“Odd, it’s you?”
They put out their hands to touch me. Stig, with his crumpled nose jutting out of a fleshless face, and Glum, with the skin sagging on his huge bones. Einar Tree-foot’s neck was nothing but tendons, I could close my hand around it. And young Bengt’s face, black as a lump of coal and streaked with tears … and Starkad, and Brodd, and all of them….
I swallowed until my voice would work.
“Well, I will pick my next crew for looks,” I said, and they laughed a little. “This is Lemminkainen.” He was picking straws from his clothes and watching us with a gimlet eye. “And outside the sea-gate is a band of warriors waiting. Are you fit for sword play?”
Thor’s blazing beard, yes, they were fit!
“How have you been, old friends?”
“Joukahainen said you were dead,” answered Stig in a low voice. “‘’Twasn’t but two days after we last saw you that he learned you’d slipped him. Hrapp said the old witch just kept at him to let you out of the pit. Imagine his surprise when he found it empty.
“He came straight to us in a blazing fury, with Hrapp along to translate, and said he knew where you’d gone to, that that little girl was behind it, and he’d have you back in short order and skin the both of you together. After that, they spent the next five days sending out parties to look for you. I didn’t know they cared so much about you.”
“Not me,” I replied, “my friend here. Forewarned, he would be hard to trap—as we’re about to prove.”
“Well anyway, Joukahainen comes back at last, sneering and crowing, to tell us that you’re dead—just like that—your bones found picked clean by wolves. I guess he had to say that, didn’t he, and hope it was true. Of course, we didn’t believe him without a piece of you to prove it, but we didn’t know what to think. How did they miss finding you?”
“I suppose because they knew where I was going.”
“How’s that?”
“They knew the way to Kalevala better than I did. While they were watching it, I was wandering around lost, miles from where I should have been.”
Stig’s ugly face cracked into a smile, and I considered to myself that Tapio, god of hunters, had done right by me after all.
Starkad took up their story. “After the Headsman called off his search, it was back to the fields for us. Hrapp had gotten to us by then and told what was in store for us. We didn’t let on that we knew—just said our prayers and worked mighty slow.”
“Where is the hullu?”
He shrugged, “Never saw him again.”
“We saw that little girl though,” Einar struck in, “two, three days ago. Joukahainen was marching her to the sauna as we were coming back from the fields. Him strutting along, cock o’ the walk, with his arm on her neck and she with her bundle of birch twigs to stroke him with. She didn’t look at us, nor we at her—just a little flick of an eyelid as we passed. She looked as white as if she hadn’t a drop of blood in her body.”
“But alive!”
I translated for Lemminkainen.
He gave the merest nod and never changed his expression.
“And that was the same day we finished the harvest,” said Stig. “And the funny thing is that no one’s come near us since. Three days, by the crowing of the cock. No Joukahainen, no anyone, except for an old woman and her boy once to bring us a bucket of water and some slops. That was yesterday.”
“And us near to perishing,” Einar added, “and so, says I, ‘better to go like wolves than lambs.’ Broke off a sliver of my crutch for a weapon, and we made a pact to jump the first Finn bastard who stuck his head in the door—kill him, and make a run for it. Hah! Turned out to be you!”
“But then what are they waiting for?” I shook my head in puzzlement. “Why haven’t they killed you by now?”
“Working themselves up to it, maybe? It’s for certain something’s been going on. We’ve heard wailing and horn-blowing like to stand your hair on end.”
“Lemminkainen, what do you make of it?”
“We waste time,” he said shortly. “Dawn’s coming.”
Quickly, then, I explained our plan—not forgetting to mention that our weapons, according to Ainikki, lay in a heap up in the hall’s loft.
“Bengt, take my tinderbox and run to the meadow-gate. Fire the barn, the stables, everything. I’m depending on your speed and wits.” (The boy was completely useless in a hand-to-hand fight.)
“And Stig, these are for you.”
Lemminkainen and I shrugged out of the two sword belts apiece that we had slung around us. “I wish we could have managed more. Take Glum with you, and Halfdan and Ivar, and go to the sea-gate. You must hold it for the Kalevalans.”
“Viikinki,” Lemminkainen hissed from near the door, “I have thought of an improvement to your plan. I will go first.”
Before I could stop him, he had slipped noiselessly out through the narrow opening, carrying his lasso. We watched him disappear around the corner of the hall. A moment later a low shadow crept along the ridgepole, to about the mid-point of the roof, and there compressed itself to nothingness.
“Nimble fellow, your friend,” said Stig. “Not a great talker. I like that in a man.”
I blew out my bit of candle, plunging us into darkness again. “Right—Bengt, get ready.”
He was halfway out when the door of Louhi’s hall flew open, letting out a momentary flood of light, and a man stepped through. Bengt jumped backward so fast he bowled me over.
Footsteps crunched in the darkness, coming straight towards us. Though the night was cold, the sweat dripped from my armpits and trickled down my sides. Grunting peacefully, the man pissed against our sliding door not a foot from where we crouched, then turned and crunched back the few steps to the hall.
“Now, Bengt!” I propelled him with a shove. “And now Stig’s bunch—one at a time, and keep low.”
The rest of us huddled by the opening to watch for the flare of burning buildings.
We saw only blackness.
“What’s he doing, damn him?” muttered one of the men. “He has to be there by now.”
“Be patient,” I said. “Everything’s sodden from the rain.”
I stretched out my arm in front of me and opened my hand. The fingers were still indistinct.
With aching knees and backs, we waited and watched, while the stars in the eastern sky grew paler. If the Kalevalans stormed the gate at dawn, before we had lured the Pohjolans from the hall, Ainikki was as good as dead.
“Einar, how many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three. Why?”
“I’m going after him.”
“Odd, wait!” Starkad’s hand pulled me back. “What’s your friend doing?”
The outline of Lemminkainen rose, balancing on the peak of the roof and gesturing with a shadowy arm. An instant later the sky above the hall showed red. From his vantage point he’d seen it first. And suddenly the night was shattered by the bray of birch bark horns.
“Bengt’s done it!”
Then out poured the men of Pohjola, like angry ants from an anthill, buckling on their swords as they ran, with their dogs yapping at their heels. Most headed for the meadow-gate, but some veered away and raced toward the sea—it was too much to hope that Joukahainen would neglect that precaution. Now it was up to Stig’s tiny force to keep them at bay.
As the shouts of the Pohjolans grew fainter, I threw my shoulder against our prison door—not caring how much noise it made now—and out we tumbled. Then, with a shout, we burst through the open door of Louhi’s hall. At the same moment there came a shout from overhead, and down from the shadowed rafters flew Lemminkainen like some winged demon. He had tied one end of his lasso around the ridge-beam and squeezed himself through the smoke hole. Landing on the raised platform of the hearth in an explosion of sparks, he whirled his red-flashing sword around his head and bounded to the ground before the coals could singe his shoes.
The effect of it was amazing.
A moment’s panic hadn’t done all this.
From the wall benches peered the faces of women and children. Frightened faces—for what sight is more chilling than slaves who have burst their bonds? Still, there was not a single scream or whimper. These women outnumbered us several times over and, even unarmed, could have given us a fight.
But the men, at least, had all gone—except for three of Louhi’s magicians. We found them cowering in the shadows by the door. One I recognized as Juvani, a dried up grasshopper of a man with a mean twist to his mouth. He was the chief of her seers.
Lemminkainen shook him by the neck.
“Where is the girl, Ainikki?”
“What—the Kalevalan kitten?” he sneered. “All this for her? She isn’t here, look for yourself. Still she’s not lonely where she is—oh no, plenty of good company where she is!” A dry laugh rattled in his chest.
Lemminkainen drew back his fist to strike Juvani, but the magician’s hand went swiftly to his belt where his power stick hung. He thrust the thing, with its bones and feathers tied to it, in the Rover’s face. That one jumped back and my finger closed on the trigger of my crossbow. The dart hit the wizard just below the breastbone and sank in him up to the vanes. He turned startled eyes on me, then dropped to his hands and knees and rolled over on his side, dead.
Then Lemminkainen’s sword whistled in the air and the heads of the other two fell between their feet. Joukahainen himself couldn’t have done it neater.
We turned from this to search the hall, calling Ainikki’s name, looking everywhere, while the Pohjolan women followed us with their eyes.
At the farthest end of the hall was Louhi’s own bed-closet, its door tight shut. I put my shoulder to it and burst through, prepared to skewer the old hag. But there was nothing of the Mistress there save her sour smell—and no Ainikki either.
“Liar,” snarled Lemminkainen behind me. “You said she’d be here.”
I spun around to face him. “Shut up! I want her as much as you do. You hear me? As much as you do.”
That brought a hard and narrow-eyed stare.
Lowering my voice, I said, “I’ve told you already, they won’t kill her until they’ve got you, too. The magician told the truth—they’ve put her somewhere else.”
Meanwhile, my men had scrambled up to the loft, found our arms and begun tossing them down.
We pawed through them eagerly, each man knowing his own pieces even in the near darkness by the heft and the feel of a well-worn grip. Holding them in their thin hands they straightened their backs and stood like men again.
“Yours, Captain,” Starkad called out me, holding up my brass-studded belt with the sword, dagger, and purse dangling from it.
I drew Wound-Snake, ran my thumb lightly over its edge and brushed the runes on its blade with my fingertips.
“You’ve wept in the dark too long, old friend,” I whispered.
From the direction of the sea, shouts began to reach our ears, faint but growing louder. The Kalevalans! From the open doorway we saw their torches moving along the rising path from the sea-gate, while to our left the sky was now lit by the flames of the burning out-buildings. But from that side, too, came the pounding of footsteps drawing nearer. Joukahainen had discovered by now that he’d been tricked, and was doubling back.
The two armies clashed in the Garden of Heads in a pushing, shoving melee to which the skulls were a silent audience. Vainamoinen’s voice carried above the din, shouting his people on, and Lemminkainen, with a shrill cry, rushed past me into the heaving mass to rally his foresters to him.
My men, too, pressed and clamored to be let loose on their enemy, but I stood in the doorway and held them back.
The Kalevalans were brave, but bravery was not enough. Already, their charge was faltering in the face of the more numerous and better armed Pohjolans. They hadn’t a chance of winning.
Why had no one wanted to admit it when there might still have been time to make a better plan? Why did we think that this ragtag band of sixty, even with the aid of Vainamoinen’s magic, would be able to fight its way from the sea-gate to the Copper Mountain and back again against the Headsman’s well-drilled warriors?
The blame was more mine than anyone’s, but seeing the folly of it now, I was damned if I would sacrifice the last remnant of my crew in a lost cause.
Not when there was a better way.
“Inside all of you and bolt the door!”
“Aren’t we to fight?”
“Einar, Starkad—no one goes out, you understand?”
With puzzled looks they nodded, yes.
Lemminkainen’s lasso still hung from the smoke hole. Slinging a shield on my back and jumping lightly over the coals, I caught hold of the end of it and pulled for the sky.
Up on the roof, I scrambled to the gable, which overlooked the garden and holding my shield in front of me, cried, “Pohjolans, throw down your arms or never see your women and children again!”
Instantly crossbows snapped and half a dozen darts struck my shield. “I mean it! Throw down your weapons or they’ll die before you can save them. You know what sort of men we viikingit are.”
The noise of battle died. Faces stared up at me. Then one warrior pushed his way to the door, tried it with his shoulder, put his lips against it, and called, “Maila! Who is guarding you?”
“Whipped dogs,” the answer came back.
“Armed?”
“What difference to Pohjolan women—aiii!”
And Einar’s cheery voice sang out, “One throat cut. Who’ll be another?”
I had their attention now.
“What do you want from us, Viikinki?” shouted the Pohjolan.
“I talk to no one but Louhi or Joukahainen. Where are they?”
“Where? In the Mountain, where else? Talk to ’em all you want.” He laughed bitterly.
In the Mountain, I thought. Then Ainikki’s there, too.
“Listen, Pohjolans. I and the chiefs of Kalevala will go to the mountain to parlay. In the meantime my men stay in the hall. One move from you and they will rape your daughters and murder all the rest.”
The Pohjolans threw down their arms. The Kalevalans, with crossbows leveled, moved swiftly to surround them.
Inside the hall again, Einar Tree-Foot leered evilly at me. “Raping is it, then, Captain?”
“That was for their benefit, old man. I’ll kill anyone who lays a hand on these women without my order. Once we harm them, they cease to be hostages.”
Turning to Lemminkainen, I said, “Come along now and fetch your sister, she’s as good as saved. No matter how much Joukahainen longs to kill her, he can’t sacrifice every woman and child in the tribe for her, his men wouldn’t stand for it.”
I threw an arm round his shoulder and walked him out the door, still determined somehow to win the good will of this future kinsman of mine.
Outside, we clasped hands with the Singer and the Blacksmith. In the light of torches their sweaty faces were aglow.
“To the Mountain,” I said, striding past them. But Vainamoinen laid a heavy hand on my shoulder and pulled me back.
“You presume too much, Viikinki. Ilmarinen and I must make that trip alone. You and the Rover will stay here.”
Lemminkainen sputtered in anger but the Singer was firm. “Your job is to watch these Pohjolans—I trust no one else to do it. If little Ainikki is in the Copper Mountain, be sure that we will bring her out to you.”
The Rover looked mutinous, but he obeyed.
I looked obedient and disobeyed. That was the difference between us. “Vainamoinen, you’ll never find the steps by yourself, even in broad daylight they’re nearly invisible. But I, it so happens, have seen Louhi mount them to the top—though where she vanished to when she got there is a mystery. Let me guide you as far as the bottom ste
p.”
Just as reasonable as could be. What could he do but agree?
It was dawn in the east, but the hill was still only a dark shape against the sky.
A shiver ran along my spine. At long last to see this thing that had wanted to drink my blood, to see Louhi and Joukahainen on their bellies, most of all to see Ainikki’s wise, sweet face and hold her to my heart!
At the foot of the stairs Vainamoinen said in a stern voice, “Go no further, Viikinki.”
“As you say.”
When his torch was half way to the top, I started after.
31
The Sampo
Pressing my left shoulder against the hill’s cold flank, I felt my way up the narrow steps. The climb was even steeper than it looked from the ground. What could have nerved that old woman, what could have given her the strength to climb this pile, not once but again and again? And how had she driven her people to raise it up in the first place? The labor of it!
Then at last, I was at the summit and peering into the black mouth of a tunnel. Vainamoinen’s torch, far below me, cast up a faint, retreating light. Easing myself down, I groped for the first step with my toe.
It was like descending into a grave. The air smelt of dank earth tainted with decay, and the sweating walls glistened with the phosphorescent tracks of snails. The stairway plunged so steeply downward I began to fear that it would lead me to Hel’s own kingdom. I made a sign with my fingers to ward off evil.
But the steps ended only in a puddle of rainwater.
Vainamoinen’s light and the sound of his and Ilmarinen’s footsteps came back from far down a long gallery. Keeping well back of them, I followed. Branching off both sides of this gallery were the dark mouths of other tunnels and chambers. In one of them, as I’d been told, the old hag’s nameless husband lay. What lay in the others I couldn’t even guess.
Then I began to hear Louhi’s voice—the same warbling cries as on that other night. Only now her voice was ragged and cracked.
The gallery ended in a narrow, low-ceilinged chamber. Tallow candles burned in niches in its walls, filling the air with a greasy smoke that had nowhere to go. I could hardly breathe.
Odin’s Child Page 36
