A Gathering of Ravens

by Scott Oden

  Grimnir sucked his teeth, the corner of his mouth curling up in a sneer. “Roskilde? Bah!”

  “Then may God bless your journey,” Aidan said. He looked to Njáll, who had dropped off to sleep. “It is late. We must arise early and take to the road. We thank you for your hospitality.”

  Grimnir grunted; he pulled his wolf-skin cloak tighter and rolled over, his back to the fire. Aidan shrugged, fed the flames another bundle of dry hawthorn branches, and stretched out, head cradled in his arm. It only took a few moments for the youth to drop off, his measured breathing joining with the snores ripping from the giant Dane.

  Unseen by either man, the skrælingr raised his head. He looked back at Njáll and Aidan, then up to the cave’s entrance, where their donkey shifted and stamped; he nodded to himself. Sinking back down, he stared—gimlet-eyed and cruel—up through the fissure at the star-flecked sky and mimicked the deep breath of sleep.

  3

  Aidan wakes to the sound of iron nails clawing on stone. He lies in darkness, unmoving; the faint light that filters down into the heart of the cave is gray and cold. He hears it again, something heavy, pulling itself along the floor. Aidan raises his head slightly. A shape moves in the gloom at the back of the cave. Something gnarled and blighted, its black-nailed fingers scrabbling for purchase on cold stone. The stench of putrefaction runs before it like the gale before a squall. Through eyes half open, not daring to breathe, he watches the thing creep into the light—an impossible thing, a thing that should not be: gnarled limbs and a bloated belly, knifelike teeth gleaming from a black thatch of beard woven with thorn and bramble; lifeless eyes, hollow and accusing, pierce Aidan to his core.

  “You cannot hide,” the thing hisses, its voice familiar to Aidan. It is the voice of a man from Exeter, a hateful man who has been dead for more than a year, now. Godwin. “You cannot hide, my sweet little whore. Come back to me.”

  Aidan screams as the thing’s hard-nailed fingers close around his ankle …

  The youth bolted awake, gasping, a name and a prayer both half formed on his lips. “God!” Wild-eyed, he cast about for the thing that had menaced him.

  Aidan sat on the frigid cave floor, his breath steaming; morning sunlight lanced down from the overhead fissure to sparkle on the surface of the pool. Pain lanced down his spine and he could yet feel the skin of his ankle tingling where the dream thing had grabbed him. The youth ran a hand through his short coppery hair. Their fire had burned down to a bed of embers. On the other side of it, Njáll lay under his blanket, still gently snoring. Aidan fought the urge to wrap his own blanket back around himself and snatch another hour’s sleep. But it was surely time to be up and about. He stretched and turned …

  … and saw Grimnir staring at him from the shadows. An impossible thing, a thing that should not be. He had his seax drawn and was tending to the rune-etched blade with a whetstone.

  “How long has the sun been up?” Aidan muttered.

  Grimnir stropped the stone along the blade’s edge, a slow and precise rasp—the sound of iron nails clawing on stone; when his inhuman eyes flickered over to the youth, Aidan felt the skin on the back of his neck crawl. The previous night’s conviviality was gone. Now, there was a hatred in his gaze that Aidan could not fathom.

  “An hour,” he hissed. “Maybe less.”

  Aidan gave a nervous chuckle. “Aren’t we a pair of layabouts? I’ll build up the fire and make a bit of breakfast, then rouse Njáll. Hot food—”

  “Best go catch your beast, first.” Grimnir gestured up at the cave mouth with the point of his seax. The donkey was gone. “It chewed through its halter and headed off down the road.”

  Aidan clapped a hand to his forehead. “God’s teeth! That animal will be the death of me!” He sprang up and headed up the stairs. An ugly thought burst full-grown into his mind; he paused. “Could you not have stopped it from escaping?”

  Grimnir shrugged. “I could have.”

  “For the love of God, why didn’t you?”

  The skrælingr smiled; there was humor in the gesture, but it was not good-natured or well-meaning. Rather, Aidan got the impression he was playing a malicious prank upon the travelers. “Keep talking, little fool,” Grimnir said. “Your ass will be in Roskilde long before you.” Laughing, he returned his attention to his seax; Aidan bit back a reply and hurried up to the entrance of the cave. Sparing no thought for the length of rope that remained, Aidan pushed through the screen of hawthorn and out into the frigid morning light.

  4

  Grimnir heard him call the animal’s name, the young fool’s voice fading as he skidded down the slope to the road. Then, with a final susurration of stone on steel, he stood; Grimnir wiped his blade on his kilt, sheathed it, and fixed Njáll’s sleeping form with a look that could curdle milk.

  He walked over and kicked the Dane’s feet. “Ho, there, you miserable sluggard. Up! We have business, you and I.” Njáll mumbled a curse. Grimnir kicked him again. “Up, damn you.”

  “God rot your bones, skrælingr!” Njáll muttered. “Touch me again and I’ll twist your pox-ridden head off!”

  “Try it, you fat-bellied hymn-singer! Up, you lout!”

  Njáll pulled himself into a sitting position; he rubbed his eyes and glanced about the cave. Suddenly, he stiffened. “Where’s Aidan?”

  Grimnir laughed, a sound like stones sliding into the grave. “I sent your little whore outside. A smart bastard, you are. Very smart, hacking off her hair and making the slut wear the rags of a poor son of Christ. Almost fooled me. Where are you bound for, in truth? Do you take her to the slave markets to the East, or back to your steading? Does she know what you have in store for her?”

  “You’re addled!” Njáll said. He stood and pushed past Grimnir, shuffling along to the pool, where he knelt and splashed ice-cold water in his face. “Aidan’s a good man, destined to join the Order of Saint Benedict, and we are bound for Roskilde, like he said.”

  “Liar! She bleeds. Her moon is upon her. I can smell it.” Grimnir’s voice became an unctuous purr. “Come, I have good silver. I will buy her from you.”

  Njáll straightened, damp beard bristling; there was righteous fury in his eyes as he towered over Grimnir. The latter did not quail. “You profane little wretch! God-forsaken piece of filth! She is a child of the Lord, not chattel to be traded! She—”

  “She?” Grimnir hissed.

  Njáll dropped any pretense at hiding the truth. Aidan was a woman. “Aye, she! We go to Roskilde, she and I. Once there, she will serve the Church as best she can, and none will be the wiser! It is God’s will!”

  “And what will they do to her when they find out her little secret, eh?”

  “That’s none of your concern!”

  “What will you do, Christ-Dane? That’s the question … will you raise your axe against them, when they come for her? And they will, you know it in your bones. I can smell the fear you carry for her. It rots your faith, you filthy oathbreaker. Repent to your Nailed God and give the girl to me. I’ll keep her safe.”

  “Shut your mouth, you poisonous little worm!” Njáll rounded on the skrælingr. Only the ancient bonds of hospitality kept his hands from Grimnir’s throat. “Go back to the shadows and pray to your foul gods that the next time we meet you don’t leave this world with my axe buried in your miserable skull! She is my charge, and I will do everything I can to keep her safe! And I will die before I allow harm to come to her!” Njáll shouldered Grimnir aside.

  Grimnir snarled. “So be it!”

  Quick as a snake, he lashed out and kicked the Dane in the back of the left knee; that leg crumpled. The blow pitched Njáll off balance. Before he could recover—before he could so much as react—a second kick caught him between the shoulder blades and drove him forward, onto his face. Air whuffed from Njáll’s lungs.

  The Dane gasped. He struggled to draw breath even as he struggled to rise, to fight back. Grimnir gave him no opportunity. Disdaining his seax, he leapt full upon Njáll
’s broad back, straddling him and driving his head into the stone floor of the cave. Cartilage crunched; blood spurted from the Dane’s crushed nose. Tear-blind and roaring with rage, Njáll thrashed like a wounded beast and lurched upright. He clawed at Grimnir. If he could but get his hands on him …

  Grimnir, though, was a relentless foe. He clung to the Dane’s back and hammered blow after blow into the side of his head. Njáll twisted. He staggered, blowing a bloody froth through his mashed lips. Grimnir’s horny fist connected once more, crushing his eye socket and bruising the soft flesh of his temple. Njáll crashed to his knees and in that instant Grimnir gained both purchase and leverage. Iron fingers closed around the Dane’s throat and choked off his bellow of agony.

  5

  After the previous day’s storms the morning that came to Sjælland was crystalline. The woman who called herself Aidan—for indeed she was a woman who did a masterly job of passing herself off as a rosy-cheeked young man—shaded her eyes and looked back down the road, the way they had come the day before. She imagined she could almost see the combers breaking on the beach at Seal Reef, where a ship bound for the island of Borghund in the Baltic Sea had put them ashore. Ahead of her, through the scrub and the trees, a glittering blue fjord cut into the heart of Sjælland, and to the south—on her left—the hills rose a few hundred more feet before dropping down into a shallow wooded valley. On the horizon, she could see smudges of smoke that marked villages and steadings.

  The wind was unseasonably cold; shivering despite the brilliant sunlight, she skidded down the hillside to the rutted trail. Puddles from yesterday’s rain still stood, their edges crusted with ice. She found a fresh hoofprint in the mud and discovered that, by an act of Providence, the donkey had not strayed far.

  The animal stood near a thicket, its rope lead tangled in the thorns. The donkey’s ears twisted and flattened as she approached. It was wary. Scared. She purposely kept her voice low, cooing and speaking as to a child rather than with the thundering hellfire and brimstone that the stubborn beast deserved. It allowed her to take its headstall. Working the lead free of the thorns, she noticed a curious thing about it. The lead did not look frayed, as from chewing, but rather it looked cut—and cleanly, at that. So, too, were the donkey’s hobbles.

  Immediately her suspicions lit upon Grimnir. She recalled him sitting there, smugly honing his seax. But why? Why would he try to drive off their donkey? It made no sense …

  She heard it, then, over the keening wind: an agonized roar, like the voice of a wounded beast.

  Already skittish, the donkey took fright at the sound and bolted from her grip. It knocked her off balance; unable to recover, she fell to her hands and knees on the frosty trail bed. Stones bored into her palms. She watched as the donkey galloped off in the direction of Roskilde. Another cry, choked off at its crescendo, drew her eyes up to the cave mouth; the blood left her face as she recognized the voice. “Merciful God,” she muttered. Scrabbling to her feet, she ran back up the slope and ducked under the hawthorn boughs.

  “Njáll?”

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. She pressed on recklessly, one hand on the cave wall as she flew down the stairs.

  “Njáll!”

  But what she saw there in the shadows by the pool drew a gasp from her. Grimnir straddled Njáll, his black-nailed hands looped around his throat, choking the life from him. And the look on the skrælingr’s face was one of savage exultation.

  “Lord God Almighty! No!”

  Even as she reached the cave floor, though, she knew she was too late. Grimnir’s muscular arms shook and convulsed; he slammed Njáll’s face into the ground, using the momentum to propel himself to his feet. Grimnir snatched Njáll by the shoulder and flung him onto his back. The woman calling herself Aidan cried out at the sight of the Dane’s bloody face, his nose mashed and his eye socket deformed. Most of all, she cried out when she saw the distended tongue, like that of a hanged man, and the fixed, bulging eyes. She cried because she knew, in that moment, that Njáll was dead.

  Grimnir threw his head back and gave a terrible howl of triumph—a godless barbarian gloating over his kill. As the echo of that hideous sound died away, his gleaming red eyes turned toward her.

  “Foundling,” he hissed.

  Her legs trembled beneath her and gave way. Why run? Where would she go? Who would defend her from this beast if trusty, fell-handed Njáll could not? Trust in God, a voice murmured in the back of her mind. Trust in the Lord, most high. There, on her knees, she made the sign of the cross and bowed her head.

  “I … I am the wheat of God, and am g-ground by the teeth of the wild beasts … I long after the Lord, the Son of the true God and Father, Jesus Christ. I … I am e-eager to die for the sake of C-Christ—”

  Two steps brought Grimnir to her side; she squeaked in terror as he caught her up by the throat and slammed her into the cave wall. His grip choked off her cry; lights danced before her eyes. “You hymn-singers are all so eager to meet death. Do that Nailed God you love a favor and meet death on your feet. Make that bastard work for his supper!” With his free hand, Grimnir groped under her robes. She twisted away from that probing hand, fighting and clawing. She felt sickened as he touched her sex. But he did no more. He brought his hand away and held his fingers up before her eyes. The tips were wet with blood. Her blood. The blood of her cycle. “So we understand each other,” he growled, using his red-smeared fingers to sketch the sigil of the Eye on her forehead. “I know what you are. I have marked you like I marked this cave, little fool. I killed your protector. You belong to me, now. What’s your name, eh? Your real name.”

  “E-Étaín,” she said. “My name is Étaín.”

  Grimnir nodded and turned her loose; she slid to the cave floor, where she lay, wiping her forehead and sobbing, while he went over and rooted through the panniers holding their belongings as if they were the spoils of his victory. He set their food to one side, pocketed what little coin he found wrapped in one of Njáll’s old shirts, and smashed the carved cross to kindling. He flung books and scrolls carelessly about and scattered a sheaf of fine vellum meant as a gift to Father Gunnar at Roskilde, but carefully put the two small pottery jars of ink down beside the food.

  Étaín stifled her sobs. You’re a servant of God, she muttered to herself, not some weeping victim! Get up! Her jaw set and resolute, she rose to her feet on unsteady legs and staggered over to where Njáll lay. She knelt beside him. Fresh tears cascaded down her cheeks without recrimination; he had been first her captor, after the sack of Exeter, then her protector, and finally her companion in Christ. And in the small hours of the night, when her sins grew too large to bear, Njáll had been the father she never knew—taking her in his arms and comforting her, singing to her as one might to a child. She closed his eyes, arranged his limbs. “God our Father,” Étaín whispered, making the sign of the cross, “Your power brings us to birth; Your providence guides our lives, and by Your command we return to dust.”

  “Why do you weep, foundling? Is he not sitting at your Nailed God’s right hand, now? Ha! I did that oath-breaking swine a favor.”

  “He broke no oaths!” she replied. “Not like you! You offer us hospitality and then murder us when it suits you! May my God and yours curse you!”

  “My hospitality ended with the sunrise,” Grimnir said, kicking the now-empty panniers over. “And I’d wager when that one was born his idiot father pledged him to the service of that tyrant, Odin—an oath he likely renewed when he sailed with that fool, Olaf. What happened to that oath when he took up with your White Christ?”

  “An oath to a false god is no oath!”

  “False, eh? You’re sure?” Grimnir turned in a circle, his arms held wide. The bone discs and silver beads woven into his long hair clattered as he threw his head back and shouted to the heavens: “I struck down your sworn man, you cross-hanging bastard! Where’s your swift and terrible vengeance? Here I am! Do you fear me?” The echo of Grimn
ir’s challenge faded away. “Ha! Just like I thought.”

  Étaín stood, fists balled at her side. Her eyes were the cold blue of a glacier. “What about your precious Odin! Where is he? Will he not defend his name? Will he not strike—?”

  Without warning, the back of Grimnir’s hand cracked across her mouth; she staggered and would have fallen had he not pressed closer and seized her jaw in his black-nailed fingers and dragged her close—close enough to smell his rank breath. Red eyes bored into blue. “There, you see? Insult your Nailed God and nothing happens. But, insult the gods of the North and their vengeance is swift, little fool!”

  He shoved her away; she caught herself before she could fall. Grimnir vanished into the shadows at the back of the cave only to emerge moments later bearing his own gear—a satchel of age-blackened leather hung with all manner of fetishes: strings of wolf and bear teeth; human finger bones carved with runes; red-and golden-haired scalps with shriveled strips of skin still hanging off them. The satchel bore a painted eye sigil, but beneath that, stamped into the leather, were the faint emblem of a bull’s head and the Latin letters LEGIO XIX.

  Étaín watched him stow the things he’d taken from her own and Njáll’s possessions in various places, then slide Njáll’s axe through the thongs that tied down the satchel’s flap. He worked quickly. Once finished, he knelt there and stared hard at her. She could see the mechanisms of thought grinding away behind that wolfish face.

  “Will you kill me, now?” she said, after a moment. “Or do you plan on selling me to the heathen?”

  “You’re English,” he replied, rising.

  She apprehended his meaning. “I will not go with you. I must … I must bury Njáll and b-be on my way.” Étaín knelt once more beside Njáll’s corpse, as if expecting him to protect her now as he always had. “They … They’re awaiting us in Roskilde.”