“Skoll taught me about everyday items which, once handled correctly, had very powerful and useful effects. For example, the bread contaminated with ergot, a cousin of LSD. You can imagine the hallucinogenic effects those loaves had. And that's how I met Odin, his caves, his wolves and his entire heavenly court. They talked to me and I talked to them. All the inanimate objects came to life. The mountains were huge, the giant boulders in the streams were luminous elves... “
I began my training by taking small doses with every meal, making sure that I had no weapons nearby, to find out the effects it had on my body.
Some days later he began to give me beer with black henbane. Henbane makes you feel light. When I drank it I felt as though I lost weight, as if this huge body was a weightless being, and I felt like I was flying.
It was amazing.
I was me, Gunnarr, in all my glory, not a farmer.
"It's all a lie," Skoll repeated. "Don't believe anything you feel or see. The other berserkir believe that they are really flying, which is a good thing during combat, but you have to lead them and you need to see the reality."
"But I have flown, I swear that my hand touched the top of that pine tree. I swear that I have been on the snowy peak of that mountain. Feel my hands, they're still cold."
"You haven't moved from where you're sitting right now, boy.
He cast a meaningful glance at his boot and I realized that his huge foot had been crushing mine for quite a while.
"I'll tell you a secret that everyone wants to know about us: why don't weapons hurt us? It's thanks to the red drool of Odin's horse. When it falls on the forest floor, it turns into these red mushrooms. They look innocent enough, but the powder the spores give off is enough to control eleven men, and those eleven men can control the outcome of a battle. Your dreams that lasted for eleven nights, the power of being invulnerable, indestructible, immortal: you can only get that feeling from the red mushrooms."
"So that's all it is? A feeling? It's not real?"
"It's real if you believe it is."
"That's not good enough, those are empty words to trick me. I wanted it to be real."
"So you really want to be immortal," he whispered, scornfully.
"Yes, that's what I want. That's how I felt in my dreams."
"Ok, boy. Well keep dreaming," he said, patting me on the back and heading off to collect more mushrooms.
When I had learned all there was to know about his powder, his plants and his roots, when my body was used to seeing brighter colors and sharper sounds every morning, he took me to the camp where the other ten berserkirs were hiding out.
They had all fought in many battles, they were old comrades of war and they were used to fighting together. They looked at me with the same kind of apathy that one looks at a puppy, and then they ignored me.
The next day we headed North, following the coast towards Frisia. We crossed parts that would later be known as Halen, Stalen and Visen. And that's where the first razzia I took part in occurred. A fairly unprotected farm, with no fencing, ruled by an old jarl whose sons had set sail months ago and had not returned.
It was disgustingly simple: the fire, the pillage, the unarmed men. They barely resisted. I couldn't believe what I was doing. I had taken my share of red mushrooms that morning, and I can say that I did feel powerful and light, although I was also conscious of every painful cry that came from the mouths of my victims, farmers, like me. Some of them I even knew.
“But do you know what I remember most about that blood fest, stedmor? The fear that my neighbors would recognize me and tell my father. That's what I remember. So I smeared my face in blood, in an attempt to hide my identity, and continued with the killings, begging Odin that my father would never find out about what I was doing.”
When no more screams could be heard, Skoll came over to me and pointed to one of the adjacent buildings.
"Now for the women, don't kill them. Just rape them, Odin should spread his seed, so that when we die there are still berserkir on this side of the valley."
So I went inside one of the huts, and saw a girl hiding there.
In actual fact it was a storeroom where they kept their provisions. When she heard me enter she didn't even hide. She stood before me, shaking, with Dutch courage.
I threw her on the floor, looking behind me, but no berserker had followed, me, they were all otherwise occupied doing more or less the same as me.
"Scream, woman, I want you to scream and beg me not to do it."
I tore off her skirt and apron, exposing her breasts. She was paralyzed from fear. I pulled my pants down and leaned over her.
"Come on, scream! Loudly! Haven't you ever faked it with your husband?"
The woman looked at me, not understanding was I was trying to tell her.
"Aren't you going to touch me?"
"Of course I'm not, what do you take me for?" I replied, offended. "Now, could you please scream, as if I were splitting you in half? If you don't, other berserkir will come to make sure I'm raping you properly, and then, I promise, you will want to scream like a pig."
The good woman began to howl, every scream more convincing than the last, as I lay down beside her and tried to take in what had just happened. I counted my first kills, many of them beardless boys, like me.
Then I hunted around the storeroom and found some blueberry juice, which I covered myself in and artistically painted some wounds on her. A split lip, a black eye, those sorts of things. Skoll walked through the door, just as I had imagined. I pretended to ravage her. He seemed happy with what he saw, and he left. And that's it."
"So you didn't rape her," I thought out loud.
"I didn't want to tear women apart, I did that once, when I was born, and I've never forgiven myself," replied Gunnarr, shrugging his shoulders in the dark.
"I went back to camp, whilst all the berserkir congratulated me profusely for my blood baptism. Skoll couldn't take his eyes off me, his dark eyes, which were shining with pride.
"That thing you do with both hands is going to come in very handy, boy. I've never seen anyone kill that fast, and with both hands at the same time!"
I smiled, going along with it all, but inside I was dying at the thought of what I'd just done.
Although the worst was still to come. Skoll thought that I was ready to be one of them, and the next morning he woke me, while I was shivering from the cold. We normally slept outside, and they had taken my fur blanket. I soon found it. I just had to follow the sound of their laughter. Two of them were covering it in honey.
"What do you think you're doing with my blanket?" I cried, facing them.
"Don't wash yourself in the river for the next week," said Skoll, stepping in front of me, who was in a great mood that morning.
"You can turn me into a berserker, but there's no way I'm going to stink like you do. And why are you ruining my blanket?"
"We're preparing you for your lady. In a few days you'll be ready for your challenge, but we have to wait for the right wind."
On that infamous day they wrapped me in a sticky fur that had once been my blanket. Then they took me to a cave hidden away in the forest. They pulled my blanket off and threw me to the ground, unarmed and in a state of shock.
"If you survive, bring me her paw. This is the test you have to survive," he shouted.
To begin with, I couldn't see anything, but I could smell her and she could smell me. It was a bear who had recently given birth and had been separated from her cub. I tried to escape, I ran to the entrance of the cave, but in horror, discovered that the berserkir had lit a wall of fire, blocking my exit and that of the bear, although the wind that day was blowing the smoke out and we weren't chocking to death. I wasn't even going to have a quick death.
So I turned to face her, and she charged at me, furious, and there we were, standing up and dancing a lethal dance. I blocked her swipes with these hands that you see before you, I felt the mud and moss from the forest on her soft pads. I
was in shock, I knew that I was going to die and I almost gave in. I assumed that she was going to eat me alive, without a single weapon to take on that huge beast.
And then someone threw me my two small axes. I always thought that it was Skoll, or always hoped that it was. Better that than think that they appeared out of nowhere.
What happened next was an atrocity, there was no nobility or glory in that act. I killed her slowly, with small cuts, as if she were a tree, and not by my own choice. I would have ended her suffering faster, but I didn't have suitable weapons, or the strength left to kill her more quickly. It took hours. I suffered for her, I cursed the laughter of the berserkir, I've never been able to cope with a mother's agony.
There was still a wall of flames at the entrance to the cave, I thought that the berserkir were waiting for me outside, that when I threw the bear's paw out, they would help me to get out. But they didn't, they'd forgotten about me and they'd left. I had to cross the line of fire and some of my clothes caught alight. I burned my feet because I was blinded, walking over the embers without finding the way out. My lungs were burning, as if I had swallowed hot coals.
I went back to camp, where I found them all sitting around in a circle, warming themselves by the fireside. I could see the surprise on their faces, as most of them didn't expect to see me alive again, although I didn't return with empty hands. I held the bear's decapitated head out in front of them.
"Who wants it?" I interrupted, looking at those horrid faces for one last time.
The eleven berserkir, including Skoll, threw themselves at it. They all wanted it, it was magnificent. It would bring much fear in a battle, the kings would fear it, the reputation of the person wearing it would grow and it would be talked of in the Skaldic sagas.
"Where's the cub?" I asked, without letting go of my trophy.
"What cub are you talking about, boy?"
"The bear cub, it's a newborn."
"We left it in the forest, half a day to the north."
They had exposed it, they had left it to the night, to the cold, to the vermin.
I tossed the bear's head into the fire, and they all leaped into the flames to rescue it, like demons entering inferno. I took advantage of that moment to run, despite the blisters on my feet, despite the fact that I had no feeling in my arms after so many blows with my axe.
I ran looking for the cub, although she found me, a couple of miles later. I guess that I had her mother's scent on me. It was tiny, I picked her up and shared my body heat with her that first night. For the next few days I fed her, taught her to hunt small game and find bee hives, wild berries... the kind of things that bears eat.
"I'll wait for you," I said, when I left her. "I'll come back when you're ready and you can avenge her death. I'll let you kill me and repay the debt."
I've been back to that forest a thousand times, and I've never seen her. But I know she survived. Now there's a shopping mall on the edge of the forest, but I still go back there regularly. I still look for that bear and her offspring. I firmly believe that blood debts are passed down through the family.
I returned to my father's farm during the night. I sneaked into the skali when they were all asleep, and left a piece of birch bark with runes I had carved under his bed.
Father, I'm not sure that I deserve your forgiveness.
If you come, you will find axes and trunks,
and a repentant son.
I waited for him in the clearing in the forest where I trained every day. It was the longest night of my life. The sun began to rise on the horizon with a slowness that I had never seen before, and my father didn't show up. I knew that I had humiliated him, running away with a group of berserkir, that his heir would leave a stain on the family that would be hard to forget, that he had probably heard about the savagery I had perpetrated.
I waited all day, but my father never showed. I fell asleep, right there, in front of the trunk I used for training, with an empty stomach and nothing to drink. I was just waiting for my father.
The sounds of the forest woke me and some heavy footsteps in the snow. I jumped up, alert but disorientated.
And that's when I saw him, my father, running towards me.
He looked at me as if I was a ghost, horrified of seeing me like that, with burned feet and boots, with bear blood still covering most of my body, freezing cold, starving and in shock from what I had been through. He covered his mouth with his hand, with a gesture that made me feel totally impotent, and then fatigue took over and I lost my balance. He lunged to catch me as I fell and hugged me. He hugged me with his strong arms, on the floor, and sobbed like a child, saying my name over and over again.
"I just saw it, Gunnarr. I didn't find your message until today. I almost lost you, I almost lost you again, son."
I glanced at Gunnarr, he swallowed and his chin trembled slightly. He was staring at the wall of the cell.
My father forgave my wrongdoing. My uncles, Magnus and Nestor and my aunt, Lyra, reacted with a joy and relief that I was not expecting. They always treated me like some precious gem, a gift, something exceptional. They didn't criticize me or mention it ever again. We never spoke of the berserkir again.
Days later my father decided to celebrate the Jól Blot, the winter solstice, in my honor. The whole farm joined in with the festivities, everywhere you looked there were women making bread, cutting vegetables, steaming pots on fires, wild boar simmering over the coals. They took the glass goblets that my Uncle Magnus had brought back from the Rhine out of the trunks, a rarely-seen luxury in those parts, where we were used to drinking from horns or wooden mugs. They covered the walls with splendid tapestries that I didn't even know we had.
They hired musicians to cover the hillside with the happy sound of harps and bone flutes and my Uncle Nestor played an ancient bronze lur, whose deep sound, they said, kept bad spirits away.
We played games and had ski, sledge and snowshoe races. The elders took turns at playing checkers and other games imported from places that were further south.
My father was ecstatic, and all the neighbors who had been invited went to congratulate Kolbrun on the return of his wayward son.
We had another thirteen nights of celebrations ahead, thirteen nights during which we had to climb the hill, singing and shouting, to bid farewell to the sun on the "Night Mother" of the year.
"I misjudged you, son," my father said, happier than usual, during a break from the races. "You're older than you appear. I thought that at your twelve winters you were a boy, but you've lived through adult situations. I've spoken with one of the daughter's of our neighbor Knud, she's big like you, and she likes the look of you. I think the time has come for your initiation into manhood. But first, listen well. You already have the vigor of several wild boars, and you're still growing. Make sure that you never confuse strength for pleasure, and pick strong women who can handle your force."
"Father," I interrupted, "I thank you. I really do, but I'm not interested in your proposal. And please tell that young lady that I admire her beauty and courage, but I am definitely not the right man for her."
"Are you sure, Gunnarr? I'm not going to be one of those fathers who forces their sons to go through the rite of passage with toothless slaves, but you have to know that if you stay chaste, people will talk."
"Father, only the weak and insecure act upon fear of gossip. I really don't care what others think. The only thing that matters to me is living up to my father's expectations."
"As you wish," he said, with a large grin, and we touched foreheads before he disappeared with a horn of beer in his hand.
I watched him go, slightly concerned. I don't know what happened that day. It was as if someone had tampered with the drinks. I tried the jólaöl, the spicy beer that was only drunk during those celebrations, and I thought I could taste a hint of earth that I was familiar with, and that shouldn't have been there. Not even my Aunt Lyra's mead tasted the same".
"Oh," I interrupted, without me
aning to, "Lyra's mead. I'd forgotten about that, it was delicious."
"You tried Lyra's mead?" he asked, raising his white eyebrow. "When the hell was that?"
"Last year, during summer solstice. We had a party in the bay. Iago, Nagorno, Lyra and Lür were there. It was amazing to watch the four of them jumping over the fire. That was the first night that your father and I were together, the first night that I decided to believe him,"
I think that I was talking to myself. I think that I needed to, to take myself back into a happier past for a moment, where Iago was still with me every night.
Gunnarr looked at me, frowned and scratched his forehead,
"Wow, I hadn't thought about you two as a couple with a history to tell."
"I'm very aware of that. For you I'm just another stepmother, out of the many you have had. One that you can kidnap and use to keep yourself entertained during your nights of insomnia."
He clenched his jaw and his fingers trembled on the blanket.
"Ok, let's continue. I was telling you that I started to get worried when I saw that everyone was more drunk than usual. My uncles, Magnus and Nestor, gave me a couple of stupid grins and held their horns up when I walked past them. Even Lyra had to sit down because she felt rather dizzy.
I was worried, and could tell that something dark was about to happen.
And that's when I saw them.
The eleven.
They were standing in a circle on the top of the hill, surrounding my father. They were wearing their bear masks and they had taken their shirts and capes off. They had come to fight, with their shields in the air and their swords drawn. Seven of them had red foam around their mouths, Skoll had drugged them more than usual.
The Sons of Adam: The sequel of The Immortal Collection Page 11
