Blood Will Follow

by Snorri Kristjansson

  Valgard tried to rub the aches out of his legs. His calves felt like ancient roots, and his thighs might as well have been bone. No wonder the raiders are always furious, he thought. A couple more weeks of this and I’d be very happy to split someone’s skull just because he looked at me wrong. He shifted, pushed, and stretched until he was finally standing up, then tried to roll his shoulders. The result was neither pretty nor pleasant, but he was up.

  He limped outside and found Botolf sniffing the air, with Thora by his side. Valgard was relieved to see that she was playing her part perfectly. She looked mildly annoyed to see him. “Wolves,” the chieftain said without looking at him, “two of them. Last night. Big ones, too. We found tracks down there—by your post, actually. You keep your luck, Grass Man.”

  Valgard looked toward his guard spot. The red was vivid in the pale half-light, the white bones even more so. There was not much left of the thick neck. Bile rose in his throat, but he clamped his mouth shut and forced it back down. “I think we need to check the caves. If you send Bug-eye, I’ll go with him,” he blurted out.

  “Hm? Fine,” Botolf said. “The men need something to do. Take thirty. Skapti will follow,” he added. “Thora?”

  “Send the fucker up the hill if he wants. Couldn’t give a shit,” she snarled, then went back to staring at the endless expanse of snow. “Can’t see a single flake out of place,” she muttered. “As if they flew in.”

  Botolf wandered off, apparently led by his nose.

  This was the moment. “I’ll be back,” Valgard said to Thora.

  She turned to look at him. “What?”

  “I’ll come back,” he said.

  She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Bring your entire fucking family of crippled goat-babies for all I care, you reedy, dick-faced pus-bubble.” With that, she turned and went back to hunting tracks.

  Valgard couldn’t help but smile. And here he’d been thinking he was good at games. This was a proper player right here.

  “Crippled goat-babies.” He chuckled and shuffled off to find Bug-eye.

  The light was the color of lamb’s wool, gray and cloudy. Skapti’s handpicked bunch stood in the yard, shuffling their feet and silently hating him. A handful of Hakon’s men stood to the side. Valgard swallowed and motioned to Bug-eye. It was time.

  “Let’s go.”

  WEST OF LAKE HJALMAREN, CENTRAL SWEDEN

  LATE NOVEMBER, AD 996

  They woke swaddled in a blanket of thick, heavy cold that the morning sun did nothing to dispel. Goran stretched, grimaced, and stretched again. Behind him, Arnar rose and went about his business with slow, steady movements, buckling on his sword-belt and feeding the horse some choice straw from his bag. Inga stirred on the ground.

  Without taking his eyes off the shadowy forest behind them, Ulfar shook his head. “Let her sleep,” he said. “She’ll need the rest.”

  “She gets the time it takes me in the bush,” Goran said. “If south is where we’re heading, we need to get going.” With that, he disappeared behind the trees, loosening the string around his waist as he went. Ulfar was left with Arnar, who made no more effort than usual at idle chat.

  Ulfar felt for his legs, expecting them to ache after yesterday’s troubles. They didn’t, and that made him feel vaguely ill. He healed five times as fast now, but it felt . . . wrong, somehow. Like he’d stolen something. And try as he might, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching them from the shadows.

  Goran walked back into view. “Wake the girl,” he said.

  Arnar bent down and gently touched her shoulder, and Inga mumbled something, voice thick with sleep. When she opened her eyes, she looked utterly confused for a moment. She rose and looked at them dully, awaiting orders. Arnar handed her the horse’s reins. She accepted without question.

  A few heartbeats later, they were mounted and leading the horses down the path at a slow walk. The road turned out to be just beyond the hills, as Ulfar had said. Behind them the forest around Uppsala faded out of view with the rising sun.

  At midday, they met two riders flanking a medium-size wagon.

  “Hail, travelers,” Ulfar shouted.

  “Hail,” the portly man in the driver’s seat replied. The men on either side of him were just like all the swords for hire Ulfar had ever seen: lean, silent, and observant, exactly as interested as they were paid to be. Their master was bald, with a face that looked like his favorite thing was catching people in a lie. “May the road protect you and shield you in the dark.”

  “May the road favor you and yours,” Ulfar replied. The mercenaries sized them up and appeared to decide they posed no threat. “What news?”

  “Forkbeard is in the south, stirring up shit,” the merchant said, curling his lip. “Utterly ruins my route, the motherless goat-buggerer.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Ulfar said. “Heading to Uppsala?”

  “Aye,” the merchant said.

  “They’re doing well these days,” Ulfar said. “The young king looks like he could be one to bet on. What are you carrying?”

  “A whole wagon full of none of your business,” the bigger guard said. His partner on the other side shifted in his saddle.

  “Well,” Ulfar said, casting a glance at the wagon. “From what I saw, none of your business—especially in sacks like that—sells for a fair amount in Uppsala. Or it did three days ago, at least. You’ll do well.”

  At that, the merchant’s face softened a little bit. “Kind words, traveler. Easy, boys.” The guards relaxed, but their hands stayed near the hilts of their weapons.

  “Add some news and we’re even. Where’s Forkbeard having his fun?”

  “Down south—far south, close to the west coast down Skane way.”

  Ulfar raised a hand in thanks and nudged his horse onward. Behind him, his three companions followed.

  The soggy ground slurped as Arnar’s horse approached Inga’s. “How are you feeling, girl?” Arnar rumbled. Thin tendrils of cold mist floated like patches of wool around the animals’ legs. Up ahead, Goran picked their path through the marshes.

  “I am well, I suppose,” Inga said. “Getting the hang of riding.” She leaned forward and patted the mare’s neck. “Old Amber here will make sure I die from a sword rather than a broken neck.” The horse snorted.

  “Shh,” the big man said. “Calm now. You will have a long and happy life. Long and happy. And I know, because I’m old. So shut it, you twig,” Arnar said, twinkling at Inga. “She’s treating you well enough?”

  Inga straightened up in the saddle. “We know each other now,” she said. “Thank you. My thighs are sore, but that can’t be helped.”

  “No, it can’t. We’ll stop soon. Rest will do you good.”

  She smiled at him then. “You are a kind man, you know.”

  “Piss,” Arnar said. “I just can’t stand soft, squishy womenfolk crying is all.”

  “Shut up, old bear,” Inga said affectionately. “You love me like a dog loves his master, you do.”

  “Oho! You’re a sight more lively than last night, you are.” Arnar grinned through his bushy beard. “I should—”

  The sound of hoofs on hard ground added to their conversation. “Thanks be for that,” he added. “Hate the bogs.”

  “Why?” Inga said.

  “The smell,” Arnar said. “It smells like desperation.”

  “No,” Inga said. “That’s not it. Desperation smells like half a bed, and salt on the air, and a horizon that’s never broken by the right sail.”

  Arnar glanced at the girl. “You’re older than you look,” he said.

  “And you’re kinder than you think,” she replied.

  They rode on.

  The light was fading to their left. “Company,” Goran said under his breath, as three horsemen approached them at a leisurely walk, the sun at their back. “Hail, travelers!” the rider on the left shouted.

  “Hail,” Ulfar shouted back. “Heading?”
/>   “East,” the man said, closing the distance. “But happy to share a camp.”

  Ulfar glanced at Goran, who glanced toward Inga and shook his head quickly. “We’re pushing on a little farther, thank you,” he said. “Best of fortune to you.”

  “And you, travelers.” The three men were only twenty yards away now. Ulfar’s senses screamed at him, and he found himself struggling to keep from drawing his sword. Goran’s face betrayed similar tight-lipped restraint. The distance closed, and then the men were past, without giving them a second glance. The leader just nodded casually, and then they were gone.

  A good while later, Arnar came up to them. “Hmph,” he said.

  “You’re right,” Goran said. “I’d be worried that I’d wake up with steel in my throat.”

  Behind them, a smooth blackness was spreading across the sky.

  “Find a place to camp,” Ulfar said. We’ll have two men awake tonight.’

  “It’ll be fine,” Goran mumbled. “They were just bony little buggers. Ill-kempt and ill-fed. Horses weren’t much better. Probably on their way to Uppsala to seek work. They weren’t interested in us. It’ll be fine.”

  The campfire had died down to a handful of smoldering embers. The night sky was clear, and a waning moon shone softly in a darkened dome dusted with white specks.

  Ulfar watched over his traveling companions. Arnar slept peacefully, snoring into his big beard. Inga lay curled up close to the warmth; she tossed and twitched. Her eyes flew open, and a curse died on her lips. Twirling around, she searched for Ulfar. “On my grave,” she said. “I knew—I knew those men.”

  “Really?” Ulfar tried his best to sound uninterested.

  “I did. They . . . they were from Stenvik,” she whispered, looking out into the darkness. “I—think I saw them with Valgard. Just before I left.”

  “I see,” Ulfar said. A gust of wind caught the fire and blew a handful of sparks into the air. “And you think—”

  “I don’t know,” Inga said. “I hope I’m not right. I thought I should tell you about it.”

  “Good decision,” Ulfar said. “Now get some sleep, if you can. You’ll be up and on guard in a while.”

  She looked on the verge of saying something but held her tongue and lay down on her side. The dim glow from the fire caressed her curves as she drifted off to sleep. Moments after the tension left her body, the darkness near Ulfar shifted and Goran appeared at his side. The old man wouldn’t be too bad for blood-work, Ulfar mused.

  “She’s scared,” Goran said. “Nothing out there—is there?”

  “Saw some trees earlier on,” Ulfar said. “Oh, and a bush. Looked scary. Hold on a minute . . .” Ulfar shaded his eyes with his hand. “Hm. Can’t see anything right now. Because there is no light,” Ulfar muttered under his breath. “And because ‘out there’ is a big place. Those three runts are out there. Definitely. But they’re not the only ones, and there’s not much we can do about it apart from staying awake and making sure we’re not gutted in our sleep.”

  “Hmph,” Goran said. “Fine. I just didn’t like the look of them, is all.”

  “Well, if you’d have trusted your sense of whose looks you liked and didn’t like, you wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place,” Ulfar said, grinning.

  Goran appeared to accept that and slunk off to his sitting place.

  Ulfar threw a handful of wrist-thick branches on the fire and turned his back to the flames as they crept around the wood. It was going to be a long night.

  They hit the camp just as the first stripe of sunlight emerged in the east.

  Arnar’s life was saved by a carved stick. He threw himself forward off his makeshift tree-stump seat and felt the wind sweep the back of his head as the steel passed him by. “Up!” he bellowed.

  Ulfar and Goran rolled over and sprang to their feet to find three shadowy figures among them, swinging axes.

  Inga got to her knees, then screamed as one of the figures hit her with a vicious kick in the back. Goran stepped into the breach and aimed a swipe at the man’s ribs, forcing him backward to create space for Ulfar and Arnar.

  Arnar growled and swung at the bigger of the two black shadows remaining. The man just managed to block the blow, staggering backward from the force of it. Arnar followed, pushing him away from Ulfar and Inga.

  The last man swung his ax wildly. Shadows and moonlight made his face look like a snarling skull.

  “Who sent you?” Ulfar snapped.

  “You’re coming with us,” the man said. His voice sounded hoarse, as if it was struggling with the words.

  “We can talk,” Ulfar said, stepping back from the wild swings.

  “He said no talk,” the man said, swinging at him. Ulfar blocked the swipe and felt his teeth jangling. They traded blows in the gloom, metal clanging against metal.

  A movement in the dark, a burst of sparks.

  Ulfar’s opponent screamed in pain and whirled around, holding his head and looking for his new attacker. Ulfar ran him through, put his boot in the man’s side, kicked him to the ground, and yanked his sword free.

  The moonlight caught on Inga’s face, fingers splayed, a wrist-thick tree branch from the fire at her feet.

  A crunching sound came from their left. “Fucker,” Arnar grunted.

  Moments later, Goran emerged from the shadows, bloodied and dazed but still standing.

  Ulfar knelt by the fire and blew gently on any embers he could still see. Slowly, reluctantly, the flames rose again. Arnar disappeared, only to return shortly after with three suitable sticks.

  “Here,” he grunted at Ulfar.

  Goran sat silently and watched as Ulfar bound kindling around the tip of each branch and held them gently over the fire until they flared into life.

  The dancing tongues threw odd, shifting spheres of light on the ground. Thickening blood pooled underneath Ulfar’s attacker. A lump with a misshapen head lay where Arnar had been fighting.

  “Where’s your man, Goran?” Ulfar asked.

  “Fell in the water,” Goran said. “Sank like a stone.”

  “Was he dead?”

  “He’s not coming up anytime soon.”

  Ulfar rubbed his left eye with his free hand. “Inga?” He gestured with his toe at the dead man.

  Inga knelt down and studied the dead body. “I know him,” she said. “He was in Stenvik for the market when the raiders hit. Had a farm near Moster, I think. That one . . .” She looked at Arnar’s fallen opponent. “I’m . . .” Inga made to go over to the corpse, but Arnar reached out a hand to stop her.

  “Hit ’im in the face,” he said, almost apologetically. “Won’t be much use.”

  “One’s enough,” Ulfar said. “We’ll get going, I think. Never know if they have some friends coming.”

  The group of four broke camp without more words and were on their way with the rising sun.

  The morning mist lingered, drawing a faint, gray veil over the ground. Goran grunted and cursed under his breath.

  “That’s the third time!” Ulfar said.

  “Hmph,” Arnar said. “Thought we’d cleared ’em.”

  The gray-haired guard mumbled something and pulled on the reins of his horse. With great effort, the animal dragged itself out of the knee-deep bog.

  “Not a step wrong yesterday, and now you’re practically ready to swim south, Goran. What’s up, old man?” Ulfar said.

  Goran did not reply. Instead he mounted and rode on.

  Inga looked at Ulfar, who shrugged. “Leave him to it, I guess. Maybe this morning got to him.”

  The old scout rode ahead, silent and slump-shouldered.

  At midday, Ulfar sat down on a roadside rock. They were mostly clear of the bogs and mires, but gray clouds bunched and roiled overhead, promising rain and misery. The mist had still not quite left them. Arnar and Inga sat by themselves, engaged in conversation. The woman appeared to be the only one of them the big, bearded man had more than four words to spare on.

/>   Goran was suddenly there beside him, unnervingly quiet. The old man looked more spirited now. There was a glint in his eye. “So. South, is it? Tell me again what for?”

  “We’re going to find a friend of mine—Norse bastard, thick as half an ox and twice as strong. Scary, too. And then he and I are going to go and find another man and take off his head.”

  “Up north, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re sure that’s the best way to do it?”

  Ulfar looked at Goran and frowned. “Why? Got any other ideas?”

  There was something different about Goran this morning. He looked oddly sure of himself. “As a matter of fact, I have. I’ve been thinking about this.”

  “Oh, go on, then. I’m listening.”

  “Have you considered that Jolawer Scot might not be the best man to lead the Svear?” Goran said.

  “What? Why not?”

  “He’s young. He’s green. He’ll have to rely on men who are old and cautious because they’ve learned to appreciate long life and soft furs. He’ll have neither the drive nor the fearlessness of someone a bit older. Someone proven in battle. A born leader.”

  “I don’t know—he’s untested, but he’s his father’s son. There’ll be some steel to him yet.”

  “Unless there’s steel in him,” Goran said.

  Ulfar remembered moments later that his lower jaw belonged above his chest. “What . . . ?”

  Goran turned to Ulfar. “Think about it! You are a man of honor. You have seen battle, unlike that squeaky pip. You are a good man and true. You are just the right man to lead the Svear, proud and powerful, against that bastard King Olav! Turn around and take what you’re owed!”

  “Are you drunk? Alfgeir Bjorne would have my head off before I got close. And why should I? No one owes me anything.”

  The mist curled around his rock, around his legs. Ulfar glanced down. Then he turned around.

  Arnar and Inga were nowhere to be seen. The landscape looked wrong somehow, like someone’s idea of a location more than an actual place.

  He turned to Goran.

  “What’s happening? Who . . . who are you?”