No. He pushed the memory away.
The ground sloped sharply ahead of him, and he could see over the tops of the trees. The forest thinned out at the foot of the hill, and gentle waves of farmland stretched as far as he could see. A reedy road meandered over the nearest rise. Far in the distance he thought he could see a thin blue line—the sea.
“South will do,” he muttered.
A twig snapped above and behind him. Much too close.
Audun whirled around.
There were four of them. Somehow they’d sneaked up onto the crest behind him without making any noise. They looked just like he did, filthy, ragged, and hungry. The tallest one, all skin and bones and dirty hair, stepped in front of the group and leaned on a long walking stick.
“Give us your food,” he snapped at Audun. Two of his companions started moving off to either side. “And your shoes. And everything else you’ve got. Then we’ll let you live.”
“Please,” Audun said. “I don’t want trouble. I have nothing to give, and it won’t be much of a life if you leave me naked in the woods.” The slope behind him was a tempting option, but turning his back on these men felt like a bad idea.
“Farms round here,” said the tall man, trying to sound reasonable. “Or you might find someone stupid enough to be walking through the forest alone. Everyone’s got to hunt these days.”
Audun looked at the tall man. Stained, pointy teeth. Clumps of dried blood in his beard. Where were the others? The blacksmith’s head spun. “I don’t think I will. Thank you,” he mumbled. “Now go away. Please don’t start—”
A tree branch thick as a man’s forearm thwacked across his shoulders. He stumbled, nearly lost his footing, and grabbed hold of a branch for support. Instinct kicked in and he shifted his weight to the left; another attacker stumbled past.
The tall man strode forward with murder in his eyes. “Grab him!” he snarled.
Pain exploded in Audun’s lower back.
He twisted around to see a wild-eyed man wielding a fallen branch and getting ready to strike again. Backpedaling, Audun slipped and fell. Something hard smashed into his hip and set his leg throbbing. He fumbled around for purchase, dodged a vicious strike from the makeshift club, and caught his hand on something sharp.
Fist-size rock. Jagged edge.
Without thinking, he flexed and hurled it at the next moving target.
There was a dull crunch as the club-wielder’s head changed shape. He dropped to the ground. His friends screamed in rage, but the noise was almost distant to Audun. The rich, iron-tinged smell of spurting blood stroked him, lured him, called to him.
“Oh no . . . ,” he muttered.
A feral grin spread on the blond man’s face as he rose to his feet.
An attacker charged him, armed with a rock of his own. He swung hard overhead and screamed in pain as his wrist was smashed by a blocking forearm. His cries were cut short when a straight right from the stocky blacksmith drove the man’s nose up into his brain.
The tall, gaunt leader approached with caution. He had a stick with a point. The lunge was sudden and surprisingly fast. The blacksmith saw the wood pierce his side, felt it rip into his flesh and didn’t care. Wood wasn’t metal.
Horrified, the tall man glanced past him a moment too soon.
The blond man grabbed the spear, held on to it, and stepped backward into the path of the third attacker. A hard elbow broke the scrawny sneak’s sternum, crushed his rib cage, and sent him coughing and wheezing to the forest floor with blood bubbling out of his mouth. Fear blossomed on the tall man’s face as he scrabbled to get away, but his feet betrayed him on the slippery surface. As he fell to the ground, an iron grip seized him by the back of the neck. Another grabbed his crotch, squeezed mercilessly, and lifted the tall, gaunt and screaming man off the ground, grunting with the effort.
The blacksmith threw the scrawny man down the hill, watched him flailing and screaming as he flew until he bounced off a tree, watched the lifeless body fall and crash into the ground, roll down through the undergrowth, and come to a stop at the foot of the hill.
He looked around, but nothing moved. Slowly, almost gently, the thrumming in his temples slowed and the pain returned. Audun’s right leg spasmed and collapsed underneath him, sending him to the forest floor. The wooden spear throbbed in his side. The suffocating feeling of bile exploding from his stomach threatened to overwhelm him until he managed to roll over and vomit.
After the first convulsion, Audun reached for the long spear, pulled it out, screamed, and lost consciousness.
When he woke, he was wet and cold. His mouth tasted sour and his head throbbed. For the first couple of moments, old dreams confused him. The shivers and the stab of pain from his side cleared his head soon enough, though.
The hill.
The fight.
Audun looked around. The promise of rain still hung in the air. As he moved, an opportunistic fox scampered away from a corpse with a broken skull. He staggered to his feet, shook himself, and immediately regretted the decision as lightning flashes of pain erupted in his back. He had to fight for his balance, breathing in shallow gasps.
He coughed, choked, and spat. The taste of bile reminded him of other times, other fights. For a brief, tantalizing moment, he could remember what he had dreamed about, where he’d just been, but then it was gone.
Biting back the waves of nausea, he started moving again. One step. Then another. He did his best to ignore the three dead men as he picked his way carefully down the slope of the hill. The rain had made the ground even worse for walking. He stumbled, almost lost his balance, and had to grab hold of a tree for support. After taking a moment to catch his breath, bite down hard, and try his best to ignore the lancing pain in his hip and back, he set out again.
His leg gave way completely and everything tilted. Waves of heat washed over his back as he crashed to the ground, sliding, moving, rolling. Trees whipped by his head, the horizon pitched and lurched, suddenly he was staring up at the sky, then he was turned around again. His shin smashed into a tree stump; he flailed and grabbed for a bush, a root, anything to slow his fall. When he finally rammed into a big fir tree, the breath was knocked out of him and he rolled over, gasping for air. Around him, the red, gold, and yellow of the dying forest blurred into the colors of the forge. Tiny stars burst across the blue sky. In a panic, Audun started punching his chest—harder and harder. He could feel the veins in his throat bulging, his face heating up.
Something gave way inside him, and sweet, cold life flooded his lungs. He coughed painfully as he tried to swallow all the air in the world. When his heart had stopped thundering, he clambered to his feet. His back screamed at him, and he broke out in a cold sweat, but he remained standing.
Then he noticed the tall man, lying like a child’s broken toy in the clearing. The side of his head was one open wound.
“I told you to go away,” Audun mumbled. “I told you.”
He stumbled off, away from death and blood, heading south.
The going was slow.
He’d found a branch that served as a crooked walking staff of sorts, but his leg was still giving him a hard time, his back seized up, and his throat felt like it had been scraped raw. He coughed and permitted himself a cold smile.
Things had worked out fucking great, hadn’t they?
He should never have got involved. And he never should have followed Ulfar off that wall.
The sun was sliding down beyond the horizon. Soon it would be dark. Winter would come. Audun scanned the horizon and found nothing—no shelter, no hills with good caves, nothing. Just acres and acres of fields.
He did not like the idea of sleeping outside again, exposed to everything and anyone, not in this state. Swallowing hard, he turned and walked toward the road he’d seen from the hill.
It was overgrown and underused. Audun shivered and stumbled onward, gritting his teeth and ignoring his back, legs, and aching shoulders. The road led him up on
to the small rise. The farmer had not yet done his harvesting, and from the looks of it he’d be too late. Beyond the field, the farmstead appeared about ready to collapse. The road led in a curve alongside the cornfield and into a yard. He could see a ramshackle shed of some sort, a main building, and possibly something behind that, but none of it looked very good. The wood was gray with age. About five hundred yards behind it, the forest rose like a green-capped wall.
A sharp wind bit at Audun’s back, and he felt suddenly sick: sick of it all, the wandering, the fighting, the loneliness. He hunched his shoulders, winced, and set off toward the house, tightening his grip on his makeshift quarterstaff. Just in case.
The door to the main house opened when he was about four hundred yards away. He flinched but kept going. An old man walked out; Audun’s heart beat faster when he saw the soft glow of a hearth inside the house.
“Well met, stranger!” the man shouted. His hair was white, but his voice was strong.
“Well—” The rest of the greeting was lost in a fit of coughing as his back locked up, his leg buckled, and he had to clutch the staff to avoid falling over.
The farmer stood and watched him from his steps.
“Well met,” Audun croaked at last.
“Where are you headed?” the man said.
“South,” Audun replied. “I seek shelter for the night.”
“I suppose you do,” the old man said. “I have little, but what’s mine is yours.” As Audun approached, the man added, “It looks like you might need it. Are you badly hurt?”
“No,” Audun lied. “A fire and some broth should set me right.”
“We can see to that,” the man said.
The house had not looked like much from afar, but it turned out to be well maintained. To Audun’s travel-weary eyes it was a palace. Three beds fitted snugly into the corners, two of them unused. Chisels and wood-carving knives were scattered across a small table by the only window, which faced toward the fields. Underneath the chair next to the table, a woven basket stored sticks of various sizes. A small fire gave warmth to the whole room; a bubbling pot sent off smells that made his stomach growl.
“Settle down, stranger. Settle down. Do you have a name?” The man led Audun to one of the unused beds and nudged him to sit. Then he reached into the pouch hanging off his belt and pulled out something wrapped in linen cloth, along with a small paring knife.
“Audun,” he mumbled, settling down with his back to the wall. Looking around, he noted the carvings on the walls. Most appeared to have something to do with battle. He tried to focus, but his head felt fuzzy.
“Audun.” The old man mouthed it, as if it was something he’d never heard before. “Audun. Welcome to my home, Audun. My name is Fjölnir.” He unraveled the linen cloth, revealing a joint of meat. The weary blacksmith’s mouth watered, and he swallowed.
Fjölnir saw it and smiled. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s goat, and a tough old one at that. What brings you to Setr Valley?” he asked.
Audun couldn’t think of any reason, so he remained silent.
The old man looked at him, smiled, nodded, and handed him a slice of meat. “Help yourself,” he said. Setting the joint down on the table next to Audun along with the paring knife, Fjölnir reached into the folds of his tunic, and another, bigger whittling blade appeared in his hand. He reached for a stick from the basket underneath his chair and started gently carving.
They sat like that for a while, listening to the soft crackling of the fire. Audun chewed on the meat, savoring every bite. The steady movement of Fjölnir’s hand was mesmerizing as it flicked away the bits of wood that weren’t supposed to be there, carving out what looked to be a head on broad shoulders. Despite the aches and pains, Audun felt the weight of the last two weeks slowly ease off his chest.
After a while, Fjölnir put down the knife, reached out, and stirred the embers with a poker. He glanced at Audun as he said, “Fire . . . It’s a strange thing. It’s almost like an animal. If you treat it well, it does you good. But feed it too much and it burns down your house; put it out and you’re cold and miserable. It’s a strange thing, fire.” He looked at Audun again. One of the old man’s eyes, the right one, didn’t appear to be working properly, but the left eye sparkled, and a faint smile played on his lips. He looked about to say something; then he checked himself and went back to the whittling.
Audun frowned, but he was too tired to think. Fire . . . He remembered the flames on the wall, the heat in the forge. A short while later, he fell asleep to the sound of Fjölnir humming parts of an old tune.
He woke to the sound of hammering. Shutters had been opened, admitting the feeble rays of the sun, and Audun could smell the mist on the morning air. Still half-asleep, he got out of bed and stood up, putting all his weight on the bad leg. His brain caught up with him and the shock of impending pain made him draw his breath—but there was none. He pulled the string on his worn, dirty pants very carefully and checked his hip. All that was left of yesterday’s fall was a fading yellow-and-purple bruise. The injury in his side already looked days old. He reached to scratch the phantom wound in his chest. His thick, calloused finger pushed through the hole in the tunic, searching for an itch, but all he found was scar tissue. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the memory of the wall, the wound, and the darkness howled and strained against its chains.
Unforgiving pressure from his bladder brought him back and told him in no uncertain terms what needed to be done. “Fine, fine,” he muttered. There were no things to gather; he’d say good-bye to Fjölnir, thank him, and be on his way, then take a piss in the woods when he was clear of the farmstead.
The old man had been busy in the yard. He’d set up a workbench and was chiseling something that might become a statue of some sort. He looked up, smiled, and nodded, then went back to work. After a moment, he looked back up and grinned. “Want to earn yourself a bowl of broth? There’s an ax in the shed. If a man were to need to go to the woods for whatever reason, he could do worse than bring back a bit of lumber. Half again a man’s height, about as thick as yourself. Like the piece I have here.”
“That’s a tree,” Audun blurted out.
“See? Sharp as a blade, and this early in the morning, too. Pine, if you please.” There was a definite glint in Fjölnir’s eye, and Audun was sure he saw a smirk as the old man went back to the carving.
Audun stood in the doorway for a moment. Then, cursing inwardly, he went to the shed.
For a farm that looked to be in the winter of its life, old Fjölnir kept some pretty sharp tools. Audun hefted the wood ax. The weight of it was satisfying. The handle was worn smooth.
When he came out again, Fjölnir caught his eye and smiled. He gestured to the east, and Audun, following his directions, was soon walking in a sparse forest. Birches stretched their slim branches toward him, but he ignored them. A couple of days ago he might have seen the claws of cold death in the shapes of the soggy trees, but things were easier now. He had work to do.
When he found the tree he was looking for, Audun smiled for the first time in a long while. The bark felt rough under his hand. “I’ll give you a head start,” he said, patting it like a skittish horse. “Go on.”
The tree didn’t move.
“All right, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He flexed his muscles, cracked his neck, and swung.
The ax vibrated with the force of the blow. He strained to free the blade from the trunk and struck again. His aim was true, and a sliver of wood fell out of the wound. The cold, damp air was delicious in his lungs. He could feel his strength flooding back with every vicious swing of the heavy ax. His shirt soon clung to his back, and Audun gave himself up to the work. Before long, the tree trembled with every stroke. A push, a crash, and it was down.
Working without thinking, he removed the branches methodically and cut the tree down to the requested size. When he was done, Audun stepped back, put down the ax, and scratched his head.
“H
ow—?” There was no horse on Fjölnir’s farm, so there could be only one answer. Audun bent down and wrapped his arms around the log. Straining, he managed to shift it up onto the stump of the tree. “How in Hel’s name did he—?” Audun reached around the log again. Frowning, he let go, picked up the ax, and cut a handhold on each side. Then he drew back and buried the ax in the wood, well past the midway point.
Audun bent his knees, growled low and hoisted the log onto his shoulder, grabbing the ax for support with his free hand. Turning carefully, he marched back to the farm.
When he got there, Fjölnir was waiting for him next to a big pile of woodcuttings. “Very good!” the old man shouted. “Need any help with that?”
“Not from you, old man,” Audun shot back. Normally he wouldn’t have said anything, but something about the graybeard set him at ease.
“Thank you,” Fjölnir said. “Could you put it over there?” He pointed toward a shed half-hidden behind the house; Audun hadn’t noticed it the night before. Fjölnir’s farm was definitely in better shape than he’d first thought.
When he came back, the old man had brought out a battered old handcart filled with lumber. He turned to Audun. “If you’re not in a hurry to leave, stranger, I could use some help with these fence posts.”
Audun shrugged. “Sure,” he said. To his surprise, he found that he rather liked Fjölnir’s company.
The day fell into a steady rhythm: heave rough wood, hammer, nails, move on. Audun had to admit that the old man was an excellent worker. There was no fuss, minimal talking, and no stupidity. The old man did what needed to be done and never got in his way. Thank the gods for every man who isn’t an idiot, Audun thought. Then he grinned. That would be the kind of thing he’d have muttered under his breath crossing the square in Stenvik, before . . .
“What happened?”
The question came out of nowhere and broke the quiet.
“I . . . What?”
Blood Will Follow Page 3
