But Audun was standing up.
More than that, he was smiling, even as his jaw swelled grotesquely and blood dripped from his lips and gums. It did nothing to make him more attractive.
“Told you,” Ulfar shouted. “He gets really annoyed when you hit him.”
Sparks flew as Audun bashed his hammers together and advanced on Bjorn. Olgeir’s next missile smashed into his hip with an audible crack, but it didn’t even slow him down.
The hammers sang, and Bjorn’s head was a mess of blood and bone. Without missing a beat, Audun shouldered his body out of the way and turned toward Olgeir.
“Tell me who sent you and I’ll make him stop,” Ulfar shouted.
Olgeir’s eyes were wide open, and his mouth worked to catch up with his brain as he shuffled backward. “Valgard! It was Valgard! He said to bring the big guy in!”
“To where?” Ulfar shouted.
“North! North! He went north with King Olav! To Trondheim!” Olgeir screamed, but too late: he had backed into a tree, and his tunic caught on a branch as Audun bore down on him.
The raw terror in their leader’s voice was contagious. The two remaining sailors turned and ran away as fast as they could.
Ulfar didn’t need to look to know Olgeir was dead. The crunching sounds told the tale.
Audun spun and faced Ulfar. Globs of blood dripped off him, off his jaw, and his chin, off his shoulders and his chest, off the edges of his hammers. Behind him, an unsightly mass of red that had once been Olgeir slumped to the ground.
Ulfar froze.
The blond Norseman blinked, grimaced, and shook his head, sending droplets flying. “Took you long enough,” he muttered. Then his eyes rolled up into his head, his knees buckled, and the big blacksmith passed out.
The mouth of the cave was much bigger than Valgard had thought it would be. A gust of cold wind blew a dusting of fine powder across the shadows.
Behind him, Bug-eye hawked and spat. “So, Chief—what now?”
Valgard bit back a sharp reply and took a deep breath before answering. “Torches,” he said loudly. Behind him, Skapti’s men started working on cloth and pitch.
He glared at the trek-master, who stared back with all the malice of a milking cow and said, “Torches. Good idea.” Flaring flames hissed at the cold and the snowflakes in the air as tongues of shifting light reached into the darkness, only to be pushed back again.
“Come on, then,” Valgard said. “At least we’ll be out of the wind.” With little enthusiasm, his band of men inched forward.
The cave within ballooned out into a dome, three times the height of a man and about ten times as wide. Shadows grew and shrank as the men waved their torches around. The flickering light caught on some sort of markings—irregular blobs and strange stick-shapes. Once past the opening, the floor was surprisingly smooth.
“Eyes,” Skapti snapped, and Valgard had to pull on all his reserves not to jump as the men, as one, drew their weapons.
“What?” he hissed.
Skapti reached out with his spear to a shadowy corner of the cave. Something dry rustled in the dark.
When he withdrew the spear, a human skull was hanging on it by the eye socket. The jaw was gone and the left side of the head was smashed in.
Gritting his teeth, Valgard turned and inched forward, deeper into the darkness.
At the far end, the cave narrowed and the ceiling lowered, turning the dome into a tunnel that sloped gently downward. Now there was only space for five of them to walk abreast, so a line formed with Skapti and his men at the front, then Bug-eye and Valgard a couple of steps behind them. The rustle of furs and the clink of weapons told Valgard how slowly the men were inching along.
The weight of the rock above their heads quenched the men’s chatter, and soon they were shuffling farther into the mountain in silence. A good bit later, the tunnel branched.
“Now what?” Skapti said. His voice was loud in the tomb-like silence.
“Send a handful of men along that branch,” Valgard said, pointing. “Tell them to return with whatever they find. If it branches again, they are to turn back and wait for us here.”
The red-haired man issued a series of clipped commands, and the seven men selected quickly disappeared down the tunnel, the light from their torches fading quickly. Within moments it was as if they’d never been there at all.
“Onward,” Valgard said, trying hard to sound like he wasn’t worried.
The silence crept in around them. It was in the stones, in the slope of the floor. They’d walked a while longer when they found the second branch. Skapti just glanced at him, then sent another handful of men down that one.
More walking, more silence. The six remaining men shuffled along, torches swinging to illuminate every shadowy corner, but the points of their blades were slowly dropping. No one stayed alert for long where there was no danger.
“So,” Bug-eye said, “what are we looking for?”
The roar washed over them, filling the space around them, bouncing off the cave walls, and setting Valgard shaking with pure animal terror.
“Blades!” Skapti screamed as the shadows trembled into life and the bear burst out of the darkness, all bristling fur and bared fangs. He was easily the height of a man and more, and he filled most of the tunnel, leaving only a little space on the sides.
“Move! Back!” the front men screamed over each other, but the bear struck and the lead man in the middle folded, screaming as the claws opened him up and raked out his guts. The smell of sour blood in the tunnel only seemed to enrage the bear more.
Valgard froze. To his shame he found he’d wet himself.
When Bug-eye finally moved, the fat man moved fast: a meaty arm shot across Valgard’s chest, slammed into him, and lifted him off his feet. The old warrior turned and strode back up the tunnel dragging the healer as the four men behind him spread out and retreated slowly, using their spears to stab at the bear to keep it at bay.
A piercing scream told them the four were down to three.
Panicked shouting drifted toward them as they approached the second junction. The erratic flickering flames came to meet them, but too fast—much too fast. Three of the second group came sprinting up the slope, wild-eyed and frothing, brandishing the torches as more screaming and wet slurping sounds chased them. They sprinted ahead along the tunnel and Bug-eye followed, dragging Valgard.
The healer found his feet as the slope began to level.
Five men were standing in a circle, torches out. Bug-eye and Valgard joined them, and moments later so did Skapti, unarmed and covered in blood.
Standing in front of the opening, its fur the bluish-white of frozen snow, was the biggest snowbear Valgard had ever seen. The beast swung its head from side to side, sniffing the air and baring its fangs.
“Torches,” Bug-eye muttered. “Not a bad idea.”
Rumbling growls heralded the arrival of the bears from the tunnel. Blood dripped from their jaws, and one of them had Skapti’s sword buried in its shoulder.
The white bear at the entrance roared, and the others answered in turn. As the beast stepped into the cave, a gale swept with it and battered their feeble flames. Daylight seeped in around its figure, offering a tantalizing glimpse of snow-covered freedom.
“Botolf!” Skapti shouted.
A tall man stood in the entrance, half in light and half in shadow. A dark cape billowed behind him and the faint outline of a satchel was slung over his shoulder.
“That’s not . . .” Valgard’s voice died in his throat.
The man walked into the cave. The bears growled at him, but none of them stepped near. “I don’t think so, Father,” he snarled. “He’s mine.” The steel appeared in his hands almost instantly. As one, the bears stood on their hind legs and growled together, as if warning the intruder. The noise in the cave was deafening.
With a sound like an indrawn breath the flames went out, plunging the cave into gray half-light. As one, the men screamed and pushed their bac
ks together. A wave of animal stink surrounded them, born on a fey wind that circled the cave, carrying shadow and sand and the sound of steel slicing veins, carving flesh. Roars bounded from wall to wall.
Moments later, the only sounds in the cave were the hoarse voices of eight men screaming.
“Light,” Valgard croaked. “Torches—”
Skapti fumbled with his fire-steel and got a torch flaring. The yellow light spread from the burning rags and illuminated drawn faces; each was as surprised as anyone at their continued existence.
Then they looked around.
The light reflected in growing pools of silky blackness. The bears lay where they’d been cut down, throats open and pulsing thick, dark blood. The stranger was wiping off his knife with a piece of cloth. His long, black hair glistened like raven’s feathers in the torchlight, and his eyes gleamed with malice.
“Out,” he said. “And wait.”
Bug-eye moved first, then Skapti and his men, then Valgard.
“Not you.” Valgard’s brain had not yet caught up, and as he took two more steps the man said without looking at him, “I said, not you.”
His back seized up first, shortly followed by his legs and his shoulders. Pain like he’d never known exploded in his brain. The backs of his eyes hurt. His throat closed, and he tried and failed to gulp down air.
“You’re staying.”
Whatever it was released its hold on him all at once, and he became painfully aware of his piss-stained breeches.
“For a little while, at least.” A faint smile played on the stranger’s lips. “We’re going to have some words, you and me.”
The men were all waiting for Valgard when he came out, but none of them dared look him in the eye. Didn’t matter. He walked right past them, heading down to the longhouse.
He felt, more than heard, the men line up behind him.
The descent was much quicker than the early-morning climb up to the cave mouth. The little village looked peaceful, almost serene under the suddenly bright-blue sky.
“It’s quiet,” Skapti said.
“Mm,” Bug-eye mumbled.
They saw the first bodies when they rounded the corner. The men had served Botolf and Hakon in real life. In death they were just meat in rags.
“Who’s that?” Skapti said, poking his toe at a dead man on the ground. He tipped the corpse over, and a weathered, leathery face with glassy eyes stared back at them.
“He wasn’t with us,” Bug-eye said. No one doubted the fat man.
“Blades,” Skapti said quietly.
The soldiers picked up what weapons they could find on the ground—spears, swords, a hand-ax—and scouted around for enemies. The trampled snow was stained with reddish-white crystals, but nothing moved. The village was as dead as when they’d first arrived.
Bug-eye nudged Valgard and pointed silently. The door to the longhouse was slightly ajar.
Skapti signaled to two of his men and walked toward the door, blade up and pointed at the darkness within, prepared for whatever might come bursting out. His companions flanked him. The silence went on forever as the red-haired warrior crouched by the door and listened. He shot Valgard and Bug-eye a sharp look and nudged the door open.
Sweat, blood, and fear leaked out of the room like pus from a wound. Valgard watched as those who entered first fought not to vomit.
The longhouse was full of bodies. Their marching compatriots had been slaughtered, some where they lay sleeping, others fighting. The floor was sticky with hardening blood, and the smell of it was everywhere—in the air, in the walls, on their tongues.
A ray of light squeezed in through a rift in the airing flap and shone down on Egill Jotun’s throne. A familiar figure lay slumped on the steps before the massive chair, clutching his belly.
Botolf.
Despite his dislike and fear, Valgard hurried toward the throne.
When he was a few feet away, he saw the chieftain’s arm move as harsh, wet coughs shook his body. Botolf’s hand moved too slowly to catch the globs of blood he hawked up from his lungs. The pain scraped the glazed look off his eyes. As he recognized Valgard, he grinned. His teeth were colored the sickly pink of blood mixed with saliva. He cradled something in his arms.
“. . . never saw it . . . ,” he wheezed.
“What?” Valgard asked.
“The bitch,” Botolf muttered, still smiling. “She had me from day one. She just wanted to get up here to meet with them.” Skapti, Bug-eye, and the others hung back, not sure what to do with the idea of Botolf being injured.
“Who? Meet with who?”
“Big fucker. Two thick scars on his neck. Ax. Stay the fuck away,” Botolf said. He moved his arm, and guts spilled out. Valgard could smell death on him; he could feel the heat seeping out of his stomach. The chieftain winced. “Raiding party walked through us. Hardest bastards I’ve ever seen. Somehow . . . the kid . . . the kid from the path . . . was with them. She must have planned it.” His eyes grew bigger, and his face softened. “Can you do anything? Am I gone? I don’t want to meet the gods just yet.”
Valgard looked at the fearsome killer and smiled. “You will meet the gods when the time is right.” Botolf tried to say something that drowned in a bubble of blood, but Valgard was already moving. He stepped up onto the dais, put his shoulder against the throne and pushed.
The block of wood shifted only slightly.
His thighs felt like they were on fire, but Valgard pushed harder, the wood creaked, and slowly the throne of Egill Jotun gave way and toppled over, revealing a hollow space underneath.
Within it was a knee-high chest.
His heart thundering, Valgard flipped open the lid of the chest.
A cylinder lay within, wrapped in calfskin.
He bent over and retrieved it, then unraveled the package with trembling fingers.
“What’s that?” Skapti called from the middle of the longhouse, curious but unwilling to come closer.
Valgard didn’t answer. His shaking fingers revealed strings of runes, charts, shapes. His trembling lips muttered words that had not been uttered for a long time.
Behind him, Botolf screamed. It was not a human scream.
When he finished the spell, he turned around to look at what he had created—and smiled.
Epilogue
SKANE, SOUTHWEST SWEDEN
DECEMBER, AD 996
The burning twigs crackled and snapped in the center of a faint circle of light and heat. Cold mist drifted in over freezing ground and over the piles of leaves that had drifted against thick tree trunks. Above the treetops the vast black winter night stretched endlessly, dotted by white points, snowflakes that would never fall.
Audun sat on a rock, wrapped in an assortment of rags. “Did you do that thing? Home?” he said.
“Yes,” Ulfar said. Leaning up against a big trunk, he was almost invisible in the shadows.
“How did it go?”
“I’m alive,” Ulfar said.
“So not too bad,” Audun said after a moment’s pause.
“Not too bad,” Ulfar agreed.
Audun sat still for a while, looking into the fire. “What now, then?” he said.
“Valgard killed Geiri. He’s with King Olav’s army. We’re going up north to kill him.”
Another pause. “Oh.” Then, after a while, “Where, exactly? And how many men does he have? And how are we going to do it?”
Ulfar emerged from the shadows and came to sit down by the fire. “No idea,” he said.
Audun noticed the shift in the darkness; Ulfar smelled the blood. They both jumped when the dead deer landed with a thud at the edge of the light.
A familiar voice spoke from the darkness. “The bony bit on your arm’s your elbow. The one you were sitting on is your ass.” The glade was suddenly alive with quiet, soft movement. Silent, hardened, gray-haired men emerged from the trees all around them. Five, ten, twenty, thirty. They made no move, drew no weapons.
Two men wa
lked through the group. One of them held a big ax.
The other one grinned at Ulfar through a thick white beard and stuck a curved dagger in his belt. “Sounds to me like you’re going to need some help, son.”
THE END
Blood Will Follow
Dramatis Personae
VALGARD’S STORY
Valgard Deceptive herbalist
Finn Loyal lieutenant
Hakon Troublesome Trondheim tyrant
King Olav His Kingliness
Jorn Prince of the Dales, King Olav’s right-hand man
Runar Jorn’s stuttering helper
Botolf Tall, dark, and deadly Chieftain of the South
Skeggi Brawny bundle of sadism
Sigurd Chieftain of Stenvik, imprisoned
Sven Adviser to Sigurd, imprisoned
Gunnar Commander of Stenvik in Finn’s absence
Ormslev “Bug-eye” Botolf’s stoic and lardy trek-master
Kverulf Botolf’s man; not too sharp on judgment
Skapti Botolf’s lieutenant
AUDUN’S STORY
Audun Cursed blacksmith berserker
Fjölnir Aging farmer with one bad eye
Breki Caravan leader
Bjorn Breki’s brother
Ivar Man in charge at the Sands
Hrutur Rugged sea captain
Skakki Useless blacksmith
Johan Aagard Bulky, bothersome beau
Helga of Ovregard Handsome woman with a dark past
Streak Helga’s horse
Ustain Forkbeard’s recruiter
Jomar Forkbeard’s man
Thormund Aging horse thief, reluctant soldier
Mouthpiece Nervous, verbose, all-too-keen, and would-be honorable soldier
Boy Mute boy
Olgeir Sea captain and commander of ten, suspiciously familiar accent
ULFAR’S STORY
Ulfar Dashing hero, leading man, and potentially cursed warrior
Anneli Just a small-town girl
Torulf Young gallant
Jaki and Jarli Torulf’s brothers, older and less gallant
Gestumblindi Wandering mercenary recruiter with one bad eye
Blood Will Follow Page 27
