“You need … it was the vitka, Bark, who decreed this “no weapons in tonight’s feast” at the Meadows,” the balding man said, puzzled. “They demanded all the mighty weapons be left at home. It’s unprecedented, but the vitka said men who carry malice and tools of death near the place shall be cursed by Donor, and if the god has send him a sight, who are you to take it to Hulderic? You must not touch it.“
“Donor is a bloody god,” Gisil said with a suffering voice, “a gentle father, a fine husband, but he does not care for men’s swords … Bark is taking coin from Bero. Where is the sword? Quick now.”
“Who is this man?’ the golden youth asked, stepping before me and squinting up. “Looks half starved, and perhaps a bit desperate.”
She pushed him aside. “This is Adalwulf. He’ll serve Hulderic one day, Cerunnos. Your father’s guest will have his service, so give him the courtesy of your respect,” Gisil said. I bowed in my saddle at the beautiful young man. Cerunnos was son of Teutorigos, who nodded back stiffly, and stepped aside. Gisil smiled gratefully, and pulled the balding man around. “Gunter. Where-is-the-sword”’ she said very softly. “Now, please.”
“Hulderic left it on his seat,” the man answered. “Look, what’s this all about? I’m getting worried, and when I get worried, I get belly aches. I don’t want to rush to the bushes like some wet eared pup. Please tell me what’s going on?”
She was tearing at the door. “Bero’s sending men to steal the blade. Or Leuthard is, and they are not Marcomanni. They are up to no good when they get here. They’ll take it, and they are planning for something evil with our lord’s sword.”
“Surely Bero knows we would guard it?” another man said.
The blacksmith spat, so far silent. “Yes, he would,” he said ominously. “He might not be able to kill his brother, but he means to kill us all,” he finished. Men began to cast long looks at the shadows around the hall, a man rushed inside, another around the hall to make sure nobody was sneaking up on us.
‘What, exactly, do you think they are sending here?’ Gunter asked, fondling his spear.
“Mercenaries. Dozens,” I told him grimly.
He muttered and yelled inside. “Get a slave here! Two! Someone who can ride like the wind!” he added to a younger warrior who popped his head out. Then he fixed an eye on me. “What do you want with us, anyway? Will you help? Why?”
Gisil sighed. “I had a sight—”
I patted her hand, and Cerunnos and Gunter both rolled their eyes as I spoke. “I heard them speaking. There was Leuthard chatting with some mercenaries,” I told them, carefully, since I felt lost in the woods. It was not an easy thing being the gods’ chosen champion, and I felt reluctant for Gisil to share that bit of news. Instead, I tried to sound helpful. “They are a savage looking lot. They tried to kill me in a dark room by the harbor, and so I’m here to help your lord.”
“Mighty gracious,” Gunter said. He nodded at me. “Guess we cannot spit on any offer of help, even by a vagabond.” He turned to receive two bewildered slaves, who were rushing like feral dogs were chasing them. “Get two horses. The fastest ones. Ride for the Flowery Meadows, and get Lord Hulderic and Teutorigos here, with all their oathsmen. Tell him there is trouble, and they shouldn’t dawdle around.”
The slaves were shaking their heads, older men both.
‘They don’t speak Germani?” Gunter despaired at Cerunnos, who shrugged.
The golden-belted youth pulled at his very long moustaches. “They are both stupid. Afraid and dumb as mules.”
“You go,” Gisil said, as she got ready to enter the hall. “Get your father. I think you should.”
Gunter shook his head. “We need him here for the defense. He’s damned good with a blade and spear. Damned good.”
Gisil tilted her head at Cerunnos. “You are also the best rider. Get him here.”
Cerunnos hesitated, but not for long. “Fine. I’ll go. I’ll take the two dolts with me.” Gunter spat in disgust.
“Go, then. Take the idiots with you,” Gunter shouted, and pulled the young man around. “And take care. Be fast. I don’t like this.”
“None can catch me when I mount a horse, unless it’s beautiful with nice hips and young,” he laughed, and ran inside to get his gear and to saddle a beast.
Sunna’s last light disappeared with a red flash, and shadows shot through the yard. There was something uncanny about the sudden darkness and the ominous silence, the deep shadows, as if we had all been pushed to the land of the damned. I felt the hair stand in my neck. “Shall we defend the hall?”
Gisil nodded, looking around. “We dare not leave. Hulderic is coming here, and we must be here as well.”
Gunter slapped his spear on the wall. “I’ll decide such matters, not a woman. I think we’ll be sorry to see Cerunnos gone.” She fixed him with a cold glare, and he raised his hands defensively. “But I agree. We’ll block the doorway,” Gunter said, and pointed a finger that way. We took the horses to the northern end of hall, where the stables were. We dodged as the young Cerunnos—wearing a sword—and the two terrified slaves rushed out with their beasts, and we left the horses there.
“Do not take the harness and the saddle off,” Gisil said darkly. “Block the doors, but leave the horses ready to ride. It’s uncomfortable for them, but must be done.”
The blacksmith and I grunted with agreement, left the horses in the stable, and entered the main hall from the stable end. We pulled the heavy, well-made doors closed as we entered the hall of Teutorigos, and lifted a bar in place. Then we did the same with the main door. While the doors were closed, I thought I saw something moving in the fields at the wood’s edge, but it could have been anything; a bear, fox, or a wolf, so fleet it was, but I felt cold and unreasonably afraid. We latched the door with a heavy bar. I saw the blacksmith‘s face was drawn and white. I was about to ask him if he had seen something as well, but he shook his head, and didn’t say a word, pulling me after him for the main hall.
It was much like Germani halls. It was long and wide, and smoke billowed in the rafters, where it slowly escaped from holes to the dark sky. A series of fire pits littered the floor, shingles burning in the corners, where a slave dutifully crouched next to them, ready to change the burning bits of tarred wood when they burned far enough and became dangerous.
Hay littered the floorboards, but Teutorigos had some finer ornaments; hunting weapons set on the walls and hung from thick ash pillars, gray and white drapes to separate parts of the hall into a more private sections. There were meticulously carved tables and stools with strange Celtic symbols of men with inhuman eyes and long faces, and animals, spirits likely, set in a long strings around the edges of the tables. There were many spinning wheels, which the great man’s daughters apparently used dutifully, as they were well cared for, but there were no women in the hall, as they had gone with their father. Gisil had no interest in such contraptions, but stepped up to a dais set in the middle of the hall. Two plain chairs sat empty, waiting for the master and his guest to return.
But they were not empty.
On one seat was a sword, ancient and long, what the Romans might call a spatha.
It was well oiled, sharp, and old as time, as if the blade was thinner in some places than others, but still a very beautiful, deadly weapon of much honor and fame. On its blade, countless of lives had ended. It whispered to me, I thought, in the dim light of the hall, the glinting edge beckoning for me, and I stepped near Gisil. The weapon had no words a man might know, of course, but for some reason, the blade made me frown. I felt reluctant to step any closer to it.
Gisil smiled crookedly. “I thought you might sense it’s not all metal and leather. It’s the steel, they say, that soaks up the men it kills, their blood and their past, and grows into a sentient thing over a long time. Warriors are forever saying it is possible, and while they are fools most of the time, perhaps it is true in some cases. It is not a kind thing, but cold. I think it loves winter,
that blade, because it is as bitter. It has taken countless of lives in its time.”
“Truly,” I told her. “I’m a simple man, and know nothing, but that blade is odd.”
She snorted, and went serious as she removed a hair from my brow. “I said I thought you might see what I see. You are not a simple man. I didn’t see that before, but I did just now. You are like the blade. You are young, but with an old soul.”
“Old?” I asked her nervously. “What are you saying?”
She looked uncomfortable, guilty, sorrowful, and shrugged. “Touched by the gods. Some of your soul is woven from the ancient weaves. Perhaps you are mad.”
“You mean I’m crazy?” I said, and remembered what Germain had said about asking a vitka about me. God touched? “That is not very—”
She snorted. “No! I’m a völva, and I know when a man is touched by the gods, and it doesn’t always mean you are crazy all the time,” she answered, and saw my frown. “I think you are mad when you fight. Only in the battle are you truly crazy. I see it in you, though it evaded me earlier. You are not like some men you occasionally see weeping and laughing at the same time under the former roof of some old, moldy hall, truly without sense and hope, but you will be mad as Hel’s dragon in a combat. You are a berserker. Old soul, they say, made of old stories. Like the blade. Born to fight.”
“I’ve never—”
“Never really fought before,” she said with some trepidation. “You’ve been trained, but not tested. It will be seen this night how well you’ll do.” She didn’t sound happy about the fact.
“Why frown?” I asked her, a bit proud thanks to her words. “If that is the case, we will need such power here this night.”
She nodded. “Perhaps so. You will hear the call. I think Hraban is like that as well,” she mused, shifting her gaze to the ancient blade. “They brought it from Gothonia. It’s the land of the first humans. Aska and Embla and all others followed, and I think their blood is the very oldest.” She was quiet for a time and frowned, and I was sure she indeed had some sight. At least I hoped it was so, because she was saying all my dreams could come true. Such a man would have no shortage of fame and lords to serve.
“It is a blade worth fighting for,” I breathed.
She went on. “Hulderic’s family carries the curses of the gods, but also many mighty artifacts of the old. That sword is one of them. Gods alone know where that one came from, but it’s very old, and when something like that excels in the task of killing, it often comes alive. I hear it, too.”
“We are both as mad, then,” I whispered, and tore my eyes away from the old weapon to the other seat, where a shield of metallic beauty leaned on the chair leg. The shield was not over large, and would not cover a man’s legs. It had very strange carvings running on the edges. A simple, pure beauty. It was darker than a sharpened blade, but it was unmistakably a precious guard of the purest metal. Also, a long hammer sat on the seat. It had a block-like, foot-sized head, and a thick wooden and metallic shaft the length of my arm. I felt envious of it immediately. It would be a bone-breaker in battle, a terrible thing in a duel, and the Celt lord who wielded it must be a powerful man to do so.
“We will sit tight,” said the blacksmith from the side. “Post guards on all the doors, and set the dogs out. Let them run around a bit and guard.”
“Had a fox here yesterday,” Gunter grunted. “Might take after it.”
“Might rip the balls off some bastard out to rob our lord,” Gisil said ferociously, and grabbed a horn from the table, which a guard filled. Gunter opened up the door, and three happy, large hounds loped out, as excited as any dog when they were allowed to run free, and the door blocked again by the heavy bar. “I’ll bless us in Donor’s name in a bit, but first, I want to be a bit drunk.” We laughed at her, and she did have a way to lighten our hearts. She burped after she quaffed the mead down, smiled at our nervous, roaring laughter. “There. Let them come and see if we let them hurt Hulderic, and take what is his.”
I smiled at her. “You are nothing like any völva I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s right,” she agreed with a small grin. There was the odd look in her eyes again, one of doubt. She shrugged off any such feeling and pushed me. “I’m nothing like the simpering Chatti women you have seen previously. Sit down, and throw dice with me.”
I did. Every Germani had dice and a board to throw them on. I could not easily concentrate on the game, but kept glancing around the odd, Celtic hall and the two famous weapons.
Gisil took an advantage of it mercilessly. “You gamble like my mother,” she laughed when I lost again, though I was not sure what I lost, and I didn’t care.
“Is she alive? I take it your husband …” I began, and bit my tongue.
She looked joyless and gray of face. “I forgot. She is dead. They are dead,” she told me, and I wanted to comfort her, though there was an odd, lost look on her face, but didn’t know how. She saw my desire, and smiled gratefully. “Dead or not, she’d throw dice better than you.”
“Don’t speak of the dead as if you see them,” the blacksmith admonished her from the side where he squatted, inspecting his framae spear. “It’s not proper.”
“Unless she does see them,” I chuckled, and by the smug look on her face, I decided I didn’t want to press the issue, no matter how much she intrigued me.
So we passed the time. The servants went back and forth to the larder, bringing more drink, some food, but they did it quietly, and even the wooden clatter of the dice on the board seemed over loud at times. Finally, I could not take the tension. “Surely Hulderic’s on his way already?”
“Perhaps,” Gisil allowed, and her face shot up, as she probably heard something, or sensed it.
I grabbed my spear, as I saw her reaction. Gunther also stopped mid-swing, as he was spitting some firewood in the corner with a small ax. “What is it?”
“Horses,” she said, frowning. “Very close.”
“Hulderic, then?”
She turned her head, and our horses were neighing in the stables. They were nervous, unwelcoming neighs. The approaching horses were not familiar to them, or if they were, they were not alone, and there were strange beasts with them.
A dog barked somewhere. It was a surprised bark, and then angered one, ferocious with a killing intent.
Then the dog howled, and the howl was cut short as if hacked by an ax.
I shot up from the seat, and five men grabbed their spears, while Gunther ran to check on the doors to the sleeping quarters. I walked to the barred door, and my hands went up and down the door, trying to find a crack. “Damn well-made,” I grumbled. ”Like some expert has crafted it.”
“The Celt has skillful men,” she agreed. “There.” She pointed a finger at the bottom half of the door. She had a framea on her hand, I noticed, and then I leaned to check in a lower right corner of the doorway as she instructed.
“Not perfect, happily,” I breathed as I finally found the hole and look outside from a thin crack. The torches were fluttering there, casting a wide swath of sputtering light across the yard. There was nothing, no sign of people or the dogs, and I prayed in my head to Woden a glorious lord would ride to sight.
And he did.
I saw movement and stiffened as I saw steaming, sweaty horses arrive. There were three. The first horse rode lazily, swaying from side-to-side and Cerunnos, the Celt, sat on it’s back. There were two other horses, and on them, I thought, slouched the two slaves who had accompanied the Celt. I was not sure they were the same slaves, though.
I could not be sure, because none of the men had their heads.
Instead, there was a ragged, flapping bits of skin where their necks would be, their clothing was red and dark, and the corpses had been tied to the saddles. Cerunnos’s sword was on his belt, and I knew it was he, because someone had stuffed his golden, now bloody hair on his golden belt. The horses disappeared from sight as the beasts made their leisurely way towards the s
table end of the hall, their home, and I straightened, noticing I was holding my breath. I let it out, and men stared at me curiously. I turned to address the roomful of nervous faces.
“Well, by Donor’s tiny balls! Tell us!” Gunter yelled.
“I don’t think we’ll be seeing Hulderic for a while,” I told them thinly, feeling sick.
“Why?” Gunter growled. “There are horses outside? What did you see?’
I rubbed my face, not sure how to tell him. “The riders you sent are dead on their horses, headless,” I said, holding back dread.
Gunter’s face went slack from shock, and Gisil stood up, shaky on her feet. Gunter shook his head in weak denial. “That was Teutorigos’s son. No! It cannot—”
“He is dead,” I said harshly. “Unless someone can stitch a head back on and call his spirit from Valholl.”
Gunther looked at Gisil with bottomless sorrow. “I told you he should have stayed here!”
I shook my head at him, and he cursed, desperate.
“They are coming then, and we are alone,” Gisil said with a shaky voice, and her huge eyes were suddenly not so brave.
I felt the stirrings of anger deep in my soul, and clutched the spear tightly. Gisil held her framea with shaking hands, and I walked up to her. The blacksmith was smiling to himself, in a sort of a sarcastic way, his eyes following her, and I decided he was in love with her. It was no wonder, since she was an oddly alluring creature, brave, wise, and … free?
More so than most women, I thought. But she had made a mistake, and Cerunnos was dead. She was also a human, and feared death.
And now, she was in a mortal danger.
I wasn’t afraid any longer.
“I’ll fight well for you. And Hulderic,” I told her bravely. “No matter how many there are. Perhaps you are right. Woden will give me strength to kill and rout them.”
She smiled, and there was some strange sentiment in her eyes, which she pushed away, though I was sure it was guilt. She placed a hand on mine, and squeezed. “I’m sorry I dragged you here. Thank you. That’s why the gods showed me a vision of you, Adalwulf.” She stuttered, and placed a hand on my face. “I wish I had met you year ago.”
Adalwulf: The Two Swords (Tales of Germania Book 1) Page 7
