The Last Berserker

by Angus Donald

  And although Tor didn’t like to admit it to herself, her heart leapt when she saw Bjarki, standing with another lad at the edge of the Fyr Pit.

  ‘Hey there, oaf, ready to show them your mettle?’ she called out a little too loudly. Almost before the words were out of her mouth she knew they struck the wrong note. Bjarki looked terrified. It had genuinely not occurred to Tor that the oaf might not be as eager for his first public bout as she was.

  ‘Tor,’ he said dully, merely glancing at her. ‘How do you fare?’

  She saw that the other Bear Lodge youth, a grinning mop-headed idiot, was whispering in his ear and he was looking at the other side of the Fyr Pit where the tall older woman, the Mikelgothi, was speaking to a young man, about the same age as Bjarki, a bare-chested, squat, muscular fellow, very big, even running to fat, who was surrounded by a ring of Boar Lodge folk. She knew them as Boars by the forehead tattoos their two Rekkar bore.

  Bjarki was now stripping off his linen shirt, pulling off his shoes, and wearing only his threadbare trews, he was climbing down the ladder that led to the floor of the Fyr Pit. The plump Boar Lodge fellow was also entering the arena. Four large men with heavy ropes coiled on their shoulders were taking their places on the four sides of the pit. The crowd was now thick on each of the four sides, talking excitedly. It seemed that almost the whole of Eresburg had come out today to see this contest, to evaluate these fighters.

  Skymir the Mikelgothi stepped to the edge of the Fyr Pit.

  She said: ‘The first match today is between Bjarki Bloodhand of Bear Lodge, and Ivar Knuttson of Boar Lodge. Under the spreading shade of the Mother of Trees, and in the presence of the All-Father, let them demonstrate their battle-courage and prove their worthiness to remain here as novices in the sacred Groves of Eresburg. Novices – fight!’

  Suddenly, Tor felt a chill spreading through her belly and loins. The other novice fighter, the heavy Boar lad, looked terrifyingly dangerous. He was advancing on Bjarki in a strange crabwise manner, kicking up little puffs of ash with every slow, shuffling step, his meaty hands opening and closing convulsively, his large ugly head twitching a little with every step.

  She could see a little creamy white spittle already collecting at the edges of his slack lips. Bjarki was just standing there; his hands dangling, looking horribly frightened and lost. She had an almost overwhelming urge to jump down into the pit and go to Bjarki’s aid – to help him escape this massive twitching freak, who was now bearing down on him. But she knew she could not do it. The oaf must fight his battle. Fight, idiot. Attack now.

  Ivar Knuttson let out a long, wordless grunting roar – and charged.

  He came thundering forward with his arms outstretched, fingers spread as if he wished to seize Bjarki’s pale flesh and wrench it from his body.

  On pure instinct, Bjarki ducked under the heavy reaching arms and spun away, and as he turned he punched the other lad in the side under the ribs. It was a solid, punishing blow, yet the Boar didn’t even seem to notice.

  Ivar charged again, this time swinging his big fists in great arcs. Bjarki ducked again, punched him again, this time in the belly, and tried to step back out of his opponent’s reach. He stumbled, righted himself and caught a huge swinging blow full in the face that knocked him flat on his back.

  Then the Boar was on him. He pinned one of Bjarki’s arms with his knee and began to batter his face with both fists; big, pounding blows of extraordinary power, which rocked Bjarki’s head from one side to the other.

  Bjarki tried to fend off the blows with his one free arm, but the ferocity of the onslaught was too much for him. Punch after punch evaded his increasingly feeble one-handed blocks and landed on his battered face and neck and upper chest. The blood was flowing rich and thick from his mashed nose. There was no martial skill displayed here, as far as Tor could see, it was just a raw outpouring of animal rage as the Boar smashed again and again into his opponent’s head and body. Then Ivar flung back his head, and gave a massive bellow of rage – and agony. Bjarki had somehow managed to get a knee into his groin and was driving it up, again, and again. The Boar released, rolled quickly off the Bear, but immediately bounced to his feet.

  As a partially stunned Bjarki struggled to rise, Ivar kicked him savagely in the side of the head with the sole of his bare foot, snapping his enemy’s body back down on to the ashy floor. The Boar rushed forward again and seized Bjarki by the ears, lifted his head and smashed it down hard, once, twice, on the unforgiving ground. Then he bared his yellow teeth, there were strings of white spittle flying as he jerked back his head, he lunged in, bit down on his face, incisors clamping into a patch of Bjarki’s cheek flesh. The Boar flung back his head, ripping a chunk of flesh free of Bjarki’s face.

  He spat it out on to the pale ash, a gobbet of red; then grunting and snuffling in his crazed swinish joy, opened his gore-slimed mouth very wide, seeming to grin, and went in for his second massive bite…

  The loop of rope dropped over his shoulders, a jerk tightened it around his upper arms, and Ivar Knuttson was hauled back off Bjarki’s prone body, just in time, his teeth snapping on empty air, a bare inch from Bjarki’s nose.

  The Boar fighter thrashed wildly, his body twisting and turning, but another loop of rope caught his arms and neck, the new noose tightened and pulled him in another direction. Ivar was still thrashing like a beached salmon, secured by two taut cords, kicked-up ash flying everywhere, when the third Roper cautiously approached him and flung a stout web of hemp rope netting over his writhing body. Gradually, as the young Boar became further entangled in the net, he grew less violent, a few massive twitches and he was still. His Lodge mates – a dozen of them, all crying out in joy at his victory – jumped down into the pit and rushed forward to congratulate him.

  Tor vaulted down and sprinted to Bjarki’s body. She was aware that the other Bear Lodge man was hard on her heels. They both skidded to a halt beside the still body. Bjarki was breathing, at least, light shallow gasps. His face was covered in blood and he did not respond when Tor called his name.

  ‘The Bear spirit, the gandr, did not choose to come into him,’ said Gunnar. ‘Unlike the Boar – and he was already half-crazed when he entered the Fyr Pit. That was cunning, oh yes, to prepare himself that way. Ivar must have taken an infusion of the Red Spot, a fat dose, at least half an hour ago – which is clear against the rules, of course, and reckless, too, although I doubt anyone will chastise him for it. Poor old Bjarki never knew what hit him.’

  ‘Out of my way,’ said Skymir the Mikelgothi. She knelt down beside Bjarki and wiped away some of the blood with her sleeve. She peered at him closely, examining the raw welling hole ripped in his right cheek. She lifted up his eyelids and looked at his pupils, then put her hand on his heart, and her head right down close to his face to listen to his thin, labouring breaths.

  ‘He’ll live,’ she said to Tor. ‘We have the best healers in the Groves, young one, full of cunning and magic. He’ll boast a beautiful scar after this.’

  They bore him into the shade of the Irminsul on a padded wooden stretcher and a team of gothi and servants, mostly older women, cared for him, packed his cheek wound with cobwebs and stitched it closed. Then they gently washed and bandaged up his poor battered and swollen face.

  Tor sat beside him on the ground and listened to him breathe. He had never been very good-looking, she thought, but he was going to look truly hideous now. Poor oaf. He should not have come to this dangerous place. He would never make a Rekkr – never – he just did not have the strength in him.

  There were two other bouts in the Fyr Pit, one short and the other longer – Tor could hear the cheering and the occasional scream of terrible pain. But she did not observe them. She sat and watched over Bjarki, feeling close to tears – for him, and strangely also for herself.

  Then she was called for her own bout.

  There were disconcerting patches of fresh blood on the powdery ash floor of the pit. But Tor ignored them – a
nd pushed all thoughts of Bjarki from her mind, too. He would live – the Mikelgothi had promised as much. She needed to do well in this match. She must be victorious. She would show the indifferent Wolf Lodge that she was indeed her father’s daughter.

  However, when she saw her opponent climbing down the ladder into the Fyr Pit, Tor had to smother the urge to burst out laughing.

  She was an emaciated waif with spindly arms and legs. She might be about the same age as Tor, seventeen summers or thereabouts, and she probably weighed only slightly less. But Tor had been training in all the methods of warfare since she was seven years old, when she first became fully conscious of her absent father’s fame and prowess. Tor might be slim – but she was wiry and as tough as twice-boiled leather. She had trained all day, almost every day, for a decade: recently sparring with full-grown warriors in Svearland, and had bested more than a few of them, her weight and height notwithstanding. She could fight. But the person facing her across a stretch of blood-spotted ash was, well, she was just a girl.

  For a moment Tor was nonplussed. She dimly heard the Mikelgothi announcing her match – the waif was a member of Boar Lodge, called Frigga or Hrigga, something girlish like that – and then the fight began.

  The Boar girl ran at her, kicking and punching, screaming insults. Tor easily fended off the wild blows and neatly snap-kicked her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. The waif sat hard down on the ground, holding her belly, gasping like a landed fish. Tor had absolutely no idea what to do next. Should she kick her again? Wait politely for her to get up?

  The girl was game, that could not be denied. She clambered up to her feet and charged straight at Tor, trying to ram her with her blonde head.

  Tor sidestepped, and gave the girl a downward shove on the back as she passed, and her opponent, crashed face first into the gritty ash. She got up again, brushed the smeared cinders from her grazed face and attacked once more. Tor punched her in the face this time, a piston-hard straight right to the nose. The girl was stopped dead in her tracks; and Tor followed the blow with a hard clubbing left hook to the side of her jaw, which immediately knocked the female Boar sprawling to the ashy ground again.

  But the girl wouldn’t stay down. She rolled on to all fours, shook her head, dazed, and slowly got to her feet. She ran at Tor again, but slowly, tottering, groping for her opponent, and Tor seized her by one flailing arm, twisted it, dipped her shoulder and flipped her down to the pit floor again.

  This was ridiculous. The poor thing had no battle-skill at all.

  Frigga – or Hrigga – rolled over, her face and body grimed in grey ash, looked up at Tor with hot, pinhole eyes. She tried to rise again, and faltered, slumped back down – and then suddenly she began to cry. She just sat there on the ash floor at the bottom of the pit bawling her little blue eyes out.

  Tor looked around at the people watching from above her on the lip of the Fyr Pit. There were few of them left, and not one of them looked very impressed. This was evidently the last bout of the day. She saw the ancient Wolf Lodge Mother, staring at her, leaning on her stick. Tor half-lifted a hand in greeting, and shrugged at the crone as if to say: ‘What could I do?’

  The hag ignored the gesture, turned on her heel and shuffled away.

  The Mikelgothi was now beside her in the sand. ‘I think that will do,’ she said, striding towards the two girls. Tor plucked at her flowing sleeve as she passed. ‘Forgive me, lady,’ she said, ‘what will happen to her now?’

  ‘Oh, I believe she may still usefully serve the Groves – but I do not think she is destined to be a Rekkr. Wouldn’t you agree, Novice Torfinna?’

  * * *

  Tor returned to Bjarki’s pallet under the One Tree. She felt ashamed of her one-sided scuffle with the waif, as if she were the village bully, a persecutor of the weak and helpless. How was she supposed to have acted? It had been an unequal match. Should she not have beaten her opponent? Let her win?

  She looked at Bjarki and saw that, where it was not covered by the swathes of bandages, his skin was a much better colour, a little pinker, his eyes were fluttering open too. In a few moments they were wide and staring.

  ‘Freya?’ he said, looking at Tor with a puzzled expression.

  ‘Freya’s not here,’ she said, suddenly hating the silly trull, the one who had made such a fuss at Bjarki’s departure. ‘It’s Tor – your frien— uh, I mean, I was your companion on the march down from the Dane-Mark.’

  Bjarki closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. It evidently hurt.

  ‘My face is on fire. He bit me!’ he said. ‘What am I doing here?’

  ‘This is the Fyr Skola,’ said Tor, ‘you came here with Valtyr and me. We picked you up on the island of Bago and brought you here. Remember?’

  ‘I know where I am, Tor,’ he said, opening his eyes. ‘I was wondering what I am doing here – among this vicious gang of blood-drunk lunatics.’

  Chapter Seven

  A little help from a friend

  Bjarki sat by the hearth-fire in the Bear Lodge wrapped in a thick blanket, sipping a horn of ale. It was past midnight and the other members of the Lodge were all asleep. Bjarki stared into the flames, watching the shifting shapes and colours. His bitten face throbbed badly, preventing sleep, as if the Boar Lodge fellow was still gnawing at it, indeed, his whole body ached from the savage pounding he had received in the Fyr Pit that morning.

  He was thinking about Freya – his one true love. Had it not been for that insane incident in the dunes during which he killed Jeki and Ymir, and of which he could not remember a single thing, he might have been with her now. Perhaps lying in her arms by another warm hearth, perhaps discussing the design of the boat he had planned to build, or the places they meant to go in it, or the life they intended to make together in Bago or on one of the other bigger islands. He might even have already gone through a simple betrothal ceremony in front of the whole village, and they might be formally joined together, in a solemn binding union recognised by their community.

  He might even be happy.

  Instead, he was here in this strange, frightening place, surrounded by a gang of vicious madmen who glorified violence and pain, who sought out spirits of the wild and encouraged them to turn decent people into savage, bloodthirsty monsters. When Valtyr had spoken about the Fyr Skola and the Groves of Eresburg, he had spoken glowingly of heroes and traditions and transforming himself into a living legend. Bjarki had seen himself becoming one of those heroes, and with the magnificent name and fame that went with it, of returning in triumph to Bago, after a year or so, to reclaim his woman and his old life. He had imagined striding into the Thing space under the sacred oak tree, where they had tried to hang him, resplendent in furs and armour, with a sword at his hip and a blazing aura of glory all about him. The hersir Olaf Karlsson would have fallen to his knees and begged him, weeping, to return home to lead the men in battle in his place. And Freya, as wife of the new war chief of Bago, would have been loved and revered by all the other women – as his queen, and as the mother of all his tall sons.

  It could still happen, he thought. He could still return to Bago one day wreathed in glory. But first he had to find a way to rise in this community of lunatics, this blood-obsessed brotherhood, and that meant one thing. He must become a berserkr. He must strive to join the elite ranks of the Fire Born. Could he do that? Did he have what was necessary inside? He did not know.

  He became aware of a figure shambling out of the darkness towards the glow of the hearth and recognised with a sinking heart the battered face of the maddest of all the blood-drunk lunatics in the Bear Lodge.

  It was Brokk. He came into the firelight and gazed blankly at Bjarki for a moment. The flickering red light played over his tattoos, his burns and the scars on his face and his naked upper body, twisting them into weird shapes, with dark hollows and strange, unexpected lumps and bumps. He stood there for a moment, seeming to be as solid as a boulder and just about as sentient.

  His
blank gaze ran all over Bjarki, stopping at the fresh dressing that covered his cheek. It was clear that he had no recollection of who Bjarki was, and it seemed likely that he did not care to find out either. He bent and thrust out a spade-like hand and seized the large, half-full ale jug that sat by Bjarki’s feet. Once again his movements were swift as a hunting snake.

  The Rekkr did not bother with a horn. He drank straight from the heavy jug, pouring a couple of pints of the strong ale directly into his open mouth.

  Bjarki watched him with mingled awe and disgust. Was this really what he hoped to become, he asked himself, a fell creature only partially human?

  Brokk belched and sat down beside Bjarki on a stump of tree-trunk that served as a stool. He casually dropped the empty jug on the earth floor.

  For a long time the Rekkr stared into the flames, silent, barely seeming to breathe. Bjarki felt no inclination to attempt any conversation with him.

  Then, to his surprise, Brokk spoke: ‘He took the Spot.’

  For a moment, Bjarki thought he was imagining the words.

  ‘He what?’ he said.

  ‘The Boar, the one who bit you, he’d taken Red Spot. That’s bad.’

  Bjarki had no idea what to say to this. ‘You saw the fight today?’ he said, and then realised that it was a stupid question. Of course Brokk had.

  ‘You take the Spot first time,’ Brokk growled, ‘you always need the Spot. Every fight. Every battle. Every time. You’ll never find your gandr.’

  Bjarki was still not entirely sure that he was not imagining this whole conversation. Had he perhaps fallen asleep by the hearth? He took a fold of the soft flesh on the inside of his forearm and pinched it. No, he was awake.

  ‘Will you tell me, Brokk, how it was that you found your gandr?’

  Brokk’s head turned and he looked sideways, straight at Bjarki. His muddy eyes were no more alive than before but something very strange was happening to the right corner of his mouth. It was twitching, jerking. Was he having some sort of fit? Bjarki realised the man was trying to smile at him.