his feet and turns.
“Do you suffer the blasphemer to live?” the shadow whispers.
“No!”
“Do you suffer the defiler, the enemy of God?”
“Then say the words, wretch. Say the words!”
“God wills it!” the man thunders. While that phrase yet echoes under the fire-etched dome of the Great Church, blessed Hagia Sophia, the avenging spirit who was Konraðr throws himself at the men and women defiling the patriarch’s seat.
His sword flashes through the smoky air.
“GOD WILLS IT!”
Konraðr convulsed. His eyes rolled back in his head; the goblet in his hand clattered to the table, splashing wine lees across its scarred boards. The albino’s body went rigid. Nikulas caught him by the shoulder before he could topple from his seat. From inside his cassock, the priest produced a tube of hard leather.
“Starkad!” he called to the captain of the sworn men. “Hold his jaws apart!” Brawny Starkad did as the priest instructed, his strong fingers none too gently prying the albino lord’s mouth open—far enough and long enough for Nikulas to slide the leather between them. He glanced at the men watching, their expressions running the gamut. “So he won’t bite his tongue in two, or break his teeth. Come, Starkad, help me get him to his cot.”
“What ails him?” Thorwald said, making the sign of the Cross. “Is he possessed?”
Nikulas smiled wearily. “Not by demons. These lingering fevers and convulsions stem from diseases he contracted off in the east, and injuries earned fighting beneath the walls of Constantinople—Miklagarðr, to you.”
“Small comfort, that. But is he fit to lead us?”
A silence fell over the pavilion. Starkad started to reply, but the priest’s hand on his shoulder brought him up short. Nikulas rose. He was no small man; at his full height, he and Thorwald were equals. He met the Norseman’s frank stare. “You dare ask?”
Thorwald leaned forward; his eyes were cold and hard, the color of the grinding ice of his homeland. “Priest, I dare this and much more, besides. We are an army of God, and God decides who is fit to lead us. It seems to me that God has decided to punish Skara’s lord for reasons only the Almighty knows. We have bled here, and we have gained nothing.” He gestured to the still-rigid form of Konraðr. “Perhaps this is God’s way of telling us to choose a new leader.”
From the far end of the table, Horsten grunted his assent. “Priest?”
Nikulas sighed. “This is God’s army,” he said. “And the Holy Father in Rome is the chosen shepherd of God’s will on earth. Do you dispute this?” The captains shrugged and shook their heads. “Then you do not dispute that I am the voice of the Holy Father in this small corner of the north? Here, now, I am the shepherd of God’s will—and it is God’s will that Konraðr of Skara lead His Crusade to reclaim the bones of Saint Teodor, and the sword that blessed martyr used to defeat the Devil-sent wyrm of Hell, for the glory of Christ and the King! Do you dispute this?” Nikulas roared.
Men backed away; even Thorwald motioned for peace.
“We are under attack,” said Pétr—forgotten Pétr, who had watched the evening unfold in silence.
“Indeed, Brother Pétr!” Nikulas said. “We are under attack by the sin of pride! You covet glory like a lecherous man covets the virgin daughters of his neighbor! Shame, Thorwald the Red! Shame shall be your portion! We—”
“No, priest!” Pétr bellowed. He ripped aside the door flap of the pavilion; outside, men howled in alarm as flames licked the night sky. The mangonels had fallen silent, and from the edge of camp nearest the shores of Lake Vänern came the clash of steel. “We are under attack!”
* * *
THE WOLFLIKE SHAPES OF THE úlfhéðnar descended on the Crusader camp in a silent wave. Two longboats, their oar-locks muffled, had delivered the two-score men to a sheltered cove on Lake Vänern’s shore, a rocky shingle screened by a low hill and a tangled thicket of willow and ash. There, they split into two groups. Úlfrún led one; Forne led the other.
The Crusaders tending the incendiaries were the first to fall. These men, stripped to the waist and sweating, poured coals into the bored-out hearts of pine tree trunks, each the height of a man. Nearby, axes thudded as their mates kept the supply of trunks moving. Úlfrún watched this almost mechanical process for a long moment—pine trees of a certain height and girth were marked out with strips of cloth; woodsmen felled these, and used a team of mules to snake them over to where the engineers cleaned them up, sawed them into pieces, and punched out their centers with awls, augers, and reaming drills. Once the tenders poured their coals, the incendiaries had to season for an hour and more—aided by a crew of men wielding hand bellows—until their hearts were nearly molten with pine pitch and embers.
Several were sitting on a sled, smoldering as they awaited delivery to the mangonels. Úlfrún grinned. These would be her target. She gave a low whistle; behind her, men clad in mail and wolf skins rose from hiding. Úlfrún led them into the Crusaders’ midst.
The first to die was a woodsman who straightened from lopping branches off a pine log, curious at the clash of harness coming from behind him. He turned, a frown crinkling the sweat-sheen of his brow. He glimpsed a shadow, wolf-clad and tall, even as Úlfrún crushed his skull with one blow from her iron hand.
Wolf howls split the night as the úlfhéðnar drove like a lance into the unprotected flank of the Christians. Blood splashed; bone snapped, and men screamed in prayer and alarm, recoiling from the savage and blood-spattered silhouettes that suddenly appeared among them. Úlfrún kicked a shirtless Swede into the fire, her axe snaking out to sever his leg at the knee as he struggled to rise. The stenches of cooked blood and seared flesh mingled with that of resin and fresh-cut pine.
“Odin!” she roared, walking through the fire over his burning corpse. Men fled from her. A short distance away, down a slight hill, she could see the first of the three infernal engines: a throwing arm housed in a frame of timber, powered by a profusion of ropes and the muscle of a dozen men. A stone the size of a dead man’s torso sat in the basket at the end of the throwing arm. As Úlfrún watched, the rope-haulers pulled in unison—a mighty effort that sent the rock lofting into the night sky. Its journey would end a few hundred yards away, across the ravine, and over the palisade of Hrafnhaugr—backlit by a dozen fires burning along the lower terrace. But even as they recovered and sought to reload the basket, her lads smashed into them.
Riven bodies fell among the ropes; a head bounced, landing in the throwing basket. Its owner staggered a few steps before sinking down among the ropes. Another engineer tripped over that corpse in his haste to get away from the biting swords and axes of the heathen invaders. He screamed and writhed as a spear took him in the hip. His was not the only voice of terror. More arose, becoming cries of alarm—and that alarm spread through the Crusader camp.
Úlfrún wasted no more time. “That axe!” she bellowed, pointing to a long-handled woodsman’s axe still clutched in a dead Christian’s fist. “Bring it to me!” One of her men snatched it up. With Úlfrún’s help, they used it to pull the first incendiary off the sled. It tipped on its side and struck the ground with a thump. Heedless of the heat rising from it, Úlfrún bellowed a warning as she put her booted heel to it, kicking it down the slope and into the siege engines. It bounced, spewing embers from one end. A pair of defenders tried to divert it with spears, but the heavy pine log smashed them to the ground and rolled over them.
The log’s journey ended when it struck the heavy frame of the first mangonel. That shuddering impact, the crunch of wood on wood, knocked the engine askew even as it cracked open the incendiary, causing its near-molten heart to spill out across ropes and timbers. The machine kindled like a torch, the whoosh of greedy flames loud enough for Úlfrún to hear over the din. Smoke and embers billowed into the night sky.
“Again!” Úlfrún shouted. Following her lead, wolf-cloaked warriors muscled the other incendiaries off the sled and sent them tumbling down the slope toward the growing conflagration. They were not precision missiles—not like arrows or javelins; every stone and contour of the ground set them to bounci
ng. They veered off their chosen courses, rolling this way and that. One came to rest among the Crusaders’ tents, its cargo of fiery coals setting alight canvas, cloth, and flesh. Another wobbled and slewed to a stop when its edge bit into the soil near the second mangonel. Úlfrún led the way down the slope after it, gesturing at the third machine with her iron hand. “Cut the ropes on that one!”
Meanwhile, heedless of burns, she shoved the incendiary closer to the second mangonel and struck it with her axe. “Break it open! Let the bastards see them burn!” Úlfrún, limned by the firelight, raised her iron fist. She meant to order her wolves deeper into the Crusader camp, but suddenly she heard an angry hiss, felt a thudding impact that staggered her, and snarled at the arrow that had sunk itself into her ribs. She ripped it out, heedless of the damage. A second arrow rocked her back on her heels. Úlfrún spied the archer, a Swede, through the smoke and waves of heat rising off the burning mangonel. He stood on the far side—alone, as near as she could tell; he had three more arrows thrust into the ground before him, a fourth resting on the string. Smiling, she plucked that second arrow from the flesh of her abdomen, kissed its bloody bodkin head, and tossed it aside as she leapt forward and charged through the wrack and ruin of the siege engines.
She loosed an ear-splitting howl.
The archer paled. She saw his lips moving; praying or cursing, Úlfrún could not say. But he loosed a third arrow that went wide of its mark, and then dropped his bow to claw at the mace hanging off his heavy leather belt. He brought it up even as she struck. Úlfrún’s axe bit through his upper arm and lodged in the wall of his chest. The Swede flopped to the side; Úlfrún wrenched him upright and kicked him free of her axe head. She saw no other archers, but from this vantage, at the edge of the firelight, she beheld Forne’s advance.
His score of men had spiked deep into the Crusaders’ camp, down a broad avenue lined with tents, through a makeshift plaza, and toward a rich pavilion that could only belong to the lord of Skara. They were slashing and burning, slaying soldier and camp follower alike. But he was overextended. He was too far from the safety of the camp’s edge. And he was about to be cut off.
