The Soul Thief

by Cecelia Holland

  “Get the oars out,” Ulf screamed.

  Corban and the other men unshipped oars and sat down side by side and began to row. The wind was a breath of ice, the seas mountainous, but the rain had slackened. Around them the day was coming, the air shot with fresh light. The ship struggled up another wave and down the far side. Corban settled into a long even stroke, poling the ship through the water. The rain stopped.

  They were going west. The sun was rising behind them. They were going away from Hedeby. Between him and Hedeby lay the storm.

  All that day and most of the next they rowed steadily west, trying to get away from the weather. The sky cleared, and the wind slackened. At night the stars shone. They ate the last of the soggy bread; they had run out of water again. They huddled together trying to get warm.

  “This is all Ulf’s fault,” Floki murmured to Corban. His odd eye looked away over Corban’s shoulder as he talked.

  Corban glanced up toward the bow. Ulf had a notched stick, which he used to judge where they were on the sea. Now he was standing in the bow, holding this stick at arm’s length, and trying to get the measure of the North Star.

  “This is Ulf’s fault,” Floki said again. Gisur, beside him, nodded gravely.

  Corban wheeled around toward him. “What does that matter? Does it get us out of this?”

  The two men blinked at him like startled stupid cows. Ulf stamped down toward them from the bow. “I can’t get a good sight,” he said. “The sea’s too rough.” His eyes were narrow. Corban saw he had overheard. He spoke to Corban but with sideways eyes he watched the other men. “I’m sure we are too far north, though. Tomorrow we go south. Maybe we can get to Iceland before our food runs out.”

  “Iceland,” Floki and Gisur said, together.

  “East,” Corban said. His tongue hurt when he talked. “We should go east.”

  “South first,” Ulf said, and shoved past him, going to the stern.

  They turned the lee side of the ship to the rising sun, and rowed. Once Gisur, stretching his arms out, slunk up beside Corban and whispered, “Ulf is a bad one, he won’t save you, you know.” His eyes were bloodshot, swollen and pink. “We should all stick together, you and me and Floki.”

  “Shut up,” Corban said.

  He thought of Benna. She would wonder what had happened to him, surely she would think of him, for a while at least. He wondered if she would pray for him. He knew she was not one to pray with much attention but he hoped she did anyway. He hoped she looked at the picture of him. It eased his mind to think of her and he remembered every time he had seen her, every word they had said, over and over, like a child taking favorite things from a box and putting them back again.

  Thinking of Mav wore him down. He had failed her; he was not good enough. She was always farther away, no matter how hard he struggled after her. He had to get them going back to the east. Yet Ulf headed the ship steadily south. And when, a day and a half later, the land appeared, it was to the west.

  Ulf saw it first, and let out a yell. Corban stood up on his bench and shaded his eyes from the sun. Over there along the western edge of the sea lay a long dark line, with a row of clouds like airy mountains rising above it.

  “Iceland?” Corban asked, uncertainly.

  Ulf said, “I don’t know. I don’t think so, Iceland is all cliffs.” He bent them toward it and Corban sat down eagerly and took up his oar again. The other men sat slumped over their oars, their jaws slack and their eyes glazed. The smaller one’s lips were bleeding down into his matted blonde beard.

  “Pull,” Corban said. “There’s land.”

  They leaned to the oars. Corban was so hungry he could not straighten; he felt he might break in half. His eyelashes were crusted with salt that glinted in the sunlight. All the rest of the day they rowed in toward the seam of the land. A seagull glided past them, surveying them with a cold red eye. The sun arched over them and dropped down ahead of them, and sank behind the long dark horizon. As the air cooled and the night fell, they saw ahead of them a rocky beach with low, tree-covered rises of land mounting beyond it.

  “Take us in,” Floki cried. “Take us in—” He lurched up from his bench and stretched his hands out beseeching toward Ulf.

  “No,” Ulf said. “Look—” He flung his arm out, pointing. “Sea reeks—who knows what other—we’ll go south.”

  Corban looked where he pointed and saw the black lips of the monsters just breaking the waves off the shore. The hair tingled on the back of his neck. He leaned on his oar, exhausted. The sea was wild and full of storms but this unknown land could be worse. Creatures beyond nightmare could dwell in those shallows, in those dark trees. Yet he could not drag his gaze from it; long after the night swallowed it up he stared that way, trying to make out the beach, the trees.

  They rowed all night, one sleeping while two swung the oars, and Ulf always in the stern cursing and shouting them on. When dawn came Corban was too tired to row anymore. His arms were quivering and cramped, and his belly hurt and his dry throat would not swallow. They were drifting into a wide bay, with flat marshland on the west and a sandy shoal to the east. Ulf steered them in toward a long, flat, pale stretch of beach beneath grassy dunes. Here there were no signs at least of sea reeks. The waves rolled up unbroken to curl softly against the beach. Ulf ran them into the surf; the ship’s keel crunched on sand, and the next wave lifted them and carried them high onto the slope of the shore. With a cry, cock-eyed Floki, who had been rowing beside Corban, flung his oar down, leapt over the gunwale and ran up onto the land. Staggering a few steps, he fell to his knees sobbing. Corban shipped his oar, and stood, and on trembling legs walked out onto the beach, which heaved and bucked under him like an ocean of sand.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The recent rain had left pools of standing water on the sloping ground just above the beach. Corban still had his sling; when he had filled his belly with water and washed the salt from his eyes, he set off inland, looking for something to eat.

  At first he walked through a soggy black swamp, where the ground squished under his feet, and the broken husks of last year’s reeds stood straight up out of the muck like giant hairs, but on the far side of that he came on a little stream, and beyond the ground rose, rocky and thick with trees. Most of the trees were scrubby cedars but above their low fringe he could see stands like islands of taller, leafless oaks. He went along through the trees, watching for tracks, and listening for birds. As he went, he picked up good stones for the sling.

  He was still tired down to his bones, but he thrust that off. He was ashore now, his feet on solid ground, and he felt stronger and safer. The strange country absorbed him. After the rain the forest was black and dripping, and yet he felt the freshness of the air on his cheek and knew spring was coming here as in Jorvik. He fought his way through tangles of brush where new buds were just popping open on the branches, where tiny sprigs of green poked up through the soggy rotten leaf clutter on the ground. For a while he stood listening to a bird singing, somewhere ahead of him; he had never heard that song before, and he could not see the bird.

  He made his way up a narrow little creek bottom, where moss grew thick as green fur on the heavy boles of the trees. Slimy clumps of frog eggs floated in the still pools of the creek, and on a muddy patch of shore he came on strange paw prints, like a long-fingered dog’s. In the naked trees above him he saw the dark shapes of old bird’s nests like hats caught in the branches. Everywhere, now, he could hear birds singing, a wild racket all overhead.

  Up somewhere before him suddenly the woods rang with a wild cry, a throaty outdrawn bellow. He stopped still, the hair rising on his neck. The sound faded, and he made himself push uphill, away from the stream, toward whatever it was he had heard; but the bellow never sounded again.

  At the top of the hill a huge oak tree sprouted, its top broken down in some ancient storm, its great trunk humming with bees, still stupid from the recent cold. The huge rotting trunk was torn open half its h
eight, gouged open—some bear, he thought, and wondered if these were honeybees. He could see nothing inside the hollow but the slow churning of hundreds of crawling bees.

  The wind rose, rustling the trees above him. He thought, God is here, too, and was comforted; the place felt more one with what he knew. He went on back down to the stream, following the curve of the land, which was not land, really, but great jagged grey rocks, with some soil in between, and all half-buried in drifted dead leaves.

  As he came back to the stream again, in a stand of scrubby trees he saw something moving in the thin brush. He crept up cautiously, expecting to flush it—through the brush he could see a great brown furry creature—but it made no move. He reached the brush and looked down and saw, like a great moving mound of long stiff hair, the largest hedge hog he had ever seen. It ignored him, snuffling and snorting at the ground—eating shoots, he saw, the new green shoots of the brush.

  The beast paid no heed to him at all. This warned him; it seemed harmless enough, yet it had no fear. He drew his knife, and put out his left hand cautiously to touch it.

  It snorted at him, a grunting pig noise, and the stiff spiny hairs all over its back stood up, but it still made no move to run. He touched its fur, and pain shot up his fingers.

  With a yell he jerked back his hand, the three middle fingers each sprouting three or four of the creature’s spiny hairs. He staggered back, gasping, and went to his knees. The pain made his eyes water. He plucked out a few of the spines but several were deep and well-lodged and he had to work them out with the tip of his knife. His fingertips throbbed. He got back to his feet and went and looked into the clump of brush again.

  The creature was still eating. It flourished its spines at him again, and he went back a few steps, and circled around it.

  It was large enough to feed them, if it was meat. Exhaustion was creeping over him; he had no strength to hunt for anything else. He had to kill it.

  The brush made the sling hard to use. He went around him in the forest and found a stout stick as long as his arm, and went back and clubbed the beast over the head.

  It squealed, grunting, terrified, and now shuffled deeper into the brush. He pursued it, beating it across the head and body. The dense underbrush scratched and clawed at him; he got a vine around one leg and tripped and nearly fell into the creature’s spines. Under his blows the beast shuddered, its spines flaring up, and then sank down, and lay still. Corban was gasping for breath, his body shaking from the effort.

  Surely it was dead. He reached out the stick tentatively and poked at it, and the stick came away studded with spines. The problem now was how to skin it.

  He sat a moment, spent from the effort. After a while he used the stick to push and manuver the creature out of the brush onto a patch of open ground under a tree. It was not as big as he had thought at first. The claws of its forefeet were caked with fresh dirt, from digging up the shoots. Its little spiny head was bloody.

  He wiggled the stick under it and tried to turn it over, which took him several attempts. The smell of blood made his stomach rumble. Finally he got the creature onto its back.

  Its underbelly was soft and hairless. He put the stick down across its hindlegs and set his foot on it, meaning to hold that end of the body down.

  A dagger of pain shot through his foot; he yelled and leapt backwards through the air. A spine had pierced up through the sole of his shoe. He sat down and yanked it out, and sat a moment staring at the thorny body in front of him, his mind clogged with fatigue.

  The blood smell brought him up again. He had to get to the meat on this creature. He found more sticks, and with them managed to hold the carcass still so he could cut off the head and paws, spreadeagle the animal onto its back, and slice it open down its underside.

  The insides looked like every other animal he had ever killed. The heart looked like a rabbit’s heart, and he ate it. He pulled the skin back off the creature’s body and drew the meat up out of the spines. There were globs of yellow fat around the meat and he ate them too, although his stomach heaved.

  He thought of building a fire right here, and eating it by himself. But he needed the other men, he would not get home to the right side of the sea without them. He slung the meat over his shoulder and started back.

  When he crossed the stream again, he stopped to wash his hands. As he squatted on the bank he looked across the little water and saw in the mud on the far shore the deep forefoot print of some huge deer, bigger than any deer he had ever seen, less than a day old.

  The carcass of his creature was heavier with each step. He walked back to the beach and found the other men there sitting on the sand. They had gathered some wood and made a fire; Gisur was putting on a piece of driftwood when Corban came up. Floki was staring away down the beach, where Ulf walked up and down. Corban came up and flung the dead thing down.

  “What is it?” Gisur poked at the dead thing.

  “Whatever it is, we’re going to eat it,” Corban said.

  They quartered Corban’s creature and put it over the flames to cook. Floki watched the meat hungrily, his lips moving.

  Ulf came back. His gaze went at once to the fire, to the thing cooking. He said, without looking away, “There are trees, over there. We could cut a new mast.”

  Corban was turning one piece of his creature over on the fire. He had no intention of letting it get too much more cooked than it already was; the smell of the flesh cooking was driving him wild. He said, “Where are we?”

  Ulf shrugged. “Somewhere in Ireland, I suppose.”

  Corban gave him a long startled stare. He had no idea where they really were but he was sure they weren’t in Ireland. He pulled his piece of the creature off the fire and cut it up and gave everybody a chunk.

  The others sat there with the meat in their hands, staring at him, and he saw that, hungry as they were, they would not eat first. He realized they thought the meat could be poison. He wondered briefly if it were; but the heart had not killed him; and he thought it would be better to be dead than hungry anyway. He sank his teeth into the chunk of meat in his hands.

  Juice spurted across his tongue. It was delicious. He gave a low, lustful cry of gratitude and appetite. At once the others began to stuff their mouths full. Squatting around the little windblown fire, they growled over their food; Floki was weeping, great tears rolling down his face, as he chewed up the half-raw flesh. Ulf wiped his lips.

  “More,” he said.

  Corban took off another of the sizzling quarters. “Is there anything on the ship? In the cargo? Anything we can use?”

  “The whiskey,” said Gisur, breathlessly. He clutched at Ulf’s arm. “Give us the whiskey.”

  Ulf sat slumped, his long arms draped over his knees. “All right,” he said, with a nod. “Go get one of the casks.”

  The two rowers leapt up and ran down toward the ship, leaving Ulf and Corban sitting there. Corban chewed up the little bones of the creature; he was still hungry.

  Ulf said, “I can take a better sighting on the stars, when the sun goes down.”

  Corban nodded. He was tired, and wanted to sleep. The two men lugged a cask of the whiskey up to the fire and one of them pried up the lid with the tip of his knife. Greedily Floki plunged in his hands and scooped up the liquor and drank it from his cupped palms.

  At once he spat it out, spraying a gust of drops that made the fire sizzle. “Salt,” he cried. “The sea got into it,” and kicked at the cask, furious. He and Gisur lumbered away toward the ship again. Corban stuck his aching left hand into the cask of salty whiskey and left it there until the many little wounds stopped stinging.

  He woke in the dark. The fire fluttered and snapped in a cold wind off the sea. The six whiskey casks were tumbled around on the sand nearby, all broached, and all empty. They had all been fouled. Overhead the sky glittered with stars, like a scattering of white ash across the flat coal black of the night.

  Ulf was standing a little way away, with his sti
ck outstretched in his hand, reading their position. Corban got up, stretched, and went down the beach to make water. From the dark he turned and looked at the fire, its tiny shell of yellow light, the men slumped around it; he thought for an instant he could walk away and leave them, go into the dark forest, and live there.

  He thrust off that idea. Somehow he was going to get back to the right side of the sea, to Hedeby. He started back toward the fire, and as he walked toward them the other men began to shout, a sudden, loud outburst of voices in the windy darkness.

  “You did this, Ulf—You got us cast away—”

  Ulf was arguing with them, his hands raised, but suddenly the two other men sprang on him, one from either side. Corban saw a knife blade flash in the firelight.

  He broke into a run toward them. Before he could reach them the three men went down in a tangle of thrashing bodies. He leapt on them, seized the upstretched arm with the knife, and wrenched, and kicked out at the other men rolling and snarling on the sand.

  “Stop!” He flung cockeyed Floki down on his face on the sand and tore the knife out of his grasp. Ulf and Gisur were thrashing around on the ground, locked in each other’s arms, growling and shrieking, and Corban walked into them, driving his feet into their bodies, until they broke apart, whining. He grabbed Ulf by the shoulder and yanked him up onto his feet, and aimed the knife in his hand at the other man.

  “Harm him and I’ll kill you. He’s the only one who knows how to get us back home.”

  The little blonde man was panting. Sand smeared the side of his face. He showed his mottled brown teeth in a snarl. “Home. We’ll never get home. It’s all his fault. Tell him, Ulf.”

  Corban still held Ulf by the shoulder. The captain stood docilely in his grip, his head down.

  “What?” Corban said.

  “We’re way far south,” Ulf said.

  “You said we were north.”

  “I made a mistake.” Ulf’s eyes glittered. “The sea was rough when I took the other reading. It wasn’t my fault, nobody could have read it well.”