Night Wolf: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 5)

by James L. Nelson

  They were silent again, the only sound the soft swish of Aghen’s blade running over the rough stone. Oddi turned back to his work, but before he could make another cut, Aghen spoke again.

  “Do you know why Thorgrim is called Kveldulf? Night Wolf?”

  Oddi turned toward him, his eyes still wide. He shook his head.

  “Some say Thorgrim is a shape-shifter. That when the sun goes down his mood turns foul and he takes on the shape of a wolf.” Aghen knew Oddi was staring at him, but he ignored the young man. At last, Oddi managed to find words.

  “Do you believe this? Have you…have you seen it?”

  “I’ve seen the foul mood come over Thorgrim. As the sun was going down. He’s generally a decent fellow. Not one to talk a lot, but that’s a welcome thing. Sometimes at night, though, he grows angry and there’s no getting near him. He’ll generally go off by himself. Those who have known him the longest, like his son, Harald, they say it was worse in his younger days.”

  “But you’ve…never…”

  “With these shape-shifters, it’s the spirit that leaves the body. If Thorgrim’s spirit takes the form of a wolf, I’ve never seen it. No one has, that I know of. But there are stories. Many stories.” Aghen let that hang in the air for a moment before adding, “Ottar is not wrong to be afraid of Thorgrim Night Wolf. Even if he thinks Thorgrim dead.”

  Oddi nodded dumbly. Finally he turned back to his work.

  You make sure to tell Ottar all that I just told you, Aghen thought, and he was confident that Oddi would do just that, because Oddi did not have insight enough to understand what was better kept to himself.

  They worked in silence for another half an hour and then Aghen put his chisel down. “Well, Oddi, I suppose you’re not likely to ruin too much if I leave you alone for a spell,” he said. “I must go speak with Mar; I have work for him.”

  “Mar has work enough,” Oddi said. “Ottar has sent him all the spears to be sharpened and told him he must make up arrowheads by the hundreds. For that, he offers to allow Mar to live, no more. No silver.”

  “Then Mar probably needs some cheering,” Aghen said.

  He left Oddi to his work and headed up the plank road. He found Mar as Oddi had suggested he would, standing at his anvil and hammering arrowheads from the soft, orange iron he pulled from his forge. He was motionless, save for his arms that seemed to work independent of his body, like limbs on a big oak tree, swaying in the breeze.

  “Mar!” Aghen said, coming through the gate. The blacksmith looked up. He did not smile. He stopped his hammering and let his tools hang at his side.

  “How goes it with you, friend?” Aghen asked. Mar, not the most talkative in the best of times, made no reply, and that was answer enough.

  “See here, I need something from you,” Aghen said, stepping closer and speaking low. Mar frowned deeper, but he seemed to perk up at the conspiratorial quality of this.

  “Yes?” Mar asked.

  “I’ve had a thought for a new sort of fastener. For securing strakes to one another,” Aghen explained. “And I need you to make them. They must be about as long as the end of my finger,” he continued, holding his finger up to show Mar. “They must be triangular in shape and notched at the bottom of two sides. And as sharp as you can make them. It’s good oak they have to be driven through.”

  Mar squinted. “This is a way to fasten strakes?” he asked.

  “Yes. It’s something I’ve thought of. Might not work, but if it does it will be a great improvement on how we do it now. Can you make them?”

  Mar waved a hand at the arrowheads and the bundles of spears stacked up against the wall of his house. “That bastard Ottar sends me this work. He gives me no silver for it, just makes some vague promise he’ll pay. And even if he does, it won’t be more than a part of what he stole from me already.”

  “He stole from all of us,” Aghen reminded him.

  “Yes, but now he steals my labor. And my iron. Arrowheads, spearheads, knives, he has me going all day with these demands. Sharpening swords. There’s something going on, he’s planning something. Going to attack some sorry bastard. And it’s on me to see they have the weapons for it.”

  The blacksmith was feeling very sorry for himself and Aghen hoped he could ease the man’s mind a bit. “And Ottar may yet be made to pay for his crimes,” he said. “I saw a wolf the other night.”

  Mar frowned deeper still at this odd change of course. “A wolf?”

  “A wolf. Right down by the river. I thought it would kill me, for sure, but it just growled and ran off.”

  “What of it?” Mar asked.

  “Well, from what I understand, no one here saw Thorgrim Kveldulf killed. Ottar and his men, they left Thorgrim and the rest to be killed by the Irish. But they didn’t see it happen.”

  Mar’s eyes widened as Aghen’s meaning dawned on him. “Are you saying…do you think…”

  Aghen shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’m only saying what I saw,” he said. “But please, Mar, make me up my fasteners as fast as you can. If they work out I’ll call them Mar’s nails and you will be famous as Odin.”

  He left the blacksmith there and returned to the shipyard, but soon the sun began to drop in the west and he gave Oddi leave to stop work for the day. Once his new assistant had disappeared over the small hill that bordered the yard, Aghen pulled a piece of oak from the pile, a board an inch thick, six inches wide and five feet long. He laid it on a bench and went at it with his saw, cutting it in half, and then clamped one half in place and began to work it with a draw knife and chisel.

  He worked until the sun was gone behind the mountains and it was too dark to see. He thought about lighting a fire to work by but decided against it, as a fire in the shipyard might bring someone to investigate. Instead, he hid his work under a stack of scraps and dragged himself back to his small home, his body weary as death, his mind racing like a spooked horse.

  He rose before dawn the next day and was back at it as soon as there was light enough. He knew Oddi would not arrive terribly early because he never did, and Aghen hid the work away well before the young man appeared. The two of them spent the day working on Raven Eye at something less than a hurried pace. That afternoon Aghen told Oddi he was pleased with his work and wished to show his appreciation by letting him off early. Oddi was too grateful to be suspicious, nor was he suspicious by nature, so it did not occur to him that Aghen just wanted him gone.

  Once Oddi had disappeared Aghen again retrieved the oak pieces from their hiding place and chiseled and hammered and drilled until it was too dark to see. He hid them again and headed up the plank road and soon he was knocking on Mar’s door. It was opened by Ita, Mar’s Irish wife, who welcomed him in.

  “People have been talking about your wolf, Aghen,” she said, making the sign of the cross as she did. “They don’t know what it means. What do you think?”

  Aghen shook his head. “I don’t know that it means anything,” he said. “It was a wolf. An animal. They’re no strangers to this country.” Aghen, too, had heard people talking about the wolf. A few people had asked him directly, some of the old residents of Vík-ló and even some of Ottar’s men. Word was moving through the longphort.

  Mar hefted himself up from the bench on which he sat, a small cloth bag in his hand. “Here are your nails, your fancy new nails,” he said, handing the bag over. Aghen opened it and lifted out one of the iron points. Triangular, an inch or so long, sharp as a knife.

  “That’s very well done,” Aghen said. “Mar’s nails. You’ll be famous in every shipyard in the world.”

  Mar grunted. “My heart’s desire,” he said.

  It took Aghen another day to finish, working with a hammer and chisel on the sleeping bench in his home by the light of the hearth. He worked the oak, and he worked his own resolve as well, keeping it sharp like the chisel, forcing himself to recall Valgerd’s death in every brutal detail whenever he felt doubt creeping in. But that was not very oft
en.

  The following afternoon, after their day’s work, Aghen dismissed Oddi, as he always did. He went back to his home and had his night-meal, which he always did. Then he made his way up to Ottar’s hall, which he had not done since the morning he brought the news of Raven Eye’s sinking.

  Aghen was not at all surprised by what he found there. Vík-ló was not a big place, and the singing, shouting, laughing and fighting that happened nightly could be heard in all corners of the longphort. Aghen was not surprised to find men, drunk and violent men, staggering in and out of the twin halls. A big fire was burning in the pit in which they had killed Valgerd, its tall flames throwing a weird, rippling light around the place, dancing off the walls of Ottar’s hall. It reminded Aghen so much of the night Valgerd had been killed he could practically hear the man shrieking.

  Aghen waited in the shadows and no one paid him any attention. He marked the faces of the men who came staggering out of the hall. There was no one in particular he had in mind. Nearly any of these bastards would do.

  Then he saw his man, the perfect choice. He did not know his name and did not care. But he recognized him as one of those who had shot arrows into Valgerd as he stood bound to the stake. Aghen remembered the man’s face and the particular delight he seemed to take in his task.

  The man staggered over to the shadows beyond the fire, turned his back to the flames. Aghen could see his arms move as he fumbled with the tie on his trousers. Aghen stepped out of the shadows and over toward where the man stood. He undid his own trousers and the two of them relieved themselves in that dark place.

  From the corner of his eye, Aghen saw the man look over at him, then down again, apparently uninterested in who was joining him at the makeshift latrine. He cursed as he clumsily retied the cord on his trousers and was about to go when Aghen stopped him.

  “You’re one of Ottar’s men, aren’t you? One of his trusted men?”

  The man stopped and looked at Aghen with unchecked suspicion. “I am. I’m one of Ottar’s hirdmen. I was with him when he sailed from Hedeby.”

  “Good. Then you’re a man I can trust as well,” Aghen said, taking a step closer.

  “Trust? With what?” the hirdman said.

  “Here’s the thing,” Aghen said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial level. “You know the baker? Kalf?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I happen to know he’s cheating Ottar. When Ottar said we should all put our silver together, Kalf didn’t give up all his. He gave up some, but not all. The rest he buried down by the river, near the shipyard. That’s how I know.”

  “You think I should tell Ottar?” the man said.

  “No, no!” Aghen said quickly. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I like Kalf, but I don’t like to see him cheating Ottar and the rest of us. If Ottar knows, he’ll kill Kalf for it.”

  The man nodded. “That he would. Like he did the other.”

  “Exactly,” Aghen said. “I don’t want that. But I know where Kalf buried the hoard. I thought, if we were to dig it up, you could give it to Ottar and no one would be the wiser.”

  They stood in silence as Ottar’s man worked out the implications of this information. It was clear enough that the man was drunk, stupid and greedy, exactly the traits Aghen was looking for.

  “And you know where this silver is buried?” the man asked.

  “Yes. Down at the river. Near where the wall of the longphort touches the water. Like I said.”

  Ten minutes later they came to the place Aghen had described, the lure of this easy stash too much for Ottar’s hirdman to resist. The night was dark, but the man had thought to bring a torch, and the guttering flame threw a circle of light bright enough for their needs.

  “Here,” Aghen said, pointing to a patch of fresh-turned earth two perches distant from the earthen wall that enclosed the longphort.

  Ottar’s man looked at the dirt, looked at Aghen. “Well, dig it up,” he said.

  “Let me fetch a shovel from the shipyard,” Aghen said. He came back a few minutes later with a shovel and began scooping out the loose dirt. He dug down two feet before the blade made an audible thump against something more solid.

  “Is that a chest? Get it out of there!” Ottar’s man hissed, even as Aghen was kneeling beside the hole to do just that thing. Aghen reached down and his fingers found a small wooden chest. He pulled it free of the dirt and set it down on the ground and stood.

  “Shall I open it?” Aghen asked.

  “No, no, get away from it, let me look,” Ottar’s man said, his eyes fixed on the chest. “Here, hold this,” he added, thrusting the torch at Aghen. Aghen took it and held it up as the man dropped to his knees and lifted the lid. He squinted down into the box. He looked up at Aghen.

  “Rocks? It’s filled with rocks…”

  Those were the man’s parting words. In one fluid motion Aghen tossed the torch aside, brought the shovel back over his shoulder and swung it with the effortless precision he had developed through hundreds of hours of swinging ship’s mauls. The flat of the shovel hit the man on the side of the head and sent him sprawling flat out on the ground. He did not move. Unconscious or dead, Aghen did not know and did not care. Either would work.

  Aghen grabbed up the torch and shoved it in the hole, extinguishing the flames. The weak moonlight would be all he needed. He took the chest and carried it down to the river and dumped the rocks into the water. He set it on the ground and went out into the tall grass to find the new-made tool he had hidden there.

  It was an instrument of his own design, the work of his hands and, unwittingly, Mar’s. Two long handles fastened together with an iron rivet a third of the way along their length, like an oversized pair of scissors or wooden blacksmith’s tongs. The ends of these tongs, however, were carved into elongated triangles, the flat sides opposing one another so it would open and close like a bird’s beak. And along the edge of each triangle, securely mounted, were Mar’s dagger-sharp nails.

  Aghen lifted it from the grass and trotted back to where Ottar’s man lay motionless. He took up the shovel and filled in the hole and dragged the man over the turned earth to hide it. He wondered if the shovel blow had killed him, but when he rolled him on his back the man made a soft moaning noise. Aghen was not sure how he felt about that.

  He looked down at the man. A week or more of planning, and now the moment had come. The moment he dreaded, the one part of his plan that gave him pause.

  And then he remembered the look on the man’s face, the twisted smile of delight as he put an arrow in Valgerd’s thigh and laughed as Valgerd shrieked with pain.

  “Off to Hel with you,” Aghen whispered. He pulled the handles of his tool apart and the jaws at the other end opened wide. He plunged it down and felt the row of sharp iron teeth tear into the man’s neck, watched as his eyes and his mouth flew open. But before his victim could make a sound, Aghen pushed the handles together and the jaws clamped shut and the teeth tore into the man’s neck. His legs kicked and his arms flapped and Aghen wrenched the tool sideways and up, ripping the man’s throat out with a gush of blood.

  He stepped back and looked at the man in the dim light. He was motionless, the blood dark against his white skin. Aghen could hear his own breathing, fast and shallow. He drew in a deep lungful of air, held it, exhaled, let his breath settle back to normal.

  There, he thought. It’s done. Now, let everyone know that the Night Wolf is back, and he’s running wild in Vík-ló.

  Chapter Fifteen

  [W]ork a ship for its gliding, a shield for its shelter,

  a sword for its striking, a maid for her kiss.

  Hávamál

  The trees on either bank of the river seemed to slip past at a surprising rate. The ship rocked a bit in the current; the oars creaked with their slow rhythm. Failend took it all in. She felt staggered by the wonder of it all.

  I am aboard a heathen Northmen’s ship, she thought. I am wearing mail and a sword. I have just helped
plunder the church at Glendalough. She smiled slightly and shook her head. It really was too much to comprehend, like trying to make sense of a dream that had no bonds to the real world.

  She sat on the low foredeck facing aft, the place that seemed to be most out of the way of the men working the ship. The other women were there with her, the wives—or whatever they were—of the bandits under Cónán’s command. But those women, being Irish, understood that Failend was not one of them, that her place in society was far, far above theirs. Her manner of speaking alone told them that. And so they did not presume to approach her, and she had little intercourse with them.

  Instead she sat on the edge of the foredeck, the small chest of silver and gold and jewels beside her, and beside that, Louis de Roumois. They had said little to one another since getting underway. In truth, they had said little since the raid on Glendalough. There had not been much opportunity to talk since then, and Louis was so angry with her that he did not know what to say. She could tell that from the looks he gave her and the few clipped words he spoke.

  When they did talk, Failend knew it would not be pleasant. She was not looking forward to it.

  But the present circumstances were pleasant enough. More than enough. It was a summer day and warm and not raining. She was floating down the river on this strange ship. She was floating through this strange dream world into which she had plunged.

  For some time now her life had not felt entirely real to her. Not since her late husband, Colman mac Breandan, and her lover, Louis de Roumois, had both been called on to defend Glendalough from the heathens. Not since she had contrived to take part in the fighting and had killed the man who, on her husband’s orders, had tried to kill her and Louis. Not since she had later killed her husband and she and Louis had been caught by the heathens as they tried to escape to the coast and then had been made to help in the raid on Glendalough.