Storrek saw the opening immediately. ‘Are we even safe here?’ he shouted.
The idea spread through the cold, exhausted men like poison in the blood and Olav could almost see the control of the situation slip out of his hands. He took a moment, a deep breath – there was only one option.
‘Of course we’re safe!’ he shouted with all the command he could muster. ‘But we have a responsibility to the people of Trondheim and to each other, so I will take all the volunteers I can get and go and have a look.’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gunnthor smirking, and anger flared within. There was maybe still a way to turn this to his advantage. ‘I will request only the presence of brave Hjalti Elk-Slayer – we could probably handle whatever spooked the animals, just the two of us!’
Another cheer from the men, and Olav looked at Gunnthor and Storrek as fighters swarmed over Hjalti, eager for something to do. He cleared his throat and stepped towards the two chieftains. He noted with some pleasure that Storrek had to fight not to draw steel.
‘If there’s something out there,’ he said, ‘It will get what it deserves.’ He held their stare for another couple of heartbeats. ‘My enemies usually do,’ he added before he walked towards the longhouse door.
*
When King Olav stepped out again, armed and armoured, eighty men on horse waited for him, Hjalti at their front. Olav quickly scanned their faces and found he knew the names of three men in four. That would have to do.
‘Let’s go hunting!’ he shouted as he mounted his horse, to cheers from the men. Fear turned to joyous anger very quickly, he thought. It was remarkable how quickly their mood changed with the promise of violence.
And then the column was ready to go. Hjalti rode at his right shoulder. The man looked like he was trying to make himself take up the least space possible. Good, Olav thought. It showed the bastard still had some survival instinct. Behind him rode the volunteers, three abreast, all heading out of Trondheim and up towards the North.
They could see the broken branches and trampled snow where the stampede had come through: red, brown and yellow lines ground into the white where the fear had driven the animals. King Olav’s horse tossed its head; behind him he could hear a smattering of riders commanding their mounts to be still.
King Olav turned to Hjalti. ‘The horses don’t like the smell of it, do they, Hjalti? Death? It’s all a bit much for them when it comes that close.’
‘Yes, my King,’ Hjalti muttered, staring at the back of his horse’s head.
Satisfied, Olav turned and looked north. The moon was up, colouring the sky a dull grey. All shadows deepened in moonlight. They rode on up the stampede trail with the stink of fear in their nostrils. It came and went, dulled by the cold and caught in the trees, but there was no mistaking the sour smell of blood and guts from up ahead.
Olav raised his arm and signalled for the halt. ‘Hjalti . . . ?’ he said, gesturing ahead.
Head bowed, the lanky man rode forward. The snow dunes curved up, then away. Just past a high point he looked down to his left and stopped, then swung off his horse and knelt. His head turned slowly towards Olav. ‘You need to come see this.’
The king urged his horse onwards, gently, keeping an eye on Hjalti’s blade all the while, but it stayed sheathed. ‘What is it?’
‘Look,’ Hjalti said. Almost as if reading the king’s mind, he took three steps backwards.
The elk lay on its side, its entrails strung out behind it for a good thirty yards, alongside erratic hoof-prints and a line where its broken back leg had dragged in the snow.
Without a word, Hjalti gestured to the animal’s stomach, or what was left of it.
‘What did this?’ Olav asked, when he’d found the ability to speak. More than half of the skin on the underside of the elk was gone, exposing the empty inner cavity. ‘Bear?’
‘There are no claw-marks.’
‘Blade?’
‘Look at the edge.’
King Olav leaned closer, trying to breathe through his mouth and to keep his eye on Hjalti’s position. ‘It’s been—’
‘—ripped, yes.’
The king rose. ‘Cover it up with snow, quickly – mask the smell.’ When Hjalti frowned, he explained, ‘For the horses.’
Not waiting for an answer, he saddled up and rode past the dead beast, further into the forest, trying hard not to think about its fate. The tracks ran parallel to the trail of destruction, and soon other corpses started appearing: a trampled fox, sheep with badly mangled heads – some without heads altogether – and a bear with a shattered front leg.
Slowly, the hardened fighters behind him had gone quiet, and now the only sound to be heard was the crunching snow under hooves and the occasional snort of disquiet from the horses, quickly followed by soothing whispers. The scent of pine needles mixed with the blood in the snow.
‘Our Father, who art in heaven,’ King Olav muttered to himself. ‘Hallowed be Thy name. Look down on Thy servant, and shield him from whatever it was that did this.’ The ground had been sloping gently upwards for a while and the corpses that littered the ground were now hardly recognisable.
‘They must have run down through here,’ Hjalti said, ‘trampling each other.’ King Olav didn’t answer and he went on, ‘They’ve stripped the bark off the trees.’ The king still didn’t reply. ‘I couldn’t do anything, my King. They threatened to kill—’
The wind changed, and King Olav’s horse went mad, and moments later, the animals behind it started squealing and bucking, followed by the angry shouts of the riders. Hjalti was thrown clear of his horse; he watched it barrel down the path at speed, back towards Trondheim.
‘WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!’ King Olav screamed.
‘Not yet,’ a calm, familiar voice said from the top of the hill.
With the reins twisted so tightly around his hand that he was sure he could feel the bones snapping, King Olav kept hold of his horse – but only just. The figure, back-lit by the moon, stood tall on the ridge, fifty yards away, clear of the trees.
The king didn’t dare look behind him but he could hear the horses bolting easily enough, along with the outraged shouts of the men. Something niggled at him. Something about the voice . . .
Chapter 7
SOUTHERN NORWAY
DECEMBER, AD 996
Helga from Ovregard leaned over and stroked Streak’s neck. ‘What’s the matter, girl?’ The horse tossed its head and snorted. ‘Are you just being an old grouch? Or . . . ?’ She tugged on the reins and Streak stopped all too readily. Helga dismounted smoothly and tasted the air. It had started snowing when they sailed across the channel, but it wasn’t cold enough to stick. Not yet. A white veil would appear overnight, vanish in the day and return when the temperature dropped. It would stay in about a week’s time, she gathered, and from what the bones had told her it would stay for a long time.
‘A long time,’ she muttered, pushing the quiet aside for a moment.
There was a scent on the air, something . . . wrong. The forest could hide her from prying eyes, but it could also shelter all kinds of other things. Helga felt for her carving knife, though if there was anything about it would be about as useless as a harsh glare. Still, she remembered the times when it had saved her life and found some strength in that. Whatever was out here might have her, but it would not take her easily.
Streak snorted and tossed her head again. ‘Yes, I know,’ Helga muttered. ‘I can smell it too.’ And the thing was up ahead, so there was nothing for it. ‘Let’s go, girl,’ she said, inching forward. She’d met many men who would say she was being weak and womanly, that she needed someone to protect her. They had many things in common, those men. They were all brave, and strong, and very dead.
Helga of Ovregard would take her time.
The reins felt rough in her hands, but Streak trudged along. Sometimes Helga thought
she could hear the mare’s thoughts, and they were in a voice not entirely dissimilar from her own. Thoughts went unbidden to Audun’s hands, folded in his lap. Then they went somewhere else entirely, and she had to shake her head to dislodge them. ‘Oi,’ she muttered, half annoyed with herself for losing focus but not entirely able to shake the wolfish grin. It was getting colder and she couldn’t be blamed for warming herself on something, even if it was just memories of what could have been.
A chill settled in the base of her spine and shook her gently from the centre and out. It was a raw cold, flavoured with the scent of pine trees and bark and earth covered in rotting mulch. She felt the familiar tingle, the metallic taste on the back of her tongue that spoke of sparks and shifts in the world.
When she saw the tree the breath caught in her throat and escaped with a low hiss. She looped Streak’s reins around a branch, muttered a half-hearted command and walked towards the thing, half-entranced.
The trunk had been stripped of bark and twisted, pulled down, branches warped and twined around it in unnatural curves that made the eyes hurt. From a distance it looked charred but when she drew closer she saw that the surface of the tree was smooth, like raven-stone. Helga’s head pounded with the wrenching wrongness of it and she staggered away, staring down at her feet to avoid looking at the black thing that stood out in its curves among ramrod-straight pines – but the ground felt wrong as well. The bile rose in her throat as she realised what she was looking at and she forced her head up to confirm it.
A circle around the black tree, maybe ten yards wide, was dead. Wizened roots from other trees poked up through the undergrowth, and the ground looked like some kind of ash. Her eye was drawn to the black trunk then, following it up through curves and bends that felt so alien and horrible. The familiarity of them hit her like a rock and she started muttering, ‘No. No, no, no.’ She’d seen them; of course she’d seen them – but they had just been too big, too wrong. Impossible. Her hands started knotting and fidgeting of their own accord, making the signs and un-making them, trying to make it go away like a child with a bad dream.
Streak neighed loudly, and Helga snapped out of her trance. Anger flooded her and she clenched her fists so hard she could feel the nails digging into her palms. The pain was enough to get her moving towards her horse. Unlooping the reins in one movement, she turned her back on the black thing in the forest, then led Streak away.
With every step away, the wrench in her chest loosened and the anger subsided until suddenly the tears flowed. ‘Oh come on, woman!’ she growled, gritting her teeth and trying her best to swallow some spit. ‘Bawling like a baby? Stop it!’ The reins suddenly went slack and Streak’s head was by her side. The smell of warm horse washed over her and ever so gently, the massive head came in for a soft nudge. A smile broke out on Helga’s face and she reached up to stroke the horse’s jaw. ‘Don’t you go soft on me too, you old nag,’ she said, ‘because if you buckle too, we’ll just be two old girls in the middle of nowhere. And if this is true, we’ve got work to do.’
Even when they’d ridden for a good while she could still feel it pulsing behind her, a dark lover’s heart: a tree twisted into runes that spelled out ‘winter’ and ‘eternal’ and ‘war’.
Ragnarok.
*
Helga wasn’t afraid of the night. She’d seen too much, and on more than one occasion the shadows had saved her life. However, there was something about the campfire that gave her a feeling of unease. In times like these, anyone who lit a fire that big clearly did not have a care in the world. No effort had been made to cover it up – it could be seen from hundreds of yards away, the light bouncing off tree trunks and throwing shadows around. She was still quite a way off, too far off to be illuminated, and Streak, well attuned to her moods and by all accounts a very smart horse, knew to be as quiet as possible.
A faint smell of roasting meat drifted her way and made her stomach rumble. Placing every step with care, she inched forward. If what the rune had told was true, she would need information, and she’d get that from travellers. As an afterthought, Helga stopped and rooted around in the mulch. Moments later she found what she needed. A few flicks of the rune-knife carved what she wanted and the wood chip disappeared into folds in her dress, along with the knife.
Something shifted, off to her side, and as Helga froze, Streak halted beside her. Another rustle, then a squawk – and a startled woodpigeon flapped up to a branch as a shadowy, four-legged creature slinked away. Helga exhaled slowly and sniffed the air. Burned twigs, pine resin . . . earth . . . none of the wrongness of the big rune. That was a good sign. She’d got this far north, which meant whatever the gods were up to had moved slower than she’d feared. This could only—
The blade touched her throat gently, and only after that did she feel the warmth of the man behind her.
‘Nice and slow,’ he said. ‘Move and I cut your throat.’
Beside her, Streak whinnied in surprise as another man stepped up to her side and started muttering soothing sounds.
Fat lot of good you did, Helga thought bitterly.
‘How many of you are there?’ the man behind her asked calmly, without raising his voice. She noted that his arm did not waver.
‘Just me,’ Helga said, fighting to keep her voice level. ‘Travelling north. Saw the fire. The nights get cold.’
‘Down here? Pfft.’ There was genuine mirth in the voice. ‘You lot need to eat more seal fat.’ There was a gentle tug on the reins and Streak was led away towards the fire. Helga could only just make out a pair of legs beside the horse, but the man clearly knew what he was doing. ‘Move,’ the man behind her said, pushing gently at her back.
With the body of the man behind her and his strong arm in front, she curtailed all impulses and allowed herself to glide forward. She’d need to see what this was before she could make a decision. When she got closer, she started catching reflections of the fire in small, sparkling diamonds: sentries in the shadows, almost inseparable from the forms of the trees, still as the grave, and all of them watching her.
The smell of the burning wood was more intense now, and the light spread around her field of vision. She turned her head to find Streak and caught a glimpse of her, led to a tree and tied up there. Her captor stayed with the horse, brushing her down. A good sign.
The nudge in her back was firm. ‘Forward,’ the man said.
The camp, if you could call it that, was a loose collection of men. It had a relaxed air of competence, and Helga recognised the spirit of a fighting company. These men had seen a lot, and seen it together. She saw young men sitting alongside more weather-beaten soldiers, but all of them were the same: hardened.
A youth stepped in front of them. Wiry, and tall for his age, which could not be much more than twelve summers, he moved with barely suppressed energy. A nasty, thick scar followed his jaw-line from his ear to his Adam’s apple, and glittering black eyes sparkled in the firelight. ‘What’s this, Ygval?’ he said to the man behind her.
On instinct, Helga looked straight at him. ‘I am Helga Finnsdottir of Ovregard,’ she said, ‘and I’m a woman. If you work on your manners, maybe you’ll get to meet one.’ She could hear a quickly suppressed laugh behind her, and feel the attention of the closest men.
This would either save her life, or go very, very wrong indeed.
The boy looked her up and down. ‘Nice try, grandmother, but I like them only up to twice my age.’ This brought a chorus of guffaws and catcalls from the men.
‘What’s that – eighteen summers?’ Helga asked.
More men drifted towards the exchange. Good, Helga thought. That would bring—
‘Ognvald!’ The gruff, deep voice was like a kick in the spine.
The boy winked at Helga and took two steps back. Helga followed the glances of the men, looking to the shadow of an old pine, where something moved. A large man rose, slowly
, and stepped into the light. At least half a head taller than the next man, he stretched languidly and rolled his shoulders. ‘What’s the noise for?’
‘Ygval’s found a stray cat,’ the boy said.
The man emerged from the shadows and Helga felt her heart sink. Black hair braided in a thick plait and a bushy beard twined in warrior’s grips framed a hard face. His eyes squinted into the light. There was no give in this man, Helga thought – no angle, no finesse, just brute power and will.
He turned and looked over his shoulder. ‘Visitors,’ he said.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake. The one time you useless beard-braiding goat-fuckers don’t gut someone on sight is the one time I’m trying to get some sleep,’ a woman’s voice said from the darkness. ‘Kill her and be done with it.’
The big man frowned at this. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s out here, on her own. I want to hear what she has to say first.’
Helga looked around her at the circle that had formed: the camp was now interested. She drew a deep breath, turned and looked straight at the big man.
‘I am travelling northwards,’ she said. The boy had sidled up next to him, and there could be no mistaking father and son. Two thick scars adorned the big man’s throat, but they looked more like markings than battle wounds. Half-remembered stories of some very bad men rose to the surface of her mind, then sank again. This was not going as well as she’d hoped. Helga’s heart hammered in her chest, but she would not show it: not now, not to them. She reached for old memories of worse situations and found very few, but still – she’d survived those too.
‘Why do you travel alone?’ the big man said. ‘There’s foul things about. Most of them in this camp.’ This brought wolfish grins from the men around the fire.
‘I have to get to the North,’ she said. Suddenly nothing seemed real. She felt a drop of sweat slide down her spine.
‘You with the king?’ There was a hard edge to the big man’s voice.
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