The Song of the Ash Tree 03 - Already Comes Darkness

by T L Greylock

  “Nothing you say or do can change your fate now.”

  Isolf’s face hardened with resignation and he nodded over his shoulder. One by one, the warriors sheathed their weapons and, on Raef’s orders, disarmed themselves. Vakre watched with sharp eyes while two of Raef’s men collected armfuls of swords and axes.

  “There, cousin,” Isolf said. “You have won the hall.” He smiled, a tight, anxious thing that showed the frayed edges of his composure. “Shall we go to the yard and I will place my head upon a block for you?”

  “No, cousin, there will be no swing of an axe. Not for you.” Raef hopped off the table and strode close to Isolf. He circled around him once, then came to stand in front of him, so close their noses almost touched. “The eagle is coming for you, Isolf.”

  Now the fear ran rampant over Isolf’s face and he shuddered visibly. His jaw moved up and down as he gaped at Raef. “Please,” he whispered at last.

  But Raef turned away, heedless of the plea. He called out for Isolf’s men to be ushered from the hall and Isolf was bound hand and foot and roped to one of the tree-shaped pillars.

  “Crow.” Raef beckoned for Dvalarr. “Take those who are not wounded. Secure the gate. Find Rufnir. If he lives.”

  Only when the Crow left the hall did Raef exhale a long, trembling breath, and only then did the battle-lust seep away from his bones and his heart. In Dvalarr’s wake, a flurry of movement caught Raef’s eye as Aelinvor stirred and reached for a knife on the high table. Vakre snatched her wrist just as her hand closed around the antler handle. She strained against his hold for a moment, her heartbeat visible in her neck, her nostrils flared wide as she debated her course of action, and then she released the knife. Vakre led her around the high table and sat her down on the bench closest to Raef. She held her head high still, but her gaze was cast down and her knuckles were white from the force of her own grip as she clutched one hand to the other. Raef could not help but think of how young she was and he wondered if she would have rather stayed in Garhold.

  But it was Aelinvor who spoke first, her eyes rising to meet his. “What will be my punishment, lord?”

  “Is that what you want? For me to strike off your head? Leave you as carrion for crows?”

  She rose in a stiff, jerky motion, anger brightening her face. “What I wanted was power. For you. For me.”

  “Your ambition killed your father.”

  “His death freed me.”

  “Freed you for what? To sit beside my cousin and watch men drink until they cannot see straight? To see Isolf lust after another woman after making promises to you? To know that your ambition had cost you much and earned you nothing?”

  Aelinvor was shaking now and Raef could see he had struck upon the truth. “You are to blame, Raef Skallagrim. And when you kill me, my death will sit heavy upon you.”

  “Perhaps I will let you live, and then we will see who is burdened with guilt.” Fear crept into Aelinvor’s face for the first time and Raef had her taken to a sleeping chamber where she might be kept under watch until he decided what to do with her.

  In her absence the hall was quiet and Raef closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, but he could not savor his victory, not yet.

  Three of his men were badly wounded. One clutched at a hole in his side, but his pale, sweaty face told Raef he would not last. Another had taken a blow to the face that had loped off half his jaw. He was conscious, though just, and seemed oblivious of all, even the pain. He kept attempting to get to his feet, and did not understand why others were trying to keep him still. The third might live, Raef thought, though he would never heft a weapon again. His right arm was slashed to ribbons and the wounds went deep, severing tendons and ligaments. Eyvind was already at work wrapping the arm with cloth, but it would need stitching.

  Raef looked to Vakre, who bore no sign of injury, but the son of Loki’s face was full of concern.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Raef looked down at himself and saw that he was coated in blood. He wiped a hand over his face but only succeeded in smearing more sticky wetness across his forehead.

  “I do not think any of it is mine. Come, we must see to the village,” Raef said. Leaving Eyvind and Visna to watch over Isolf and the wounded, Raef and Vakre stepped out into the night once more.

  The village was quiet but for the frantic barking of a single dog. Raef hurried down the stone steps and began to wind down the wagon path. As he went, he noticed that a few doors were cracked open and he thought he caught glimpses of faces staring back at him.

  He found the Crow kneeling in the middle of the wagon path halfway down the hill. Several bodies lay in the snow and dirt around him. Dvalarr straightened at the sight of Raef.

  “Some were taking for the hills,” the Crow said, gesturing down to the main gate, whose torches flickered in the distance. “Gullveig is keeping them under guard. The rest are dead.” A fresh cut ran down Dvalarr’s face but the Crow seemed not to notice. He glanced down to the body at his feet and Raef followed his gaze.

  Rufnir was still alive. His breaths were shallow and forced, his eyes unfocused, though they settled on Raef as he knelt on the ground beside him. A wound gaped high on Rufnir’s inner thigh, the flesh matted and tangled with cloth. A dark stain had already spread down to his knee and the snow beneath him was crimson. His right hand clutched the handle of his sword and the left stump reached for Raef as he choked on thick blood that spilled down his chin.

  Raef took Rufnir’s stump and held it close to his chest, his eyes stinging with tears as he watched his old friend die.

  “The Vestrhall is ours, Ruf,” Raef whispered, his voice hoarse. “You have fulfilled your promise.”

  Something that was either a smile or a grimace of pain twitched on Rufnir’s blood-streaked face and Raef could only hope his words had been heard and understood.

  “Go in peace and sail the seas of Asgard. The gods await you. As does your brother.” Raef leaned over and placed his lips on Rufnir’s forehead. When he drew back, Rufnir had gone still and his blue eyes stared at nothing. Raef closed the eyelids and detached the hunting horn that hung from Rufnir’s belt. He got to his feet and handed it to Dvalarr.

  “Sound the horn, Crow. The people must learn what has happened. They must know it is safe.”

  Raef retreated to the stone steps, flanked by the surviving warriors. Dvalarr raised the horn to his lips and let loose a single note that drove into the darkness. The Crow let the sound die away before repeating it and the second note was still echoing in the hills when the first, curious, wary faces drew near.

  Fathers kept close grips on their children. Mothers looked over their shoulders with nervous eyes. But as more and more of them caught sight of Dvalarr, his bald head shining in the torchlight, of Vannheim warriors they knew by name and face, and, last of all, Raef standing tall at the top of the steps, the crowd began to murmur and the worry on their faces turned to wonder.

  Raef opened his mouth to speak, but a voice in the crowd shouted first.

  “Hail, Skallagrim!”

  Others echoed the call, their voices rising in the dark until Raef raised a hand, asking for silence.

  “There is a Skallagrim in Vannheim once more.” This was met by a loud cheer. “The traitor and oathbreaker Isolf Valbrand will be put to death. And then we will mourn our dead and rebuild what we have lost. I ask only one thing. That you might forgive me. I was blind and Vannheim suffered for it.”

  “We are the heart of Ymir,” Dvalarr roared.

  “The heart of Ymir!”

  “Blood of the giant!”

  After the crowd quieted, Raef descended the steps and greeted his people by name. Hoyvik the blacksmith was there, though he walked only with the aid of a wooden crutch. Old Grandmother, who had inked the wolf onto Raef’s shoulder, smiled, her pale, delicate hands steady and cool against his blood-stained cheeks. Then came a young woman, Hanna, the sister of Finnolf Horsebreaker, and, but for the length of her brown
hair and the slenderness of her arms, she could have been mistaken for the young captain who had been slain outside the walls on the night of Isolf’s treachery. There was no sign of her young sister, Tolla, and Hanna’s eyes were full of grief. Ulli the steward was as trim and tidy as ever, though it seemed to Raef the neat little man had lost the sprightliness in his step.

  Many faces were missing. Engvorr the ship builder and his sons. Yorkell the silent captain who could not grow a beard. And still others who had made their homes inside the shelter of the Vestrhall’s walls.

  A cask of mead was brought to the steps and cups were passed until each man, woman, and child shared a drop in remembrance of the fallen, and then the crowd faded back into the night.

  FIFTEEN

  The early dawn light found Raef at the shore of the fjord. It slipped across the water in streaks of silver and gold and danced along the shoreline, nipping at Raef’s toes before racing onward. A pair of gulls wheeled overhead, searching the waters for fish beguiled to the surface by the sun.

  Raef sat on a boulder, flat and smooth across the top and marbled through with bolts of deep red stone. For him, it was a different morning, one that seemed far away and long ago, a morning like this one. Siv had perched on the same rock and waited for the ice bear to come to the fjord to drink. He could see her smile, see the way the sunlight brightened her hair, see the peace and joy she felt in that simple moment.

  Sleep had eluded Raef in the few hours before the dawn. His chamber was as he had left it, for Isolf had claimed the lord’s chamber, but Raef had not lingered there, choosing instead to begin the work of cleaning the hall. One by one, he dragged the bodies through the carved doors, heaping them high at the base of the stone steps. He collected the refuse from Isolf’s final feast and threw it in the rubbish pit to be burned. And then he sluiced bucket after bucket of water over the bloodstained floors.

  When sounds of life came from the passages and chambers adjoining the hall, Raef knew the servants were stirring and so he slipped away in search of further solitude.

  It was only later, with the rising sun and the memory of Siv warming him, that Raef at last began to feel relief. It was done. Once a funeral pyre was built and burnt to send Rufnir and the others to Valhalla, all that remained was bringing death to Isolf.

  Isolf had been stripped to the waist and he shivered now in sight of gods and men. The bare, rocky hilltop faced the sea and the winter wind bore down on the gathering without mercy. Waves crashed against rock below them, filling the air with the sharp smell of salt spray, and beyond the shore, the grey sea was spotted with shafts of sunlight that pierced the dull clouds.

  Raef stepped close to Isolf, whose skin was prickled with the cold. “Tell me, Isolf, of Siv’s fate.”

  “Will you grant me an easier death if I do?” Isolf bore a tattoo on his chest of a bear, a reminder of his ancestry. The blue ink stood out against his pale skin.

  “No. But you can go to your death with a clear heart if you speak.”

  Isolf’s face twisted in a grimace and he spat at the ground at Raef’s feet. “So weak. So sentimental. You were never fit to rule here.” Dvalarr jerked the ropes that bound Isolf’s hands and growled a warning, but Isolf went on. “I earned this hall. You do not know what it is to be born in isolation, hidden away from the world and forced to scratch out a reputation, a name for myself, when it ought to have been my birthright as the only worthy descendent of Tyrlaug.”

  “No, Isolf. You earned this death.”

  “Please, cousin,” Isolf said as he was forced to his knees, his defiance turning to panic. A rope around each of his wrists ended in a loop and, though Isolf struggled, Dvalarr’s strong grip forced him to extend his arms and the loops were hooked on a pair of sturdy, forked branches that had been driven into the frozen ground and wedged there with piles of small rocks.

  His pleas were lost on Raef, and so Isolf began to thrash against the bonds that held him, his face twisting with fear and snarling hatred.

  “You will defile yourself if you shed the blood we share,” Isolf shouted, his voice whipped across the hilltop by the wind. “The gods will curse you.”

  Raef removed his heavy fur cloak and the thick woolen tunic until he stood before Isolf in breeches and a thin woven shirt. He began to roll up his sleeves, never taking his eyes from Isolf.

  Isolf strained against the ropes. “You will answer for this when you reach Valhalla. I will kill you with every rising sun.” The watching crowd drew back from Isolf’s fury, but Raef stepped close and leaned in so that he might whisper in Isolf’s ear.

  “This is all that shall pass between us, cousin. It is not my fate to see you in Valhalla. You will never have a chance at eternal retribution.”

  Isolf pulled away and looked at Raef with new dread. Raef stood straight once more and drew his chosen knife, a long-bladed thing.

  “The Valkyries will shun you, Isolf. The Allfather will not have you when I am through. I mean to make you scream. All men know that he who screams while facing the blood eagle will never sit at Odin’s table.”

  Isolf barred his teeth and clamped his mouth shut and Raef could see him shudder with the force of it.

  Raef stepped behind Isolf and gripped the other man’s chin, forcing him to look out at the cold, indifferent sea.

  “Look your last upon the world.”

  The knife sank into Isolf’s back, near the base of his spine. His right hand still holding tight to Isolf’s neck, Raef ripped up through flesh, dragging the blade with tender slowness up and up until he had carved open the length of Isolf’s back, exposing white bone. Under his grasp, Isolf writhed and twitched, but his mouth remained closed.

  Raef, his hand slick with blood, traded his knife for an axe, then shifted his right hand to Isolf’s shoulder and brought the axe down with a swift, short hack, severing the first rib from Isolf’s spine. Isolf lurched against the ropes, his weight sagging more and more as Raef worked up the spine, the ribs cracking with ease under the sharp steel. When he reached Isolf’s shoulders, he reversed direction and did the same on the other side. When he had finished, Raef flung the axe to the ground, reached into the wound with his bare hands, and began to bend the bones backward out of Isolf’s back, opening up the cavity of Isolf’s chest. Some broke off clean in his hands, snapping with horrific noises that had more than one witness shuddering at the sight. Others splintered and held, the jagged shards of bone jutting out of the skin at terrible angles.

  The scream came when Raef shoved his hands inside the ruin of Isolf’s core and found the lungs nestled there. Isolf’s head snapped up, the cords of his neck bulged, and his voice ripped unbidden out from between his teeth, and Raef could feel the agony throbbing through him.

  Raef drew forth one lung with both his hands, felt it move in his palms, felt Isolf’s life beat against his skin as the man trembled beneath him. Raef placed the lung gently on Isolf’s shoulder blade and then returned for the second one and set it opposite the first. There they pulsed and then went still and Isolf died.

  Raef stared at the bloody work his hands had done and at the crimson gore that had dripped to his elbows. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and knew satisfaction. Not triumph. But satisfaction ran through his veins unlike any he had ever known and with the exhalation of that breath, he released all the anxiety that had gnawed at him, all the anger that had burned within, all the grief over the loss of so many.

  Raef dipped his forearms into a waiting bucket of water and scrubbed off the congealing blood. Dvalarr waited with his cloak and tunic, but Raef knelt first before Isolf, whose weight now hung fully from the wooden supports. His face had slackened at the moment of death, but the terror and pain were still there, and Raef was sure he saw something like shame, for in the moment that he screamed, Isolf would have known his fate. When he stood, Raef looked to Dvalarr and Vakre.

  “Leave him for whatever scavengers will claim him.”

  Raef lingered on the hilltop as t
hose who had gathered to watch the execution began the descent through the forested hills and returned to the Vestrhall. The wind had grown faint, as though the savage gusts had been sated by the blood spilled there, and he watched the ever-changing sea, the shifting colors and shadows, as he waited for the last footsteps and subdued voices to fade away.

  When at last there was silence, Raef turned away from the view and saw that Vakre was still there, as he had known he would be.

  Raef gestured to Isolf’s corpse. “Is Vannheim avenged?”

  “Only you can decide if Isolf’s life was payment enough for what he did.”

  Raef thought for a moment. “For the lord of Vannheim, it is enough.”

  “And for Raef Skallagrim?”

  “It will never be enough,” Raef said, thinking of Siv, of Finnolf, Rufnir, and Uhtred of Garhold, and all the others who had died because of Isolf’s treachery.

  “Death does not bring life, Raef,” Vakre said. His voice was gentle, his eyes shadowed with his own private sorrow.

  Raef sighed. “I know.”

  To the west, the sunlight shattered the cloak of clouds, spilling over the surface of the grey sea, but there on the rocky hill, snow began to fall.

  “Come,” Vakre said. “They will be waiting for you.”

  Raef nodded, but they had not gone far when a rustle of wings drew Raef’s gaze up to the bare branches of an ash tree. Two black ravens had just come in to land. They snapped their beaks at each other as they shuffled their wings and feet, but then they grew still save for their black eyes.

  Raef exchanged a glance with Vakre, wondering why the Allfather’s ravens followed him so persistently. One raven croaked then took to the air, the other waited, staring at Raef, then followed its brother. But the second flapped once, twice, and then plummeted to the earth.

  It was dead before it landed, Raef knew, and still he watched it for some sign of life, not daring to believe that one of Odin’s ravens was dead. The creature was even more massive when spread out on the snow, one black wing stretched wide, the other tucked close to the body. The eyes stared up at Raef still, but they were unseeing now and held only darkness in their glassy depths.