Arrowhead

by Ruth Eastham

  Get off the boat!

  He looked over the side at the moving water, at the waves slapping the hull. The ragged black sail flapped back and forth. A sheet of flames came at him and as the blast of heat hit …

  he jumped.

  25

  FUNERAL

  The wisest alive can’t tell

  where a death ship goes.

  Beowulf

  Like falling through ice. Head first, headlong, through the water. The shock of it made Jack’s chest seize up; his muscles tightened as he tried to thrash his arms and claw his way back towards the light.

  His head broke the surface and he let out a great heaving gasp. Swatting water from his eyes, he saw more lava spew from the crater. He saw the flow still rolling forward, widening and accelerating, smothering the first houses.

  His insides shrank. Why hadn’t the eruption stopped? Hadn’t the fire reached the arrowhead yet? The round sun hovered on the horizon, a disc on the edge of the world. He spun in the freezing water and looked at the boat as the flames rose higher. Had he been too late?

  Jack treaded water, the heat on his face, the cold depths taking hold of the rest of him. It can’t have all been for nothing! He watched an edge of lava reach the shore, breaking over the rocks in thick metallic waves. There was a violent hiss of steam as the lava met the water and made it boil. A fiery flood spread along the side of the bay towards the museum.

  Skuli! Emma! Sno! Jack shook himself from his daze and kicked towards shore. He was going to get back to them; stay together till the end of all this. But already the biting cold was draining his energy. He sliced with his arms across the gold-skinned water, but his movements slowed, his sodden clothes dragging him down.

  All that lava, all that fire! Jack gave a spluttering laugh. Yet he’d freeze to death. Like Tor.

  Like Dad.

  Jack’s head jerked up. No! He thrashed the water, gasping. Began one last impossible fight to get to the shore.

  And now, above the cold water, there were strange, thin layers of warmth; currents from the lava gone into the bay. Jack’s muscles pulsed with blood as the feeling returned to his legs.

  He could see Emma on the bank, shouting as he swam. He felt a surge of heat on the back of his head and looked back to see the dragon boat flare. An intense light rose from the hull, a pillar of fire.

  He stopped swimming.

  There was a figure standing in the boat; a boy, tall, holding up the arrowhead.

  “Tor,” whispered Jack.

  The heat made the air shudder. The gold in Tor’s hand was a brilliant blade of light. Across the water, Jack saw a double sun, one reflecting a perfect twin, fused in strange symmetry; between them, the red horizon like a line of blood.

  And then the twins were pulling away from each other, separating, and the sun began to rise.

  The mountain poured smoke and the plumes of ash mixed with dazzling gold clouds, so bright that Jack had to shield his eyes. Through the swirling clouds, he thought he glimpsed a face, an old man’s face. Odin? He extended his hand towards Tor, and then the two were gone.

  The molten stream slowed to a stop. Ragged lava sizzled at the edge of the water, but came no nearer.

  Jack gave a stifled laugh. They’d done it! Had they really done it? He found his stroke in the warmed water. He got to shore, and Skuli and Emma dragged him on to the rocky bank. The three huddled close, Sno resting his head on Jack’s knees.

  The boat was a glowing crescent. Sparks spiralled into the dawn sky. Jack looked for Tor, but he was gone. Ash fell round them like fine, black feathers. The funeral flames merged with the gold of the water, and the sky and the light on the land, and Jack gave a long breath out as the words of the ballad came to him.

  For when fire, water, air, earth unite

  In the light of a midnight sun,

  The curse is broke; the gold is freed

  The evil is undone.

  “Look!” Emma pointed at the sky. “The ravens!”

  The birds circled in the air like smoke, swooping closer.

  “Friend or foe, the demon birds,” Skuli muttered.

  The old monk’s voice ran through Jack’s mind. The ravens have their own plan perhaps… One that is not Odin’s.

  With soft caws, the ravens circled over them one more time, then flew towards the boat. Without slowing they swept straight into the funeral flames, and vanished.

  Skuli straightened. “I know how the ballad ends,” he said quietly, his gaze far away, his face glowing in the light from the blazing boat. And he recited the words as if he’d known them all along.

  “That midsummer night was kinship forged

  ’Tween daemons and warriors Three,

  And through the power of the funeral fire

  From their master’s bonds fly free.”

  Jack nodded a little as understanding came to him. The arrowhead had been freed through fire. Now it was the ravens’ turn to free themselves. They’d been Odin’s servants for millennia. Had that been their plan all along? He had an image of his dad walking on the lake, two ravens circling above him.

  The hull glowed, blackening and crumbling. Flames moved over the dragon’s throat and the fanged mouth smoked. The boat drifted towards the centre of the bay.

  Jack stared at it, remembering Petter’s yearning words: “I’d give anything … to really understand how they thought and felt…”

  The three of them watched as Tor’s boat sank, leaving nothing but a swirl of ash and a ripple of gold, and the dawn sky turning a faint, clear blue.

  EPILOGUE

  BEGINNINGS

  And its light shone over many lands.

  Beowulf

  Jack stands at the frozen edge of the bay, looking out at the place where the dragon boat sank. Near the shore, paper lanterns glow in the twilight, and Jack goes forward over the ice to lay his.

  One for his dad, one for Petter, one for Lukas; and one for Tor, because no one’s counting any more.

  Jack’s mum nods at him and he rejoins her, holding on to Gran and Gramps, Gramps leaning on his stick.

  More people go forward to lay their lanterns, faces fixed. Jack sees Emma’s parents watching from the crowd; sees Skuli’s dad. There are low murmurs, bewildered whispers, tears. There’s still confusion about what happened.

  That thing the adults had – some say it was a kind of virus; the kids had it too and it affected their thinking. Not that anybody remembers much. You hear about these epidemics happening. Freak seismic stuff too. Magma shifts. And everyone knows how crazy the weather’s getting.

  The deaths were all put down to natural causes.

  The truth? Who’d believe that?

  Dear Vinnie,

  Sorry it’s been a few months since I emailed.

  Things are slowly improving here. Gran’s got the kafé going again, so at least there are cakes! Some of the wrecked houses are getting finished and Gramps says they’ll build them even better this time round.

  But it’s been tough. Even when the emergency people finally got to us, they were stretched thin. Afterwards was the worst part in some ways. Digging through the rubble … you know.

  At least Mum got pulled out from whatever spell she was under. A doctor’s got work to do, she says.

  I’ll not be coming back for a good while yet. There’s too much to help with here. But then England doesn’t look much better off from what I’ve seen on the news.

  And that stuff I told you?

  Emma says one day she’ll write it all in a book, use a false name. She’s already thought of a title and everything! Arrowhead. One word’s punchier, she says, and I guess that one pretty much sums everything up. Skuli told her that he reckons it’ll be quicker to carve another standing stone than write a book! But Tor waited that long – what’s another thousand
years?!

  Take care, mate.

  Jack

  Jack looks at the ice reflecting the twilight. He sits with Skuli and Emma on the snowy shore, each of them tying on a pair of skates. Sno runs in circles round them, snapping at the frost his paws throw up.

  The frozen water glints with tiny rainbows. It looks like pearl; a sheet of silver with strings of diamonds running through.

  Jack tightens his lace and stands up. “Let’s go home.”

  He feels Emma take his hand.

  The three of them step out together. Small, cautious steps at first, getting bigger, quicker, now they know the ice will hold them.

  To the hall he went,

  Stood by the steps, the steep roof saw,

  Garnished with gold.

  Beowulf

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many people supported and encouraged me during the writing of Arrowhead. Family, friends, thanks so much.

  To writers Sarah Mussi and Caroline Johnson.

  My editor, Gen Herr, and the entirely marvellous Scholastic team.

  Emily Lamm the Wonderful; Jessica White the All-Seeing; David Sanger for the Earl Grey tea.

  Artist Jamie Gregory, for another book cover beyond all expectations.

  My ice-bright agent, Caroline Walsh. The Book Witch for advice on waffles.

  Writer Susie Day, for website wisdom and lemon drizzle cake.

  The Nordic Bakery on Golden Square, for a taste of Scandinavia in the middle of London.

  Alice Swan; SCBWI friends; writer Jane Howard for mountain rescue advice.

  Writer Matt Dickinson

  Tony H. of Formby Books, best local bookshop in the Viking north.

  RDL. Elvie, the Siberian husky.

  Honorary Norse, silver wolf.

  My four young warriors: Isabella, Virginia, Caterina and Marco.

  Professor Michael Swanton, Dr. David Breeden; Kevin Crossley-Holland for chats about Vikings at the British Museum. Curator Gareth Williams for generous scholarly advice, whilst giving scope for creative interpretation.

  Anna “Chuckie-Egg” Amari; Ann Whitlock, artist and dear friend.

  To Mickey S., who teaches from the heart, and who heard this one first.

  And to Anna and Elena.

  For showing me where the gold’s buried.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Two places inspired me to write Arrowhead.

  The first was the evocative monastery ruins at Lindisfarne. A slaughter there in 793AD sparked the Viking Age, and a reputation that has held for centuries. But there’s a lot more to Norse culture than bloodthirsty raids. (And Vikings never had horns on their helmets either!)

  “This world which we think of as essentially of violence and brutality is also a world of extraordinary sophistication and cultural achievement.”

  N. MacGregor, Director of British Museum

  Vikings were highly skilled ship-builders and seafarers, probably the first ever Europeans to make it across the Atlantic to North America. Vikings were explorers, traders and settlers, influencing our very language. They were farmers, capable of self-sufficient resilience; and craftspeople, capable of fashioning exquisite objects. Vikings were storytellers, spinning tales that still fire our imaginations a thousand years on. Stories of warrior gods at battle with ice giants; of life and death and the end of the world.

  The second place that inspired Arrowhead was in beautiful Norway, standing by the blue ice of a melting glacier. I got thinking – what else might climate change unleash besides weird weather and rising seas? What if the Norse gods of old have been waiting, watching us, all along?

  Ruth Eastham, Northumberland, 2014

  USEFUL LINKS

  Official website for Norwegian Tourist Board, with inspiring photos and interactive maps (with Arrowhead’s apologies for liberties taken with setting!):

  www.visitnorway.com

  Yorvik Viking Centre: Experience a reconstructed Viking settlement on the very site where excavations revealed the York of a thousand years ago:

  www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk

  How do we know about the Vikings? Article by Gareth Williams, a curator at the British Museum:

  www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/evidence_01.shtml

  National Museums Scotland: Exhibits of the Viking influence on Scotland: www.nms.ac.uk

  National Museum of Ireland: Exhibition of Vikings in Ireland: www.museum.ie

  World Heritage site L’Anse aux Meadows; currently the only confirmed site of a Viking settlement in North America:

  www.wikipedia.org/wiki/L’Anse_aux_Meadows

  Wikipedia entry on the Arctic Circle and the midnight sun:

  www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Circle

  National Geographic article linking extreme weather in the USA to climate change:

  http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/09/extreme-weather/miller-text

  QUOTES USED IN ARROWHEAD

  The author gives grateful thanks to the following for their kind permission to use their translated texts:

  Professor Michael Swanton (Sermon of the Wolf to the English, 1014: chapter 12)

  Dr. David Breeden (The Adventures of Beowulf, an adaptation from the Old English: chapters 4 & 25)

  Kevin Crossley-Holland (The Nine Herbs Charm: chapters 14 & 16)

  “There’ll be wild weather, with windstorms dreadful.” (chapter 2)

  From the POETIC EDDA translated by Lee M. Hollander, 2nd edition, revised, Copyright (c) 1962, renewed 1990. By permission of the University of Texas Press.

  To the author’s knowledge, works out-of-copyright are:

  Runic & Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples, 1915, Bruce Dickins (chapter 3)

  Beowulf, translated by Frances B. Gummere, 1910 (chapters 5, 23, 24 & end quote)

  Beowulf, translated by Chancey Brewster Tinker, 1902 (chapters 8, 15 & epilogue)

  The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson, translated by Benjamin Thorpe, 1906 (chapter 7)

  The Poetic Edda, translated by Henry Adam Bellows, 1936 (part 3, chapters 20 & 21)

  Where the author was unable to trace the origin of works, if the copyright holder makes contact, she will be happy to make matters right.

  Scholastic Children’s Books

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  SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First published in the UK by Scholastic Inc, 2014

  This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2014

  Text copyright © Ruth Eastham, 2014

  The right of Ruth Eastham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her.

  eISBN 978 1407 14401 6

  A CIP catalogue record for this work is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Scholastic Limited.

  Produced in India by Quadrum

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Ruth Eastham, Arrowhead