The Dark Horse

by Marcus Sedgwick

  And then Mouse appeared.

  I wasn’t aware of her coming. But then she was beside me.

  “Mouse,” I said, “you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Are you going to make me go away, Lawspeaker?” she asked.

  I was silent.

  “No,” I said after a while. “No, of course not.”

  We sat there in silence for a long time. I think I fell asleep. I know I did, because I woke to witness the beginning of the storm.

  8

  Mouse sat with eyes staring past the bone fire, out to the sea. She alone was awake, all the others having long ago drifted to sleep, even Sigurd.

  She looked at her brother, and fear began to grow in her. She did not know why, but something about the firelit scene before her nagged at her memory.

  For Mouse, memory was something to be feared, something not to be trusted. She could remember her life with the Storn, and she could remember the time with the wolves, though she had forgotten some. Besides, she didn’t like remembering that time—it only brought pain. The pain that comes with loss.

  Of the time that lay before that, she could remember nothing. But now, sitting on the hill, only an eyelid’s distance away from sleep, she recognized something. People huddled outside around a fire. A hillside that overlooked the sea but that rolled away to high plains inland. Away in the woods of the valleys a wolf hunted. Around her feet a shrew scrabbled in the scrubby grass at the base of one of the stone fingers.

  Above her head an eagle owl whirled. From its position on high it saw the humans’ fire and came to have a closer look. With its powerful eyesight it saw the movement of the shrew and plummeted groundward. Only at the last second, though, did it see Mouse, hidden and still by the rock. The owl hesitated in its descent, and the shrew disappeared into its hole.

  The owl wheeled away and out to sea.

  Then there was the sea itself, and the wind, and the sound of horses stamping their feet, pulling at their tethers.

  They’re coming.

  They’re coming.

  Horses? Now Mouse knew she had been dreaming, and indeed as she opened her eyes daybreak had come.

  As she shook her head free of sleep the disturbing images from the night would not leave her entirely.

  “They’re coming,” she murmured.

  “Hmm?” said Sigurd, waking slowly beside her.

  But Mouse said nothing because she didn’t know what she meant.

  Other people woke now, and stood and stretched. The fire was smoldering gently, but it had done its job—there was no trace of the old Lawspeaker left. All was ashes, which were gradually being swept into the air by the stiffening breeze.

  Then Mouse saw the boat.

  She pointed down to the shore.

  “A merchant ship!” said Herda.

  Sigurd looked round. Merchants. He needed to be in the village. He believed Horn had traded poorly with these men. That had to change if they were to survive.

  “Quickly,” he said. Without any further ceremony they all left Bird Rock. All except Sif.

  9

  By the time we made it down from the hill, much of the rest of the Storn had almost completely encircled the trading ship, which lay beached on the shore. The boat was a knorr—one of those small, open-decked seagoing boats favored by merchantmen, for it could hold a big cargo for its size.

  I could see its carved prow above the crowd. As I approached I began to realize that something was happening—there were many more people than usual gathered around the boat. And it was too quiet.

  I pushed my way through from the back of the circle of people. As I came into the middle I stopped dead.

  In front of me were two or three of the traders. I recognized their leader from a previous visit, though I couldn’t remember his name.

  “So this is the new Lawspeaker,” he said as I arrived. But I paid him no attention because I saw the body at his feet straightaway.

  “They found him,” said Thorbjorn. “They found him in the shallows farther down the coast.”

  “He’s come back!” someone else cried hysterically.

  “Who?” I asked. “Who is it?”

  “We thought he might be one of yours,” said the merchant, and rolled the body over with his foot.

  I should have recognized him sooner.

  Ragnald. Or what was left of him after two days of bobbing around in the sea. Even though his face was disfigured, his white hair and black palms were unmistakable.

  “He’s not yours?” asked the trader.

  “No,” I said quietly.

  I felt what we were all feeling. It was an omen.

  10

  “You brought him here. You take him back!”

  Sigurd stared straight at the merchant.

  His name was Morten, and if he thought his job would be even easier now that the fool called Horn had been replaced by a boy, he was wrong. Sigurd sat opposite Morten, who was flanked by a pair of his men. Around the new Lawspeaker sat his chosen advisers, Thorbjorn, so large and strong, and Herda, so gentle and wise. Sigurd met Morten’s gaze and would not back down, though his heart beat hard in his chest.

  “You admit you put this man in the sea,” Morten stated. He was a short, stout man. He didn’t look like a sailor, but he was obviously a very successful trader.

  Sigurd nodded. “That much is true.”

  “And the sea has brought him back to you. You cannot ignore this fact.”

  “The sea brought him back to land—you brought him back to us.”

  Again Sigurd stared at the man, until finally Morten’s face broke into a smile.

  “Very well,” he laughed. “I can see you are determined. We will take him far out to sea with us when we leave, and finish what you started.”

  Sigurd nodded.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “And in return for this, I am sure you will want to help us?”

  Morten smiled at the boy in front of him.

  Sigurd heard some whispering around him. He put up his hand.

  “Let us hear what Morten the trader has to say,” he said.

  Morten took a long drink from the beer mug in his hand before he spoke.

  “Times are hard,” he said. “We have fared badly on our current expedition. Every tribe of every village has traded poorly with us. Crops have failed along the entire length of coast that we have sailed. Our boat is still full of the things we brought to barter with when we set out four months ago. Our coffers are empty of silver.”

  “I can imagine,” said Sigurd. “What of it?”

  “Lawspeaker, in order that we return home not entirely empty-handed, we simply ask you to consider our wares and the reasonable price we will accept for them. We are sure that this tribe has not sunk as low as others we have seen, which cannot afford a few luxuries for themselves.”

  “And what would you have us give you in return?” Sigurd asked. “In return for these luxuries? Our grain is nearly all gone. This year’s crop is dying in the fields. We have no fish to spare; we cannot catch enough to feed ourselves. We have nothing of value to barter with.”

  Some of the men muttered behind him.

  “It is wrong to speak of the Storn that way,” said Thorbjorn.

  Sigurd turned to him. “No. Those days are past. We must face the truth now. We are in trouble, and the truth is that we are so poor that we have nothing to offer Morten and his men. We must face this truth, or we will die before we even know why.”

  There was silence.

  Morten smiled at Sigurd again, but it was a grim smile this time.

  “I can see the new Lawspeaker will give the tribe the best chance of survival he can.”

  He stood up.

  “Come,” he said to his men. “We go.”

  Sigurd rose to face him. “Already? You are still welcome to stay with us for a few days. We do not have much, but we will share our hospitality with you until you are rested. That is the custom.”

  “C
ustom?” said Morten. “The days for custom may be at an end. We have no desire to stay anywhere longer than is necessary for trade.”

  Morten turned to leave, then stopped and spoke again.

  “I will tell you this. You have impressed me with your courage, Lawspeaker, but I fear that will not be enough to save you.”

  “With prudence we will outlive this famine,” said Sigurd, but Morten laughed bitterly.

  “I am not speaking of the hunger,” he said. “We have sailed far to the north this time. If you think your life is hard here, it is much worse there. Brochs lie empty. Whole villages are deserted—the people either dead or gone. And not because of the famine.”

  “Then why?”

  “The Dark Horse,” said Morten quietly.

  His words fell like stones into a still pool. And just like the ripples spreading across that pool, the fear spread through them all.

  Sigurd turned to Thorbjorn, who dropped his eyes to the floor. Seeing the big man scared unnerved Sigurd badly.

  Morten spoke once more.

  “We did not see them ourselves, but many places we went had been visited by them. We spoke to one or two people whom they missed. It seems they are suffering, too. The herds they follow are dwindling. They are heading south instead, looking for easier pickings. No one can stop them. My advice to you is to run.”

  He turned again.

  “Come. To the boat,” he called to his men. He swept out of the broch and down to the shore.

  “And where shall we run?” cried Sigurd, following him out of the broch.

  Morten answered without even looking around.

  “They’re coming,” was all he said. “They’re coming.”

  11

  So then the gray sky grew black above our heads.

  The Dark Horse.

  Of course we had all heard of them, but I think many people doubted that they even existed. They were like a legend, like something from a story, and I suppose no one liked to think about them any more than that, for they were death.

  Fearsome horsemen, they were fabled to live a very different life from our own peaceful existence of farming and fishing. They were supposed to follow the herds of deer across the dark coldness of the far north. Living in great tents, they could pack their entire village in a night and move on at the speed of a galloping horse.

  As Morten hurriedly prepared for sea, the rumor that he had started had already spread around the whole village. There were shouting and crying. It was terrible.

  Freya, my good mother, stood next to me as we watched them load Ragnald’s body back on board. They promised to drop him far out to sea, but I was sure I saw them slip something overboard before they had even disappeared round the head-land of the bay.

  “What have I done?” I asked Freya after the ship was out of sight.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I should have let a man become Lawspeaker. How can I save us if the Dark Horse come?”

  “They all had their chance,” she said. “You are the best man here. You will see us safe. Take courage from your name.”

  I must have looked confused.

  “Your name,” she said. “Have I never told you what it means?”

  I shook my head.

  “Sigurd. ‘The peace that comes with victory.’ You see, you cannot fail!”

  And despite everything, she laughed.

  I remember wishing that what she had said would be true.

  12

  That night there was a meeting in the great broch.

  Sigurd’s style of leadership was very different from Horn’s. All Horn’s discussions and decisions had been made with two or three of his cronies in his own broch. Now Sigurd had been given the Lawspeaker’s broch as his own, but he chose instead to call the entire village into the great broch to hear what he had to say.

  But things were not to happen as he expected.

  He told them that it was true, that Morten the trader had said the Dark Horse were riding south.

  He told them that if this was true, there was nothing they could do to stop it.

  He told them that all they could do was prepare to fight if they had to.

  He told them last that if they did not ration their food and work hard at fishing and in the fields, then they would starve long before the Dark Horse got anywhere near them.

  He told them all these things, but then Sif stood and challenged him.

  “Why are we listening to this?” she demanded. “If we stay here, we will die. We will either starve or be killed. I say we should go now.”

  “Where would you go, Sif ?” asked Sigurd.

  “Where? That does not matter! I say we should go. I am Horn’s daughter, and I say we should go!”

  Sigurd was silent while he tried to judge the mood of the people.

  No one said anything; many gazed at the floor, avoiding Sigurd’s gaze.

  Then Sif spoke again, angrier this time.

  “Are you all fools?” she cried. “Are you going to sit here and die? I say we should go, and I am leaving! Who will come with me? Who will come with me?”

  She looked around the hall. There was no movement.

  She approached some of the men who had been her father’s favorites.

  “In the name of my father, will you not stir yourselves and follow me?”

  “Sit down, Sif,” said Longshank.

  Sif whirled around.

  “Do you doubt me?” she screamed. “Very well! I am leaving. Tonight! And anyone who is not stupid will come with me. A curse on the rest of you!”

  And she left the hall in a fury.

  And thus she left the tribe.

  13

  Sif could not be persuaded to stay.

  She had always been stubborn, and this case was like many that had gone before. The difference was that she left, by herself, for who knows where. I myself did not mourn her going—there was too much else to worry about. Food, for a start.

  I had decided that there was something we could do about the situation, something we could have done before. We had a powerful thing that we could have been using to help us, instead of ignoring or fearing.

  “I need your help, Mouse,” I said as we climbed the low hills behind the village. It was the morning after Sif had left.

  “What?” she asked.

  “We could use your help. The whole village, you could help us all. You could find us food. Just like you did that time with the fish, remember?”

  “They hated me for that.”

  “They feared you. They didn’t hate you. . . . And now they’re hungry. If you help us find food, they won’t care how you did it. They’ll be too grateful to care.”

  “People . . . ,” she began, but trailed off.

  “So, what?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Selfish,” she said, but she sounded as if she didn’t really know whether that was the right word.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but these are our people.”

  She said nothing.

  “I know you can do it. Just like that time when you showed us where the fish were.”

  Mouse said nothing. I tried to encourage her.

  “How did you do it?” I asked.

  “The birds were calling to one another,” she said. “I felt them telling one another where to fish.”

  The way she said it made it sound so simple.

  “But you could do it again?” I asked, though I knew the answer. I suspected Mouse was probably capable of a lot more than we knew.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So you’ll help?” I asked. “Leave the Storn to me.”

  She nodded, but she looked doubtful.

  It was a start, at least.

  14

  Mouse did as Sigurd Lawspeaker had asked, but only after Gudrun had spoken to the girl, too.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve saved my life only to let me starve?” said the Wisewoman with a smile on her face, and at last Mouse was p
ersuaded.

  A really good catch of fish would go a long way. Anything they did not eat fresh could be smoked and dried to eat later. Then all Sigurd had to do was make sure crops did not perish.

  Sigurd had said she could use his broch to work her magic, but she had refused the offer.

  “It’s easier outside, closer to the world.”

  He had nodded, and she had wandered away, to find a quiet spot, he presumed.

  In fact, she now lay staring at the sky from a point about halfway toward Bird Rock.

  It was early morning. She sat and watched the sun begin to shine over the sea horizon, bringing the blue to life from the gray water.

  A bird.

  Where?

  There. That was what she needed. A sea-fishing bird. A flight of cormorants clung to a cliffside away and up to her right.

  She waited, finding a mind to attach herself to.

  With a suddenness that almost frightened her she was leaping from the cliff with one of the elegant black birds. The sea lay below her, rich and smooth from this height.

  The bird folded its wings and arrowed at the sea surface. She plunged into the dark, freezing water with the bird. It was deafening and silent all at the same time. There was a lot of sound, but it made no sense. Just the rush of water as the bird struck a fish and wrestled it back to the surface.

  But as the cormorant rose back to the light Mouse felt herself slipping out of it. There was something else there, something more powerful that was pulling her out of the mind of the bird.

  The bird had gone, and Mouse was alone in the depths of the sea. She could see nothing, could hear nothing.

  She could feel the cold of the water, but then something began to burn at her brain, demanding attention.

  Slowly she was aware that she could see a light.

  Firelight.

  She didn’t understand how it was possible, given that her mind was underwater, but there was definitely a fire in front of her. Before she had time to wonder any more, other shapes began to materialize around the fire.