A Gathering of Ravens

by Scott Oden

  Instead, Grimnir followed his father’s example. Bálegyr the One-Eyed only permitted himself to rest one day out of every ten, and then only grudgingly. He filled the hours and days between with scheming, plotting, and the red froth of slaughter. What was good for the sire was good enough for his son.

  As he rowed, Grimnir turned his mind to the problem at hand. Those wretched fish-fuckers were hard on his scent like a pack of dogs. Sharp-eyed beyond the ken of mortal men, he could see the froth beneath the keels of the two largest boats following them. A mile behind, he judged, and twice that distance from the smaller boats that spread like a net behind them. Grimnir counted three oarsmen and one more sitting on the tiller in both lead boats—all men who knew this lake like they knew their wives’ thighs.

  Miserable bastards! Grimnir did not stop to wonder how they knew what direction he was headed. He doubted any of those ignorant wretches knew the truth of it, either. They followed their “gut,” or so they told themselves. But Grimnir knew otherwise. He could hear it. With each dip of the oars, the phantom song of the sjövættir sent ripples across the water, guiding those wretched Danes to him as sure as if he’d stood up and waved a torch at them. These sjövættir, these sea wights, had long memories, and they nursed a deep hatred for his people.

  Grimnir hawked and spat into the water. “Taste it,” he muttered in the harsh speech of his people. “Taste it and know me as one of Bálegyr’s brood. Send these fools to me, and I will salt your water with their blood.”

  The song of the sjövættir faltered a moment, then renewed in intensity; Grimnir laughed. He slashed the water’s breast with his oars. He was more than a match for any three of the white-skinned dolts who followed him. Nor was there any question in his mind that he would reach the far shore first. Once there, he knew how to deal with these cross-kissing little maggots!

  Grimnir bared his teeth in a bestial snarl as he redoubled his efforts.

  9

  “Come find me, Red Njáll, son of Hjálmarr, slayer of Prince Eothred of Wareham and the Scourge of Exeter. Come find me, if God wills it.”

  The plea held Njáll back from the swaying bridge to Heaven. He could see the far green country of the afterlife stretching out before him, across the chasm of Death, ice-covered mountains glowering in the distance; on the cold wind, he heard the voices of his kin, his axe brothers, calling out to him, bidding him take his place among them at the Allfather’s table. He could hear them, but he could not follow. A mortal spark, weak as an ember, held him back.

  “Come find me, Red Njáll, son of Hjálmarr. Come find me.”

  He knew that voice. It belonged to a woman—not his wife, for he was sworn to serve … who? A crucified god, of that he was certain. Odin? It must be, for the Allfather once hung himself upon Yggðrasil for nine days so he might learn the secret of the runes. He was Odin’s man, and the voice, the woman who pleaded for his aid …

  “Come find me.”

  “Étaín,” he moaned, remembering the slender, red-haired girl he had taken from the ruin of Exeter. He felt his body, then, heavy and leaden, like something hewn from the cold stone on which he lay. Muscles screamed as he moved them—his hands, his arms, his shoulders. His throat felt like a mass of bruises and his face burned like fire. How—?

  Skrælingr. The word was seared into his brain. Rage pushed aside the agony. Skrælingr! Odin’s Doom was upon them, upon that whole miserable race, and still he had made a compact with one instead of cleaving its head to the teeth! He’d been a fool, and this was the thanks he had for it!

  Slowly, Njáll rolled onto his side, teeth clenched as he fought off a wave of nausea. The cloth fell from his face. One eye was swollen shut; he opened the other. Pale gray light filtered down from the fissure in the roof of the cave. By its faint illumination, he saw a scattering of clothes and personal items, sheets of vellum, and two overturned panniers. A bed of cold embers marked the spot of a fire.

  He got to his hands and knees. Though every movement drove spikes of pain through his limbs, nothing seemed broken. His head swam. Njáll crawled to the steps, dragging the blanket with him, and pulled himself into a seated position. Shivering, he wrapped the woolen blanket around his shoulders.

  He didn’t recall what brought him to this cave, or even where it was. He didn’t remember why he might have had congress with a blasted skrælingr, or how he allowed that miserable wretch—what was his name? Grimnir?—to get the better of him. But he knew in his bones that Étaín was his … responsibility, his charge. And he had allowed that bastard to all but kill him and make off with her!

  “Come find me.”

  Njáll sat a moment with his head in his hands. He was certain she was alive, since the skrælingr needed her for something, but what? Where was he bound? Where?

  Something clicked in Njáll’s bruised brain. He raised his head as a name floated from the soup of his memory: Bjarki Half-Dane. “England,” he said. “He’s bound for England.”

  Red Njáll, son of Hjálmarr, slayer of Prince Eothred of Wareham and the Scourge of Exeter, snatched a long splinter of wood off the ground and rose to his feet. The blanket slipped from his shoulders. He knew the bones around his right eye were shattered; he knew he would likely never see right out of it for the rest of his days. And he knew he was Odin’s sworn man. It would be a fitting sacrifice.

  “Allfather! Great Odin, look here! Grant me vengeance! I offer you my flesh! Odin!” Gritting his teeth, Njáll reached up and dug the splinter of wood into his right eye.

  And the roar that echoed from that cave on the road to Roskilde was the roar of a wounded dragon.

  10

  It was a change in motion that drew Étaín from sleep, a dim awareness that the gentle, hypnotic rocking had ceased and what had replaced it was the sensation of bobbing like a cork. Water slapped against the hull. She opened her eyes.

  She lay yet in the ribs of the boat, nestled against the forward thwart, her sailcloth blanket close and warm. It was near dawn; the air around her was still and glacial and smelled of snow. Étaín raised her head, expecting to see the dim outline of Grimnir’s back, etched against the lightening sky. Instead, his seat was empty. She looked around and realized with a start that she was alone in the boat. She kicked free of the sailcloth and stood.

  The boat scraped against the shore, its painter tied fast to the branch of a tree that grew at an angle from the steep and rocky bank. She saw no sign of her captor on the bank, and a quick search revealed his gear was missing.

  Is this some malicious prank or has he truly abandoned me? But, Étaín realized, she didn’t need an answer. It was the work of Providence. For whatever reason, Grimnir was gone, and she had no intention of waiting around to discover why. Snatching up the sack holding what few things she had left to her, Étaín jumped from the boat and clambered up the bank, loose stones splashing into the water or thumping against the hull. She would find a way back to Njáll, and thence to Roskilde, where she would reassume her life as a young monk with none the wiser.

  But as Étaín gained the crest of the bank, she heard the blare of a horn. The sound startled her; she whirled, and through the trees, coming hard up on the shore, she caught sight of a Danish boat.

  “There!” one of the men in the prow bellowed, drawing an axe from his belt. Three others were arrayed behind him; the last man, on the tiller, was a gray-bearded man clad in a pale red tunic heavy with embroidery—the old Dane from the village.

  “Find the bastard’s trail and hunt him to ground!” he said.

  Though innocent, Étaín did not dare remain here and try her hand at reasoning with them. These men were out for blood, and the blood of a thief, at that. She bolted like a hare. The sudden movement drew the old Dane’s eye; his roaring voice stung speed from Étaín’s stiff limbs.

  “Christ’s mercies! There! After him!”

  Étaín fled through the trees, following the faint path of a game trail. She could hear the men behind her; the old man’s voic
e lashed them on. She ran in the twilight before dawn, her monk’s robe flaring out behind her as she tried without success not to leave a trail that even a blind man could follow.

  The path widened into a weed-choked clearing where the charred remains of a steading stood among the brambles. Fallen leaves piled against its crumbling foundations, and from its blackened center post—standing tall like the mast of a sunken ship in shallow seas—hung forgotten reminders of those who once sheltered beneath it: half-melted utensils, stag horns left to cure, and dried bundles of wild garlic left untouched by the flames. Fat flakes of snow drifted from the leaden sky, lending the ruins the forlorn aspect of a life subverted by tragedy.

  A stitch burned in Étaín’s side. Her stride faltered. She could not outrun the Danes who pursued her; her ignorance of the countryside made it less likely with each passing step that she might stumble over some hidden redoubt. But she was free and she still had her wits about her—perhaps where Étaín had failed, a young and earnest Brother Aidan might be counted upon to pick up the slack.

  Étaín circled the ruin, calming herself and breathing deeply. The snow was coming down heavier, now; it stuck to the brown wool of her cassock—cut no differently from the monastic habit of a Benedictine monk. She pulled up the hood, its peak casting her thin face in shadow, and folded her hands into the voluminous sleeves. She walked with a slow and measured pace, as though taking a turn about the grounds of her cloister.

  As she passed what must have been the entrance to the steading, she looked up. For an instant, morning sunlight pierced the clouds to illuminate the lintel and center post, creating the silhouette of a mighty crucifix. Étaín stopped. Hope filled her breast. She crossed herself, knelt in the swirling snow, and prayed.

  That was how the Danes found her.

  They entered the glade from the game trail and fanned out—the old Dane followed by three kinsmen in rough brown and yellow homespun, two with axes and one, the youngest to judge by the wisp of his blond beard, carrying a bow with a broad-headed arrow nocked. They expected the trail of the thief to continue on, or to find him cowering in some bolt-hole. They did not expect to find a monk kneeling in the leaf mold …

  The younger Danes glanced questioningly at one another, and then looked to their elder. The graybeard drew a sword and laid it flat on his shoulder. He motioned for the others to stay back and slowly approached the praying figure. “You, there,” he said. “I saw you running from my boat. Are you a God-cursed thief?”

  To her credit, Étaín’s voice held the confidence of a man of God—a man who wore his Christian zeal like a suit of finely wrought armor. She glanced up, blinking at the snow that brushed her face. “I am but a poor son of Christ, brother, lost in the wild and seeking the road to Roskilde.”

  “And I say you’re a lying thief,” the old Dane replied. “I know what I saw, and I know I saw you running from the lakeshore. Running from the boat you stole from my village across the way. No one steals from me! Not from Hrolf Asgrimm’s son!”

  Étaín nodded. “You did see me, Hrolf Asgrimm’s son. But I did not steal your boat. Was it damaged?”

  “No.”

  Wool rustled as Étaín rose from the ground, smoothing out her cassock. “Then, rather than seeking vengeance, good Hrolf, why not join me in offering a prayer of thanks to the Almighty for the safe return of your property?”

  “I don’t believe him,” one of the younger Danes muttered. “Looks too soft, even for a monk!”

  “Be silent, Egil.” The elder chewed his lip. He was on the verge of speaking when an earsplitting scream plunged the glade into chaos. The sound came from the youngest of the Danes, the youth with the bow. His kinsmen swung around in time to see him drop his weapon and claw at a length of steel that blossomed from beneath his sternum like an obscene and gory flower. A torrent of blood belching from his gullet choked off a second scream as the steel slid out of sight; the youth’s legs gave way, and rising up behind him Étaín saw the sinister visage of the skrælingr.

  “Grimnir! No!”

  Étaín’s cry hung in the snow-flecked air. Each second passed in exquisite lethargy—a lifetime in the single staccato pulse of the human heart. The youth crumpled. Before his cheek touched the cold ground, Grimnir was a blur of motion.

  An axe flashed down. It never connected. Wood slapped flesh as Grimnir arrested the blow, catching the haft of the axe and holding the Dane’s arm aloft. The man’s eyes widened, shock warring with fear as he got his first good look at what had killed his kinsman; an instant later Grimnir’s seax ripped across the Dane’s belly. A second blow went deep into the man’s unprotected armpit. Grimnir stripped the axe from his victim’s faltering grip.

  Hrolf Asgrimm’s son turned toward Étaín; in the lines of his careworn face she saw an echo of Njáll: the same look of recognition, the same moment of shock, and the same glimmer of deep ancestral hatreds. His gray beard bristled as hard and sinewy hands knotted in the fabric of her cassock. “What deviltry is this? What evil have you brought to my house?”

  Her eyes met his. She pleaded with him … not for her own life, but for his. “I beg of you … run!”

  Over the old man’s shoulder, Étaín saw Grimnir fall upon the third Dane, the one called Egil. The man had mastered both shock and disbelief; he called upon the Almighty as he swept in, his axe aimed at Grimnir’s skull. Axe haft met axe haft with the sharp clack of wood. It was an off-hand parry, clumsy and unbalanced, but still the force of it caught Egil by surprise. And in that instant of hesitation Grimnir’s seax darted in, snakelike, and pierced Egil’s throat.

  The Dane staggered and fell and died gobbling on his own blood.

  Snow swirled, flecking the faces of the dead. Grimnir’s chest rose and fell; his breath steamed in the frigid morning air. He tossed the axe aside. His clawed hand flexed around the hilt of his seax. Grimnir glared sidelong at Hrolf Asgrimm’s son.

  “She said run, you wretched kneeler.”

  Lips curling in a snarl of hate, Hrolf shoved Étaín away. He reached up and tugged a small cross of hammered silver from beneath his tunic. Hrolf snapped the chain and slung the talisman at Étaín’s feet. “Keep your prayers, witch,” he said, and slowly backed away from her.

  Hrolf and Grimnir circled the glade, two wolves squaring off, fighting for territory, for dominance. “I know what you are, skrælingr!”

  “And still you stand,” Grimnir hissed. “You’ve got stones, old fool.”

  “The skein of my life is woven. Why run? So I can die with your steel in my back like a craven?” Hrolf hawked and spat. “For too long I have been blinded by the false promises of the White Christ. What use do I have for redemption? I want an end to make the valkyrjar weep! You will give it to me?”

  Étaín saw a grudging respect in Grimnir’s feral red eyes. He stopped circling. “Call them.”

  “Odin!” Hrolf Asgrimm’s son raised his sword aloft. “Look here, Allfather! Send out your high-hearted maidens and let them choose which of us will live to fight another day! I offer my life, if you want it!”

  A gust of wind rattled the few leaves left on the trees, driving eddies of snow before it; away in the north came the dull rumble of thunder, while in the east the heavens gleamed with golden light. “The Son of Man shall send his angels,” Étaín muttered at the sight of it, quoting the Gospel. “And they shall gather.”

  Grimnir cocked his head, as though hearing something beyond mortal reckoning. “They come,” he said, teeth bared. “They come to collect their bounty.”

  And suddenly, the wolves surged together. Étaín looked on, transfixed; she expected to see Hrolf’s head bouncing over to land at her feet, but the old Dane matched Grimnir stroke for stroke. Sword rasped on seax. Breath whuffed. Feet stamped. Whirl and parry, strike and lunge. It was like watching two dancers who were masters of their art.

  But Grimnir’s iron endurance fixed the ending of the fight. The old Dane knew it, too. He dredged deep and put every last ounce
of his flagging strength into a sweeping blow that could have cleft the skull of an ox; Grimnir ducked it by a hair’s breadth, and with a cry of triumph he buried his blade up to the hilt in the ribs of Hrolf Asgrimm’s son. Thunder reverberated; the light in the east vanished.

  The man coughed, a red froth staining his lips. He turned from Grimnir and took a handful of steps in the direction of his slain kinsmen, his sword trailing him. He clutched its hilt in a death grip.

  Hrolf raised his face to the lowering sky … and laughed.

  Étaín wanted to rush to the old man’s side, to ease his passing and beg his forgiveness, but Grimnir waved her away. She looked on as he caught Hrolf’s swaying body and eased him to the ground.

  “I see them,” Hrolf muttered, his beard clotted with gore. “The Choosers of the Slain. They … They drive the c-crossbearers before them. We will meet again, skrælingr.”

  “Aye, Dane. We will trade blows again, at the breaking of the world,” Grimnir replied. And with a savage twist, he drove the tip of his seax into Hrolf Asgrimm’s son’s heart and ripped it free.

  Grimnir rocked back on his haunches. He cleaned his blade in a fold of Hrolf’s tunic and sheathed it as he stood.

  Étaín bent to retrieve the cross the Dane had thrown away. She stared at it; her eyes welled up. She thought of the young boy who ran out to meet his grandfather on the shingle, last night. Were his father and his brothers here among the dead, too? How many widows had this stolen boat made? How many orphans? Étaín closed her eyes and prayed over the tiny silver cross, tears dripping from her lashes.